Yet again, I fail to win the office pool. But, I can finish second if Kansas beats UCLA for the title. Not bad, since I was tied for 36th place after the first two rounds. The guy who was leading can finish no better than 14th or something like that. Though I continue to believe that the most points are really gained in a pool like this in the first and second rounds. In the later rounds, more often than not, logic takes over and the Cinderellas wind up going home.

This year is rather unique in that it’s the first time since the field expanded to 64 teams (1985) that all four #1 seeds have made it to the Final Four. Kind of shocking really.

And as a total non-sequitur to close this out, it is insanely difficult to type this while holding Caroline. One-handed typing is definitely not my thing.

Miss Caroline Grace Shaw-Gelman was born on February 18, 2008 at 5:16am. She was 21 inches long and weighed 8 pounds, 8 ounces. Since Darling wife weighs about 100 pounds or so, that’s a big baby!

Here’s her first quasi-official picture (it’s a little dark, but I didn’t want the flash to startle her).

To quote my Darling Wife. Don’t believe me? Take a look at this picture.

You’d figure a professional athlete could handle losing once in a while. Oh, it’s the playoffs? Then you should’ve stepped it up. Now, go have a good cry and watch the other games at home on TV. Damn, I hate that guy!

Did you do some shopping this weekend?

I did a very little bit on Friday at lunch time. I went to work on Friday, and while running at a little after 6:00AM, I saw that the Target parking lot was about full (kind of hard to tell in the dark, looking under I-95 about a short block away) and the Toys R Us parking lot also looked full (even farther away in the dark). My Friday trip included five stops (four stores, plus lunch pick-up) in about 30 minutes. I wasn’t looking for much, really. Was successful in three of the four stores. Not too bad.

Karen and I were out for a few hours today, but not stupid early. We didn’t really hit much traffic, either driving or while shopping. It was actually fairly simple. Hit Toys R Us and Barnes & Noble for some stuff for Victoria. Stopped at two places at the mall, had lunch, and browsed at Babies R Us for a dresser/changing table for Cletus (not the actual name; due in mid-February). We were gone about 4 1/2 to 5 hours. Not too shabby.

I think we should start wrapping presents soon after we get them, so we don’t have the chaotic wrapping spree we had last year. Karen doesn’t seem so inclined, and thinks it’s OK. I think it will be more difficult with Daisy jumping and barking to try to do it all at once. Maybe that will help convince Karen.

From time to time, Darling Wife (when exasperated at small child or dog) will say “Sweet Jesus of life!”

To me (being raised Jewish), this makes no sense. So I asked, “Is there a Sour Jesus of Death?” To which I receive either a “you’re a jackass” stare or a heel of the hand punch (lightly) to the forehead. The latter being her preferred method of chastising me, provided that I’m close enough to hit.

This lead to the title of this post, “Sweet and Sour Jesus”. Just for the hell of it (cue distant rolling thunderclap), I decided to search for the phrase “sweet sour jesus” to see what came up. It turns out that the phrase was used on the Colbert Report (which I now ashamedly admit that I don’t watch) and it’s the title of a song by Supersuckers (check it out yourself ). So much for thinking that I might have a moment of originality here.

After all, it really is about us, the viewers.

I mean, will the striking writers’ think it’s been worth it if the audience disappears and doesn’t come back? The show could then be canceled, and then there would be nothing to write for. Catch-22 indeed.

If I wind up taking the time I spend watching TV back and channeling it (no pun intended, seriously) into something else (like blogging), I might not go back.

To see where you favorite shows stand, check this list from Entertainment Weekly. Notably missing from the list (from my TV watching perspective is Cane, which is apparently close to being canceled anyway. Or maybe not.

We got an ad flyer from Halloween Adventure a few days ago. All the women’s costumes looked to be a variation of slutty -blank-. For example: slutty nurse, slutty maid, etc. Sadly, they don’t have the flyer online, so you can’t see what I’m talking about. You can easily find some examples on their site. Not that I minded the selection shown, it just seemed rather slanted in the slutty direction.

Enjoy your leftover candy!

I am exhausted to announce that RandomFailure.com now incorporates my other blog, AppleIPWatch.info, which was about Apple patents and related intellectual property (IP) issues. I simply did not have the time to maintain two blogs. As those who’ve read either blog might reply, I never really maintained one blog on a regular schedule. My point exactly. So now there will be a really random collection of stuff on this blog. For now, the links will be jumping across the sites, until I figure a sane way to convert some internal URLs over.