March Madness

March Madness officially kicked off yesterday. For those of you that aren't familiar with March Madness, it's the time of year when 65 NCAA Basketball teams compete for the National Championship and it usually spans a 3 week time period. This leads me to today's question:

"How does anyone put up with us March Madness fanatics?"

During this time honored tradition, anyone who follows college basketball basically becomes completely useless over the course of the tournament. At work, talk quickly turns to last night's games, who you have winning it all, and how are you doing with your bracket picks. This talk could go on for a few hours depending on how many people have gathered around the "water cooler."

I believe some large companies have even analyzed how much time is wasted by their employees during the NCAA tournament. It would be interesting to re-read the data, but I think on average it is believed to be somewhere around 2 hours daily are wasted on filling out brackets and discussing the games.

What is your take on this wonder time of year? Have you filled out your brackets? Who do you have winning it all? Do you think it's best to have this kind of release from work, if only for a short time?