casual ultimate » 2007 » February

after our monster brunch on saturday we hit the waterslides and played tube crawl in the wave pool. plus there were hours of water-basketball. tracy made us all look bad with her outside shooting, especially joe little shown here trying desperately to guard her even though shes half his size. bk didnt make it this year, what with sending cho off to china, so we almost died of starvation. luckily he had made dinner and sent it with akira so we just had to assemble it. sounds simple but actually it took three pages of email, me, joe, liz, and bk on the phone talking us through the more difficult parts. thankfully the tupperware full of ‘pure flavor’ arrived undamaged.

then it was time to get in our jammies, watch bad boys 2 on the projector and drink some beer. liz and miss casual had a private screening of some old 30 rock episodes which is now cu’s favorite tv program next to law and order. i wonder if we could get tina fey to guest post… the next morning we all said good bye to fireplaces with on switches and log themed furniture. actually i think cbr said something like ‘i wish slider couldve been here’ or ‘oh look at the bears in that painting’ or something but i figured he meant ‘gosh this was the best time ever. thanks guys.’ it warms my heart still.

its always tough to leave great wolf but this year was especially challenging what with the 11″ of snow and all. it took thor, ms. ulty, and two strangers plus a community shovel to get us out of the parking lot. thanks to ea for the photos. til next year…

with bryan not yet in the picture, most of us slept until 11 to conserve calories. thank the sweet lord for thor & liz, who hooked us up with egg scrambler, french toast and sparxx (7%). sometimes 2 cups of coffee just doesn’t do the job when you have a full day of waterslides ahead of you.

the c.u. staff arrived in the dells around 4, but had to stop by the outlet mall to look for hi-tops before buying copious amounts of booze and heading to the lodge. thank goodness we arrived before the blizzard, unlike bjorn, who has never hard of pythagoras or his theorem and therefore went through milwaukee instead of the clearly shorter madison route via 90. tbr and monica did the same thing but had a reason (custard). they arrived just in time to join us for law $ order (that was intentional, it’s money) and a coloring contest at the loose moose bar and grill. ms. ulty ordered the fettucine alfredo despite our waitress’s warning that “to be honest, it’s not as good as olive garden.” ms. ulty couldn’t figure out if that was a good or bad thing.

fast forward eight hours, when the rest of the crew arrived. it might have been the blizzard, the long drives or the blackout blinds, or all of them, but for some reason people thought it would be a good idea to stay up until 4:30 in the morn watching bad boys (1). we love early will smith as much as the next blogger, but no one wants to wake up that and a loud game of ticket to ride.

with the cyndi lauper playing, bathing suits dried and sparxx in our system, we’re ready to get this party started. joe just started dance party 9000 and it’s only 12:21.

great wolf is many-splendored thing.

you’re going to have to turn on your speakers and go here to understand the title.

we here at casualultimate are more than a little excited about going to great wolf with 13 of our closest friends this weekend. it’s been a hectic week at work for ms. ultimate, and miss casual is still reeling from playing magical desks in the office, so we need to unwind. and what better way to unwind than in a plastic log cabin condo watching bad boys 1 and 2 while bk whips up yet another fabulous meal? it’s going to be so fantastic that ms. ulty had to buy blog cabin long underwear for the big sleepover; that’s a close-up and, yes, those are brown rhinestones.

the general itinerary is something like: drive up at noon on friday, buy beverages once we get across the state line, arrive at aforementioned plastic cabin, take off clothes and go on the waterslides (we’re wearing our suits underneath), go in hot tub, jump on floating lilypads, eat dinner, drink beers, watch movie, play scattergories, repeat. we might bring a disc to toss if it’s nice, but why go outside if it’s always 84 and sunny inside the lodge. mini was upset there was no blogging from baker’s party last weekend (although we hear phone calls from dube are more than entertaining enough–dube, meet me at the military base in two hours), so we’ll try to get it together in the dells. we’ll be coming to you live from the top bunk.

Our dear friend the letter j who you might remember from such posts as ‘too much sparxx at rwip’ and ‘we guest posted on his sports blog’ is taking over our space today to talk about the oscars and other fun movie stuff. hes an actual writer in real life so it will probably blow. your. mind. so with no further interruption from me…. heres jeff

_____________________________________________________________________

I know this might go against some deeply help rule, but I am using capital letters. (edit: i think our blog is actually not set up to recognize capital letters and yours will be edited out when it posts automatically. sorry. - miss casual) Again, I apologize if this hurts your eyes or defeats the true nature of being casual. I’m just used to typing with the big guys and that’s that.

I mainly talk sports and movies. I have this sort of time on my hands since I am 95 percent retired from ultimate. I break out the cleats for a reunion tourney, Poultry Days and Sand Blast (though technically I remove the cleats for the latter and just complain about how sensitive my feet are to the hot sand).

Anyway, on to the movie talk …

I will be watching the Academy Awards, like I do every year. Sometimes I like to think of it as my Super Bowl. Not this year though, the movies I love didn’t get nominated enough, the host is good (Ellen Degeneres) but not great (Jon Stewart) and the Bears made the Super Bowl, which made my Super Bowl the actual Super Bowl.

Dp and Liz will be able to give anyone insight about how I view the awards afterwards. For the first time, they are joining a small group of friends to watch. Denardis will also be there before he leaves us all for the East Coast.

I will be doing a running diary for beep central and hopefully everyone reading this has already voted for the Scorecard Movie Awards … but here, now, before anyone else gets to see it, I present my Top Ten Movies of 2006 … with a couple extras thrown in … and in the true spirit of being casual, screw the capitals.

1. the departed - everything felt intense - suspense, laughter and violence
2. borat - no comedy has made me think more about the ugliness of America
3. little miss sunshine - it’s nice, with just enough cynicism
4. thank you for smoking - really might be the smartest spin in the group
5. notes of a scandal - it’s a drama where you sit on the edge of your seat
6. last king of scotland - great performances
7. children of men - sci-fi done really well and i didn’t hate Michael Caine
8. united 93 - for the subject, this movie couldn’t have done any better
9. mission: impossible: III - i don’t hate tom cruise’s acting
10. brick - high school crime noir, sounds awful but it’s not

close:
stranger than fiction
the heart of the game
inside man
an inconvenient truth
the painted veil

That’s it. That’s the list.
special guest - Jeff Schwister - signing off.
jschwister.blogspot.com
thedailyscore.blogspot.com

younger siblings today: what are they thinking? first i find out my very own zibbers is a vimeo star (zibbo i’m disappointed you don’t know all the words to lovefool). but this is nothing in comparison to the fact that lainers’ little bro is never going to work in this town again. dude that’s disgusting; i judged the scavenger hunt back in the day and nothing like that happened. maybe i’m getting old and boring, but it seems like things got out of hand.

don’t these kids know that employers google?

friday night miss casual and ms. ultimate broke out of our normal social circle to make friends with some chifggers. we found them to be very philosophically similar to ourselves. nat (the one in the front there) even gave us this post title, which was so good we should’ve said it. after trading glasses and drinking some high life at gold star it was time for dance party 9000 around the corner with andrew tending to the music and everyone else tending to the pbr. miss casual made instant buddies with tristan whose bike is so pink she fears she will never be able to compete.

then saturday it was all about alaina and dan baker. yes mr. baker turned 30 and we all got to celebrate. plus we had reinforcements in from florida in the form of ms. ulty’s oberlin buddy. we started at club lucky waiting quite a while for a table and making plans for carols with mike d. unfortunately our full bellies made us too sleepy to swing dance with denardis and we were punished for it by repeated verbal abuse via text message. heres a picture of ms. ulty in her swank new headwear being charmed by our favorite south bend resident tom carter.

sunday the ja rule to my ashanti picked me up and we checked out the cusl town hall meeting. i think im gonna leave the recap and debate to the forum. lets just say baker wasnt making a lot of sense in the wake of his bday.

There’s been a lot of back-and-forth on the upcoming CUSL planning meeting on the c.u. forum over the past few days. CUSL, after reviewing the league survey results and talking with “previous UC leaders” is proposing format changes that fall into the following general categories (from CUSL website):

———————
Competition/skill appropriate play
Many people have stressed a desire to play in more or less intense environments from how some of the current leagues are formatted. As a result, we would like to add a “tiered league” system across all seasons. This is already happening in Spring with the two divisions. In summer, it will likely involve adding a “competitive” league to run concurrently with the standard CUSL league. In the fall, it may mean dividing teams into and A and B division.

4/3 gender play
All leagues will play a maximum of 4 men and a minimum of 3 women. The large majority of survey respondents preferred a 4/3 split to other options. This will likely mean that some men will not be able to get into some leagues unless they bring a female player. If there is a large enough pool of people unable to get into a league, we may try to organize and open league or individuals league for those players.
———————-

Does this 4/3 rule mean that the number of women in the league will magically double from previous years, or does it simply mean that hundreds of men will be forced out of the league, even if it is stratified? Will it spur formation of an all-men’s league? If so, what will be the consequences?

Yours truly thinks that everyone should be free to play or not play in whatever capacity they wish, but having the option of a men’s league will suck the majority of the male talent out of the co-ed league, leaving it full of mediocre players (um, myself included) and, possibly worse, a lot of women who we’re conned into playing so that the guys they know could get into the league – I’m worried these women won’t show up at games. what about keeping it 5/2 and stratifying based on skill level instead of making both those changes at once?

Moreover, women already end up playing savage in league *all the time* - wouldn’t making it 4/3 instead of 5/2 make that worse? My attendance at leagues has always been good, but the times I don’t show up to games it’s because it’s hot out, I’m tired from playing earlier in the week, and I know I’ll be playing savage (again). If the quality of play in the co-ed league is degraded, where will that leave the good ladies? Will they opt out of the league, too?

What’s the best way to build ultimate in Chicago, either as a recreational activity or a competitive sport? Can a citywide league accommodate only one of these goals?

I just got the following email from the godfather of CUSL himself:

“Dividing CUSL into two division is a very bad idea. It will suck the talent from the league and will keep the new players from learning. It will eliminate the party together concept that we enjoy. Women will move adding to an existing problem. The elite players and those who play the Fall Series should enjoy CUSL as a casual alternative before the competitive season.”

casual or serious? will league format make the decision for us? Throw down your thoughts in the forum if you’d like, and show up at the blackrock (3614 n. damen) at 4 pm this Sunday for the league discussion.

the best valentine ever is still undoubtedly the one that ralph gave lisa in that episode of the simpsons but in the absence of decorated shoe boxes and valentines with choo choo trains on them, this post will have to serve as my valentine to our readers. as you could expect i love valentines day because im a big sap. much more so than ms. ulty so i am putting none of the responsibility of this post on her for the record.

even inspite of the 8 ft of snow outside on the sidewalk and some drama with our battle of the beach plans, miss casual is in a fantastic mood. how can you not love a holiday about cupcakes and pink? i mean that’s what its about right?

cricket cricket

well whatever. anyway on this cold and snowy valentines day, miss casual has lots of love for all of our casual ultimaters, near and far, who make this blog remotely readable and wishes you all hearts and puppies and professions of undying affection from handsome, witty suitors.

a little while ago we posted some of the search terms that lead unsuspecting surfers to the land of c.u. we’re still getting some relatively logical hits that aren’t “casualultimate blog,” such as “wicker park best diner” and “pajama boxer briefcase gallery,” but they’re getting stranger. the foreign ones are particularly intriguing. here are some recent searches, in no particular order (joe, apparently you have a fan/stalker out there):

fun and flirty business casual
casual beer season pants
her pointy ones…photos
i’m not gonna lie it’s gonna get weird
you can take girl out of ghetto
the bat cave WI
messy casual bun
your dirty mind VIP crew
spiderman girlfriend name
chicago machine ultimate joe ferrari
VIP Crew - you know how we do it…. (Germany google)
munition metal piercing (france google)
embarassment after a drunken night (UK google)

well this was one of the less blog worthy weekends in memory. the cold weather and lack of biking is really starting to send yours truly into winter hibernation mode. as soon as the sun goes down, which is at approximately 3:30 you can find me on the couch watching arrested development. thats pretty much my saturday night in a nut shell although at least ms. ulty braved the cold to see aaron and treem and celebrate aaron’s new job. there was some mexican food friday night and a bit of shopping saturday but other than that the only thing worth mentioning is seeing volver last night. great movie. i was not a big fan of penelope cruz in general but now i am. we are going to hold regular seminars in ms. ulty’s living room to try and get her perfectly messy, half up, half down hair thing happening.

also since its almost time for the oscars and weve been attending the cinema regularly of late, check out the scorecard movie awards brought to you by our good friend the letter j. better than your average awards show since you have a say in the out come. (the dixie chicks won everything? thats the best we had? is this what the kids are listening to these days? sigh….) if someone had a fun weekend, say, designing currency for dogs and cats to use, or participating in a traditional viking winter sport ritual, email us at casualultimate@gmail.com. you can guest post.

last night the cu staff and c(b)r decided to get our culture on by attending a lecture at the art institute by one of my (s)hero’s, winka dubbeldam. the work is certainly impressive and we are looking at hiring winka and her band of ragtag wonder interns to design us a headquarters, “the manor”, if you will. god knows miss casual doesnt have time for extracurricular architecture what with the blog and training for BOTB.

but seriously, why is it that contemporary architects feel such a need to stress that their work is not ‘formally driven’ when it clearly is at least in part. one does not chance on a bathroom that looks like this without some intention at formal architectural gymnastics. do oblique angles like that occur by chance or out of a material concern? miss casual thinks not. but hey just say ‘i wanted to make a bathroom that looked cool.’ why is that so bad? making things that are cool and actually get produced is no small accomplishment in these days of mediocrity and value engineering.

all that theory made us hungry so it was off to rodan where ms. ulty got her design on by setting the table and encouraging our waiter to sculpt our rice. c(b)r even acknowledged ms. ulty’s latent design prowess. it was tough deciding who the sexiest players on briefcase were but somehow we managed and ended up full and sleepy before heading back to paulina. its almost friday. hang in there.

what could follow a night of such magical wonderment as friday? well saturday i guess. the cu staff recovered by hitting bongo room for brunch followed by light shopping and naps. the evening found our team split between two neighborhoods with ms. ulty throwing down for martha’s bday in wrigley and miss casual and the boss taking the lovely ladies of the er out in bucktown.

dr welsh had finished her test and freshened up before coming down to meet us at piece. (in a side note, the cu staff, inspired by ferrari’s manuary, will be throwing femuary, a midwinter celebration of being girls, and it will involve lots of freshening up for sure, as well as manicures, sleepovers, and romantic comedies.) then we moved on to rodan for icicles and hot toddies. do you know how much heat a person gives off? 150 btus per hour, which was enough to partially thaw out the window at rodan.

after all that we barely had enough energy to bake a mountain of cookies to take to the boss’s crib on sunday to watch the superbowl. the callaways were nice enough to bring their little one for ms. ulty to gush over and tbr was nice enough to bring thanksgiving. turns out the cu ladies would make excellent lesbian mothers. witness miss casual helping ms. ulty with her beer while she holds audrey.

the game itself was a bummer since our team lost and the ads were all sinister and depressing. the boss dubbed it the ’superbowl of crying’ after an ad with a sad robot almost brought miss casual to tears. she recovered in time to discuss the referees’ high waisted pants and what to do about them with tbr and monica. the only reason we remember any of this is because we transcribed our notes from the evening off of miss january.

even though the bears lost it was a good night and it was nice to watch nick swardson like 4 peas in a pod after the game. tv makes us feel safe.

at some point around 2am, ferrari was wearing cho’s speedo over his jeans doing pushups by the fire. he stopped to beat denardis with a belt. (miss casual was thinking this bodes well for the mayhem to come at BOTB)

joe little in his disturbing pink shirt received the best dancer of the party award from timmy.

the guest of honor was getting sick in the bathroom upstairs while an unnamed couple got busted in his room.

denardis fumigated the living room with cho’s secret stash of axe. thats where the party ended. with the axe.

after a huge brunch we are looking forward to an afternoon of tv. holler if you want to join us.

we hope to god were not still logged in on bk’s computer.

we heart RWIP.

we’re just not sure what to write at this pioint. it’s whatever time; cho ripped off jor ferrari’s underwear and it’s on tim halt’s head. and then ms. ulty threw up a little bit in her mouth and ad to run to the toilette.

cobb pushed bjorn down, there was no struggle for supremacy, which is in fact surprising. it is difficult for me to type on the keyapd at this time,

tyson has a mustach drawn on his face

we;re not sure ifthe stains on on cho’s shirt are going to come out. we’re also not sure if we’ll make it out of here alive,

thor just stampeded thru,. this is potentially not good.

after having six people in cho’s bed everyone had white powder in their lungs. gold bond powder actually.

tyson’s reasoning for problems in vegas last weekend : ‘we didnt have liquor. just beer. and mushrooms’

cho replied to vijay’s criticisms of his plan to move to china by pleading ‘wait jayadev don’t leave. don’t be mad.’

apparently the boys get emotional over the water show at the bellagio.

ferrari offered miss casual 5$ to punch denardis in the face and denardis offered me 5$ to kick tyson in the… shin, yeah shin, with my gilded pointy toed shoes

joe little is predictably violent and the boss needs a new belt buckle

bk yells out ‘wait ill tell you when we’re starting. its in my pants,’ and ms. ulty responds by doing a plie in the kitchen.

joe little says rachael is knitting and its getting too real on the futon

little dick.com is actually c(b)r’s online alter ego

see you in 30

xoxo
casual

i have tb! i can give it to you right now! you don’t have to go to china!
- vijay, 2.2.07

10:20 pm CT

someone brought cho pussy (cat). but given the “free samples” of axe he had in the room, we can be sure it’s gonna stay in quotes until tomorrow morning.

we’re working to get cho to 7% al/vol, per the new sparxx. all we know is: we’re not leaving until we see that smooth, smooth chest. thankfully we have a doctor on hand.

- end transmission -

well its friday but i swear this was the longest. week. ever. i don’t even know if ill make it to 530 when ill pick ms. ulty up in the casual mobile and head back to the double deuce to start the weekend with a manhattan and a fresh kitten chez ultimate. last night we regrouped to plan our attack of the weekend with the boss and treem at sweet alice. why have we not been to this place? it has good greasy food, fat tire, and a bald bartender who calls me hon. what more could we want? since it is a stone’s throw from paulina im sure we will be playing a lot of foosball there in the near future.

the boss has a cold so it’s lucky for him that dr. welsh is in the heezy this weekend. she is in an aeroplane right now headed towards chicago to help us throw down for the super bowl. it has been a week of stressful showdowns at casual ultimate headquarters but it didnt even give miss casual cause to buy a pair of gucci sandals so it couldn’t have been too bad. however stressing out is against dr.’s orders so we well be putting an end to that and say a little prayer for our friday to go smoothly.

dear lord baby jesus, in your tiny golden pajamas watching baby einstein videos and learning sounds and colors, please let us last through our workday and bring the pain to this weekend with dr. welsh. also please let the bears beat the living tar out of the colts and let our hangovers, be they from food or 40s, be mild on monday. also because of a contract which stipulates that i mention happy hour at every grace id just like to say that it will be delicious and that i hope the boss’s surprise for ms. ulty involves video games. amen.