IU is through to the NCAA Finals. As a Hoosier, I have to say I’m pretty proud. And how cool is their new coach? He said, “In basketball, coaches get too much credit. I mean, I proved that this year. I mean, here I am, a second-year coach, no experience, and sometimes I have no idea what’s going on the court — I mean, no idea. I’m happy we’re playing for the national championship.” He sounds fun. Anyway, my cousin Jenny, who sometimes posts here, was actually at the semifinal game, so I figured I’d better provide someplace for her inevitable hysterical victory comments. Go Hoosiers! 🙂

Farewell to the Queen Mother. She was an amazing old lady. One of my professors in England speculated years ago that she’d consumed too much gin throughout her life to actually die, and that she’d just “ascend to heaven on her artificial hips”. She just seemed so invincible. I almost wish I was back in London to see the inevitable outpouring of national grief.

Ah, Easter. The grocery story is filled with chocolate eggs, the TV channels are showing Jesus dramas, and the sex toy shop around the corner has a chalk drawing of two rabbits humping outside its door. One holiday, so many interpretations…

New Poll! What’s your favorite Easter taste treat? (Warning: this poll is rather U.S.-centric, since I never really figured out what Brits eat for Easter.)

Friday Five:

1. If you could eat dinner with and “get to know” one famous person (living or dead), who would you choose?
Is there any question? Roger Ebert. Totally. Yeah, yeah, I know I’m supposed to say Shakespeare or something, but it’d be much more fun if it were a person who’s really alive that I could be friends with. And he’d be a really fun person to talk to, and then maybe he’d take me to the Oscars with him. 🙂

2. Has the death of a famous person ever had an effect on you? Who was it and how did you feel?
I remember feeling absolutely gutted when I realized that Roald Dahl had died before I ever got a chance to write him a letter.

3. If you could BE a famous person for 24 hours, who would you choose?
As Snookums put it, “Me! I’d be me, famous!” If I couldn’t be myself, I’d probably be Britney, as long as she wasn’t having one of those “buckets of urine” days. I mean, she’s mega-famous.

4. Do people ever tell you that you look like someone famous? Who?
Nope. When you’re a quarter Asian, you don’t look like anybody but your own family.

5. Have you ever met anyone famous?
At a fan convention in England, I met David Prowse, who played Darth Vader’s body in all three Star Wars films. Does that count?

And the evilness of today continues…
Here’s a tip for you web developer kids out there: Don’t write code when you’re angry. You’re likely to mess up some SQL statement that, when run, completely buggers your database, and of course you don’t have a backup. And that sucks.

Good Friday, my ass.
What a weird day. First, I woke up to the sound of the fire alarm going off in the hallway. Snookums was already up and dressed so he headed down to see what was going on. It turns out some idiot smashed the glass on alarm button down in the lobby. So while there was no fire, the alarm stayed on for about half an hour. Then this afternoon I finally managed to drag myself out to the gym, only to discover fire trucks sitting in front of the shopping center (where my gym is). They had the whole center roped off and traffic diverted. So no gym for me. So I turned and headed for the grocery store to get supplies for dinner tonight. There I was confronted by a great big chain holding the doors shut. They were closed for Good Friday. So now I’m home, no workout and no food, facing the prospect of four rainy days. And this is supposed to be a holiday?

Okay, I’ve mentioned that I’m a big Roger Ebert fan before, right? He’s my favorite critic. I think a lot of “serious” moviegoers don’t think of him as legitimate, since his image is so tied up with television and the whole “thumbs” thing. But if you read some of his written reviews, you’ll find that he’s one of the smartest critics out there. You might not always agree with him, but his writing is always witty and entertaining. Often after reading some of his archives, I find myself wishing that I could know what Ebert thought about some other things: politics, music, television, etc. Fortunately, in recent years he’s actually started writing about these things as well. Now he’s taking on music piracy, God bless ‘im. I especially liked the ending. Man, am I an Ebert groupie or what? (Link courtesy of Matt.)

Oh jeez. So Bono appeared as a character witness at the Peter Buck trial. Shouldn’t he be in Rome getting beatified or something? And what the hell is the point of him saying that he can’t imagine Peter Buck doing the things he’s charged with? Obviously half the people on the damn airplane can testify that he did. (Sidenote: why don’t they put cameras in airplanes to provide evidence for this kinda thing?) Is Buck just trying to say that he had a drug reaction and went mad? Because that’s a really, really weak excuse. I’d have a lot more respect for him if he just owned up to making a big mistake. (Link courtesy of Max.)

The Blogger CD Swap boys have an opening for one Canadian weblogger. Anon?