Last weekend, starting on Thursday morning, I watched about 30 hours of basketball on TV. The effects were somewhat frightening.

By Sunday, my eyes burned and I was working on a 24-hour headache, although that might have had something to do with those Irish car bombs at Es Tas. Regardless, my body was screaming at me to eat a vegetable and go outside. I spent the first part of this week recovering.

But starting at 6:10 p.m. tonight, I’m starting it all over again.

As almost everyone knows, it’s March Madness.

I’m not exactly sure how badly I’ve been infected, but I think I’m somewhere between “Here’s Johnny” and that redheaded chick Lacey from Rock of Love. It’s only been three days since the last game ended, but I’m itching worse than Tyrone Biggums. And, although I know it might be ruining my life, I still need my fix. So when West Virginia and Xavier tip off tonight in the first game of the Sweet Sixteen, I’ll be glued to a TV somewhere.

Why would I subject myself to these physical ailments just to watch a game?

If you watched Davidson celebrate after knocking off Georgetown or saw Texas A&M players slump dejectedly, heads in hands, after their last-second attempt was stolen away by the officials, you know why thousands, maybe millions, of fans across the country are risking their jobs to catch a game on the Internet while their boss is in the bathroom.

The biggest appeal of the tournament is the sheer amount of effort that is expended. No one tries harder in sports than the slow, 6-foot-9-inch, white center with a pseudo-bowlcut from some 12-seed. He knows he won’t make the NBA, but this is his chance to shine, so he might as well leave it all on the court. (Sorry for that pathetic sports cliche.) I figure that, if these guys can try that hard, the least I can do is risk cataracts and a serious case of couch-ass and watch every game.

You never know during which game all that effort will come to fruition, but year after year, it happens. It’s really the only tournament where the underdogs have a realistic chance of making some noise.

Only six times since the tournament has been seeded has the No. 1-ranked team won the championship, and never have all four No. 1 seeds made the Final Four. This isn’t the BCS. You can afford to lose a game or two in the regular season without worrying how that will affect a computer’s opinion of your team.

Although it doesn’t happen often, every once in a while, some mid-major comes out of left field, beats teams head and shoulders better than it, and basically turns America on its head. In 2006, that team was George Mason. A No. 11 seed out of the Colonial Athletic Association, the Patriots made a run to the Final Four, beating perennial powers Michigan State, North Carolina and Connecticut in the process.

Before that three-week stretch, the only thing most Americans, even serious basketball fans, knew about George Mason was a vague recollection from middle school that he was a “founding father” and wore a funny pointed hat. But after the Patriots knocked off the Tar Heels, every fan in the country was asking Cinderella for a dance at the ball. The only thing more unbelievable than George Mason’s run is that, despite my cult-like worship of all things Madness related, I still somehow have a girlfriend. Go figure.

So, despite a test tomorrow and about 33 projects and papers due in the next two weeks, I’ll spend this weekend and the next watching other people play sports (thanks a lot, senioritis). I might gain 20 pounds, lower my GPA a point or two and do some possibly irreparable damage to my relationship, but I can’t make myself stop watching.

I can’t wait to do it again next year.