Go Kansas/No Country for Crappy Endings

As reported a few days ago, I am part of an office NCAA Basketball pool, and I was bragging at the time that I was slightly smarter than a sick monkey with a fistfull of darts. Unfortunately, it turns out that I might actually be dumber than a sick monkey with a fistfull of darts; the good news is that it may be financially lucrative to be incedibly bad at picking sports brackets.

As of this morning, I am officially in last place in my office pool, and as long as UNC doesn't win the show, I will hold that spot. There is a quiet dignity to such a spot, as in this pool, the ultimate loser get the $10 entry fee returned... it is like a Yankee Swap in that way, except that the NCAA Basketball pool almost never results in me winding up with a framed naked picture of the Skipper from Gilligan's Island, whereas that is exactly what happened at my last Yankee Swap.

Okay, I will admit that I sometimes am guilty of embellishing the truth ever so slightly to make a story flow better or be funnier. In this case, the Skipper was actually wearing tube socks and tennis shoes, which somehow made the resulting almost-nudity even worse. And no, there was no Red Hot Chili Peppers tube sock fig leaf thing going on here... the Skipper's little buddy was right out there in the open.

So anyway, if things go well, I will be getting my $10 back. Unfortunately, the NIT pool is not operating under the same rules this year, which is a shame, as I'm in dead last in that pool too.

In other news, I finally watched "No Country for Old Men". Apparently I am some sort of communist, as I seem to be the only person in America not fully enamored with this half-finished crock. Roger Ebert gave it four stars, and said it was "a masterful evocation of time, place, character, moral choices, immoral certainties, human nature and fate". While I liked some parts of it pretty well, it fell way short in a bunch of ways, not the least being that the movie was exactly 20 minutes too short.

Warning: If you haven't see the movie yet, I'm about to totally ruin a few parts, but in a totally generical manner that won't give any clues until you watch the movie. (That's right, I just said generical.)

#1) Netflix identified the movie as being 2 hours and 22 minutes long. Seeing as I fell asleep the first 3 nights I watched it, I was determined to finish on night 4, and was wondering how they could wrap the movie up in 20 minutes when all of a sudden the screen went black and words started rolling. Bullshit. Either Netflix or the Coen Brothers owe me 20 miunutes, and it better be good.

#2) The way that the guy did the thing to the people? The non-standard way that left those other guys wondering? The thing that was really hinted at being a crucial factor or a significant part of the deal, that Tommy Lee Jones sorta figured out but maybe he didn't, that turned out to be nothing? Yeah, Bullshit.

#3) The way that the main guy, no, not him, the other one, how he did for first 2/3rds of the movie but the he didn't, not at all, because he was dead in a hotel room (whoops, slipped a little on that ), that was Bullshit too.

#4) The way that the other guy not from Bullshit #3 was all of a sudden that guy and not that OTHER guy, that was Bullshit tambien. (bullshit in several languages is serious bullshit).

#5) What happened to the heroin? And as long as I'm asking, what happened to the heroine? Bullshit. Though it is neat to have the opportunity to ask the same question of the same movie.

On the other hands, there were a few sweet shootouts, and the bad guys was pretty freaking badass. In conclusion, though, I would strongly recommend that you go rent "Fargo", and when anyone asks how you liked that other piece of crap, just keep repeating how great Steve Buscemi was in it...