Austen, Basketball and Trash TV

I'll get to basketball in a second. First, this past Sun. marked the last installment of the Jane Austen lovefest on PBS. I should quickly mention that my PBS station has survived to live another day....yeah!!! Anywho, here's how I would rank the films (new productions only):

1) Sense & Sensibility--Andrew Davies once again rocks as screenwriter. The actors are all solid; I especially enjoyed the performance from Elinor...I think she would have made a great Anne in Persuasion actually. My fave moments were Edward and Elinor's goodbye at the beginning, Edward coming in to see Elinor not knowing Miss Steele was also there, and the big "reveal" with Edward and Elinor at the end. Hmmm...do you know who my favorite character is by now?

2) Northanger Abbey--perfect casting and smart editing make this a breeze of a production that is just a pleasure to watch

3) Persuasion--still not totally satisfied with this one, as the movie version is so perfect

4)Mansfield Park--okay, but probably the most disappointing of the lot

Now on to basketball. My brackets were completely destroyed after the Final Four was played on Sat. I'm not sure what happened to NC for most of the first half. That was not the team I had watched a good portion of the season. Still, they came back which was impressive, but once their shooting went cold again, it was pretty much over. I saw a bit of some locker room interviews and I actually felt sorry for Tyler H. He looked so destroyed and shell shocked. He was out there working hard, but just couldn't make it happen in the end. Side note for Tyler, ditch the mock turtleneck. They barely work on women, and in no way, shape, or form should they appear on men. I'm just saying.

I was going to mention that Memphis's inability to shoot free throws bit them in the ass, but that's not really what happened. They lost all control in the final two minutes of the game, two of their best free throw shooters didn't hit their free throws and for some reason, they didn't foul at the end of the game. Kansas hits the 3 and into overtime we go...except Memphis didn't seem to show up for overtime. It really felt like they let go with that 3 pointer. Strange.

On a final note, for those in my area, Cheaters can be found on the CW on Sat. night at 8 and 9 pm. This week we had a choice quote from "the other woman." She has just been accused of sleeping with Woman A's husband and has denied it saying they hadn't got to that point yet and it was going to happen that evening (they were found at a hotel). Other Woman then goes on to say, "It's my vagina and I think I know what goes in and out of my vagina."

Wisdom for us all I think.