On Friday Mike pointed me to Bill Simmons’ liveblogging of the first round of the NCAA tournament, and I have to say it’s a great read, totally hilarious. But to me the best thing about it was that it may as well have been borrowed from my own place on Thursday and Friday, down to the same joke themes and everything.

This year was the third year of the recent annual tradition of my friends and me gathering at my apartment downtown for the first round of the tournament. Indianapolis historically has a large St. Patrick’s Day parade which begins at the streetcorner closest to my apartment, and the bar next door to my building celebrates with a massive drunken party which spills out into the blocked-off street. When I moved in down here and we realized this, and that it coincides with the start of the tournament, a tradition was born, even if it involved using vacation days from work. This year marked the first with my new high-def TV, thus insuring an upgrade to the experience.

And now that Simmons has introduced me to tournament liveblogging, I may totally have to do this next year. My friends are at least as funny as his. You name the joke theme from his liveblogging, and we hit it. From the bashing of CBS’s inconsistent HD feed, to mocking Kellogg’s inexplicable Stanford pick, to trashing the commercials (and yes, particularly the incessant “this is our country” song), to mocking the players and coaches, and so forth (one Simmons and company missed that you’d have to be from Indiana to get, Josh McRoberts must wind up a Celtic. With a career of Carmel High School to Duke to Boston, this would cement his legacy as the whitest player in basketball history… Or “Monsignior Award” winner Jared Dudley, for having “the tightest collar in the tournament.)

Much fun. Hell, I may need to liveblog all group watching of sporting events in my apartment from now on. Maybe we can get Mike a job at ESPN.

Oh, my picks… Not doing too bad, and my final four is all still alive. Florida, Kansas, Texas, and Ohio St., with OSU beating Kansas for the title. Of course this bracket is doomed, as I didn’t realize until I had submitted it that I had picked Kansas, the chokingest team in recent NCAA history, to go far. Oops. As for today’s games, Go Boilers! It’s of course pretty unlikely that they’ll knock off the Gators, but I can dream. We will miss you Carl Landry.