It's that time again!

The leaves are turning green, the flowers are blooming, and the weather is warming up. What better way to spend a fabulous March weekend than by…. sitting on your rear end in the house and watching nonstop college basketball all weekend!!!

I’m just kidding of course, the true joy of March is getting out and enjoying the environment…. of a dark, seedy bar high-fiving total strangers because a 13-seed just upset a 4-seed, and you had the guts to pick it in your $5 work pool. That, my friends, is what March is all about.

In that same spirit (and because there’s no bar where all of my friends and family can meet each weekend), I’m setting up the First Inaugural 2006 Mike’s March Madness Competition!! Hooray for redundancy, hooray! Why join up this year? Because this time, it’s not just a bracket challenge; it’s a bracket challenge with heart. Note that all proceeds will benefit People for the Ethical Treatment of All Things Cute and/or Fluffy and Certainly Aren’t Human Because if We Wanted to Treat Humans Ethically, Whose Fur Coats Would We Throw Blood On? Yes, that’s PETATCFCAHBWWTHEWFCWWTBO, for those of you keeping score (and acronyms) at home. (And, yes, the only way I’m getting away with that is because Meagan’s in Honduras and Laura’s in Japan. Man, I’m gonna catch hell in a couple weeks.)

That said, it’s a free tournament (take that, dolphins and minks!), and extremely easy to be a part of. I’ve set up a group on ESPN, as it’s very easy to do run and to participate as well. Just click here: http://games.espn.go.com/tcmen/frontpage. If you’ve done a bracket on ESPN before, you can use your same username/password this year that you did in year’s prior. If you don’t remember your username password, they can send a reminder email. If you don’t have email, you’re not reading this right now. If you’ve never signed up with ESPN, they’ll walk you through how to do it; it takes about 5 minutes and they need very little personal information, and nothing financially or extremely personal.

Once you’ve got a name and are ready to go, they’ll show you how to set up your brackets in a neat Flash-based bracket system where you can pick your teams one region at a time. It’s quite user-friendly and easy-to-follow, even if you know nothing about basketball. Once all four brackets are completed (that’s 15 games each), you’ll pick who of the Final Four will make it to and win the Championship Game (the score is included to break any ties). It takes about 10 minutes at most (unless you’re researching each teams players/coaches/history/uniform colors, in which case it may take longer depending on your level of devotion/knowledge/level of colorblindness).

Congrats! You’ve filled out a bracket and now just need to find my group! To do so, shoot me an email at michaelponeill2003@yahoo.com I’ve set up the group as private so that only you beautiful people can join, and as such, there is a password needed to sort through the chaff that are common Internet users (i.e. not you). Once I receive your email, I’ll send you the group ID number and password so you can join in on the fun! Also, if you’re interested in doing a Women’s bracket (in an identical fashion to how the Men’s is done), let me know and I’ll set up a similar competition if there’s enough interest. That’s right, I’m all about equal treatment for men and women (plus, I’m hoping that gets me back on Laura’s good side).

If you have any questions, feel free to ask via email (again, michaelponeill2003@yahoo.com), or contact me in any other way (phone, telepathy, whatever). I wish you the best of luck, and hope that you enjoy the fabulous month that is March!