First BBQ of the Year, And My Quick Tourney Thoughts (Days 2-3)
Quick-hitters:
- Further proof that I am impossible to please: it was freaking hot today! 89F in late March??? I had to take out my tower fan out of storage today!
(How do I know that it is officially warm? I’ve found mosquitoes in my house, dammit.)
- Props to Dell! I received my restore disks from them on Friday, via DHL Next Day! Awesome!
- So, as scheduled, the first UngsungBBQ of the season occurred on Saturday. Beef spare ribs, chicken wings and drummettes, grilled Italian squash (I had tomatoes, but we were already full before I got a chance to cook them), and potato salad, oh my! My sister and mom came by and stayed for the entire weekend, and although the BBQ was clearly the highlight, that wasn’t the only thing that went on:
1) We spent Friday and Saturday nights playing various flavors of Karaoke Revolution for the PS2 as well as some Rock Band. My Wii was just collecting dust. We had to respond to our upstairs neighbors with their darn kids pounding on the floor above us all night, so what better way to retaliate than with horrible singing and loud music? My mom, who owns a karaoke machine, wanted in on the gameplay, but I didn’t think she would have fared too well on Here I Go Again or Against All Odds.
2) My local Costco never stocks Mexicoke, so I asked my sister to pick me up a case earlier in the week; she was already planning on going to Costco, and I knew that the Alhambra Costco stocked Mexicoke.
Sure enough, on Friday, she brought me my case! In exchange, I offered to file her taxes via some Taxcut software I picked up earlier in the year. Definitely a fair deal, IMO, considering that I only had to file a single W-2 and a single 1099-INT.
3) Right before it was time for me to light the grill, I grabbed the bag of charcoal, opened it, and noticed something strange about the briquets in the bag. Apparently, I did not buy charcoal briquets; I bought a bag of actual charcoal! One piece was about a foot long!
(For the uninitiated, charcoal briquets are usually formed from wood burned at extreme temperatures in the absence of oxygen, and then the resulting product is shaped into the briquets we know today.)
I decided to try lighting the pile of charcoal anyway, and I noticed that it took a heck of a lot harder to fully light the charcoal than typical briquets. The charcoal also shot off sparks every now and then, which was, admittedly, kinda cool. Unfortunately, the charcoal eventually burned too quickly, and I was only able to cook off it for a few minutes. A quick run to VONS to get some Match Light solved that problem, however.
Note to self: Never, EVER, buy charcoal non-briquets again!
4) Oh yeah…there was also a lot of basketball on. In fact, most of Saturday was spent watching tournament action, especially the UCLA near-disaster (more on that later).
Did I mention that the food was damn good?
- My NCAA tourney thoughts, Days 2-3:
1) #1 seed recap: UNC looks unbeatable; Memphis might get upset by Michigan St.; I would love to see Davidson upset Kansas, and UCLA…
2) I hope the Bruins learn to never relax against a second round opponent again? Look at their recent history: a furious rally against Gonzaga in 06, a near-collapse against Indiana in 07, and now a near-upset against Texas A&M?
They better not be resting on their laurels against W. Kentucky. To say that Mbah a Moute was rusty would be the understatement of the century. Talk about a horrible game! Eight TOs? Good thing Collison’s 3-point barrage in the first half, Love’s fadeaways down the stretch, and Collison’s layups late saved the Bruins’ butts.
BTW, who saw the parallels between this game and the game against Gonzaga? Think about it; we had a furious rally, a late lead, and a key forced TO.
(Tangent: I know this is coming, but after yet another favorable call for UCLA—Shipp clearly fouled the A&M player on the Aggies’ last shot—I’m worried that people are going to start slapping asterisks on the Bruins, should they finish this and win the title. The last thing I need is some New England Patriots’ comparisons.)
Does this spell a third straight Final Four? Well, with Duke and UConn out of the tourney, I’m only worried about Xavier. Am I looking past W. Kentucky? Yes I am :P.
By the way, I guess we can officially start the “Goodbye Collison” and “Goodbye Love” clocks.
3) Two 12 seeds in the Sweet 16? Duke and G’town out, beaten by WVU and Davidson (???) respectively? League parity, or overall weakness at the top?
I’m tired, so I’ll finish up with this:
4) After day 3 of the UngsungBlog bracket contest, my sister is up (32/48 correct picks for me, 34/48 for her, and she has a three point lead on me.
I forgot to mention this last time, but here is the scoring system we’re using this year:
Correct picks in the first round: 1 pt
Correct picks in the second round: 2 pts
Correct picks in the Sweet 16: 4 pts
Correct picks in the Elite 8: 8 pts
Correct picks in the Final Four: 16 pts
Correct championship pick: 32 pts
Until next time!
i was just in your area again, and cold it was not! serious sunburn was had. thats okay i ate enough persian food to forget the searing sun pain.
i don’t see you signed up for the IMBC. you competing this year?