TDZ March Madness Leader Board - The Final (4) Frontier

Just 3 games remain for the contenders, but already the final standings are coming into focus. Kirk is chasing TDZ immortality and just needs a Kentucky championship to clinch it, but look who's poised for a comeback: Scotty!

No, cheers to you, laddy!

Correction: This Mayan WAS Lyin'

As the editor-in-chief and sole contributor to The Danger Zone, I know my readers. And if there's one thing they demand above all when they visit my blog, it's journalistic integrity. Whether I'm discussing fat baseball players or relating everything to Star Trek, you want to know that the "news" you're getting maintains the highest standards of quality.

With that in mind, I would like to point out that the image in my January 7, 2012 post titled, in ironic defensiveness, "You Callin' Me a Lyin' Mayan? - Weekly Trivia!," is not actually a stone reflecting the Mayan calendar. It is, rather, a stone from the Mexicas civilization, called the "Stone of the Sun."

A recent trip to the Museo de Antropologia brought the necessary illumination/humility. In fact, most people who misattribute the stone say it's Aztec rather than Mayan, so I'm doubly shame-faced. Please know that this misstep will be accounted for and reflected in the next edition of ISO-9000 standards for "dudes with random blogs."

The Extra Spatial Dimensions Wrap - Weekly Trivia!

I'm Theodor Kaluza and I'm here to say
I just unified some forces in a crazy-ass way
In 1919, I write my boi, Ein-y,
I'm like, "dude, you're not even going to believe this finding!"

I'm talking gravity, electricity
With five dimensions - an epiphany
I'm like a lolcat, in ur equation,
Re-solvin' general relativity

And what did I get,
After all my calculation?
Just electromagnetism -
Jimmy Max's equation

Too bad my math n' rhymes
Were ahead of their times
But - guess what? I'm finally back
Stealth string theory attack!

Respect.

Congrats to the 2 winners this month! I'm not sure who you are exactly, so feel free to announce if it was you in the comments.

I can't rightly go through an entire season of March Madness without some related trivia, so here's your question for the next 2 weeks (traveling soon). We all know that a #16 seed has never beat a #1 seed, but what about a #12 seed?

• True of false: A #12 seed has never beat a #1 seed.

Have a great week, and good luck with your brackets if they're at all salvageable.

TDZ March Madness Leader Board - Sour 16

Two rounds of action are in the books, and look who's back from the dead: Spock!

Kirk: 37-11, 47 points

Spock: 31-17, 42 points

Troi: 32-16, 40 points

Lore: 27-21, 33 points

Scotty: 22-26, 30 points

Not so fast, Jim. It's Jim, right? My body was just regenerated by the Genesis matrix, you know how it is.

Logic dictates that the top seeds advance, but ultimately the Vulcan's selection of Duke in the finals will be his undoing. The other highlight for me is Scotty picking NC State to reach the Sweet 16. At this point, there's a serious possibility that the engineer will make a come back and put me in dead last, bringing shame upon Dr. Soong's programming.

The Simpsons - Stepping Up Their Game

The Simpsons has been on the air for 23 seasons, and it's run the gamut in terms of standing with the American TV viewer. It went from underrated to well regarded, to overdone, to overrated, to nearly forgotten, and now I think it's turned the corner and become underrated again. I've been impressed lately by how current and genuinely amusing recent episodes have been, not to mention their Game of Thrones intro in the 501st episode.

Générique Simpsons : parodie de Game of Thrones

If anyone has been watching the show lately, please confirm or deny that the show is in fact good again, because it's been so long.

TDZ March Madness Leader Board - Round of 32

Just one round of games in the books and already we're seeing some disparity between the brackets. Here's the standings as of right now:

Kirk: 25-7, 25 points

Troi: 24-8, 24 points

Data Lore: 21-11, 21 points

Spock: 20-12, 20 points

Scotty: 14-18, 14 points

Kirk is in the captain's chair right now, and his shields are holding following the opening salvos from Norfolk State and Lehigh since he had Missouri and Duke failing to reach the Sweet 16 anyways. My original speculation of space-time hacking is gaining legitimacy.

It's still early, don't get cocky.

Troi had a strong first round as well, but her Elite 8 was rocked by the dual 15 seed upsets. Only a championship run by Michigan State will do the job, but with the remaining depth in the West division, might I suggest pre-arranging some counseling sessions to overcome the disappointment.

These 15 seeds are driving me crazy!

Yes, that's right, I tricked you all. I'm actually Lore, Data's snickering, contraction-wiedling, emotionally unstable brother. And as I'm teetering on the brink right now, I'm more motivated than ever to kill all biological life... through snide remarks, lethal satire and Star Trek references!

I'm an android on the edge and I'm firing at Will!

Of my friend Spock, I can only say this: of all the brackets I have encountered in my travels, his was the most... human.

If only there was a Genesis device for brackets.

Scotty brings up the rear with a truly busted bracket. With a ship this beyond repair, I suggest crashing into the nearest Dyson Sphere and hiding yourself in your transporter's pattern buffer for decades until no one remembers your ignominy.

See you in 75 years!

TDZ's March Madness - To Boldly Go...

Thanks to all the contributors to the first March Madness Melee here at TDZ! Now that I have some competition in the bracketology department, you enter upon a brave new world for my blog. It's a land where hubris is cheap, and the local currency is tears.

Without further ado, let's introduce the contenders:

Call for Submissions

The NCAA tournament will tip off later this week, and this year I'm letting everyone in on the madness -TDZ style.

Last year, I posted my strategy, along with all of my brazen first round picks (part 1, part 2), but blogging doesn't have to be a 1-way street called Blowhard Boulevard. This year, I encourage all of my readers to submit their brackets and see who comes away the champion of the Danger-sphere. I believe you all have my email...

WARNING: Brackets may be subject to snide comments and snorts of derision.

All-Kevin Love Team Honoree Makes Headlines

You may question my methods or madness initially, but you have to admit: I know how to pick 'em. Just as last year's winners have made major waves this year, a 2012 A-KL team member is already making news. T.J. Ford is moving his career to a whole other level: retirement.

He was certainly a promising young point guard when he first started in the league, and though I knew he endured some injury issues, I mistakenly believed they were behind him. Assuming the time away from the game allows his spine to stabilize, he'll get to enjoy a healthy retirement. I'm sure he'd rather continue playing, but being able to retire at his age (almost a year younger than me) is nothing to pity.

Have You Got a 27B-6? - Weekly Trivia!

This week saw 3 different answers to the trivia question, but Brazil was the one that featured Robert De Niro in a supporting role. He played rogue freelance Heating Engineer Harry Tuttle, a terrorist of the needlessly complex and overbearing bureaucratic state. My dad is on a roll now with a 2-week winning streak!

Oh boy, but now we're back to physics trivia. Things are starting to get interesting as physicists hypothesize what exists at distances so microscopic that they can't be probed by current instruments. My question:

Which physicist (according to Greene), in an effort to unify the fundamental forces, hypothesized a spatial dimension in addition to the three (four, including time) perceivable by us?

• Albert Einstein
• Wolfgang Pauli
• Theodor Kaluza
• James Maxwell
• Erwin Schrödinger

Good luck, and have a great week.

Washington Redskins: Ever on the Snyde

If there's one constant in life you can always count on, it's that Daniel Snyder will continually run his own franchise into the ground. In order to draft Robert Griffin (he of the "RG III" moniker) in this year's draft, he went through with this trade.

The Washington Redskins get:
2012 1st round pick (#2 overall)

The St. Louis Rams get:
2012 1st round pick (#6 overall)
2012 2nd round pick (#38 overall)
2013 1st round pick
2014 1st round pick

If they weren't so insufferably optimistic for no reason, I'd pity Skins fans.

That's right, 4 high draft picks for one player. Seriously, give me the reins of this franchise and I could lead them to better fortune through inaction and utter dispassion.

RG III looks like a good player, but he's going to have the weight of an entire franchise on his shoulders, as well as the weight of the other team's front seven piling on top of him as his O-line is more like an Owned-line. Aside from Roy Helu, his supporting cast is about as talented as Mitt Romney is galvanizing.

If you want to build a team correctly, drive up I-95 and check out the Ravens. Joe Flacco is a league-average QB at best, but he came into a team that had acquired all the right pieces for any ol' schmo to succeed. Now the Ravens have a mistakenly confident, healthy and sometimes decent QB instead of a mentally and physically battered corpse, which is what I fear could happen to Griffin.

I look forward to more false hope and hilarity to ensue all around me in the DMV next season.

Tek

Another week, another iconic Red Sox player retires. On the heels of Tim Wakefield's retirement, Jason Varitek hangs up his catching gear after 15 seasons in Boston.

To say he's deserving of a TDZ Career Retrospective is an understatement. Check out his career highlights after the jump.