Text Messages From a Duke Fan: Reverse Jinx or Lack of Confidence?

There are two types of sports fans: those who believe in jinxes (ie that you as a sports fan have an effect on your teams chances of winning/losing) and those who are misguided. Jinxes exist.  If you say aloud in the presence of other people that your team is going to win, it does not bode well for your team. My older brother, Zach, knows this all too well as he cost the Giants a win in the 2002 wildcard game against the 49ers when he inexplicably blurted out "Bring on the Bucs, this game is over!" with a 38-14 lead in the 3rd quarter.  I tried watching in a different room and changing into a different Giants jersey in order to appease the sports karma gods but the fate of the game was sealed. The Giants lost and I have held it over Zach ever since.

The Quad, The Quad, The Quad is on Fire

We don't need no water, let that something something burn.

Gloat gloat gloat gloat gloat gloat gloat.

Butler made us sweat. But Duke sweats championships. To all you Duke haters, my apologies; please keep reading the blog. To those of you who I went to school with, this one was for JJ, Shelden, Luol, Sean, Duhon, DeMarcus, and all of those McDonald's All-Americans who never had the chance. 

Be ready for a more comprehensive review tomorrow.

This is why Duke doesn't suck.

Five Unrelated Thoughts

The Sweet 16 of the invention bracket is up. Vote or die.

I had a few thoughts when I woke up this morning and figured I'd pass them along.  I'll post some more over the next few days but these are some of the things that consume members of the 9.7%.  As always, if you have comments, post them below -- we're an interactive blog, folks.

Sweet 16

First, I'm going to address a vicious rumor I've heard. Some people are saying that The Couchwarmers have lost some steam over the past few days. If this is true, it's Daniel's fault. I warned all of you that I would be temporarily unavailable due to that whole "driving to North Carolina" thing. So I'm excusing myself from liability because of the twelve hours it took me to drive from New York to Durham -- although those two hours moving at 5 MPH on the DC Beltway did allow me ample time to brainstorm the blog. I hope you guys are ready for some entertainment, because right now, I'm elbow-deep in ideas. Stay tuned. And if you don't like the plans I have, I'll just blame Daniel again.

Round Two Recap

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Second Round

After a spirited first round of the Couchwarmers Invention Bracket Spectacular that saw some powerful teams go down, we move on to Round Two. To refresh your memory, here's the first round recap. We'll leave second round voting open until sometime on Saturday, when we'll recap the round and let you know which inventions made it to the Sweet 16. We realize that we're not going to be done with this thing by the time the real tourney ends on Monday night, but just think of this as a way to help you recover from your yearly bracket addiction. We at the Couchwarmers like to let you down easy.

Tomorrow, I'm driving down to Durham, NC for some sort of basketball game. I may throw up a post sometime over the weekend, but for now, I leave you at the whim of Daniel's capable typing fingers. Just know that at least for the next few days, you should expect fewer food references and more god-awful puns.

Now on to the matchups. Some second round highlights include:

Yankee Stadium No More?

Buster Olney has just reported that Apple has bought the naming rights to Yankee Stadium for a record $750 million over the next 25 years. It's not clear from the report whether it will become Apple Stadium this year or next, but I am not pleased. I can only imagine all the "Big Apple" marketing campaigns we will see over the coming months and years.

I know that many baseball stadiums have succumbed to sponsorship pressures over the past decade, but I always thought Yankee Stadium was immune to those. With the loss of the name Yankee Stadium comes a loss of independence and a loss of sanctity. This will no longer be The House That Ruth Built -- it will be The House That Steve Jobs Bought.  It's a sad day for Yankees fans.