110 on the first night of bowling? It's no 138, but I'll take it. Compare and contrast to the 46 that I bowled the first night of 1L bowling. :)

What in the devil is going on in England? “A growing disaster that could destroy Labour… Downing Street looking increasingly like a crime scene and less like a seat of government… a discredited administration that is falling apart by the day…” Cripes!

…over the Super Bowl. Heh. Excerpt:

FOWLER, Ind. — As Sunday’s Super Bowl approaches, the battle line between fans of the Chicago Bears and fans of the Indianapolis Colts runs right down the middle of the 100 Mile Rib & Chop House.

The 80-year-old restaurant and bar here, named for its location, is about 100 miles from Indianapolis and 100 miles from Chicago. With the Chicago Bears and the Indianapolis Colts set to face off in the big game, the restaurant is girding for open intra-bar warfare, and working hard to aid and abet both camps.

Owner John Hoskins has divided the 100 Mile House into two zones. The north side is marked by a 4-foot-tall stuffed bear wearing the Bears’ navy-and-orange jersey. On the south side stands a 6-foot-wide inflatable Colts player in a three-point stance, on loan from an employee who got it as a wedding gift. Team posters and flags are plastered on either side. The bar runs the length of the room.

Later, the article notes that one of the bartenders at 100 Mile House “set a record for tips — $337 — on Jan. 21 during the conference playoffs, when the Bears and Colts played back-to-back games the same day.” It also quotes Wally Parham, 57, as saying, “I hope the Bears win. I hope the Colts win. I’m all confused.”

Read the whole thing. (Hat tip: Barb.)

As you may or may not have noticed, I’ve added a link to LoyCam in my left sidebar. Check out the icicles!

…is brought to you courtesy of Deadspin:

This is the the third day after Barbaro’s death, which if we’re remembering our scripture correctly is the day that He is supposed to return from the dead, emerge from his tomb and speak to the apostles (although it may be difficult moving that heavy round rock with his hooves). We eagerly await any reports from eyewitnesses.

Heh.

On a related note, Law School Bowling starts tonight, and as mentioned previously, my team’s name is “Barbaro’s Glue Factory.” (Not my idea, and sick, but funny.)

La Rev tries out the transitive property:

Gonzaga beat Stanford.
Stanford beat UCLA.
Therefore, March 23, 2006 never happened.

Heh. (For those who don’t remember what happened — er, didn’t happen — on March 23, 2006: here you go.)

Those air-raid-siren-sounding things outside are just a test of the tornado sirens. It’s the first Thursday of the month.

“I told him I take a bath every day.” –Al Sharpton, on Joe “foot-in-mouth” Biden. Heh.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final book, will be released on July 21. (Hat tip: Brian Foster.)

I’ll be taking the bar on July 24 and 25.

You do the math.

Basically, either: a) I’m going to fail the bar, because I’ll spend the preceding weekend reading Harry Potter instead of studying; or b) Becky will read the book before I do, and will inevitably tell me who dies because she won’t be able to contain herself. (And if she doesn’t let it slip, someone will mention it on the blog. Or, hell, some fellow bar-exam taker will mention it.)

F**k.

To make matters worse, the release of the seventh book comes just eight days after the debut of the fifth movie, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, on July 13. (Friday the 13th!)

So basically, July will be one giant Pottergasm.

Yep. Definitely going to fail the bar.

UPDATE: Okay, upon further consideration, I have a plan… and I think this might be a good thing, because it will force me to focus on studying rather than my usual distractions. The plan is: from July 21 onward, completely cut myself off from virtually all human contact. :) No Internet, no TV, no reading comments on my blog or e-mails from people I can’t be completely certain won’t tell me about the book, and no engaging in conversations where I might accidentally overhear something. So basically, take my iPod with me everywhere, including to the bar exam (can I do that?), and just keep a constant running soundtrack in my ears so I can’t hear the water-cooler talk about the book. And tell Becky I’ll divorce her if she lets anything slip. ;) This could work…

P.S. For those who aren’t Potter fans, you need to understand: this isn’t just any book. This is the final book, the one everyone’s been waiting for forever — the one in which either Harry or Voldemort has to die. So there is an incredible amount of suspense about that. In addition, Rowling has already revealed that at least two other main characters will die. So everybody and their brother is wondering who will die… and once they find out, everybody and their brother will be talking about it. Trying to go four days without overhearing this will be kind of like trying to go four days after Super Bowl without finding out who won. And yet if I accidentally find out in advance, the whole damn thing will be ruined!

J.K. Rowling, I hate you. And love you.

UPDATE 2: Welcome, InstaPundit readers! Please, have a look around.

UPDATE 3: On, uh, third thought…

Reading the sixth Harry Potter book took me somewhere between 12 and 14 hours, not counting sleeping and blogging time. And I could do better than that if I really read fast — maybe 10 hours. So that’s a one-day read, easily. I will have a full travel day somewhere in the vicinity of July 21 or 22, and realistically, I’m not going to be studying much that day. I could easily make that my Deathly Hallows-reading day, and then resume studying the next day. As Mike points out via IM, it’s not like I won’t lose some study time setting up my extensive precautions to not find out who dies. And the distraction of wondering about the book — and of trying not to find out what happens — could be pretty damaging to my ability to concentrate on studying.

So maybe I’ll just freakin’ read it.

Regardless, I think I’ll admonish my blog readers to please avoid any spoilers except in one designated spoiler post, which — taking a cue from this comment — I’ll title “That Which Must Not Be Blogged.” :)

FINAL UPDATE: Much more about this issue here, including quotes from other bar-exam-taking Potter nerds who are equally freaked out.

For the third straight day, one of my teams is in action tonight, as Oregon State comes to the Galen Center to face USC. The Beavers (9-13) are one of the two teams in the Pac-10 that isn’t in contention for an NCAA berth, and the Trojans already beat them 91-46 in Corvallis, so on paper, USC should win this one by around eleventy billion. But as Pete Carroll’s boys can tell you, overlooking Oregon State is never a good idea. And with Oregon, UCLA and Arizona up next on the Trojans’ slate, this has the potential to be a “trap game.” It’s also a must-win if USC wants to stay in the “should be in” category, as there are very few “gimmes” the rest of the way after this game.

That said, Oregon State is pretty bad — they’re 1-8 in the Pac-10, with their only win coming against 0-9 Arizona State, and six of their eight losses are by double digits — so as long as Tim Floyd has the Trojans ready to play, they should have no problem. For Oregon State, the question is exactly the opposite, according to Conquest Chronicles’ pregame Q&A with OSU blog Building the Dam: “[The Beavers] will be motivated for this game, but the real question will be if they can put two decent halves of basketball together.”

Anyway: Fight on Trojans, Beat the Beavers! Game time is 10:30 PM EST.

With 2:11 remaining in overtime Gonzaga leads Stanford, 64-62.

UPDATE: Stanford hits a 3 with 15 seconds left to tie it 67-67, Gonzaga misses a chance to score, going into second overtime.

UPDATE 2: Gonzaga wins it with a strong showing in the second OT, 90-86.