The Bad, The Ugly, and The Good

My day today was very similar to Dawg2K, otherwise known as The Outback Bowl game between Georgia & Purdue that I attended on January 1, 2000, where Georgia went down 0-22 before coming all the way back to win 25-22.

The Bad
The contractor that I work for lost the contract for the services that we provide to the customer 2 weeks ago, so uncertainty has definitely been rampant and morale low at the office. After not hearing a single word about what was going to happen from either our current employers or the new contract holders for 2 weeks, today at 10 the new contractors called, said that they were in the building, and would be interviewing us all starting in 45 minutes. Verrrrrry professional and lots of fun. It was Office Space times 20. My 'interview' lasted 10 minutes: who are you, what do you do here, give us your resume, give us your a paystub, how much do they pay you, what is your salary request, we'll decide whether to make a job offer by tomorrow morning, thanks for your time, have a nice day. No kissing, no AstroGlide, nothing. Hard, fast, cold, calculated, and distant.

Whatever - worst case scenario is we get thrown out on our asses, I go to the unemployment office, go on the dole for a month, and take a month or so off to detox and do some fun road-ruling down to Grand Canyon, up to Seattle, Yosemite, whatever, then go out and get another gig working for another man. So not the end of the world but it was just shitty the way the whole thing went down. A stressful, soul-sapping at the hands of the dark underbelly of corporate America, and uber-shitty day nonetheless.

But I decided in the afternoon that I wasn't going to let it ruin my day. Hell, it was mid 70s sunny and beautiful for the 7th day in a row - it's as if San Diego and the weather in San Diego got into a big fight, and the weather in San Diego moved out and came up to SF to clear her head for a while and figure out her next move. So I walked home and went up on the roof to chill out and let the stress of the day float away as I looked at the bay.

The Ugly
So I come downstairs and fire up the ol' PC, and I browse some of the sites on my daily look-at list. And it was surreal, bizarre, and straight up weird to click over to Dawg Sports and see a giant-ass picture of myself staring at me. Holy shit - I didn't even know there was a picture that big of my goofy ass out there on these internets. At least it was the one taken in the Georgia Dome parking lot after Georgia beat the living shit out of LSU in the 2005 SEC Championship game, so good memories all around - a true Kodak moment. Crazy, but it was so surreal that it made me laugh my ass off which was just what I needed.


The Good
Check that, the Greater Than Great: VCU 79-77 Dook. America rejoice - the most hated team in the land is out, and in the first round no less. Duke down, Gators & Jackets to go.

The games today were pretty weak, but this one was outstanding and I got to chill on the couch and savor it. And mad props to VCU for their penultimate possession, for their point guard did what most teams & coaches fail to do in the situation they were in {or maybe he just heard me yelling to him through the TV}. When your team is tied and you have the ball with about 45-50 seconds left, the smartest thing you can do is run your offense quickly {without rashly rushing} and get a good shot off around the 40 second mark, so that no matter what happens on your possession you do not give the ball to the other team where they will have the final possession {ncaa basketball = 35 seconds shot clock}. The concept is called "2 for 1", meaning with a tie game and 1 minute left, you do what I described so that you get 2 possessions and the other team only gets one- it certainly maximizes your chances to win, or at least maximizes your chances not to lose.

But amazingly and frustratingly, so many teams in this situation do not do this. They run the clock down and shoot with say 25 seconds, giving the other team one possession to tie, lead, or beat you. This places way more importance on that possession that just happened - your ass better score, and then you are much more often behind the 8ball.

So anyways, I'm yelling "2 for 1" at the TV, and damn if the dude from the little school, the cinderella on the big stage, doesn't keep his composure and do the heady smart thing and push the ball and take the shot with something like 39 seconds left. Up two and guaranteed to get the ball back - brilliant. Dook equalized but then they had 10 seconds to win it, and win it they did with 1.9 seconds left. If they hadn't done the smart thing then Dook's equalizer would have much more likely forced OT, and then VCU had a great chance of losing.

Anyhow, it was great to see VCU do the correct thing because so many times teams do not.

That, and Duke being sent out, basically made my day.

And now I'm going out with some friends to have some fun, so it's all good.

Hopefully better games tomorrow.

Oh, and that Comfort Inn commercial with the family that sings their personal version of the "I've Been Everywhere, Man" song is easily the most irritating commercial this year. So, yeah, I'm pretty excited that I will see that fucking thing 32, 786 times in the next 3 weeks.