Column: Advice for filling out your NCAA tournament bracket
By Jack Baer | Mar. 17, 2014Since it’s bracket week, you might be thinking about joining your dorm’s, workplace’s, or friend’s bracket pool. Here are some tips on how to approach this.
Since it’s bracket week, you might be thinking about joining your dorm’s, workplace’s, or friend’s bracket pool. Here are some tips on how to approach this.
Last week, I looked at the first four World Cup groups, including the Brazilian hosts, one of the most dominant teams of all time—Spain—and a group with Italy, Uruguay and England that could go any way.
So the Oscars have come and gone once again, and I know this is late but, I mean, for the most part they just sort of happened? Ellen was charming, Jared Leto plugged his band is his acceptance speech and “12 Years a Slave,” thankfully, won Best Picture (I didn’t love it like I loved “Her” and “Inside Llewyn Davis,” but it was the right choice for a lot of reasons).
When Telltale Games released “The Walking Dead” back in 2012, it was mostly known as the studio that was keeping alive the oft-forgotten adventure game genre with some mildly successful licensed titles. They had just come off the maligned “Jurassic Park.” The limited number of people who knew about Telltale were those paying close attention to the industry. Flash forward two years and they’re producing four different licensed series with one of the most popular game franchises in the industry.
Wednesday marks a very tragic day in college basketball.
On Dec. 28 at 11:30 p.m., Phish played their final note of the night. By the time I got home at 12:15 a.m., the show was available for download.
Like any self-respecting college basketball fan I watched the North Carolina-Duke game Saturday night. I was impressed by Duke even though, full disclosure, Duke might be my least favorite team in sports. Jabari Parker and Rodney Hood both looked like All-American talents, the defense forced turnovers and bad decisions, and they outrebounded a much bigger and deeper UNC frontcourt.
The closer, for all intents and purposes, is a lot like a kicker in football. Come in at the last minute and, under immense pressure, either go out in a blaze of glory or fade into defeat.
It was the dead of night. I found myself cowering beneath a canopy of blankets in the center of a dark room, illuminated only by the flickers of a television set that served to feed my growing paranoia. I was alone; or was I?
A recent and unfortunate trend in college basketball right now is the on-court behavior by coaches.
Brilliance sometimes surfaces in physical forms. The power of imagination in some people is so vast and vital, it’s a living, breathing dragon. They’re not only able to weave a world around themselves but they also have the magic to breathe it out like a fire that never dies for the rest of us mere mortals. Theodor Seuss Geisel was one such mythical metaphor, and he actually existed.
The drums are starting to beat.
Anyone who decided to try out the Internet this past week likely stumbled upon the popular “Twitch Plays Pokemon” stream that just finished up a few days ago. Although it may have taken over everyone’s lives and provided the one reality show that actually seems worthwhile, the dramatic conclusion merely spawned a fresh stream of “Pokemon Crystal.”
Roger Federer is back in the game.
It is done. The Wichita State Shockers finished their regular season Sunday and are undefeated. I don’t care what conference you’re in, that’s an incredible achievement. But not many people agree with that statement.
Last October, during the CMJ Music Marathon in New York City, Arcade Fire played a pair of not-so-secret shows in Brooklyn under the pseudonym “The Reflektors,” the title of their new album. At a converted warehouse space that held about 3,000 people, tickets sold out instantly for the two shows and within minutes, tickets on StubHub ranged from $220 to $5,000.
Last summer, I holed up in an air-conditioned room and didn’t resurface until I had binged the entire first season of "House of Cards," Netflix’s first successful stab at original programming. The opening scene is still as vivid in my mind today as it was those many months ago—we hear a dog get hit by a car offscreen and an impeccably dressed Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) arrives at the pitiful scene. While wrapping his bare hands around the neck of the whimpering dog, he looks directly at the camera and delivers the first of many monologues in a quaint, southern accent. He squeezes until its cries become faint and, after a few seconds, they cease altogether. We get the sense that Frank Underwood is the epitome of a ruthless pragmatist and a perfect spokesperson for the political underworld.
The 2014 Winter Olympics officially came to a close this past week, but not before the United States, and the world, learned the name of a very unique 18-year-old.
Books and literature have never been just about entertainment. To say that one merely reads “for fun” would be nothing short of the kind of travesty only previously seen when someone fell asleep during Star Wars. Just so you know, they never find the bodies.
When I was told I would be able to write a film column, I knew exactly what to write about—the soundtrack.