After a week of careful thought and study, no doubt you are all starting
that two and a half week process that is getting frustrated at failing
to see the obvious upsets that will upset your March Madness brackets.
("Harvard! Of course, Harvard!
It's their big damned brains!") (Yes, I get my sports news from NPR.
What of it?) In the spirit of hindsight being twenty-twenty, I studied
up on some alternative -ologies that you could have used to picked your
brackets that might have had a better shot of getting you to office
sports gambling glory.
1. Mascots. This is always the most obvious alternative to,
y'know, actually following sports stuff. The somehow affiliated with
Arizona State Athletics website House of Sparky put together a mascot bracket and commentary of
their own and, while I question their final result, I agree with
certain fundamentals. They are absolutely right that "human mascots
just don't move the needle." Human mascots are weird. A guy with a
weird human head dancing around is just... Well, a guy with a weird
human head dancing around. But make that guy a lion or tiger or bear...
Oh my! You've got yourself a mascot. (As long as we're disqualifying
non-animals, fruits need not apply either. Suck it, 'cuse.) That said, there's no way Boomer's blue eyes should bring him past Georgetown's REAL LIFE Jack the Bulldog(s), let alone on to the finals.
2. Alumni. The Internet has found at least two ways do go on this one. First, you can go for the most embarrassing alum and rank based on that. Here you've got mostly reviled athletes toward the bottom (less embarrassing), along with weird YouTube celebrity
and Tom from MySpace. But as you start to climb toward the Top Ten,
things get dark real fast... Like murderer dark. Though Guy Fieri
rightfully finds his place up there, along with Bruce Vilanch. Oh, and of course Syracuse continues to produce such utter crap as Marmaduke. Another (better) way to go about this is to rank in terms of coolest alum,
like Sports Illustrated did. Tricky part here is that coolness tends
to correlate with dropping out of college, so a lot of these so called
"coolest alums" aren't really full alums, including Brad Pitt who puts
Missouri at #1 on this list in spite of leaving two weeks before
completing his degree. (Seriously, your film career couldn't wait
fourteen days, Brad? Had to rush off to play "Guy at Beach with Drink"
in the absolutely terrible sounding Hunk?)
Great to see coolness spread across all fields, too, with actors,
artists, athletes, and authors all finding a place in the Top Ten. Also
great for my morale: Seeing the achievement of another Georgetown English major properly recognized.
3. Religious Devotion. Too late now, but the next time that the time for picking a new Pope falls in March, be ready for some Sweet Sistine March Madness brackets.
Tricky thing about this bracket? The winner doesn't even appear! Talk
about a Jesuit dark horse! And while we're on the subject...
4. Blind Devotion. Georgetown's winning it all this year, right? (Okay, but actually, I do have them in my Final Four.)
5. Blind Ignorance.
All this pretending like you know stuff about sports at work is
stressful! Just ignore it all together and participate in this
infinitely cuter Animal March Madness bracket
that buzzfeed is doing. The first round is done, and while I really
don't see any way for otters to lose (I'm predicting an otter-quokkas
final), I'll be following every round of this tournament. And don't
worry, I'll keep you all posted.
Finally, we'll wrap things up today with a long overdue reader
submitted story of coincidence. A brief one to start the ball rolling:
Removed
from any context, not particularly thrilling... Until you learn that
the David in question is now that reader's husband! Certainly the most
romantic coincidence we received!
Remember to say completely moronic observational things when
watching the Madness tonight, in honor of yet another sports atrocity
from Syracuse University, Orange dropout Bob Costas, who turns 61 today.
Today, we transition out of puppies and Starbucks and into the college scene. (A change that one reader recently suggested that a certain subset of college students are familiar with in the opposite direction.) We also transition into a little rant. Based on a recent study by Georgetown University (the school currently pursuing the world record for largest doghouse built to resemble an on-campus building), Newsweek's The Daily Beast recently put out an attention-grabbing list of The 13 Most Useless Majors. I promise that I will generally try to avoid both preachy-ness and profanity on the Report (especially given that my mother is among our readers), but what utter fucking bullshit. Granted, I say this as an English Major (#7), so perhaps I'm a little knee-jerk defensive on this issue... But seriously?! How are we defining "Uselessness," Newsweek? (I suggest using the level of descriptiveness in your headline as a baseline.) An algorithmic amalgam of average salary and unemployment rates? No doubt these are the only factors that merit consideration, since no one ends up in jobs outside of what they majored in! Speaking of which, what's with the ridiculous "Related occupation" postings?! A history degree leads to a historian, English to writing... Though my favorite has to be the Political Science degree producing a great "Political scientis". A+ editing, Newsweek.
Perhaps I'm going to come across as more of a starry-eyed dreamer than a Jimmy Stewart character in a Capra film, but readers, a challenge: Find value in your major (whether a current student, a recent graduate, or a retiree) beyond the dollars and percents that Newsweek assigns. Let it be something you explore. Something that colors your worldview, if not your wallet. When someone says, "What are you going to do with that?," ignore them, especially if they have as narrow and one-to-one a view as Newsweek regarding "Related occupations." Because chances are your occupation may not be totally related. And chances are neither your occupation nor your major will be the words you choose to define yourself in life. (I am so many things before I am a technical editor.) But when those people keep asking louder and louder what your plan is, don't worry. One of the wisest people I have met (and I say this sincerely, not just because he is the most Buddha-esque member of our readership) told me that much of where we end up, particularly in occupation, is serendipity. So go ahead and toss on that John Cusack film. Wander. Wonder. But don't worry. A college major is actually pretty minor.
Whew! Apologies for the ranting and raving. Goodness knows I need to calm down now... Here's some Corgi(f)s to turn the Arghs into Awws. I promise that Reports like this will be few and far between, and that the rest of the week will be reserved for cool stuff, funny stories, and cute animals. And just as we will return to our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow, you may now return to your regularly scheduled morning. I assume you were all celebrating the 73rd Anniversary of the first appearance of Batman in Detective Comics #27.
