Last Saturday I had to start work from 2pm and finished at 3:30am, they asked me to stay late because of the upgrade from our old satellite feed to our new fiber optic feed. Anyway, that is not the story I wanted to share. Nobody has to tell me about my miserable work hours.
The sports bar was supposed to close, but the USC alumni was able to convince the place to stay open if more than 30 people attend. I think there was more than 50 at the bar. There is no way any fans or alums of USC or Notre Dame would ever miss this game. This one Japanese waitress asked us why we would be up at 4am just to watch a football game. I told her, this is not one of those boring Japanese sporting events. I personally don't care much about K-1 fighting, Sumo wrestling, Japanese professional baseball, J-League soccer, FIFA World Cup soccer, or MLB game which only show Seattle Mariners or NY Yankees game.
If you don't know anything about college football, it might not be a good idea to read this, because it's not easy to understand unless you graduated from an American university.
I didn't mind staying late, because I plan to watch the USC-Notre Dame game at a sports bar which starts around 4am Japan time. I recently received from a fellow USC alumni, and he told me that he already got together with some Notre Dame alumni to watch the game. There is this new technology called "The Slingbox". All you have to do is to connect your slingbox to your cable TV box (e.g. USA). The slingbox is connected to your broadband or cable internet connection and you can watch any TV shows or sporting event through the internet. In Japan, they don't televise live college football games so having the slingbox really helps. My friend was able to connect to his friend's slingbox in San Francisco and we were able to receive live USC football game. Notre Dame and Ucla are considered as our rival so watching this game live meant everything to us. OK, the only bad thing about the sling box is that it's not 100% clear, but it's better than nothing.
If any of you are interested in this product here's the link http://slingbox.com/.
We were lucky enough to watch the USC-Notre Dame game and both sides were fired up for the game. As you know it, Notre Dame decided to wear their green uniforms, they wear it on special occasion. When Notre Dame is playing their cross town rival who is ranked #1 in the nation, it can't get any more special than that.
I guess this is another thing I miss about home, I don't get the opportunity to watch many college football games. In Japan, college football is not that popular. NFL is popular, but not many Japanese know much about college football.
Anyway going back to the game. I never thought this game was going to be that close. Actually, the game was decided in the final 7 seconds. Notre Dame were winning with less than 2 minutes left and USC was in 4th down and had to gain at least 9 yards or the game is over. In other words, USC was down to their final play so it was actually nerve racking. I thought I was going to die of a heart attack. Notre Dame fans and alum were ready to celebrate and I was just about to congradulate them. All of the sudden Matt Leinart threw a 61 yard pass to Dwayne Jarrett and the whole USC side just went loud and crazy. USC didn't score, but they got a new sets of downs, but there was less than 10 seconds. The coach decided to go for the win so Matt Leinart tried to sneak it in for the touchdown. He wasn't in and the clock expired. Notre Dame fans thought they won that game and we were in a state of shock, because at 1st we thought we lost. Then on the replay, the ball was fumbled out of bounds so USC still had 7 seconds left. Instead kicking for overtime, Leinart decided to sneak it in again. When he scored, the bar just erupted. We were going absolutely crazy, because we couldn't believe a miracle happened. We started hugging each other and just went absolutely crazy. I lost my voice and I am still recovering from that game. That was by far the best game I'd ever watched.
