Final countdown

I guess I'll be rooting hard for Ohio State as my hope for a Buckeyes-Gators national championship game, part deux, has come through -- but this time OSU winning it all. Hard to believe I've actually had that much at stake with my numerous pools ever.

Also, I think I discovered some lazy ad wizards over at Pontiac. While the Kansas-"Bobby Knight" bit wasn't too bad, I just figured out that the bit with the hypnotized referees calling for Louisville technical fouls makes more sense with the Kentucky fan as opposed to a UCLA fan.

Go, Cats?

It seems weird that Northwestern's basketball futility is fodder for a Final Four column, especially from someone like Joe Posnanski, but that's what we get today. And as he mentioned, there are so many NU alums scurrying around the business -- including two guys from my office who were in school around the time I was -- that it seems almost like there should be some outrage over it from the "typing classes."

But even if us sportswriter types won't get too crazy about it, at least there are some passionate fans out there hoping for change, by any means necessary.

Hooping and hollering

It's always fun listening to Bill Raftery doing college basketball, but the odd thing about him is that his quirkiness is practically an act. If you ever listen to his radio interviews, he's amazingly subdued, only turning on the catchphrases if he really needs to. It's an interesting phenomenon.

Meanwhile, does it seem like we were paying more attention to Gus Johnson after he got dropped out of the top four CBS crews? You have to wonder how he felt having to call an awful Knicks game while the Sweet 16 games were going on. At least Ian Eagle ended up with that ridiculous Division II finish. But look no further, there's a Gus Johnson remix.

Also, am I the only person out there that doesn't hold "One Shining Moment" in the same esteem as other sports fans? When the title game is over and the hardware, etc. is handed out, I'm already clicking to SportsCenter or some other show or possibly going to sleep. Unless I was really waiting for the local CBS affiliate news, I'm not sticking around to watch the song and the highlights. But maybe that's just me.

Finally, if people are continuing to gripe about voter turnout and comparing it to American Idol, could Sanjaya be similar to W? Think about it: Promising candidate at the start, progresses to the big stage only to look overmatched and always hounded by questions about how he got enough votes to stick around.

On the other hand, it's been nice looking at (if not necessarily listening to) Haley, but only after that they turned her into Mrs. Jay Mohr.

Chalk talk

Somehow I've picked the Final Four correctly for the first time ever probably despite some awful early picks. But sorta going by chalk works as was hoping to see some cool matchups in later rounds (national title rematch, UNC-G'town revival, Dr. Hibbert vs. Oden, UF-OSU national title game rematch).

Meanwhile, the women's bracket is all shaken up with a 3 and a 4 in the Final Four, although it's cool to see the Rutgers women continue the momentum from the football team. However, that second half against Arizona State wasn't pretty nor the teams themselves in HD. But Carrie Underwood in HD -- now that works for me.

Switching back to pseudo-sports, the list of inductors for the WWE Hall of Fame this Sunday is amusing and seemingly ripe for question fodder. William Shatner? Sure, why not. But Wade Boggs? Yeesh. Not getting enough cash from that hair transplant company?

Red means stop ... really

So I went to this place for my birthday, which was pretty good, considering I hadn't done the Brazilian steakhouse thing in a while. And given the amount of meat coming through, it's good to do only occasionally.

While it's nice to see places like this pop up in the suburbs, I can't help but wonder how over-hip they wanted to make this place. It's one thing to do the rodizio thing and leave it at that, but there's also a sushi bar plus an ornate drink menu and club-like feel to that place. It's a weird mishmash of all the "cool" restaurant/nightlife ideas at once. Strange.

And while the food was good, I know that when you flip the card from green to red, the servers are supposed to stop coming by. But I guess recognizing colors wasn't their greatest skill. It's not a good sign when someone is trying to foist more meat on you with the napkin thrown on the table like a white flag.

Meanwhile, over in the city, Peyton Manning turned in a pretty solid performance for SNL, all things considered. And yes, the United Way piece was the best part of it. Surprisingly, old #18 cussed a bit more than I might've expected, and do NFL QBs on the show have to go without pants for at least one skit?

What's my age again?

Yes, I've been very lax here. But here are some random thoughts while waiting for my fellow birthday buddy to host SNL:

-- Depending on which bracket you're looking at (most likely the ones I entered for money), I'm doing much better with Final Four teams than in the past, but you can thank all those high seeds very much going according to form. Instead, all the goofy bracket-busting upsets are happening on the women's side, including Marist, whose mascot is close to, but not this guy.

-- And in that same vein, a number of the supposed home-court or pseudo-home court advantages in the tournament haven't necessarily come through: Louisville falling to A&M in Lexington, A&M losing to Memphis in San Antonio, Wisconsin losing in Chicago; on the women's side, Rutgers spoiling homecourt edges for Michigan State and now Duke. And if you mention UCLA never having to leave California en route to the Final Four, northern California might as well be a different state from SoCal.

Watching all that tournament action does have me thinking about some of those ads, plus other TV spots around the dial:
-- It took a bit of searching of similar queries to mine, but according to this link, Rachel Specter is that amazingly attractive brunette in those RGX Body Spray ads. Overly obsessive fan sites and MySpace pages to come shortly, I'm sure.
-- So for a few weeks each March, I have to see the smarmiest Asian guy ever and his dopey white buddy to sell cell phones? Oy.
More to come as I can remember them.

-- If there's one thing American Idol has shown us, children of athletes actually have one more route to their own celebrity (thanks Jordin Sparks and Neko Smith) other than being a notable athlete or suffering from some rare debilitating disease.

-- I've been searching for both decent places to do pub trivia in NYC (not necessarily BuzzTime/NTN) as well as some teammates to join me as well, but for now I've stumbled across this all-sports pub trivia contest. The questions are pretty decent, although I've trounced the competition playing solo the past two times it's been run. Anyone New York-area based readers looking for someone to join them for pub trivia, get a hold of me.