It's Like Hitting Yourself In the Head Over and Over With a Hammer

...it just feels so good when you stop.

Tuning on the local radio dial to listen to the NCAA Tournament this afternoon, and was dismayed to find that the local Jim Rome Show affiliate kept his show on the air instead of having the tournament games! Of course, I then listened for awhile, which is always a bad idea.

First off, while giving NCAA Tournament scores, Rome started playing a "Bracket Alert" alarm with an annoying klaxon sound (think "Red Alert"). This went on for two minutes. Why? North Dakota State was down by one to Kansas with seven minutes remaining in the first half.

Yes, an upset alert. With the underdog still losing. With seven minutes to play in the first half.

Next, Rome decided to be the latest guy to condemn Morgan State's Ameer Ali after his take down of Oklahoma's All-Everything Blake Griffin in Thursday night's NCAA match up. If you missed it, Ali flipped Griffin over his back after the two got locked up under the basket. Ali was ejected from the game. Rome's take (I'm paraphrasing):

"Griffin should have gotten up and taken a swing at Ali. I'm surprised he didn't, though it showed remarkable restraint to not hit a guy who is trying to hurt you. Ali is a chump and didn't belong on the same floor...what was he (Ali) thinking? He was trying to take out or injure the best player in college basketball."

I'm not defending what Ali did. He was ejected for what he did, and deservedly so. However, it's possible that Ali wasn't trying to hurt Griffin on purpose; perhaps in the heat of the moment during some physical play he did something he shouldn't have. I know that Rome probably has never played a sport, but it's not too hard to imagine that sometimes a player can get caught up in what's happening and overreact. Again, I'm not defending Ali, and he deserved to be ejected. But he's not automatically evil.

After Rome went on and on about Ali for awhile, he then started talking about how Griffin must have had "Yakety Sax" playing in his head. So we then heard "Yakety Sax"--over and over and over.

And then I drove into a ditch.