Mad props

Things and/or people and/or dieties I'm mad at today:

The Michigan State Spartans. Not because I had money on the game, and not because I was particularly pulling for them to win the NCAA men's basketball championship last night - although, clearly, an MSU victory would have solved all of Michigan's problems - but because Sparty was so overmatched that I was bored silly watching the game. Like, fell-asleep-in-the-middle-of-the-first-half bored. That should not happen during March Madness.

(Aside: Whoever came up with all of the college basketball catchphrases - March Madness, Final Four, Elite Eight, Sweet Sixteen, Clark Kellogg - that person sure liked alliteration.)

Anyway, the game was such a disappointment that I was starved for entertainment, which meant I had to keep the TV on afterward to watch...

The ER series finale. Waiting for me on DVR from last Thursday was two hours of excellent entertainment. A perfectly fitting finale, I thought. I haven't watched ER regularly in about six years, but I thought the writers did a great job of bringing back some of the original characters in ways that actually made sense. Not to mention incorporating the enchanting Alexis Bledel as a young doctor. (One, Had she been a regular for a while? Two, Did I just write enchanting?) Nice also how the story and the action just kept going, right until the end, with little pause for sentiment and mush, a strong bookend to the series premiere.

(Aside 2: As you might remember, ER and Chicago Hope premiered the same week in September 1994. Those really were the salad days for Chicago-based medical ensemble dramas, weren't they? I was pretty sure at the time that Chicago Hope was the one that would be around longer. Oops.)

So why am I mad at ER? Because I was tired before watching ER and I really should have gone to sleep. But after two hours of unusually great TV, I was pretty geared up - I was craving more televised entertainment. Which meant staying up even later to watch me some rerun Letterman. (Which was a great move, because there were Stupid Pet Tricks, including this one, which cracked me way up.) Which means that I'm really freaking tired right now.

The baseball gods. Because on the strength of their Opening Day performances yesterday, I have hope that the Orioles (especially), Cubs and Dodgers all are on their way to the playoffs this year.

Which, because of pitching (Orioles), being the Cubs (Cubs) and pitching (Dodgers), they're probably not. So why did they have to get my hopes up?

Californians. Because now it looks like Iowans get it. And Vermonters (?) get it. And Golden Staters, who always seems to make a racket about being the people who set trends on these kinds of things, still do not get the idea that adults who want to get married should just be able to get married. Period.

That's a lot of mad so far, I know. But the day is young.