casual ultimate » chicks and drinks

im pretty sure this is a post about nothing but here it is anyway. so guess what? swimming is frickin hard! i went swimming for the first time tonight in preparation for the half triathlon in july with the cnd ladies and.. yeah. at least during the running part you can stop and walk if you are tired.. if you are beat and in the middle of the lake i don’t really know what you do. float? lets hope so. i hope there are some lifeguards. also i am going to try racing at the velodrome soon. which should be terrifying. i hope there are some lifeguards there too.

in other news.. ms. ultimate was in town for the last couple of weeks and it was wonderful. we went out on the town last weekend with the viking and t-brizzle.. just like the old days. drinks. dinner. ice cream. criticizing the outfits of everyone in lincoln park. seriously though.. we saw some lady wearing black and white leopard print shorts and black suade boots with fringe on them. this prompted our new category ’signs of the coming apocalypse.’ also in this category would be the appearance of an intermix on damen in wicker park. its getting dangerous out. fer realz. also we went and saw the ’sex and the city’ movie even against our better judgment. it was good but im glad we brought small pink cans of champagne.

the wedding is coming right up. best thing? we get to go taste cake this weekend. yeah cake. i love cake so much i want to take it behind the middle school and get it pregnant. um… anyway. its exciting. 3 months to go before im mrs. casual.

this afternoon was kind of tedious at work so i thought id liven things up by downloading a song by omarion (”icebox”) and eating a fair trade chocolate bar from trader joe’s which tasted like magic. that certainly brightened my mood. and then i remembered today is the big primary showdown in texas and ohio and even teeny tiny rhode island. very exciting stuff. big things poppin in this country…

on a side note.. i just heard from a public relations officer from rhode island. she informed me that rhode island doesn’t like to be called ‘tiny’. it likes to be called ‘yes you are… look at you. you’re so cute…come here little guy… ‘

we finally made it to march thank jebus. february was one mean son of a gun. now that the spring light is at the end of the winter tunnel its time to start getting ready for frisbee and track season. just thinking about spring training is the most satisfying thing i’ve done all day. but seriously ms. ulty and i were thinking about some kind of ongoing posts that could chronicle our efforts to get in shape for the warm weather. i personally think this will be too embarrassing to post but i suppose the threat of humiliation is supposed to inspire us to work out more? anyone have some good jump start type workouts they’re doing that they want to post about?

if you want to get inspired (read: intimidated) check out our chicks and drinks friend michelle’s blog about training for a half ironman. it makes good reading. especially over a bag of ruffles.

well another winter weekend goes by mostly uneventfully but at least we topped 40 degrees today. i got to ride my new bike and chat with c(b)r about real estate and slider’s potential effectiveness as a guard dog. although i watched a good deal of television (hey the dunk competition was fun to watch this year!) at least a bit of it was inspirational.

i watched a sports special about the kona ironman triathalon… and if that doesn’t get me off the couch for at least a week i don’t know what will. seriously… 2.5 miles swim, 112 miles on the bike, and then a marathon (26 mi.) how do people survive this? a frickin 65 year old woman completed it! she was happy cheery the whole way. a blind grandfather completed it. a guy with no frickin feet and completed it with prosthetic limbs. a female former winner of the race crashed her bike, broker her collar bone, and rode like 20 more miles before giving up. the first place dude from last year was throwing up as he was riding his bike and didn’t stop for quite a while…!? if that doesn’t give you serious self esteem problems i don’t know what your life is about. i couldn’t even finish 100 miles on the bike this summer and i ride more than most people. not more then triathaletes but holy hell! a flippin 77 year old nun completed the swim and bike portion!

alls i knows is im gonna have my butt in the saddle of a bike at the gym for some serious hours in the next few weeks to pull it together so i dont get sick during the first spring league game of the season because i assure you, cherished reader, that i will not continue to fight on after such an occurance.

it did make me think about doing a little bitty 1/4 triathalon with some of the chicks and drinks ladies this summer. if a legless man can do the ironman i figure i should be able to swim 1/2 a mile, bike 20 and run 3 by july. right? right???

cricket. cricket.

so after getting my stem and riser bars stolen off my bike two weeks ago i have not ridden my bike to work again. its starting to get frickin rediculous so i thought id buy another bike for commuting. something less flashy and track bike-y for bad weather. well my new baby is on its way. its an empella bonfire cross bike i found on ebay. pretty but still pretty rough and tumble. ill get some locking screws and cross my fingers that it will be safe outside my work.

on another note im getting lasik on thursday morning. the magic of science is going to make me able to see in less than a week. this is profoundly scary for some reason.. mostly because ive never had surgery of any kind but also because everyone knows that when you want creepy medical stuff to go away you close your eyes (and possibly cry or whimper) but for lasik you have to be wide eyed and awake. i hope they have lots of valium on hand.

friday i had my preliminary appointment and they super dialated my eyes to the point where i went back to work and couldn’t read at all. also my eye doctor berated me for wearing someone else’s glasses. my prescription was so old and it was only for two weeks so i didnt want to buy new ones.. and my friend ben had some old glasses that were close to my prescription. they work fine. but the doc thought i was a total nut. her actual words were ‘wow i’ve never seen something like that from an educated person.’ wait wait.. i’m educated? werd.

also friday night we had a little going away fete for simon and amy (of chicks and drinks fame) at delilahs. this was one of the better parties ive been to lately. great crowd. great beer for cheap. well miss chivolvos premiere couple.

im hoping well get an update from lei out when everyone gets back. yall are lucky youre in la. its a degree outside her. a. degree. burrrr….

well the christmas is long gone and new years is just around the corner. although lots of the usual chicago suspects will be in portland witnessing the wedding of dr. mercer there are two big events going down for nye in chicago so hopefully next week will be bloggarific with the recap of action from both coasts.

the first is a party being thrown at the real world logan square. our very own brown bear, along with other casual ultimate notables have concentrated domestic power in another location closer to the double deuce and they are throwing the new years jam this year. rose bowl themed. should be bananas.

also michelle, our lovely chicks and drinks planning princess, has coordinated a brilliant party just blocks from the casual / brizzle residence. heres the flier. 15 bones all you can drink. seriously. on new years. also the beer sponsor is fat tire which is amazing and there are tons of djs and its in the same spot as the sadie hawkins after party. holler! dress to impress. you can buy tickets in advance even at www.myspace.com/holyrollernyc.

well in the long list of violence done to my cursed bianchi, the insane huge dent and hole that showed up in my top tube at some point on saturday night while we were at the after party for the sadie hawkins day race is certainly the worst. ending the evening by biking home ever so slowly so as to not finish the job of ripping my frame in half was a little disappointing. i cant figure out if someone was trying to steal it and just destroyed the frame before they could get through the lock or what but i always make it a policy to put my bike next to way nicer bikes in the hope that thieves will look at the others first and it still got jacked up. go figure.

the party was great. huge fantastic loft space. everyone we know. tons of cheap beer. plus tbrizzle and sally took it to the house and made it in 10th place out of about 100 teams which is a fantastic finish. they showed those nerdy fixed gear hipsters for sure. its called athleticism and it comes from chasing a frisbee, not wearing tight jeans and a bandana. nice work peeps. also michelle (of chicks and drinks fame) and her new hubby won the best dressed award and jessi came in second at the skid comp. heres a pic of the newleyweds with aaron wearing his fake moustache as a unibrow. all around nice weekend especially dance party central courtesy of andrew.

thank god i made it through this weekend in one piece. things are shaking up at the office and the fact that im still employed and might eventually afford replacing the bike that was trashed is, in itself, a cause for celebration. if im going to get fired however, it might as well be for blogging. happy monday. and happy belated bday to dr. tanguay. and congrats to the hales-es.

miss casual

p.s. can we get a role call of who is in for black wednesday night mayhem thanksgiving weekend on the forum? i cant wait to see everybody.

well all our friends are back from nationals by now but after playing their butts off all weekend in sarasota im sure they need a day or two to recoup and collect their thoughts… check email, call mom, check in with their tivo, etc. hopefully well get some recap and highlights after all that but to give them a breather heres what happened in chicago this weekend.

the race. it was awesome. went off basically without a hitch. check out simon bringing the pain to his checkpoint in the video above. we had 29 teams and we raised a pile of cash for cornerstone plus everyone was in costume and the afterparty was a hit. big thanks to dave and rodan for putting up with all of us. the only minor snag was that 20,000 war protestors were in union park right when our race was starting. it was a little confusing to say the least. why couldnt they have their protestacular another day? oh well. heres some of us getting swarmed by them as they began their march downtown.

another minor miracle was this guy from one less car clothing just swooped in (literally swooped) out of nowhere and brought us a bunch of shirts and stuff for prizes. we are now best friends forever with those guys. the Brs and ms. mimms did the race and said they had fun. cbr’s porcupine costume was interesting to say the least. you dont often see an architect dressed in all black and covered in clothes pins riding a bike.

meanwhile i was watching scores on the upa website and clenching my teeth. i was on the war phone to mama town during brass monkey’s face off to the death with tandem that took it to double game point. i almost died of the tension but brass pulled it out and went on to semis. the talk in the forum was the big upsets in the open bracket in pool D with furious going 0-3 the first day as the top seed in that pool and chain lightening going 3-0 as the bottom seed (ATL represent!). madness.

anyway wished we could’ve dusted off our press passes and joined you on the sidelines. congrats to everyone who played on finishing great seasons. cant wait to hear your stories.

hugs

miss casual

here is an overdose of cute to celebrate my birthday today. this is maxine and slider competing for total dominance of the water cooler at sectionals which is almost more than i can handle. i ran into maxine and her parents at fall league this weekend and man is she getting tall! she is undoubtedly going to be a pro basketball player so hopefully i can sign on as her manager if i get on board now.

public news team went 1-1 on saturday although its been a great season and the weather was near perfect so it took the sting out of our first game loss. plus mr. baker and miss casual got to play together for the first time all fall league season so that sweetened the deal too. baker we’ve missed you! we had 7 ladies but it was really nice and everyone got to play a lot somehow… now we just need to win both games next weekend to hopefully get a first round by at the tournament… unfortunately ill miss our games since they are in the afternoon and the headless horseman hunt will be happening at the same time. we got picked up in time out chicago thanks to m. ulty and every stop on the course is someplace haunted so its looking to be good times.

also this week ive discovered that there is an event horizon for me around wabansia and milwaukee and that if i get any further north than that i am sucked into the black hole of my couch never to come out. or at least not til the next day in most cases. this is worrysome as it isnt even cold out yet and the event horizon only expands as the temperature drops. anyway im officially a grown up today so im blaming that. seriously though… i did a series of dances in my kitchen when i received a bitchingly awesome coffee maker as a birthday gift. if that doesnt make me grown i dont know what does.

xoxo
miss casual

so ive been looking for a new bike for a while. i was thinking of getting a road bike.. something with gears for longer rides and for use as a backup when someone steals a pink wheel off my bike or other hypothetical situations like that. and i looked and looked and finally i found the new whip. here she is in all her splendor. of course its not a road bike. and of course its a bianchi. and of course its white and shiny. but what can i say? i know what i like. lay off me its almost my birthday.

the ‘concept’ sticker is coming off first thing and will be promptly replaced with new decals. maybe pink ones that say ‘casual’ or something. ill post new photos when it gets all built up proper like. alls i knows is… its gonna make me fast at the track. big time.

in other news the alley kitten scavenger hunt were throwing is gonna be bananas. piece is sponsoring and so is rodan (which is where the afterparty will be) and so is casual ultimate of course. but maybe most importantly tbrizzle is sponsoring our own ms. ultimate’s plane ticket to come back for the festivities. that is if she can finish up all her forestrying in time. here is the new flier and the request for sponsorship that i send to tbrizzle.

‘Dear Mr. Brizzle

We at chicks and drinks incorporated are looking for a sponsor for our grad student rescue program. For your contribution of just 25$ you will receive a photo and a letter from the grad student, your logo on our race flier for the headless horseman hunt, a smug feeling of superiority, and the chance to have your grad student come and stay in your home for an entire weekend. Such a small amount can do so much for a needy grad student from New England. Wont you help us at Lets Get Crunk.org to give this starving Yale forestry student a temporary home?

Please make payments via pay pal to m. ulty.

Thank you so much for your contribution

Miss Casual
VP of Forestry Refugees
Lets Get Crunk Corp.’

i know machine will be busy at nationals but the rest of you better come on out. while condors are getting their asses served by our boys from the chi you can be biking around in silly costumes and drinking cheap draft beer at rodan. what could be better than that?

so yesterday was the 34th annual apple cider century in three oaks michigan. i was attempting to ride 100 miles on my bike for the first time and it proved tougher than i thought. barreling around chicago for miles and miles is one thing. climbing hills with fierce wind and a bike with only one gear was total insanity. next year i will be sure to do this sucker with a real road bike. i painted my nails the fastest color scheme i could think of and i still only did 75 miles in the end.

the night before we went to the town house in michigan to carbo load. no one does pre-ride dinners like mama town. we skipped rocks and played trivial pursuit on the deck until we crashed out early. getting up at 6 was just the beginning though. we drank some coffee and got on the road to three oaks. thankfully a huge posse of our friends were already there when we registered and ate our first apple of the day. so we rolled out maybe 20 strong on the first leg. maggie and i were riding with one gear each although she was doing the ride fixed which is just plain nuts. the first 26 mile bit was nice. beautiful weather and lots of chitchat with the two amys of chicks and drinks fame.

heres the first stop. thats a lot of spandex. each stop had apples and cookies and gatorade. even pb&j. yummm. after mile 43 i was hurtin. the course was much hillier than i was told and my knees were killing. maggie and i had to walk one or two of them. but the course was lovely and the company was great so we kept it up for another 30 miles. 6 hours start to finish including stops. about 15 miles an hour. not too bad. culvers never tasted so sweet as on the ride home. and the booth was so big and squishy i couldve stayed all day.

ill certainly do some more distance but not without a road bike. although i slept like 10 hours and feel great today. good times. cheers to all the friendly faces at the checkpoints and to ms. ultimate whose encouraging text messages made me fly down the road like a dolphin. im gonna go to chipotes and house a burrito.

well as you may or may not know… my lovely bicycle had a run in with thieves this week and they made off with one of my wheels, pink hub, spokecards and all. i can honestly say i didnt cry but i was trapped in a glass case of emotion all day on tuesday when i found out. thankfully mama town was here to drive my me and my bike home but it still means my big birthday present to myself is going to be replacing a wheel i already owned which is not fun at all. i briefly considered just throwing this bike away and getting a new one but ms. ultimate talked me down. ‘your horn broke so now you need a whole new bike?’ now i have to decide what color rim to put on my new back wheel. thoughts? pink again? white? maybe a nice dark eggplant? decisions decisions…

the other things going on in casual land are 1. fall league has started which is awesome because we have an awesome team who is big fun filled with tall dudes and fast ladies. 2. football season arrived with the first turkey chez casual / brizzle. tbr hooked up a crazy thanksgiving dinner for most of briefcase to watch the bears go down pretty hard to dallas. at least there were sally’s cupcakes from heaven to cheer everyone up. and 3. chicks and drinks is throwing a sweet bike race / scavenger hunt type thingy for halloween called the headless horseman hunt. check out the flier. its dope. granted everyone reading this will be in florida for nationals that weekend but if youre not for some reason and youre in chicago you should come out. itll be fun plus its to benefit a chicago homeless shelter so you get a smug feeling of satisfaction with your 5$ entry fee.

so thats all for now. im riding my first century this weekend (thats 100 miles for those who dont know) so ill be missing fall league but im sure public news team will be taking a break from their pledge drive to kick some ass without me. hopefully i dont have to call mama town from the side of the road to pick me up.

last night was a monumental success. congrats to michelle for organizing and aaron for making the best frickin trophies known to man. below is a pic of one of the winners accepting their prize. they were forks (like bike forks) with stuffed kittens impaled on them with chain rings as name plates. so funny. first place was a team in clown costumes and burkhas. our very own little ben won third with his team. nice work friendcrusher.

the race itself drew a huge crowd. 110 participants! 30+ teams! at each chicks and drinks run checkpoint teams had to do tasks to get points and they could return to the same checkpoints as many times as they wanted. j dot and i got the ‘find the bubblegum in the flour without using your hands and blow a bubble’ checkpoint on division and damen. the thursday night bar crowd on damen enjoyed the screeching breaks and clouds of flour im sure. the trick was to blow the flour everywhere cause if you took a big mouthful your chances of blowing a bubble were slim to none.

the after party was great too. weegees never disappoints. every time i go there it gets tougher to leave. i think they put something in the water… or beer. or whatevs. this morning came early.

tbrizzle got home last night which was a nice surprise. hopefully he’ll post about his life altering epiphanies on the road. hes skinny as a rail. seriously. ms. ultimate is also back on the radar after spending a week in the woods with the yalies. the weekend looks like a circus of napping, biking, and movie watching. superbad anyone? plus the bike film fest of course. good luck to our friends headed out to cooler this weekend. we’re hoping for a post from our favorite viking next week to recap the action. happy friday yall.

last night was the kickoff party for the bicycle film festival in chicago. unfortunately it started passed my bed time so instead of partying like a rockstar the chicks and drinks ladies gathered chez casual to make spoke cards for tonight’s alleykitten. the triplets of belmont is a bike film festival sponsored scanvenger hunt and michelle and jessi are co-chairing the event so we all got together to drink some beers and do arts and crafts. everyone should come out and participate in the shennanigans. its gonna be lots of fun and its free for goodness sakes! the teams will have to do all kinds of stunts to earn points plus theres extra discretionary points for badassity. and the after party is at weegee’s, a cu favorite since july.

therell probably be some film watching this weekend too obviously and hopefully a long ride at some point since i got my confirmation for the apple cider century at the end of september. looks like tbrizzle’s return to the chi is imminent so also house cleaning is on the agenda. what does one buy a br for their birthday? i have an idea but any additional thoughts are appreciated.

last night miss casual got a chance to see transformers at 11pm so she jumped on it even though it was way past her bedtime. the movie does not disappoint. i wont go into it too much but go see it. right away. it was worth staying up late even if its going to make today long and tired.

but tonight will be ‘chicks and drinks : the holiday rampage’ so it should be fun and we can all sleep late tomorrow to celebrate the independence of our country and stuff. speaking of celebrating.. the cu staff both missed the rwip party this weekend unfortunately so were trying to get a guest blogger on the event. brown bear might be our man. last night team close your eyes played team brown bear and lost by a heartbreakingly slim margin. from the reports at the game it sounds like rachel was the flip cup champion at the house and at golden nugget, where brown bear matched the upholstery before crawling into bed next to bk. we need details people! we need reports from the scene! send us your stories. its your civic duty.

okay that is all. have a great pre-holiday and maybe when we get back brown bear will be in the driver’s seat.

well ms. ultimate left town for europa for almost three weeks leaving me steering this blogging ship alone. judging by the sweaty palms and nervous finger tapping on my space bar… its not going to be good when she leaves for the ivy league. but here goes nothin and hopefully shell post from wimbeldon where shes hanging out with andy roddick and biking around with our london ss/fg counterparts.

this weekend was a parade of bike events. friday night was the ali g cat. j dot and i worked the crunkest checkpoint on harrison and lower wacker. it was all fun and games until one of our chicks and drinks ladies went down in the race and broke her collar bone. here she is looking hardcore in the er looks like wednesday well be hanging with jessi and doing less tricks and more drinks. not that we mind… michelle took second and emily took third for the females so c’n'd still came out way ahead on friday night at gold star at the awards ceremony.

then saturday was track racing. the picture at the top is emily and michelle (on her miami sound machine bike) busting around the velodrome in kenosha. it was hot outside the chi and miss casual needed a nap to recoup for the after party. unfortunately i recovered too quickly and had time for a few beers before i somehow ended doing a sprint against michelle which i only won because michelle was tired from the track. after the sprints adam decided to pick julio up over his shoulders and run around the block and that was how we knew it was time to go home. brunch today at cozy corner with the new humboldt homeboys was just what the dr. ordered to recover from such a fun and tiring weekend. thanks to val and the rest of the velo city people.

happy monday

so its a big week for birthdays because today there are two more. not only is it my brother’s birthday, mr. chucktown, who is kind of a big deal (better reckidnize), but its our friend amy’s (of chicks and drinks fame) birthday too. miss casual spent an hour on the phone last night with mama town trying to scan and email some baby pictures to chuck in honor of his big bday. clearly miss casual is not cut out for i.t. phone support. happy birthday mr. town. cant wait to see you for sandblast.

also im not sure if we made it clear but chicks and drinks is big in hungary. ms. ultimate better look our for our fans on her european tour. amy’s picture of chicks and drinks last week got some more rousing responses from our admirers overseas. im sure tonight’s photographic evidence will be equally compelling. therell be some birthday shennanigans for amy… and some tricks and drinks of course. since regular tricks night imploded chicks is the new tricks. should be good times.

and i almost forgot… ultimate. monday night team close your eyes faced off against baker’s team in the rain and wind. i believe our entire roster showed up which was weird and we saw a huge rainbow when the sun came out. the disc slipped through lyrica’s hands at one point because it was wet and adam had the encouraging speech at halftime that included ‘just get in front of it. if it slips through your fingers… you have airbags.’ nice. we pulled out a win just in time to get one piece of pizza. thankfully. ciao.

last night was a good night for chicks and drinks. lots of ladies showed up. and by lots i mean 7. but still thats more than the 5 or so that normally turn out. at dinner we had nine whole people! crazy! we got to check out emily#1’s new bike (which is h.o.t.) and then do some trickery (which i have no photos of right now) and then headed to el cid for margaritas under the stars. rolling up in logan square a group of boys walked up and told us we all had colored rims. which we actually already knew. and then they stole our table. but it turns out it was the guys from boulevard bikes. maybe if they give us a discount well let it go… we still invited them all to the party on friday. looks like the cu bday party is gonna be bananas. dont say we didnt warn you…

also we spent some time last night working on special surprises for some of our regulars on the blog. arts and crafts is obviously our second calling after blogging. but the trip to el cid reminds us of another trip to that culinary powerhouse during sandblast last year. were getting excited for sandblast this year already cause its only a few weeks away! lots of reinforcements coming in for that… better catch up on sleep now…

but not tonight cause its beach and its also tiger’s birthday so there should be some shennanigans afterwards. well keep you posted obviously. if you wanna know about the post title youll have to ask public emily. happy thursday.

edit: thanks to amy for the photo. its an old c’n'd photo but a good one.