03/18/2007: "Bracketology and Supercenters."

So it looks like Butler has dashed Maryland's hopes of making it to the Final Four. I had Maryland making it to the FF only to lose to North Carolina. I knew I should have picked Florida. I'm not out of it just yet, as I have North Carolina winning it all and I could probably pick up some more points as long as Ohio St and Kansas keep winning. The irony is that I don't have a television at home, so I had to watch most of the games during work, but most of my co-workers were stepping out of their offices every five minutes to check the scores and watch the last few minutes of each game.

Not bad for someone who didn't pay attention all year, though there's a lot of red there and I can only imagine that it will get worse. Believe me, on my first attempt at the bracket, I had the Cavaliers going all the way and UCLA losing in the second round. Call it wishful thinking and ignorance. After being chastised by EVERYBODY in the office (even all the extra freelancers), I did a little research on Deadspin and turned in another bracket.

On a similar note - some bad news, actually - my superiors just installed a 42" HD plasma televsion (Samsung, and yes it's beautiful) IN MY OFFICE last Thursday and on Friday my boss tells me they plan on getting me MY OWN DirecTV receiver. The DirecTV receiver makes absolutely NO SENSE at all. Maybe it's a test, in that case I'll make sure the TV is simply unplugged during the day. The decision to put a 42" HD plasma televsion isn't completely unwarranted, there's a huge cosmetic change happening in my own office, which included the addition of 3 very expensive Barcelona chairs.

The idea is that the company hopes to bring me more editorial work, work that would require I edit with the agency/client in the room, hence the need for being fancy. So far this year I've cut two spots for our nation's largest employer (hint: it rhymes with Falmart). With advertising dollars dwindling, it seems like editorial is being packaged with the production packages. Good news for me, though the experience was nerve-racking - I had to edit in PAL, with a rented PAL monitor, which I spent hours the night before troubleshooting, and there were 6 people crammed into my room at one point during the session (including animators from Aardman Animation of Wallace and Gromit fame). In the end, we got everything done on time and everybody was happy with the result.

Long story short- I need to start paying attention to more sports. My little Cousin Bao was schooling me on my bracket over Instant Messenger the other day and this kid has only spent 7 years in this country. I also have to step up my professional game. For the first time in my life, and this sounds really smug, but I feel overrated. Hopefully this is a turning point.

Lastly, the Powerade commercial I edited last year is playing through out the tournament. It's the one with the Asian girl lifting a 10 lb weight in one arm and a 50 lb weight in the other. Not much of an editorial job per se - it was a 15 sec spot that required only setting an in and out point and choosing a freeze frame, but still I got paid, sucka.