Man, Was I WAY Off!

What an NCAA tournament so far. More overtimes, upsets, and close games than I can remember in any other edition of March Madness. My bracket was pretty much ruined after the first weekend, but now that the Final Four is set, I thought I would share exactly how bad my picks were:

I had LSU losing in the 2nd round to Syracuse

I had UCLA losing in the 2nd round to Marquette

I had George Mason losing its opener to Michigan State

I had Florida losing in the 2nd round to Wisc-Milwaukee

I had UConn beating Gonzaga for the Championship

Ouch.

My most obvious mistake was buying into the hype surrounding the Big East. I also greatly underestimated the strength of the SEC. I just don't remember hearing anything about that conference all season long. I assume there must have been some talk at some point....probably short mentions in between the "the Big East is the best conference the game has ever known" talk and the "the Big Ten is SO underrated and they're really going to make waves in the tournament" comments. I don't think anyone predicted George Mason to be anywhere near this position.

Shows what I know. But I can't wait to see what plays out next weekend.

Fun With Static Electricity

Remember in elementary school science class when you're learning about electricity, and you rub a balloon on your head and it makes your hair stand up? Well as cool as that is, something involving the same basic scientific principles happened to me today that surpassed the balloon experiment in every way imaginable.

First let me set the scene. It's a little chilly outside, and I'm wearing a wool suit, which as you may know is a sure-fire way to generate some serious static electricity. Usually enough to give you an unpleasant little shock when you grab a doorknob, but nothing more.

Not today.

I don't know if the weather was a just a little chillier, or if my suit was just a little woollier, but whatever it was, it somehow managed to create a perfect storm for massive static discharge.

As I began my journey from the county courthouse in the thriving metropolis of Clinton, NC to the county courthouse in the equally-thriving metropolis of Henderson, NC, I noticed my gas tank was a little low. Innocently enough I pulled into the corner BP station, stepped out of my car, and reached for the nozzle.

Then it happened.

I had somehow managed to conjure up bolt of electricity so intense that when my hand touched the metal pump, the instantaneous discharge shorted out all of the stations electrical equipment.

I shit you not. For several minutes, the station could neither provide gasoline nor process credit card payments. It was awesome (don't worry, the system just had to reset itself and then everything was back to normal).

For that brief moment, I felt like Rayden from Mortal Kombat.

Then I went back to work. And that was very un-Mortal Kombat-like in every possible way.

I'll Take Your Land...And Possibly Your Girlfriend, As Well

Wow. It's amazing what can happen in a matter of only a few days. First and foremost, the big news: I FINALLY HAVE A JOB!!! That's right, after months of uncertainty and self-doubt, I finally found gainful employment. And on top of that, I think I'm really going to enjoy the work, too. My firm does nothing but real estate law - which is basically what I had been holding out for since the beginning, and something that I was starting to believe maybe didn't even exist.

Turns out good things sometimes do actually come to those who wait.

So what am I doing day-to-day? They're starting me out with three main specialties: foreclosures, titles, and closings. More or less what Luke Wilson did in Old School (which, by the way, probably had more to do with my interest in the job than it should have). The part about taking your girlfriend is pure speculation as of now, based solely on the fact that I can actually say to girls, "Yeah, I'm an attorney...." I figure that should help.

Anyway, here's a quick rundown of my past few days:
Wednesday: Interview in Charlotte
Thursday: not much actually
Friday: Offer + Acceptance
Saturday: Down to Wilmington to find an apartment
Sunday: Back on the road to be ready to train for the week
Monday: Training in Fayetteville and Smithfield
Tuesday: Training in Lillington and Graham

The plan right now is finish training for the rest of this week, move down to Wilmington (hopefully) on Saturday, perhaps relax a little on Sunday, and then Monday hit it for real.

Right now, I am excited, scared, relieved, and a thousand other emotions all at the same time over this whole thing, but I feel like this was the right decision. I've barely even had time to tell many people everything that happened, so I thought I would just toss up this post to let folks know what was going on until I actually have a chance to make phone calls, send emails, and stuff of that nature. But for now I can finally say:

THE WAIT IS OVER!

A Bit of Solace in a Mad, Mad World

No matter what I do, or where I go in this life, there will be one comforting thought I will always carry with me. That thought is the fact that if I should ever run into JJ Redick somewhere, I can confidently say, "Hey, JJ...remember your senior year at Duke, on Senior Night at Cameron, your last appearance in front of your home crowd, when you closed out the game shooting 1-for-16 and your senior-heavy Blue Devils lost to freshmen-heavy UNC?"


I imagine that thought alone could get me through some pretty tough times.

Do I Look like These People?

So last night I was engaged in one of favorite time-wasting activities - reading people's IM profiles and away messages - when I came across an interesting link (credit to the King). This site is called MyHeritage.com, and basically it lets you upload photos of yourself and it will tell you what celebrities you look like. I thought this sounded like an interesting concept, so of course, I gave it a try.

This is the picture I used:
And these were my top 3 results:

Prince William
Imre Kertesz (holocaust survivor/author)
David Hasselhoff

"Eh, maybe," I thought. But as cool as it was to be compared to David Hasselhoff in any way at all, something occurred to me. I'm not sure the name of this phenomenon/condition (if it even has a name), but I have noticed that no two pictures of me ever look exactly the same, and that most photos don't really look like the real me all that much. Maybe it's just my imagination, but I decided to test my theory.

Based on the assumption that a picture of the same person should get fairly-similar results (I could understand some minor variances for haircut, facial expression, etc), I then entered this shot - my horrible friendster picture that I only put up as a joke and never got around to changing:
And the results this time were completely different:

Władysław Szpilman (the basis for the movie The Pianist)
Freddie Prinze Jr
Chevy Chase

Interesting. No overlap at all. I do find it a little odd that I got Nazi-era European Jewish men in both sets of results, but I'm still not really seeing a strong resemblances to any of the program's picks. Is it possible that I am unknowingly some sort of mutant shape-shifter, altering my appearance ever so slightly each time I'm photographed? Maybe, but as awesome as that would be, I'd say the more likely explanation is that all of the bugs haven't been worked out of the website yet. Regardless, I decided to try one more time.

Enter picture #3:

And here's what I got:

Josh Hartnett
Harrison Ford
Al Pacino

Again, no overlap whatsoever, but I am finally satisfied with the results. Not so much in the "oh, wow, I actually do look like that guy" sense, but more so in the "most ladies would probably agree that those three guys are fairly attractive so I don't mind being compared to them" sense. That's really all I was looking for anyway.

If anyone else gives this a try, I'd love to know the results. I may even toss up a few more pictures of myself to see what happens. Here's the link (it's free to sign up):
http://www.myheritage.com


**EDIT**
For even more fun, set the gender button to "all" and see what happens. I got Meg Ryan on picture #1 (in 3rd place, no less - surpassing Hasselhoff!) and Madonna in 8th place on pic #3.

Very hilarious/creepy.

Feb '06 Playlist

This month's installment is a little longer, but let's face it: I've got the time, so I might as well spend it listening to good music. Decent mix of radio-friendly and not-so-radio-friendly in my opinion. Check'em out:

1. Left Alone - Lonely Starts And Broken Hearts
2. Deerhoof - Running Thoughts
3. Jack Johnson - Upside Down
4. The Strokes - You Only Live Once
5. Carey Ott - Daylight
6. Erin McKeown - Fast As I Can
7. Belle and Sebastian - Another Sunny Day
8. Kemo the Blaxican - La Receta
9. The Peacocks - Older Than Punk
10. The Pinker Tones - Sonido Total
11. Matisyahu - Chop 'Em Down
12. The Mountain Goats - Hast Thou Considered The Tetrapod?
13. Film School - Pitfalls
14. Pedro the Lion - Transcontinental
15. Of Montreal - The Actor Approbrium
16. Death Cab for Cutie - Crooked Teeth
17. Fruit Bats - The Wind that Blew My Heart Away
18. The Cribs - The Wrong Way to Be
19. John Mayer Trio - Vultures
20. Josh Rouse - O, I Need All the Love
21. Franz Ferdinand - Walk Away
22. Spoon - I Summon You
23. Elliot Smith - Memory Lane
24. Rah Bras - No Future
25. Centro-Matic - The Mighty Midshipman

Get them here:
iTunes
eMusic
Buy.com
Yahoo Music