I watched the Rose Bowl, or at least followed it, this morning. Previously for Duck games, I have sat in front of my laptop logged onto ESPN.com watching a cute little graphic football field. When a play happened, there was a little arrow that showed the progress of the play and a little text of what just happened. There is also a nice recap of all the stats next to the playing field. I followed more than a few games this way. It's a lot like having George Will describe the movie "Body Heat".
However, thanks to a childhood friend I reconnected with on Facebook, I was introduced to justin.tv, which was carrying the game live. So instead spending a New Year's afternoon in a big screen TV room full of Duck fans eating nachos, brats, burritos, guacamole, pizza, leftover cheese log, nuts, fudge, Cheetos, and drinking beer and bourbon, I was quietly sitting at 6:30 am on Jan 2 with a cup of tea and a laptop with earbuds so I didn't wake anybody up.
At 6:30 am on a Saturday morning the internet is quick enough to give you a mostly uninterrupted viewing of most video stuff. However, as people wake up and get online the tubes start to clog up. By the fourth quarter, I had lots of still shots of Oregon being sad because Ohio State was just playing better, and the sound stopping and starting like a bad 8 track player.
By the time the game ended, I was back to the ESPN graphic George Will page and didn't have to endure the jubilant Buckeye (stupid name) fans and the glowing recap of their stud muffin quarterback.
Hey, it was only 9:30, I was stone cold sober and had an entire day off ahead of me!
