The Hopski: All I want to do is just watch the darn games in peace (and in chronological order without spoilers)!!

OK - watching the games from Europe has obviously come a LONG way since the first Hopski back in 1999. I am pretty sure it was ESPN International or something to that extent, with the most memorable non-basketball thing that I can recall was the commercial showing a bunch of Saudi's dressed in white at a football match singing the "WE WILL ROCK YOU" (@Kyle Bowers - refresh my memory on this one). They ran that same commercial over and over and over again. That was tough to stomach on the 6pm to 6am March Madness Marathons that we would endure as basketball starved expats in Warsaw!

That was actually a huge leap over calling my Mom back in March 1993 to hear the end of Indiana's regional final game and having her put the phone up to the TV in order hear the end of the Indiana / Kansas game and to know if I was getting on a plane for New Orleans (I did go but not to see Indiana, who lost that game to Kansas and Oostertag). I did have a great view of this:

To this day I love flashing the time-out sign when I see anyone wearing Michigan Maize and Blue!

Thus, it is maybe a bit of soft privilege showing through in my old age when I complain about watching games here in Spain this morning my time.

Thank you Uncle Mickey for making this weekend a piece of cake (well almost) to watch the March Madness games live or on convenient replays with commercial breaks cut out (not halftimes though - not sure the why on that one but why be picky right?).

All was going well until this morning (Monday) when I sat down at 7am to watch the post-Purdue Sunday night games on replay. See for the past few days all replays were in original order of finish - making it easy to watch without spoilers. This morning I thus was confused to see the Purdue game last on the replay options and my spoiler radar went up immediately! The obvious solution to save the day - CHECK CHAT GPT!!

This is where things got a bit ugly and I lost a lot of confidence in the AI race. In fairness the below discussion seemed to go well - but then the wheels came off. What gets me are the apologies though that are supposed to make up for an obvious blunder!!

Seemed like a simple question - but it would be good to know the teams that are playing.....

BOOM! I was happily clicked on the Tennessee vs Virginia game and settled back with my granola and yoghurt to enjoy a few hours of Madness..... Unfortunately about 10 minutes into the game the announcers share "what an amazing finish to the St John's / Kansas game as the Johnnies won on a last second shot!". WTF??? That dropped a few grape nuts on the stomach and i quickly launched into an extended chat with my AI friend......