We can't say that we enjoy graffiti as our favorite medium of public art; it seems dated and seizure-inducing. But then again, we also secretly love Cupid's Span -- it's cleverly corny and frames the Bay Bridge nicely -- so what do we know?

Over at Chicagoist, readers weighed in with their favorite memories of a local concert venue celebrating its silver anniversary and railed about the passage of a statewide smoking ban for Illinois. The former Marshall Field's department store received bad publicity in the form of fruit flies in the food court and someone falling from the upper floors. And local residents worried about the possibility of increased pollution in Lake Michigan from an Indiana oil refinery.

This week, LAist invited five Guest Day Editors from the blogLAsphere to join them: Green LA Girl, Fred Camino of MetroRiderLA, Zuma Dogg, the LA City Nerd and previous LAist editor, Carolyn Kellogg. On Wednesday, the DEA raided 10 local medical marijuana clinics while TARGET's newest three-story store soft-launched to almost no one. Then there was Lindsay Lohan. Oh Lindsay.

Austinist welcomed the name change of a local lake to honor Lady Bird Johnson, and was surprised to find that Austin is a model for Iraqi reconstruction efforts. Nonstop rains of the past two months have led to a cricket infestation, plus A university professor claimed that obese girls are less likely to attend college, and another report showed that Austin's suburbs are among the fastest growing in the nation. Meanwhile, locals are up in arms over a secret Spoon show.

The first weekend of the men's and women's NCAA basketball tournaments is in the books -- are you still alive in your office pool? Not if you took the Road to the Final Four less traveled.

If you went with the favorites, chances are you're sitting pretty. With the exception of the toothless male Badgers of Wisconsin, all first and second seeds in both tourneys advanced to the Sweet 16. That's not to say that a few high seeds didn't get a scare or that some middling seeds will never get a chance to germinate into full-blown Cinderellas, but overall, both tournaments are sticking to the script.

In the men's bracket, as we predicted, the only Bay Area entry, the Stanford Cardinal, slept through the first half of their game with Louisville like it was 8:00 AM World History en route to getting dropped by the Cardinals, 78-58. Meanwhile, the 11-seed Rams of Virginia Commonwealth gored a substandard Duke team, while sweethearts of the Big Dance Winthrop lived up to expectations by rolling Notre Dame like a barrel of lucky charms. All four seven seeds prevailed. Not counting the 8/9 matchups (we don't really count a nine seed beating an eight seed as an upset), there were only two upsets in the entire first round.

It's been tough for the little guys and gals in this year's NCAA basketball tournaments. Sweep the leg, Marist! Photo from Comedy-zone.net.

In the second round, another smattering of high seeds got whacked, but not many. Vanderbilt sewed up a victory over Washington State, and Butler graciously showed Maryland the door. Tennessee volunteered fourth-seeded Virginia for a loss and USC lassoed the Texas Longhorns, but that was about it. Erstwhile second seed Wisconsin is the highest seed to go down thus far and their conquerors, the Runnin' Rebels of UNLV, are the highest remaining seed at #7. Not exactly a banner year for the underdog.

A few high seeds did get pushed, but ultimately prevailed. In the first round, Oregon barely ducked a haymaker from Miami, Wisconsin came back from 18 down to swamp the Islanders of Texas A&M, Corpus Christi, and Virginia Tech had to do the Hokie-Pokie to fight past the 12th-seeded Illini. Over the weekend, defending champs Florida had to work hard to knock back the Boilermakers of Purdue, and the Michigan State Spartans did their best 300 impression before falling to the Tar Heels. Xavier dueled mightily with the Ohio State University, taking the Odens into overtime before succumbing 78-71.

For the record, of the 16 teams remaining, there are four #1 seeds, three #2 seeds, three #3 seeds, and one #4 seed. Three #5 seeds, a #6, and a #7 round out the remainder of the field. Once again, it looks like the powers that be knew what they were doing in setting the postseason matchups.

In the women's bracket, it was more of the same. Traditionally less upset-oriented than their male counterparts, the women's tourney has had some exciting moments thus far, but not many -- only three upsets in the first round.

The men's NCAAs tip off this morning at 9:40 a.m., with the Bay Area's only entrant, the Stanford Cardinal, taking on their University of Louisville homophones.

It's hard to say which is more popular these days, watching postseason college basketball or "playing" an NCAA bracket pool or two, or seven.

The bracket, of course, being the scheduling grid that divides 64 of the "best" college teams in the country into four regions to play six rounds of games over three weeks to decide one champion (you listening NCAA football?). Made mathematically neat and tidy by the NCAA's decision to expand the postseason championship tournament to 64 teams in 1985 (sometime in the last decade they tacked on an additional "play-in" game between two tiny conferences for the chance to be a #16 seed), and hyped with massive underdog upsets by North Carolina State in 1983, Villanova in 1985, and Kansas in 1988, and mesmerizing teams like Christian Laetner's Dukies and the bad-ass UNLV squads of the 1990s, the men's NCAA tournament and its attendant office pool have been upwardly spiraling out of control for more than 20 years.

Got picks? Photo by SFist_Chris.

So much so that a new field of pop science called bracketology has even sprouted up around the NCAA pools. Essentially overhyped and overcommented analysis of the tournament fields, bracketology has been the hot word on everybody's lips for the past few years. In fact, bracketology has gotten so big, it's being applied to just about everything in a cross-disciplinary orgy of nonsensical shark jumping that confirms America's ability to bastardize just about anything.

So whether you live for the tournament or are just playing a pool so your buddy will stop sending you harassing emails, the moment of truth has come -- time to fill out the bracket. First question: what type of pool are you playing? Round-by-round points-based winner-take-all, Calcutta, team draft, or some other heretofore undiscovered variety? Are you playing one pool or juggling six different picks sheets for three different pools? Playing your buddy's hand-tallied pool, a corporate online venture, or just playing with yourself? Do you review stats, scouting reports, and experts' predictions to supplement the 29 hours of college hoops you watch every week or do the team mascots and colors determine your picks?

Well, we've got our men's NCAA bracket sheet out and we're ready to jump into the pool. . .

So, let's see, . . . Winthrop, that's a cool name, we'll take them. And, uh Madison is a party town, so let's take the Wisconsin Badgers to go all the way -- that should be an awesome victory celebration. We love to see coaches and mentors face off, so that means Pitt and UCLA to meet in the second round, and we'll take the protege in the Marquette-Michigan State throwdown. Oral Roberts is a given (heh-heh, we said Oral). Even though we're taking ORU, we're hoping they get hammered so we can write "Oral Roberts blows a big one" in our pool summary.

So the final pre-bowl Bowl Championship Series (BCS) poll is out, and guess what? Everybody's pissed about something, except for Ohio State and Florida, the two teams that received Golden Tickets to the big game. Different year, same BS for the BCS.

There is no dispute about who should be on one sideline in beautiful Glendale, AZ this January 8 to play in the Tostitos BCS National Championship Game. Ohio State (12-0) has handled all comers this year and clearly stands out as the best college football team in the land. But who should they play? Who indeed?

Coming into this past weekend, it looked like the nation was headed for an Ohio State v. USC matchup. The Troy boys had only to beat their crosstown rival UCLA, who came into the game a mortal 6-5 to USC's haughty 10-1. But it was not to be. Apparently grown soft on their success in recent years, USC played like a spot in the BCS championship game was their birthright, and all they had to do was show up and the game was theirs. UCLA wanted the game more and it showed. For their effort, the Trojans backed into the Granddaddy of Them All.

The Southern California condoms will be joined in the Rose Bowl by this year's BCS third wheel, the Michigan Wolverines. The Ann Arbor ankle biters missed out on their chance to play in the national championship game by losing to the Buckeyes earlier this season in Columbus, Ohio. It was a close, exciting, well-played, hard-fought game decided by a last-minute field goal -- hardly a decisive blow in the battle to determine the best team in the country. But when it was all said and done, Ohio State had the game, and Michigan had their chance.

There is no M in Fiesta Bowl. Photo from Ozone.net.