go ahead, wildcat fans...

I thought it was time. I thought we were due. I really did. After all, it's the 10-year anniversary of our NCAA title (gulp... that means it's the 10-year anniversary of my college graduation!), so for the first time I completed an NCAA tournament bracket, and I picked my alma mater to go all the way.

Yes, I can't deny it... I picked Arizona to win it all.

Of course, if I was a true basketball fan, I would have known the team better. But other than Lute Olsen, I didn't know the team at all... heck, I couldn't even name a single player on the '97 championship team (I'll guess someone was named Stodemyre... or maybe Bibby?), let alone this year. And yet I still call myself a fan... after all, I still have the "W-I-L-D CATS" song on cassette from the team's first Final Four trip in '88, and I can name all of those starters (anyone remember Matt Muehlebach? I have his autograph! And Sean Elliot autographed my basketball... I wonder how much that could get on eBay these days... anyway...). So even though I never bought one single piece of college "go team!" paraphernalia while I attended the UofA, I thought I was entitled to declare myself a fan this year. I mean, I even saved a '97 NCAA Tournament Coca-Cola can featuring our winning score against the Kentucky Wildcats! Surely I wouldn't jinx the team by declaring myself a fan this late in the game, right?

I even bought a cubicle-wall basketball hoop for my desk featuring the Wildcats logo, and faced the derision of many more-basketball-knowledgeable coworkers who've walked past my desk and tried to make a shot in my hoop (at least I sit within dunking range...).

But alas, my bracket is now completely shot, because Arizona lost in the first round this weekend. Figures. I put the jinx on them. I have that affect on teams, I guess...

At least now I can stop pretending I'm a basketball fan and focus all my energies on a real sport... BASEBALL! Speaking of which, it's time to tune in to the D'Backs spring training game today (thank the Lord for MLB.TV).

So go ahead, all you real Arizona fans... blame me. I can take it.

thoughts i thunk on thinking

I think I'm not thinking as much as I used to think. I think I don't have time to think anymore. I wish I had time to think. Not the kind of shallow thinking that simply wastes time during an otherwise uneventful day... but the intentional thinking that requires time to pause and ponder and perceive new thoughts I didn't know I hadn't thunk before. I used to think such thoughts so thoughtfully and thoroughly -- I used to ask big questions of myself, and think long thoughts in response. More than the proverbial "Deep Thoughts" of SNL or Animaniacs fame, these were thoughts on life and love, significance and sacrifice, power and prestige, fun and folly, mirth and meaning, simplicity and solace.... But I think I don't think those thoughts anymore, that I haven't truly thunk those thoughts for a long time. Has the progression of time robbed me of my time to think? Do I just not make the time? What thought possessed me to want to think? I think I want to plumb the depths of my thoughts once again. I think I need to remember how to think...

deming

I stayed the night in Deming, NM on Wednesday. Deming is in the middle of nowhere. Deming is such a small town that it uses several of its precious few billboards to advertise its annual duck races. That's right -- DUCK RACES. Now before you start daydreaming about mallards in jockey stripes and dastardly off-pond-betting scandals, stay with me here.

Deming has three exits on the I-10 corridor of western New Mexico. And it's quite evident that, in addition to the droves of people who undoubtedly plan thei rannual family vacations around the duck meets, the Deming town council decided to make the most of its three exits by taking advantage of saavy roadtrip consumers... like me. Therefore, the cheapest gas is at Exit 81. But all of the food is at Exit 82. And of the several dozen hotels the town offers (a night at the Tumbling Tumbleweed or the Stolen Stagecoach, anyone?), the cheapest are at Exit 85. I realized this evil sightseeing plot (or it would be, if there were anything to see in Deming other than a blue water tower), while driving home from Tucson yesterday and being forced to get off at every single exit in this nowhere-land town. And no matter what exit I used, I could not escape the duck billboards reminding me to come back fro the races.

I then spent the next seven hours in the car wishing I'd stopped in Las Cruces or Socorro instead, and wondering just what kind of kickback the ducks are getting in this plot... 'cause evidently there's something decorous about Deming that I'm too dumb to notice...