Contrary to what you might think, that crashing, rumbling, collapsing sound you hear is not the implosion of Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia.

It�s my brackets.

Obviously, I spoke too soon. Jinxed myself. It�s an all-too-common mistake with such prognostication or flat-out rooting. You open your mouth or look too far ahead and it all goes to hell. Or Atlanta. Which is where, coincidentally, I still have some hope. Some.

I�m done in my three local pools, of which I had the best chance of winning anything. Stanford, squished. Kentucky, kaput. Those were my champions. Elsewhere: Gonzaga, gone. Mississippi State, mashed.

I have no shot at a perfect Final Four in any one of my sheets. I can still get three out of four in two places. Other than that, the best I can offer is a perfect East Rutherford regional semifinal matchup: St. Joseph�s vs. Wake Forest and Pittsburgh vs. Oklahoma State, which I picked in five of my sheets. I got Atlanta � Duke vs. Illinois and Texas vs. Xavier � correct in one pool. That�s it.

But my main quest was to actually pick the national champion, and I still have hope with Pitt, Oklahoma State, St. Joseph�s, Connecticut and Duke. Now that I�ve opened my mouth, it will probably be Georgia Tech. Or Texas, finally. Or KANSAS, really finally! I don�t know why I didn�t pick the Jayhawks, who have the karma to win after their coach, Roy Williams, failed so many times and then left for North Carolina. It�s the Murphy�s Law of sports that they�d win it the first year without him. As a four seed, they can do it. I should�ve considered Syracuse, too. They won it last year, why not repeat? Oh yeah, because it almost never happens in college basketball.

So Casey�s friend Kerry used to work with someone whose boyfriend is the chef at this new restaurant that will soon open in New York. So last night, we got a free meal behind the papered-up windows and had to fill out a questionnaire after eating. They make a mean burger, I can tell you that.

I came back from the bathroom � downstairs, through all the construction of what will be a kick-ass lounge � and sat down. "Dan, to your left. The table next to you," someone said. I looked over and saw the stubbled face of Josh Charles beneath a knit cap. Moments later, as we got up to move to the bar after one of the hosts or owners invited us to some drinks on the house, I did something I�ve never done in all my previous celebrity encounters.

I spoke to him.

He was at the table next to me, next to the window, and when I got up and gathered my coat, I walked past him and leaned down. "I don�t want to bother you, but I just wanted to say I loved Sports Night," I told him. He looked up. "Oh, thank you, man," he said. "Thank you very much."

It�s pretty neat to hear a voice that�s familiar to you from television or CDs speaking to you live, in person. I�ve interviewed famous people before, but with that professional capacity they�re expecting to talk to me, I�m not generally speaking as a fan, and in some cases they�re going to be polite and sincere whether they mean it or not because they want to uphold their image in the press.

As we moved to the bar, I joked with Casey that it would be a little too much to introduce ourselves as Dan and Casey, the same names of the characters played by Josh and Peter Krause, respectively. "Yeah, that would be too much like stalking," Casey said. Good thing he didn�t ask. He might not believe us.

Casey wanted me to say something else to him.

"You should�ve asked him why he dumped Jennifer Connelly," she said.

We also bought the K from the Stuckeybowl sign and I drafted my fantasy baseball team, but I won't bore you with the latter. The K is cool though. Now we just have to figure out how to make it light up since they cut the wires for the neon. Grrr.