gent 1: And what of this new High Commissioner of sport? --Gent 2: I just hope he outlaws ice dancing.

As my own NCAA tourney bracket now lies dead, only good to remind me why I don't gamble, I am excited to find that I have found a new part for me to play in this madness that consumes us in march, that of a cheerleader. Specifically a cheerleader for UCLA. I do not do this out of a slavish devotion to the doctrines of Mr. Wooden or for Lew Alcindor's halcyon hardwood days or even, as strange as it seems in retrospect, because of a strange fondess for Bill Walton and all that he represents. I do it rather for a friend. George, I wish you the best of luck in your quest for the post of High Commissioner, I'm sure the money will aid in that pursuit. For those who don't know, which is probably about everyone, George Sullivan, my roommate from school is currently tied for second in the ESPN Tournament Challenge. If he wins, he gets $10K. Not a bad deal. Though George, while I salute your prescience in seeing Bradley's 2 victories, I am nonplussed by your filling out five brackets. (this is admittedly hearsay, though from a trusted source) I would call you out on this point of honor except that your barbossa bracket (not to mention the name of your 2nd ranked entry) is also kicking the shit out of my own humbled entry and not even the snoggle of pitt will change that now. I just hope that I don't prove the cooler to your dual-woman-on-arm-throwing-7s-at-the-bellagio run of luck. Go University of California at Los Angeles; go for George.

Internet Explorer sunk under me twice

So I had just about finished a post and then the damn browser closed on me. Sadly I don't have the energy to rewrite the whole thing so I'll just have to hit a few high points.

Congrats to Jayadev. Had the first hangover in a while this morning after being part of the roving celebration. Piece almost felt very much like a neighborhood bar with various people dropping in independently of one other, or at least coming separately and at different times if they were part of the same group. I thought it lent the evening a very spontaneous feel that seemed to keep things fresh.

The nerdiest conversation of the night by far was regarding why all the planets in the solar system, save pluto, are in the same plane. I was quite interested as I had wondered about that recently, and was quite satisfied with Colin's angular momentum answer. This came up because we were trying to figure out which McDonalds on earth GoogleMars would supply directions to as the closest for someone on Mars. My guess is that on average the the winner would be a location in Quito, Ecuador.

Dash it all

it happened again. God Damn Internet Explorer, I'm not writing the last paragraph again, fortunately I had saved everything above. The gist of it was I feel like my writing has suffered because of a lack of honesty or at least bravado. This has been caused by diminished self-esteem arising from my current lack of employment. I've realized that good writing, at least for me, takes courage because you're submitting yourself to the judgement, censure, disapprobation of others. that's about it. I'll try to post a little more frequently.

Oh and my bracket has already gone to shit. (currently bottom 20%) I was hoping for a little more trash-talking on the pheonix insurretion bulletin board but so far no one has responded to my post. Oh well, maybe they're too embarrassed for me to lampoon my pre-madness boasts.

The past few days

Perhaps my least ambitious post title to date, oh well.

Wednesday went to a job interview in vernon hills at a food manufacturer. I left a fair amount of time for getting lost and that's exactly what I did. Google maps steered me wrong replacing a left with a right and after 20 minutes and consulting a map that might be as old as me I was able to find the correct road again and proceed on. I then had another unfortunate detour when I mistook corporate woodlands parkway for corporate woods parkway. (they are separated by only about 200 yds) Seriously, who puts two streets with those names in even the remote vicinity of each other. It boggled my mind. Fortunately I was able to figure it out and arrived for the interview exactly 2 minutes early. Long story short, was offered the job, would be working in the Q + A lab to test samples coming off the line and also would work in and learn the operations side of the enterprise. Didn't sound like a bad gig, pay is ok, I may even take it.

Thursday Rachael had off from work and we decided to try for the Adobo Grill for lunch followed by a matinee of Tristram Shandy. Unfortunately the Grill isn't open for lunch and piper's alley wasn't showing that particular cock and bull story until 5. So we meandered around old town and had lunch at O'Briens, our decision being handedly made for us by virtue of that restaurant actually being open. We enjoyed some non-traditional irish food, (toasted pita chips covered with various cheeses, tomato, artichokes, and tomato in addition to sandwiches) and then headed over to cold stone for dessert. We were their 2nd customers in the 1.5 hrs they'd been open, though in summer you can't get into the place so I guess they're doing ok. We enjoyed some white choclate ice cream with heath and peanut butter cups: pretty good stuff. After conversing for an hour about the differences between American and European restaurant culture, we realized we were really close to a free zoo. So we walked over, passing near the spot where the last surviving member of the boston tea party is buried, I can picture him at the age of 115 knocking over cups of tea screaming "down with english taxation" and then promptly falling asleep mummering to himself.

The zoo was actually pretty fun. We checked out the ape house and watched several young gorillas at play for a while. At the monkey house I was enthralled watching an adolescent member of the Cercopithecus neglectus species (De Brazza's monkey) repeatedly run and jump onto to an elder's back before jumping again for a swinging rope, much to the perturbation of his trampoline. We also checked out the reptile house and the large predatory cats. The lions were especially active and rachael was a bit worried that they were eyeing her in particular as their future comestible of choice. All in all, how can you go wrong with a free zoo with no crowds when you happen to be in the neighborhood. After all of this we went and saw Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story.

I had read several good reviews and was excited to see it. I was not disappointed, though about a 1/3 of the way through they almost entirely abandon showing the movie based the book and it turns into a movie about the making of the movie. I am sure that somewhere various postmodern enthusiasts are glad and aghast at this step depending on their level of pretension. Rachael liked it as well despite never reading the book and I think that anyone should be able to do the same, its just a very fun and funny movie. The dialogue between the 2 co-stars shown during the ending credits I found especially funny.

This afternoon I had another job interview, this time with a trading company in the loop. It went ok, I think I did fairly well, but my sense is that I didn't impress them enough to get the job. Oh well, I'll find out next week sometime. The high point for me was getting to take the Wonderlic Test, which is somewhat well-known from its use in the NFL combine. Last week I even spent a for minutes taking a gander at a sample test that ESPN page 2 had on its website. Well I was very amused when one of the questions from the sample test wound up on the real test. I got it right. I think I scored somewhere in the mid-30s, my guess being 33-34, out of 50 which puts me somewhat closer to harvard educated punters (50) than BCS Championship MVPs from UT. (6, supposedly) Tonight its off to test wine for a wedding and play some settlers.