Early Casualties

Over a week away from Selection Sunday, and already, dozens of teams are out of the running for the NCAA Tournament. Besides the Oregon Ducks (unless they manage to win the Pac-10 Tournament), many teams will be sitting at home watching March Madness on CBS. Notably absent from the competition this year are the Manhattan Jaspers, the Belmont Bruins, the Evansville Aces, and the Campbell Fighting Camels, the official team of the Nativity Camel blog.
The Camels lost in the quarterfinals of the Atlantic Sun Tournament to East Tennessee State, 72-64.
Sadly, it marked the last game for Camel forward Jonathan Rodriguez, one of 101 Division I players to score 2,000 points and nab 1,000 rebounds. Maybe he'll be playing in Greece sometime soon?

On the lighter side of things, I want to present a new feature to the blog. It's called: "Where's The Chuckman's Bottle Opener?"

A week ago, I stole my friend's bottle opener while I was helping him move. I don't usually steal things from people, but this theft was fully justified. I have endured months of pain hanging out at his place, because he insisted that every beer be opened with this bottle opener. Every time you pop a top off, the opener plays the Washington State fight song. And I can tell you, without any sort of regional bias, it's a pretty stupid fight song. Here's a sample of the lyrics:

Come on and win the day for Crimson and Gray!
Best in the West, we know you'll all do your best, so
On, on, on, on! Fight on to the end! Honor and Glory you must win! So
Fight, fight, fight for Washington State and victory!

The bottle opener is just plain offensive and it doesn't belong in any kitchen. So I made the decision to take it from Charles' apartment and I want to make sure that it never plays the Cougar fight song again. Today I took it to Gas Works Park in Seattle with my dog Bowie (pictured above). Bowie took a dip into the waters of Lake Union, and I almost threw the opener in there with her.

Who knows where it will show up next?