not that there's anything wrong with that

[fflo]

I'm mid-composition in an email about sexual dynamics. Weird.

Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day is a kinda bad title for a fun little film, said to star Frances McDormand and Amy Adams, but you gotta mention Shirley Henderson. The movie satisfies The Rule (of wanting a movie to have in it [a] at least 2 women [b] who talk to each other [c] about something other than a man).


My basketball bracket still stands a chance. Not a great chance, but a chance.


Speaking of balls, I love them. Balls, that is, of the round play kind that's not generally associated with genitalia. They've been the stuff of a buddy's dreams lately. I say they are, unto themselves, a whole definition of fun.

I've been philosophical about them since early childhood, believe it or not.

I still get a little excited if I'm in some store & see one of those big wire bins with the large smooth bouncy ones in various colors.

Spheres for play.... I really could go on. But I want to send that email & then get to playing with balls.


Going for Easter dinner at the truck stop again this year. Will they have that corn stuff? Corn fritters? Corn pudding? What was that delicious corn stuff? My, that was some delicious corn stuff.

Comments

[disclaimerwill.livejournal.com]

Truck stop Easter dinner actually sounds really good. Mmm. I hope you get your corn stuff and it's as delicious as you remember!

[shmizla.livejournal.com]

what are these brackets and basketball about? i'm culturally illiterate.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

It's the annual (men's college) basketball tournament, sponsored by the NCAA (National Somethin' Somethin' Somethin'), the body that rules college sports---and, more to the point, it's an annual betting tradition, even with people who don't follow sports. Offices often have a contest going. Ours does, though we're not actually betting; one department is sponsoring the contest with cash prizes.

So what you do is fill out a "bracket," which is your picks for what will happen at each stage of the tournament, after the 64 participating college basketball teams have been chosen. (Some people do this with the women's tournament as well, but mostly people mean the men's when they talk of it.) So the thing you write your picks on looks like this:

http://www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/mayhem/brackets/viewable_men

(This one has the winners so far filled in.)

The usual deal is to get 1 point for every correct pick you make in the first round (outside edges) and 2 for the next round and 4 for the next round, etc. The tournament & surrounding hubbub is also called "March madness" ---and there are nicknames for the teams that get to various stages. Initially that was just "the final four" but then there came to be the "elite eight" and the "sweet sixteen."

It ends up making a couple of weeks every March sort of a basketball rooting time for lots of people. And makes for good capitalist marketing commerce, along with lots of people betting money on sports. Which is, yes, still illegal in most states, but, like with all that Texas Hold 'Em poker going on, not prosecuted.

[shmizla.livejournal.com]

grazie mille for the crash course (i can always use these to pretend to be more at ease than i am:).

how did i miss this for ten years? one wonders how long it takes for all these 'customs' to come across one's path (or the other way around).

[fflo.livejournal.com]

you don't watch much TV. that's how these things are spread. ;)

[shmizla.livejournal.com]

that much is true. i hope they don't spread some emergency information on tv. i'd never know.

[vjsmom.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't spend too much time worrying about that--if it's really important, one of us TV-watching people will let you know!

I never knew about the basketball bracket thing until I'd been working at the Archives for a few years and somebody asked me to participate in one. I did fill one out a coupla times, but I never won. Maybe because I know virtually nothing about college basketball.

[shmizla.livejournal.com]

same here. i might as well be betting on horse races in england.

[vjsmom.livejournal.com]

Did you have the corn stuff? I like corn pudding a lot. Corn fritters too. Our Easter dinner was not the best. The food was good, but all three of us a little under the weather. And I drank enough wine to give myself a headache last night after we got home. But not enough to be inebriated or even more than slightly buzzed. I shoulda had either a little less or a little more.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Alas & woe, there was no delicious corn stuff this time. Had a reg'lur Amer'can good time, though, lingering & playing bones.

People around here have been sick, too. Let's get some hot weather in here to kill summa these germs!