End of the March Madness

As Wichita State fell short of a major upset victory over Louisville at the NCAA Final Four Saturday in Atlanta, I heard the cheers of Cardinals fans overjoyed that their team is a step closer to its first national championship in 27 years.

I also thought I heard a big sigh of relief from Coca Cola. If the Shockers had won, it would have cost the company more than three million dollars.

Like millions of other people, I was part of the Enjoy More Madness game, where you enter a bottle cap code at a special website. It assigns you a team, and you root for it all the way to the NCAA men's basketball championship. Naturally, I got several very low seeds, like Florida Gulf Coast and Harvard. Surprisingly, they paid off. So did Cal, LaSalle and Wichita State.

Up to the Final Four, I did pretty well: eight bottles of Coke Zero, $20 in music tracks (enough to get all of Taylor Swift's new album), a $20 gift card from Live Nation, and a $100 gift card from Best Buy. Usually, I don't get this lucky. The biggest prize I get in these contests is a free Big Mac.

With Wichita State's incredible run, peaking at its win over Ohio State, I dared to dream that I'd get a free round trip airline ticket if they beat Louisville.
It would have happened if the Shockers hadn't committed five turnovers late in the game. The Cards' full-court press also made the difference, although some blame the referees.

If the Shockers had won, more than 8100 people, including me, would have gotten free airline tickets worth 400 dollars. That's more than three point two million dollars, or a lot of Coke Zero. A lot of executives at Coca Cola must have rooted for Louisville that night.

Now, there's 23 people left who could get the grand prize of 100 thousand dollars or a free trip to next year's Final Four in Dallas. If Louisville wins, it's the cash. If Michigan wins, Coke will have to choose from 22 people who will get to go to Dallas. They have only nine trips to go around. If it comes to that, what about those who aren't chosen? I expect them to e-mail Coca Cola, demanding their prizes. They'll be told they should have read the rules, and maybe one or two will say "what rules?"

So, let's go Louisville! Win that NCAA title and give the Enjoy More Madness game a simple ending.
Of course, they're also giving away a car. With the odds being about 1 in 250 thousand, I'm not even thinking about that.

Can Twitter Make Me A Star?

Probably not, but still....

it's been a few months since I joined the Twitter Nation, making pithy one-lines to people famous and unknown alike. Robin Sachs, aka Ethan Rayne, actually tweeted me back. So did Amber Benson, although I can't tweet her back. I'd like to thank her for the praise.
Ditto Miracle Laurie, who tweeted me when I asked if her ukulele band's list of cover songs included disco. Let's say it wouldn't be out of the question.

However, I have achieved a slice of fame thanks to two recent contests. One came from the Twitter feed from Inglorious Basterds. It asked to compete the phrase "I'm a basterd because...". Well, I remembered my blog that talked about being the first Americans to see the movie, thanks to Comic-Con. I said that "Christoph Waltz ain't a dance." Come to think of it, I should make it into a t-shirt around Oscar season. That should be worth a few hundred votes, while seeing the movie will produce a few thousand. Anyway, I was one of 50 people who got a modest prize pack of a t-shirt and soundtrack CD. The real fame came from actually having my entry featured in the winners list. It's still on the movie's Facebook page.

The other contest came from a site called Coin That Phrase. It asks people to come up with new catch phrases that may fit whatever situation comes to mind. I once described the Los Angeles wildfires this way. It cost only three bucks, too. I may try that for Dollhouse t-shirts.

Then they had one on catch phrases for the Emmys later this month. I came up with two: "Emmy for Best Alliteration, Don Draper and Liz Lemon (tie)". I though that would work since Tina Fey and Jon Hamm did appear on 30 Rock.
Instead this one did: "Emmy-thing is possible, if you believe" I'm hoping the TV Academy may buy it from me, but only if the attendees think it's cool. Otherwise, the fact that I am part of this year's Emmy gift bag is a little piece of fame that I hope to promote somehow.

Despite this, it hasn't led to a massive number of people wanting to follow me on Twitter. If I wanted that, and didn't care who followed me, I'd beg every spambot to target me.

Still, it may be possible to be a celebrity blogger, such as Perez Hilton, but it's clear you can't be a celebrity Tweeter. Conan O'Brien has made sure of that.
But so what? It's fun to do, and so is the blogging.