Doing my biweekly channel surf this morning (okay, maybe not that often) and VH1 had the New York Dolls doing some dirge. Listened to about 3 couplets, finished the last line with them, some little rhyme from every third album by lower Second Tier groups since 1964. Moved on up the dial and CMT had Kieth Urban tearing it up in concert. Just great! Where was I when CW guys started rockin' like they invented it? Wow!

About 5PM I remembered the BB tourney started today. These four days have the best ball, with 48 games and about 30 equally matched teams playing for the 4 to 6 slots the powers leave for the other 50+ teams invited to the tourney.

That "invited" is routinely ignored by those who call this a college basketball championship. It is an Invitational, and there are roughly 20 teams invited to the "other" tourney as good as those 30 above. The idea the NIT is for #66 is absurd. Those 20 teams have a better chance of making the NCAA "Sweet Sixteen" than about two dozen "automatic" bids for the NCAA version.

But when I remembered it, I switched it on, and realized about four minutes later I didn't give a shit. Butler leaves me feeling as frustrated as some knight errant must have felt after pitching serious woo for several hours and finding a chastity belt.

In a Harris Poll around "Super" Bowl time people who identified themselves as sports fans ranked their favorite sports as NFL, MLB, and NCAA Football.

My own interpretations of these data are that MLB is not dying and that college football does not need a playoff system. Your interpretations may differ, but you'll need more data if they are to be entertained in this forum.

There are redwinged blackbirds and robins about in abundance. And a friend told me he saw a Baltimore Oriole today. And I have seen several turkey vultures, soaring masters, gliding across the skies at Mississinewa Reservoir the past several days.

Definition: for me, "several" means more than five but less than fifty.

Several years ago I was doing some light-duty birdwatching with a wildlife biologist at the dog tick capital of east central Indiana, Summit Lake Reservoir in Henry County.

Andy said that biologists had taped over the red-white-yellow marking on some male redwinged blackbirds, and they were not selected as mates. Surely a monumental scientific endeavor, but illustrative of the importance of conformity among species.

And the ticks: I picked about 15 off me after two or so hours in the fields, and found another in my moustache the next evening.

Nice place. Be prepared.

Lots of red tails, kestrels, and sharp-shinned & Cooper's hawks about. What else could a person want?

If you are not this easily appeased, and need truly heady stuff, I can put you on some bald eagles, guaranteed. Ask.

Ben Franklin was a homespun genius, turning himself into a lightning rod and shit.

He would have been a houseboy for Archimedes, DaVinci, Galileo, or Newton, but he was pretty hot stuff.

However, he is credited with two remarkably bad ideas.

While probably not true, possibly with tongue in cheek, he championed the Wild Turkey over the Bald Eagle as America's National Symbol. (Okay, this is so incredibly poor you really, really should skip it, but maybe he was all for Wild Turkey Bourbon as our national libation.) This would have fucked up hundreds of millions of Thanksgiving dinners through the years. Even I can bake a turkey, but wouldn't dare try making a decent cheeseburger for guests.

Franklin is also credited with DST, Daylight Savings Time, an abomination unto the eyes of the lord.

I am somewhat confused about this, but don't care enough to research it.

On November 18, 1883, US and Canadian railroads adopted Standard Time, and while trains were notorious for not running "on time" at least you didn't ride from St. Louis to Louisville and arrive two hours before you left.

The US Congress thought this a thoroughly brilliant and useful idea and swiftly enacted it into law. On March 19, 1918, the Standard Time Act was enacted. This act included provisions for DST.

Ben Franklin died in 1790.

Interested? Google awaits!