April Fools!

I hope you are all off pulling glorious pranks on the one day of the year when jokes are actually celebrated. The New Hampshire, UNH's school paper, came out with it's usual fake-cover page and included such articles as: "UNH President Mark Huddleston to Perform with Snoop Dogg at Spring Concert!" and "Wildcat mascot replaced by river lamprey." I enjoyed their humorous attempts and especially students' reactions before realizing it was a joke. I do feel ashamed though, that I never even attempted any sort of elaborate practical joke today. I could blame my lack of creativity on the three hours of sleep I got last night but it really came down to a lack of a good idea. I commend those of you that succeeded however, and must say that I would vote April Fool's Day the best non-holiday of all non-holidays.

Here are some other notes from the past week...

• The NCAA Hockey Tournament was full of surprises, as only two #1 seeds made it to the Frozen Four. Michigan made the committee look smart in dominating their bracket as the number one overall seed while Notre Dame came out of nowhere to make a seemingly impossible run to the Frozen Four, where they'll face Michigan. The Fighting Irish had lost 9 of their previous 13 games and lost their leading scorer to injury before they surprised everyone and upset #1 seed UNH, 7-3, then beat defending-champion Michigan State, 3-1. Other surprises included Wisconsin's upset of Denver (Wisconsin finished the season 15-17-7 and somehow made the tournament as an at-large team), even though the Badgers did lose in overtime to North Dakota. Boston College beat Miami of Ohio in the Northeast Regional and will play North Dakota in the Frozen Four for the third straight year. I obviously stand by my pick for the national title, Michigan, but I wouldn't be too surprised if BC was able to beat North Dakota, as they seem to have the Fighting Sioux's number and have always performed well in the playoffs. I'd honestly like to see BC make the final because I've seen them play this year and they would have a lot of trouble with the kind of speed Michigan has. There's still another week before any of that will be decided though, so every team will have plenty of rest and we'll have to wait and see what happens.
  
• In the NCAA Basketball tournament, history was made as all four number one seeds made the Final Four. I picked only two, but then again, the only people who successfully picked all four teams were those that don't follow the sport. Anyone with a knowledge of the sport would never have picked all of the top teams to make the semi-finals which is why the phrase, "My Mom's bracket is doing better than mine is!" has caught on. All four teams making the Final Four is unprecedented, though to the oblivious bracket-filler, it would seem out of the ordinary to see the tournament play out any other way. It certainly made the NCAA tournament committee look good though, since the top four pre-season teams were UNC, UCLA, Kansas, and Memphis, and those four are the only teams left standing. I still think UCLA will win it all, and since they'll beat Memphis, I'm picking UNC over Kansas in the other game. Kevin Love, UCLA's freshman phenom, is just too good to pick against. If he can make a full court shot just with the flick of his wrists...I certainly won't be picking against him.
  
• I highly recommend to all readers that you buy, download, steal, or in any way obtain a copy of both the Counting Crows new album, Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings, and the Raconteurs new album, Consolers of the Lonely. The Counting Crows have combined car-cruising rock with some easy-listening songs and provided another sixteen fantastic songs for music fans. My favorite tracks are "Insignificant" and "Hanging Tree" at the moment, but I've grown to love the entire album over the past week, so those are subject to change. The Raconteurs, led by musical genius Jack White, debuted their second album that has crunchy sounds and even fuses a little of Elton-John-piano-rock with "You Don't Understand Me." This year will be a great year for music with so many of my favorite artists coming out with new albums. Last year was pretty bare so I'll be happily anticipating Weezer's new album, due in June, as well as new albums from (+44), Coldplay, Dave Matthews, Jack's Mannequin, Gavin DeGraw, Joseph Arthur, and Death Cab for Cutie.
• I saw 21 this weekend, a movie based on the book Bringing Down the House, in which a group of M.I.T. students learn how to count cards as a team and take Vegas for millions. The book was one of my favorites of all-time and since I love Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth, and upcoming-star Jim Sturgess, I just had to see it. It didn't completely meet my expectations, but it was still a great movie. I wanted it to be entirely true to the book because of how great the book was, but the different story that the movie told was still very entertaining. Now I can understand why they titled the movie differently from the book, since the movie plot is basically a complete work of fiction with elements of the book's truth worked into it. I still loved it and would recommend it to anyone. Final verdict: 4 out of 5 stars.
  
• The Red Wings are wrapping up their season and when that happens on Sunday, I will have a complete preview of the NHL playoffs and all of the match-ups, so keep an eye out for that.
• The Tigers opened up their season yesterday with a 5-4 loss to the Royals in extra innings and despite their bullpen struggles, I'm still optimistic. I honestly feel like this team will get to the World Series and win. Their lineup is fantastic and with their excellent starting pitching, I just don't see a problem in the bullpen holding them down. Obviously, if the bullpen continues to be an issue, they won't even make the playoffs, but I feel like the middle-relief guys will step up and meet the challenge. Go Tigers!
• I was also arrested this weekend for possession of alcohol and it could cost me my trip to Cambridge this summer. No big deal.

I know, I know...what a poor attempt at an ending joke but I bet I had a couple of you going! Or maybe not, I certainly won't ever know. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this edition of the blog and have a wonderful first week of April as Spring has finally started to rear its head!