Series Hotties: Colorado - Detroit

First of all I'd like to say that I'm going to try to finish these all before the end of the series. We'll see how it goes. The first round sucked. I think it's just because I fell behind and then I was a little depressed when Ottawa lost. All better now, as I've chosed Montreal as my backup team.

Here's the think about Colorado. I used to be an Avs fan. I blame my brother who was a huge Nordiques fan and also recently acquired an Avalanche jersey from my closet, because let's face it no one wears jerseys anymore except in the comfort of thier own home while watching the game. Anyway as I'm going through the roster I'm thinking "oh I love (insert name of Avs player), but he's not hot."

So I'm going with a top 3 here:

3) Marek Svatos - Colorado



2) Jonathan Ericsson - Detroit



1) Andreas Lilja - Detroit

Holy Crap, What Did I Do To My Back?

All afternoon I have had a terrible pain the right side of my lower back. I just haven't figured out what I did to it. I would have said it was from the heavy lifting I did on the weekend but I was perfectly fine yesterday. Anyway as you know I'm all about the complaining so here's some more.

Really it hurts to do anything. It hurts to walk and it hurts to sit. If I can make it through another half hour I'll check lying down. I'd try it now but I'm at work and I'm afraid that I won't be able to get up off the floor, in which case I'd have to spend the night here. Ain't gonna happen.

Goal of the week

Once again we'll start by reviewing last week's goal. You know if I hadn't gone away on Friday I probably would have finished but it's still not quite finished.

Also because I did go away I didn't post a goal of the week for this week. I'm going back about 2 weeks to when I was supposed to finish my accounting assignment for this weeks goal. There are 2 reasons for this:

1. By my calculations, in order for me to finish the course on time I have to send this assignment away this week.
2. It's already Sunday so I only have 5 days to complete goals that I normally give myself 7 days for.

Sometimes I wonder if I've got brain damage

As I'm working on my playoff hotties series I'm finding that I have to go through every teams roster to figure out who's hot and who's not. There was a time when I would have been able to go team by team and name these players from memory. What happened? But that is not the point of this particular post.

The point here is actually that as I go through them I certainly recognize names. It's hard not to when you've been doing this for eight years. As I recognize names I recall things like "oh he's hot" or "no definatly not hot" before I actually pull up the pictures. Then when the page acutally loads I find myself thinking that most of the guys that I remember as being hot actually aren't.

Is it just that they're getting old and I'm getting older and my tastes have changed? Probably not. When I reflect on all of the people that I've ever had crushes on I almost always think "what was I thinking?" Maybe it's just me trying to make myself feel better when things don't work out with a particular crush but the way I go through them I don't think I've really got time to have become attached in the first place.

Series Hottie: Montreal - Boston

This one was kind of difficult as these are two teams that I definitely don't pay any attention too normally. Not to mention that I've been a horrible hockey fan this year.

Anyway the winner is Milan Lucic.

Oh Crap.

So I was working on finding the series hottie for the Montreal-Boston series and I had settled on Vladimir Sobotka. However when I started looking for pictures to post I found this picture:



Does he look a little bit like someone that lives in Rez? I'm becoming afraid.

Series Hottie: Pittsburgh vs Ottawa

I realized about 5 minutes ago that I haven't done my playoff series hotties yet. I'm starting with Ottawa and Pittsburgh because well Ottawa is very likely getting the boot tonight.

I think I'm going to have to go against all good judgement here and pick Sidney Crosby. I don't like Sidney Crosby but I can't really deny that he's hot. Normally this would be where I would pick Wade Redden yet again. However I did take Antoine Vermette last year.

Sure he looks a little young here. But that's just possibly because he is.

More complaining about work

It's not the first time and I'm sure it won't be the last time I use my blog as an outlet for all of my career related frustrations. Today however I feel justified in questioning the division of the workload. While I don't generally question it out loud to co-workers it certainly comes up in outside of work relationships. Okay that statement isn't exactly true, I do mention it to co-workers just not ones that actually work in my department.

Some told me last week that I shouldn't question what I'm given to do and that I should just take it and stay late to get everything done if need be. All because you're trying to start your career and you don't want people to think you can't do the job. The fact of the matter is that I'm the kind of person who believes that you're only assigned as much as people think you're able to do. And that if you're not able to do it then someone needs to know.

I'm one of those lucky people who has most of their work delivered to their desk, either by e-mail or fax. Today our fax delivery person asked me about all of the stuff I was getting these days. The big thing was that all of this work had been assigned to other people at some point but now is falling on me. In fact she even said to me "so what does Sally* do now?" If other people are noticing then all of my complaining can't be completely unjustified right?


*name changed to protect my freaking job. Not that I'm so anonymous as it is.

Is it too early to give up on my team?

As you all know by now I'm a bit of a sports nut. There are some sports that I just can't get into, NBA basketball for example. To clarify I say NBA basketball because I do watch college basketball, or at least I do in March. One sport that I am way into is hockey. I've loved hockey since I was about 12. Right around the time I quit figure skating. I should say here that I'm a terrible hockey player. But I do enjoy watching it.

This year has been a really bad year for my hockey fandom. Part of the problem is that I just have no energy anymore. It used to be that Saturday nights for me involved me, my couch and the Hockey Night in Canada double-header. This year I think I've watched about 4 regular season games, but I promised myself I'd watch at least one game a night through the playoffs. So far so good on that front.

However watching my favorite team, the Ottawa Senators, get destroyed by the Penguins is brutal. The first game and a half the Senators just played poorly. Last night, well I don't even know what happened last night. It was all tied at 1-1. It seemed like I went to switch my laundry and suddenly it was 3-1.

The series is now 3-0 for Pittsburgh and I'm ready to give up on my Senators. I guess I'm not being much of a fan but really they're not giving me a whole lot to work with.

Goal of the Week

First an update on last week's goal of the week . Well I DID write my test, but I didn't finish the Chapter 10 assignment. Come on first of all there was the Final Four and National Championship game and then NHL playoffs started this week. Plus I had that work thing that I have to do to pay the bills.

This week's goal of the week is to finish the left front of the sweater that I'm knitting. I've been working on this sweater since pretty February. It's still not done. I've had a lot of other stuff going on. So left front this week. It should work out pretty well because I can work on it while I'm watching hockey.

I knew I shouldn't have given this URL to people

People always bug me about how no one reads my blog. So of course in an effort to increase readership (to more than one) I give the URL to people that I know who might want to hear what I have to say. Everytime I do it, I start to feel like I have to censor what I plan to say so as not to offend anyone or to do harm to whatever sort of career it is that I have.

The fact of the matter is that the thing that I've spent more time thinking about lately than anything else is something that I would have no problem telling an absolute stranger but something that I can't tell people that I consider friends.

Just so no one feels upset or left out here let me just say it has to deal with new office crush. And by new I mean new, new. It's not that I've necessarily given up on old office crush it's just that I have exactly no attention span so when something new comes up I get really excited about it and leave the old stuff. This easily explains things like the seasonal athlete boyfriends. Out of sight out of mind. Actually I think I tend to overanalyze stuff until it gets to the point where I almost have to leave it alone otherwise it gets far too awkward. Focus is a good thing. Becoming obsessed on a singular focus probably not so much of a good thing.

Anyway I just wanted to get that off my chest and hopefully it explains some of why I haven't posted anything lately. I'm not trying to say don't read my blog. I'm just trying to shed some light on why I probably shouldn't have a blog in the first place.

So hotness bracket was right.

It predicted Kansas and that's what we got. For the record it also predicted the Davidson run and it's ending by Kansas. It didn't do so well anywhere else though.

Teams left in my bracket:abso-freaking-lutely none

way to fall 20 points behind and then have to attempt to climb out of a rather large hole UNC. And what the hell the National Player of the Year doesn't have to block shots because he's National Player of the Year or what?

I think that deserves more Tyler Hansbrough crying:


I don't blame UCLA though, Memphis was just better. That's all.

Goal of the Week

First a update on last week's goal. I managed to stick with the Starbucks tall all week. I DID cheat a little and go with a Grande Frappuchino after work yesterday but with the kind of day I had a freaking deserved it.

As for this week. My goal is to write my accounting test and finish the assignment for chapter 10 and send it to my instructor.

That's the great thing about distance ed you can do stuff when you want to. It also helps that it's a community college so they have no actual testing dates either. Which means I can write them pretty much whenever I want.

I also need to register for courses for May but a still have a little bit of time to do that yet. I'm almost done my certificate and then I've got to figure out what to do after that.

I should NOT be at work today

I'm having such a bad day today. I've only been at work for 2 hours and already I'm pissed off. I've already ranted on how people don't do anything that could possibly be outside of the very specific parameters of their job and how they like to pass the buck. That's fine I can live with that, sure I get angry about it sometimes but it's not so bad. Worse though is when they screw up and it affects something that is within the parameters of your job and they forget to mention it to you.

This leads to you looking like you don't know how to do your job even though you actually DID do your job (and properly might I add) to external individuals. Maybe I shouldn't be so upset but I spent half an hour doing research about something that could have been a simple e-mail 2 weeks ago that would have fixed the problem long before anyone on the outside even noticed.

I'd like to think that I'm just in a bad mood because my day started off crappy. First of all I didn't sleep well last night. Really this is probably my fault as I stayed up too late chatting to people online. Though for the first time in about a week and a half I didn't have the disturbing co-worker dream. You know the one that I obsess over during my waking hours.

Secondly it was really icy outside this morning and I fell about a block from my bus stop. My hand looks perfectly fine but it hurts like hell. Thirdly, it seems like everything that I have to do this morning requires a phone call. Which I don't feel like making due to the first and second points, plus I have a sore throat. I should just go home.

Crappy Facebook Applications

I'm one of those lucky people who doesn't have Facebook blocked at work. This means that I'm able to spend a good part of my day keeping up to date with all of the things that my friends are doing as well as taking advantage of some of the wonderful (and also some not so wonderful) Facebook Apps.

This is great unless those applications are down. For example I found this great application called "Knighthood". The great thing about in in connection to the ability to do work is that you can set your buildings to build/expand and it tells you exactly how long it will take. So you only need to go back to it for a few seconds to set the next one. So today one of the projects was finishing up while I was on coffee break so I figure great I'll set the next build when I get back. It's been down for 2 hours since so my building should be done and I could have been 2 hours into the next one but now I'm not.

Well That makes me feel better.

Just yesterday I was saying how bad I felt about changing college basketball boyfriends so quickly. But today not so much. This is a story that even the boys at work could enjoy even if they don't understand the full implications of the story.

As you know I had chosen David McClure of Duke as my college basketball boyfriend. I've since switched but that doesn't really matter to my story. So today I got off the bus on my way to work and walked through the square as I always do and there was a pretty grubby looking guy (I want to say bum but he wasn't really) wearing a Duke jacket.

Even funnier though was on the back where it was supposed to say Blue Devils, Devils had been cut out. The word had actually been cut out of the jacket leaving a rectangular hole in the back where the jacket lining was showing.

Teams Left in my Bracket: 3

Being somewhat of a stats/history geek I figured that since no 4 number 1 teams have ever met in the final four I'd better pick at least one lower seed. My lower seed was Texas. They messed it up. Thanks Longhorns.

I did discover though that I may be in love with Connor Atchley . Sure I've never met him but that doesn't really matter. I feel bad about changing college basketball boyfriend's so soon.

Goal of the week

I was having a conversation the other day with a co-worker about new year's resolutions. I've never believed in New Year's resolutions, mostly because I know that I will never stick to it. But I can probably stick with something for a week so here it goes.

After writing this it got me to thinking about how much money I spend that I really don't need to. So my goal for this week (as of Friday night) is to opt for a tall drink at Starbucks rather than my usual Grande. Perhaps this will lead to only 4 days a week of coffee. But for right now this is my compromise.

The greed of my generation.

Excuse me while I get up on my soap box for a minute. If you don't want to be offended then perhaps you'd best not read this particular entry but I think it needs to be said.

First of all I'd like to say that while it's going to seem hypocritical of me to say the things I'm about to say but more than anything it's actually an observation about the things that I need to change in my life. Alright here we go.

Yesterday I was talking to one of my co-workers who is considering going back to school. She has both financial and time constraints to completing here education. She tells me she can't afford it right now but she wants to be done her education by the time she's 30. This prompted me to think about the way all of the people of my generation are living.

I once read an article that said the the average Canadian is spending $1.25 for every $1.00 that they earn. When I first read this I was in University and quickly justified this by saying I'm in debt right now I'm spending $10,000 a year and earning about $7,000 a year at best, every other student in the country is in the same situation. Now that I'm out in the "real world" I realize that this is not just a problem for students.

Having watched my brother struggle with debt, I swore up and down that I would not live paycheck to paycheck once I got a job. However now that my roommate had moved out and I'm paying all of my expenses myself I realize that perhaps I'm living beyond my means. It's not that I don't have enough money to pay for my basic needs I can easily pay rent and grocery bills but it's all of the other little things.

My first thought was "where is all my money going? What can I live without?" For example do I really need high speed Internet at home? Yes. Do I need to have the largest range of channel packages on TV? Also yes. Do I need to buy Starbucks coffee every morning? probably not.

While this is not an extensive list of all of the money that I spend in a month. It made me think about all of the things that I have and all of the things that I want that are strictly for my own enjoyment or convenience. But when did it become nearly impossible to live on a salary of $40,000? Hell I lived on a fraction of that while I was in school and some of that went to pay tuition.

Another thing I've noticed at my company is the length of time that people stay here. Recently some of my co-workers have celebrated 30 or more years at my company. While it's listed as one of the top companies in the province very few people of my generation intend to stay here for any length of time. So what's the difference. Some would call it ambition, the desire to move up to a better job even if it means changing companies. The problem with this is that the ambition is less the desire to move to a better job and more to move to a better paying job. No longer is it desirable to be the "company man".

I really do have more to say on this topic, things like the idea that it is the "right" of young people to attain higher levels of eduction. But I think I've been up here long enough. Time to get down from the soap box before I fall off.

Teams left in my Bracket: 5

Freaking Tennessee. But good for Xavier that was an awesome game.

Dream Diary Episode 1

I’ve often wondered where dreams come from. One of my friends once hypothesised that dreams were really a collection of things that you subconsciously thought about throughout the day but didn’t have time to actually deal with.

Occasionally I’ll have dreams about people that I haven’t seen in years or places that I’ve never been but more often they are about people and environments which I deal with everyday. So I’m really not surprised when I dream about co-workers.

I am surprised (and worried) that I’m having recurring dreams about the same co-worker. Typically this dream occurs sometime between 5:30 and 6:15. So it’s likely (and hopefully) just that I’m thinking about having to go to work in the next hour or so and that works itself into my dream.

If dreams were really a reflection of what I’m thinking about during the day then my dreams should probably be focused on Tyler Hansbrough. However I have avoided that one so far.

Edit: I've now posted more entries in the month of March than I did all of 2007.

NCAA Pool - Sweet 16

I could do what I did last year and just update each matchup for the sweet 16 but this might be more fun.

Here are my picks for the 16 hottest remaining players in no particular order.

1. DJ Augustin -Texas
2. Chase Buford - Kansas
3. Joe Alexander - West Virgina
4. Dante Jackson - Xavier
5. Conor Teahan - Kansas
6. Cam Thoroughman - West Virgina
7. Josh Shipp - UCLA
8. Wayne Chism - Tennessee
9. Micheal Flowers - Wisconsin
10. Brennan Bechard - Kansas
11. Taylor Rochestie - Washington State
12. Will Scott - Louisville
13. Ryan Childress - Tennessee
14. Connor Atchley - Texas
15. William Archambault - Davidson
16. Tyler Hansbrough - UNC

You can find the pictures for all of these guys elsewhere on this blog. Except Tyler Hansbrough. You know I was reading Sports Illustrated in the Chiropractor's office on Monday and it described the Hansbrough brothers as college basketball's version of the Manning brothers. You can see how this is only going to turn out badly for me.

Oh look Tyler's crying!

huh?

You all know that I'm a huge sports fan (except baseball because it's crap). But when I came home today I found Championship Bridge on TV.

Seriously cards are not a sport. Period. End of story. Don't even try to convince me that poker is a sport. Game yes, sport no.

Easter Weekend Review

So one would think that I would enjoy having a long weekend. One would be wrong.



As much as I dislike being at work I find that my weekends are almost too long. Sure I don't want to go to work on Monday but for me the alternative is probably sitting at home either on my computer or on my couch watching TV. Don't get me wrong these are both wonderful past times and I have taken over the world numerous times on Civ 4, but you really can't do either for more than 2 days and even that seems too long. My point is really that I didn't quite know what to do with myself for 3 whole days. So I made my way out to the farm after the near heart attack during the final minutes of the Duke/Belmont game.



First of all I should NOT be allowed to drive at night without my glasses. I can't see very well at long distances and the lights of on coming cars are not pleasant on the eyes. Nothing exciting happened Thursday night it was about 10:30 by the time I got home and I wanted nothing more than to sleep.

Friday I pretty much sat around and watched Basketball. Good times. Yes I probably should have been working on my accounting course but really it's a long weekend so I'll excuse myself. That night the whole family went to visit my grandma. You know she's lonely when she offers to make you a pizza just so that you'll stay a little longer. Poor grandma.

Saturday morning my brother and I helped Dad cut wood. Not a big deal except that it was more physical labour than I've done... well ever really. My arms are still killing me today and I think I messed up my shoulder pretty bad because my whole right arm is a dull ache right now. This was all followed by more watching of college basketball followed by taking my Mom out for dinner for her birthday. Oh I also helped name cattle for registration purposes.

Sunday I watched a little bit of basketball and then played computer games until it was time to head to OB2's for Easter Dinner. It wasn't your typical Easter dinner. We had BBQ'd ribs and chicken, followed by some more college basketball and OB2 and I complaining about all the stupid bracket picks we made. Freaking Drake. The real excitement came when the little brother and I went back to my apartment so that he could grab some stuff he had left there. He drove and then forgot to give me back my car keys. So now my keys are at the farm but my car is in the parking lot behind my building. It's gonna be an interesting week.

Hotness Bracket results

I just wanted to let you all know (because I know you were wondering) that my hotness bracket final 4 based on actual seedings but ignoring the results of the actual games to this point are:

• Tennessee
• Kansas
• Texas
• Xavier

Which actually isn't all that far off my actual bracket picks of UNC, Kansas, Texas, UCLA. Also both my actual bracket and my hotness bracket are kind of screwed thanks to Drake.

NCAA Pool Round 1: Drake vs. Western Kentucky

Only Drake is featured here because the hottest guy on the Western Kentucky roster was the coach and I'm not giving points for the coach this year.

Score 5-0 Drake

NCAA Pool Round 1: Mississippi State vs Oregon.

I'd like to add a little disclaimer here the only reason I added Maarty Leunen is because he's an econ major and I'm a bit of an econ geek, even though I did really poorly in Econ of Sport and Leisure at University.


Final Score 5-3 Oregon

NCCA Pool Round 1: Memphis vs UT Arlington

Final Score: 2-0 UT Arlington

NCAA Pool Round 1: Clemson vs Villanova

It's been a long week at work even though technically it's been a short week. Also it's a long weekend and I'm kind of sick of this so I'm not putting much effort in. Again this always seems like a good idea at the time and then about 15 teams in I get sick of it. Next time I'm doing the Sweet 16 on. Remind me!





Final Score: 3-0 Clemson

NCAA Pool Round 1: Connecticut vs San Diego

Like last year I will be breaking down all of the NCAA basketball matchups (or trying too. There are alot of matchups) and assigning a hotness score to each team to determine the winner. I had big plans for it this year but it didn't pan out. Anyway enjoy this year's edition:





Just so you know everytime I think of UConn I think of the show Hang Time, 'cause that's where the female player was going to go to college. Now I want to try to find old episodes of that show so that I can relive my youth.


Final Score 2-2

NCAA Pool Round 1: Marquette vs Kentucky

You know this always seems like a good idea at the time but if you look at some of the matchups I've done so far and how I've scored the teams you'll notice that it changes from day to day. Additionally it changes a bit depending on my biases. That said everyone has a chance to score the match-ups themselves in the comments.


Final Score 7-2 Marquette

NCAA Pool; Round 1: Cornell vs Stanford

So I'm in love with this game. I'm one of those geeky academic types (no kidding, eh?) who gets really snobby about what school they attend. Sure it wasn't a big deal in undergraduate but my grad school plans are all based on name recognition. Anyway on with the chlorophyll:

Connor Mullen is sporting a pair of fangs there but that's okay.

Final Score 3-2 Cornell.

NCAA Pool Round 1: Pitt vs Oral Roberts

Final Score 2-0

NCAA Pool Round 1: USC vs Kansas State

Like last year I will be breaking down all of the NCAA basketball matchups (or trying too. There are alot of matchups) and assigning a hotness score to each team to determine the winner. I had big plans for it this year but it didn't pan out. Anyway enjoy this year's edition:

Final Score 4-2 Kansas State

NCAA Pool Round 1: UNLV vs Kent State

Like last year I will be breaking down all of the NCAA basketball matchups (or trying too. There are alot of matchups) and assigning a hotness score to each team to determine the winner. I had big plans for it this year but it didn't pan out. Anyway enjoy this year's edition:

Final Score 4-1 UNLV

NCAA Pool Round 1: Louisville vs Boise State

Like last year I will be breaking down all of the NCAA basketball matchups (or trying too. There are alot of matchups) and assigning a hotness score to each team to determine the winner. I had big plans for it this year but it didn't pan out. Anyway enjoy this year's edition:

Before I give my final score I'd just like to say that if the seniors were anywhere near as attractive at my school as Tyler Tiedeman I would have stayed an extra year.

Final Score 3-2 Boise State

NCAA Pool Round 1: Washington State vs. Winthrop

Like last year I will be breaking down all of the NCAA basketball matchups (or trying too. There are alot of matchups) and assigning a hotness score to each team to determine the winner. I had big plans for it this year but it didn't pan out. Anyway enjoy this year's edition:

Final Score 4-1 Washington State

NCAA pool Round 1: Oklahoma vs. St.Joseph's

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. If you've read all the other posts this intro is just a pain in the butt. blah blah blah. I had a tough day at work. Blah!

Final Score 5-3 Oklahoma

NCAA Pool Round 1: Notre Dame vs. George Mason

Like last year I will be breaking down all of the NCAA basketball matchups (or trying too. There are alot of matchups) and assigning a hotness score to each team to determine the winner. I had big plans for it this year but it didn't pan out. Anyway enjoy this year's edition:





Final Score 2-1 George Mason

NCAA Pool Round 1: Cal State Fullerton vs. Wisconsin

Okay this is going to be the last one at least until I get home and perhaps that last one until tommorow. If I get special requests then maybe I'll do a few more.

Final Score 3-3

I don't know what's up with all these ties this year.

NCAA Pool Round 1: BYU vs Texas A&M

Like last year I will be breaking down all of the NCAA basketball matchups (or trying too. There are alot of matchups) and assigning a hotness score to each team to determine the winner. I had big plans for it this year but it didn't pan out. Anyway enjoy this year's edition:





Final Score 2-2

NCAA Pool Round 1: Georgia vs Xavier

Like last year I will be breaking down all of the NCAA basketball matchups (or trying too. There are alot of matchups) and assigning a hotness score to each team to determine the winner. I had big plans for it this year but it didn't pan out. Anyway enjoy this year's edition:

I have determined that there is no freaking way that I'm going to be able to finish even the match-ups that go tomorrow by tomorrow unless I suddenly contract some sort of illness that will force me to be at home all day tomorrow. But since that's not likely to happen please enjoy whatever I AM actually able to get done.


Final Score 5-1 Xavier

NCAA Pool Round 1: Georgetown Vs. UMBC

Like last year I will be breaking down all of the NCAA basketball matchups (or trying too. There are alot of matchups) and assigning a hotness score to each team to determine the winner. I had big plans for it this year but it didn't pan out. Anyway enjoy this year's edition:


Final Score 3-1 UMBC

NCAA Pool Round 1: Gonzaga vs Davidson

Like last year I will be breaking down all of the NCAA basketball matchups (or trying too. There are alot of matchups) and assigning a hotness score to each team to determine the winner. I had big plans for it this year but it didn't pan out. Anyway enjoy this year's edition:




The two Davidson players on the right are from Quebec. Just saying.

Final Score 5-2 Davidson

NCAA Pool Round 1: Butler vs. South Alabama

Like last year I will be breaking down all of the NCAA basketball matchups (or trying too. There are alot of matchups) and assigning a hotness score to each team to determine the winner. I had big plans for it this year but it didn't pan out. Anyway enjoy this year's edition:





Final Score 5-3 Butler

NCAA Pool Round 1: Vanderbilt vs Siena

Like last year I will be breaking down all of the NCAA basketball matchups (or trying too. There are alot of matchups) and assigning a hotness score to each team to determine the winner. I had big plans for it this year but it didn't pan out. Anyway enjoy this year's edition:





Final Score 2-1 Siena

NCAA Pool Round 1: Indiana vs Arkansas

Like last year I will be breaking down all of the NCAA basketball matchups (or trying too. There are alot of matchups) and assigning a hotness score to each team to determine the winner. I had big plans for it this year but it didn't pan out. Anyway enjoy this year's edition:

Final Score 3-2 Indiana

NCAA Pool Round 1: Michigan State Vs. Temple

For some reason I got the silly idea that I should do a hotness bracket for this years NCAA Tourney. Part way through I realized that there are a buttload of teams in this thing. But anyway here's some of what I've got. Enjoy:



So umm really this one was a bit of a stretch on all accounts. I've included Drew Neitzel pretty much exclusively based on the fact that during last year's preview I determined that he looked liked the guy from Prison Break.

Final Score 2-1 Michigan State

NCAA Pool Round 1: Texas Vs Austin Peay

Like last year I will be breaking down all of the NCAA basketball matchups (or trying too. There are alot of matchups) and assigning a hotness score to each team to determine the winner. I had big plans for it this year but it didn't pan out. Anyway enjoy this year's edition:





Final Score 8-1 Texas

NCAA Pool Round 1 Tennessee vs American University

Like last year I will be breaking down all of the NCAA basketball matchups (or trying too. There are alot of matchups) and assigning a hotness score to each team to determine the winner. I had big plans for it this year but it didn't pan out. Anyway enjoy this year's edition:





Final Score 5-5
Another tie, another chance to throw it at commenters.

NCCA Pool Round 1: UCLA vs Missisippi Valley

Like last year I will be breaking down all of the NCAA basketball matchups (or trying too. There are alot of matchups) and assigning a hotness score to each team to determine the winner. I had big plans for it this year but it didn't pan out. Anyway enjoy this year's edition:



Final Score 3-0 UCLA

NCAA Pool Round 1: Kansas vs. Portland State

Like last year I will be breaking down all of the NCAA basketball matchups (or trying too. There are alot of matchups) and assigning a hotness score to each team to determine the winner. I had big plans for it this year but it didn't pan out. Anyway enjoy this year's addition:

First of all I'd like to make these pictures bigger but I haven't found an easy way to do all of the things I want to do so this will have to do. Secondly Conner Teahan looks like Zac Effron who facebook says would be my celebrity boyfriend. Don't worry it's a joke.

Final Score 9-3 Kansas

NCAA Pool Round 1: Baylor vs. Purdue

Like last year I will be breaking down all of the NCAA basketball matchups (or trying too. There are alot of matchups) and assigning a hotness score to each team to determine the winner. I had big plans for it this year but it didn't pan out. Anyway enjoy this year's addition:


Here's another match up where I get to pretend I'm entirely unbiased. The rez girls will recognize Chris Kramer as the guy who looks like Keith.






Final Score 3-2 Purdue

NCAA Pool Round 1: Arizona vs. West Virginia

Like last year I will be breaking down all of the NCAA basketball matchups and assigning a hotness score to each team to determine the winner. I had big plans for it this year but it didn't pan out. Anyway enjoy this year's edition:



West Virginia






Joe Alexander, Josh Sowards, Cam Thoroughman


Arizona



David Bagga, Zane Johnson, Nic Wise


Final Score 5-5,
I've never had a tie before. That's not right. First commenter gets to determine the winner.

NCCA Pool - Round 1: Duke vs. Belmont

Like last year I will be breaking down all of the NCAA basketball matchups and assigning a hotness score to each team to determine the winner. I had big plans for it this year but it didn't pan out. Anyway enjoy this year's edition:

First up Duke versus Belmont. I have a little confession to make here, I'm not completly unbiased when it comes to Duke. But I'm going to try really hard to pretend I'm unbiased.




Duke
Okay forget trying to be unbiased. David McClure has possibly the worlds worst offical picture so I took a different one from his profile. He's also kind of my motivation for watching Duke in the first place as they are one of those schools that you're supposed to hate on principle.

Belmont
Andy Wicke
Jon House

Final Score:4-2 Belmont

Christmas in March

Yesterday my brother and I went to RiverCity sports where I purchased some Indianapolis Colts christmas ornaments. Some of you will remember that I attempted to purchase something of this sort online, only to find out my package had been returned to sender.

Anyway, I was so excited about my purchase that I didn't want them to just sit in my closet for nearly a year waiting to be used. When I came upon the brilliant idea that all I have to do it put up my fake tree again. It'll be like Christmas all over again, without the presents. My brother's reaction when I told him this was "that is something you would do". I'm not going to though because my laziness is outweighing my excitement over the oroments.

It's St.Patrick's Day

Today will be the first St.Patrick's Day in 4 years where I haven't gotten right smashed. Sure I could go out and drink tonight but I have to go to work tommorrow and quite frankly I have a hard enough time getting through the day when I'm not hung over. Also I have a feeling that I'm going to be sick towards the end of the week so I might need to keep those sick days.

I also wasn't sure what the process was for dressing this morning either. I've never really gone out of my way to St.Patrick's-ify, but I've been pinched enough to know that you probably want to at least have a green stripe on your socks. Though apparently it's not a big deal (or any kind of deal) around work.

There is something wrong with me.

Well actually there are many things wrong with me but some more wrong than others. The most immediate concern at the moment is that I spent my Saturday night watching College Basketball.

I don't like basketball. I played a lot of sports in high school, basketball was not one of them. Really,I think I'm getting caught up in the whole March Madness thing, even though it hasn't started yet. This happened last year too. I was even keeping an up-to-date bracket on my rez door, which helped other rezzies keep track of the action. I even won points in hall decorating for watching the Notre Dame game during St.Patrick's day hall judging. Just for the record it didn't help us much, Jason's drunken sailor took the prize.

Not only did I watch college basketball which I don't really like but I watched what are possibly the two most dispised schools in the United States, Duke and UNC. I plead ignorance though. Maybe it's just because I'm not American but I don't understand why there is so much hate.Actually the hate spreads to Canada too. When I did a quick poll around the office regarding this game one of my co-workers asked if they could both just blow up.

Jorts!

Last night I went out for dinner with a friend I hadn't seen in a while. This lead to signifigant discussion of all things that had been happening in our lives to this point. She remained unclear on two points which can both be explained using the following picture:



This is Tim Tebow. He's a college football player. I kinda think he's hot. He's also wearing Jorts (jean shorts).

What makes a bet valid?

Yesterday on my coffee break I made a bet with one of my co-workers regarding the validity of a rumor I heard about Brett Favre's retirement.

Here's how it went down:
me: I heard Brett Favre is retiring
co-worker: No way. I'll bet you.
me: how much
co-worker: ten bucks
me: done
co-worker: wait no make it 5.

So now that there have been more semi-official reports come out regarding the retirement my co-worker is trying to get out of said bet using the following loop-holes.

• We didn't shake on it. I call verbal contract. I have witnesses. So what if we didn't shake.
• It's not really a retirement, if he comes back. I'm willing to allow that unless he actually sits out the first game of the regular season it's not really a retirement. However in the world of sports when a comeback is made it's called coming out of retirement, thus one would have to have been retired to come out of retirement.

So now I pose the question do I have a valid claim on $10, assuming of course that Favre does in fact sit out of the first game of the regular season.

Oh blog, I'm sorry I forgot you

I only remembered that I even had a blog last night when I was thinking about College Basketball brackets and how I blogged the match-ups last year during the tournament. Today I noticed that I haven't even posted this year so I guess this is as good a time as any.

First of all I love my new job. This is mostly because the people are fantastic and as long as I get my daily reports sent out on time no one bothers me much. Leaving me plenty of time to do things like watch Degrassi: The Next Generation, while filing.

I'm also finding that I enjoy doing other things much more now that I'm out of the constant stress of my old position. I don't just look at my coffee breaks as time away from my desk, now I'm able to fully enjoy them.

The frustrating thing about term positions though is that eventually your term ends. For me that means going back to my soul-sucking old position. There have been alot of changes in that department recently though so I guess things could be better. But not bloody likely. So I'm looking for alternatives. First and foremost this involves Grad School, as it has always been my intention to go back some day. The problem is finding a good one. More on that another time.

working hard at hardly working

So this morning I come in to work all upset because I will be missing Canada's second game of the World Junior Hockey Championships only to be reminded that TSN is doing live streaming video on TSN.ca.

I should start by mentioning the great christmas tradition of gathering around the TV to watch 19 year olds play hockey. It's good times. So much so that last year I rushed home from my Organic Chem class just in time to watch the game. I would have skipped but it's organic freaking chemistry. Anyway, yes World Junior's good times.

Side note: H-Dot, do you remember the time we saw Jonathan Toews in Timmy Ho's? More good times.

My big problem this year is that I still find the players attractive even though I KNOW they're too young for me.

Anyway back to live streaming video. So I've got the game on while I'm filing when my boss comes in. I had fully intended to cut the sound as soon as I was done filing because I'm at work, but I hadn't gotten to that point yet. Anyway so my boss comes in and tells me that I should turn up the sound. So I got to watch the game.

Thank god I'm in my new department or I would have been in big shit for this.

Killing time

Strange how the day seems to go by so much slower when you start 30 minutes later. As I've said I've recently changed positions at work. My new boss requires me to come in later to cover a later shift. So for the last 3 days I've been in about half an hour later.

Normal it's about 2:45 and I'm bored but I manage to drag out cleaning my desk to make the time go by. Unfortuatly today I'm still bored at 2:45 and I can't think of anything else to do.

Delay of Game

So as most of you know by now I've changed jobs within my company. The problem that I now face is that my old department loved me so much that they just can't let me go. And by that I mean that I'm still doing old job work because they're short staffed due to poor human resource management, likely the result of general denial about the turnover rate in my old department.

Anyway so here I am in my new department trying to do both jobs but not getting very far on either. To make matters even worse I'm not getting a whole lot of support from the staff in my old department. In fact I talked to my old boss about the double shifting situation and he told me that the new boss was perfectly aware of what was going to happen once I moved over to the new department. Which I of course accepted until new boss asked me if I would be working on new department stuff or old stuff. So obviously he wasn't quite sure what was going on.

But on a postive note I love my new department. I've only been here 3 days and it's just on the other side of the floor but it's all so different. And I have a window seat. Right now there's a Saskatchewan flag in it but that's due to CFL rivalries that I refuse to become a part of.

You would be the McGyver of Bums

I'm not sure what it is with the guys that I work with but somehow our lunch time conversation always turns to bums. The homeless kind not the anatomical kind. Usually we're discussing it in some sort of charity contexts, like giving our food to the bums. But yesterday we were treated to one of the guy's plans in the unfortunate event that he would become homeless.

The plan was so extensive and did include a certain amount of resourcefulness which prompted on the other guys to respond "Man, you would be like the McGyver of bums."

In all the excitement of packing I forgot to pack.

I'm not sure how I haven't posted since I found out but I guess I really did forget in all of the excitement.

I got a new job. Sure it's just moving to the other side of the same floor but it will definitely change my working conditions. The one crappy thing is that my manager hasn't posted my position or the other vacant position as of yet so my old department is going to be short. That means that I will be splitting time between the old department and the new one, at least until they can find a replacement (good luck).

The new job is only a term so I'll be coming back at the end of July but by then alot of things will have changed in my current department. Who knows though I may just take another term with another department. We'll see what happens in the next year.

The tough choices in life.

Most of you know that I graduated from university in the spring. With graduation comes the convocation ceremonies. I skipped my spring convocation ceremony thinking that I would go to the fall one. Yesterday I realized that my convocation is on the same day as the Colts/Patriots game. Which is quite possibly the biggest regular season game of the year. Particularly if both teams remain undefeated.

Convocation starts at 3:00, game starts at 3:15. So there is no way that convocation will be over by the time the game start. What's a girl to do?

The boys at work looked at me like I was crazy when I told them this. They said it was an easy decision. I should mention here though that 2/3 of them are Colts fans.

I know the game will be re-broadcast later in the week on NFL network but I also know that the boys at work will be discussing the game on Monday. Gah!

Countdown until Quebec

I don't know if you missed it but I'm going to Quebec tomorrow. I'm taking 3 days off of work and spending my long weekend out east. So I'll be in Quebec a grand total of well almost 6 days. We'll be in Montreal at 1:30et. There is some definite squee-ing at this point.

On the down side I'll be gone over the weekend so that means I'll miss football on Sunday. That means no Colts game, no Saints game, and no Giants game. Not that I watch the Giants games anyway. I tend to switch back and forth.

It's Monday

Monday morning (and Tuesdays after a long weekend) always brings a major case of the Mondays. However today it also brings a Monday Night Football game I actually will watch. Unlike most NFL fans there are only certain teams I will watch, the Colts, the Giants and the Saints.

Tonight's game features the New Orleans Saints and the Tennessee Titans. Will this game be any good? Not in the Saints keep putting up exactly zero offense like they have the previous two weeks. So really the only reason for me to watch this game is:

Drew Brees

Playing favorites

Office politics are a funny thing. It can make or break your career. Sometimes office politics is completely subconscious. You don't even realize that you're playing the game most of the time. But I realized today that even in our interactions with other departments in our company we all have our favorites.

There are people who's questions you don't mind interupting whatever you're working on to answer and there are people who you wish would just ask someone else. Each of us has someone who is most likely to ask something of us more than any other person in the department. Oddly enough my person is not office crush. Even though I do get a little giddy when he asks for my help on something.

My secret life as a "banger"

We all know that I prefer fiddles to crazy guitar solos, what good country girl doesn't? But the other day my brother was on Facebook using the iLike application and playing the iLike challenge and we came across the weird musical anomaly that is me.

I should start off by saying that I currently have a streak of 683 points on the iLike challenge as a result of them separating it into musical genres. I rock at the country music challenge. But my brother of course being into punk can't stand the country so he was playing the rock genre challenge. I have to say that I was helping him a lot with that one too because it's mostly pop-punk Avril Lavigne type crap. Anyway we came across one where the answer was Godsmack and my brother gives me this look that's like "How did you know that?". Of course my initial response is that I'm Shaboobala's protege, because Shaboobala knows all. Anyway I really don't know why I knew that as I don't actually listen to Godsmack so I'm thinking that maybe I'm listening to hard rock and metal in my sleep.

Dreaming of high school

Okay I haven't been in high school for a while and I hated every second I spent there but last night I had a dream about people I went to school with. Strange. It's funny because it's the sort of thing that totally could have happened logically based on things that actually did happen in high school but I know it didn't just because of the cast of characters. People always told me that high school was going to be the best time of my life. I never believed them but obviously there's something I still miss about the place.

Even stranger than dreaming about people I knew in high school is when I start dreaming about people that I know from college and then mix them in with people I knew in high school. This is strange because even though I left home most of the people I went to school with didn't. In fact I saw them at a social a couple of weeks ago and things are exactly the same. It's the same people hanging out with the same people, doing the same things. It's kind of sad actually.

Sunday is a day of complete misery

While most people are able to spend thier Sundayas basking in the fact that they don't have to work, I tend to spend it reminding myself that I have to go to work tommorow. The only upside to going to work is that I drop in on Starbucks on my way to pick up some delicious crack... er ummmm... coffee.

This Sunday has been particularly devistating to me, in an entirely melodramtic sense of course. First of all even though it was the first Sunday of the NFL season I found very little to enjoy about it. The Colts played on Thursday night and for some odd reason (perhaps because he's now engaged), Eli Manning just doesn't have the same effect on me.

Secondly Novak Djokovic lost the U.S. Open Men's final to Roger Federer. Sure I saw it coming but that doesn't make it any easier to watch. At least Justine Henin won the night before. It's funny how into these things I get. I guess we know why I'm not a professional athlete, I'm not even playing and I'm nervous half the time.

Anyway here's some amusing Djokovic footage. From this you can see why he's a tennis player and not a singer. But it's still funny.

The dilemma of Thursday

So today I'm torn as to what to watch on TV tonight. I know it's sad when I biggest issue is what to watch but today is a fantastic TV night.

First of all we've got Big Brother on CBS. I've been following big brother all season so I'd kind of like to see what happens especially since it's supposed to be a double eviction week.

Secondly there is some actual regular season Colts/Saints game on TSN and we all know how I love Peyton Manning.

Additionally there is some Novak Djokovic action going down on RDS tonight. As much as it's entirely wrong for me to have a thing for a 20 year old it's obviously not stopping me. He's cute enough that I would be willing to:
a)not watch the colts game
b) watch Tennis in French

Why are all the hot guys so young.

In case you somehow missed it I kind of have a crush on Novak Djokovic. However this age this is getting to me. I could live with a year or two. This is how I've justified other athlete crushes such as Sidney Crosby or Rafael Nadal. But anything more than that is kind of pushing it. I would like to point out though that he doesn't look like he's 20, so maybe I can justify it that way. As much as I like to bug H-dot about her thing for creepy old men I have to admit that I'm not really one to talk as far as having a thing for older guys. By older I mean somewhere between late 30s and early 40s not like Octogenarian, 'cause there's a line and that's definatly over it.

So I guess what I'm really trying to say here is that I really need to be looking for more age appropriate men, and preferably ones that I don't work with because this office crush stuff is killing me.

Okay that's it I quit

quite frankly I just can't keep up to the world of sports so I'm done with the sports blog. That means you guys are just going to have to deal with even more sports crap on my non-sports blog. But you should be used to that by now.

Seriously my life really boils down to bitching about my job, crushing over guys at work and sports. So if you love me you're just going to have to deal with it.

Happy Birthday to me!

Yes it's Monday but it's also my Birthday. All last week when I thought about my birthday I thought about how old I am (and how old I feel). But today I'm all better. Also in honor of my birthday there is a major tennis tournament. Okay so that happens to be a big coincidence but I'll take it.

And here's my present to me, a little Novak Djokovic.

Panic

Okay so today I had an absolutely terrible day at work and have now Fast-tracked my going back to school by a whole year. I realized today that there is not a single thing at my work place that I actually enjoy doing. Well the getting paid part is pretty nice but that's not really something that I do as it is a reward for the things I do-do. I also enjoy ogling the men but that is also an aside to the actual work that I do.

Someday I just feel absolutely wiped after a day at work, this has been happening more an more lately. I think it goes back to that weekend where all I did was sleep. Seriously when you sleep more than 20 hours in a 30 hour period there is defiantly something wrong with you.

Well that helps.

You wanna know something that could brighten a truly terrible day? Try this:
Does it really matter who it is? He's hot. But really his name is Jarrod Saltalmacchia. Try saying that 5 times fast. He's newly of the Texas Rangers, just got traded from the Braves.

I know this isn't the sports blog but it still made my day.

Moving right along

I know it's been a long time since I've posted anything, but quite frankly I've been busy at work. So busy in fact that I'm already on to my second crush. One would think that I would stop having these crushes given my advanced age. Yeah okay I'm not that old but I've not 15 anymore either.

Anyway one crush has pretty much been and gone. It was raging for a while but now I don't see him nearly as often. As for the other one, well he works on my floor so I see him all the time. It's kind of embarrassing actually. Every time I see him I get a little giddy. I've obviously been spending too much time with Laura and Alexa because it's okay for them to act like this but not me.

It's all a result of this dream I had the other night where we were on a company camping trip. First of all this makes NO sense given that it's a huge company and we don't work in the same department. Secondly we were competing for the same promotion, which again makes no sense.

Who wants to get smashed and tell card futures again? It's gotta work out better than last time.

If I only had a Scanner

I am now one video away from completing last year's rez yearbook. The problem is that I have a couple of pictures that are NOT in digital format that are so good they MUST go in the yearbook.

And so I wait for my brother to hook up his new printer/scanner/copier so that I can complete publication of they yearbook and begin printing. I just hope is worth the wait. Actually, no. If you don't like what I've put together then screw you. I put alot of hard work into it, and yeah maybe there are a few pictures of Steph and Liz with red eye but you know what? At least one of them deserves it.

Maybe Starbucks isn't so evil after all

Yesterday I went to Starbucks during my coffee break (as opposed to most days when I go at lunch) with Erin, and they were out of my favorite drink (black tea latte). So they substituted with an equally priced but less favorable Red Tea Latte. They also have me a coupon for a free drink, any thing, any size. This was awfully nice of them given that I really picked the Black Tea Latte randomly on that particular day as I've been switching it up as of late, just for fun.

Important Days in the Future

Here is a quick list of important dates in my upcoming schedule:

July 22, 2007 OB1's Birthday
July 20, 2007 Dad's Birthday
August 4, 2007 Kevin and Heidi's Wedding
August 6, 2007 Tennis Masters Canada starts
August 9, 2007 Indy vs Dallas (pre-season game)
August 19, 2007 The first time Janalee gets to see Eli Manning suck since January
August 27, 2007 My Birthday/ U.S. Open Starts
September 6, 2007 NFL regular season starts

Huston Street is Beautiful...

That is all.


Oh and this probably could have been a cross blog with the sports blog but I felt it was more appropriate here.

Yearbook update

As most of you know I'm still working on the SJC yearbook for last year. I finally appreciate all of the hard work that goes into making a yearbook. For the record I have 2 videos left to make and then I need to make my prototype CD to ensure that everything links the way it should, before I go large scale. So I should be into printing by mid-July.

My big issue now is will it all fit on one disc. God I hope so, but if not then Rez council will be paying for double sided cases which are signfigantly more expensive.