A little fiction

I found the missing piece in the former lobby of a collapsed building. A circuit board, ripped from the guts of a brand new Pentium II PC, had the processing speed I needed. I stuffed it into my pack and waited for a pause in the gunfire to make my break.

Low to the ground. Quick. Inconspicuous. I'd learned the hard way, but for a month now the ongoing Riots of '99 had left me almost untouched. All around, though, the city raged, burned, and fell. Scrambling over the rubble, ignoring the rats and the blood, I turned towards home. Or what was left of it.

I was a non combatant. There weren't many of us left in the city. Most had fled, gone east or over the border. They'd ceded the city to the warring Dominators and Satans.

Now and then, of course, the Riots threw up something you couldn't scuttle past and ignore. A week before I'd seen a not so neatly severed head. Eyes rotting, but still wide with terror. Looked like someone had used a sword to do the work of a guillotine.

A sword.

That's irony.

I don't have to tell you how it started. A celebration draws a crowd. A few too many, in too small a space. The crowd turns violent. People get hurt. Soon the riots break out. Before you know it, downtown is a battleground and the cops have lost control. Hell, I wasn't sure if the cops hadn't started this thing. I guess the army could've come in and taken over. But really, who cared? Depressed area, I bet they said. Let it burn itself out.

Burn? It did that, alright.

But I was going to stop it. Me and my looted circuit board and the rest of my crazy contraption. Necessity is the mother of invention, that's what they say. And this was one motherfucker of a necessity.

When I crawled back into my basement, I rolled the tape again, trying to pinpoint the right moment. The very fraction of a second that a short burst of subatomic particles could, maybe, if I got this long shot right, deflect a mental signal.  Change a no to a yes. Change one person's mind, and, if they were the one that mattered...

Make a non-goal into a goal.

And it would end there. No more angry recriminations from the Stars players. No more game winner from Peca a minute later. No more Hasek, standing on his head for a 2-0 game seven win. No Stanley Cup for Buffalo. And no Riots of '99.

Hate me if you want. I'll be tearing a city's heart out. But I'll be saving its life.

Extremely overdue Silver Ball update

The Silver Ball is now in the hands of #1 Alabama, guaranteeing another coincidence of the Coaches' Trophy and the Silver Ball after they play Texas on January 7.

I have now compiled complete records of every team involved in Silver Ball matches, which can be found here. In theory, a dedicated Silver Ball website is on the way. Once that happens, we'll start emailing athletic directors and media people, and actually try to turn this into a real, physical trophy which teams can play for. Stay tuned...

Best quote yet

In 1996, Charles Pierce paraphrased William Blake:

Tiger, Tiger, burning bright
Selling shoes for Phillip Knight

No more need be said.

Florida's Elite Eight

Florida won its eighth straight Silver Ball match yesterday, taking the mythical trophy on the road to Mississippi State and winning a tough one, 29 to 19. In terms of overall Silver Ball history, this run has been a big one. Florida began with 10 successful Silver Ball appearances, and now has 18. So just this year the Gators have moved past:

10: Carlisle, Cornell
12: Wisconsin
13: Lafayette
15: Florida State, Syracuse
16: Fordham
17: Nebraska, St. Mary's (CA), Texas

Next up: Georgia, in a game still popularly known as the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party. The Bulldogs have a proud Silver Ball record, with 24 successful games to show for their efforts. With a little Halloween magic in the air, an upset may be possible...

Lions

Columbia 38, Princeton 0.

This ties Columbia's second greatest margin of victory in Ivy League play, matching a 44-6 win over Cornell in 1960. More to the point, this is a shutout win over Princeton, at Princeton. As a measure of the historic strength of these programs, Princeton has walked away with the mythical Silver Ball 106 times. Columbia, just 6.

Put this one down next to the 1934 Rose Bowl. Yesterday was one of the greatest days in Columbia's football history.

Now it gets really interesting

Florida went to Kentucky and duly defended the Silver Ball with a 41-7 thumping. But Tim Tebow, or, as Andrew put it, the Blue and Orange Jesus, was knocked senseless and taken to hospital. The Gators now have a week off, then face LSU. This is a whole new ball game. Kentucky has played for the Silver Ball 16 times and never carried it away. LSU has been successful no fewer than 40 times in Silver Ball matches. They are 4-0 this year, ranked #7 as I write this, and may see Florida minus its Heisman winning quarterback.

Set your DVRs...

The Brighton Beach Nets?

The NY Times has a mini-profile of the Nets' potential Russian owner. Which is all very well. What struck me was this line:

If and when, the Nets will matter in a way they have only dreamed of since they were born in 1967 as the New Jersey Americans of the American Basketball Association, cash-poor and attention-starved.

Seriously? The Nets didn't matter when they had Doctor J? ABA or not, he changed basketball. And he did it in a New York Nets uniform. How soon they forget.