The View From Wisconsin

Like every other warm-blooded American male who has ever attended college (or ever dreamed of doing so), I engaged in blatant "bracketology" this morning.

I'll admit, I cheated a bit - I used Jeff Sagarin's ratings for NCAA men's teams - but I did make some choices on my own to make things interesting.

First of all, I don't think there's going to be a George Mason this year. The closest we'll get to that may be the SIU Salukis. The lowest seed I have going to the Sweet 16 is Vanderbilt, and that's more because I don't think they're going to have much of a challenge in their regional.

My final four? North Carolina, Texas A&M, UCLA and... oh, heck, you think I could actually pick against the Badgers? I've got them going up against UNC in the finals, but I'm not 100% sure about them as the national champions.

That'd be sweet, though. First you win the hockey titles, then you take the hoops tourney... follow it up with the BCS in January?

UPDATE: We have found the Pop-Tarts. A week or so ago, when it was really cold and snowy here in Wisconsin, my wife slipped as she stepped out onto the back stoop of our condo. In the fall, she lost her Pop Tarts that she was going to have on her way to work. We never did manage to track them down... until this morning. The brief break in the weather led to the discovery that they were sitting under the picnic table on our back porch the entire time. No, I have no intention of seeing if they're still good.

Other food issues: I had to throw out an entire jar of peanut butter this morning, because it was one of the Great Value ones that apparently was tainted by salmonella poisoning.