With toenails trimmed, our new-look NCAA live chat is a go!
TV or not TV, that is the question. Or something like that. (Photo and pedicure by yours truly)
I’ll have you know that I clipped my toenails just for this. (I even thought about putting polish on them. Then I realized I don’t really know how that’s done.) And clipping my toenails is, for this correspondent, an experience fraught with trauma.
On Sept. 25, 1997, I had taken a shower and repaired to the bedroom to clip my toenails. The deed done, I walked into the bathroom to return the clippers in question to their assigned drawer. I slipped on a wet spot and shattered my right kneecap into seven asymmetrical shards. I was on crutches until January. To this day, I have no right kneecap.
But I digress. I worked up my nerve and clipped my toenails because I didn’t want to appear all scraggly for our new-look NCAA tournament Day 1 live chat. As you can see, we have a new TV. The old one in the den stopped working last summer. (Although the old one in the den wasn’t nearly as old as the one featured in previous NCAA live chats. That one still runs like a charm.)
OK, enough about me. The Big Dance starts in earnest today, though it would be tough to top the doings in Dayton on Tuesday: Western Kentucky trailed by 16 points and won; BYU trailed by 25 points and won. To invoke Dickie V.: Are you serious?
First up today is Murray State-Colorado State. The Racers are, depending on your slant, either wildly underrated or overrated. Then comes Kansas State (overrated) against Southern Miss (underrated). Then Wisconsin (overrated) against Montana (dunno). That’s pretty fair fare for the first afternoon, I’d have to say.
And now it’s over to you. I’ll keep going until 4 p.m. or so, and I’d appreciate the company. And if anybody out there knows how to program these newfangled TVs, please sing out.
By Mark Bradley
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186 comments Add your comment
Rickster
March 15th, 2012
4:02 pm
3-for-3, and feeling good about my picks of Wisconsin & Marquette. Syracuse has me a bit on edge.
seezy
March 15th, 2012
4:04 pm
this game is getting testy
Mark Bradley
March 15th, 2012
4:05 pm
Going to wrap it up. Thanks for keeping me company. And pay attention to UNC Asheville.
ben
March 15th, 2012
5:38 pm
officiating in syracuse game is a joke. so pro su.
Old School
March 15th, 2012
5:57 pm
Never like to criticize officiating but Asheville got hosed.
Mark Bradley
March 15th, 2012
6:07 pm
The lane violation was correct. The out of bounds call wasn’t.
Dr. Kenneth Noisewater
March 15th, 2012
8:03 pm
8 for 8 so far…here we go!!
BaceFook
March 15th, 2012
8:39 pm
O…………………………………………….. k
Joe
March 15th, 2012
9:56 pm
11-0 so far.. can Baylor hold on for a perfect dozen
Rickster
March 16th, 2012
8:31 am
The chance for perfection is gone.
Darn Indiana State. And who would have thought VCU would be the #12 upset special this year?
Luckily, I didn’t have either Wichita State or UConn past the second round, so my F4 won’t be trashed.
Still 14-2 ain’t bad at all.
Rickster
March 16th, 2012
8:33 am
Bradley, however, might need to watch out for the wet floor again, ’cause he took a bath in the first round.
Rickster
March 16th, 2012
8:44 am
Re: Indiana State
Should be “Iowa State”
BILL
March 16th, 2012
9:11 am
The winner of this tournament is NOT the best team in the country! Check out my blog article to find out why.
scientistbill.blogspot.com
Ted M
March 16th, 2012
10:31 am
Mark you’re getting hammered.
Rickster
March 16th, 2012
2:39 pm
The real fiasco is that Mark gets paid to do this!
Rickster
March 16th, 2012
2:54 pm
Boy.. North Carolina State just destroyed San Diego State – and cost me 2 points!
Rickster
March 16th, 2012
3:38 pm
15-3 with Florida looking good and Creighton (hopefully) able to hold off Alabama (oh please, please, please)
Rickster
March 16th, 2012
4:17 pm
Go Gators! Go Creighton!
Legend of Len Barker
March 16th, 2012
7:00 pm
I’m sure my other picks will oblige shortly, but…
at least I didn’t pick Mizzou
Midtown
March 16th, 2012
8:18 pm
Creighton knocking off coal black “Bama behind McDermott and Gibbs……too funny….
Paul in NH
March 16th, 2012
9:16 pm
Watching Duke-Lehigh. Who knew there were so many Lehigh fans in Greensboro, NC? Or that they decided to wear light blue?
Legend of Len Barker
March 16th, 2012
9:46 pm
at least I didn’t pick Duke, either
serbailes
March 16th, 2012
9:59 pm
Does it get any better? Duke will be forever shown as a 2 seed losing to a 15 seed!!!!!!
phil
March 16th, 2012
10:17 pm
No, it doesn’t get better! Hahahahaha duke! Sweet!
A Father
March 17th, 2012
8:25 am
The fiasco basketball board and tracking offered daily is FANTASTIC. Thank you for taking the time to produce this game format through AJC internet. When I read the story about the knee injury it was painful. Good Luck and thanks so much!
Fred ™
March 17th, 2012
12:14 pm
Those weren’t really Bradley’s picks. He wrote in the teams he thought would lose as winners just to make the rest of us feel good about our own brackets.
Thanks Mark, it worked for me. i was feeling pretty down until I saw your results.
crusher dawg
March 17th, 2012
7:46 pm
Congratulations to Coach Steve Prohm of Murray State. A graduate of Northwest Whitfield High School in Tunnel Hill, GA. They had a great year………
sports
March 17th, 2012
8:10 pm
great to see those overated “dookies” get their @sses handed to them…that bunch never deserved a 2 seed, they’re about the same level as the yellow blowflys on North Avenue.
kral
March 17th, 2012
8:35 pm
Not a INDY or VCU fan…but the flagarant one call in this game …swinging elbows was the dumbest thing I think I have ever seen..something needs to change..
Peach Fuzz
March 17th, 2012
10:09 pm
What do Georgia Crackers do during MM? Do they grieve? Do they go into denial? Or do they go to see Dawgs during Spring practice?
Vandy Dad !!!
March 17th, 2012
11:32 pm
http://www.insidevandy.com/sports/mens_basketball/article_cad372cc-70a1-11e1-80ce-0019bb30f31a.html
Dirty Bird Nation
March 18th, 2012
2:12 pm
Lady Dawgs BOUNCED from NCAA by a #14 seed. Andy Landers need to be removed as coach and bring in Theresa Edwards to coach this team. Andy had no idea of how to stop Marist motion offense. You are a #4 seed and you get BOUNCED.
gordon
March 18th, 2012
11:14 pm
my best friend’s ex-wife earned $12164 the previous month. she works on the internet and moved in a $437900 condo. All she did was get fortunate and put to work the tips revealed on this site Nuttyrich.С o M
Sid
March 19th, 2012
1:50 am
Man…………..I promise you, Furman Bisher never wrote about “trimmed toenails”……….God Speed Furman!
Sid
March 19th, 2012
2:06 am
Bisher: I saw him take his first breath in life and I saw him take his last
On the death of his son, Roger
By Furman Bisher
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
First published: April 19, 2000
Let me tell you about Roger Bisher, the athlete. It won’t take long because the career was short.
He was well-built for a kid. Looked like an athlete. Could run like a deer. He had a coachable attitude. So the Pop Warner coach at Chastain Park talked him into coming out for the team. His brother Jamie was already a player. Roger looked like a natural. He pitched in with moderate enthusiasm, then discovered that the coach knew all about machinery, so while the others practiced, Roger talked machinery with the coach, who enjoyed talking machinery with Roger, and football got lost. End of career.
His next career led to machines and science and stuff. He had a little workshop under the house out of which came some of the strangest sounds you ever heard. Sometimes it was crackling electricity. Sometimes it was an explosion, nothing major, just the budding scientist learning by trial and error. Once, he freeze-dried a dead bird he had found and won a prize in a citywide science contest. The paper printed his name wrong, Thomas Bisher. Made no difference to him. He knew who it was.
On our street, he was everybody’s repairman. TV, refrigeration, air-conditioning, appliances, plumbing, anything. As they say in sports, he could do it all. Best part, there was no waiting. Knock on the door and ask if Roger could come over and fix something. Oh, once in awhile I’d have to tell them, “Soon as he finishes his homework.”
One of my neighbors said, “He’s kind of pricey, but he does good work and you can count on him.”
He liked to swim, but when we used to vacation at Hilton Head, sometimes you’d look around for him and he’d be gone. You’d find him with some maintenance men or guys installing something. Sometimes he’d be down or up or inside something, just as dirty as they were.
Once I asked him why he didn’t get out of his workshop and play games. He said, “Daddy, you play golf for fun. This is my game.”
Junkyards were his playgrounds. He’d make friends with the man who ran the place and get rummaging privileges. Sometimes he’d take some kind of scrap or discard to make a trade, but that was usually a token. One of his closest friendships was made in a junkyard — well, a scrap dealership would be more proper — with a man named Dave Pirkle, who while Roger was still a youth, accepted him as an equal.
After he and his wife developed their business, Prime Power Inc., and it grew out of a patch of woods into a good-sized complex, he didn’t sit back and delegate. He was hands-on. Once, he and an associate, Rick Taylor, were working on a project at the Centers for Disease Control and Roger spied a dumpster on the grounds. Being a natural forager, he jumped into the dumpster and began looking around when a CDC official showed up.
“I’d like to meet your president, ” he said to Rick.
“He’s right here, ” Rick said, and at that moment, Roger, the president, stood up in the dumpster and said, “Pleased to meet you.”
I took him to his first Indianapolis 500, and as soon as we hit town, he caught a taxi to a manufacturing company he’d corresponded with. It wasn’t long before he was in the president’s office talking shop, this sophomore at Georgia Tech. It was sort of like the time when Jesus disappeared and his parents found him in the temple talking with the elders, and I hope that isn’t overdrawn.
I took him to his first, and only, bowl game. Georgia Tech played Texas Tech in the Sun Bowl, but the highlight of the trip was crossing into Juarez, his first time in a foreign country. He was careful not to drink the water.
The subject of Roger comes up today because I have lost him. A beautiful, handsome, loving man, no finer son has any parent ever had, and I grieve. Old men like me should be going first, not one who had so much to give to the world as he. Roger Chisholm Bisher passed away Monday afternoon. I saw him take his first breath in life and I saw him take his last. He was just 44, but in my heart he shall always be that smiling child blowing up his workshop. Thanks for giving me your time.
Rickster
March 19th, 2012
10:04 am
Dirty Bird… based on your logic, Coach K should be fired for losing to a #15 seed.