Wednesday, March 14th

Hey everyone. Are you as excited as I am that March Madness starts tomorrow? As happy as I am, I am really angry that my game is at 9:20 AM. And, because stupid Stanford plays at the same time, I have to go to a bar to watch it.

7pm: The guys start off by playing Chris Rock's appearance on Letterman. He was speaking about the death of Richard Jeni, and uses the death to plug his upcoming movie. What the hell is that about? That's incredibly disrespectful and uncool.

Chris did his taxes yesterday and of course had a bag of car receipts to deal with. He was able to somehow work getting $17 back from toothpaste. How does that work?

The guys read a story about an error on Google Earth. They had used an old name for a mountain that is pretty politically incorrect. They used the name Mt. Hitler for a summit in Germany. While reading the story, they play the German song they always do, and Brad goosesteps as always. The most disturbing part of this, is the absence of soul in his eyes. He really does look like a brainwashed soldier preparing for battle.

We play some celebrity tag and Chris and I win lift tickets to Kirkwood for Jared in SF. I think in the two rounds we play, Dan names one, maybe two, celebrities.

So, then we start our mascot pool. Already, Chris' Arizona Wildcats and my Maryland Terrapins are eliminated. We will post our Mascot Bracket when its done.

8pm: Bill in Danville is upset that we keep talking about the Arizona Wildcats. He went to ASU and his former father-in-law is the team physician for the Wildcats. He was dragged to all sorts of Wildcat events and is incredibly bitter. It is pretty funny listening to these two argue and to Brad being bored by this.

So, Chris is a little upset with me. I am running our office pool through one of the many fantasy websites. To give everyone the information, I sent out a mass email, hoping people would check it. As the guys were off yesterday they did not check it. When I came in today, I berated them, demanding that they sign up by the deadline tonight.

Chris goes off about how he was angry that I brought up the email. But the thing is, they read the email on the air on Monday night. Therefore, the email was received and read before I had said anything. So, screw that, I am cleared. Either way, I understand that Chris and Brad are upset by the assumption that an email will be read and responded to immediately.

When I respond, my point is simply this, they read the email I sent on Monday on the air. HAH! Therefore, it is on Chris, not on me.

Brad links this to the phone obligations. He says that people have that similar expectation when it comes to answering your phone or checking voicemail. As someone who never answers her phone or checks her voicemail, I can certainly sympathize with that.

Kevin in Fremont thinks it is more comparable to the post office. If someone sends you paper mail, it is not completely expected that you will get it. He only checks his personal email once a week. He takes a little heat but it does not seem to bother him a whole lot.

JT is Fremont is annoyed with her boss about email. He has a Blackberry and because of that expects responses within a minute or so. She is also annoyed because her boyfriend just got a Blackberry as well, and is completely addicted.

Frank in Livermore agrees with Chris' point that you should not be expected to check your email constantly. But, he also thinks that Chris' anger is arrogant as well.

9pm: Caller Robert brings up that he never checks his voicemail. Instead he will call the people back only to have them yell at him for not listening to it. I am completely guilty of that, I always let my voicemails build up until it is a huge pain to check it.

When Brad was working for the old station they had a voicemail. In the eight years he worked there, he checked the voicemail maybe twice because it is such a pain. The worst would be when he finally did and heard an urgent message from several months ago. Then, of course, he feels like a jerk.

Chris in Rohnert Park and Frank in Cupertino are frustrated with their company's email expectations. They are already working a full day and then are expected to be on email for another several hours.

What's funny is that both of them are hurt when there are no new messages in their email. That feels like crap because no one is thinking of you.

Bob in New Ganata brings up over email that brevity can be taken as an insult in an email. The guys ask if you have ever have taken a response the wrong way because it is terse. They say that as much as they like Jason, when they were still unsure about the show, his terse emails completely threw them off.

Dan lets us know that he spent a dollar on his dinner tonight. Of course, it was a Banquet meal. He got the turkey dinner and is hungrier than before he ate it. Brad had asked if it was pork, and I have to pull out that it would be "mechanically pulled pork." Chris says that if he eats the Banquet meals, he may be ready for the burrito bomb.

Brian in Oakland says that Marie Collander has good frozen dinners, but those don't count because they are too expensive. This leads us to a discussion of chicken pot pies. You always want to buy the cheap ones, but they are gross. And, as Brad points out, you will inevitably burn your mouth. It will always be that piece of meat that cauterizes your tongue.

This reminds Chris of a traumatizing incident in his childhood. When his parents were redoing the kitchen one year at Christmas, they set up a temporary situation in the basement. His grandmother had the responsibility of cooking traditional dinner including pierogies. The basement was cold, damp and horrible and she was incredibly angry to be down there for four days. The parents solution is to send the children to help her. They were stuck down there for about nine hours folding these little Polish dumplings, while his angry grandmother is hitting their tiny hands with spoons.

I can't believe we just spent twenty minutes on chicken pot pies. Well, it is The Gray Area so maybe I do understand.

10pm: We continue with the mascot bracket going to the West region this hour. Everyone picks Duke, but I hate them, so I refuse. And after that, we go to a giveaway. Before that, however, Angela in San Jose lets us know the Boston Market pot pie is awesome. I will have to go try out because it sounds delicious.

Ok, so Katie in Sebastapol calls in first and she and Joe in Hercules win lift tickets to Kirkwood. They win by picking Chris and Brad to defeat Dan and I in another round of Celebrity Tag.

Daniel in SF calls to correct us on Marquette's mascot. He is convinced that they are the Golden Gophers and goes on and on about it. But the thing is, Minnesota is the Gophers and Marquette is the Eagles. We even look it up and he still will not admit his mistake. And then, he calls Chris "pal."

We keep running with the mascot pool and I think we might be screwed. We have picked not one but two #1 seeds to fall in the first round. The thing is, a #1 seed has never lost in the first round since the field was expanded to sixty-five teams. But that's what happens when you have a Buckeye and a Tarheel playing a Blue Devil and a Colonel. Sorry to all you OSU and UNC fans out there.

To wrap up the show with an update on the death that occured in the complex Chris and Brad live in recently. The man had hit his head on the bathtub and was left dead in the apartment for three weeks. Yesterday, Chris found a flyer saying that they will be coming into everyone's apartment to check your unit. The reason they think is because they want to make sure there are no other corpses in the complex.

Chris' inspection came this afternoon. The only thing that really bothered him was that they were taking pictures of his things. He asked about the dead guy and they were surprised that he even knew about it.

So, with that we are done for the night. I apologize to my mother, have a good night.