Cinderella Fountain / March Madness

Cinderella Fountain

The fountain of Cinderella and her animal friends is located near Cinderella Castle in Fantasyland at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. And it shows an interesting contrast between her “ordinary” life working for her stepmother and stepsisters as opposed to the ornate castle that bears her name.

I’m sure some people would have preferred a composition focusing just on the fountain in the center, without all the distractions at the side. But I like this wide view. It might have been better to wait until there weren’t any people around, but those folks at the left looked like they would be there for a while, so I went ahead and got my shots. I do wonder what they were talking about, though. It looks like a rather animated conversation.

Photo location: Magic Kingdom, Walt Disney World, Florida
A three-exposure (-2, 0, +2) HDR tonemapped in Photomatix, edited in GIMP

March Madness

I’m not ashamed to say that I don’t keep up all that much with basketball. It just isn’t my thing. I like football much better. At least as far as watching football. I don’t think I would do all that well at playing the game. Can you see me going up against a 300+ pound defender? I think I know who would win that battle, and it wouldn’t be me.

Anyway, back to basketball. I do pay a little more attention to basketball once March rolls around. It is interesting to see which teams make it into the NCAA tournament, and then to see how it all plays out. There is always a bit of drama involved, and that drama is amplified 100 times if you watch even five minutes of a sports show. Because drama does make for good viewership, after all.

I usually do fill out a tournament bracket, just to see how I can do at picking the teams. Sometimes it has been with the offices around ours, and the last couple of years it has been online. The online version is really easy, because it keeps up with the wins and losses and your standings automatically. Pretty cool!

Most years, I do okay at it, although my picks are never the best. But then this year, something went wrong. I was pretty consistent at picking the losers! What happened? Didn’t those higher seeded teams know they were supposed to beat the lower seeded teams? That’s why they were given a higher seed, after all! What is going on in the world right now?

So now, we are down to the Final Four, with four seemingly unlikely teams left out of the original 64:

• Butler - From an informal poll at dinner Sunday night, no one knew where Butler was located, despite the fact that they made it to the Final Four last year and lost to Duke in the championship game. 

• VCU - Jaylin has asked a few times, “What does VCU stand for again?” That would be Virginia Commonwealth University. I suppose they are named that instead of Virginia State University because Virginia is actually a Commonwealth, not a state. Whatever that means.

• Connecticut - As the third seed in their division, Connecticut is actually the highest seeded team to make it to the Final Four. Take that, all you 1s and 2s!

• Kentucky - Kentucky’s coach, John Calipari, has taken two other teams to the Final Four - Massachusetts and Memphis. And both Final Four appearances were later vacated by the NCAA due to allegations of NCAA violations. Good luck, Kentucky!

And why do the call them “seeds” anyway? A seed is something you plant in the ground. What does that have to do with basketball?

Anyway, they say it is called March Madness because you never know how things are going to go. And this year’s tournament has certainly lived up to that. It should be interesting to see what happens this weekend. I’m not even bothering to make a pick now, because that seems to just be a losing curse on the unlucky teams I pick.

Oh, and Butler is located in Indiana, just in case you were still wondering.