casual ultimate » 2006 » November

the town children spent thanksgiving together in the sunshine state of san francisco. we had a t-giving feast in oakland with some of the brass monkey crew and some very nice canadians. i chatted with some jumpy dude who thought he could talk hip hop to me. ha. then we spent the next few days doing what the towns do at the holidays - eating, sleeping, seeing movies, and throwing in the park. chucktown showed miss casual the best mexican food in his particular zip code, the best mojito anywhere and how to throw a forehand. we biked through the park and ran into the deyoung museum which you see here.

*warning - architectural idiocy to follow. only carlo and maybe rob should be reading* the museum is a new herzog and demeuron building and one of their only built works in the states. it was detailed nicely but ultimately i feel like their work was better when it was materially driven as opposed to the formally aggressive stuff they are doing now. like where do the oblique angles come from? is it just a contemporary pretense? is it programmatically necessary or inspired by the site in some way? or is it just expensive and ‘cool looking’? ugh. the screen they used on the exterior was interesting but the interior kind of looks like everything else. chuck is always so nice when i drag him to buildings he doesnt care about.

after that detour we spent an afternoon with the philips’s seeing the new bond and getting texts from denarids. ‘tell chuck i love him. tell him to call me so i can say all the things i never said.’ good times. we saw dr. welsh and her crazy scar on her knee. i almost forgot she gives the best hugs ever. she walks like a pimp cause of her knee surgery. we took down some crepes and gossiped a bit before miss casual had to head back home. it was nice to hang with the 90210 crew. good luck with your move to NOPA chuck. keep it real.

happy monday. hopefully the holiday did everyone good. miss casual is still at a staff retreat with the 90210 branch of cu and ms. ultimate is taking the gre so wish her smarty pants thoughts today. updates will follow soon im sure but the real news today is that our it wizard akira got our forum up and running. so now if you click the chat button at the top you can see discussions going on, and if youre registered you can start new discussion threads or add comments to existing topics.

so now anything from ‘i found a cheap ticket to acapulco’ to ‘what do you think of the new jay-z album’ to ‘i need a roommate’ to ‘who wants to go see borat?’ can get brought up for the groups’ general amusement.

i used to spend lots of time on the chicago fixed gear forum cause its funny people in chicago with cool bikes but i know we can do better. i aspire to waste lots of time on our own forum. i know itll could be rockin once it gets going and itll be nice to have something local to the chi (or at least our network of spies and informants) outside rec.sport.disc. so enjoy. register so you can participate in the web of information and unsubstantiated gossip that is the cu forum.

out alive. this is a little mid holiday update and hopefully no one is reading it becuase you are all eating and drinking yourselves into submission. but this story is too weird to not post it.

so wednesday night before thanksgiving the professor and miss casual were on a mission to look at a car in aurora. making it out to the very frightening suburb to meet a very frightneing pair of rednecks didnt take as long as expected but seeing the car roll up with no air in any of the tires we started to be suspicious. i believe the professors actual quote was something like ‘i think homeboy’s retarded.’

well after the two gentlemen put air in the tires and the professor went for a test drive the real guilt began. turns out the seller was a construction worker who literally got hit in the head with an i-beam and had part of his brain removed. i kid you not. this fact was dropped in the middle of normal conversation. needless to say the professor is going to hell for his homboy coment. on top of that he was selling the car to fix up a dirt bike for his kid for christmas. so in not buying the car we ruined a child’s holiday.

so just to recap, not only are we going to hell but we also ruined christmas. moral of the story… dont go to the suburbs. or at least if you go, drink a shot of something when you get back and watch two chicks from london drink themselves idiotic. happy holidays.

ms. ulty loves her weekend casual time in the double deuce, but recently she’s been feeling that c.u. should see what the sober side of the game is like, in every sense of the word. so, in the pursuit of dignified casual, she scored two tickets to see salome at the lyric and dragged miss casual along for the ride. the opera was amazing - it’s been years - and we loved playing grown-up for the night. miss casual wondered if any of the opera divas had tried recording hiphop, because those chicks were raising stakes.

after the show the ladies took JT’s suggestion and went to petterino’s to keep the mood alive with some filet and vino. and that’s where our night became casual, my friends, because that’s where we met the newest member of the crew: chuckles. this is chuckles showing ms. ulty his newest trick; he is quite the scamp.

it goes a little something like this: this chimp is actually a cast member at the lyric (you can catch him in il travotore next week) and apparently, as a member of the theatre accompanied by humans, gets to eat in the restaurant without violating health codes. we found it surprising too. so while chuckles was eating his lettuce we walked over and introduced ourselves to our new best friend and his buddies. we must say, we were impressed by the casualultimate vibe of chuckles’ peeps. one of them was an alum of ulty’s alma mater, and two had music degrees from yale. now, we generally find ivy league humanities kids to be completely lacking in appeal and social graces, but these boys and girls were dead casual about having a good time while they were off the clock.

long story short, we have season tix to the opera and chuckles promised a guest post. have a happy turkey day everyone!

so after a week of pretty chillax evenings, the cu weekend blew up. this is our opus in two parts.

friday night :
miss casual, treemboat and sally bought rounds for ms. ultimate at the maproom after the evil monopoly that is thomson prometrics informed her that her appointment for the GRE on saturday has been canceled and rescheduled for december 19 in maryland. needless to say ms. ulty wasn’t taking the news casually, but managed to book the test for the monday after thanksgiving, to be taken in some small town near rockford. awesome. apparently this has happened to 10,000 other people in the past couple of weeks; if sals wants to start her own practice, this class action suit would be a great place to start. ms. ulty wants 95th percentile, and revenge. treemboat saved the day by bringing individually tupperwared cupcakes to the bar, pictured here. they were fantastic; ms. ulty loves treem loves a fat kid loves cake. but they weren’t enticing enough for our bouncer, who turned down a date because he’s on south beach. you have to admire his strength, but a bouncer on south beach? his buddy pointed out that it’s their job to drink beer; c.u. put in applications immediately.

we lost a treem but gained a carlo and a pfil, then headed to coast where miss casual and sals started ms. ulty on her winter hobby: sushi. she’s going to earn her sushi appreciation badge by april. other winter hobbies are going to include reviewing the scientific method and scoring foamboard, because we’re having a science fair in the spring. that’s right, people: get your trifold display on. pfil, tired after a week of catnapping under his desk, escorted ms. ulty home while the rest kept the party going at danny’s.

saturday :
with the boys’ football game canceled due to a lack of numbers (cbr - ‘bjorn being out of town is huge’) tbrizzle rang up miss casual. what was he up to? ‘oh i just have to go shopping for clothes. nothing you’d be interested in.’ ha. so they jumped on their bikes and made an adventure out of it by heading to evanston stopping along the way for muffins and helping motorists in distress. there was some discussion of whether they could be biking superheros who helped people in cars see the light of a mode of transport fueled by badassity as opposed to gasoline.

back in the double deuce, henderson, ms. ultimate, and miss casual converged to go see the departed, which was awesome even though people getting shot in the face ruined our appetite for popcorn. not to be a spoiler, but several notre dame parents and fans are killed in the film, including one shot to death while wearing his ‘irish’ shirt. and to our pleasant surprise, leaving the theater we saw that our tallest domer friend had called from a casual summit with vijay, tom, and finn. so the cu staff bounced to finn’s house to join the expedition to quenchers. the boys had had a power hour before we got there so the atmosphere was heavy with danger and the smell of macy’s.

tom was a bit melancholy, saying that gravity was destroying him and that he had no friends and was a bad dresser. it’s all probably true because he thinks chicago is a terrible city, but at least he can spell moccasin. thank goodness for finn who jumped in to block some sketchy boy from stealing miss casual’s soul and sheltered ms. utlimate from the cold with his warm belly. after a popcorn catching contest which baker lost, we headed to estelles with pfil (the boss), who is an amazingly fast skipper. we almost brawled with some crazy kid in line when he tried to take his pants off but made it inside shortly after. bacers, the bouncer misses you. ms. ultimate worked the room while the boss and baker towered over everyone. apparently “what’s your favorite deli sandwich” is a lucrative pickup line. the night concluded when ms. utlimate, finn, and the boss went to hook up some flash taco and baker, tom, and miss casual headed home.

we’re getting back to normal at c.u. after catching a post-season breather, but there was some 4 am talk at the student union about the need for more shenanigans. so get busy people.

xoxo
c and u

lately everyone has disappeared. i thought after nationals we would all start to hang out and have a board game night at the brs and go out to dinner and play pool at the new vessel pool table. aside from tbr kicking my casual ass at ping pong the other night, none of this is happening. post frisbee season seems to be the time to buckle down and get serious for many of the usual cu’ers. there have literally been tumbleweeds rolling through my social life. its hard to blog about staying home and drinking tea and reading my book.

but yesterday things got shaken up a little. i won tickets to see luke vibert at sonotheque last night. i won them. i never win anything. so even though the show started at my bedtime i was determined to go out. plus i have never been to the hipster haven that is sonotheque which seems absurd.

so after dinner and a snappy nap the professor and i rolled up to see luke vibert. heres a ho-laroid of us at the bar. sonotheque was… just what i thought it would be unfortunately. i was hoping to be pleasantly surprised but it was the usual mix of barely 21 kids and older more burnt out ones with lots of tattoos and surly attitudes. even the interior was underwhelming. vibert, of course, was great, but he didnt go on until just before 12 and with a 5am wake up call the professor was fading fast. so i guess my attempt at bringing the weeknight pain fell a little short… but it has renewed my faith in post season, mid-week mischief so hopefully after ms. ultimate kicks the gre’s ass this weekend well be back to normal. holler.

warning : to any moms reading this, it is an R rated post for some explicit language and mild face licking. with ms. ultimate and cbr studying, all of machine at a team dinner, and the bike race out becuase of a lack of partner due to cold weather, saturday night was looking bleak. but the ladies of 1535, here at left minus illina, were headed to a party in roscoe village so miss casual was like ‘f^&k yeah, i’m going out and im gonna meet new people, make new friends, they might not even play ultimate or know what it is. it’ll be exciting.’ not knowing anyone but one of the hosts, t’sa, k-dog and miss casual rolled up expecting to expand our horizons.

then i noticed the sandblast banner upstairs and asked how they got it. we were then filled in that the other roomate in the house was machine’s very own tyson, who rolled up seconds later with half of his team. here they are looking very brady bunch on the stairs. so instead of making new friends we played flippy cup and stood in the kitchen doing the ultimate player social thing - discussing who had sweet d’s at nationals. feel the horizons expanding people. how is it possible that of all the apartments in chicago we ended up at tyson’s? it makes miss casual a little nervous.

but that was just the beginning. there was a run by face licking, many 6 foot tall women, and an attempt to steal a tigers hat before we escaped. you had to be there. here are the boys in the kitchen with miss casual. john (aka. chuck the big liar) was trying to attack people all night with this mean scary face.

then as a nightcap, the 1535 chicks dropped bjorn in LP and that guy rob came over to the crib with his friends africa, jess, and east africa. that guy rob was in rare form, wearing a tiara and dropping his pants in the kitchen before falling down a few times and almost breaking his pro-dejiner glasses. we missed you rob. we’re glad you’re moving back to town. shouts to the ladies of 1535. roomate bonding is just what we needed.

*also we have a new folder up in gallery of bonus photos from saturday night so register on this page if you want to see them. then go here and login using your same user name and password and the folder will pop up

feats of strength went down tuesday night at billy’s happy hour for the nationals teams. tyson and john both lifted one another on their backs just because ms. ultimate requested it. however their guest post seems to have gone missing in the interweb… our investigators are looking into it.

the vip section upstairs was discussing the possibility of acapulco in january with the boss while downstairs ms. ultimate was chatting up the northwestern ladies and mike and vijay spooned. here’s the happy couple now.

now that ultimate season is over and we’re having such nice weather, we are dedicating this next week to one of our other favorite passtimes - riding bikes. so in honor of CU bike week and in an attempt to kick it off in style we are going to get our happy hour on tomorrow night at handlebar on north ave. theres a bike race that tbr, the viking, ms. ulty and i might be competing in saturday if the weather’s not too bad and next week there’ll be a debate about gears and their place in our bikes’ lives. hopefully the nice weather hangs on but either way come out to handlebar tomorrow at 530-6ish and get your casual on. see you there…

just in case you thought halloween only came to florida this year, here is a belated all hallow’s eve greeting from our favorite doctor (she’s the skeleton on the left). she is giving bjorn and his superman costume a serious run for his money. also shes a home owner now so holler at her.

Hey all you Nattys players, don’t forget that Piece (and Billy) is graciously buying us all pizza and selling us beer for cheap Tuesday night, starting around 7/7:30. So if you play for Nemesis, Machine or Briefcase, show up in the pit for what is rightfully yours. And tip the waitstaff, generously. I’d better see some classy white ties around my coworkers’ necks tomorrow. Jacket optional.

well the weekend after nationals was a nice way to begin working on our winter weight gain. last night we discussed a competition in which the winner would be the person who put on the most weight and then subsequently lost it all by a set date in the spring. it was easy to imagine eating our way to stardom last night chez B-R, since cu was treated to a pre-thanksgiving thanksgiving feast. looks like bk might have a run for his money with tbr’s heavenly mashed potatoes. baby maxine came along to flirt with bjorn and things were going fine until cbr scarred sally for life by saying that roger moore was the best bond.

saturday was the fall league tournament. news team lost to gary’s team first thing in the morning but won our last two games and we had lots of fun dispite ms. ulty not being there. her other obligations on saturday have ensured an ongoing coldwar with rick and bk. the post title refers to miss casual throwing a hammer to matt, mr. charcoal lambswool himself, to score the winning point of our last game on saturday which was maybe the only highlight reel worthy moment of her life thus far. it certainly helped her recover from the ‘your brother wouldve caught that’ calls that plagued her day. brady brought us all hot chocolate and donuts and after starting false rumors that liz is pregnant the season ended and cu took a looooong nap during which time nate and his team pepe went down in the final to the syndicate.

saturday night cu rolled up to crobar for an iron chef style photoshop competition with bridget the birthday girl and the BRs and monica. it was weird but kind of fun to watch. each person went up in head to head combat with a laptop and a blank screen with 15 minutes to make ‘art’ related to a specific theme. how fun could it be to watch people mask layers and run filters on text you ask? the place was packed and one of the dudes we were rooting for was wearing a nacho libre mask. crazytown. cu is hoping to sponsor tbr in the competition next year as he would have dominated the contestants we saw.

the rest of the evening was wiled away eating deep fried burritos and pity shakes and discussing plans for cbr and miss casual to start a wicker park young republicans chapter. it would be a fun social studies project to roll up to rainbo with a pink sweater set and pearls on with cbr in loafers and no socks. or it would make a great spring league team with the uniforms being pastel sweater vests embroidered with ‘WPYR’ except we know the BRs dont play causal ultimate… heres carlo modeling the potential uniforms.

fun weekend people. keep it trill.

They say a picture is worth 1000 words; here’s a 7000 word essay about halloween in florida, chicago-style. there was a lot of sorrow to drown, which may explain why so many people got pushed into the pool (akira, seriously, sorry about your phone).

* casual *

ms. ultimate had to take a power nap at the grownups’ house before facing the madness at osprey. she walked in to find the same crowd around the coffee table, still playing shoulders, but there were about more 40 empty beer cans than there than when she’d left. after a couple more rounds and clarification that boots is only nineteen, the halloween kids showed up. props to machine for taking the holiday seriously. it warms a c.u. girl’s heart to see the italian bicyclist and our secretary of legislation dressed in children’s shake n’ bake costumes. we somehow failed to do a costume competition, but my vote would have to go to our fave viking, dressed as superman, or the sweetest witch in the west. cho got pretty scary later on, though. i’d give schultzie a nomination for wearing a speedo all night, but unfortunately that was no costume.

you’d have to talk to one of the attendees to get the real scoop, but some of the mentionable highlights include a never-ending game of nemesis flippy cup that wasn’t as much of a show as some of the fans were hoping for; lots of sausage in the hot tub, pictured here; items including chairs, people and nationals player pack schwag getting thrown in the pool and, according to one guest, “a lot of ass slapping by a lot of people. yeah, that’s the truth.”

much to her dismay, Ms. Ulty missed the upstairs ass competition, but apparently the fighting was fierce. According to our correspondent in the field, the challenges and results were as follows (judges were the couch sitters, win by slap):

- BG vs. Schultzie, best shelf ass: schultzie
- BG vs. meagles, most desirable ass: meagles
- Meagles vs. beef, best ass: beef
- meagles vs. val, best ass w/ dance competition: meagles, on showmanship
- Bonus push-up competition, BG vs. schultzie, BG with a 30 push-up handicap: BG

i think the moral of the story is that BG needs to stick with push-ups, schultzie should keep up the lunges and plyos, and c.u. wants meagles to teach us her moves. solid party, people, we need to do it again soon.

play casual. stay ultimate.

so in a effort to try out something with the new site we are making a photo pool for nationals 2006. eric was nice enough to start us a pool on flickr but our it dept. says that inside the computer theres a way to put the photos on our actual site and give yall access to them also. (i think it involves an army of unicorns running on a tiny treadmill that powers the internal combustion computer engine but im not exactly clear on the details…)

so here’s the way it works

you register on the site (which i know the BRs will hate but you only do it once and then you can post comments / see pics / etc). once you register we have to grant you permission to use the gallery(which might take a little while since were at work). but after an hour or two, then you can login with the same user name and password to our gallery. the site is

here

then you get access to a restricted folder where you can upload your own photos and see others photos. this might be really nice if it all works out becuase then we can trade pics easily after some major event… like nationals, or another RWIP party.

which brings me to my next point. anyone who posts anything questionable (meaning it will offend or embarass anyone) will have their photos deleted and be banned for life. simple. questions can be directed to us at casualultimate@gmail.com. otherwise enjoy and holler with suggestions or testimonials about how this new system changed your life.

also shouts to our new west coast friend tony t. any friend of bk’s is a very good friend of miss casual’s.