MARCH MADNESS
To sports geeks like myself, the term brings to mind basketball, specifically the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, filling out brackets, and in my case, watching my bracket die a slow painful death.
But this year, the term can also be applied to the crazy a$$ weather we've been having, or more specifically, the hysteria that came before our storm of the century this past Tuesday.
WEATHER: The Blizzard that Wasn't (sorta)
Sunday afternoon, I went to Stop and Shop to pick up a few things and I couldn't believe how crowded it was. Even the self checkout line was long. I said to Tara, "This can't be because of the storm they're predicting for Tuesday can it?"
Sure as hell, that's exactly what it was.....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6zaVYWLTkU.
I'm a stone's throw away from the supermarket, so even if there is a bad storm, as long as they are open, I can get to the store pretty easily, so maybe I need to be a bit more sympathetic. And I am. I don't blame these poor people for stocking up, I don't blame folks for staying home from work, or blame the mayor and the school district leaders for closing the schools.
I blame the weather forecasters. And this time, they even admitted they overblew it.
“Out of extreme caution, we decided to stick with higher amounts,” Greg Carbin, chief of forecast operations at the Weather Prediction Center in Maryland, told the Associated Press. “I actually think in the overall scheme that the actions [by states and cities] taken in advance of the event were exceptional.”
Can you imagine?
I can.
I think they pull this $h-t all the time.
Think about it..... How many time the past few years have we been told we were going to get slammed with a ton of snow, only to be dusted or coated with a couple of inches? Now admittedly, the wind and the snow on Tuesday made travelling difficult, but I've driven in much worse. And I can tell you, if I had wasted a personal/vacation day on what Tuesday amounted to, I would have been really pissed off.
I know making predictions is a hard job. Trust me, I've had my share of bad ones. (refer to my 2016 election special for specific details; see also my NCAA Tournament Bracket, my Weekly football pics etc..) But these guys have state of the art equipment and get paid handsomely for their predictions. To not only exaggerate how much snow we were going to get and then admit they did in on purpose? That's gall, man. That's utter gall.
NCAA TOURNAMENT: Speaking of poor predictions
I got off to a good start anyway. I won the first 7 games, and only that I picked Vanderbilt (in honor of good friends of Tara's who went there) did I not sweep the day games on Thursday. I went 6-2 in the night games to get off to a solid 13-3 start.
I remember the first time I entered a bracket pool, I went 25-7 in the first round. That's the mark that I always try to hit. Most years I fall short, and this year I did again, going 24-8. One year, I started off a pathetic 20-12 and ended up winning the whole thing. Another year, I went 28-4, but one of my losses was my national champ. it's like the old golf saying "Drive for show, putt for dough." Gaudy first round numbers are fun but they mean squat if you're big guns get knocked out.
I always pick Virginia (my sister in law's alma mater) and of course my Dayton Flyers (Tara's alma mater). Dayton unfortunately got screwed by the NCAA selection committee. The Flyers were put up against a Wichita State team that had no business being a 10 seed. Needless to say, Dayton was bounced in the first round.
Right now, Wisconsin is the team I love to hate. I picked them to lose to Seton Hall, and instead they win that game and knock out defending champion Villanova. They are killing my bracket.
I ended up going 11-5 on Friday, one short of my desired number for the first round. At press time I still had all 4 of my Final Four selections alive.
LATE NIGHT TV: Colbert cleaning up
A number of stories have appeared in the past couple of weeks, about the ratings in late night TV, specifically the bump in ratings that Stephen Colbert's Late Show has gotten over The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon.
According to the Hollywoodgossip.com
What the 52-year-old (Colbert) offers is a sort of throwback alternative - reasoned takedowns of Trump and company at a time when the outrages of the administration seem to have caused some comics to sacrifice wit in favor of blunt force.
By contrast, Fallon has chosen to stick to the pop cultural observations and celebrity brown-nosing that have long made him the safe choice in late night.
I'm usually in bed by 11, so I don't usually watch either Fallon or Colbert, but my hope is that NBC doesn't do something stupid and try to change Fallon or the Tonight Show. I realize that Trump shenanigans are prime fodder for hard knock comedy, but eventually there is going to come a time where people are going to need a respite from Trump and Trump bashing. I was talking about this with my Uncle the other night. Trump has become a 24 hour cycle. You wake up in the morning and the first thing you're hit with is a Trump tweet from 4:30 AM, then unless you have one of those music streaming services, it's Trump on the morning drive, Trump on your lunch break, Trump on the way home, Trump on the local news, Trump on the national news. Watching TV at night? coming up at 11, more Trump. The President always gets press coverage, but nothing like the coverage this one gets.
So, I think Fallon and NBC should ride this out. People are going to need a break from this. There is going to be Trump fatigue eventually. And when that happens, the Tonight Show will once again reign supreme.
Let's hope we're done with the snow around here!
Have a Great Week!
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