I'm on a serious losing streak.

Here are the last four events, as seen, live and in-person ...

The latest sign society is going to the Dark Side: This afternoon, as we were watching little George Mason make the enormous upset and the Final Four as a No. 11 seed, one of the guys was actually cheering for UConn.

This guy isn't from Connecticut. He didn't go to UConn. He's not even a UConn fan. He was cheering for his office pool bracket.

Someone go ahead and call a cab for James Tchana and Renato Cesar.

As this blog was leaving the hotel Saturday in Sacramento, on a mission to find cough drops and regain the ability to swallow, it overheard two men talking about how something was "a sign of where society is headed."

You can't go a day without hearing one of these conversations, and, "Nowhere good," is usually the consensus. (For whatever reason, people rarely pause to discuss the virtues of society, how cool it is that we have freedom of religion, or that women are allowed to vote, or that snow cones rule.)

If you have stock in Marriott hotels, sell it now, because I have wiped out its entire 2006 budget for breakfast buffets.

The entire company is headed for a downward spiral no analyst could have predicted.

Hurray! My #12-beats-a-#5 pick was correct. Montana beat Nevada, as I predicted in my Wednesday column. We'll ignore the fact that I picked three 12-seeds to win.

Here are the highlights and lowlights of Day 1 ...

OK, here's my bracket. As requested by Kristi, who threatened my life. No chance this one wins anything. The username is "mattross". The password is "bobbob". Then click on Team James. Or make up a new name, and then let us know what it is so I can still find it.

Try not to change my picks. This is a true test of trust on the blogger's part. Holy cow, try saying, "True test of trust" a couple of times fast.

So, I finally got around to reading the Barry Bonds article in Sports Illustrated, and I'm glad I didn't read it right away, because if I'd have read it and then listened to all of the people calling talk radio last week, I'd have probably driven into oncoming traffic with my eyes closed.

Can that many people really be in denial?

OK, got an e-mail from Gerald. Here's the update from Italy ...

(The Matt James blog: Your No. 1 source for 2006 Paralympic skiers from Merced, Calif. Unless someone somewhere else is doing it better, but you'd have to believe we're at least in the top 5.)

It was cold. I've never golfed in weather that cold before.

OK, that's a lie.

I don't know why Gerald Hayden didn't ski the downhill. No idea.

It was probably a coach's decision, but I'm trying to call him to find out. No luck yet. It's Italy, and the answering machine at the Olympic Village (or is it "Paralympic" Village?) isn't working. Or maybe it's not even an answering machine. It's hard to say, the message is in Italian.

If you aren't completely sick of winter sports, go to www.paralympicsport.tv and watch the Paralympics live. It's in Turin, Italy, just like the Olympics. You can click on "go fullscreen" and it's like you're watching TV.

There's even a local guy to cheer for, an alpine skier from Merced named Gerald Hayden. He was born in Fresno. Both his parents are from Fresno originally.

Had my first Jerry Tarkanian sighting tonight. He was wearing a baseball cap and sitting on press row at the Fresno City game tonight at Selland Arena.

I realize this probably shouldn't be that big of deal since his number is in my cell phone, but, well, it is. He's Tark and I've never met him. Still haven't met him, since I was busy writing my column about Fresno City losing in the semifinals of the state community college tournament.

Today, I'm officially playing my first round of golf in California. I've been waiting for this. Thinking about it. Imagining how it will go.

But the last couple months have been chaos, moving and buying furniture and trying to save money, because there is absolutely nothing more expensive than moving. If Donald Trump moved twice in the same year, he'd have to host a reality show about being bankrupt.

So everyone seems to think Adrian Wiggins needs to start searching the classifieds for work. He's the Fresno State women's basketball coach. Correction: Fresno State interim coach.

And no one thinks he's coming back. I mean, no one. Coaches. Writers. Fans. The woman who served me lunch in the company cafeteria this week. (No lie.)

It's 4 a.m. I can't sleep. I'm watching "Mike and Mike in the Morning" on ESPN2, and if I'm not delirious, I think there was just a commercial that said Brook and Robin Lopez, the 7-foot twins from Fresno, will be on the sports talk show "Cold Pizza" at 7 a.m.

Crap, now I have to stay up for that.