Can you feel the excitement?

Here we are on the eve of Tournament 2008 and I for one am a-tingle with anticipation. Or maybe it's the Mountain Dew I've been drinking steadily for the last month, hard to tell. Something has me hopped up.

...

OK. I'm back. The oldest needed the computer for some Egypt research (so she says) and one thing led to another and now it's Friday AM and the damned tournament has already started and Kentucky has already dropped a 15-13 5th game gutwrencher to the lasses from Michigan and, well, my whole train of thought has been derailed somewhere around "a-tingle".

Am I still a-tingle? Well, yes. But I'm still drinking Mountain Dew, which I need to stop soon. Or give birth to the creature in my belly. As for volleyball, things shift into a higher gear, maybe 3rd, today. Meanwhile, the DII tournament is hitting 4th gear over at Gangelhoff and I'm going to miss the semis.

The furor over the Wise kerfuffle at South Carolina seems to have subsided a bit. Or has it? Maybe I've just got my ear pressed to the wrong door? All I know is, in this country, you are innocent until proven guilty, unless of course Homeland Security is involved. If Mary ends up at Gitmo, we know there was more to this story than we first thought.

Wisconsin has missed the tournament for the first time since the early Cook era. This has been the source of much consternation from the Badger faithful. The consensus seems to be that the program needs to step up their recruiting efforts and perhaps settle on a 5-1. I am sure Pete and company will appreciate this advice and immediately put it to good use. As for the source of much constipation, all indications are that it can be tracked to a certain dairy product.

The Committee's picks and bracket seem to have floated past the VolleyTalk community without more than 10 or so posters having the obligatory bird. Did the Committee do a bang-up job? I think that's a hasty, and incorrect, assumption. More likely the fans are just beaten down by years and years of the same crappy same crap. They have thrown their collective hands into the air and said "Whatever! What's to eat? WHAT? Bologna again?? What the bleep?!"

Better that they use their collective hands for a round of applause for the Penn State Knitting Lions, who have just gone through the regular season without dropping a single game. 96 and oh my. As Jack said at the top of the beanstalk, "That is some feet!" Jack, of course, was an idiot, but you get my point. Can the PSU juggernaut be stopped? Can a juggernaut be stopped, period? If it can be, is it really a juggernaut? Is it a juggernaut not? These questions are begging to be answered. Shall we toss them a dime?

What else? The Lions, Stanford, Washington and Texas appear to be the favorites to reach the finals in Omaha. Most folks have written off Nebraska, due to Kori Cooper's injury. This may be a mistake, but the Huskers definitely have a chore ahead of them. Illinois and California have each other in their futures, and the winner will face Penn State, barring an upset for the ages. Texas has Oregon, UCLA and Minnesota in their region, all of whom will have big problems matching up with the Horns. Stanford has Hawaii and Purdue on the other side of the bracket, and Florida on theirs, all of whom are worthy opponents but probably not up at The Cardinal's level. All in all, it appears to be a very predictable tournament, but one that should feature a lot of talent and an abundance of good matches. Or not.

Xcel Energy just came to the door and offered to cut down all the rogue trees growing on the other side of our backyard fence, under the power lines. I said let 'er rip and signed the form. Told the guy he could cut down all the neighbors' trees, too. He thought that was funny, but HE was the one wearing a bright yellow coat. Go figure. Anyhow, now I have to see if Cal has any spare protesters who want to come out here and tree sit for a couple of weeks. It's 10 degrees or so today, but it could hit 15 next week. Any takers?

That's it. Ciao.