TOURNAMENT OF MADNESS: WEST REGION

(1) Google

After taking over nearly all facets of internet life, the monolothic Google Conglomerate has its sights set on the first TOURNAMENT OF MADNESS championship. Analysts aren't sure what's most terrifying about this search-engine giant; the fact that it defeated all cyber-rivals by enormous margins, or the fact that it did so using only YouTube. In the now-legendary World Wide Web semis, Google dispatched AskJeeves.com in record time with a three minute video of an excited child atonally strumming a toy guitar while shouting the lyrics to "Rock-a-Bye-Baby." Later, in the championship against Yahoo, Google finished the job with footage from a seventeen year old girl's bedroom webcam. And here's the amazing part: she wasn't even home. With most of its arsenal still hidden, future opponents are left wondering how to cope with such theoretical offensive maneuvers as Blogger or Google Earth.


(2) Unreliable Husbands of the Old West

Whether they were drinking away sorely-needed money at the local saloon, having a bad run of luck at poker, or sampling the newest whore in from Cleveland, these irresolute men continually damned their wives and children to lives of anxious poverty. They could be counted upon to pick drunken fights with skillful gunmen, often resulting in premature death and permanent hardship for their surviving loved ones. Even if they managed to survive despite themselves, their wandering ways would leave family members deserted for long stretches. Yet from the first shot of soiled whiskey to their eventual rough submersion in a horse's watering trough, these no-account idlers sure had a rootin' good time. For that, they are a sentimental, yet very vulnerable, 2-seed.


(3) Bread

It is a misguided soul indeed who doubts the utility of bread, this year's three-seed in the West Region. The well-established foundation of all food, Bread defeated upstart contender Eggs to reach the tournament. Packed with various grains, and leavened when necessary, bread is the ubiquitous serve-all which has defined the relationship between humans and food since the dawn of civilization. Its success continued almost unchecked until the 1930s, when it was spurned by Mohandas Gandhi during his first hunger strike. Some historians believe that Bread's anger at this slight led it to collaborate with Hindu radicals in the holy man's eventual assassination. Indeed, Nathuram Godse, the killer, was found to have rye crumbs on his clothing shortly after the fatal shooting. Since that incident, Bread has strengthened its hold on the comestibles industry and lost only four matches, three of them to the video game "Donkey Kong."


(4) Flowery Language

Perfected by female novelists of the 18th and early 19th centuries, Flowery Language retains its influence in the work of precocious, infatuated teens. Spurred by an army of lovesick estrogen, it defeated Laconic, Tough-Guy Hemingway Prose and Rambling, Nonsensical Kerouac Bullshit in the finals of the Shitty Writing division. Flowery Language's confidence is at an all-time high, as shown by the bold declamation of an anonymous supporter: "Like the morning honeydew, sweltering in a miasma of midsummer lilac, christening passerby with invisible aspergillum thrusts, filtering its sugar-sweet aromas upon the ardent forms of auroral lovers, so too shall we ripen and burst, afloat like the graceful waxwain, showering enchantment and stardust from the cloudless azure of our pristine empyrean."


(5) Outer Space, as Conceived by Ignorant, Poor, Elizabethan-era Cockneys

Basically, it's a terrifying two-dimensional dream of sinister creatures with thousands of teeth, black skin, and godless agendas.


(6) Newt Gingrich

After winning Time's Man of the Year in 1995 for his work in propelling the Republican's to congressional power, Gingrich went on to lead the fight against President Bill Clinton's marital indiscretions. Soon thereafter, he asked his cancer-stricken wife for a divorce in order to legitimize an affair with a younger woman. Ethics violations eventually forced him to resign from the House, but after writing a book about what would have happened if the Nazis won World War II, he's poised to run for president in 2008. Political pundits say the strength of his candidacy will depend largely on whether he can defeat Bread in the first round.


(7) Awkward Silence

...


(8) All-Male A Capella Groups

Full of smiling, bobbing, golden-throated crooners, these dapper young octets have captured the hearts of easily-swayed college girls across the nation. Members are known for having soft sides, volunteering for charity, succeeding wildly when visiting a girlfriend's parents on Thanksgiving break, graduating with honors, writing emotional wedding vows, coaching Little League, fidelity, attending church, helping elderly neighbors with yard work, and being convicted on fourteen counts of child molestation at age 47.



THE WEST REGION


(1) Google
vs.
(8) All-Male A Cappela Groups


(4) Flowery Language
vs.
(5) Outer Space, as Conceived by Ignorant, Poor, Elizabethan-era Cockneys


(3) Bread
vs.
(6) Newt Gingrich


(2) Unreliable Husbands of the Old West
vs.
(7) Awkward Silence