I Taught Her Everything She Knows

Perhaps the wisest thing I have done in my life was not pay money to enter a NCAA pool this year. For some people, betting on the tournament makes it more exciting. For me, it makes the first Thursday more exciting, where the possibility of winning a bundle of cash and admiration from my analytically-inferior peers fills my dreams during my 6:10 - 7:20 p.m. nap.

My shining bracket moment was picking Maryland to win the championship two years ago, but that was when 50% of the country, 70% of people in Maryland, and 80% of people in my pool mined this nugget as well. Picking Maryland that year was like picking President Bush to come into work with a nosebleed in the late 70s.

So this year, I entered ESPN's pool and was quite content with being in the 60 percentile after the first round. With over 1.8 million brackets entered, being better than a million people felt good.

That good feeling lasted almost a whole day. I am now getting beat by people named "CoinFlippa" and "THIS IS STUPID I HATE BASKETBALL FLORIDA A&M RULZ!" But it doesn't matter. Because my sister Michele is representing.

She's in the 99.5 percentile, or 11,784. It is as close as anyone in our family will come to sports genius. And although I wasn't able to apply my knowledge to my own bracket, I would like to point out that, had I not given her any advice, she wouldn't have know what not to do. As the special Zen episode of G.I. Joe taught us, knowing what not to do is the other half of the battle.