hoops

It really is a form of madness. For the third weekend in a row, I sat and watched parts of multiple ballgames on the tube. In my precious discretionary time, I chose to be a passive recipient of the medium cool, mass marketed entertainment product that makes mega millions for some big fat guys in suits every year at this time.

It's March in mainstream America, and I can't help myself. I have to watch. It's like a train wreck, you see it coming and you know it will be an ugly, painful, gut-wrenching, awful mess, but you can't not watch. As team after team falls to a higher seed, or worse yet is knocked off by an upstart lurking somewhere in the brackets, every day half of them pack up and go home. The horror!

The horror of Podunk State in their garish green and orange uniforms losing 111-46 in the first round to North Carolina in jerseys the color of the sky. The horror of six Southeastern Conference teams making it into the Sweet Sixteen and pounding on the two Big Ten teams still alive. The horror of listening to Billy Packer pontificate day after day about the bad calls, bad substitutions, and bad decision making by 18-year-olds. Note to the network announcers: Please shut up! I'm trying to watch the game.