Open All Night

Today is the real start of the NCAA tournament. I don’t believe the hype about it starting on Tuesday with the play-in game. Until they start playing four or more of them (one for each quarter of the draw) with teams that are not guaranteed, I will continue to ignore their calls for Tuesday being the start. Hogwash, it really begins today. There are 16 games today (and tomorrow), basically four at a time, four times over! That is awesome. Who cares if it is teams I haven’t heard of with stupid team names. But let’s face it, as the articles proclaiming how much of a loss companies face during the tournament from workers slacking off, the beauty of it is in the bracket.
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It snowed last night. Again. I haven’t really been that bothered by the snowfall this winter. Small snowstorms, even if there are multiple per week, don’t really phase me. My general feeling is that it has not been that bad. If anything it has been peculiar, as nearly every snowstorm was followed by a day with warmer temperatures and a subsequent melt. There are not humongous piles of snow on everything that is not asphalt, as I have seen in previous winters. But hey, I live here, so I am not going to complain (especially considering how much I enjoy driving in the snow). I am one of the minute few who complain when they plow too quickly.
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I take surveys for a lot of online firms for fun. I usually get some points for doing it that can get redeemed for stupid crap, but really I do it because I am opinionated and enjoy offering my opinion (although it is solicited, which is unusual). Anyway, one of the companies asks similar sets of questions in nearly every survey. One of them is with regard to the Internet, and asks simply if you feel overloaded with the amount of information available, or if you feel like it that way. I love having it available (except of course when I am going to watch something on tape delay and then accidentally come across the results in the meantime. That leads to swearing). But, there are certainly an increasing number of people who feel the Internet is getting bogged down with hogwash. I can understand why they feel that way.
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As promised yesterday, here is the first installment of Michael’s Rental Review. The car itself was a 2007 Nissan Altima. I was surprised to see that they even had Nissans (don’t ever recollect having that option before), and was also surprised when it came with 26k miles already. Back a few years ago, before OEM’s wised up and stopped filling the fleet market, cars were always returned before 25k miles (and maybe sooner). I rarely ever had one with more than 15!
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I just completed what is the first of hopefully many trips to NY in 2008. This one did not consist of any racing (save for the jaunt to a local go-kart track), but since work took place on the dwarf car, I guess it counts towards the total. Last year I made something like 10 trips. I expect it to be comparable this year. It takes a lot to keep oneself entertained on these voyages, but I will try to relay at least one entertaining tidbit after each.
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Gregg Easterbrook, Tuesday Morning Quarterback on espn.com, said many times that the NY Giants rode the karma wave from playing all their starters in the meaningless week 17 game right to a victory parade on Broadway in NYC. I bring that up not because I want to talk about the Giants (I will cover that another day), but because of the relevance of karma. As many of you, I am incredibly superstitious. And I am equally leery of karma.
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Some random tidbits for the first “official” workday of this week. All are gleaned from travels this past weekend.
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