its too late, because its already started, but here are my rules for filling out a Tournament bracket:

1) just advance the 1-4 seeds in each region to the 2nd round (upsets happen, but are relatively rare, and not worth fucking up your bracket if you get them wrong, because you are playing the odds)
2) advance the #1 seed in each region to the third round, aka Sweet 16 (see # 1)
3) pick at least 1, but not more than 3, of the #1 seeds to go to the Final Four (history backs this up)
4) after that, just start clicking on teams -- really, don't put a whole lot of thought into it. 12's beat 5's all the time, 11's over 6's aren't upsets, and obviously 10's and 7's and 8's and 9's are basically the same.
5) at some point, make sure don't put too many double digit seeds into your Sweet 16 (3rd round), a couple are okay, but don't get carried away (need I mention history again?)
6) look at your Final 4 and make sure you don't have any teams seeded below 5 in there (yes, rarely teams seeded lower than that make it, but remember you're playing the odds here, again, history backs this up)

This may Seem complicated at first, but trust me, follow these rules, and you only spend about 5 minutes filling out your bracket and you will be At Least average.

My Tuesday night Co-Rec men's league team won the Div 3 winter championship last night, as we beat Nimble for the first time Ever 2-1 on 2 goals by our star midfielder Dhani. After a flurry of scoring chances from the frantic Nimble attack in the first 30 minutes, and some heady plays by our quality goalkeeper Tim, we gradually eased into our game, and our defensive line anchored by Pat and I in the middle were able to severely limit their effectiveness in the last 30 minutes of the match. Tied 1-1 at halftime, we scored on a free kick after a foul I suffered, but was given a yellow card for a "retaliatory act."

We have been up at Division 3 for three seasons now (intuitively, there are winter, spring, summer, and fall seasons) after two consecutive runner up finishes in the winter and spring seasons last year down at divisions 5 or 6. Last summer and Fall, we managed about .500 records -- usually displaying the sometimes annoying but sometimes rewarding habit of "playing to the level of the competition." For the winter session there were significantly less teams across all divisions participating, and as a result -- although divisions 1 and 2 were kept largely intact -- participating teams from 3-6 were thrown into a 10-team "division 3" for the winter.

We rolled through the first 8 games of our season with a 5 wins- 3 draws - and 0 losses record. Occasionally, we were fortunate to get a win instead of a draw, and occasionally, we were unfortunate to get a draw instead of a win, but by and large, we were the superior side in most of our matches. In game 9 -- the last game of the "regular season," -- we were sitting in first and met the aforementioned Nimble, a team we had played at least 7 or 8 times in the preceding handful of seasons and never managed to defeat (although there were some draws along the way. We lost in the most disheartening and frustrating way: 1-0 off a first-half penalty kick that should never have been called -- our player was deemed guilty of a "slide tackle" in the box although he never left his feet or actually slid.

As a result of that match, we were dropped into 2nd, and met the 3rd place team, Racer X, whom we had defeated early in the season 3-1, in the semifinal playoff. With no overtime or shootout in the league procedures, we had the advantage, having finished ahead of them, that a tie would advance us to the final.

The match was largely a stalemate. Both sides scored first-half goals on what amounted to goalkeeper errors. We took a lead in the 2nd on a play that was precipitated by a Racer X defender's error. With time running out, they managed to tie on what would be classified as an "own goal," when a dangerous cross was misplayed by one of our defenders (not me) into our own net. Despite this, we still clung to the draw and advanced to last night's final.

Last night's match was also largely a first half-stalemate, and although their quick and aggressive attack had us on our heals at times, we seemed to enjoy an advantage in possession. This was seemingly furthered in the second half, although our overall inability to generate quality scoring chances kept us from securely stamping our mark on the game.

I had been frustrated with this team up until a year ago, when we started to dominate the lower divisions and finally moved up. Before then, I had considered dropping this team and finding a higher level team to play on. We have some players that aren't quite up to par; and it was certainly true this season that with the expanded division, there was some sub-par competition to be had out on the pitch. Even so, I am hoping that for the spring season, with some stronger overall competition headed our way, we can keep our heads above .500 and continue on our winning ways.

--- and its been a while since a long-winded soccer rant, eh?!

d'oh... which one did I get wrong!!??

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 9/10 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

ummm... easy!?

You Passed the US Citizenship Test

Congratulations - you got 10 out of 10 correct!

Could You Pass the US Citizenship Test?

I read Lemur's (aka Mary) latest blog entry and the rhetorical questions therein and immediately thought to myself "ah, another example of my '2nd Law of Thermodynamics and how it applies to humanity/society analogy/corollary.'"

Before I dive into this let me make it clear that I am drawing anecdotal, metaphorical comparisons; not actual scientific comparisons. You already knew that, of course.

So, as many of you know, the 2nd law is also known as "the Entropy one," and aside from being another gentle scientific reminder that everything is destined to go to shit, it also helps explain why otherwise brilliant ideas and useful tools will always fall into the menacing hands of the Lowest Common Denominator (see Video, Google, and Pornography, Internet).

Life itself is not a violation of entropy, as some would have you believe. Cells, the elemental unit of living things, are incredible well-ordered, and therefore have Very low entropy (they also, of course, need a steady supply of energy). Entropy just Loves it some good Disorder... in fact, Entropy IS Disorder, in a nutshell. So while the individual cells are incredibly well-ordered, more and more disorder creeps in as you put more and more of them together. Eventually, you get the living clusterfuck that is a human.

Even so, a human is still a fantastic well-ordered machine, despite all the cray shit that can go wrong with it, and we manage as individuals or teams to get together and do some pretty cool shit. Really, I mean, going to the moon, there were some 300,000+people in on that -- now that kind of shit is an accomplishment, the practical day-to-day relevance of such a feat aside.

Eventually you get enough of these living clusterfucks together, and then you're Really into some Disorder. Enough people with enough free time and enough stupid (or perhaps sometimes strangely brilliant) ideas will always succumb to the forces of what is often referred to as "the lowest common denominator," which can also be accurately described as the base energy state -- a sort of "absolute zero" of humanity -- pushed there by entropic forces in a sort of exponential decay curve.

In this regard, atrocities such as Google Video are not to be viewed as running counter to said "evolution," (it would take a lengthy aside here to delve into what Exactly is Meant by the term "evolution," best left for another rant) but instead as the inevitable result of the constant, steady, upwards push in sophistication (in all senses) that is intrinsic to life.

Left untouched here are important questions regarding the battle of said "evolution" vs the forces of Entropy -- the ultimate "Good vs. Evil" if you will, and the wonderful affirmation that said "evolution" always seems to triumph in the end. This, instead, is best left to things such as theologians and the "Star Wars" movies.

Its staggering how squarely Chuck Klosterman just hit the nail on the head...

ESPN.com lets you fill out up to 5 NCAA Tournament brackets under one user name, so I decided to take advantage of that. If that sounds like a lot of work to fill out 5 brackets, consider that I didn't spend too much time thinking about it, I was just clicking on teams with very little thought beyond "I want to make my 5 selections at least a Little different from each other." Even so, I put very little planning into it, so there are probably brackets that are very similar to each other. I'd say I spent about 20 minutes total filling them out.

I was thinking about forming a group, but I figured that a) I'd get about 2 other people to participate; and b) we couldn't put any money on the line, because we would never pay each other, so i will just say that I encourage you to go to ESPN.com and fill out your 5 brackets, and maybe we can compare scores. (if you were in the fantasy football league, you already have an account, so all you have to do is log in)

I will keep you all updated on my 5 brackets as the tournament rolls on. BTW, it starts Thursday, so you only have tomorrow to do this.

oh shit, I bought this bottle of beer at Bottleworks, a 22 oz from our friends at Full Sail. I go ahead and decide to drink it, looking at the %-age After I pour it into a glass. "Oh, shit, this is barley wine (really, the label was very understated, this was all in the "fine print" and, ummm... its 9.86%." hmmmm

I went to PDX with T&A (how abbreviatory!) for a Orienteering meet, and some general wandering around, yesterday. I seriously fucked up the first control, then proceeded nearly flawlessly through the other 15; but my titanic fuck-up on #1 meant Tyler pipped me by 30 seconds. We then went to the Rock Bottom for lunch, went to the airport, realized we weren't going to get a flight until later, went back to downtown to go to Powells, then went back to the airport, got an added flight that was still delayed home, stopped by the Dog and Pony were they mercifully kept the kitchen open just for us, and I got home after midnight. That was a lot of time killing just to fly for free, and one could question whether or not we shouldv'e just rented a damn car, but its all a part of the game, I suppose.... I knew what I was signing on for when Tyler called me Friday evening. Still, the fact that I left the house at 6:30, and got home after midnight, made for a long day.

And then I had one of these Brutal 9:00 am soccer games this morning. My team played terribly, I played very average, we lost 2-1, and finished our awful Winter season 0-8-2. I went for lunch and a beer with a coupe teammates at some swank Bellevue billiards place... i have no idea why Tim picked this place to go to after a soccer game -- after soccer game places need to be a little lower rent, quite frankly.

Then I got home, relaxed for a bit, and got terribly bored. So, given the sunny if not altogether warm weather, I decided to jump on my bike. I ended up riding to Seward Park and back, actually getting in some really good, metronomic, high-paced tempo in on the flat, smooth, gentle S-curves of Lake Washington Blvd (the stretch from just past I-90 until the Park is divine, with smooth asphalt and delightful esplanade routing. Other parts of L.W.Blvd. are that awful paneled,bumpy concrete shit) Any uphill grade severely taxed my capabilities, given the fact that I Had played a freakin' soccer game this morning, but let me tell you, as a neophyte biker, and someone with an athletic background that centers around the running thing, a half-decent road bike is like finding the Wheels of God.

If you are looking for some sort of current-event type news, I have none to offer at the moment... well, that's not true, i just don't necessarily feel like writing about it at the moment.

I need to publicly apologize for forgetting Sister Jill's birthday last weekend -- not that I'm the thoughtful, card-sending type, but, you know, maybe I could've sent an email or something... anyway, on March 4th, when i was busy riding my bike and playing poker, sister Jill turned, ummm... well, another year older.

watch the Saturday Night Live Natalie Portman rap here (hopefully, NBC won't get to these guys before you get a chance to see it.

Also, if you haven't seen it yet, watch the now-famous "Lazy Sunday" SNL video here (its the chronic-what!-cles of Narnia!)

in keeping with the theme, here is an actual German TV commercial