Northwestern State!?

In terms of doing illegal things, I am not that accomplished. I may have rolled through a few stop signs and kicked a few dogs (that's got to be wrong, right?), but I'm a very amateur criminal.

Except when it comes to March Madness.

And though I pretty much expected my bracket to be busted at this point, though not by Bradley and George Mason (and almost by Albany), I entered two pools. Arrest me now.

People respond differently to March Madness. Some people ignore it. Some people pay attention only after Duke gets knocked out because everyone hates Duke. Some people base their schedules on when they can expect to see Live Look-ins (I love Like Look-ins!) and increas the frequency at which they say things like "awesome, baby" because that's all they've been hearing on ESPN (Dick Vitale doesn't work for CBS any more) for weeks.

And one of my sixth graders at Sunday School asked me if last Sunday should be a national holiday. "For what?" I asked. "For Selection Sunday," he replied.

Though I don't think my kids should have been exempt from attending to watch Clark Kellogg and Greg Gumbel debate whether Michigan and Cincinnati "should get a ticket to the Big Dance," I can understand the excitement surrounding the tournament.

And I can't understand how anyone was able to get any work done this past Thursday and Friday during the tournament's first round. Most people who work sit at computers. Computers have ESPN.com automatically updating scores. This makes for a tricky situation.

Personally, I didn't leave my couch for two days. No, wait, make it three.

I'm still sitting on my couch.

And if somehow, some way Connecticut can pull it together (while Duke, UNC, Texas and Tennessee lose soon), I may be able to finish in second or third place and get my money back...only to lose it all over again next year.