Tables Turn in NCAA Tournament Challenge

This weekend's games have Mary in first place (rewarded for sticking with Butler, but not for quite long enough) but with no more possible points. Chris is in second place 100 points behind Mary, but with 480 possible points remaining, by virtue of his decision (or his coin flip)to go with Kentucky all the way to the championship. I am in third, Jamie in fourth, and Michael in fifth--all of us stuck because we have no picks in the Final Four and, hence, no more possible points. So if Kentucky (the best seed remaining in the Final Four) beats Arizona, Chris gets 160 points and moves ahead of Mary by 60 and wins. If not, Mary hangs on. If KU wins it all, Chris gets 480 points, looks like a freaking genius, and will be saving his flipping coin for next year. Big drama next weekend.

Chicks in Week Two

The chicks seem to be coming along nicely. They're getting bigger and feathers are coming in on their wings. They're under a heat lamp at about 95 degrees right now. We'll take that down about 5 degrees per week till we're about equal to the outside (it's 28 out now!). They also need to be fully feathered before venturing outdoors. We've got some prep to do on their new home before then.

Women Lead in NCAA Tournament Challenge

As of Saturday morning Mary and Jamie are leading the Eddy 2011 team, with Chris and Mike at the bottom. Michael is in the middle but has a lot of points still available, so he could make a move in the last couple of rounds; he still has 3 teams active for the Final Four and both his choices for the national championship are still playing. Chris's system of selective coin flipping served him well in the early rounds but lately not so much. And I'm just having a bad year.

The Shed Arrives!

The long-awaited custom-made shed arrived in our backyard today. It will soon be home to lawn and garden tools, the lawn mower, two dogs (Cleo and a dog to be named later), and eight chickens. It's pretty nice as sheds go and the interior is nicely customized to Bonnie's purposes. The installation took about an hour an a half beginning with the guy backing it all the way down our bending .2 mile driveway. Next time you're out, ask for the tour.

Last Day to Complete Bracket

Tomorrow morning is your last opportunity to complete your NCAA bracket and compete with your relatives at Eddy 2011 in the ESPN NCAA Tournament Challenge. See instructions below. If the President can take the time to do this, so can you! You think you're more important than the President?!?

The Michigan Eddys are heavily represented. How about some more Lafayette Eddys and some of them hoity-toity New York Eddys?

President Likes Purdue in Elite Eight

If you need any help filling in your bracket, you can follow the lead of the President. By the way, he likes Purdue beating Notre Dame to get to the Elite Eight, but sees us losing to Kansas for the Final Four.

Eddy 2011 NCAA Team Now Available

If you tried to join the Eddy 2011 team in the NCAA Tournament Challenge and couldn't find it listed, try again now. Somehow the first time I set it up it didn't take.

Charles Barkley Likes Purdue

I wouldn't want to influence anyone's NCAA picks unduly, but I'd just like to point out that basketball legend Charles Barkley likes Purdue because they're "always well coached," and considers them the "sleeper" of the Southwest, presumably not because they were sleepwalking through their last game with Michigan State.

Mike Eddy: Photobomber

Phobotbomb: (verb)- to drop in a photo unexpectedly...to hop in a picture right before it is taken.

2005: Paul Eddy's highschool graduation. In this haunting image, a mysterious stranger appears just over  Karen's shoulder.

Fifth Annual Eddy NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Competition

It's that time of year again when basketball mania seizes the otherwise tranquil Eddys and sets them into fierce competition with their own kith and kin. To facilitate this process we have once again created a team on the ESPN NCAA Tournament Challenge; this year the team is Eddys 2011 (clever, huh?). Brackets will be open this evening after the teams are announced. Here's how you get into the action:

1. Go to www.espn.com. Mouse over Fantasy and Games then click on Tournament Challenge.
2. Click on Register Now in the upper right corner. If you've not participated before you'll need to register. If you have, you can sign in with your username and password from last year.
3. Then click on Create an Entry. You can fill out your bracket at this point, or you can . . .
4. Select Join a Group and type in Eddys 2011, join the group, and then fill in your bracket.

Here's the ESPN "How to Play" page with more details, should you need them. You've got to get your bracket completed by Thursday noon or you'll miss all the cutthroat competition! We're getting started early this year, folks, so don't miss out.

I tried to figure out setting up divisions (e.g., The Frozen Tundra featuring Michigan Eddys, the Cosmopolitan featuring NYC Eddys, the Southern Fried featuring the Kentucky/Georgia axis, and the Corn Belt featuring the Lafayette-based Eddys), but the system doesn't really allow for it. We'll just hope they're all well represented.

B (Flat) Your Own Composer

This is possibly the coolest thing ever.  The B Flat Project is a page of 20 YouTube videos of people essentially noodling around in B flat on various instruments, traditional and electronic, for one to two minutes.  There's a guitar, a clarinet, a piano, a Nintendo--even a guy reading a poem.  The videos can be played in in any combination and starting at any time and they sound terrific together.  You create your own ambient sound musical composition without the benefit of any knowledge of musical composition.  It's a great time waster, but unlike most internet time wasters, this one is marginally creative.  Here's the link: http://inbflat.net/. Try this.

I heard about this on today's Weekend Edition; here's the link to the story.  If you can figure out a way to record your composition, feel free to post it here.