And it begins

Brackets. Did you fill out your bracket? How's you bracket? Did you do a bracket? Do you want to get in our braket pool? Bracket ... bracket ... bracket ... bracket.

The bracket pool. America's big springtime time-killing obscession between Valentine's Day and Memorial Day. Millions of hours wasted on filling in names of teams that none of us know anything about, except when it comes to the semi-finals, and Gonzaga is in the "Sweet 16" and we feel compelled to tell everyone, "I had them in my bracket." Good for you, buddy.

Anything worth paying attention to is worth gambling on. Otherwise, we're only into drinking holidays like St. Patrick's Day and the day before Thanksgiving. The Philadelphia Inquirer, our local newspaper, had the audacity to print a blank bracket in Sunday's paper, expecting us to fill in the names of the teams as they were announced. Seconds after "The Selection Show" the names and filled-in brackets were available online in printable versions. That's why 11% of Americans read newspapers. In case you were wondering, I sent an e-mail to the newspaper's sports editor:

You printed a blank bracket in Sunday's sports section. Did you really think that readers were going to follow along with the selections and fill-in the names of the teams as they were announced? Or did you just have space to fill?
I opened the sports section this morning and had that "I don't believe this" feeling when I saw a half-page of ... nothing.
It's a big reason why there's such a disconnect between newspapers and the Internet. Seconds after the last team was announced, there was a printable version of the field available online.
But, you knew that, right?

I'm such a pain in the ass sometimes.

Most of the time.