acacia march madness - midpoint glance

So here comes another year of Acacia match madness. We’ve come a long way from the inaugural debut year of just a handful of brackets and no clear indicator of who is a good predictor of college sports and who is flying blind in the wind (well, it’s still like that now). After the initial success, this year’s bracket selection has expanded to nine total, highlighted by the departure of Team PGee and Team Maggie, and the addition of Teams Dave, Deborah, Vince/Penguins, Joe, Yingnan, Billy, and Richard.

Now in the 4th year of Acacia brackets, the bracket challenge started with many unanswered questions. Will Team RichCalBlood have all PAC12 teams going down in the first round except for his beloved Bears? Will Team Geo’s Pick have the Illini in the final four? Will Team Pink Unicorn Ride feature the first 16 over 1 seed victory? Only time will tell. Now that we’re in the full swing of things and we’re at the Sweet-16 round, it’s time to take a look at the brackets and see who is capable of winning it all (in alphabetical order).

Team Busted (tied 5th)
Odd that he chose to name his bracket Busted, as he currently ranks second highest in the possible points category. It’s pretty evident that Team Busted is very much still in the running. Interesting choice, picking his local OSU to win it all, with a solid all midwest championship game. Homesick? Or just confident that the buckeyes have played the hoosiers long enough to know them inside out?

Team Geo’s Pick (1st)
Off to a good start, team Geo’s Pick is now sitting pretty at a pre-sweet-16 #1 rank. However, the prospects for Geo’s Pick does not look so hot, as his bracket is pretty much over with his pick for the crown, overrated #1 Gonzaga, going down to the little guys from Wichita State (heck, they even lost to Illinois in the regular season), and two of his final four teams watching the remainder of the tournament on TV.

Team GO BEARS (tied 5th)
Billy’s bracket started off erratically, moving all over the leader scoreboard before calming a bit as the dust settled after the 2nd round. A bold pick for having California entering the Sweet-16, he is in decent shape with 3 out of four final-four teams remaining. Sadly the Cal Bears encountered a buzz saw in the 3rd round (aka Syracuse). He is also one of the few who made the bold pick of Butler over Miami – perhaps he didn’t see the 90-63 shellacking Miami gave to (then #1) Duke in the regular season.

Team Maryland #1 (8th)
Interesting name, this must be a reference to Maryland’s 2nd round win over Denver in the NIT…oohh wrong tourney. On the bright side, this bracket was off to a speedy start with a #1 rank after day 1’s erratic play. Joe’s picks looked solid and he seemed in decent position to maintain his lead going into day two; however, Joe seems to have stepped in the same sorry stuff as the rest of us. Currently sitting pretty at a cool #8 spot, he (like Geo) seems to be missing 2 of his final four. Unlike Geo, Team Maryland still has a shot at winning given his championship game teams of Louisville and Miami are still in the hunt.

Team Nova’s not a 1 seed?! (7th)
After two solid years of being the doormat of the acacia march madness challenge, things might start looking up for Team Nova…that was until he picked Georgetown to be final-four-bound. Oddly enough, this is the first year this bracket did not pick Villanova to emerge victorious from the regionals. Was it realism setting in? Or an accidental click of a button? It is interesting to note that this is one of two brackets that has a perfect East Regional (the other being Team RichCalBlood) so far.

Team Optimus Prime (tied 2nd)
A late newcomer to the madness, this darkhorse surged to the upper echelon of brackets with smart picks that have panned out in improbable ways. Nevertheless, this bracket has battled hard to earn its way into a three-way tie with RichCalBlood and Vinz and is one of the few that have all four final-four teams intact. I need to confirm this with YNT, but I believe he is employing the unconventional strategy of picking the team whose mascot would make the best new starcraft II character. In this case the angry-bird look-a-like cardinal of Louisville has won his vote.

Team Pink Unicorn Ride (9th)
With 4th seed pick of the hometown team Syracuse, this bracket bravely rides her pink unicorn into the unknown that is the NCAA Tournament. Unfortunately her other final-four teams have fallen. Oddly enough, her other title-game candidate is #7 seed Notre Dame – trying to help the Irish re-live their glory days? Or has years of working at a catholic hospital finally won her over to ND? On the bright side, her potential points rank isn’t dead-last (Geo, take notes).

Team RichCalBlood (tied 2nd)
Having taken the geriatric approach to march madness braketology, RichCalBlood has all #1 seeds in the final four. Unfortunately, one of these is not like the others. Overrated Gonzaga bought it in the second game of the tournament to Wichita State. On the bright side, his bracket is still alive and ticking, as he is still looking at a potential point total of a respectable 153. Look for Richard to be watching the final-four on TV much like his Cal Bears.

Team Vinz Winning Bracket – fo’ real (tied 2nd)
Another newcomer to the madness, Team Vinz has taken a level-headed approach to his final-four selection (including 3 picks from the Big East – not surprising). He even drew from the rich Pitt tradition of having his hometown team stop at the elite-eight. Unfortunately Pitt encountered the same early round fate as fellow big-east-ers Nova, Cincinnati, ND, and Georgetown. The upside here is that he is still very much in the hunt with a respectable 153 potential points total.

papal conclave 2013: chance for a first?

Early last fall, I followed the presidential elections with a series of posts. Of course the papal conclave is a whole different beast altogether. This year's papal election isn't a regularly scheduled one like the presidential election is. This is entirely driven by the vacating of the papacy by Benedict XVI, who shocked the catholic world with his resignation, effective 11 days ago. The college of cardinals are gathering at the Vatican as we speak to elect (realistically) one of their own to be elevated to the post of the bishop of rome. Of course, theoretically anyone who has been baptized as a catholic is eligible to be elected, however realistically it will be one of the cardinals locked in the conclave. 

Of course speculation on who will become the next pope is rampant as everyone is curious to see who will take on the mantle of leadership in the Catholic Church during a trying time as this. I've always wondered how cardinals "run" for pope. I would assume that they can't appear to be campaigning while at the same time rounding up votes. Of course, the roughly 5,000+ reporters in town for the conclave are looking for any whiff of information that may indicate who the cardinals are going to be voting for. 

The frontrunners appear to be Cardinals Angelo Scola (Italy), Odilo Scherer (Brazil), Peter Turkson (Ghana), Marc Ouellet (Canada), and Timothy Dolan (USA). Of course the Italian is in the lead. This year, however, so many potential firsts could happen, as there's the possibility of the first South American pope (Scherer), or the first black pope (Turkson), or first North American pope (Ouellet or Dolan). Even the former bishop of hong kong, Joseph Zen, a shanghai-born catholic who grew up in HK (first shanghainese pope?), was floated as a potential candidate. Of course, that one is a long shot.

Interestingly, there are actually odds offered on the papal election. According to the NYT, many bookies are taking bets on various stats relating to the papal election. Paddie Power, one of the larger bookies, is offering the following odds as I write this post:

Angelo Scola (Italy) – 9:4

Odilo Scherer (Brazil) – 4:1

Peter Turkson (Ghana) – 9:2

Marc Ouellet (Canada) – 10:1

Timothy Dolan (USA) – 20:1

Oddly enough, PaddiePower has a sense of humor when offering papal odds. For example, Richard Dawkins is offered at 666:1 odds, while Bono is listed as 1000:1 odds for election to the papacy. Other odds offered are 8:1 for any member of the College of Cardinals to break the Twitter ban during the Conclave, 4:1 odds that the next pope will be elected on the Ides of March, 1:1 for next pope to come from Italy (USA is listed as 8:1).

It's also possible that the conclave elects the next pope in the first ballot, which means that we could have a pope by midday today (who knows?). Anywho...I found the odds quite interesting...

btw I wonder how many of the cardinals will be updating fb once the white smoke appears?

united gets to be the good guy here...

I came across this story this morning and decided to repost it here as, well, it gave me the warm and fuzzies...cuz stories like these make my day. Anyways...here it is below, along with a link to the original post:


United Airlines Holds Plane So Passenger Kerry Drake Can Say Goodbye To His Dying Mother

Kerry Drake's mother was dying. She'd suffered from rheumatoid arthritis for decades and the drugs used to treat her condition had decimated her immune system. One morning his brother called him to say her time time had come. 

Drake caught the next flight from San Francisco, where he works for the federal government, to Lubbock, Texas, via Houston. 

"I knew this itinerary was a risk because the stopover in Houston was only about 40 minutes, and my connecting flight was the last flight to Lubbock that day," he says. "But I needed to get there as soon as possible, so I took the risk." 

As it turns out, United flight 667 was delayed leaving San Francisco. Drake was visibly distraught. You can't prepare for a moment like this, but now came the very real possibility that he wouldn't have chance to see his mother before she passed away. 

A flight attendant, Sofia Lares, tried to comfort him. "She said she would do everything she could and brought extra napkins for my tears," Kerry says. 

Another flight attendant, Lan Chung, asked Kerry for his flight number and relayed it to the captain. 
Flight 667 made up some time enroute to Houston, but not enough. By the time Drake's plane landed, his connecting flight had left the gate. At least that's what he thought. 

"As I was running up to the gate, the gate agent saw me coming and shouted, 'Mr. Drake? We've been expecting you'," he said. "That's when I knew they had conspired to help me. She waved me onto the plane without looking at my boarding pass." 

United had held the aircraft for him. Not only did he make it to Lubbock as scheduled, but so did his luggage. 

"Had I missed my flight to Lubbock, I would not have been able to tell my mom goodbye," Drake said. "When she died, I realized I was wiping away my tears with the extra United napkins that Sofia had given me the day before." 

Drake says he's grateful to the flight crew that made his farewell possible, including the attendants on his San Francisco flight and Denver-based captain Edward Goldstein and Dirk Chilian, the flight's first officer. He also thanks Houston customer service rep Marie Robertson and all the Houston baggage handlers who got his luggage to his final destination. 

United Airlines is the second recipient of our Elliott Award for Excellent Customer Service. (Here's last week's winner.) 

It's been a few years since we've had an airline hold a flight for a passenger in need. Nice work, United.

downton…seriously?!

I just finished the 3rd season of downton abbey, and I am REALLY disappointed. I figure since I’m usually at least a few months behind on TV shows than most people, that everyone’s watched it already. If you haven’t…then you might want to stop right here because SPOILER ALERT!!


Ok I’m going to give you time to close your browser…


Alrighty, if you’re still reading this then I can only assume you’ve either seen season 3 or just don’t care all that much about the show. If you proceed with reading...I am not responsible for any sleepless nights you may have as a result of spoilers in this post. Well, let me tell you that it was a very odd season. First off, Robert just has a crap year. You basically see Robert be the voice of reason for the first two seasons, giving us the impression that he is wise and noble. Then in season 3 he just hams it up. He has the big financial blunder in the beginning of the season (who puts all their $$ in a Canadian railroad?! Canadians are not to be trusted…plus you have to remember to diversify!!), then he follows it up by making a decision that kills off Sybil. Plus he sucks at cricket. Geez…

Speaking of Sybil…they killed her off!! What in the world…this decision kinda made me mad. She was the voice of reason in that show, in a family where two older sisters were at each other’s throats, she was the goodie-two-shoes progressive kid that would still mess up every once in a while but it’d still be ok. Plus she was kinda cute. And they killed her off!!

And then they decided to kill off matthew too. Right after he had his kid. As a matter of fact he was going to tell people at Downton that his kid was born, and he hit a freakin truck! Seriously it’s like there’s a limit on how many people can be on the show…if one person is born someone’s gotta die. Seriously I don’t think there is a single baby on this show with two living parents. Major Bryant fathered a son and gets knocked off in WWI, Sybil bears a child and dies of something nobody’s ever heard of, then Matthew watches his son be born only to die of a freakin car crash.

Aside from the onscreen deaths (some say I should not be this emotionally invested in my tv characters…I disagree), the storyline could be better in some parts too. Basically, Edith gets jacked in pretty much every episode. For pretty much the whole first season, I hated Edith. She was just cold-hearted and bitter, which is pretty annoying. But going into season 3 it just seems that she gets screwed over left and right. Honestly, I don’t think i know of a more unfortunate tv character…ever! Can’t she just have a little bit of happiness?!

Personally, it kinda sucks that Bates has been in jail for pretty much all of season 3, not really because I feel bad for him that he’s in jail, but more so because it’s kind of pointless to have him have no interaction with anyone but his wife. He was at his best when he was going up against Thomas and O’Brien. Now he’s just walking in circles and not doing much. I have a feeling Anna is going to have a baby and he’s going to fall down a well or something. Maybe get swallowed by a giant fish.

Good thing Granny is still there. If she gets taken out by the flu or an airship, I’m not gonna watch anymore. That would be the last straw. I’m going to give Julian Fellows one more season to right the ship…if season 4 brings death to granny, I’m calling it quits and going back to How I Met Your Mother. C’mon PBS…give me a good reason to go to my phone and pledge that $10/month.