Thoughts

Great albums that would be even greater if not for one awful song:

Otis Redding's "Otis Blue" if not for "Satisfaction"
Al Green's "I'm Still in Love With You" if not for "Oh! Pretty Woman"
Bob Dylan's "Blonde on Blonde" if not for "Rainy Day Women #12&35"
The Beatles "Revolver" if not for "Yellow Submarine"

I bought an alarm clock on eBay today. The image of married life in my head always inculded two alarm clocks. I'm finally making that happen. Score.

Good Friday... not half Bad.

I wasted 24 years of my life not eating soy sauce and I want them back. The same goes for chunky blue (bleu?) (blew?) cheese.

My distaste for Salim Stoudamire grows daily.

In 2010, will the entire NBA be named Stoudamire or Dee Brown?

One sentence paragraphs- they're not just for Ken Tingley anymore.

Madness

For those of you not receiving regular updates, Kim is running away with my NCAA pool, 21 points ahead of second place Shmu. This weekend was down to about 9% Jeffrey family activities (a surprisingly delicious St. Patrick's Day dinner at Aunt Judy's), from an average of 157% the past three weekends. I'm looking forward to the return of O'Connor family activities in four weeks.

Much more of the weekend was devoted to watching Syracuse, Kansas, Wake Forest, and Connecticut bow out of the NCAA Tournament. For those of you in second chance pools, I'm thinking the rest of the tournament plays out like this:

Illinois over Oklahoma State
Louisville over Texas Tech
UNC over NC State
Michigan State over Utah

UNC over Louisville for the title.

This weekend's best surprise was a birthday card/gift from Jan and Alan 26 days after my birthday. Their second attempt at my address went to the house next door for a few days. The worst surprise was that Jill and I didn't buy enough pipe insulation for the heat pipes in the basement, meaning another trip to Home Depot may be in order.

Those of you reading from the Tar Heel state, be sure to put on your NC State hats this weekend. They're due. Or something.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Happy March 14th! If anyone reads this and didn't get a bracket and this year's pool rules from me (My email contact list is getting ouotdated), let me know (bmoconnor3@hotmail) and I'll have one in your hands right away.

As for my thoughts on Selection Sunday: I think the committee picked the right 65 teams, with Buffalo the only team with a solid argument against Northern Iowa. As for the seeding, I was less impressed. I saw BC as a 4 all along, but I don't see how Connecticut can be seeded two spots ahead of Syracuse and BC. Louisville was better than a 4 as well, but I'm not sure which team I would have dropped after UConn. Maybe Oklahoma.

Seasons greetings and good luck to all my poolticipants!

Erin Go Bugger Yourself

I set foot in our worthless neighbor to the south, Rhode Island, for the fourth and hopefully last time this weekend. The motive: celebrating our most pointless holiday with the Jeffreys. The activities: harmless dinner and drinks at an Irish bar on Friday night, while we watched more snow pound New England as mercilessly as Syracuse pounded Connecticut, followed by boisterous renditions of various North American national anthems on the streets of Newport, the city that never shuts the hell up.

Saturday brought more snow; a siren-soaked parade, (which was awful, even for a parade), slush, sitting in a tent outside of a pricy club on two separate occasions, hoping futilely to be serenaded by distant bagpipes; hours at the only smoke-filled club in an otherwise smoke-free state (no, none of us smoked); and the highlight of the trip, a college bar with- get this- a Dave Matthews cover band. It was here where we met and adored Keith, an unemployed townie who called Jill ugly, Joe fat, and me shy.

Today is a new day, Selection Sunday, perhaps our most underrated holiday. By tomorrow, brackets will be flying around schools and workplaces, and the debauchery of the land of shamrocks and corned beef will be forgiven. Slainte!

God has deep pockets, right?

Just as I started publicly counting my blessings about how mild this winter was, March 8 turns out to be the most painful day of the year. Snowstorm number 378 hit us last night, dumping another 4 or 5 inches and offering some of the worst driving conditions of the winter last night and this morning, but at least it's warm enough to snow, right?

This morning, as Jill and I shoveled, dug our cars out, and made futile attempts to clear our icy windshields, the bitterest winds of the season whipped at our faces. I found out when I got to work at 9:40 that it was 15 degrees out, with the first subzero windchill factor I've seen since the evil winter of '02-'03. I can sue God, right? Can we make this a class action suit? Businesses have got to be suffering. People are getting in car accidents left and right. Nobody's immune system can hold up to weather like this every day. Jen and Charlie couldn't even make it out to Framingham for dinner last night! Enough!

It's on: the people of New England vs. God. Who's with me?

Disclaimer: God, please don't get mad and revoke the Red Sox' World Series title. Love, Brain.

Jeffreys and Chicken Selects

This weekend was my Jeffriest one yet. Friday night was game night at 13 Pond. Linda, Rich (thanks to Jill), and I each won one game of Apples to Apples (a birthday gift from Linda and Rich), and the four of us lost one round of Cranium Hoopla (a Christmas gift from Colleen and a fantastic game for those who don't need any more competition), but won the next.

On Saturday, Jill and I went down to Taunton to babysit for Noah and Lauryn while Justin and Karen went out to dinner (a Christmas gift from Jill and me), then got coupons for 12 free Chicken Selects for waiting about 7 minutes for the 5 I ordered.

On Sunday, Jill and I watched Holy Cross sneak past Lehigh in overtime in the Patriot League semifinals with Jerry and Brad (the only non-Jeffrey I saw all weekend), then redeemed the aforementioned Chicken Select coupons and looked at the Publick (pronounced like "public", I think) House in Sturbridge as a potential wedding site, probably our second favorite so far.

In other exciting news, a computer on the first floor of our house is now connected to the Internet. Expect more regular updates here, including iPod stats, since I finished importing all my music (exactly 4,000 songs) last week, and can't start downloading until we have wireless access. Internetting also allowed me to file my taxes last night, and a sweet refund is on its way.

Everything would be coming up Bryan, if only it weren't Monday.

Listmania

Every REM album, from best to worst:

1. Reckoning
2. New Adventures in Hi-Fi
3. Life's Rich Pageant
4. Automatic for the People
5. Murmur
6. Green
7. Out of Time
8. Fables of the Reconstruction
9. Up
10.Reveal
11.Document
12.Monster

The worst albums in my CD collection:
1. "An American Prayer", The Doors
2. "Pop", U2 (burned only)
3. "2112", Rush
4. "Songs in A Minor", Alicia Keys (burned only)
5. "Nashville Skyline," Bob Dylan

Teams I would most like to see win this year's World Series:

1. Chicago Cubs
2. Boston Red Sox
3. Washington Nationals
4. Minnesota Twins
5. San Diego Padres

Teams I would most expect to see win this year's World Series:

1. New York Yankees
2. Boston Red Sox
3. St. Louis Cardinals
4. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
5. Atlanta Braves

People to whom I'd like to wish a happy birthday this week (in alphabetical order):

1. Byron
2. Dana
3. Juliet
4. Melisa