Bracketed

What a busy day. Two screenings (Korean monster movie The Host and anti-neoconservative vigilante film Shooter), tying up some loose ends at work, and trying to prepare to head to Cleveland for three days. And on maybe five hours of sleep for the second night in a row! (It was a long night with my yelling friends.)

Surprisingly I've spent almost no time watching the first day of the NCAA Tournament. For the uninitiated, it's the Division I men's college basketball competition, otherwise known as one of the most gambled on sporting events of the year in the U.S. This is the first time in awhile that I haven't had any money in a pool, but I did enter my brackets in the group set up for those in what is lovingly called a movie nerd discussion board.

I watched less college hoops this season than I ever have, meaning I put as little thought into my picks as possible. I didn't pore over the capsule information about each team in the Monday USA Today like I usually do. I didn't even pay attention to records. I just went line by line through the brackets and made snap selections. Watch me have one of my best years prognosticating the winners.

I have won a pool or two in the past, but more often than not my heart ends up overruling my head in these things. I'll side with what I want to see happen--ACC teams, Duke and North Carolina especially, flaming out; my favorite team (when they're in the field) and their conference representatives going too far; too many first round upsets--than what I expect is reasonable. This year I took a more levelheaded or gut instinct approach, so we'll see how it pays off. (It's why I didn't take Xavier to beat Ohio State.) My picks are more conservative, although somehow Selection Sunday commentator raving influence me to have Georgetown winning the whole ball of wax.

If you tried to leave a comment on this post the other day and couldn't, it's because my settings got fouled up. Everything is back to normal.

Jenn invited me to be a contributor for The Kniterati, a new blog for her knitting group. (I can take credit for the name.) I was hoping to post something there today, obviously because I am insane and a terrible judge of time some days. Seeing as the group is in Arkansas, I'll have to be an honorary member. I'll let you know when I write something there unless I'm devious and double post.

I managed to squeeze in a quick visit to JoAnn's, so I have yarn for my film festival knitting. I'm going to work on a properly sized pair of slippers for myself. I haven't had much time to knit all week, so I'm looking forward to devoting some moments to the needles and yarn.

I checked out a laptop from work, so I intend to keep the entries coming while I'm on the road. There should be more activity over at my film blog, which I hope to update a couple times each day. We'll see how that goes. I've committed to skipping the 9:30 a.m. and midnight sessions, so I think it's doable unless I opt for sleep. God knows I'm not getting any here. The forecast is poor for tonight, so it could be tempting to get eight hours for the first time in ages.