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Saturday, Mar. 8, 2003 - 10:16 a.m.

Satan, Springtime and Springsteen

Ticketmaster (and particularly Ticketmaster.com) is sponsored by Satan.

That's right, Satan.

No, not Him; I'm talking about the left wing for the Buffalo Sabres. It's pronounced "Sha-tan." He's Czech. It's pronounced "Check."

I logged on this morning from the shadows of the U.S. Capitol at Matt's apartment to utilize his high-speed internet to help Mom get tickets for one of Springsteen's added shows at Giants Stadium this summer. At 9 a.m., I selected "find tickets" and put in the secret word. The screen then said my wait time was "6.333333333333333... minutes" and I figured I'd gotten in early. Then the screen blinked, and it was 6 minutes. Woo! Another flash, 13 minutes. Oh. Flash -- "15 minutes or more." Crap.

I got booted out of line once, and it's been "15 minutes or more" for half an hour now. I take it that it will likely be the "more," huh?

Now it's all, "An error occured while processing your request. Return to previous page." Click. Maybe because I'm surfing the web and typing in Wordpad? Hmm...

So last night -- or early this morning, after a beer and syndicated sitcom reruns on Washington's Fox affiliate -- Matt, Casey and I got to discussing hockey (albeit a short discussion stemmed from something Matt brought up, for whatever reason) and he mentioned Satan of the Sabres. And, for whatever reason, this hadn't occured to me, but how funny would it be if the New Jersey Devils acquired Satan? Hilarious, that's how funny. Think of the headlines:

DEVILS ACQUIRE SATAN

SATAN JOINS DEVILS

SATAN HELPS DEVILS WIN

SATAN MAKES DEAL WITH DEVILS

PENGUINS CONTAIN SATAN

SATAN OVERPOWERS CANUCKS

SATAN STOPS LIGHTNING

What if he were a basketball player?

SATAN HANDLES THE HEAT

SATAN OVERPOWERS MAGIC

BULLS TRAMPLE SATAN

Or in the NFL?

SATAN DEFEATS GIANTS

SATAN DOWNS JETS

Casey asked, "What if he were a pitcher?" and then answered:

SATAN DEFEATS ANGELS

I could see him in baseball:

SATAN SIGNS WITH YANKEES

Or if he became an owner...

SATAN BUYS YANKEES

Oh ... wait ...

There once was a basketball player at Providence called God Shamgod...

SATAN TAKES ON GOD

GOD BEATS SATAN ONE-ON-ONE

(By the way, Satan does run Ticketmaster.com. In the past five minutes, my wait time has gone all the way down to "less than 1 minute," back up to "15 minutes or more" and everywhere in between. I've seen "approximately" and "less than" for every numeral between 13 and 1. It's changed its mind more times than J. Lo ordering room service. -- ARGH! I had been at "approximately 1 minute" or "less than 1 minute" for approximately five minutes, and then it went through to a "Bad Gateway" message. I'm going to kill something. But I'm not, because I want these tickets.)

If Satan played golf, we'd probably see

SATAN BEATS TIGER

So that's what it would take ...

I wonder if there's a player out there with the last name of Soul...

KINGS SEND SOUL TO SABRES FOR SATAN

RANGERS TRADE SOUL FOR SATAN

OK, I think that's enough of that. Feel free to e-mail me or sign my guestbook with more. Or with Bruce tickets, since now I can't even get to Ticketmaster.com. Search.msn.com says "We can't find www.ticketmaster.com. Did you intend to go to one of these similar web sites?" And then it lists www.ticketmaster.com right below that.

Today is a special day. Today is a fine day for a sports fan. Back in high school, spring sports practices were allowed to begin no earlier than March 8, and with the exception of one year, I think, when we had snow on the ground for the first week, the first day of baseball practice always seemed to be sunny and slightly warmer than the past two months had been. Today is one of those days -- outside on East Capitol the sun is shining and the temperature is expected to reach the 50s.

But today also starts Tournament Week, an ESPN moniker for the run of conference tournament games and championships that will send more than 30 teams to the NCAA tournament. Four small conference tournaments hold their final games today and the big conferences end their seasons this weekend. There's something about turning on the TV at noon on a Wednesday and seeing Big East basketball live from Madison Square Garden. (There's also something about being there, but now with my day job ...)

A week from today will be the Big East -- and several other tournaments' -- championship game, with a few more on Sunday. That's March 16, Selection Sunday, when all the other teams waiting and hoping find out if they're in, or awaiting a call from the National Invitation Tournament. Then, on March 20, the Madness begins.

But before we know it, the NCAA tournament leads into baseball season and soon its spring.

It goes so quickly from here on out.

(And a post script to this entry: I just got four tickets to Springsteen at Giants Stadium for Aug. 30. But since they're likely for my parents, I put them on their credit card ... with my billing address. Those Ticketmaster people better be nice and call me about it before nixing my order. "It's an honest mistake, really!")

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