Wednesday, March 14, 2007

This is funny. Funny because it's true.

from ESPN:

Pssst. Do us a favor. Put down the dog-eared RPI printout. Minimize that bracket PDF. You have until high noon Thursday to make your final NCAA Tournament picks, plenty of time to break down Notre Dame vs. Winthrop and figure out where Belmont is on a map. (Nashville. You're welcome.) In the meantime, relax. Indulge us. We have a story for you.
Actually, it's a story about you.

For four days in March — four glorious days in March — all of us are exactly alike: unproductive, fanatical, irrational and, if you ask the human resources department, downright criminal. So don't ask the HR department, or the lawyers, or your boss, since all three basically exist to stamp out fun wherever they find it.

That is, unless they're busy filling out their own brackets.

Between Selection Sunday and Thursday's opening tip, that's when we truly stand united, bound by our annual obsession. One nation under a bracket. E madness unum. So let this be a warning, too: Those who would attempt to murder the office pool — like the grumpy British taxing our Colonial tea — do so at their peril. Take the Memphis Grizzlies. When they traded Shane Battier, they lost more than a glue guy. They lost the team's bracket guy, a former tournament standout who never forgot his collegiate roots. Result? The Griz lack a locker room pool. And they suck.

Tread lightly, killjoys. Tread lightly.

Besides, everyone does it. All the cool cats. Politicians and waiters and hard-core gamblers and kids. Oh my. Some people use, as you'll read, something called the Markov Chain, which in our imagination is slung low across Anna Kournikova's abs. Others pick winners Discovery Channel-style, by the principle of Mascot Fight Club (Bluejays are no match for a Wolf Pack). Some of us sit in our cubicles. Others sit in big-league clubhouses. A few of us are even cooking ribs. Thanks to the Internet, you don't even need an office to have an office pool.

We test our mathematical formulas, touch base with long-lost friends, pretend there's no money actually involved in any brackets, since gambling is technically illegal in many states. Much like jaywalking and spitting on the sidewalk. Cough.

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