Recently by Tyler Mertel

It is my favorite time of the year, March Madness. Soon will I be able to sit on my couch and watch the upsets and my bracket slowly drown as KU has another year of high expectations. What's even better about this year is that I will be celebrating my 21st birthday during the sweet sixteen. However, not everyone can celebrate march madness.
According to an article on foxnews.com, "American companies could lose up to $3.8 billion in lost wages and productivity due to the men's NCAA basketball tournament." This number is absolutely shocking at first, but think about it. I'll admit it I missed class one day last year because I wanted to stay home and watch the games. Another article states that more that 37 million americans will participate each year in "March Madness." Imagine how many people in America will miss work or just watch the live updates on their computers.
Two years ago cbssportsline.com institued the "Boss Button" on the link that updates the scores in realtime. The pictures below demonstrate exactly what the boss button does. At the bottom of the update screen when you click the link for the boss button, it automatically brings up a bar graph so when your boss walks by it looks as if you're being productive.

Picture from www.prilliman.com/blog

Picture from moneyplayers.typepad.com/blog/images

The start of "Championship week" this week is starting to get me excited and next Thursday I know where I'll be. I now know where a lot of business managers and owners will be, sitting in their offices pulling their hair out and probably watching the game updates as well.

I was just told that Harrison Ford will be starring in a new 'Indiana Jones' movie. This brought up three questions. First, how old is Harrison Ford? According to imdb.com he is 65. Second, does he still have that god awful earring that he used to wear? Answer unknown.

Lastly, can we stop producing movies where the action hero is over 60 years old?
I mean first Sly Stallone makes a new 'Rocky' movie at 60 and then a new 'Rambo' movie at 61, now this?
Are we running out of young action actors? To me all of these sequels are just getting dumb. If this continues Bruce Willis will be starring in 'Die Hard' movies until he's 90.
I think the new 'Indiana Jones' movie will be good, however it has already been docked some points because I'm not so sure Ford could out run a rascal scooter.

I have spent a majority of my time in a greek organization trying to break down the stereotype that all we do is drink beer, fight and break shit. While there are several people I know that are the poster children for this assumption.
Then when nine members of MY greek organization decide to make national news to further expand on this negative attention.
Nine pledges of The Delta Chi Fraternity at the University of Colorado caused $10,000 worth of damage to one hotel room in Estes Park, CO. The nine pledges had their own keg and several bottles of alcohol were found in the room. HOLY CRAP.
I spent this previous weekend at a greek leadership conference in Chicago and this subject was brought up. We were encouraged to try and distance ourselves and not put ourselves in these types of situations. Easier said than done.
What sucks is that this is what most often gets published about greek organizations. There are very few instances where you see an article talking about a positive impact made by a greek organization, because that is not interesting and won't keep people reading. No one wants to read that the KU greek organizations have had a higher GPA average than non greek students for the past 25 years. Or the over 100 charity events that KU greek organizations put on each year.
As a member of The Delta Chi Fraternity at KU we have received several emails from our national chapter on the situation. They have also expressed their frustration and said that former members were questioning if fraternities were even still relevant on a college campus. It is frustrating to realize that a couple of bad apples do spoil the whole bunch and coming to the realization that no matter how hard we try the stereotype for us "frat guys" will most likely always stay the same. Thanks brothers.

I don't know if any of you have been following the steroids case on Roger Clemens, but after the hearing that took place this week I have come to two conclusions: What the F**k is going on; and can Roger Clemens bring anyone else into this completely unnecessary media frenzy? I mean first he accuses his accuser Brain McNamee of lying about his steroid use. Then his fellow teammate, Andy Pettitte, said that Roger used steroids. Roger immediately says Andy mistook the conversation for him talking about his wife taking HGH. (Did he just throw his wife under the bus to try and save himself?) Now he's accusing congress of lying?

As the previous link shows Clemens and his staff have moved their fourth grade argument style from the ever popular did not... did too, with McNamee, to the even more immature, he started it, with Congress. Congress stated that Clemens and his lawyers insisted on having the hearing even though congress thought they had enough information from the depositions. Roger may have a point here because since when does a baseball player have the right to tell congress what to do? Shouldn't congress have the final say whether the hearing should take place and wasted taxpayer money?

To me Roger is guilty because he insists everyone is lying and he is telling the truth. However, I have no idea what the hell is happening and wish it would just end already.

A report on etonline says that the writers strike will most likely come to an end on Sunday putting the writers back to work on Monday.
I remember back when the whole strike started in November thinking 'This is not that big of a deal.' Boy was I wrong. I never thought that I would be so affected by not being able to see new episodes of my favorite shows. I felt lost an not in touch with the world because I couldn't get new episodes of 'The Daily Show.' I didn't know where else to go for my news. "Tom" Stewart has been doing his show for about a week and a half now and it has really taken me back to the good ol' days where I got new episodes of my favorite programs.
I've been able to hold off with new episodes of "Rob and Big," but I need the final season of "Scrubs" and new episodes of "Family Guy." I think I have seen every syndicated episode of both of these shows since November.
But now it seems like the strike is finally over and my life can return to normal.

photo from kusports.com

Yes, everyone, I know that it's very upsetting that we lost in Manhattan last night, however I am here to play the role of "Mr. Look at the Brightside." There are several things that we can take away from this loss and most of them are thanks to our purple wearing enemies.

First, we can take a lot of pride in knowing that it took them 25 years to finally make the rivalry legitimate again. I mean how long must we keep walking over them and try not to get bored.

Second, is Manhatten that far away from the world that they are just now getting the Talladega Nights movie with Will Ferrell. I stopped quoting that movie at least a year ago, however I saw two or three signs that read "That just happened." Seriously for one of the most over quoted movies of all time couldn't they have come up with something a little more clever. For example they could have done something like place a picture of Michael Beasly and Bill Walker and pasted them over Ferrell and John C. Reilly's faces with the caption: "Magic Man and El Diablo." I might have been entertained by that.

Third, everyone, since football season, knows how it feels to go out after a big victory and celebrate. Manhattan was crazy last night. Aggieville might not be standing today. Do you know how I know that? No I wasn't there, but Dalonte Hill, a Kansas State assistant coach, decided to inform everyone on the craziness know by going out, partying and then getting himself a DUI. I mean c'mon coach. That sets an absolutely tremendous example for your players. I'll go ahead and say what everyone is thinking: "Probably has Huggins as his mentor." (Hill was an assistant under Huggins at K-State last year.)

Lastly, and this is probably the most complimenting thing aspect of the K-State win. The people at K-State athletics gave us the ultimate pat on the back. They have made a DVD box set of the victory from last night. But wait, that not even the best part. THE BOX SET IS SOLD OUT. I realized I jumped onto the wrong career and hopped in this bandwagon. Coming soon I will release a box set of the previous 24 victories that we have had in Manhattan. Also included in the box set will be a model of the first cell phone that was released the same year as K-State's last victory there.
So cheer up KU fans we can walk away from this with several victories. We are still 24-1 over the last 25 years in Manhattan. We have our advanced culture. We have our responsible and know how to take a victory assistant coaches, and we have the previous 24 years to celebrate.