No more Indiana teams left

I just got done watching Butler fight to the finish against Tennessee. They were so close to pulling off the upset, and I still say that was goaltending when A.J. Graves drove to the basket near the end of overtime. I'm really impressed with how well this team without any superstars almost beat a team that was #1 for a week or so this year.

Not to make excuses, but I think the NCAA Tournament committee that did the seeding really hurt Butler in this one. While they should have been able to beat Tennessee if they were really a championship contender, they shouldn't have been a #7 seed. IU's #8 seed also didn't seem deserved at the time, though with the way they played their last few games, maybe it was accurate.

Purdue and Notre Dame lost yesterday, so we're out of Indiana teams now. So who do I root for? I picked Memphis to win it all, so of course I'd like to see them make it. But other than wanting to win my bracket group, I have no attachment for Memphis. I'd like to see Wisconsin win it all, representing the Big Ten. It would be cool to have another George Mason-like run from a team like Western Kentucky (who I haven't had the chance to watch yet) or Davidson. I think West Virginia has been playing well, but it's hard to say whether they'll be able to sustain it. They're in a good bracket, facing Xavier next and then possibly UCLA, who struggled with Texas A&M yesterday.

Memphis and Mississippi State are tied 8 minutes in. This should be a good game.

A quick note about this blog

I re-used an old blogspot URL that I had for another blog, so if you subscribe to the feed and find several old posts from about a year ago, that's the explanation. That blog was from my former life as a mathematics graduate student. I hope to talk about math in this fancy new blog, but I'm not going to theme this blog into a rut like that one. So there you have it.

New music I actually found on the radio

I had been radio-free for several years before I started commuting to work everyday. Gone are the days of putting headphones in on the bus ride to UIUC. It helps that we have two or three good radio stations out here in Santa Clara: Channel 104.9, Live 105, and the off-and-on fabulous KSCU. The first two do a good job of mostly playing 90's hits like Nirvana, Green Day, and Social Distortion with a mix of new rock, while KSCU has a few DJs that play some awesome indie stuff.

What I particularly like about 104.9 is the selection of more obscure songs from the past – not that no one listened to these songs, but more like very few people would listen to them today. I think I've heard at least four or five songs from Social Distortion's self-titled album (which I need to get someday), as well as great songs from Dramarama and Butthole Surfers. It makes me feel old to realize that the music of my formative years is coming up on its twentieth birthday within the next few years.

My most recent discovery is a band from L.A. that reminds me so much of Rose Blossom Punch that I expected to look them up and find Aaron Sprinkle's name in the list of band members – Silversun Pickups. The radio single “well thought out twinkles” is really good, and the rest of the album didn't disappoint me at all.

Other songs that I have to admit that I like: “Empty Walls” by Serj Tankian and “Never Too Late” by Three Days Grace.

First post!

I guess it's not a big deal to have the first post on your own blog.

So what's this blog about, anyway? Nothing in particular, really. I just wanted a place to talk about computers, math, music, movies, video games, books, sports, and anything else that's going on in my life. I'm a pretty solid perfectionist, so I'm going to try not to put huge expectations on the quality of my posts or how often I write, or else I'll just get frustrated and give up.