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Scott Scores Seattle Slot

Monday
April 4, 2005

"Everything in Seattle is cool."
-Butt-head, from Beavis & Butt-head

Congratulations are in order for my friend Scott Massey, who has landed a writer/associate producer position at a major TV station in Seattle. He's a guy who has paid his dues ten times over, by my count, and I predict that he will be very successful in Seattle. Scott left Tampa to take a full-time producing job in Yakima, Washington... only to have that station shutter up its newsroom (at least the Yakima portion that he worked from) within six months of his arrival. That's a really tough break. But Scott hung in there, and now he'll be working in a market larger than Tampa. Good for you, Scott Massey. You've earned it.

Tonight it's Illinois vs. North Carolina in the NCAA men's national championship basketball game. It should be exciting, as Illinois is a very strong team. However, as of this writing North Carolina is a 2½ point favorite, according to Yahoo! sports' odds page. However, Illinois is a really good team, with the ability to score from the outside in bunches. The game should come down to Illinois' interior defense and to what degree it can contain North Carolina big man Sean May in the paint (both on offense and on the defensive boards).

What's disappointing to me is that in my work pool I took Illinois winning it all (albeit over Duke), and in the WSAZ pool that I always enter I have North Carolina beating Illinois. I was hedging my bets, to use that phrase both figuratively and literally. Unfortunately, even if North Carolina wins, I'll still finish no better than tied for 6th in the WSAZ pool due to people who have the same thing picked having performed better than me in earlier rounds. And there are still others who fared even worse (remember, I picked upsets like Louisville over Washington) who will be even more on the outside looking in. And then there are people like Randy Yohe who took Illinois to win who are 50 points ahead of me. Even if North Carolina wins, I don't think I can pass him. Not that it matters, but still it's disappointing. This wouldn't be the first time I picked the winner in the WSAZ pool but ended up with nothing. So it goes...

I watched some of the coverage of the passing of Pope John Paul II over the weekend, and it was interesting to see how the major cable news networks (CNN, Fox News, MSNBC) handled it. Because of the relative lack of fresh information available, the networks had all sorts of "experts" on hand to lend their analysis of the situation. It should be most interesting to see how the networks handle conclave, when secrecy is demanded and no information is allowed to leak out (under threat of ex-communication). It wouldn't surprise me to see the John Paul name rotated out, at least for now, but that will be the decision of the man elected. I want to see them bring back the Innocent name, since that is by far the most pompous Pope name ever. Or maybe Urban (though it was the name of the shortest-ever reigning Pope, Urban VII in 1590, who died of malaria).


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