Shocking

TigerBlog woke up yesterday to a rather "shocking" development.

It started when he couldn't turn on the TV in the living room. Assuming that it was the remote, he first changed the batteries. Nothing. 

Next up was a check of the outlets by plugging in something simple to see what would happen. The answer was nothing. They weren't working. 

Were any in the house? He started with the surge protector in the bedroom, which, in about two seconds, began making really strange noises and then smoking. As in actual smoke. Before it could turn to fire, TB yanked it out of the wall. 

Yes, it was a "shocking" start to the day. And a smelly one. Hey, it could have been worse, right?

On the other hand, it's not terrible to get to 7:30 in the morning and be fairly certain that the worst part of your day is over. Life is about turning negatives into positives. 

And on a happy note, the electrician came by in the late afternoon and has everything up and running again. Hopefully. 

Today is May 7, which reminds TB that he needs to wish his cousin Nicole a happy birthday. Or just send her the link from here.

Meanwhile, the Princeton athletic calendar has reached the point where the aren't that many events that remain, but pretty much all of them are important. 

The women's golf team plays its final round in the NCAA regional today in Charlottesville. The Tigers were eighth after Round 1; the top five teams move forward to the championships.

The baseball team is at Harvard today in a game that will have a direct impact on the Ivy League tournament field. There are three teams who have already clinched their spots — Columbia, Yale, Penn — and the fourth team will be either Princeton, Dartmouth or Harvard. 

Right now, Dartmouth is 8-10, followed by Princeton and Harvard at 8-12. This is the final regular season game for the Tigers and Crimson, while Dartmouth has three with Yale this weekend in Hanover. 

The loser of the Princeton-Harvard game will be eliminated at 8-13. The winner will be 9-12. Should Dartmouth get to 9-12 as well (by going 1-2 against Yale) and finish tied for fourth with today's winner, then the tiebreaker would go to Princeton over Dartmouth but Dartmouth over Harvard. 

First pitch at Harvard is at 1.

Oh, and as a side note, Yale needs to sweep Dartmouth to get a share of the league championship. As you can see, there are a lot of moving parts there. 

The softball tournament, by the way, begins tomorrow at noon at Princeton's brand-new Cynthia Paul Field, with Game 1 between the top seeded Tigers and Brown, against whom Princeton took two of three last weekend in Providence. Harvard is the No. 2 seed and will take on Columbia at 2:30.

The double elimination tournament runs through Saturday, weather permitting. TigerBlog will have more on the softball tournament tomorrow.

The women's lacrosse team will play Friday at 5 against UMass at Johns Hopkins in the first round of the NCAA tournament. The winner of that game will play the winner of the host Blue Jays and Liberty, who start the doubleheader at 2.  

Princeton and UMass have met twice before, both times in the NCAA tournament. Interestingly, the Princeton men will host Towson Saturday at 2:30, and those two have met three times before, all in the NCAA tournament. 

You also have the Ivy League Heptagonal track and field championships this weekend, at Yale. The Princeton women and Princeton men have already won the cross country and indoor Heps titles this year, and both are going for another Triple Crown. 

The men have won 11 of these Triple Crowns. The women have won two, in 1980-81 and again in 2010-11, an academic year in which the men also did so. 

There's nothing like a little history to try to match. 

As TB said, there aren't that many events left for this athletic year, but the ones that do exist are big ones. It'll be that way through the end of this month and into early June, before summer rolls around. 

For now? 

TB is going to go catch up on the television he missed earlier. Rockford Files, anyone?