A lot of people have a hard time wrapping their heads around the TV show Lost. How could something so goofy be so popular. Here's a quick breakdown about why I like it.

1. It's fun.

There's a pure goofiness and audacity to the show I respect. A lot of people get all butthurt because there are polar bears living on a tropic island, or there's time travel, or there's a smoke monster. I find that stuff entertaining. I imagine that there are a lot of conversations in the writers that end with "Who cares? Who says we can't do that?" I respect a show that does that.

As an addendum to point one. The show never breaks its own rules. Everything that happens on the show has been established by something that has happened previously.

2. The Characters

There is a level of character development on this show that is unmatched by any network show. What started out as a necessity (we have 24 episodes to fill about people stranded on an island, shoot, let's create a dozen main characters with elaborate back stories) morphed into one of the shows strengths. Because of the storytelling, we actually care about all these people. Yes, it can be outlandish (Hurley) but it makes the characters that much more relatable. Because we know their pasts, their actions on the Island have that much more impact.

3. It's fun to talk about

Lost, for all it's goofiness, is fun to talk about. There are all these crazy theories about everything, and none of them are ever right, but that makes it better. The idea that there are millions of people trying to figure out what's going to happen, and none of them are right, that's a credit to the writing.

Look at it like this, how much time is spent trying to figure out what's going to happen in the Super Bowl. But in reality, no one knows what's really going to happen until kick-off. Lost is the Super Bowl for nerds.

4. John Locke

There is s psuedo-spirituality/philosophy slant to the entire show. There's a lot of talk about fate, reason, faith and destiny. However, there isn't too much that it bogs down the whole show. Just enough to get you thinking, maybe. It manages to get your brain working a little while polar bears eat Smoke Monsters in an ancient Egyptian Temple in the middle of the Pacific.

It used to be that this week was one of my favorites out of the entire year. St. Patrick's Day + March Madness + College = A good time all around. But the further away from college I get the less I care about college basketball.

It might be that my Alma Mater was horrible this year, and they play in the Pac-10, which has such a terrible TV deal that's it's near impossible to watch their games unless you live there. It might also be that I am fed up with filling out brackets. Every year I would toil over my bracket, hoping that this year would be the year that I finally won the pool.

I would do research. I would pick an underdog. I would try. Then, every year I would lose to someone who had no idea. We've all heard the stories of people who win their office pool because they made their picks based on colors or mascots. This happened to me, twice.

Still, it's hard not to get swept up in the action. This week there will be 32 games, and probably a dozen of them will be pretty good. I just can't get excited about it.

My theory is that I am getting older, and the space in my brain is becoming limited. What I mean is that as you get older you only have some much time, and so much time in your brain, to keep track of things that are important to you.

When you're young, keeping track of sports is easy because, honestly, what else are you going to do. For me it was sports, girls and food. That was about it. Now there's bills, work, family, friends...girls, and then, maybe, after all that, sports.

So I have to pick and choose what sports I care about. College football still reigns supreme, and I love the Lakers. In the last couple of years I added baseball to the mix. So, that's it. There just isn't room for college basketball (I also feel the same way about the NFL as I do college basketball, but that's a more complicated issue).

Growing up is really about prioritizing. And as things in life pile up, as they grow and grow, there's less and less room. Space is limited, so college basketball--you're out.