The madness begins...

So the rotating schedule worked out so I have today off, which is nice because I plan on enjoying the first day of the NCAA tournament greatly.

So far, WFSB-HD has been having its fair share of technical difficulties, which is making things a little more annoying, but I have been able to catch the majority of the UW-Milwaukee vs. Alabama game, in which Alabama was being run out of the building early, before making a run late in the first half. It's now an eight-point edge for UW-M, as of this writing.

The surround sound mix on the HD broadcast has been amazing. You can hear the crowd and cheerleaders distinctly from the announcers and game action, and when someone dunks, you really feel the rattling of the rim through the subwoofer. I'm a fan.

Before basketball started today, I got through a couple more "Angel" episodes (actually, just one, though I watched three last night before going to sleep). I'm right up to the one where Faith makes her first appearance on the show, which should be interesting.

Right now, though, it's all about basketball. During the afternoon break later today, I'll probably run over to EB and pick up "Need for Speed Underground: Rivals" for PSP, which came out this week, despite the system not being out until next week. I can't wait for that system. It's gonna be awesome. Of course, now I need to get a 1 GB Memory Stick, which seems to be out of stock everywhere.

Oh, I have just about finalized my plans for next weekend. I'm going down to see DJ on Friday afternoon, before continuing on to Eric's place Friday night. After that, I'll be hanging out with Eric and Jess Saturday and Sunday (well, at least the non-Easter part of Sunday), then stopping at The Towerlight on Monday before getting back to Connecticut. Then I'll work for the next five days. D'oh. Still, it'll be worth it, since I end up with a four-day weekend without even having to use a vacation day.

That's it for now, but I'll have another update later today, because I want to talk about my favorite "Buffy" episode through the first five seasons.

Update coming soon...

OK, this is just a quickie update before the real big update tomorrow. Just a few things to hit:

•I filled out an official NCAA tournament bracket on ESPN.com. You can view my picks here. Yes, I chose Illinois over UConn, which is different from the bracket I filled out today (which has UNC beating Illinois). I'm still not sure about that. I just haven't been following college basketball that closely this year.

•I'm going down to Maryland/DC next weekend to visit Eric and Jess, and I'll probably stop in at The Towerlight at some point. I was actually reading through old Towerlight e-mails and it really made me miss that environment. I loved working there.

•Picked up season six of Buffy and I'm going to start watching that as soon as I'm done with season one of Angel (which is starting to grow on me).

•No new DGOW or Versus polls this week, though I'll try to have those up next Monday. Tuesday at the latest.

Slow week...

Not a surprise given that I've worked every day since last Monday, but I haven't really been up to a whole lot lately. Mostly working and watching DVDs. I'm almost done with Season 5 of "Buffy" and then I'm finally going to watch the first season of "Angel," which Kate loaned to me what seems like forever ago. Maybe I'll finally learn what happened to tie up plot lines like the ring that allowed vampires to walk in the daytime and what happened to Faith and stuff like that, which was supposedly resolved on "Angel."

Oh, I did get to go have breakfast with my mom yesterday, which was nice. We got to talk about stuff and spend some time together, which we don't always get to do with our weird work schedules.

I also visited Shawn at EB today and traded in some games, then paid the remaining balance on my PSP. Plus, I also paid for the three games I want to pick up (NBA Street, NFL Street and Need for Speed) so that way on the 24th I'll be completely ready to go. Now I just need the 24th to get here sooner. On a positive note, I have that weekend off, so I'll be able to log plenty of game time if I choose to do so.

I should mention to follow up on something from a couple weeks ago that ESPN.com has now added a "single-page view" link to stories that span over multiple pages. Still, an even better feature would be a cookies-based system by which you could set a preference to default to single-page view. Even if it were an Insider-only option, it'd be a step in the right direction (plus, I'm an Insider member, so I'm always a fan of free features).

There's been another tie in the Versus contest, so Nikki Cox vs. Elle MacPherson gets another week of play, while Britney Spears won in a clean sweep over Gwen Stefani. Ali Landry vs. Liv Tyler is this week's new poll, and hopefully next week we'll have two new ones to round out the second round (moving us into the Sweet 16). For those of you who haven't been keeping track, the 12 people in the Sweet 16 thus far are: Angelina Jolie, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Kiera Knightly, Monica Bellucci, Jennifer Garner, Jessica Alba, Eliza Dushku, Holly Marie Combs, Jessica Simpson, Shania Twain, Beyoncé Knowles and Britney Spears. I've got to say, I'm surprised Knightly and Combs made it this far (though to be fair, Combs did end up with favorable matchups against Melissa Joan Hart and Catherine Bell. Still, Knightly beat Salma Hayek in the last round, so kudos to her).