Hate St Pat's: Part II

This morning finds the old reliable "What To Do About a Hangover" stories in the paper that those lazy turds in print media across the country clipped and fast edited from their January 1 editions. Do we really have to endure the same stories at the same times every year? It's like clock work, isn't it? Here's your checklist for creating a major city newspaper...Dec> Year end lists. The most important thing here is to emphasize the things that happened in the last three months as in most cases everyone has already forgotten about what happened prior to September. Jan> The aforementioned hangover article MUST run on Jan 1, quickly followed by a week or two of the always captivating New Year's Resolution articles. Yes, this really will be the year you become thin and interesting. Don't worry. You won't fail. Again. Feb> How to cure the Winter Blahs kills some time until the political correctness of Black History Month washes to shore a wave of George Washington Carver peanut articles. This just in...If we really want to get serious about minimizing our differences, maybe the past is just "history". We could feature items of note in any month as opposed to February. But then again, February is a slow news month and it might be tough for Harriet Tubman to get press around Thanksgiving and the "How to Prepare a Turkey" articles. March> "March Madness Causes American Business $625 Trillion In Lost Productivity" is always a killer article. The real key to this one is to set it up with a week of Bracket talk, enthusiastic praise for the tournament itself, and then deliver this knock out blow on the Thursday morning edition to serve as a major buzz kill to everyone. Of course the dollar figure in the headline is just a created number by some guy that was floated out on the wire services without anyone checking to see if it made sense, but don't get caught up in that. Just blindly go along with the premise that The Economy (and AMERICA) is losing countless dollars because the Regional Functions Director spent an extra hour at lunch watching the Stanford vs Louisville game as opposed to sitting on a conference call with the software trainers. I would say it's just too depressing, but there is a certain comfort in knowing what is coming next.

OK, we split them yesterday because that Freshman kid at Louisville decided to freak out and chuck up that 3 pointer from the parking lot instead of running the play they painstakenly drew up in the timeout. Freshman will do that to you. I hated that little punk yesterday, but I cooled off and feel bad for the young fella today. He's going to be "That Guy" for a whole year (at least). Do you want to be "That Guy" in Louisville every time you go out for a soft serve sprinkle cone this Summer?

Xavier should have won outright in regulation, but still sacked up and didn't foul with 12 seconds left in overtime to stay within the 7.5 in OT. When people ask what was the most exciting play of the tournament so far, I'd have to say it was OSU dribbling down the last seconds of the overtime with a seven point lead while Xavier did nothing.

Today you gotta love UNLV with the six. Wisconsin will slow it down and that will lead to a close game. If you look at the season, Wisconsin tends to play very low scoring games when faced with a solid opponent. That's why I like the points and will maybe take a flier on the under. Is there any reason why Kansas won't blow Kentucky out again? I don't see one, and that's why the 7.5 makes me nervous. Someone must know something I don't. In fact, I'm positive a lot of people know a lot more than I do. This troubles me if I dwell on it too long. I think I'm going to take Kansas, but I'm going to consider it carefully while I polish off the leftovers from my General Tsao's Chicken from last night.

Random Notes: Karl Lawrence makes an ass kicker of a cabernet, but it seems to be much better young than with a little bottle age. Sure, none of you have ever heard of this little winery, but maybe one day you'll be faced with the dilemma of reaching for the 2005 or the 2000. Let me weigh in and suggest the 05...There's only two weeks until Opening Day and the inevitable Sports Staff predicts the baseball season section! Their minds are racing now. "Do I try to curry favor with the hometown readers and predict a high finish for the local team? Or will that make me look like a suck ass? Maybe I should play the Contrarian and take a pot shot at the owners/GM. Hmmm....What to do...."