Gus Johnson Has More Weekend Plans

And so does Dick Enberg!

Anyhow, here's the weekend lineup from CBS.

Thursday:
Xavier vs. West Virginia (Phoenix, 7:10pm)- Verne Lundquist and Bill Raftery
North Carolina vs. Washington St. (Charlotte, 7:27pm)- Dick Enberg and Jay Bilas
UCLA vs. Western Kentucky (Phoenix, 9:40pm)- Verne Lundquist and Raftery
Tennessee vs. Louisville (Charlotte, 9:57pm)- Dick Enberg and Jay Bilas

Friday:

Wisconsin vs. Davidson (Detroit, 7:10pm)- Gus Johnson and Len Elmore
Texas vs. Stanford (Houston, 7:27pm)- Jim Nantz and Billy Packer
Kansas vs. Villanova (Detroit, 9:40pm)- Gus Johnson and Len Elmore
Memphis vs. Michigan State (Houston, 9:57pm)- Jim Nantz and Billy Packer

Basically, CBS kept all the talent from the first weekend around and got rid of the waste (I'm looking at you Bolerjack). Good work.

Gus Johnson's Weekend Plans

Old pal Gus received his itinerary for the first and second round games - he will be in the Mile High City. He will be calling the Thursday and Saturday games with first round match ups as follows -

Notre Dame - George Mason
Wash St - Winthrop (This one has some serious Gus potential)
Mich St - Temple
Pittsburgh - Oral Roberts

He will be paired up with Len Elmore of ESPN fame. One of the best analysts on TV. This is the combo of the tourney right here.

As for the rest of the sites and announces -

Thursday/Saturday -
Washington: Craig Bolerjack and Bob Wenzel
Omaha: Kevin Harlan and Dan Bonner
Anaheim: Dick Enberg or Carter Blackburn and Jay Bilas (Bilas is the second best analyst out there. This will be a good mix too)

Friday/Sunday -
Birmingham: Verne Lundquist and Bill Raftery
Tampa: Tim Brando and Mike Gminski (Nothing like a little more Duke love)
Raleigh: Jim Nantz and Billy Packer (Douchiest Pairing)
Little Rock: Ian Eagle and Jim Spanarkel.

Chris Rock is Gutter

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Best. News. Ever.

Three posts in 1 day = boss in 3 consecutive hours of meetings.

Anyhow, I might be late to the party on this one but I just heard the best news of 2008. Friday Night Lights will be back for a 3rd season. Other than Lost, this is the only show I religiously watch. Compare this to 2006 when I had a solid 7 definite shows per week along with a few I would watch under the right circumstances. Thank you writers strike for limiting my choices and forcing me to watch more college basketball. Out of any show I have watched in my 26 years on this planet, FNL is the best. There is not a close second. The sad part is, I don't know anybody that watches it. The show has consistently averaged 6+ million viewers over the past two seasons and I don't know one of them. It has been critically acclaimed as the best sports show to ever hit prime time yet I can't convince a single friend, coworker or family member that its worth an hour per week.

Whatever, the fact remains its coming back for season 3 and I couldn't be happier. With that news, I couldn't really care less who watches it. If you don't want to watch now, your loss.

Some other FNL reviews -
http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/nbc-picking-up-friday-night-lights-after-partnering-on-it-with-directv/

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/television/2007/10/08/071008crte_television_franklin

Bill Simmons

From Chuck Klosterman -
Friday Night Lights is such a brilliant, effective TV show that -- sometimes -- I don’t enjoy watching it. Very often, I will feel on the verge of tears throughout an entire episode; it is the most emotionally manipulative show ever made. Part of it has to do with its brilliant use of music; if you play Explosions in the Sky loud enough, the process of hanging drywall can be a life-altering experience. But the larger reason Friday Night Lights is so moving is the way it taps into all the conservative impulses most mediacentric intellectuals try to ignore. The show’s moral code is so traditional and pure that it borders on cliché. It’s reactionary in the best possible way. Whenever I watch it, I find myself thinking, I bet my parents would love this. Which is probably why I was certain that FNL looked like CBS.

I watched Friday Night Lights exclusively on DVD. I am now aware that it’s an NBC production, but I didn’t know that when I saw the pilot. And it absolutely looked like CBS to me. It looked a little like Dallas or the NCAA tournament. And it still looks like CBS to me -- because I made that happen. Perhaps thirty seconds into the first episode, I interpreted positive depictions of conservative ideals in its presentation, I associated them with the tradition of CBS (Murder, She Wrote; Barnaby Jones; etc.), and I tricked my optic nerves into seeing FNL the same way I might see Cagney & Lacey or CSI: Miami. I don’t know how, but I did. And the fact that I was wrong once indicates I was never really right before. My ability to tell the visual difference between networks was both true and false. What does that mean? Maybe nothing. But maybe this: The relationship between success, experience, and reality is less concrete than logic might dictate. For years, I was able to see a difference between networks, even though they were identical; I was getting the right answer, but I was asking an unrelated question. This happens all the time, to everyone. We will never know how we know what we know. Which is why you should never place your faith in the hands of a person whose greatest strength is answering his own questions.

Double Life? Sounds Good To Me

Two posts in one day = slow day at work. Anyhow, I found this little nugget in Time Out Magazine. Kind of a trashy little city read but seems much more entertaining than The Metro or Boston Now. This month's cover is about leading double lives. I was drawn by the JPM Analyst by day, Cabbie by night story which was plenty interesting. Then I got to the following story.
-------------------------------------------------------------
I am a... happily married guy / happy-ending addict.

I’m just coming from there now, the spa. Yeah. I wasn’t planning on it—it’s always an impulse thing—but then I guess it isn’t totally, because I do know that I’m definitely going to go at least three, four times a month. It’s not exactly a double life, but I feel wrong doing it—it gives me this weird sense of power, which feels good and also, I know, is shitty. I don’t want to be some Patrick Bateman–like douche bag, all full of himself. But I can’t stop. I’m married, but I love to get hand jobs.

It started with online porn. I’ve only been married for a year and I love my wife. Really, it’s an intense, open connection. And our love life is good—this isn’t about being dissatisfied. It’s about new experiences. The porn wasn’t enough, so I started looking up escorts—in-calls. There’s this site, the Erotic Review (theeroticreview.com), where these dudes post about their experiences. The rip-offs, the sure things, what to do. I was reading them and realized I didn’t want to have sex with another woman. I couldn’t do that to my wife. So the posts about the Asian spas looked great. No intercourse, just a hand job.

The first time, I went to this place White Hyacinth (243 W 30th St between Seventh and Eighth Aves, suite 501; 212-279-6644), and it looked like a real spa, in a legit business building. They gave me a shower on a table, a bad massage and nothing after. I didn’t ask—I didn’t know. So then I went to this other place that got amazing reviews, Gold Spa (128 W 36th St between Sixth Ave and Broadway, 212-947-0544). I walked in one workday morning, because that’s how you beat the other dudes. There’s an Asian chick there. She takes me into a small room. And it’s like—she got right down to it: stroking me, she took off her top, I’m sucking on her nipples. No sex. Again, it was about the new experience. To be honest, I wasn’t thinking, I’m so turned on. It was more like, Wow, these nipples are different than my wife’s nipples. Do I like that? I don’t know. But something’s working. Afterward, when I leave these places—especially if it’s cold outside—I see everything in HD. I’m so relaxed.

I got to work that day and felt like, Man, if these people knew…They’d never guess, they’d never know. I’m Mr. Clean-Cut IT Guy. But if they did…I’ve been back to Gold Spa—and White Hyacinth, which turned out to do something similar, if you ask. And I also tried this place called My Heavenly Hands, which advertised on Craigslist. Latin women. You go to this studio apartment right over the Ed Sullivan Theater where Late Show is filmed, which I think is funny.
Each time I go after work to any of these places, I feel like I’m shedding my office personality and doing my own thing—something that’s mine. I feel that way when I come home, too—not guilty. I compartmentalize it. I tell my wife that I was at work late. If that’s what I need to be the perfect worker and decent husband, then I deserve it. See, again, I sound like a complete asshole. But I don’t know any other way to, you know, feel clear.

(h/t Dealbreaker, Time Out NY)

What a Night for Jumpball

After the week from hell (2/18 - 2/22) littered with losses from URI, Duke and the C's, we were due for some better fortune. Last night, it arrived. Duke absolutely throttled a bad Virginia team, which was expected but impressive nonetheless. Despite winning their previous 3 games, they had to come from behind a couple of times and looked terrible shooting the ball. Last night, every body got hot at the same time. They were lights out from behind the arc and the team turned in their best rebounding effort of the year. They had boatloads of 2nd chance points, something you don't often see from a team with no size. It was a very satisfying win, much more so than Coach K's 800th vs. NC State last Saturday.

As a result of the Duke game, I did not watch much of the Celtics/Pistons. However, I did catch the 4th Quarter in its entirety and I was thoroughly impressed with the way the C's stretched their lead over the final few minutes and ended the game. Compare that to the way they finished their first matchup with the Pistons (losing by 2 at home after having the lead for most of the 4th quarter) and you can see the growth this team has experienced. It's only March but they are poised to make a very deep run come playoff time.