Oh, we're halfway there...

oh, living on a prayer (a non-denominational one, that is)!

As a side note, gosh, it's hard to come up with some of these punny blog titles!

Halfway through Day 1 of the first round of the best weekend in sports--yes, better than the Super Bowl--and I got 13 of 16 picks correct so far. I missed Michigan State over Marquette--thanks, Marquette, for waiting nearly 10 minutes to score your first points--Butler over Old Dominion--the 12-5 upset I picked to happen--and VCU over Duke (!!!).

Some random thoughts on day 1:

- Thank goodness UCLA didn't allow Weber State to stay in the game for long. They had me worried when the game was close in the early going. Next up for the Bruins: Indiana, on Saturday.

- VCU guard Eric Maynor is a stud. He nailed big shot after big shot in the waning moments of the Duke-VCU game, and who didn't expect his last-second jumper to go in?

- Louisville trashed Stanford by 20. Yeah, Syracuse and Drexel didn't belong in the tourney, but Stanford did. Just wait until USC crushes Arkansas. And no, I don't care that Drexel got beat in the first round of the Not In Tournament. They should have been in the field of 64.

- I expected the Indiana-Gonzaga game to be closer than it really was. I really wanted to see a rematch of last year's game between Gonzaga and UCLA, but Indiana and UCLA ought to be fun.

- Games I'm looking forward to tomorrow: Texas v New Mexico State (Kevin Durant!); Kentucky v Villanova (Tubby's last stand?); Notre Dame v Winthrop, and Arizona v Purdue.

And now for some non-bracketology thoughts:

- I love this article about Oprah and The Secret. For those uninitiated, The Secret focuses on the Law of Attraction; as quoted from the article,

They maintain that the universe is governed by the principle that "like attracts like" and that our thoughts are like magnets: Positive thoughts attract positive events and negative thoughts attract negative events. Of course, magnets do exactly the opposite -- positively charged magnets attract negatively charged particles -- and the rest of "The Secret" has a similar relationship to the truth.

Let me point out that I won't completely discount the power of positive thinking. Sometimes it helps me to put myself in a positive mindset before tackling certain tasks; that being said, in no way has positive thinking ever brought me material wealth. I can also assure you that my out-of-shapeness has nothing to do with me thinking negatively about my weight or diet; it might have something to do with the can of Pringles by my bedside :P

The real problem I have with The Secret is the obvious pyramid-like scheme in which the movie is being distributed. Pay $20, find the secret to true happiness, and get others to pay $20 so that they can do the same appears to be the basis of their marketing campaign. The fact that Oprah Winfrey is now behind the secret--Oprah can do no wrong, right?--is only going to bring these quacks more staying power, and, ultimately, more dollars:

...the marketing idea behind it [The Secret] -- the enlisting of that dream team, in what is essentially a massive, cross-promotional pyramid scheme -- is brilliant. But what really makes "The Secret" more than a variation on an old theme is the involvement of Oprah Winfrey, who lends the whole enterprise more prestige, and, because of that prestige, more venality, than any previous self-help scam. Oprah hasn't just endorsed "The Secret"; she's championed it, put herself at the apex of its pyramid, and helped create a symbiotic economy of New Age quacks that almost puts OPEC to shame.

Since Oprah endorses The Secret, it must work, right? Like I said earlier, I don't totally discount positive thinking; I just don't need to pay $20 in order to hear people talking about the power of positive thinking. Oh wait, let me rephrase that...I'd be happier with the $20 in my pockets...I'd be happier with the $20 in my pockets. Hey! I feel better already!

Well, I had lots more that I wanted to talk about, but somehow it's 3:30AM, and I'm still not asleep yet. Yikes!