fingers crossed?

i know i'm about to jinx this, but i just had to share.

i really love march madness. i always fill out the maximum number of brackets on yahoo just to see what happens. i also always sign up for the "best bracket contest" in the hopes that - somehow, out of the millions of entries - mine will be the greatest.

well, as you can see from the following picture, through the first four, second, and third round of the tournament....i think i have a chance.

one of my brackets (feel free to judge the name...i named all of my brackets after animal sounds) is doing exceptionally well. yes, i had florida gulf coast beating georgetown. no, i did not have them beating san diego state. no, i did not have harvard winning. yes, i did have wichita state in the sweet 16.

what i am most impressed about this bracket is that i went 8/8 on the 8/9 and 7/10 games. i feel like those really are the true toss-ups. as is always the case, in just about every other bracket i had ole miss beating wisconsin...except in this one. also, in every other bracket, i had la salle over kansas state...except this one. so that part of the bracket is really the only major blemish.

with the exception of fgcu in the sweet 16, i have a perfect right side of the bracket. i'm ok with that.

what gets me really excited about the chance of contending for the top prize, however, is that i have a not-so-likely final 4. if it hits, i guarantee i'm one of the few to have it:

(1) louisville

(6) arizona

(4) michigan

(1) indiana

you best believe the entire osu/isu game i was pleading for iowa state to pull it off. the west bracket is in such chaos that i feel like arizona would have had a cake walk to the final 4 had that happened. unfortunately their next game is against ohio state, so i will be quite nervous as that game progresses. really though, how many have arizona in the final four?

michigan was my outside pick as i think the south bracket is probably the toughest. kansas and florida are both great teams. i was hoping that unc would beat kansas to set up an easier path for michigan. nonetheless, KU's struggles against unc make me hope that trey burke and company can pull off an upset. i still think florida is the best team in that bracket (i have them in all of my other final 4s) so i might just be depressed. nonetheless, if michigan makes it to the final four, i think i'll still be one of the few to have them.

louisville has looked good. i think they have way more talent than oregon. one always needs to worry about coach k and coach izzo, so whichever team they face in the elite 8 could pose a big threat. either way, i still like their chances.

indiana, if you ask me, is the most talented team. i understand that syracuse is a tough matchup, but i don't think syracuse has the depth they have had in previous years to compete. oladipo can run circles around any of their players. i'm not a huge fan of marquette, and their close games against davidson and butler prove they are vulnerable. i like miami to make the elite 8. that will be a brawl of a game, and i can't wait to see who wins the miami-indiana matchup. 

anyway, i know the remaining permutations/combinations/possibilities of elite 8, final 4, and championship games are substantial. i'm not counting my hens before they hatch, but i've never had a bracket this good this far into the tourney. one can dream.

Shit Aerospace Graduate Students Say

(with an Indian (dot, not feather) accent):

"My grid divergence is 10 to the minus 9, bitches. Such a good result. So nice and smooth..."

Sometimes I enjoy my shared office.

marital bliss

here's a nice story about the sociological approach to gender roles. feel free to pick a side at the conclusion of this story.

the other day i was at the grocery store picking up a few things for lunches for the week (and to re-stock on some stuff we were running low on). about half-way through my grocery shopping adventure, my phone started to vibrate. i took it out of my pocket and realized that my wife was calling  me.

ahmed: "hi hun."

wife: "hi. could you pick me up some brownies? i'd like to make brownies tonight."

ahmed: "sure, what kind?"

wife: "the good kind. just get the best brownies you can find, i want to go all out tonight."

with that, i proceeded to find the most expensive box of double fudge brownies the grocery store had to offer.

fast forward about 15 minutes. i arrive home, unload groceries, and begin putting them away in the fridge/cupboards. 

upon seeing that i am putting away the items i just purchased, my wife popped into the kitchen to help me unload everything. she was also on a mission: she wanted to unpack the brownies and begin baking them immediately. after a few seconds of rummaging through plastic bags, she unloaded the brownie box, took out a pan, and turned on the oven.

a few seconds later, i heard the following:

wife: "why did you buy low-fat brownies? is there something i should know?"

at this point, like all rationally thinking males in my position, you can imagine the plethora of four-letter-words roaming around in my head.

ahmed: "they were the most expensive box. i just assumed when you said you wanted to the good kind of brownies, you meant the most expensive."

wife: "no. when i say i want the good kind of brownies, i mean that i want the richest, fattest, worst-brownies-for-your-health possible. i absolutely cannot believe you bought me low-fat brownies!"

i then proceeded to reference our months of pre-marital counseling in order to assure her that - as we previously learned - men and women interpret tasks much differently from one another.

so blogosphere, what are your thoughts? if you were faced with the task of buying the "good kind" of brownies, would you look to price, fat content, fair-trade, organic, or some other variable?

...and that's how i got involved in an illegal poker game

over the weekend i met some buddies for some festivities and poker. we were playing a simple 10cent/20cent cash game. we mostly just wanted to dick around and have a good time. there were five of us at the house and we were all a couple deep.

at about 12:30 the guy living in the house got a text about a $1 cash game at a separate house. we figured it would be fun to up the stakes a little bit.

my buddy assured me that almost all of the guys there were tanked. he said that so long as you played tight and made a move when  you had a hand, you were essentially guaranteed to make money.

upon arrival, we quickly realized that the initial text was a lie. it wasn't a $1 cash game. instead, it was s $2/$5 game.

for those of you unfamiliar with cash poker games, you generally sit down at the table with 100 times the bet. that means that at minimum at this house, you were expected to sit down with $500. we were all a little buzzed, but none of us were going to be that stupid.

instead we each bought in for $200. no big deal, right? right.

in entirety, there were ten guys sitting at the table playing. as the dealer proceeded to deal out the hand i looked around and noticed that some stacks were considerably larger than mine. that's when i realized: most of these guys bought in for between $1,000 and $2,000.

obviously, at this moment there were multiple four letter words going through my mind.

i intentionally folded the first few hands to get a good read on the guys sitting at the table. these were all fairly rich guys that just wanted to BS and take money from each other. nonetheless, i noticed that the guys were playing pretty loosely. the upside: you can make a lot of money off of these types of guys. the downside: they can push you around, get lucky, and take all of your money quickly. i also noticed that - even to see a flop - i was going to have to spend at least $40 since that was the apparent standard pre-flop raise. crap.

in about my 4th or 5th hand at the table i got dealt pocket jacks. i raised pre-flop to $35. there were a couple of blinds on the table and only one guy called me. the rainbow flop was a jack, 4, 2. i put out another $35. the guy next to me, with a stack of about $1,500 went all in. in that situation i absolutely could not fold, but knowing my luck, i was ready to get a bad beat and lose $200 in a matter of a few minutes.

i called, and he pretentiously looked at me and said, "sorry buddy, i got trips! welcome to my house! it's been fun taking your money!" he then flipped over a pair of 2s. i smiled, flipped over my cards, and he was pretty pissed. the turn was a 3 and the river was a queen. i took $200 from him almost right away.

a few hands later i had A/J both diamonds. i raised to $20 pre-flop and had a few callers. the flop came A/J/6 and i was feeling great. i made a decent sized bet and only one guy called. it was the same guy i beat earlier. at this point he's talking smack along the lines of "i gotta get my money back from you little piece of shit." he's betting aggressively and running his mouth about how many outs he has for both a straight and a flush. i just push all in to make the action on him. he calls claiming he "likes his percentages."

i flip over ace jack. he flips over ace ten. the next card is an ace...the river is a jack. at this point he's just pissed. oh well.

i dicked around the rest of the night, made a few dumb moves, made one incredible lay down, and overall had a good time. i didn't get back to my apartment until about 4:30 in the morning, but my bulging wallet suggested it was worth it.

anyway. upon looking up north dakota gambling laws i affirmed what i first suspected. house games cannot exceed $500. so, yeah, i can finally say that i was part of an illegal, underground poker game. i'll cross that one off of my bucket list.