Send Me The Trophy

Send me the trophy.  In my bracket challenge group, I am the champion.  After years of fumbling near the bottom of the pack, I have won my first bracket challenge, and the final games haven’t even been played.  All my challengers are out.  None of their teams made the final four.  And who pulled me through?  UCLA.  Go Bruins.  

Jen thinks it is silly to get hyped about winning something in which I don’t win anything at all.  But I do win bragging rights for a whole year, and that is something after being trashed talked to year after year.  After all, I am the 2006 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tourney, McConkey Boys Challenge, CHAMPION.  “Cut down the nets!”

Poor Old Lobos the Worst is Yet to Come, Hey!

The worst thing any team can have happen to them is for me to choose them to win. Mercy! I lost half my final four on Sunday afternoon. Admittedly I didn’t choose number one seeds, but I chose teams that should have at least made it into the sweet sixteen and on into the elite 8. Instead, I only have two left for the final four.

Tonight when I got home from work I turned on the women’s tourney. New Mexico was six points ahead of Baylor. I watched for only a few minutes and the Lobos were down 11 points. A 17 point turnaround. I got disgusted, and Bill O’Reilly came on, so I switched. Only to discover that in the last minute and a half the lobos got it back to four points.

I decided the best thing I could do for them was to not watch the second half, but ESPN made that decision for me. They went back to another game. Unfortunately that didn’t work and the Lady Lobos went down by 20.

Not a good year for Lobo fans. No bowl game for the football team. No post season for the basketball team, not even a NIT bid. And the ladies didn’t make it to the sweet 16 again. We can only wait til next year.

On Fire for Jesus?

I was reading about a church in a mess in a local paper.  (A church is in a mess when they are writing about the troubles in a local paper.)  One person they quoted though, really inspired me to think.  He said, “The church will be ok.  We have a lot of people who are on fire for Jesus.”

Am I on fire for Jesus?  Is anybody in our church on fire for Jesus?  Do I really know anybody who is on fire for Jesus?  What does it mean to be on fire for Jesus?  I want to be on fire for Jesus!  Does anyone think I am on fire for Jesus?  (I am not asking you to respond to this blog.  I may be afraid of the answer.)

How do we become on fire for Jesus?  I want to be on fire for Jesus.  

I read somewhere the following.  “Some people hate sin, but they don’t love Jesus. Some people love Jesus but they don’t hate sin. The secret is to Love Jesus and hate sin.”

The first person is a legalist.  The second is a libertine.  The third is where we need to be.  I want to love Jesus, be on fire for him, not just hate sin.  

If Sports Championships were determined like Oscars

The Academy Awards are a joke. What would happen if we chose the football championship the same way. There wouldn’t need to be a super bowl. Instead we could have an awards banquet, ala Oscar night and choose the champion by a vote of the league presidents and a few other undisclosed voters. Whichever team evoked the most emotion, tried to break down previous taboos, or had the saddest story would be this years champion.

If you add the box office receipts of all the nominated best pictures it doesn’t equal the take of the number 4 best attended movie. Whoever thinks that Hollywood is about entertainment is mistaken. It is about messages. And that is ok, I guess, but lets at least be honest about it. Which ever of the 5 nominated pictures win, it isn’t the best picture of 2005. Not by a long shot.

I think I will skip the show and listen to Wolfman Jack on my XM radio.