Philadelphia Will Do Productivity-Lowering Until-The Battery-Runs-Out NCAA Tournament Round 1 Spectacular

As you may know, today is the first day of the first round of the NCAA Tournament. And right now I’m pretty much feeling like the man in the photo at right, whose picture I grabbed off the television after Oral Roberts won its conference title.

And, as such, I am at a bar with a couple of friends, ready for an orgasmic delight of hoops. If you’re wondering, yes, this is basically a scam so I can watch the NCAA Tournament while at work. Eat it, suckers! Maybe you should have gone to Vegas and eventually got a job blogging because of an email you wrote to your friends afterward! Anyway, if you are stuck at work, my guide from last year should still apply, including March Madness on Demand. (You can watch the games on your computer!)

I’ve been convinced to do a running diary, and it will begin after the jump.

12:15 - Our waiter really wants to take our order. He’s come up three times already. Also, the odds of me spilling a drink on my laptop are about 2:1.

12:21 - By the way, the chances of the remaining commentary being as riveting as that first item are slim to none. The first game, Maryland-Davidson, has tipped off. I picked Davidson. Go Wildcats!

12:29 - Ooh, this is a running sports diary, isn’t it? Time for a little Bill Simmons-style writing. My buddy Ziggy is here with us today, and he’s, naturally, a journalist. He also half-jokingly asked me to link a column he wrote about March Madness. And I’m taking it seriously. Anyway, the column’s pretty good. Dude actually got out of school to watch the NCAA Tournament while in grade school. Awesome.

12:40 - It’s actually kind of hard to watch three games at once. (I know you feel so bad.) Sometimes two of ‘em will be on commercial and you can focus on one, but I’m still trying to get back to NFL form — where I manage by the end of the year to be able to watch 7 games at once without missing a thing. Louisville looks like the best team so far, as the Cardinals are up on Stanford, 17-6.

12:54 - At these crowded bars, it doesn’t take long for everybody to start rooting for the underdog. And after 13-seed Maryland Davidson grabbed a five-point lead over Maryland, the crowd started cheering. There appears to be one actual Davidson fan here, and he keeps turning around anytime the crowd cheers for Davidson to see who his allies are. Um, dude, it’s everybody. Except the aforementioned Ziggy, who has Maryland in his Final Four.

1:00 - And, just like that, Maryland on a 10-0 run to take the lead.

1:05 - And it’s the best time of the day (at least for a blogger who can close his laptop): Halfitme.

1:09 - Well, in one game. Meanwhile, Louisville is beating Stanford, 41-13. Way to choose Stanford over Drexel, committee.

1:40 - Everybody’s quickly rooting for Davidson again as the team goes on a 9-0 run to start the second half. There are two Texas Tech fans behind us who are the kind of fans who don’t understand why their favorite team doesn’t go 30-0 every year and win the NCAA Tournament. (Or, who might understand it, but refuse to believe it.)

1:45 - The rules for watching an NCAA Tournament game are simple: Root for the underdog unless you went to the school who’s the favorite. Some people in the bar don’t really get this; they’re cheering loudly for Maryland because they have them in their Final Four, or the picked the Terrapins. (My tablemate isn’t cheering for them. He’s following the rules.) The way I see it, rooting for your bracket is no fun. Your bracket is going to get destroyed anyway, just root for the underdog.

1:47 - Plus, I picked Davidson.

1:50 - As you may know, I attended the University of Pennsylvania. They’re playing in the late game in Lexington against Texas A&M, the worst possible matchup Penn could have gotten. I’d love to liveblog it for you, but we’re down to 36 percent battery life here, so it seems unlikely.

1:55 - Davidson and Maryland are now going back and forth, and every time Maryland scores, people are cheering louder and louder. Get with the program, people!

2:01 - Want to know how far ahead Louisville is against Stanford? There are 25 televisions here, and that game isn’t on.

2:06 - Both Boston College and Maryland are starting to pull away, thereby ruining the upset fun and putting my bracket at 0-2.

2:09 - As the game heads into the final minutes, the crowd appears to be kind of split between Davidson and Maryland, meaning either we have a bunch of College Park (or whatever) grads here or a bunch of people with Davidson in their Final Four. Davidson has cut it to three with a 3:30-ish left.

2:15 - The other friend at my table is, of course, former Villanova basketball player Ricky Wright. You might have thought I would have used his knowledge of being an actual collegiate basketball player to enhance the content of my blog. If you thought this, you clearly haven’t been paying attention to this blog for the past year and a half.

2:17 - And Maryland is up eight with 1:43 left. And I’m at 10 percent battery life, so, like Davidson, I’ll be done too.