this morning I felt the first tinge of the allergy season. it was in my nose.

good thing I have like a few years’ supply of claritin. see, at the end of last year I had all this leftover money on my flexible benefits account and I cleaned out a drug store. I’ve got enough band-aids, tums, and claritin to last a nuclear holocaust… of minor scrapes, heartburn, and mutant pollen.

there’s company lunch today to welcome a new hire. we’re going to this place which I tend to enjoy. the world is a happy place.

how long does it take for returns to come? this is like the first time in about 3 years I’m getting a return and I have forgotten how long this shit takes.

it’s been about a month now. ugh, I hope I’m not being audited…

you know, the announcers kept saying how michigan state just has more experience out on the floor, which is true from a statistical standpoint, but I really thought kentucky had better talent.

ok, so I had kentucky losing in the sweet sixteen in two of my brackets and in the elite eight in the other. so by us losing in the elite eight today I should be happy, right?

wronnnnnng.

what really pisses me off is that we had opportunities to put the game away. and what really infuriates me is how we gave the game away in overtime. patrick sparks had the MIRACLE THREE POINTER to send the game into OT and what did we do? let the game go into double overtime as our star kelenna azubuike (a junior, no less) practically fucking dribbled the ball until time ran out and tossed up a desperation shot.

it kills me that we played SO well in the first half only to piss it away in the second half and the second OT period.

and so my interest in college basketball is officially over for this season. I suppose I could pull for illinois since that might win me dinner in one of my brackets, but I’m just not very hungry.

so I caught the american version of the office last night. there’s only one thing I can say about it, really, and that’s:

COME UP WITH YOUR OWN FUCKING MATERIAL YOU MOTHERFUCKERS.

the episode was pretty much WORD-FOR-FUCKING-WORD taken right from the original episode 1 script. even the set was practically identical! they seriously must have simply bought the script and made a handful of microscopic adjustments with the pop culture references and called it a pilot.

and I feel bad for the actors who were probably directed to act pretty much exactly like the actors in the original. on the bright side, having watched the original series countless times, it was fun reciting the lines before the american actors got to them on tv.

the show has a chance of being interesting if they actually wrote original storylines. otherwise they might as well air the original version on nbc.

so I’ve been peeping the previews for the soon-to-be-released static lullaby album off their new site.

before I knew they had this new site up (their old one was sorta stagnant for a bit) I caught their first single stand up off purevolume or something and, I gotta say, I was a bit repulsed by it. it completely lacked the rawness and fierceness, and in their place was some slick-ass power-pop-rock custom-made nonsense for radio. sure, having an album on sony will do that to you, but it shouldn’t happen to a-fucking-static-lullaby.

but then I checked out the rest of the album off their site and I’m starting to warm up to them (but still not stand up). oh, and I really like how they brought back an old favorite, radio flyer’s last journey, for the album. sweet. yeah, even with my bitching and moaning I’ll most likely get it when it comes out.

(sidenote: I do appreciate the fact they didn’t let the majors bully them into dropping the “a” in “a static lullaby” — you couldn’t say the same for new found glory, who dropped their preceding “a” after signing with MCA)

holy crap, I just read that travis ford is interviewing for the (men’s basketball) head coaching job at umass! yeah, he’s done an awesome job turning the eastern kentucky univ program around but I still see him as the guy running the point in pitino’s UK team of the early 90’s.

who cares? I FUCKING CARE DAMMIT.

check out this video by misery signals and pay close attention around 3:10.

it totally sounds like sean astin (aka samwise gamgee) saying “I hope you know I tried to find those pictures, Frodo.” seriously. do it if you have a minute or three.

amidst all the crazy upsets that bitch-slapped my brackets a few times over, I can still take solace in having correctly picked louisville over georgia tech and villanova over florida. hooray for moral victories.

oh wait. now with florida and mississippi state out, kentucky’s the only SEC team left, right? ugh…

can I just say one thing about north carolina though? as much as I dislike them I gotta admit they are looking hella impressive so far, dominating the living fuck out of their first two opponents. no other #1 seed is drop-kicking teams into the upper deck like these clowns (and by drop-kicking, I mean victories at or around 30 point margins).

I am afraid to look where I am ranked in my office pool. please please please don’t let me be ranked lower than any of the goons in sales.

with syracuse and kansas biting it in the first round last night, 2 of my brackets are pretty much fucked. I had syracuse going to the title game in one and to the final four in the other. I had kansas going to the elite eight.

it was funny too, I was talking with a co-worker that we should base our picks on which school’s mascot would win out in a cage match:

exhibit a: the catamounts (like a mountain lion sorta thing) of vermont versus the orangemen (a giant orange with arms and legs) of syracuse.

exhibit b: the bisons of bucknell versus the jayhawks of kansas.

fuck this, I’m going to make my picks like this next year.

but wait… this doesn’t bode well for me tonight: the wildcats of kentucky versus the bearcats of cincinnati.

shit.

of the 3 SEC schools that played yesterday, 1 (kentucky) squeaked by a much weaker team and 2 (alabama & lsu) were handed convincing upsets. why the hell does the SEC suck so bad? mississippi state and florida play today, and GODDAMMIT they better not make the SEC look bad.

oh yeah, and since when do bobby knight’s teams get past the first round? damn you texas tech.

I’m 12 for 16 in one of my brackets and 11 for 16 in the other two. I’ve done worse I suppose.