Category: Cool

Selection Sunday is coming up on March 15 and then it’s time for offices all over the country to create office pools for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship (and for workplace productivity to grind to a halt). And it’s time for the readers of this site to compete for bragging rights (and a few meager prizes) in the annual UtterlyBoring.com Tournament Pick ‘Em. Last years contest info was here with final scoring here.

Sign Up Info: While the field for the tournament hasn’t been set yet, you can still get signed up in the group and be notified when the field has been set and you can start making your picks (usually about an hour or so after the picks have been announced). Sign up here or if that link doesn’t work, go here, click on the “Join Group” link and use the following info:

Group ID#: 7610

Password: utterlyboring

The group’s page is here, which I think you can only see if you sign up. Daily results/graphs will be posted here

Prizes: First off, here are the prizes we have so far (and if any local business or individual wants to throw a prize into the pot — for first or last or anywhere in between — contact me and you’ll receive a 125×125 pixel ad and a link here, if you’d like):

• First Place: Meals for two (breakfast, lunch, or dinner, as it’s all served all day) from Jake’s Diner here in Bend (though, considering the portion sizes at Jake’s, you could easily say this was “Meal for Four”) Plus a hand-made “Bend, Oregon” coffee mug from Mug Revolution here in Bend plus a logoed golf bag towel (with clip) from a defunct Sunriver real-estate company, provided Discover Sunriver Plus (added on 3/11) a used but still functional AIPTEK DZO-V58 Digital Video/Still Camera. It basically writes video to the SD card inside the system (1GB card included). Includes manual, av in/out cables, charger, cd (can you tell I’m cleaning out my closet o’ stuff?)
• Second Place: An adjustable baseball cap from the best dang pizza-place in Baker City, Paizano’s Pizza plus another golf towel. plus (added on 3/17) a $25 Carino’s Italian Gift Card, thanks to BOR.
• Last Place (Yes, you read that right, see below for rules): You get a t-shirt from the UtterlyBoring.com shop that you can show off to all your friends your inability to pick winners. Wear it with pride (like last year’s loser).
• Added 3/11 — Local’s Only Prize: A reader says they have good toolbox that they’ll throw to the best local (Central Oregon) bracket. It’ll be far too expensive to ship (it’s 30 pounds). As soon as I know more about it, I’ll post it.

Rules:

• Only one bracket per-person this year. While there are 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 ways a bracket could be broken down, since we have a dead-last prize this year, it wouldn’t be fair to allow more than a bracket-per-person.
• The entire bracket must be filled out if you want to be eligible for the last-place prize.
• Prizes: Unless otherwise stated, prizes must be picked up from prize providers in person, and prize providers are not eligible to win the prizes they provide (and I’m taking myself out of the running for any and all of the prizes, if I win/lose). Prizes may be added anytime during the tournament, so be sure to sign up.
• Scoring: I agree with Scott: Yahoo! puts far too much points into the final rounds. So we’re customizing the default scoring a bit, using some of the numbers from the Fibonacci Sequence (because we’re geeks here, after all). So here’s how the scoring for correct picks goes:
  • Round 1: 1 pt
  • Round 2: 2 pts
  • Round 3: 3 pts
  • Round 4: 5 pts
  • Round 5: 8 pts
  • Championship: 13 pts

  That should make for a tighter race this year.

• Added on 3/9: If there is a tie for any of the prizes, we’ll follow this tie-breaker formula (and this doesn’t break it, it goes to a coin-toss or some other equally random decision-maker):
  • Tie-breaker #1 – Number of points scored in Round 6
  • Tie-breaker #2 – Number of points scored in Round 5
  • Tie-breaker #3 – Number of points scored in Round 4
  • Tie-breaker #4 – Number of points scored in Round 3
  • Tie-breaker #5 – Number of points scored in Round 2
  • Tie-breaker #6 – Number of points scored in Round 1
• At the end of the tournament, the winner will have two weeks to claim his prize before it moves down the list to the next-place person (as I don’t need more stuff collecting at my house). He or she can do so by e-mailing utterlyboring [at] gmail [dot] com from their Yahoo! account (as all Yahoo! accounts have an email address with username@yahoo.com) or from their public Yahoo! profile address. I can not and will not be held responsible if the e-mail never gets to me because of spam filters, internet problems, or other acts beyond my control. If I don’t get the email, you don’t get the prize(s) — Period. You reserve NO right to come back and gripe at me later and threaten legal action. I will also contact the winner via email if they have their e-mail address on the tournament page on Yahoo!’s site (either in their profile or posted in the tournament message board). If winner is unable to be reached 14-days after last day or tournament, the prizes will be awarded to next-highest scorer, repeating the process until somebody can be contacted. We will provide shipping of items, unless otherwise stated above, if you live in the United States — international winners will have to foot the bill themselves.
• These rules are subject to change at any time. Jake Ortman has the final say on rules and prizes. UtterlyBoring.com, Jake Ortman, any prize-providers, or participants cannot and will not be held liable for anything in this contest, nor can Yahoo Sports, prize providers, my family, hamster or anybody else. Do not taunt happy fun ball. Batteries not included. Not for off-road use. You agree to these terms when you sign up! That being said, this is casual fun, so let’s keep it that way.

That’s all for now, so get yourself signed up and good luck!