Last minute change. I had a serious post all lined up for today. But then I got on facebook this morning, and a high school classmate of mine posted a video that everyone needs to see. Thank you, Amita. You are added to my list of heroes.

Back in 1992, the Blazers were the bomb. One of the best teams in the NBA bomb. Portland was gaga over their favorite team, and it seemed like every radio station was issuing their own Blazers-themed songs. I remember 1190 KEX had a different song for each round of the playoffs. It was musical mayhem.

But the thing about 1190 KEX is that they weren't all that hip to the jive. It was more of a station for middle aged adults, and thus I mostly listened to it because it's what my parents had on in the car. It was fine. I liked the songs. The hosts were funny. Paul Harvey was interesting. And they did broadcast all Blazers games, so they always had the hype machine going. Plus, sports radio hadn't really hit the big time yet, so there weren't a ton of other appealing options on the AM dial.

But on the FM? Back in 1992, everyone at Jackson Middle School knew that all the cool kids listened to Z100. 100.3 on the FM. Pop candy to the max. And being both the barometer and dictator of pop culture, they took the art of the Blazers song to a whole new level.

Mix the early 90's, pop music and athletes and what do you get? Magic. That's what you get.

Z100 concocted a song that is forever burned into my memory. Bust a Bucket celebrated everything great about the Blazers. It was catchy. It was so profound that I taped it off the radio one night, and then used my cassette tape dubber to make a 90-minute mixtape consisting entirely of a single song. Not much of a mixtape, actually. But fantastic, nonetheless.

Thankfully for all of us, Z100 also issued a music video for this song. I'd love to quote my favorite moments and point you toward particularly memorable timestamps in the video, but it's impossible. It's all great. So great that I cannot think of any description that would constitute hyperbole. I watched it three times in a row, and was literally pumping my fists and laughing in fits of joy and nostalgia.

Without further delay, I now present for your viewing and listening enjoyment...

Bust A Bucket. You're welcome.



Renew and Restore

When I was in grade school, I shocked my parents one day with my stunning commentary on a Blazers game. After hearing the score, I remarked that they had been favored to win by more points. My parents were immediately worried that their young son was a gambling degenerate, and they started in with a bevy of follow-up questions. Not to worry. I hadn't lost all the money in my piggy bank to a bookie, nor was I running bets on the playground.

What I was doing, however, was reading the sports section every day. I loved basketball, so I read all of the stories, stats, schedules and standings. I even read the betting lines. To my credit, I assumed they were just in there as a public service. I didn't know they were business.

The good news is that I still don't gamble. Why?

In four simple words...I suck at it.

Good thing I was able to find out without spending any money. ESPN has this free game going right now. It's called Streak for the Cash. Pretty simple stuff. Every day, the game moderator throws a handful of games or prop-bets on the board. Then, you pick one. Or you don't. But it's harder to win if you don't.

The goal of the game is to build up a streak where you make 25 consecutive pics correctly. Do that and you get a million bucks. It sounds easy, but it is actually impossible. Now, all of the bets are (in theory) 50-50 shots. The moderator picks bets that have low point spreads, meaning Vegas things they are close. In all the time I've been playing, I've seen three people get over 20 in a row. A lot of people get to 15 or so before they crap out.

Me? A lousy streak of 5. That's it. And not for lack of effort. My overall record is a paltry one game over .500. 47 correct, 46 incorrect. Stinky. If you wish, you can follow my inability to streak well here.

That's why I don't gamble. Because it's hard, I'm not good, and Vegas doesn't build billion dollar hotels by giving out more money than they take in.

But I do play free games on ESPN.

Renew and Restore.

If anyone is interested, Dave at Blazers Edge was kind enough to post my recap of last night's game. Thanks, Dave. I really appreciate it, and it was fun to help out the rest of Blazer Nation since the game didn't have TV coverage. Mostly basketball stuff, but a couple of funny stories at the end.

One thing I didn't mention in that post was how impressive Bill Self was. He sat a couple of rows in front of me with his kid and two other boys. What a stand-up guy. Every time someone wanted a picture or an autograph, he obliged even though he was clearly just out for a relaxing evening. He even took a picture with the sloppy drunk guy who was way too loud the entire game. Security offered to escort the guy away, but Self allowed for the photo op.

The most impressive instance though was a picture he took with this teenager. The kid walked up to Self as the coach was walking up the stairs while talking on his cell phone. Self tells the person on the phone to hold on for a second. He puts his arm around the kid, smiles and then shakes the kids hand. Then he goes back to his cell conversation and heads upstairs.

It was just classy. And as often as famous people get thrown under the bus for being jerks, it was nice to see a very popular public person treating everyone else like they were someone important.

Renew and Restore.

The stars have aligned in my favor. This evening, against all imaginable odds, the Portland Trailblazers will play a game in Kansas City. Dream come true for a lifelong fan. Shoot. There is no way I'm not the biggest Blazers fan in KC. I grew up in Memorial Colosseum. The walls of my bedroom were always covered in pics of my favorites. Darnell Valentine. Kenny Carr. Clyde. Terry. Duck. Buck. Kiki. Jerome Kersey. Team photos. Media guides filling the shelves. I had a full-sized Blazers flag hanging from my wall, for crying out loud.

We went through some rough years recently. I can handle teams that aren't good. I sport Royals gear all the time. I bought a KU Football jersey in 2003 and wore it proudly, even as K-Staters mocked me mercilessly. (Where you at now, purple? Where you at now?) But it's tough to handle your allegiance when your first love is filled with shady characters. The Jail Blazers era was embarrassing. I kept the gear in the closet until they traded 'Sheed. But then I went back to reppin' long distance from the Midwest, even through all of the lottery seasons.

Now, it's on. Ok, in all honesty we are still a year away. I have to keep reminding myself of that. But it's hard for all of us who have all of this pent-up excitement. When you see Rudy Fernandez going And1 Mixtape on cats in his first preseason game and then does it again, you get giddy. When Greg Oden is beasting fools after having not played for 14 months, you pee your pants a little bit. Will someone please tell that cat you should not average 13.5 ponits and 7 boards per game when your rehab limits you to just 20 minutes in each of your first two outings? Mercy.

See how hard it is to not get carried away? ESPN is predicting eventual greatness. My favorite fan site proclaims that "our second unit is probably going to be a little better than your second unit…and by “probably going to be a little better than” I mean “is going to crush like a dump truck running over an empty beer can”. Seriously, potentially bringing Travis Outlaw, Rudy Fernandez, and Jerryd Bayless off of the bench to score on people makes my stomach twist up in that “so much excitement I’m gonna throw up” way."

Yeah. So it's hard to keep a healthy perspective. And that's why I giddily gave my wife a recap of a Blazers preseason game the other night. To her credit, she was a very good listener even though I'm sure she had no idea what I was talking about. And to her credit she allowed Elli and I to have matching outfits today. Elli in her Blazers sweatsuit. Me in my MacGregor Sandknit (about as comfortable as it sounds) Kiki Vandeweghe jersey that I have owned since my cousin Sergio gave it to me in 1987. Classic.

So I'll be at the game tonight. And I'll try to keep everything I see in perspective. But it will be hard.

Renew and Restore.

HDTV. It solves all of your problems. According to all of the commercials I've seen, at least. They help couples get along better. They provide opportunities for families to spend quality time together. And as we all know, nothing says "quality time" like passively staring at a television.

The KC Royals have bought into the theory that HDTV makes life better. Bought into it so much that in the off season they installed the biggest HD screen in the country. It's flippin' huge. And bright. Almost retina burning. I'm pretty sure it's the number one killer of flying insects.

It's pretty cool. Though I can't help but think the good old Royals are compensating a bit. We're not that good, but at least our TV is bigger than yours.

I, for one, don't have a HDTV. I do have a decent 25-inch standard tube TV, though. It's good. While I'd love to have and HDTV, it's just not in the old budget. So I had to settle for the second best option.

Get my smiling grill on the biggest HDTV in the country before the Dallas Cowboys put a bigger one in their new stadium. Everything is dumber bigger in Texas.

Lucky me, my moment in glory came this past weekend. Stacy, Elli and I were enjoying a night out at The Royals, when we made it on Kiss Cam!!! It's one of the greatest features of the giant video board technology. The cameras pan the audience looking for random couples, and then plaster them up on the screen until they smooch. They always end it with a cute old couple, except on the occasion that they frame two players on the opposing team for the grand finale.

Mark it down. On Aug 23, 2008 Stacy and I professed our love for each other for all to see.

Because nothing says "I Love My Wife" like sucking face with her in high def with an audience of 20,000 people cheering you on.

Fair Dinkum

Mmmmmm. Insensitivity is putting it too lightly. Much was made last week when Spain's national basketball team appeared in a racist print ad last week where they all made slanted eyes. Not good. Shock was expressed that the Spanish could do something so dumb and racist. While I found the behavior to be disgusting and inexcusable, I wasn't all that shocked.

Over the past couple of years, I have watched a lot of Spanish soccer. If there is one thing I have learned, it's that the Spanish have little sense when it comes to showing respect to people of other races. This is especially trues when it pertains to sports.

Over a two year period, Barcelona striker Samuel Eto has had to endure numerous racial attacks from Spanish fans. Shoot, a couple of years ago Spain's coach was caught on tape making disparaging racial comments about French (and eventual Barcelona) stiker Thierry Henry.

So the Spanish ad is despicable. It's inexcusable. It's completely out of line and offensive. Unfortunately, it also isn't all that surprising.

Fair Dinkum

The Royal Treatment serves to chronicle my experience as a 2008 Royals Season Ticket Holder.

Every fan needs an enemy. That team that makes your blood boil. The foe that you want to beat more than any other foe. At the beginning of the season I did not have such a team. But now I do.

One of the tough things about being a Royals fan is that you get beat up by everyone. So it's not as though there is just one team you really want to beat, but can't seem to overcome. No. With the Royals, that list includes most teams.

Some people consider the Cardinals to be our most heated rival. Perhaps. But since they are in the NL, I don't think they should get that status. The Yankees or BoSox? A lot of people do hate them. And their stupid fake fans. Those posers who have never been to Fenway or lived anywhere East of the Mississippi, but still show up at games when Boston is in town and flood The K with their white-on-white wannabe fan/gangter hats. Makes me want to heave. But those teams are in the AL East. Not our division.

That leaves us Cleveland, The Twins and The White Sox. I choose...White Sox. And not flippantly. No. Because they make me sethe. I didn't fully realize it until they visited town last week and I sat in the stands wanting the Royals to win so badly that I almost got a stomach ache. And when they came back at the end of the game to pull it out, it was suuuuuuuuch a great feeling.

Not that I haven't had my moments in life as a White Sox supporter. Back in middle school I adopted them as my favorite team. I had a total fan crush on Frank Thomas, because he could absolutely mash. The Sox were good at that point, and they also had street cred. See, I went so far as to buy a White Sox hat in the 8th grade because I saw Dr. Dre wearing them all the time. Hardcore, fool. I thought I was one bad mofo with that hat on. Unfortunately, I was just an ignorant kid.

I'm so ashamed that I chose to associate myself with such ilk. Especially considering how White Sox fans behave. Back in 2002 they rolled out that good old South Side hospitality by jumping a Royals base coach in the middle of a game. A father and a son, no less. It's nice to see such activities are viewed as family bonding in Chitown. And before you start hollering about an isolated incident, let's not forget that the next year (with the Royals in town again), a fan emerged from the stands to attack an ump. Classy.

Not all Sox Fans are that irrational. But they are all somewhat irrational.

Earlier this year I was accompanied to a Royals game by a Twins fan and a White Sox fan. The Royals were playing Detroit, who was favored to win the division. And yet, this particular fan had the audacity to use my ticket, sit in my seat and cheer on the Tigers. I tried to explain to her that it was in her team's best interest that the Royals absolutely pound the Tigers so that it would be easier for her team to win the division. She would have none of it. Apparently, truth and reason don't resonate with the White Sox fan.

Today the Royals begin a series with the Sox in Chicago. The same Sox who have hit numerous Royals batters this season. The same Sox who have a loudmouth catcher that talks trash the whole game. The same Sox who are my least favorite team in all of MLB.

And if the Royals don't both beat and bean those Sox, I'm going to be really bummed.

Fair Dinkum

As my kids grow up, there are three teams I want them to root for. Go Blazers. Go Chiefs. Go Royals. It should be pretty easy, assuming we don't move to a city that has a competing team in any of the sports. I guess a KC NBA franchise would throw a wrench into that plan as well, but I'm not optimistic that will happen.

A big part of the rooting experience is taking in the live game. I fell in love with the Blazers live and in person from my dad's seats in Memorial Coliseum. They were grand nights.

One thing Stacy and I have looked forward to as parents is taking Elli to her first Royals game. But we weren't going to rush anything. You have to be smart about this type of thing. Elli needed to be old enough to enjoy herself. She needed to be brave enough to not be scared. We needed seats in the shade so that she wouldn't be miserable. We needed a 6:10 start, because the 1:10 and the 7:10 get in the way of our sleeping schedule.

Everything worked out this past Saturday, and we got to go watch the Royals and Cards with some close friends. We had hyped it up for about a week, so by the time we got to Saturday afternoon Elli was pumped to go to the baseball game with Jeff and Kristi. Granted, she has taken on the dialect of our Hispanic neighborhood and calls it "basebol", but that's cool. We also have a little work to do with "Go Royals" since she struggles with the "r" sound right now and it sounds a little more like "Go Orioles". But we know what she means.

When we got to the pregame tailgate, Elli became somewhat of a celebrity. She looked very cute in her Royals outfit. She also happened to be the only child at the proceedings. Since this particular family hasn't had a lot of grand kids yet, every one's repressed spoiling instincts came out and Elli was showered with gifts. I believe over the course of our meal she was handed two cookies and a can of Root Beer. We're not a big sweets family, but you hate to be an ungrateful guest. We were able to sneak the can of root beer away, but I think she still pounded a cookie and a half.

The game itself was fun. The Royals lost, but Elli clapped, colored and cheered. She made it through the whole game, though it could have been a result of the sugar high she was on. As a chaser to her pregame snacks, one of our hosts purchased her a bag of cotton candy. It was as big as her torso. Fortunately, we were able to help her pound it so that she didn't OD on sugar.

The only drawback of the experience was that my arm was tired following the evening. I guess the Royals don't expect too many 22 pound fans to warrant their own seat, because she didn't weigh enough to keep it down. In an effort to keep the seat from eating her whole, I ended up holding it down most of the game. But I'm sure if she keeps pounding sweets we wont have that issue next time we make it out to the park.

Fair Dinkum

Throughout my life I have loved basketball. I watched a lot of it with my dad, both in person and on TV. He took me to high school games as well as Portland Trailblazers games, and I became a passionate fan at a young age. I would pour over my Blazers media guide, catch all of the games on the radio, and even call into the local sports talk shows with my questions about the team.

One thing that has surprised me about working with my boys is how little they know about sports. They don't know many of the rules of basketball. Even though they love to play, they don't follow it that much. The same goes for football and baseball. Stacy surmised that it is because so few of them have dads around. It's a good point. There are a lot of dads in America who spend time with their kids over sports.

Even Elli will sit down with me and watch parts of soccer games. She'll sit down and watch for about 5 minutes, and then jump off my lap and play with me while the game is on. If the crowd goes wild, she'll usually stop what she's doing and clap herself.

Look, there are many other more serious byproducts of the fathering epidemic in the urban core. I fight against them and pray about them every day. So when I have conversations like the one I had with three of my boys yesterday, I find it both funny and sad.

Kid 1: Mr Christian, did you watch the Celtics-Lakers game last night?
Me: Yeah. Parts of it, but I didn't sit down and watch the whole thing.
Kid 1: Did you know Kevin Garnett plays for the Celtics now?
Me: Yeah, dogg. That was big news last summer.
Kid 1: Dang. The Celtics are going to be good now.

At this point I'm cracking up inside. For one, the kid is about 325 days late on the KG memo. But I'll give him credit for at least knowing that KG would make the Celtics good. Nice call, considering they had the best record in the league, and are now in the NBA Finals.

The boys went on to explain to me how Kobe is a ball hog, selfish and cries too much to the refs. For a guy who has been trying to build his street cred over the past few years, he clearly isn't doing a good job seeing as those kids view him as a selfish punk.

As the conversation went on I explained to them how the best-of-seven NBA finals work. They had no idea. I was glad I could help them out and see them, to a limited extent, get fired up about something I was fired up about at their age.

I just wish their dads were there to get them fired up as well.

Fair Dinkum

Believe it or not, a jaunt to a pub in Cambridge to catch a soccer match was not the sporting focal point of my trip to New England. No, the trip was really an opportunity to catch a couple of Royals road games at Fenway. If you are wanting deep baseball analysis of the two games I saw, you aren't going to get it here. The Royals stunk it up. They started the 4 game series by getting no-hit (a feat I watched on television), and ended the series by giving up two grand slams over the Green Monster in a single game (a feat I partook of in person). Fortunately, a trip to Fenway can still be good even when your team is getting absolutely shellacked.

I'm not afraid to admit that I was a little hesitant to sport my colors in Fenway. I had this picture in my mind that fans at Fenway would be passionate, f-bomb-dropping crazies who dropped their "r's" and would probably try to shoot me. That, my friends, is why you should not watch The Departed right before a trip to Boston.

But I gained new found bravery to wear my powder blue "2008 Royals Season Ticket Holder" hat when I was on the airplane out. There was a guy sitting in the row in front of me who was sporting a Haliburton hat, and I figured that if he could wear that in public, certainly I could rep the Royals. (On a side note, when I saw the man's hat it helped me understand why he was tipping the stewardess in $100's and repeating the phrase "Uncle Sam thanks you". I was pretty confused up to that point.)

To my credit, some of my preconceived notions proved true. Lots of "r" dropping. Lots of F-Bombs. Though to their credit, the F word isn't directed at people most of the time. It's more of a place holder when you need time to think of what to say next. In KC we say "um". In Boston they say the F word. The fans were indeed passionate. But nobody tried to shoot me.

To the contrary, everyone was really nice. Probably because the Royals are pretty non-threatening, but whatev. True sox fans know a lot about baseball, to the point where one guy was accurately breaking down Mark Tehan's career. I thought that to be impressive.

Other highlights included: the clam chowder (chowdah), Fenway Franks, felling like you really were somewhere historic, great seats, and a blossoming passion to visit other parks with my friend Coleman.

My one critique is that for a group of people who understand baseball, Boston fans have a remarkable insensitivity for when it is appropriate to leave your seat. Honestly, people. Baseball is a game with tons of built in breaks. You leave your seat between innings. You leave your seat during pitching changes. You do not make people get up so that you can walk in front of them in the middle of the game.

Fair Dinkum

On Wednesday I flew into Boston to spend a couple of days with my friend Coleman. The first order of business was to stash my luggage somewhere so that we could spend the afternoon watching a huge European soccer match that would serve as the official end to the club season. As it turned out the two teams that made it to the end of this particular tournament were two of the biggest clubs in the England.
With the luggage sufficiently stashed, we headed out to a pub in Cambridge called "The Phoenix Landing". From what I was able to tell after researching Boston soccer pubs on the internets, this was the place to be for a big match. Apparently, everyone else had come to the same conclusion. We showed up 20 minutes before the opening kick, and the place was packed. Our guess is that there were about 300 people packed into a bar that could fit about 100-125. And I'm pretty sure only about 10% of us were Americans.
We considered leaving, but wanted to try to gut it out. We pushed our way to a reasonable spot in the bar where we could see a couple of tv's. We stood for the next 3 hours in what might very well be a personal high for me in terms of watching a sporting event on tv. It was an absolutely amazing experience. So much energy. So many people. So many people, in fact, that they pub had to lock the doors as to keep any more people from entering in. So many people that 30 minutes into the match the pub began serving beer in plastic cups, because they had run out of proper glasses. So many people, that I think I had the sweat of 150 people on me by the end of the afternoon.
As it turned out, the game was close and went to penalties. And this is what happened when the victor was finally decided.

Our country's national anthem is not easy to sing. It has a wide range, and if you start out just a couple of notes off, you are totally screwed. I always feel bad for people who end up butchering it, because it's so easy to do. You are standing up in front of a huge group of hyped up people who know exactly how the song is supposed to sound. And if you mess it up, everyone is going to know.

The lady who sang the national anthem at the last Royals game I went to struggled. She was just nervous. In a nice show of compassionate patriotism, people joined in to help her make it to the finish line. Warm fuzzies all around.

Now, I have been told that I have a nice singing voice. However, I will not be trying out to sing the national anthem at any sporting events in the future. No. Too high of a risk. What I have decided to do, however, is try out to sing O Canada next year when the Royals play Toronto. The song is much, much easier. It is very pretty, and I already know most of the words. Plus, my mother was born in Canada, so it will be a nice little shout-out to her motherland.

I also figure it would be a great opportunity for me to implicitly support two things that I admire about Canada. Socialized medicine and the fact that Toronto is a magnificent soccer city. And, perhaps it will give me an opportunity to atone for all of the unneccesary cheap shots that I have taken at Canada over the years.

Reconciliation. That's the name of the game.

Fair Dinkum

I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. Of the 28 years I have walked this earth, the first 18 1/2 were spent in the Rose City. Then came a year in Wisconsin, four in rural Kansas, and the final 5.5 in Kansas City, Kansas.

Last week was the first time in my life where I felt dissonance when I was asked where I called "home". We were introducing ourselves to a guest lecturer in class, and as my turn approached to make my first impressions I could not decide exactly what to say.

On the one hand, I love the PDX. Always have. The culture is woven into my DNA, and I will never loose my West Coast swagger. I sport my Blazer's apparel, I check The Oregonian's website twice each day, and I have a solid majority of my coffee imported from roastaries from the homeland.

And yet, recent events make me wonder if I have slowly been infiltrated into the ranks of the Midwesterner.

Exhibit A: Culinary Tastes
We all know that I love barbecue. In fact, I have a five year plan that pertains solely to meat. This past weekend I had the opportunity to tick off a very important task on said plan. Along with the two core members of my start-up barbecue team, I became a certified barbecue judge in the eyes of the Kansas City Barbecue Society. Such certification does not come without great personal sacrifice. I had to endure a 4.5 hour class, which included two hours of tasting and judging meat. But as everyone would agree, you can never have too much preparation when it comes to judging meat. It's a sacrifice I am willing to make.

Exhibit B: Rooting Interests
I am now a Kansas City Royals season ticket holder. Crazy, I know. I'm just such a sucker for a good deal. So when the Royals offered up 2-for-1 season tickets I couldn't pass it up. According to my computations, I could sell most of the seats on craigslist for a slight markup, sell some to my friends for the price I paid, go to a handful of games and break even. Not a bad deal. Stacy and I finally made it out to a game on Saturday and picked up our powder blue season ticket holder hats. I shall wear it proudly, with my powder blue noggin held high.
Fortunately, I have a lot of experience rooting for young up-and-coming teams that are not held in high esteem by national sports audiences. Until this year, rooting for the Blazers hasn't exactly been an uplifting experience. I anticipate better days ahead for both squads, however. Ahhhhh. The eternal optimism of a true fan.

There isn't really a sure-fire standard for determining a hometown. The best thing I could think of is to figure out if people in the town you live would vote for you. If they see you as one of them, then you can consider your location a hometown. But if you are an outsider, then you have either been gone too long, or you are a johhny come lately.

And it is with that thought that I would like to simultaneously announce my candidacy for Kansas's seat in the US House or Representatives for the 3rd congressional district, as well as for the seat representing the 3rd district for the State of Oregon. Whichever state gives me the most votes will be considered my home state.

If I actually manage to win both races, then I will initiate a hostile takeover of Wyoming which will allow me to start a new state. Orsas. Unless I decide Kanegon sounds better.Bring it on, Dennis Moore and Earl Blumenauer.

Clearly, the main problem with taking three weeks off from blogging is that I get waaaaaaay too sassy.

Fair Dinkum

I didn't have "the procedure", thus I am not going to be able to hang out at home all day to watch basketball. But you know what? I don't deserve it. My head isn't in the game. It's on work, and that's my bad.

Every morning this week I woke up, and the first thought in my head was that this is tournament week. But somehow when I was getting dressed this morning, I totally let that fact of life slip my mind. As I was shopping this morning for the big pancake breakfast we are having tomorrow morning for our kids (it's all-day fun day...holla), I noticed that everyone was dressed in their blue and red. Proudly repping the University of Kansas colors.

I looked down at my own outfit and quickly felt shame and dread. What am I sporting today? Purple pique polo with the popped color. Most other days I have no problem with light pastels that society tells us should be only worn by women. I look really good in pinks and purples. Especially when it's argyle. Oh yeah. Work it, boy.

But today is different. I should have worn purple. Why? Kansas State colors.

What a tool.

It's not as though I hate KState. I just didn't pick them to win on my bracket. Since I picked USC to get to the Sweet 16, I really need KState to loose. They don't even need to get blown out. Even a close loss would do. And what am I doing? Sending them out positive vibes. Until I get home and change into red, that is.

You can see my bracket here. This is the document by which you must either worship or mock my basketball acumen for the next 364 days. Of interesting note...

**I'm a total traitor. I picked Portland State and Oregon to bow out in the first round. I picked Kansas to fall in the Final Four to North Carolina. And I picked a California team to win the whole thing. Thus, I will be actively rooting against my own good judgment this year.

**I didn't go very risky this year. Hmmmmm. We'll see how that works out for me.

**I'll probably regret having no faith in Wisconsin.

**The one pick I made that was purely out of spite was West Virginia loosing in the first round. Bob Huggins is schmucky. That must be my purple shirt taking over.


Fair Dinkum

The NCAA Tournament, that is. No in-depth breakdown for you on this blog, however. Not because I don't have deep basketball insights. Just because nobody would really care. What I do have however, are other insights.

The most unique March Madness related webpage of the day can be found over at Bills Sports Maps. I got turned onto the site through some soccer related blogs, because this guy puts up tons of maps that detail where different clubs play and he also gives in-depth histories of some of the lesser-known clubs. But as a red-blooded American, he also hooks us up with a college basketball map every now and again. Essentially, it's a dream website for guys like myself. All it needs is some barbeque sauce.

A couple of things I found interesting about his map today...

*The state of Florida only has one team in the tourney. Oregon has 2. Oklahoma has 2. Shoot. Kansas has two. Really, the South East corner of the country didn't represent at all.

*Only one team made it from Iowa, and they don't even have the word "Iowa" in their name.

*I think it's fitting that both teams from Oregon have green as their dominant color. It makes for an aptly colored region.

*That Indiana-Kentucky-Tennessee corridor is no joke. Seriously good ball is played in that area.

Fair Dinkum

At 7:45pm on Saturday night I sat down and popped in the Oscar Nominated Michael Clayton. The film was not an Oscar Nominated Short, but was rather a feature length film. Clearly, I was not going to be finished by the 8:00pm tip-off for the big Kansas/KState basketball game.

It didn't matter. It wasn't going to be close. I scheduled the Tivo to record it, but I anticipated fast forwarding through most of the game.

There were a lot of reasons for me to doubt that the much-hyped game would be any good. Sure, KState beat KU earlier in the year. But they had a couple of players who had career games that night, they were at home in front of a boisterous (if not offensive) crowd, officiating limited KU's bigs for most of the night, KU didn't shoot well down the stretch. But now we know that KState doesn't play well on the road, and they had lost a number of their previous games. They don't have the coaching or experience to win a road game like this. When they beat KU in 'hattan they pretty much peaked. The fans rushed the court, Beas jumped up on the scorers table like he was MJ winning an NBA Championship, and the team had reached the pinnacle. Too bad it wasn't March yet.

But before I swung by my local McDonald's to rent MC from the omnipresent Redbox, I had to check something. I jumped online and googled the point spread for the game. My guess was that Vegas would favor KU by between 6-8 points. You know what I found?

KU was a 13 point favorite.

Game over. ESPN had done their best to convince everyone that KState was going to march into Allen Fieldhouse and make a game of it. But Vegas knew better. Did they know that the refs would be whistle happy and make a bad call that would put KState's two best players on the bench right away? That particular level of clairvoyance seems to border on voodoo. But nonetheless, they smelled a blowout. And they were daring everyone who saw the ESPN hype machine that morning to bet on KState.

And that, my friends, is why Vegas builds billion dollar casinos. Because 7 minutes into the game, KU was up by 14. They got up by 20 and that's when I started laying on the fast forward button. And while KState cut the lead to 10 points, they lost by 14. Which means Vegas robbed a bunch of people by floating that sucker bet line out there.

For the record, Michael Clayton was far better than that basketball game.

Fair Dinkum

I'm starting to love the NBA again.

It helps that the Blazers are doing better. And they are fielding a team of good citizens. The addition of some key basketball related blogs to my Google Reader helps as well.

One of the best basketball blogs I have run across is the Black Fives Blog. "This blog combines insights about pre-NBA African American basketball history with popular elements of black culture to produce meaningful motivation, inspiration, and enlightenment you can use today."

It really is a remarkable convergence of the athletic and the educational.

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For the first time in many years, I got to attend a Harlem Globetrotters basketball game last night. Some kind person was nice enough to donate 50 tickets to The Hope Center so that we could attend with a bunch of our kids and their parents, and we gladly accepted the gift.

To add to the silliness of the night, my female counterpart at the Hope Center and I decided to dress up like Superfans. She decked herself out in the most outstanding and hyperbolic display of red, white and blue I have ever seen. She was ready and willing to root her Globetrotters onto victory.

Not to be outdone, I went crazy in a green and gold motif. I felt as though, surely, this would be the night when the Globetrotters would fall. The streak had to die. It had to end. I sported the mullet wig, sweet shades, homemade jersey and metallic gold pants. I was totally hot.

But alas, the Washington Generals let their halftime lead slip away amid a flurry of dunks and chicanery, once again the losers in one of the longest running rivalries in sports history.

Apparently I was a little too boisterous in my support for the Gens, because the kids we were with really rubbed it in when my boys went down in defeat. One girl was particularly merciless.

Girl: Are you going to go home and cry?

Me: I'll try to be tough, but I might just have to cry myself to sleep on my gigantic pillow.

Girl: You're going to cry. You're going to cry and your little baby is going to look at you and say, "You're just like me. You're crying like a little baby. What a baby."

Ouch. I guess that's what I get for being the only person standing, yelling and screaming every time the Generals hit a three or took the lead.

Fair Dinkum

One year ago, an new station appeared on the KC radio scene. It was a fantastic day. For the first time in my Kansas City experience, there was a radio station dedicated solely to ESPN Radio. 24 hours every day of glorious national sports radio piped in from Bristol, Connecticut. I was thrilled, and listened to the radio station more than any other on the dial. 97.3 was my wonderland.

It was fun while it lasted.

Today I jumped in the car with Elli and flipped to 97.3, anticipating one of Colin Cowherd's rants on the BCS pairing. Lo and behold, no sports to be found on my FM dial. But wait. It gets worse.

What do you suppose they replaced my favorite station with? No, not country music. No, no. Not industrial metal, either. You guessed it. KLOVE Christian radio. GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

For the record, I am not against music the glorifies God. Quite to the contrary. It's simply that the stuff that is played on "Christian Radio" does not tickle my eardrums. Just don't care for it. Most of it sounds canned and cheesy to me, and I resent that we insist on creating a Christian Music ghetto where we put artists in a box and sanctify them by applying a stamp of squeaky clean approval on them.

The whole situation is surreal. Sports sold out to the Christian Marketplace for the first time ever, and I'm crushed. Someone please rescue me from Bizzaro World.


Fair Dinkum

926 days. That's it. That's all the longer we have to wait for the kick-off of World Cup 2010 in South Africa.

My relationships with previous World Cups have been less than chivalrous. Brief rendezvous that lasted for a month and then were relegated to the back burner. For that, I beg forgiveness.

But more than that, I admit that I have turned over a new leaf. I've been following the international futbol scene hardcore since WC 2006 ended, and I'm proud to announce that WC 2010 and I are doing well in our long term relationship.

While most of America was concerned with football of the American variety (present company included), there were a number of developments on the futbol front. A flurry of announcements came out of South Africa as FIFA held meetings and ceremonies in the country. Among the big events this weekend:

**Preliminary Qualifying Draw: I actually watched this event live on the internet before going to church on Sunday morning. As of Sunday, there were 170 countries that were eligible to qualify for WC2010. I mean, it's not like you just show up at the local rec center and sign your team up for the biggest sporting event in the world. You register with FIFA, and then you are required to play other teams on your continent to earn your way into the field of 32. Each continent has a different qualifying procedure, but all of the delegates gathered in South Africa to find out who they would have to play in order to progress through the qualification process. Things are looking good for The US, not so much for Canada. I really do hope the Canadian's make it, but they are really going to have to kick it into high gear if that is going to be the case.

**Schedule Release: While we don't know who will be in the tournament, we do know when matches will be held in each city. The way it is setting up, it might be a good idea to just camp out in Johannesberg and try to see as many matches there as possible. They have two host stadiums in the city, one of which holds 90,000 people. Plus, it's close to two other cities that are hosting matches.

**Ticket Info: The first phase of ticket sales begins in February of 2009. That's just a little over a year away. Wowza. One of the interesting aspects to ticketing this year is how they are addressing the issue of getting tickets into the hands of South Africans. FIFA is holding back 15% of the ticket inventory (about 450,000 tickets) for sales to South Africans, and they are slashing the lowest price from the $51 they went for in 2006 to $20. The kicker is that only South Africans will be able to purchase the $20 tickets. Of that block of tickets, 120,000 will be given away for free to South Africans. Even though it will make it harder for me to get tickets, I really love the idea. Making the tournament accessible to the hosts in this first World Cup to be played on African soil has got to be a priority. It should make for a fantastic atmosphere, and is a great equalizer.

I gotta admit. All of the announcements and festivities got me pumped. We'll have to see if everything falls into place.

Fair Dinkum