Here are the 2008 NCAA Final Four matchups. All games are on CBS and played in the Alamodome (San Antonio, TX).

Saturday, April 5, 2008
6:07 pm EDT (1) UCLA (35-3) vs. (1) Memphis (37-1)
8:47 pm EDT (1) Kansas (35-3) vs. (1) North Carolina (36-2)

Monday, April 7, 2008
9:11 pm EDT (1) North Carolina / (1) Kansas vs. (1) Memphis / (1) UCLA

So we’re still in line for my Memphis over North Carolina prediction in the final.

While this is the first time four number ones made the finals and many are praising the selection committee for that, overall I can’t agree. Yes, you probably have the four best regular season teams, but teams like Davidson and Butler were clearly better than their seedings (just to name a few). Yes, they want the “Cinderella” story line. I get that. And yes, it’s a drawn out task to select 65 teams within the selection guidelines. But when teams should clearly be seeded substantially higher it would seem that something funny is going on or that someone doesn’t know what they’re doing. But what do I know? I don’t even really care about basketball except for tourney time.

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For those of you who care, here are the “Sweet Sixteen” matchups (all games are on CBS, and to my knowledge, Katie Couric is NOT commentating)…

Thursday, March 27, 2008
7:10 PM ET No. 7 West Virginia at No. 3 Xavier
7:27 PM ET No. 4 Washington State at No. 1 North Carolina
9:40 PM ET No. 12 Western Kentucky at No. 1 UCLA
9:57 PM ET No. 3 Louisville at No. 2 Tennessee

Friday, March 28, 2008
7:10 PM ET No. 10 Davidson at No. 3 Wisconsin
7:27 PM ET No. 3 Stanford at No. 2 Texas
9:40 PM ET No. 12 Villanova at No. 1 Kansas
9:57 PM ET No. 5 Michigan State at No. 1 Memphis

I’ll say that overall the matchups seem pretty lame. (Chalk one up for the selection committee.) While there’s a really decent chance that 3 or 4 #1 seeds move on to the Final Four, I’ve still got to root for the Big Ten (even though my Boilers are out). However, I’m sticking by my initial predicting for the final game: North Carolina vs. Memphis with Memphis winning. But what do I know, I only watch college hoops a few weeks a year.

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Jeff put up a good post about Katie Couric doing marketing…and someone thinking that’s a good idea to push some books.

Check it out.

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“The Indiana Pacers announced today they will not increase season-ticket prices for the 2008-09 regular season.”

Is this really newsworthy?

You have the worst attendance in the league, you’re mediocre at best and you employ people who consistently make poor off court choices.  Personally I think that I’d drop ticket prices AND “clean house” for next season, but maybe that’s just me.

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A word of advice to Kelvin Sampson. “DON’T MESS WITH THE STANGER! Or you’re bound to get stung.” (Cheesy I know, but hey, if Emmis can get away with that sort of thoughtless promotion, so can we.)

Apparently Sampson is not a fan of Jeff Stanger, baseball, Bloomington or books. I’m a Purdue grad, but come on, are you serious? Sure, Rick Greenspan might lay down the law and Michael McRobbie will get his first test due to the recruiting violations , but what is their stance on the remarks towards Trolley Dodgers, Jeff Stanger, baseball, the city of Bloomington and the future release of Kansaska? That my friend is the real story.

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I receive a ton of spam every day which usually gets caught by my spam filters, but over the past few days I’ve seen a variation of the same one come through, six of which were in my inbox this morning (I’ll post four examples). What irritates me the most is that the account it came to is not given out to third parties. And of course the spelling errors.

Here’s the main content of the spam messages for eBay item number 190195958868. If you have received this spam as well, I encourage you to report this item to eBay or forward the message to eBay at spoof@ebay.com.

My hunch is that eBay can’t do anything about it since this is clearly not inside of their system (send me an email at…which is outside of eBay’s rules), but they could at least slap some sort of spam/phishing warning on the item itself (Warning: Please use caution…).

Related, check out eBay’s spoofing tutorial (how to spot them, not how to send them).

E-Mail #1…

I have for sale: 190195958868 At your last bid price $120.00 . If you are interested just give me a fast reply on this email address and you will find all the info that you want. Please contact me as soon as possible for more details directly at kroberts40@gmail.com !

Thank You For your Time

Read the rest of this entry »

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Going into the All-Star Break, it looks like the Indiana Pacers will be sitting at 21-32 or 20-33, depending if they can beat Portland. (Boston and Detroit are probably safe bets for the loss column given their play of late.)

Some people will look at that and think that’s just horrible and that they need to win the rest of the season to make the playoffs. But I say do everything in your power, short of “throwing” games, to lose the rest of the way out and have a decent shot at high lottery pick. If you make the playoffs you’re only ensuring yourself of an early exit and no decent draft picks.

Miami is clearly doing this, so why not give them and Minnesota a bit of competition? The attendance this year is the worst in the league (rightfully so, and the fans are making a statement by staying away). If they can manage to get a lottery pick in the top three they can probably grab Eric Gordon which would do wonders for the attendance at the very least (they blew it last year in getting one of the three local players in the draft).

But then again, historically the Pacers aren’t too bright when it comes to draft picks and they’d probably pick someone from overseas that has no intention of playing in the NBA anytime soon. So go ahead. Make the run for the last playoff spot.

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Via my “feeds” I just saw this headline…”Poll: More Americans think US ready for black president“.

Man, it really irks me to all ends when people pull out the “race card” as if that has any bearing on a persons’ qualifications for a task, job or position. I won’t waste my breath on why that is just a poor angle to take, but will simply say that your race (or sex for that matter) doesn’t influence my decision one bit about whether I’d hire you, vote for you or simply support you.

The “media” seriously needs to stop harping on this sort of thing and focus on what really matters. The 1960’s are long gone and the times have changed. In my eyes and from my own experience, Martin Luther King, Jr’s. dream has came to fruition. But this is coming from a white male who grew up in the “inner city” of Indianapolis and was in the racial minority of his fellow classmates growing up. Maybe that sort of experience would do other people a bit of good. Maybe someday the rest of the population will come to their senses and judge people by their qualifications and the content of their character.

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You lose the Indianapolis mayoral election in November, the Indianapolis Colts lose in their home playoff game, then you (temporarily) move to Boston and jump on the New England Patriots bandwagon. OK, maybe that’s a little “out there” on the later part, but I do find it odd that even a former Mayor of Indy can’t find a decent job in the area. I don’t even need to comment further on that as it truly speaks for itself. And frankly, I can’t blame him for jumping on the opportunity…or on the Boston Celtics bandwagon (the Indiana Pacers off-court actions of recent years are enough of a reason for anyone to disassociate with the city).

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I’m not a big fan of award shows in general since I’m not into watching the rich-and-famous sipping champagne in fancy clothing while slapping each other on the rears and high-fiving each other on their “accomplishments” for the year…but more importantly I’m not sure where they come up with the nominees and how they select the winners AND why there seem to be so many of these things. And which of the awards is “better” to receive?

But even the one hour, non-star-laced presentation this evening could not capture my attention as they lost me when they kept talking about shows and movies I’d never even heard of (apparently this is because I have no idea what’s on the “pay” cable channels).

Anyway, here’s the list of Golden Globe winners for this year. If it were up to me Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Pushing Daisies would have swept the awards, but at least Sweeney won a few. And of the short animation list, Ratatouille was the best of the bunch (even though I did like The Simpsons Movie).

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