casual ultimate » 2006 » June

last night at beach….nothing really happened. which was weird becuase two weeks before sanblast it seemed like lots of people would be out. but it was still gorgeous out and we had enough people to play fives so alls well that ends well.

the best things going on….ms. ultimate threw another fierce hammer, tony and bjorn sized up the people on the path based on whether they could beat them up or not (’him, not him, maybe him if he’s not fast’), bjorn left early for a mystery non-date type thing (i know this is not really gossip but this week is slow), and there was some freaky guy that literally had the worst sunburn ive ever seen passed out a few yards outside the endzone. it was fascinating and painful to watch.

the other topic of conversation seemed to be a general grumble about the lack of of respect given to the returning champions of sandblast. the post title actually comes from steve who figured briefcase could secede from the tournament and have their own beach throw down. yall know where i’d be…i already bought brown face paint to put a tie on my belly…not really but i should. or allison should. big time.

moral of the story…kicking ass is the best revenge so im lookin for briefcase to bring their a-game next weekend. totes.

UPDATE - sandburst is turning into a sandblast after party at tony and carlo’s saturday night. email us at casualultimate@gmail.com for details.

i am dedicating this post to our fearless leader on Team M, Dan Baker, seen here at left imitating a passionfruit after our stunning victory against 31 Flavors of Awesome last night. their record isnt the most impressive in summer league but for our game they brought out their big guns. although we’d never show it, the ladies of casual utlimate were a little nervous going up against such a stacked lineup…akira, bryan, and jason all came out. it was a great game though and ms. ultimate kicked some major ass, throwing a hot, lady hammer to henderson for a money score.

lucky for us we stayed undefeated and therefore got to drink beer post victory at piece. we played grown up and actually got a table and had a waitress and everything. that’s class people. take notes. granted the beer comes in plastic pitchers…but hey you cant win them all.

we’re playing bryan and akira’s summer league team tonight. Battle Royale! let’s hope it stops raining.

captain clark just had the IT intern install speakers on my computer for the express purpose of watching this music video. i can’t condone what’s going on, but i can say that casualultimate needs something which we can euphemistically refer to as, my “ta la long.”

well carlo’s toe incident is a mixed blessing becuase we finally got to go on our architecture field trip to milwaukee. and it was awesome. the museum is really beautiful. we saw an exhibit about comics and roamed around taking gratuitous architecture photos before taking a break to get a mid afternoon drink (guess who’s is whose) and watch kids climb all over the bazillion dollar a square foot curtain wall.

carlo ‘aint nothin changed but my limp’ ruth actually kept up amazingly for being injured althogh he almost broke another toe when he realized he could’ve used his injury at beach thursday to get bjorn to give him a piggy back ride to the hospital and kicked a column. i am also disappointed as carlo getting a piggy back ride from bjorn would undoubtedly have been the photo op of the summer thus far.

last night casualultimate finally got to see lady sov at intonation. she is awesome; didn’t wear one of her signature track suits; and weighs about 90 pounds. if c.u. were her mother, we’d insist she eat three squares a day and an ensure after every show. that said, she had an amazingly strong voice and puts on a solid drunken show. she spilled beer all over her sandaled feet (and i don’t think she’s even old enough to drink legally stateside). nearly everything she sang seemed new, so we’re looking forward to a new album in the near future. ladies: the new style is sheer aviators and a ponytail so far to the side it’s over your ear.

before the show we were hanging in the BBC America Underground tent. it was casualultimate on safari. every outdoor event should have a tent with plasma screens billiards.

we also met roadhouse, whose owners accidentally named him bosco.

the first casual ultimate happy hour was a success, with the usual cast of characters plus a new guy we met tossing in the WP. new guy is/was a professional banjo player. a major topic of convo was Roadhouse, the hypothetical new vessel house pup. in the absence of a puppy, this nickname is too good to go unused - who should it be? don’t say cho, we already thought of that.

akira, young professional that he is, showed up avec dry cleaning; see picture to left. he had to leave early because his shirt started wrinkling. pfil, young unprofessional that he is, showed up avec stamos hat, which ms. ultimate ganked at the end of the hour. the hat played a critical role in the evening’s next act, when m.u. ate a hamburger cake with her bare hands.

takeaways from the evening: carlo (formerly blanchet-) ruth definitely has a broken toe; he’s also so rich he can wipe slider drool off his leg with dolla billz. there will definitely be more casualultimate happy hours in the near future, although hopefully miss casual won’t get completely tanked after the next one (hey mom, you still reading the blog?).

xoxo,
ms. ultimate & miss casual

p.s. thanks to TBR for the pics

‘if you’ve ever wanted to know what its like to look into the face of god and see him looking back saying, you are my most perfect creation’ you shouldve been out at beach last night. lots of people turned out, the weather was perfect, and the sky lit up like magic. it made me stop, wipe the sweat off my forehead onto my lil kim shirt, and be thankful that the friends of casual ultimate are hilarious (not to mention stunningly attractive) and give us lots of ammunition to keep the blog rolling.

unfortunately carlo broke a toe early on in the evening so he might not be playing sandblast. which would suck big time. i think this means he’s on the free beer list for happy hour tonight. also the first person to email us at casualutlimate@gmail.com with the person who said the quote at the beginning of this post gets a beer courtesy of miss casual.

and speaking of happy hour…you better show up. if you dont come we’ll be talking about you. you’ve been warned.

tomorrow night the casual ultimate ladies are posting up at pontiac on damen and drinking beer for happy hour. if you are a casualty of machine cuts, or you have never / still play for machine but you have secrets you can tell us or amusing tricks you can perform, maybe well buy you a beer. 630. bring your peeps. get your casual on.

werd.

the machine roster is up, and it looks like several casualultimate peeps are not on it. WTF. perhaps sacrificing institutional memory for young blood? we wonder how this will impact gary’s roster and mr. briefcase. thoughts, faithful readers?

the purveyors of casualultimate would like to extend an invitation to all those who ended up on the cut list to join us for brews at some point in the near future. fallen soldiers, set up your appointment by emailing casualultimate@gmail.com. beer’s on us.

we won our game last night at summer league in record time and hauled ass up to piece. we were there when the first pizza came down the stairs and what a lovely sight it was. plus baron von awesome was the cheap ultimate beer last night … music to our casual ears. and then came ms. ultimate’s salad. and it was….magic.

i think our team’s fun-o meter went up last night a bit. plus we are winning by big margins so that’s pretty nice. now if it wasn’t for dr. jazzhands we’d be unstoppable.

i wished our game had taken a little longer though becuase rick said he’d give me the unicorn lamp if we waited and gave him a ride. but they weren’t even at halftime and we were playing extra points for giggles on our field. we played dp and pfil’s team but pfil wasnt there. rumor had it he was at the radiohead concert. i wish i had a picture of this girl’s shorts from their team. they had a huge hole and you could practically see her whole butt. come on sister…hold out for a dinner before you give it all away.

sarah’s on the road to sanfran today. sniff sniff….

eric, pictured here in the throes of trying to figure out how it should all go down, popped the big Q yesterday. there’s a hyphenated last name in his future! the full story is more ultimate than casual due to the nerves and crying involved, and you can read all about it here. he took advantage of chicago’s 1000park and the iconic bean as background (and metaphor). i feel like there are going to be/have been but we don’t know about proposals there; perhaps we’ll have to call the next generation of chicagoans “bean babies” (maybe a little too close to beanie babies?).

well vessell throws down. the office happy hour was a very casual event. beautiful, albeit divided crowd, with the frisbee players staking out the kitchen and the designers everywhere else. lots of fun people including the ever elusive eric. the russells showed up with a lovely plant and were greeted by cries of ‘itll die’ to which rick responded ‘no it wont, we asked.’

sarah russell won the raffel of the shiny unicorn lamp and so ms. casual had to pester her for it for the rest of the evening. best dressed went to ms. ultimate and her new hottie outfit and carlo who had a guns and roses belt buckle on. tony did make a run for it though by sticking a soccer ball in his shirt to empathise with allison, the hottest ultimate mama.

are there cooler couples than chile and chiara? i think not. plus chiara totally loves the panda skin shoe stylo.

the taste of randolph brought out an interesting crowd to the hood near vessell’s office. the casual sisters ended up with bjorn and akira drinking beer and enjoying the summer air around the corner and the plethora of trixies made the people watching pretty entertaining. is nowhere safe? are see through shirts and skirts up to your arse what it takes these days? pump your brakes ladies. its easier to let your casual shine through when you have some self esteem left.

in her infinite wisdom ms. ultimate reserved casualultimate@gmail.com for our use. so feel free to send love letters, bribes, and unsubstatiated gossip to us. also we are totally famous now. if you check www.chicagobloggers.com you will find us at the damen blue line stop. totes.

im having trouble uploading more pictures but ill try and post some more this afternoon.

last night was all about sarah and drunk cho. bryan put it like this… ‘if i had to choose between hanging out with will ferrell and drunk cho, i’d have to really think about it.’ strong words…strong words. although it was pretty much right on. somewhere between getting wrestled to the ground by rick and being the only one to get carded at darwins, cho gave me a long lecture about how i was doomed because i have shoes made out of baby pandas.

after lots of the crowd had left tony and monica showed up….and then so did carrie. this was actually totally drama free but it did get everyone who was still around to get another beer and wait to see if anything crazy would go down. no dice. and i missed the best photo op of the night while i was at the bar…tony with monica and carrie flanking him on the banquet.

it was a great night. too bad it’s because sarah’s leaving. here are some more pictures…bryan throwing his blue steel into the mix, rick and sally getting tired, claire accosting a stranger in a suspisciously briefcase looking shirt, bjorn and sarah engrossed in dialogue…

this morning i got an email with chucktown in a flier for sandblast. i hope this is an omen that this year he is coming back to town to work. you. dog. i also think sarah and akira and carlo are on the banner for the sandblast website.

ms. ultimate and i brought our a-game to summer league and piece last night. here is a picture of jeff and mike looking intimidated by our game faces. actually that might be mike throwing blue steel…i can never be sure.

so far our nameless summer league team is winning some games but im concerned that we lack what the french call a certain ‘i dont know what.’ hopefully our chemistry will get better as the weather gets warmer.

oh man, i am going to rock this blog. as ms. casual mentioned, my company just finished its annual meeting so now i can devote time to more important pursuits. i’ve had to wear a suit for three days straight, but now i can go back to biz casual….and then 100% casual. suits make me tired, but they also tend to mean i’ll be getting martinis and steak. it all balances out in the end.

i’m already looking forward to treem’s world cup BBQ and the beach on saturday. and i’m going to get a digital camera, so soon i’ll be able to post pictures instead of just text. i know the public is dying to see my snapshots.

i had the best intentions last night…treem and i went to try and play tennis but there are no frickin courts…anywhere. the two in union park were taken and there arent any at roberto clemente park. weve already made the mistake of trying to play in humboldt park (think chain link nets and grass growing on the court) so we did what we had to do….give up and go to estelles for 2$ oberons. i think with a little more practice we will be a fierce doubles team…

we tried to get ms. ultimate to come out too but shes busy with work. however her meeting is almost over and then shes gonna bring the pain to this blog. big time.

until then she sends her wish for sweetsauce to all the people playing along at home.

what a weekend…i wish world cup was every summer. not that girls as casual as ourselves need excuses to drink beer in the afternoon but having a room full of screaming fans brings it into focus…

and then last night i got tipsy in the name of green design. some chemist came from herman miller to give a very dull lecture full of bullet points striaght off their website about how many squirrels and bunnies theyve saved by making bougie office furniture. heres a picture of rob looking skeptical.

also tony, our resident star designer stopped by last night. i think we are all getting sad sarah is leaving this week. we’ve got to come up with someplace good to go on thursday atfer beach. im not sure darwins is up to the challenge.

man sometimes just being female is enough to provoke unnecessary abuse.

witness a comment last night at beach made by a boy who will remain nameless…a disc drops in the endzone and the spectators all enjoy a shout of ‘oh i forgot it was a girl cutting.’ ouch. is our casual ultimate too much for you? i know it can be intimidating.

if thats not enough after saying that soccer players were hot i got a rude ‘thats cause youre desparate.’ not that this is news necessarily but come on…can a sister get a break?

thank god for lady sovereign (she’s ill, naw she’s sick) and the remix of kelis’s milkshake with pharrell and clipse. they are brightening my whole chick outlook immeasurably.

god i wish i had cornrows like hers.

holla at a playa

in order to start off on the right foot i think im going to dedicate this first post to our wonderful friend tony who inadvertantly gave us the name for this chronicle. he is one of the best people i know and also one of the most snobby ultimate players around. in his defense, he has the right to be…sigh. this is the briefcase i want to get him for his birthday.

in another briefcase related story… i went to this shindig for redeye the other night and they made us fill out nerdy questionnaires about our favorite bar / beer / sports teams so i put mr. briefcase as my favorite chicago sports team. im sure those redeye chicks thought i was crazytown. totes.