I entered a new realm of sports fandom last night.

I ordered a game on pay-per-view.

Yet another reason I'm loving digital cable.

Just before leaving work, I went to TV Guide.com to check the schedule of games for last night. I knew Notre Dame's basketball game against Vanderbilt was on FoxSports South, so I wanted to see if there was an outside chance that a local sports channel might pick up a game featuring the sixth-ranked team in the country. After narrowing the listings to sports, I clicked on two "College Basketball" listings down in the 400s, the pay-per-view channels. Only two games were tipping off at 7:30 p.m., the same time as ND. One was Marquette/East Carolina. The other was the Irish.

So, with the good fortune of a night out of work right at 6 p.m. and Casey and I intent on doing various personal organizing/online things, it all was falling into place. After dinner, which it so happened we finished at 7:25, I went to channel 422, clicked "Buy" once to get to the confirmation page ("You sure you want to spend $9.95 just to watch a basketball game?"), clicked "Buy" again, and waited for the feed to come through.

The game was part of ESPN's "Full Court" PPV service, and I wondered if I'd be watching FoxSports South commercials during the breaks. Instead, I got treated to repeated ESPN promos � those amusing "This Is SportsCenter" spots and the "New Home of the NBA" ads ran most often. A few of them I hadn't seen yet, so I enjoyed them.

I didn't, however, trust the cable company. I was afraid to switch off the channel for fear of losing my purchase, so I kept it on through all the commercials and halftime (when I think they showed some taped ESPN bowl preview) but read Sports Illustrated through the breaks in play. Right at the end of the game, I flipped to another channel and back to 422 to test the theory, and I had nothing to worry about: It came right back to the game.

So, as something of a small Christmas gift to myself, I watched the sixth-ranked Irish (their highest since 1980-81) down the Commodores 76-63. It wasn't a perfect game; in fact, the Irish led by 27 at halftime and struggled through most of the second half. But they never trailed (the closest Vandy came was six points) and responded when they needed to. It was nice to see them win a game when they weren't at the top of their game, when Dan Miller went 4-for-14 from the floor and missed a relatively easy (and it would've been spectacular) dunk off a pass off the backboard by Chris Thomas.

I'm just glad that ND has a lot of games on free (or already-paid-for) TV this season. Otherwise I might be tempted to do it again.