We've Been Compromised! Abort?

I don't know if I've been unlucky, careless or I'm turning into Michael Jordan of pretending to work "Minor League Baseball Edition", but I've had a few inconveniences lately. Nothing major, but I'm a pretty paranoid guy.


Last Friday, UW was taking on Illinois in the Big Ten tourney. I was sitting at my desk, with the ESPN TV feed playing on my computer, while sort of working, albeit not real efficiently. My monitor is in the perfect location relative to the door to my office, meaning it faces away from the door. So nobody can really tell what is on the screen unless they come around to my side of the desk. Anyway, about half time of the Badger game, one of my bosses (who is a big sports fan, and who knows that I am too) pokes his head in and asks me what the score was. I was a bit flabbergasted. I'm not sure if he knew that I was keeping track and didn't care, but just wanted to know the score. Or if he just assumed? I sort of played dumb like I wasn't watching it on TV and told him "last time I checked the Badgers were down nine....". I hadn't left my desk so I'm positive he didn't know the extent of my slacking. I personally don't think there is anything wrong with monitoring a scoreboard every few minutes, but I'm not the boss either.


When the game was over, he poked his head in again and asked. This time, I was onto his game and told him I don't know. He seemed disappointed and confused by the answer. Then I decided I would be "helpful" and say "Let me check. " And then he came to my side of the desk while I pulled up the box score.

The second incident occurred yesterday. Thursday and Friday of the NCAA tournament are about my two favorite days of the year. In a past life, I would skip class/take off of work to watch all day long. In my current position I can't do that. What I can do, however, is manipulate my schedule so that I don't have any appointments and can be sitting behind my computer between the hours of 11 a.m. and 4 p.m., where I may or may not watch MMOD. So last night (yes, last night) one of my bosses decided to come into my office while I was in there to take a look at our calenders to see if they could pawn some stuff off on me this week. When they reached Thursday and saw 5 hours blocked off with no explanation, the question was "what is this?" I just said, I don't want any appointments. Then, they went to Friday and saw the same thing and said "You don't ever want appointments or what?" So that was awkward. Nothing incriminating, but one of those things that will probably cause the bosses to wonder what I'm doing during those hours. My only saving grace is that this particular boss is not a sports fan, and probably doesn't realize that there is basketball being played during those hours.

The question is: Is there any reason for me to be concerned? I say not because I have been working 60+ hours a week for the last 6 weeks, and I feel I deserve to fuck around for two half days. Thoughts?

DVR ALERT!!! Friday, beginning at 2 p.m. do not attempt to communicate with me in any way unless someone died. I will be going dark and will be watching the last three sessions of the tournament beginning at 6 p.m. as if they were happening live due to Bucky playing at 1:50 p.m. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

ST. PATTY'S DAY: Happy amateur hour! Even though I'm a quarter Irish, I don't need an excuse to get drunk. I prefer Wednesday as an excuse. While getting drunk on green beer is fun, it also brings out the assholes who can't handle their liquor and like to start fights. And it is annoying.

Storming the Floor Etiquette

This is a few days late, but since nobody besides me watched, or gave a shit, that UWGB rolled up then 6th ranked Butler the other night, I thought I could write this now and be OK. See, after the win, the UWGB fans stormed the court like they had just won a championship of some sort. To be fair, according to my cursory review of UWGB basketball history, this is only the third ever home win over a ranked opponent, so it was a very big win for the program and everyone should be excited. But I have a number of problems with the storming of the court:

1) Last week the student section appeared to have about 30 people in it. So the majority of the people storming the court are bandwagon jumpers, and shouldn't have the right to act that excited.

2) UWGB is still in second place after the win.

3) It was a regular season game, that was really for nothing other than bragging rights, and seedings, seeing as UWGB has ZERO chance at an at-large bid, and Butler is probably getting one anyway.

4) It wasn't THAT big of an upset.

In my mind there is a series of rules that need to be followed before court storming is appropriate. As Walter says, "This isn't 'Nam. There are rules!!!". If any one of these things happens, a storming is appropriate. I am happy to provide such a list:

1) The win clinches an NCAA birth. Even if you are Duke and you go every year, it is hard to do, and a celebration is warranted. There is nothing cooler than a really small mid-major doing this after their first appearance in 45 years.

2) You are unranked, and the win is against the number one ranked team. Not 6, not 20, but NUMBER ONE.

3) The win is a monumental upset. If you are the last place team and beat a ranked opponent for the first time ever, it is acceptable ONCE. If you are historically terrible and you snap a losing streak to that team that is more than 20 games long, it is acceptable, ONCE.

4) It is a hotly contested conference game, between good rivals, and the game ends on a miraculous buzzer beater. If the sheer emotion of the ending ends in the players in a pile up, the fans are allowed to join in.

5) You win a national title.

That's it. That's the list. The storming of the court in Green Bay earlier in the week was amateur hour.