I spent a good amount of time this week taking care of all the paperwork for my doctor visit tomorrow morning -- had to get a referral from my Primary Care Physician (whom I've still never met), and new x-rays, as well as the original ones from the ER visit. Damned if I can see anything resembling a crack anywhere (this from holding them up to the dining-room light). I'm wondering if I should personally downgrade the injury to a sprain.



The arm is in very little pain -- it hurts when I try to turn my hand, but that's what the splint is supposed to prevent me from doing, anyway. I haven't had to delve into the Vicodin at all. Meanwhile, at work we're in the process of packing for this weekend's move to the new building. I've been able to do most of it one-handed; fortunately I haven't been around long enough to amass too much crap.

Some basketball notes

I'm not a huge fan of basketball -- I can't remember when I last watched a whole game, and I haven't filled out a tournament bracket in nearly 10 years -- but there are some things that caught a little of my interest this time around.



Boston University, my alma mater, is in, in the traditional America East 16th-seed sacrificial lamb role against Cincinnati. In an even less enviable position is Siena, who had to win a play-in game Wednesday(?) to win the right to get their asses handed to them by Maryland tonight. Why is Siena worth mentioning? In my freshman year of college, Siena beat BU by one point to win the conference championship and NCAA berth -- in front of an empty arena. This was during one of the measles outbreaks that quarantined various North Atlantic Conference and Hockey East events during my time in school. I remember being home for spring break and tuning in (the game was on my birthday, as it turns out) for this strange event.



Moving on to Division III, this weekend's Final Four includes -- Carthage College, the school I was once Sports Information Director for, back when I thought working 60-plus hours a week for $19.5K was a nifty dream job. The Redmen (yes, that's still their nickname; Carthage is apparently the only school to change their nickname to something more PC, then change it back) are 27-1; an astounding figure but even more so to me, because the men were 3-21 when I was there. In 1997 they hired Bosko Djurikovic away from conference rival North Park, who had guided that school to some D3 titles in the late 80s. If they win their semifinal game, they will be the most successful Carthage team ever. The baseball team has gone to the D3 World Series a few times, but never placed higher than third.



Finally, my high school team, Minneapolis North Community HS, won its sectional and is off to state, beating St. Paul's Cretin-Derham Hall (why they still insist on calling themselves Cretin is beyond me) by a point. And sure enough, Minneapolis is experiencing its annual state-tournament winter storm, but I digress. I went to an inner-city high school; basketball was (and is) the big sport, but they never could get it done when I was there, usually losing to suburban teams either in the state finals or the sectional finals. They started winning a few years ago thanks to a trio led by Khalid El-Amin, later to win an NCAA championship with UConn (before playing with the Bulls for a season). I went to one championship game maybe five years ago, when Minnesota was in a one-class tournament system. They pounded on some Iron Range school -- it was like Hoosiers in reverse. Now Minnesota's in this weird four-class system where North and Henry, its closest rival and a better team, are conference opponents, but when state rolls around they are in different classes.

I could have stayed home to watch Celebrity Boxing

In spectacularly dumbass fashion, I managed to break my arm last night.



We were finishing up curling last night, clearing the rocks off the ice. I knew there were stones behind me, and heard voices saying "look out for the rocks behind you. So I jumped a little -- literally jumped, maybe only an inch or two off the ground, but just enough to ensure that I ended up on my ass -- or rather, my right forearm.



How fucking stupid was that? Did I really expect to have a 42-pound chunk of granite and metal -- a hypothetical one at this point, since I had no idea what was behind me, if anything -- zip safely under my feet while I was airborne? I'm lucky there were in fact no rocks immediately near me -- I could've landed on one or more and really messed myself up.



We were done for the night, so I stuck around for a little while, mostly to see if my arm was going to stop hurting. It didn't -- while I could bend my arm at the elbow, turning my forearm (extend your arm and turn it, palm-up to palm-down) or holding anything without my arm supported --hurt like hell. So I drove myself, mostly one-handed, home, where I collected Kirsti and headed off to the ER. I would have gone straight there had I remembered to bring my cell phone, but I travel light to curling due to a lack of secure pockets.



After about three hours, mostly spent sitting around, I was told I have a very small crack in my radius, near the elbow. So right now I'm in a splint, with a referral to a bone guy and a scrip for Vicodin. I can type (obviously), so I don't expect to miss work, but I'm working from home today anyway, doing the stuff I brought home intending to do while waiting for the dryer repairman. The ER doctor thinks this will heal much faster than the usual 6 weeks. I wonder what sort of plaster getup I'll be in for Steve and Steph's wedding on the 23rd. Needless to say, my curling season has come to an abbreviated end. But I think I'll still sign up for next year.



...and that Mediaweek guy's name is Marc Berman, not Stuart.

I'm a genius!

I've been reading Stuart Berman's Mediaweek column regularly, and he has a daily TV trivia question. In early January I answered one of his questions (I don't recall what it was), and got listed on his page as a correct respondent for that week. And I'm still there, nearly three months later, although I've not ventured a guess since! Yay me!



I'm a klutz!

Took my first spill curling last night. We went to wearing the full sliders instead of the training-wheelesque half sliders, and while walking back to the hack after throwing a rock, I went down hard on my left knee, just below my kneecap. No swelling, and surprisingly no bruise, at least not yet. More hurt pride than anything else, and hey, it took me over a week to finally fall. For me, that's pretty damn good.

David Letterman announced last night that he's staying at CBS. It would have been a stupid move, anyway -- Letterman was never the savior CBS was looking for, and he'd just be jumping to network that has the same problem CBS had when he left NBC. One would think this would be the end of the story that's been brewing about a month, but ABC still hasn't announced what it plans to do with Nightline. And this is what TV critics and columnists will continue to complain about: how can ABC do away with this fine journalistic institution, blah blah blah... But I think most of the controversy has very little do with the sanctity of Nightline. The real issue is that finally, after 40 years of being catered to and pampered by the media, the Baby Boomers are becoming irrelevant. Nightline and The Late Show pull in about the same number of viewers, but Letterman gets more of the coveted 18-to-34 demographic. And the idea that networks would pander to this demographic -- instead of the Boomers, again, drives them crazy.

A cameraman showed up at curling last night, apparently from Fox Sports. No one was interviewed; he just seemed to be gathering footage. Rumor is this was going to be for a feature on the sport's post-Olympic boom, but no one knew when it would air, or if it was for the Regional or National Sports Report -- if that. Whatever. I don't have cable. But if you tune in and wait for who knows how long, you might just see some really bad curling. Then again, could you tell?



Postscript to Tuesday's post: Watched the Eltingville pilot and it was EXCELLENT.

Best TV Theme Ever



I haven't seen Welcome To Eltingville yet, but having enjoyed Evan Dorkin's comic-book work (I especially like Fisher-Price Theater) I'm sure it was brilliant and will continue to be so, should Cartoon Network pick up the show. I can verify that the show has the best theme song ever, as you can hear from this short MP3.