With games this midweek, the European Champions League is now halfway through. In the highlight matchup, Chelsea edged Barcelona 1-0 in London; they'll meet again in the Catalan capital in two weeks. The Londoners had third-string keeper Henrique Hilario in goal, after starter Petr Cech suffered a fractured skull on Saturday against Reading.

The UT Lady Longhorns ran their record to 12-3-1 with a pair of wins last week. Up next: Missouri and Iowa State at home this weekend.

The Lady Longhorns thoroughly dominated Sam Houston State last Friday night, winning 7-0, behind goals from seven different players. Amy Burlingham, Priscilla Fite, Caitlin Kennedy, Jill Gilbeau, Stephanie Logterman, Kasey Moore, and Megan Upah scored as UT outshot the Bearkats 46-3.

The 2006-2007 season of the Lonestar Rollergirls kicked off Sunday, Oct. 15, at the Austin Convention Center. Lust was in the air for blood and nasty panty-ripping among Austin's finest roller skating/fighting babes.

To start off the season, Sunday's Cornucopia of Death consisted of five minibouts to allow the teams to feel one another out (up) and get to know the competition facing them in the ankle-twisting months to come. The teams competing for the gold in the 2007 Calvello Cup Championship, finishing out the season on June 23, 2007, are the Cherry Bombs, Hellcats, Holy Rollers, Rhinestone Cowgirls, and the defending Calvello Cup champions, the Putas del Fuego (fire whores). To spice the event up even more, in these matches the referees only called major penalties, not minor ones. Elbows to the face? It's all gravy.

If I only had a brain. Jeff "the Scarecrow" Weaver (if we only had Major League Baseball's permission to use their photographs, I could provide visual proof of his ability to ward off avian pests) has allowed only four earned runs in 11.2 innings during the National League Championship Series after a disastrous season start with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and a 5-4, 5.18 finish with the at-the-time lagging Redbirds.

Bob Ray and Werner Campbell of Crashcam Films released their stoner-rock epic, Rock Opera, in 1999 and have been mad at work on follow-up feature Hell on Wheels for the last five years. Hell on Wheels follows local Roller Derby leagues the Texas Rollergirls and the Lonestar Rollergirls as they build their Roller Derby empires from scratch and create a model that has been since copied in cities around the nation including Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, and Houston to name just a few. In a recent conversation Campbell disclosed, “We've completed the editing. It took us 18 months to cut and mold our film from more than 500 hours of footage. We still have a minor amount of work to be completed. We are currently recording a score, EQ, graphics, color correction, etc. Expected release date is early-to-mid 2007.” To stay up to date check the film's Web site and to keep abreast of our local leagues' activities see Texas Rollergirls and Lonestar Rollergirls. You can also find Rock Opera on DVD at your finer rental outlets.

The Lady Longhorns softball squad has begun their post-Cat Osterman era with an impressive 6-0 fall-season record including winning three at last Saturday's Spring Klein College Classic in my hometown of Spring (just north of Houston). Sunday's two games were canceled due to rain. UT concludes their fall schedule this Wednesday at McCombs Field vs. McLennan Community College. The first pitch will be thrown at 6pm. While the loss of Osterman is a huge blow to the program righthander Meagan Denny looks to fill her shoes as the squad's new No. 1 starter.

Some of you may be wondering what happened to the Longhorns in the first quarter as the Baylor Bears put the hurt on the reigning national champs for a nanosecond before totally falling apart. As a guy who was formerly sort-of engaged to a Baylor co-ed, I can sum it up in one word: naughty.

Yes, the Bears were being naughty. Everyone told them they didn’t have a chance against the big, bad Mega-State-U, and they looked upon it much as they did when told that dancing is sinful, and sleeping with a preacher’s daughter is a lot more fun when it’ll send you straight to hell. (Hell, by the way, is located somewhere near Waco, I have it on good authority.) It made them want to do it even more.

   Bar games, pub games, or parlor games – call them what you will, but there is no denying that Americans love sporting action when they drink.
   And I can’t blame them. I’m one of them.
   So pour me another one, barkeep, and rack 'em because this week we’re playing the king-daddy of all bar games: pool.
   Pool, or “pocket billiards,” is a vague subclassification of the broader category of billiards. All such table games are thought to have evolved into indoor games from outdoor stick-and-ball games.
   I learn this from Harry Murdoch, a mean mother of a pool player, on a Saturday night at Click’s on East Oltorf. Click’s is one of many pool halls in town, and my being in this particular one probably has more to do with the fine Vietnamese food down the road at Hai Ky as it does with the pool hall itself.
   Not to take anything away from the fine folks at Click’s. Heck, if I hadn’t dropped in, I wouldn’t have met Harry.
   You know him. His type, anyway. Tall and rangy, walking with a slow and leisurely gait, he walks in the front door after stubbing out a Pall Mall, carrying his own pool cue in a small case.

Number Nine, Number Nine: The first BCS standings came out Sunday and things don't look so hot for the Texas Longhorns, who debuted at No. 9, despite being ranked No. 5 in the human polls. It will be mighty difficult for the Longhorns to get into the championship game over a one-loss SEC team, a one-loss Ohio State, or an undefeated Louisville or West Virginia. But crazier things have happened.

AD, Good Night: As if Oklahoma's season could get any more disappointing, they lost Adrian Peterson for the rest of eternity on Saturday afternoon after AD broke his collarbone diving into the end zone after a highlight-reel 53-yard scamper which capped the Sooners’ 34-9 victory over Iowa State. So, the best player in college football will not win the Heisman Trophy for about the 43rd time. Players like Peterson come along about every 20 years, even at factories like Oklahoma, and for him to have only played one full season of college football is really a shame, no matter who you root for.