It Started with a Journal

KANSAS. Way to bring your A-game. Super impressed with how they manhandled North Carolina today. NC has been playing so well, looking nigh undefeatable, whereas Kansas has been eking out wins in their matchups. But today, damn. They brought it. I also have to give a shout out to Ohio St., who kept my bracket hopes alive by taking out Syracuse yesterday. <3

So despite how horribly I did in the first two rounds, 3 of my Final 4 picks came to fruition (all except Louisville), which I'm pretty proud of. Of course, if I'd done better in the first two rounds I'd be looking really good right now, instead of being in the middle of the pack. Sigh. BUT even if it all goes downhill from here, at least I won't finish last in my pool.

In fact, I actually still have a chance to place in the top 3. Ohio St. has to win the championship for that to happen, so we'll see. It is, however, mathematically impossible for me to get first place. Oh well. It would be amazing enough to place in the top 3.

OMG, awesomeness.

This artist is celebrating the return of Community by artwork depicting each of the characters as a Game of Thrones character! Two of my favorite fandoms colliding!

( Greendale is coming! )

And the fun doesn't stop there. There's also the return of Arrested Development. And this blog brings you... Arrested Westeros!

( I've made a huuuuge mistake. )

March Madness update: OMFG MISSOURI WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU. That's my first Elite 8 team to be out. DAMN IT. At least others had them going to the Final Four, but STILL. &$@#&$#@* I am BOTTOM DEAD LAST in my office pool. FML.

This is funny... but also how I feel about spoilers. :))

I'm debating whether or not to buy some Head Country Barbecue Sauce. They're based in Oklahoma and buying it online is just about the only way I can get it (short of flying there). It's probably the best barbecue sauce I've ever had. The problem is that a case of 12 costs just as much to ship as the case itself! Also I don't really need 12 bottles of it. O.o However, buying half that amount individually doesn't cost much less, and the shipping costs slightly more. Yeah, I don't know. Then again, I'm trying to remember my mantra that money is only useful if I'm using it to make myself happy, so there's that. Oh, what the hell, I'm doing it. I called and they said that the expiration is 3 years from the date of bottling, so that seems doable enough (assuming I get fresh bottles), and I can also give some away.

It's on my mind because my stovetop smoker arrived and I made ribs this weekend -- THE BEST RIBS EVER. They were infused with hickory smoke and were juicy and tender. Seriously, I can now confirm that even pre-bacon, this stovetop smoker was worth every penny. I love barbecue, but Seattle's not exactly a great place for it, other than like 2 weeks in the summer. Now I can have delicious barbecue all year long! And while the house did smell like a lovely BBQ joint while it was cooking, it didn't last for more than a day. (Not that I personally would have minded if it had.) There was minimal smoke from the smoker during the full two hours the baby back ribs were cooking -- I was amazed! ( Ribalicious! )

Oh, and while I was at H-Mart, they had TV screens up showing a Korean drama, and I saw Ga Eul! Her character was helping her sick mom. It was kind of like seeing an old friend, lol. Except when I was in the parking lot texting akscully about it, some asshole woman slammed her car door into my car! SERIOUSLY, WHY DO PEOPLE DO THAT????? You wouldn't believe how many times it's happened where I've been in the car and then the person next to it just opens their door without a SINGLE CARE for my car. I would understand if I was parked like a jerk, over the line and what not -- but I was parked perfectly in the middle of my space!! I mean, I sometimes feel like I am the ONLY person who is careful and considerate when I'm parked next to someone, to keep my door from hitting their car. And of course she didn't speak a lick of English, so all my admonitions of how she should be more careful, etc., basically fell on deaf ears. I was so frustrated. It totally left a little ding on my car, and I probably should have asked for insurance information and what not, but I knew I wasn't going to report it, so I just left in a huff. Still, I probably should have, just to make her sweat for a few days and learn that there are potential consequences for being an asshole.

OK, so I have a guilty confession to make. I read and loooooooooved Outlander years ago. I loved the characters, the universe, the story. Outlander felt epic and magical. But I couldn't get into its sequel, Dragonfly in Amber. It took me AGES to finish, and at the end of it I didn't feel much any desire to go on. I haven't read any of the books after that, because the characters stopped being appealing and the historical intrigue that's present in every novel feels so convoluted that it doesn't much interest me. Yet I still consider myself an Outlander fan, so I've always felt guilty that I haven't actually read the books in the series. I don't have much hope that, left to my own devices, I'll actually ever read the other books, so I hit on the great idea that if I read all the details about them on Wikipedia, it might spark a renewed interest. Unfortunately, other than the two novels I've actually read, the Wikipedia summaries for the other books are totally sparse, really not much better than what might be on the book jackets. All I know is that they end up in crazy places with crazy connections and all the relationships are super complicated (more complicated than I really like; Claire being married to Jamie and Frank while traveling to the past and meeting Frank's ancestor in Outlander was about as complex as I like it). And it's not even that I don't like series that have a billion characters and a complex storyline (A Song of Ice and Fire, anyone?) -- but where Diana Gabaldon has taken Outlander is not as compelling to me as ASoIaF. :/ I guess maybe I have to stop calling myself an Outlander fan.

I don't know if anyone else is following f_march_madness, but I actually got in early enough this year to enter the pool. Unfortunately, while I made some good picks, I also made some bad ones -- namely, I should not have picked Scully. Apparently people are totally over Scully. I have Leslie Knope taking it all, but she's going to face some stiff competition from Donna Noble, who people apparently LOVE. (Since I haven't watched past S1 of Dr. Who, I don't know her at all, but I have to root against her or she is going to bust my bracket.) Even though I picked her myself, I'm surprised that Sansa Stark is so handily beating Buffy in round 2. Apparently poor Buffy is in the same boat as Scully in that they're in fandoms from too long ago.

As for real March Madness, aka, the NCAA men's basketball tourney, our office is doing a pool again this year. Since UCLA's not even IN it (sigh), I won't have to be torn between school loyalty/sentimentality and who I actually think will win. The problem is that I haven't been following college bball at ALL this year, so I have no clue who's good and who's not. Therefore I am once again using Slate's advice on what teams to pick. It didn't work out last year, but it was a very close thing, so I figure, why not.