Early NCAA Tournament Tweets: Chuck Schumer Differs with the Prez

Here are some early tweets from last night when Tennessee edged Iowa in a preliminary game in the NCAA Tournament; today is expected to be the least productive day in offices across the country. And, given that Harvard is playing Cincinnati in the first round of action this afternoon, we have to wonder how many brain surgeries are being postponed.

Here are nine tweets from between 11:00 p.m.-midnight last night (eastern time):

1) Dallas Morning News: What you need to know to jump on Baylor bandwagon (top image, Baylor is playing Nebraska in the first round)

2) Iowa Basketball: Bench points Iowa 35 Tennessee 4 (but as we said the Vols won the game; they face UMass next on Friday)

3) Wolfpack Wire" Mark Gottffried says "I Like Our Spirit"

4) Yes Weekly: Traffic stopped on I-40 at exit 208, the farmer's market (this incident happened in Greensboro, we thought we'd put in one tweet off topic)

5) ESPNU: Cal Poly is only the 2nd team to an NCAA Tournament game after losing 19 games during the season (pictured bottom)

6) Hank Domin (he works for Syracuse University's athletic department): Sen. Chuck Schumer to Barack Obama: Sorry, but the Syracuse basketball team will win NCAA Tournament (Schumer is pictured center. Like Obama, he is a Democrat. Schumer represent New York state in the U.S. Senate. Obama picked Michigan State to win NCAAs)

7) Mark Peterson: One of the best days of the year is tomorrow (he is referring to today)

8) Kentucky Basketball: Who remembers when Tayshaun (Tayshaun Prince) going for 41 the last time we were in St. Louis. (T.Prince now plays for the Detroit Pistons)

9) NDSU Athletics: Doug Gottlieb with the assist to NDSU dunk master TrayVonn Wright (NDSU refers to North Dakota State University, the team plays Oklahoma today)

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/tournament

NCAA Nicknames_ Birds and Cats

Thanks to those of you in Latvia who are checking us out. Today is the start of the NCAA division one men's basketball tournament, and it is traditionally the day in America when the least amount of work gets done, which means Dilbert may take a long break to check out the score of the Davidson-Marquette game.

Here is a look at various NCAA division one team nicknames; most of these schools did not actually make the 68-team field.

Smart Schools

1. Harvard Crimson (Mass.; Ivy League, pictured top-the team's mascot is John Harvard)#^
2. Bucknell Bison (Pa; Patriot League)#
3. Stanford Cardinal (Calif.; Pac-12)*
4.Wake Forest Demon Deacons (NC; ACC)
5. VCU Rams (Va.; A-10)# @

Felines

6. Kentucky Wildcats (Ky;SEC)*
7. Clemson Tigers (SC, ACC)
8. BYU Cougars (Utah, WCC) *

9. Cincinnati Bearcats (Ohio. Big East, pictured center)*@
10. High Point Panthers (NC; Big South)
11. South Alabama Jaguars (Fla.; Sunbelt)

Angry Birds

12. South Carolina Gamecocks (SC; SEC) @
13. Oregon Ducks (Ore.; Pac-12, pictured bottom)*
14. UNC-Wilmington Seahawks (NC; Colonial)

15.Virginia Tech Hokies (Va; ACC) @
16. Texas-San Antonio Roadrunners (Texas, WAC)
17. Miami (Ohio) Redhawks (Ohio, Mid-America)^


#-Schools which are in NCAA Tournament
*-Schools with Div. I women's gymnastics programs
^-Schools with Div. I men's hockey programs
@-Schools that were once in the now defunct Metro Conference

Quote of the Day/Week_ Michael Dukakis

Hmmm....since there is the NCAA men's basketball tournament here in the United States (editorial comment: Go Harvard! They face Vanderbilt today) and the UEFA Champions League soccer games in Europe, assuredly Taiwan may be one of the few places where actual work is getting done today.

Today, we quote Michael Dukakis, the Democratic candidate who unsuccessfully ran against George H.W. Bush, in the 1988 presidential election. All this month, we are quoting men who fought the good fight, but didn't end up serving in the White House. Last week, we quoted Republican Robert Dole who lost to Bill Clinton in 1996.

There is a bit of a personal connection with me and the Dukakis campaign. Since I was 18 in 1988 and I was one of the few people from my high school in a conservative zip code who disdained the policies of Ronald Reagan, I was eager to vote Dukakis. And, I did.

The problem is that I'm a Turkish-American, and this didn't go over well with the relatives in Istanbul. In fact, my since deceased uncle by marriage Omer Bati pretty much threatened to throw me over the balcony for voting for Dukakis.

We learned today that Dukakis, a Greek-American, actually has connections to modern-day Turkey as his parents came from the Turkish port town of Erdemit in the Balikesir province. There are still many Turkish citizens of Greek heritage in Turkey; most of them reside in Istanbul.

Ironically, Dukakis was the second Greek-American to become the governor of a state. Long before Dukakis became the governor of Massachusetts, a post later held by both Democrat John Kerry (who lost to George W. Bush in 2004) and Mitt Romney, who is likely going to be the Republican nominee this year, one Spiro Agnew was the governor of Maryland from 1967-69.

Agnew's life is however best remembered for scandal as the Republican who would become Richard Nixon's first vice president was forced to resign from that post due to a bribery scandal.

As for Dukakis, he is perhaps best-remembered for taking more firm stances on liberal issues, including his opposition to the death penalty and his belief in gun control.

As for me, there are no regrets about voting for Dukakis, though today, I may not share voting for a Greek-American with other Turkish people.

Here is the quote from Dukakis:

"The best America is a nation where the son of Greek immigrants, with your help, can seek and win the presidency of the United States."

Quote of the Day/Week- Woody Allen

We continue our month-long series of quips from Oscar-winning film directors with a great quote from Woody Allen, who along with fellow filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, is perhaps the person we have quipped the most on our two blogs.

Allen won his Best Director Oscar for "Annie Hall" in 1977. The comedy film with his then-girlfriend Diane Keaton also won Best Picture, beating out "Star Wars." This year, Allen is nominated yet again for his most recent film "Midnight in Paris," which is also his biggest box office success.

Just this week, Allen's skit segmented film "Everything You Always Wanted to Know Sex, But Were Afraid to Ask" (1973) became the 6,000th film I voted for on the IMDB (I had first seen the film many years ago, but I didn't realize I had never voted on the film).

Since Valentine's Day is around the corner (yes, I hate it with a passion too), we thought we'd get an Allen quip on relationships:

"A relationship, I think, is like a shark. You know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark."

SIDEBAR: We have been reporting on the very impressive Harvard University men's basketball team which remains nationally ranked this week (we believe they are ranked 24th) as they stand a plausible chance of being the first Ivy League team to play in the Final Four since Pennsylvania did it in 1978.

Last weekend, Harvard won back-to-back home games (on Friday and Saturday nights) over Cornell then Columbia.

In Friday's win over the Big Red, Harvard's Canadian sophomore Laurent Rivard scored 16 points. The Crimson won the game 72-60.

On Saturday night, Harvard bested Columbia in a narrow 57-52 win thanks to 20 points from Rivard.

Harvard will play Penn-U in Philadelphia on Friday night, and then on Saturday the Crimson's road game against Princeton will be nationally televised on ESPN-U at 7:00 p.m.

Silly Photo to Fill Space_ John Harvard

Today, we turn our attention to Ivy League sports since the men's basketball team for Harvard University (18-2) is nationally ranked, and really kicking butt. The school mascot is indeed John Harvard!

The Harvard Crimson (that is the school's nicknamed, we double-googled) beat arch rival Yale University on the road in New Haven, Conn., for just the second time in 13 ties by a 65-35 score. The team then turned around and won another road game at Brown by a 68-59 score.

Steve Mioundou-Missi, a junior from Cameroon (yes, we double-googled his name too), was named the Ivy League men's basketball player of the week.

Surprisingly, Harvard's men's hockey team had a home game against Yale on Friday, and the ice guys were also victorious as they beat the Bulldogs 4-3. The Crimson then beat Brown at home by a 3-1 margin on Saturday.

Harvard also has a strong women's hockey team this year, and they beat Yale 8-0 and Brown 6-0 (both road games) over the weekend.

This lead to Kaitlin Spurling, a junior from Byfield, Mass., being named as Harvard Athlete of the Week. Spurling scored four goals against Yale and two goals against Brown.

The men's basketball team will face Princeton on the road for nationally televised game on ESPN-U on Sat., Feb. 11 at 7:00 p.m. The last Ivy League men's basketball team to make the Final Four were the Pennsylvania Quakers in 1978.

Harvard also has water polo team's for both men and women, and recently the women's team traveled to Hungary.

Bonus Road Trip (10 of 10)_ LA to Athens (Georgia, not Greece)

We will go ahead and tell you that the air mileage between Los Angeles and Athens, Greece, is 6,907 miles, suprisingly enough, Istanbul, Turkey, which isn't quite as south as the Greek capital is slightly closer to L.A. at 6,832 air miles.


But, the UCLA Bruins women's gymnastics team coming off a narrow, but impressive home win over the Utah Utes yesterday (196.075-196.025) will travel to Athens, Georgia, on March 2nd to face the Georgia Bulldogs, also known as the 'Gym Dawgs.'

UGA scored its own win on Friday night as they defeated the Denver Pioneers at home by a score of 196.525-193.700. The Gym Dawgs will next head to the University of Alabama to face the defending champions in the Crimson Tide. Alabama is also vying for a national titled in football tonight against LSU.

For the UCLA Bruins, Samantha Peszek paved the way by winning the all-around with a score of 39.45. The Bruins also have stand-out gymnasts in Vanessa Zamarripa, whose name we have previously spelled incorrectly (don't tell the Associated Press!; forgive the journalism humor) and Aisha Gerber.

Among the outstanding gymnasts for the Gym Dawgs are seniors Kat Ding and Gina Nuccio.

For our points of destination, we are choosing Garage Pizza on West Seventh Street in Los Angeles and Taquiero Del Sol (one of several locations) on Prince Avenue in Athens, Ga.

So just how far is this commute, in terms of driving time (we assume the Bruins team will fly into Georgia; we'd ask the Bruins coach ourselves, but we think she has more pressing matters to tend to); is the answer:

A) 32 hours and 30 minutes

B) 33 hours and 30 minutes

C) 34 hours and 30 minutes

D) 35 hours and 30 minutes


SIDEBAR: The answer to our last Bonus Road Trip was C. Incidentally, the Dartmouth Big Green's men's basketball team lost on the road at Harvard by a score of 63-47. But, Gabas Maldunas, from Lithuania, was selected as the Ivy League Rookie of the Week for the third time this year. We refered to the game in an earlier post. Maldunas scored 15 points and grabbed nine rebounds in the loss at Harvard.

Road Trip- Cambridge, Mass, to Eugene, Ore.

We have been meaning to post this entry for quite a long time as we ask you the blog-reader to guess how long it would take a bus driver to get from Cambridge, Mass., to Eugene, Oregon.

Both of these college towns boast hip, popular independent record stores. In Cambridge, where Harvard University is located, there is Cheapo Records, that was profiled on the NPR show "The World." And, in Eugene, Ore., which is known for both the University of Oregon and for being the residence of the late author Ken Kesey ("One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), there is Skip's Record and CD World.

Of course, the whole world knows that Harvard is the alma mater of President Barack Obama and Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg (ooops!, we forgot that Zuckerberg is actually a college drop-out).

We are also featuring the cover of the 1978 debut album of The Pretenders (which is called "The Pretenders") because we are huge fans of the band and their lead singer Chrissie Hynde.

So, here are the choices:

A)43 hours, 20 minutes

B) 44 hours, 50 minutes

C) 47 hours, 10 minutes

D) 48 hours, 40 minutes

SIDEBAR: There are lots of celebrity birhtdays today as one of our favorite actresses Natalie Portman turns 30, Johnny Depp turns 48, Michael J. Fox turns 50 and Bollywood star Sonam Kapoor turns 25.

SIDEBAR TWO: I had the chance to see Miss Lana Rebel, an experimental/folk singer perform recently at the Green Bean in Greensboro, NC. Now the band that was originally based in Portland, Ore., then Tucson, Ariz., then Athens, Ga., is now play in and around Austin, Tex. Amazingly enough, Miss Rebel and her bandmates live out of a school bus in Vancouver, Wash., they bought via Craig's List.