Already, my bracket takes a hit

Memphis' CBS affiliate broke into the NCAA tourney coverage yesterday with an announcement: Five-term Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton is resigning effective July. He's already been mayor 16 years and just won that fifth re-election bid a couple of months ago. Herenton is outspoken to a fault -- a often-divisive, sore spot with some locals -- but I've got to give him credit for never hesitating to be himself, for better or worse. Its seems to have served him well thus far.

All that said, the news was horrible timing: Not only did I have to scramble to edit some stuff instead of blogging, but I also missed some tournament play. Good thing the games are free online at ncaa.com.

My bracket got screwed after I went to bed last night and I dropped to 12 of 16 picks. That took my rank in one group to 12 of 23 and in another group to 16 of 20. Ouch. But I'm not too crippled yet: There's plenty of time for the leaders to screw up, allowing me to edge ahead of the pack. As long as I beat Paul, I'm okay with it.

The office might as well be shut down during March Madness. Everyone is studying brackets, watching games online, talking trash.

This'll give you an idea of where my mind is: I was stuck at a long stop light Thursday morning, so I loaded the message headers of my work e-mail onto my phone. I saw a message from my boss with the subject line "Early Friday," and thought, Sweet! We're shutting down early because of the Tigers game in Little Rock. Got to work, opened that e-mail, and realized we're shutting down because of Good Friday. If the Tigers win, it will be a good Friday, indeed.

Paul and his dad have tickets for tonight. So does the guy I share an office with. Mom and Dad are driving the two-ish hours to Little Rock this morning to see if they can snag any of the newly released tickets at the arena box office. Not me. I'm going to snag a bottle of Framboise and watch the game in my jammies from the comfort of my couch.