Bearcats Baby!

On Saturday the Binghamton University Bearcats Men's Basketball team clinched the America East title, for the first time in its history. For those of you who don't know about Binghamton University, it is an upstanding institution located in the heart of New York's failed manufacturing belt, a city long forgotten and ignored by globalization, whose major manufacturing industries have left years ago to find cheaper places to produce goods. The University itself has a proud tradition and includes such notable alumni as Paul Reiser, Tony Kornheiser and one of the Baldwin brothers (no not Alec, ummmm OR Steven, but the most underrated actor of our time Billy Baldwin). Our alum also include someone named:
Sean Kenniff. Who, according to wikipedia is a doctor, medical journalist and appeared on Survivor: Borneo
That's .....um impressive....I guess.

The Bearcats were a lowly division III program until 1999 when they moved up to division I and maintained a level of mediocrity until this year when they finally (as the number one seed with home court advantage) defeated the defending America East Conference Champions the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) Retrievers. I think as a rule of thumb, the longer your university's name, the worse your basketball team is. Duke, UNC, UCLA are all pretty short and really good. Anyway I'm really excited for this amazing victory, but I'm less excited that as a reward for our hard work, we now have to play Duke in Greeensboro North Carolina in the first round of the NCAA tournament. I'm a pretty optimistic guy, but I wouldn't put a lot of money on an upset here.

Sorry this post was a bit of a detour from my usual in depth commentary on Taiwanese culture; the next post will be about something Asian...I promise.
LETS GO BEARCATS!!!!!!

*In case you're wondering what a bearcat actually is...it is a funny looking animal found in the jungles of China, Burma, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand.
It is a species of the family Viverridae, which includes the civets and genets. It is neither a bear nor a cat, and the real meaning of the original name is lost, as the local language that gave it is extinct. When cornered, the Binturong can be vicious. The Binturong can make chuckling sounds when it seems to be happy and utter a high-pitched wail if annoyed. The Binturong can live over 20 years in captivity; one has been recorded to have lived almost 26 years.

Also The scent of Binturong musk is often compared to that of warm popcorn ^[3] and cornbread.
My musk actually smells like cotton candy.

Watch out Duke, playing you in NC, seems like a good way to corner the bearcats. Expect some viciousness.

-b