So it turns out that not only is "Mr. Brightside" my song of the year for 2004, it's also got a one of my favorite videos in a long time. One of the strange things about Yahoo's Launch, which I've gotten a lot of good use out of this past year, is that you can't get it to play a particular song at a particular moment, you can play a particular video. It's useful if you want to hear that song--even if you minimize the window.

As for Saturday, the less said the better except this--like March Madness, it's all about survive and advance, and you don't get any style points for how you make the next round. All you can ask is to have a chance, at home, to make the Super Bowl, and that's what we've got.

Finally, the quiz-bowl experience this weekend was a positive one. I've long past the point where I want to do qb very much or very often, but I was glad to see I can still have fun with it and can still perform. I played in the pop culture tourney on Sunday and finished 5th in scoring. To be fair, some much better players finished behind me because they played on better teams and cancelled each other out; that said, my team was none too shabby, even if we faded in the playoffs. I only read and scorekept for the academic tourney on Saturday, but I still knew more than I thought I would, just knowing where I would have gotten some questions that took longer in my room.