天下制覇

Beer is the little death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my beer.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see it’s path.

When the beer has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will remain.

Actually, I had very little beer this weekend. I ended up following a friend to a shots party on Friday night where I consumed a lot of 151 and random assorted other liquors (liquor? I hardly know ‘er). I do distinctly recall Tom Jones’ cover of Burnin’ Down the House playing at some point and being very confused. I then hooked up with my other friends at another party already in progress, switched off the hard liquor for a few beers, and cheated immensely at a couple different drinking games before zonking out. That I wasn’t caught is either a testiment to my inherant insidious nature or a commentary on how tipsy the rest of them were… I’m not entirely certain which.

Cornell actually managed to beat Colgate, despite some of the most confusing plays I have ever seen. Somehow, they managed to convert a 4th and 29 from the 33. Apparently we hate our kicker. Later, the score was 17-14 us (amazingly enough) with about 2 minutes left. We had the ball on the 5 yard line or so and it was fourth down. So… what do we do? Go for the touchdown. Who needs a field goal? Why should we force them to go for the TD with two minutes to go? A 40 yard field goal against the wind is iffy, but this would have essentially been an extra point. How do you not kick it? We don’t get it of course, and turn the ball over. Thankfully, they only drove about 35 yards before turning back over on downs with about 55 seconds left. 

Now, here’s where the true Cornell football tradition shines. The playclock is 25 seconds, and ‘Gate only has two timeouts. Normal people would kneel, ‘Gate burns a TO, then we kneel again… they burn another TO, they we have two downs to run off 25 seconds each (out of being down to probably about 45 left in the game) for the easy win. If it’s a little too far over, then you have a guy run backwards 25 yards or so until the clock expires after an extra 2-3 seconds… but that only really becomes neccessary if the refs start the playclock the exact moment that the 3rd down ends. Unlike pro football, the college playclock doesn’t start until the ball is set which depends on how far the refs need to move it to get it to the line of scrimmage.

The teams come up to the line… and Cornell calls a tiomeout. Why? I don’t know. They needed to get the math majors on the field to work out the numbers or something. Timeout over… teams return… and the center fumbles the snap. We recover (thankfully) and ‘Gate burns their first time out. Second down… ball is snapped. The quarterback starts to fall back… then… because the offensive line doesn’t bother to block anybody because they’re expecting a kneel… he’s nearly sacked before he drops down. ‘Gate timeout. Third down… same thing. Ball is snapped. Quarterback starts falling backwards instead of immediately taking a knee and nearly gets sacked again.  

At this point, after 3 downs, it’s now 4th and 18 yards. Normally, QBs lose one yard a kneel, not close to 4. There are also still about 45 seconds left. Inexplicably, the refs take their sweet time finding the ball, trotting over to place it, etc etc… and the playclock starts a full 20 seconds later.

20 freakin’ seconds.

It seems like a short amount of time, but try to sit and watch a clock for 20 seconds. I have absolutely no idea how the refs managed to take that long to move a ball about a foot. The playclock finally starts and the game is over. Somehow. Despite fumbling the ball and nearly muffing up kneeling… TWICE, Cornell managed to win. Thank the heavens our hockey (and women’s polo!) teams are good, because the football team is something else entirely.

The weather was amazingly nice too, especially for Ithaca. It sprinkled all day Friday, but Saturday was… well… overcast, but occasionally the sunbroke through and I even took off my fleece jacket a couple times and was glad that I brought my sunglasses. I went easy on the sauce for Saturday night, only a couple drinks with friends before heading back to my pad and falling asleep while attempting to watch Kimikiss, but it was fun, and the only lasting damage to myself was a scorched back of the throat (damn you, 151!), very chapped lips, and a minor case of a raccoon sunburn.

A toast to homecomings!