Well, this relapse of sinusy grossness I've been experiencing all week seems to be on the wane, which is welcome news. I have a feeling my coughing jags weren't popular at work (I wasn't exactly a fan of them either).

My fish fry dinner with grandma and grandpa was nice last night. I'm not sure that I would put it above the legendary St. Cas fish fry, but it was still pretty tasty. Mom and Dan got a head start on their drive in from Ohio yesterday afternoon, so they were able to join us for dinner, which was nice.

Anyhoo, we just came back to my place and watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade last night, so all in all it was a pretty low-key evening.

Mom and Dan were in town to get their taxes done today, but they're back now. I think we're still trying to map out the rest of our day right now. Not sure what we'll end up doing.

I guess that's it. Hope everyone is having a nice weekend.

A three-year warranty ought to have me covered from here on out. Hopefully I won't get stranded again anytime soon.

Remember, kids... always have a good roadside assistance plan.

Scott Pohl, playwright:

Join us on Tuesday, April 3rd, at 7:00pm for a special "3 Star Fundraiser" at the BoarsHead – featuring the playwrighting skills of Kathie Dunbar; talented local comedienne & member of the Lansing City Council, Scott Pohl; a noted broadcaster of WKAR, and Deb Hart; part of WMMQ’s Classic Rock’s Morning Drive!

I happen to know what my dad's play is about, but I don't want to spoil it for anyone. Let's just say that it pokes fun at another prominent Lansing figure.

It's been a rough NCAA tournament for me so far. I started off great in the first round, going 15-for-16, and then got progressively worse on days one and two of the second round.

Heading into the Sweet Sixteen, I'm tied for last place with Dan, with my grandma in second, and my mom in first.

I don't think I've ever been in last place before, so I had to get a little risky, and pick more upsets than I normally would. Not really sure how that will pan out, but it's definitely not looking good at the moment.

I was in a good mood yesterday afternoon. On my way home from work, I even decided to swing by Kroger instead of driving straight home, so I could pick up some groceries to make my girl a nice spaghetti dinner. I went in, grabbed everything I needed, and was out in less than ten minutes. Came out to my car, put the bags in the back seat, got in, put the key in the ignition, turned it, and... nothing. Not a sound, not a light. Nothing.

My old Chevy Lumina had done this once or twice about a year ago. First it was a bad battery, and then it was a bad alternator. It was a pain back then, but I wasn't surprised when these things went wrong, because the car was ten years old at that point. Everything was peachy with the Lumina once those things were fixed, but I still figured it was time to buy a new set of wheels. And that's exactly what I did. Back in January, I bought my cousin Lisa's grandmother's Buick because it was in great shape, and barely had any miles on it.

Of course, there I was again at about 4:45 last night, sitting in a dead car.

I called Stef to see if she was done with class yet. She was, but it was going to take her a while to get through the crazy traffic on campus. She finally made it to Frandor by about 5:30, 5:40ish. I had never tried to jump-start a car before, so I rang up Dan and had him walk me through it. I got everything all set up with the cables, and we gave it a shot. No-go.

It was about 6PM by that point, and I just told Stef to go home so she didn't have to wait in the cold. I didn't have my roadside assistance card on me, because being the idiot that I am, I took it out of my wallet for some dumb reason a couple months ago. I gave my mom a buzz and had her call in the request for the tow truck for me. The GM roadside people called me a few minutes later to tell me that a truck would arrive in approximately 45 minutes.

Stef showed up just a few minutes later with some dinner for me. She had just hopped over to Panera, and bought me a sandwich. What a sweetie. Here I was trying to make her dinner for a change of pace, and once again, she ends up feeding me. Ah, well. The food really hit the spot.

I still told Stefy to go home so she wouldn't have to wait in the cold car. Plus, at the time, I was expecting the tow truck to arrive within a half hour or so. Little did I know, the night was just getting started.

Well, the 45 minutes they quoted me turned into 55 minutes. I called the GM people, and they re-directed me to the local towing company they had contacted on my behalf. That's when shit really hit the fan. The dispatch guy said they were sending me a van for a jump-start, not a tow truck. I don't know how, but they clearly got the wrong message, since I had already tried a jump-start with Stef's car. Grrrr.

About ten minutes later this van showed up. I explained the error to the guy, and he called into his dispatch person. They told him the same thing they told me. The van guy said he was going to leave, but the tow truck would be there in ten to fifteen minutes.

Ten to fifteen minutes turned into thirty minutes... forty five minutes... by now it was 8:15PM. The GM roadside people eventually called me back. I explained that the tow truck still hadn't arrived, and the guy told me they thought I would be calling in to request a tow truck. Um, wha? The guy in the van said it was taken care of! Anyway, the GM guy told me it would be another half hour before the tow truck would arrive.

At this point, after sitting in the freezing cold car for three hours, I had to vent. I called up my mom and bitched her out for no apparent reason. I was really mean to her, and there was no reason or excuse excuse for it. I felt so bad that I tried to call back and apologize a few minutes later, but she didn't want to talk to me, which I can't really blame her for.

Anyway, the last half hour went by. It was about 8:40 by the time the tow truck arrived. The guy was really friendly, and got me hooked up in just a few minutes. I hopped in his truck, and he towed me the ridiculously short distance of about a quarter mile over to SEARS. I just filled out their overnight envelope describing the problem, and left my keys. Stef showed up a few minutes later to pick me up and take me home. It was 9PM by the time I got back to my place. Four and a half hours after I got the bright idea to stop by Kroger after work.

What a nightmare.

UPDATE: The guy from SEARS already called me this morning. Yep, dead battery. I'm not surprised, but I am relieved that that's all it was. Should only be a hundred and some bucks to get it replaced. Man, I honestly would've paid twice that much if I could've had this taken care of in under an hour last night. That was easily the worst day of 2007 (so far).

Tomorrow is the English Department's Creative Writing Awards, and Stefy has entries in a few different categories, so I'm going to tag along and cheer on my girl.

Thursday night I'll probably just be cleaning up my apartment, getting ready for my mom and Dan's visit this weekend.

Friday afternoon I'll be driving down to Jackson to go to the Fish Fry at St. Mary's with my grandparents. I guess my cousin Grant will be helping to serve the food with his baseball team (or something?), so I'll probably get to see my Aunt Julie and Uncle Randy too, which will be nice.

Stef is going to be in Florida with her mom this weekend. Teri's birthday is on Saturday, and I guess she just wanted to be somewhere warm to celebrate, which I can't say I blame her for. As far as I know, it's just going to be the two of them, so that should be a fun little getaway for Stefy.

Like I said, mom and Dan will be in town this weekend, so it'll be good to visit with them for a while. Not really sure what we'll be up to, but if nothing else, I'm sure there will be plenty of basketball on TV to keep me occupied.

Anyway, that's the agenda for the week.

Man, I sure don't miss going to school. From a year ago, today...

Well, I made it through the PLS 201 exam this morning. It was still a really poorly written test, but I felt a lot more confident about my performance than I did after the first one. I just hope all those hours of studying over the weekend weren't for naught.

The rest of this week is going to be insanely busy. First, today is Sherry's knee surgery, so Stef and I will probably pop over to the house to see how she's doing for a little while. Tomorrow I'll have to meet with my COM 200 group to discuss how we want to handle working on this second paper, and you can guess how excited I am about that one. Thursday is a COM 200 exam (I know, that crazy half German/half French prof is a sick, sick man for having a test one class period before a paper due date), so that means I'll spend parts of the next few days studying for that one. Then on Friday I'm probably heading to Stef's house to celebrate her mom's birthday, which is that same day. Most of Sunday will be spent studying for my COM 275 test on Monday (yes, there's a third test next week), and putting the finishing touches on the COM 200 paper. God, I hate weeks like this.

Only 46 days until graduation!

Flashback #2: Paul Davis, a Salute to Greatness

It's been five weeks since I wrote this:

I can tell this is like day one of about a week to ten days of me being sick. I just have that achy feeling, and my throat is all sore... just kinda gross in general. Hopefully I'm wrong and this blows over by tomorrow, but I'm not optimistic at this point.

Well, I don't feel as funky as I did that day, but somethin' ain't right. My nose started feeling a little stuffy last night, and I've been sneezing and blowing my nose pretty regularly all day. Grrrr.

I'm going to pop some pills, and hopefully that'll help take care of these symptoms. Cross your fingers that this doesn't get worse. I was pretty much miserable for a solid two weeks back in February, and I don't want to go through all that again.

Okay, here's the scoop on the weekend.

On Friday Stef and I went out to see Zodiac, which was pretty good, but by no means David Fincher's best film. I think we would've enjoyed the movie even more though, if it weren't for the bunch'a rubes sitting right behind us.

Seriously, why the hell do people feel compelled to waltz in and sit directly behind you in an empty theater? And why do they have to yammer through the whole damn show? And why does it take them twenty minutes to open a goddamn bag of candy?

Simple answer: They're hicks, Rita.

Anyway, despite the distractions, we still enjoyed the movie, and went out for dinner at El Azteco afterwards. I know, I was shocked when Stef said she was willing to go there with me, but I didn't argue.

Much to my surprise, we got the best service I've ever had while we were there for dinner. Normally, I expect a 45 minute wait for my meal, and it usually takes them at least a couple tries to bring me the dish I actually ordered, but this time we got everything exactly the way we ordered it in record time. Pretty amazing, right?

Stef and I were just kinda lazy for the rest of the night. We watched a few shows back at my place, but that was pretty much it for Friday.

Saturday was great, because I slept in ridiculously late, and didn't do a damn thing until mid-afternoon. Stef and I felt a little silly being cooped up on such a nice day – especially since it was St. Patty's Day and all – so we eventually got up and ventured into EL to scope out the holiday crowds. I think we got into East Lansing right as the first wave of drunks were heading home to crash after a long morning/afternoon of bar-hopping, because we saw more than a few people stumbling around Grand River. Not being much of a drinker myself, it's always fun to watch drunk-ass college kids doing stupid shit on St. Patrick's Day – it's some of the best people watching of the year.

Stef and I had a bite of lunch at Potbelly, and then poked around some of the stores on GR. It was just a nice little jaunt on a sunny pre-spring day, and it felt good to be out and about.

We came back to my place by late afternoon and watched a little more TV before splitting up for the day. Stef was meeting up with some of her friends to head out for the night, and I drove out to my dad's to watch the MSU-UNC game in hi-def. Of course, we didn't get the result we were hoping for, but it was still nice to hang out and cheer on the Spartans with my old man.

Sunday was another lazy day. More sleeping in and not accomplishing anything until mid-afternoon, which was wonderful. By the time I finally got up and around for the day, it was time to head over to Brian's to meet up with grandma and grandpa. Brian had invited them up so we could all go out to brunch at Clara's. I hadn't done the Sunday brunch there in many years, and it was just as good as I remembered. Grandma and grandpa seemed to be in a pretty chipper mood too, so it was nice to sit and visit while we ate.

I pretty much came back to my place after brunch, and spent the rest of the day being lazy. See, this is why March Madness weekends are so much fun – it gives you a great excuse to be a couch potato on a perfectly nice day.

Oh, one last thing. Tomorrow is St. Joseph's Day, as my grandparents reminded me. Like St. Patrick's Day, this is a color-conscious holiday... wear red tomorrow, "or you'll get shot," according to my grandma. Time to start digging through my closet.

Don't look so glum, fellas. It was one hell of a season, and you made the most of it!

Hey, the outcome wasn't what we were hoping for, but that was one hell of a performance last night. Boy, you hate to think about the "what ifs," but if we had even one more body to throw at Hansbrough (poor Ibok), we might've held on to that slim lead.

Bottom line: it's hard to feel bad about a game like that. UNC is one of the best teams in the country, and for thirty minutes last night, we were able to hang in there with them. We still have a great group of players, and I can't wait to see what they'll achieve next year.

Now, the rumors are already swirling about what will happen with the Michigan coaching job, since Bill Martin made the prudent (albeit, disappointing) decision to can Amaker. Michael Rosenberg takes one last parting shot at Tommy Turtleneck in today's Free Press column, and makes the case for hiring John Beilein of West Virginia.

I'm not familiar with this guy, but based on Rosenberg's piece, it sounds like Michigan will have to decide how much it's willing to invest in its basketball program, because they'll have to couch up over $2 million just to buy this guy out of his contract. Considering that UM has shown it could care less about basketball – investing a quarter of a billion dollars in the football stadium renovation, while their basketball facilities remain the worst in the Big Ten – I just don't see it happening.

Picking up Jim Boylen might be a smart move, but it sounds like he could be up for the job at Utah State. Terry Foster suggests picking up Izzo Disciple Tom Crean, but again, it'll cost UM a lot of money to dislodge him from Marquette, and that just doesn't seem likely.

It'll be interesting to see what UM ends up doing, because their decision could have a profound impact on the Big Ten race for the next several years. Personally, I wold love to see them hire another bonehead like Amaker, and considering the lack of interest in the sport at UM – among fans and the administration – I wouldn't be surprised if they do just that.

• Freep: Overmatched Spartans show character in amazing run
• Freep: Izzo proud of effort, but UNC pace is too fast
• LSJ: MSU leads UNC late, then runs out of gas
• LSJ: MSU-UNC notebook: Big night not enough for Neitzel
• DetNews: HEEL, SPARTANS: Lack of depth costs MSU
• Freep: Michigan State walk-on plays with gusto
• DetNews: Izzo reacts to Amaker's firing