Archive: March 23, 2009

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Madness: Round Two

Monday,  03/23/09  01:09 AM

We are not going to say much about the UCLA game, okay?  We're just... not.  My bracket is a shambles, of course it was a flyer to pick a #6 to go all the way, and so be it.  Meanwhile, there was some great basketball; I watched 'em all (at least partially):

  • Villanova(3) blew out UCLA(6) - 89-69.  Painful.  I'm going to say FS=35:00*, and I mean it.
  • Memphis(2) in a laugher over Maryland(10) - 89-79.  Not fun to watch, FS=20:00+.
  • UConn(1) steamrolled Texas A&M(9) - 92-66.  Third straight demolition (fast forwarding a lot).  FS=20:00+.
  • Purdue(5) squeaked by Washington(4) - 76-74.  Finally a good game, as the Huskies came back in the second half and kept it exciting to the end.  FS=00:20.
  • North Carolina(1) pulled away from LSU(8) - 84-70.  A nice close game, with LSU thinking they could do it until about five minutes to go, when UNC pulled away cleanly.  FS=05:00.
  • Oklahoma(2) powers by Michigan(10) - 73-63.  A really physical game, not pretty to watch...  FS=03:00.
  • Duke(2) grinds it out over Texas(7) - 74-69.  The best game of the day, really well played.  That save going out of bounds was the play of the tournament, and probably won it for Duke.  FS=00:10.
  • Gonzaga(4) wins at the buzzer over Western Kentucky(12) - 83-81.  Close and evenly matched all the way, with a bank shot at the end to win it.  The perfect end to Saturday's games.  FS=00:00.
  • Syracuse(3) handled Arizona State(6) - 78-67.  Not pretty but it worked; Syracuse are pretty physical.  Arizona State kept hanging around but had too many turnovers to win.  FS=03:00.
  • Xavier(4) over Wisconsin(12) - 60-49.  A defensive struggle, with Xavier finally getting on track at the end.  You kept thinking maybe Wisconsin could do it, but FS=02:30.
  • Kansas(3) blew out Dayton(11) - 43-60.  This game was really never in doubt.  FS=12:00.
  • Arizona(12) cleanly defeated Cleveland State(13) - 71-57.  A match between two over-achievers, with Arizona looking like they belonged.  I fear they won't be able to handle Louisville, but we'll see.  FS=03:00.
  • Pittsburgh(1) survived Oklahoma State(8) - 84-76.  Much closer than anyone thought, a fun game.  FS=01:00.
  • Michigan State(2) overpowered USC(10) - 74-69.  A close hard-fought battle, I was rooting for 'SC of course and they almost pulled it off.  FS=00:30.
  • Louisville(1) just nips Sienna(9) - 79-72.  Seemed like Louisville was cruising but then Sienna caught them and made it really interesting before Louisville won the foul shot battle at the end.  FS=00:15.
  • Missouri(3) by a nose over Marquette(6) - 83-79.  Only saw the end of this one, but it was great.  FS=00:00.

* As before FS means "fridge score", the time at which the game is no longer in doubt.

And so pretty much the seeding ran to form, with only Arizona (a #12) a surprise amongst the sweet 16 teams (and I picked them to do it, yay me).  A great great weekend of basketball, I don't know how it happened but the best games each day came at the end.  And despite the crapload of commercials I do think CBS did a nice job of switching around; given they could only show one game at a time (!) they did pretty well.

See you next Thursday, same time, same channel!

 

Monday,  03/23/09  11:18 PM

A quiet day of work, while listening to the frozen wind howl...  spent a lot of time directing traffic.  You would think I’ve used up my life’s quota of sent emails by now.  And *sigh* I have not ridden in three days (bad prep for my first double in six months, coming up this Saturday...)

I survived a brush with near-computer-death; I successfully upgraded from Norton Antivirus 2003 to NAV 2009.  And not only was it a relatively smooth upgrade, but now that it's done, my computer feels faster.  I know, precelebration is the root of all failure, but so far I'm delighted by the non-fiasco. 

And in a related move, I upgraded from IE7 to IE8.  So far so good, although it perpetuates the Microsoft tradition of being incompatible with everything and forcing everyone else to adapt.

Still to do: upgrading SQLServer to SP3.  That also has real disaster potential.

Powerline wonders are we going bankrupt?  "One wonders whether a people as feckless as we evidently are deserves to survive."  It is depressing. 

ABC reports JPMorgan Chase, a recipient of TARP funds, is proceeding with a $138M plan to buy two new corporate jets.  Even if this makes sense (and it could) the optics are horrible.  Wow. 

Instapundit collects a list of MSM criticisms of Obama.  Buyer's remorse is definitely setting in. 

I have a confession to make: last night I watched Dancing with the Stars.  Well just part of it; I had to see Steve Wozniak dance.  And I must tell you, he doesn't suck, but he doesn't belong in this competition either.  It was in fact the perfect example of a dancing bear - cool, but not useful.  CNet's take: the Worm turns sour. 

Really useful: Smiley Icons.  Both graphic and ASCII...    :) 

Michael Barry, a rider on Columbia Highroad, blogs about the Milan - San Remo race (which his teammate Mark Cavendish won).  I love these "inside the peloton" type of reports. 

I keep thinking I have to play with Yahoo Pipes.  "Yahoo Pipes provides an interactive, web-based way to manipulate information from the web in order to create custom feeds and web apps. With its graph-based, Lego-like GUI you can pull data from RSS sources, Flickr, Yahoo search, arbitrary web pages, and more."  It has been out for two years now, and seems like it should be really useful, but somehow it is just a solution looking for a problem.  Maybe if I just tried it, I'd think things I could do with it... 

Here we have...  a creationist museum in California!
The mind boggles.  [ via LGF ] 

ZooBorn of the day: a fluffy little porcupine.

 

 
 

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