NCAA tourney + coach potato + vasectomy = brilliance

Talk about being unseeded for the NCAA tournament.

Some men so badly want to stay home on the couch and watch the first two days of March Madness that they arrange to get vasectomies then.

"I'm booked up," Dr. J. Stephen Jones of Cleveland Clinic's Glickman Urological & Kidney Institute told The Plain Dealer. "My schedule on that part of the month filled up very quickly. It filled up ahead of time.

"If they're going to have a day off, it might as well be on a day when they would want to be watching basketball, as opposed to watching 'Oprah.' "

Scouting report

Vikings defensive end Jared Allen, whose younger brother recently joined the Marines, was among four NFL players who visited U.S. troops in Kuwait and Iraq.

"I just want to go over there and check it out before he does," Allen told the Nashville Tennessean. "Just trying to be a good big brother."

Must be a leg man

Bengals linebacker Dhani Jones wasn't shy about sampling the local food fare when he visited Thailand to film the first episode of his "Dhani Tackles The Globe" TV series for the Travel Channel.

"A tarantula here, a grasshopper there never hurt anybody," he told the Detroit Free Press.

The multi-tasking type

What, you think it's easy being on the NCAA tournament selection committee?

As comedy writer Jake Novak points out: "Members have to consider team strength, geographical rivalries, and which font to use so people can easily make 50 copies of the brackets for the office pool."

Kneed the cash?

Money donated by George Steinbrenner to finance Tonya Harding instead helped fund the 1993 knee-whacking of figure-skating rival Nancy Kerrigan, according to a new Steinbrenner biography.

Noted comedian Argus Hamilton: "George was always a soft touch for anybody who reminded him of Billy Martin."

Quote marks

• David Thomas of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, on the sudden quiet in Cowboys land after the team jettisoned Terrell Owens: "What do Jerry Jones and the Dow Jones have in common? Both just enjoyed their best week since November."

• Times reader Bill Littlejohn, on how Gisele Bündchen got new hubby Tom Brady to go in for his-and-hers facials in Beverly Hills: "She cited the Nip N Tuck Rule."

• Ian Hamilton of the Regina (Sask.) Leader-Post, on possible charges facing Mississippi football recruit Jamar Hornsby for allegedly assaulting a man at a McDonald's drive-up window: "Big Mac Attack."

• Dan Daly of the Washington Times, after ex-NBA star — and Detroit mayoral candidate — Dave Bing was forced to admit he didn't have a doctor's degree as he had claimed: "If I were Dr. J., I'd lay low for a while."

Heard in passing

Not only is disgruntled Broncos QB Jay Cutler putting his Denver-area home up for sale, his parents are selling their house, too.

In keeping with the theme, Mile High realtors refer to the listings as HUD 1 and HUD 2.

Sideline Chatter appears Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Dwight Perry: 206-464-8250 or dperry@seattletimes.com