March Madness basketball this year has been less mad than we all hope it will be.  Duke, Ohio State and Cincinnati are done, that’s true, but otherwise nothing too upsetting.  Yet.

I didn’t steal ideas from anyone else’s bracket this year – thanks anyway Mr. Obama, and I created new fandangled ways to choose my teams. (As an aside, here, I like the word “fandazzled” better, though every literary source on the planet assures me it is not a word at all.  Well, neither was “Dayton” a “team” until they just beat Ohio State!)

Dayton, however, is the city in which I was born, so I had to choose them in my bracket, and that tomfoolery worked out for me just fine.   I chose Harvard because I love the movie “Good Will Hunting” and more to the point, Matt Damon, who didn’t go to Harvard but is from Boston-ish and that’s a good enough reason for me to choose the smahties to win the game.  Their chance of winning the entire thing is so minute I find myself rooting for them just a little.  I hope if they win Bostonians make t-shirts that say “how do you like THEM apples!?”  I would buy several.

I chose Florida to win the whole thing in one of my brackets, and Louisville in the other.

I like Florida because Disney. Though I’ve never been, and have no real urge TO go there, I still love old Walt and his crazy dedication to making childhood magical. It’s a place that brings a lot of joy to a lot of people — worth my vote this year, yes.

I chose Louisville because I like the way “Louisville” is pronounced by people who actually live there.  Plus I went to Louisville once.  I have a picture of me standing next to the biggest baseball bat in the world.  It’s pretty epic.  Definitely a reason to put them in the finals.

So I guess I’m doing alright, competitively, in the bracket.  Mostly, I guess, because I was born in Ohio.  Which is the only good reason I’ve ever come up with FOR being born in Ohio.  So that life mission is now accomplished. Halleluiah.   I’m second place right now in the bracket outside the family,  only to my friend Penson.  In my defense, though I like him very much, Penson actually keeps up with college basketball.  Which seems unfair.  Doesn’t it?

March Madness in this house is just a game of luck and bizarre team-choosing ‘skill’ that brings us together in an I’ll-whoop-your-butt kind of way.  No one really watches the games here except to stand witness in case of huge upset.  That stuff is fun!  We do a lot of screaming and yelling when the games are close.  Otherwise, we just watch highlights on CNN.  I think, using my methods, I have just as much chance as the next guy to win a few extra dollars.  Go Gators!  Go Cardinals!