Month: March 2007

NCAA tournament (Men, Division 1) continues: I’m down to two of my Final Four, now that USC’s out. Oh well. And, there’s been no Cinderella? Geez. At least there are close and interesting games – Georgetown was real close to losing to Vanderbilt.

The polar bear cub, Knut, is soo cute.

Thought this was an interesting article on the death of the Pakistani cricket team’s coach in Jamaica – (a) weird mystery – what happened to the coach; (b) me being the mystery fan, who probably read too much about fictitious Scotland Yard detectives and watched too much of the British movies on PBS, of course I’d wonder; (c) seriously – murder involving cricket? That was straight out of an Inspector Morse mystery on tv (which, by the way, the episode in question was funny just to watch Sgt. Lewis get smacked on the head by a cricket bat and another character not reveal Morse’s first name) or from a novel by writer Elizabeth George (okay, admittedly, I didn’t read the book yet and I kind of watched the PBS movie version); and (d) Jamaica’s deputy police commissioner was an ex-Scotland Yarder? Cool!

Ok, now I’m just being morbid…

Oh, let’s just go really morbid: lady cooks her husband. Literally. Clearly, I need to get a life, but the link on MSNBC caught my eye and who was I to resist? Actually, I can imagine a strange murder mystery story out of that; wonder if I should write that up.

And, some interesting stuff: Clive James on the web – Slate’s posting his interviews, in addition to his articles. I hadn’t seen Clive James since PBS briefly aired his stuff years ago. I was younger and still very much an Anglophile, and he seemed funny, but turns out he’s really erudite (funny and erudite not being incompatible anyway). And, yeah, he’s Australian, so that may or may not mean his having a certain outlook (Australian trend being what it is in the media, but Clive James pre-dated that, I believe – and he’s not Mel Gibson, thank goodness). Impressive stuff.

Calvert DeForest, a.k.a Larry “Bud” Melman, passed away on Monday.

He was the subject of an IP dispute between NBC and CBS over his stage name, so he ended up appearing on Late Night with David Letterman under his real name. He lived pretty near to my old high school, and would occationally show up at our musicals, as much to encourage the up-and-coming actors as to enjoy the show.

The photo I took on the right was from our production of “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying”. I only met him once in person, but he was truly a really nice guy.

Interesting story – Miami-Dade community college‘s chess team in the Final Four of collegiate chess – having already beaten Yale, Harvard, Dartmouth, etc… Cool. Actually, I had no idea that there was a Final Four for chess. Man, talk about March Madness there.

As for NCAA March Madness – three of my Final Four are still intact. Of the my Sweet 16 so far (well, of those that made it to Sweet 16 anyway) – Tennessee is out; Ohio State beat them. I guess this is the year for teams ranked number 1? Not to mention that Tennessee alumnus, Peyton Manning (the QB who won the Super Bowl this year) can now focus on doing his shtick for Saturday Night Live this weekend without worrying about his school’s team.

NY Times’ Holland Carter on Asia Week.

Best wishes to Elizabeth Edwards; not yet sure where I am in terms of deciding the presidential picks (way, way too early – seriously, I just can’t get into it, except as viewing it as a spectator sport that’s just nuts; plus are we pushing Super Duper Super Tuesday – what used to be just Primary Day for a few states – into Election Day proper?) – I do think candidate John Edwards is in a tough spot, at the personal level anyway.

I am behind on watching tv again. Aargh. Maybe I should take up watching tv on the internet. According to TV Guide tv blogs, “Ugly Betty” and “Scrubs” had great episodes Thursday night.