Tag Archive: ncaa march madness

Are You Even In Orbit, Bro?

April 8, 2015 Randy Neil

I’d like to take a moment to congratulate myself.  Although I admittedly put minimal effort into selecting teams in my March Madness bracket, I ended up victorious.  That’s right.  Out of 64 teams, I picked Duke to win the NCAA Championship.

Two reasons:

  1. I’ll take the top ranked player in the field
  2. Screw Kentucky.  Literally 85% of my pool picked them to win.

Granted, Jahlil Okafor looked somewhat worthless in the Finals (please Sixers, do not draft him), but the cast of characters surrounding him on Duke were able to carry the load throughout the tournament.

To be honest, though, I didn’t even watch the entire championship game.  I was poised to win $100 and instead of furiously gripping my remote, I was balls deep in a raid on Vault of Glass shooting aliens with my pulse rifle.

I’ve been hiding my secret obsession with the video game Destiny (most notably from my girlfriend), but I think it’s time to just admit that I’m a huge nerd right now.

The past 2 weeks of my life has been nothing but raids, bounties, crucibles, leveling my Red Death, seeking out Xur, and farming glimmer.  Whew… that sounds lame.

BUT IT’S NOT!

I purchased the expansion so, all told, I gave Bungie $80 of my money and probably played 60+ hours.

The worst part about the game, however, is the awkward break-up you need to have with other nerds when you don’t want to continue playing with them.  Good God, it gets weird.

It basically goes something like this-

*You just complete a mission with 3-4 other strangers

They go: “Hey, I just sent you a friend request.”

Me: *silence

They go: “I think we’re gonna run the raid on Crota later, check out my friend request.”

Me: “Uh… yeah, maybe later we can…”

They go: “…or I mean, you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

*then about 10 seconds of silence, and I awkwardly leave the group

It’s kinda of like breaking up with a girl.  It’s sad.  Their universe kind of crumbles.  You feel terrible.

It’s surprising how crappy I feel when that point is established and I’m forced to admit that, “Hey, you’re cool and all, but… you’re not that cool.  In fact, you’re kinda lame.”

Plus, who are all of these people that try to accrue a huge list of 100+ friends on Playstation?  I’m from the era where buying a ping pong table on Craigslist could get you killed.

Make no mistake, though, that I will need your revive when a Praetorian kills me.

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A Moment of Appreciation for the Second Ref

March 20, 2011 Adam Thomas

Last night was “game night” aka Holy Balls board games are fun, we’re in our mid-20’s and don’t want to get blitzed every night anymore, let’s play some Catchphrase!

Anyway, in the midst of this, the Pitt/Butler game was on TV. I couldn’t hear what was happening with all the Rick Astley blaring in the background, but I could see what was going on, and it pissed me off.

Butler is up by 1 with 3 seconds left.  Pitt in bounded the ball, Pitt guy catches it, heaves up a desperation half court shot. Refs call a foul.

Huh?

The Butler guy didn’t really come close to fouling the Pitt guy in my opinion.  I’ve been reading articles today that said the Butler player leaned his shoulder into the Pitt player.  I can kinda see how that was the case but still, there’s no way you make that call in that situation.  It was BS and Butler was getting hosed.

Until…

The Pitt guy hits the first free throw.

The Pitt guy misses the second free throw. Big goofy white guy on Butler grabs the rebound and for some odd reason, he gets absolutely HACKED by a Pitt player.

The second ref is standing there and rightly calls the foul.  Two shots Butler.  Game over.  Just like it should have been 3 seconds ago and drama free.

I hate everything about Pitt so seeing them lose was awesome, and I dunno why I put them in my final four, they always, always, ALWAYS choke.

The thing I loved the best was seeing a Pitt assistant basically piss himself crying over the call, he jumped up, stormed the court and was screaming at the ref.

Dude. Calm down.  They got it right.  And your call was total BS and now you’re mad at this call?  What a tool.

So thank you second ref for having the balls to make that call and get it right.

Butler deserved to win and we all deserved to get our brackets busted by trusting in a team that has done absolutely nothing to earn our trust in March.

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