William M. Hartnett

Brilliant game by Ohio State and Xavier, and all the more exciting because I have the Buckeyes meeting Florida in the final of my bracket. I probably don’t need to continue explaining that my selection method is ill-informed, at best, though it appears as though I just did.
My reasoning for picking Ohio State to make [...]

Florida’s 43-point win capped a first round in which both my ignorance-based bracket selection scheme and my irrational dislike of Brady Quinn were rewarded with what I imagine is a fairly average 25-7 record.
(I should have mentioned earlier that I’m using The New York Times’ interactive bracket, which I stumbled across last week.)
As I guessed, [...]

Winthrop’s defeat of Notre Dame helped ease my disappointment over Oral Roberts’ loss yesterday. As I’ve explained, I know nothing about the basketball teams of either Winthrop or Notre Dame. My selection in this case was based solely on my inexplicable dislike of Brady Quinn.
I am aware that, as a football player, and a graduated [...]

As I already burdened the blog with my ill-informed tournament picking methodology, I might as well update it with the results.
My picks went 12-4 on day one of the first round. Not great, but not bad when you consider that my selection method is very nearly random. Had I been better informed, I might not [...]

As an obvious UF homer, I’ve been picking Florida to win the men’s basketball tournamet for many years now, including several in which they were not, strictly speaking, among the participating teams.
My previously secret method for determining the rest of my tournament picks is to maintain a strict ignorance of all matters related to college [...]

>Fowler weighs up Major League Soccer move (The Guardian)
>Fowler not US bound (The Telegraph)
Robbie Fowler almost certainly is not making the move from Liverpool to the New England Revolution, but isn’t it brilliant that these stories of still-quality players in Europe’s top league considering the MLS are treated semi-seriously? Hopefully, we’ll soon begin to see [...]

>Romanov goes bananas with new tirade (The Guardian)
This one hits three of my five primary interests: Monkey news, soccer and journalism. (Missing: Cat pictures and BSG.) For background purposes, Vladimir Romanov is the Lithuanian owner of the Scottish Premier League club Hearts. From the story:
“Addressing the media, who Romanov has taken to describing as ‘monkeys’, [...]

>Chelsea cut their losses down to £80m (The Guardian)
English Premier League side Chelsea have CUT their losses to £80 million in the most recent financial year, which, based on current exchange rates, is roughly $971 billion. According to The Guardian story linked above, owner Roman Abramovich has sunk over £500 million into the club in [...]

>Chelsea FC strike YouTube deal (The Guardian)
I think this means I’ll soon be able to watch my favorite clips of Andriy Shevchenko not scoring without fear of copyright infringement. I’m afraid I’ll need subtitles to understand ol’ Billy, however:

addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wmhartnett.com%2F2007%2F02%2F16%2Fforeigners%2F’;
addthis_title = ‘Foreigners’;
addthis_pub [...]

>Galaxy feel Beckham effect in search for new stars (The Guardian)
So upset that I missed this. Granted, I’m pushing 30 and haven’t touched a soccer ball in a decade. Still, I would have jumped at the chance to pay Alexi Lalas $130 (plus airfare to Los Angeles) to berate my beer gut. Wait. Did I [...]