casual ultimate » happy hour

sheesh long time no post. i tried to verbally assault the blogging staff at casual ultimate for not keeping up their end of the bargain but what can you do? its the holidays. so all verbal harrassment aside heres a pic of our cu dinner over thanksgiving weekend. if you read the blog last year you might remember a similar dinner but this year the role of bjorn was played by our dear friend jason who recently moved into the double deuce. the cu staff bumped into him during our holiday shopping outting the day after thanksgiving in wicker park. sometime between american apparel and a drink at the new bar on division (becky you were right.. not too bad) we found our fifth for dinner.

wednesday night was great. very vintage casual ultimate happy hour style. early dinner at piece with heards of people, some of the newleyweds (the hales’s and the bayers) plus the usual suspects including out of towners (heyo becky and pat were in town!) and then we rolled to lemmings. ah lemmings. ms. ultimate was already there when we finally made it up damen. and not a minute too soon. somehow cbr managed to tell tbr that no one had gone to lemmings and they ended up at cleos for a bit before coming by but it was a good night nonetheless. one thing changed since ms. ulty left town, though: the dress code at lemmings. now our viking and other, undisclosed c.u. staff members didn’t mind this ladies backless shirt (jesus woman, at least wear jeans that fit!), but ms. ulty was shocked enough to ask the bouncer when the neighborhood started going downhill. bjorn and ulty then adopted a ‘if you can’t beat em, join em’ mentality, seen here. slept late on t-giving and then ms. ulty moved into the brizzle / casual residence in time for a screening of elf. smiling is our favorite!

the rest of the weekend passed by quickly in a whirl of shopping, tv, and driving to dinner right down the block. we motherfrickin love this country.

anyways it was sad to be without bjorn but he made it home last night in time to watch some football in bucktown and discuss the phenomenon of flirty girls gym : a place for skanks to work out. this place is an actual gym with more pole dancing classes and pillow fights. probably what cbr thinks women do at the gym anyway.

p.s. couldn’t we have named this post the bjorn identity?

well, from what i’ve heard no one took me up on making casualultimate tgif happen, so i don’t know what to say other than that i’m starting a new blog called serioushappyhour. i had to take matters into my own hands, and guess what the cat dragged in to the hayve this weekend:

that’s right, the brothers jacobs were in town for a wedding and they called me up to hang out at richters. and thank goodness they did call, because i was sitting at my laptop staring down the barrel of a midterm paper at 10 pm on a saturday night. i know that being a good student is cool, but being a good student on late saturday night is not cool. my roomie haley and friend esteban got a taste of these two crazy kids, shutting down the bar and heading to louis’ lunch for a late-night burger.

for those of you who don’t know, which is probably all of you unless you’ve ever lived in this town, louis’ claims to have invented the hamburger in 1900. it’s stilled served the same way 107 years later: between two slices of toasted white bread, with tomatoes and onions. no ketchup, no mustard, no nuthin else. i have to say it was a good patty (they grind their own meat every day) but i’ll take a kuma’s burger piled high with grilled onions, bbq sauce and the works any day of the week.

today i finally got out to play a little ultimate with the grad school pickup group. it was so fun, and the weather here is gorgeous: cool but sunny fall day. we had some skills on the field, especially this one super fast guy who kept defending me.

on one point i was standing in the endzone lazily waiting for a floating disc to get to me, when he started running straight at me/the disc from 30 yards across the endzone. he caught up and d’d the disc mightily. on the next point he came out of nowhere and almost killed me d’ing a disc. i mentioned on the line that he seems pretty aggressive - apparently that’s because he ran the mile in the olympics in 2004. so there’s that. needless to say i made it a point to step up my game after learning that i was playing an olympian. i think olympic-caliber mile runners would make pretty sweet conversions to ultimate, given that they have the acceleration needed to get open all the time but more endurance than shorter sprinters. actually, what olympian wouldn’t you want on your team? maybe the biathalon guys, i’m not sure what they’re up to.

what’s up with fall league? public news team? it’s pledge drive time here on the east coast, but i hope you’re taking a break to kick some ass.

There’s been a lot of communication back and forth with Chicago this week, particularly about the headless horseman scavenger hunt & bi-cycle race in two weeks, which is going to be fantastic. word on the street is that the peach pit is sponsoring with beer- and pizza-related prizes and rodan is hosting the afterparty. let’s spend some time on this blog talking about how fantastic their mojitos are. but for real: all my peeps in chicago need to congregate and have the happy hour to end all happy hours tonight.

back in eastern standard time, ms. ulty is excited about the prospect of getting back on her iron horse like the chicks n’ drinks ladies in chicity….eventually. the bruises from my battle with a biology professor’s hood are pretty much gone, but my right knee still has this weird swelling on it, it’s a little hurty, etc. now you know. i can’t help but think that if i’d gone to berkeley i would have had doctor welsh’s expert consultation. maybe grandma’s right, maybe i do need to start hanging out with the medical school.

since this accident kept me away from regionals last weekend (so frustrating), i picked up a new pastime to cheer myself up: stump. this game is what it sounds and looks like: you put a bunch of nails into a tree stump in a circle, with one in the middle. everybody playing picks a nail and the object of the game is to be the last nail standing. you achieve this by flipping a forester-sized hammer end over end, cactching it on the fly and immediately striking your opponents’ nails/the stump/miss catching it and permanently maim a bystander. i got pretty into it, and finally won a round by the end of happy hour. needless to say every aspect of the competition improved over time since it was part of our weekly outdoor happy hour.

speaking of which, miss casual, i seem to remember us making a graph of crunkedness over time at one point. last friday, at the as-close-as-new-haven-gets-to-a-bicycle-bar bar, we were doing something similar and my friend esteban came up with a complex version involving four axes. general consensus at the table was that he’s a shoe-in for the nobel prize. turns out that went to al gore instead, but maybe next year we’ll get his submission in on time.

but back to ultimate. congratuf’inglations to machine, and my heart goes out to everyone else. while no one wanted their seasons to end in the sooner state, the good news is that, while machine is having two-a-days in 50 degree drizzle, you’ll be inside watching football, eating steak and drinking beer. same goes for happy hour: do it up chicago, make some happy hour magic so miss casual has something to post about on monday. rally the troops - i want shenanigans, hijinx and pictures. remember that time bp and miss casual got into a fight at that crappy indoor beergarden? remember when that kids got headbutted by the crazy bartender at the hole-in-the-wall on armitage? avoid those places, and instead go to lemming’s, order a kind midwestern brew and catch up with your friends. do it or else i’ll come at you with my hammer.

Yes, I said tax-free weekend and welcome to the dirty south. They actually do something really cool in NC by eliminating tax for a weekend so everyone can save money on back to school supplies. So how does someone with no kids who isn’t in school benefit from that? SHOES! (now I have Ms. Casual’s attention…) Although my purchases were functional and not fashionable, I hit up the New Balance store on Friday and then Great Outdoors from some hippie sandals on Sunday. I would’ve done more shopping but my stomach kept me close to home.

How or why might one sabotage this wonderful weekend, you ask? So I accidentally got hammered Friday night. I know some of you are wondering how you “accidentally” get wasted, but it starts off with a lovely idea called First Fridays in downtown Raleigh. Art galleries, beer vendors in the streets, live music… forgetting to eat dinner, 7 hours feels like only 2, Sierra Nevadas, Big Boss beers, old pal Budweiser and his good friend Jameson. Apparently, after you turn 30, hangovers last 48 hours instead of the normal 8. I guess playing ultimate in the 98 degree heat (90 billion percent humidity) doesn’t really assist in recovery. For “fun” – we played nearly savage make-it take-it ultimate at practice on Saturday. The team had a pool party social Saturday night, it was remarked that Beckhoe lacked a beer in hand. Couldn’t choke one down…

After Sunday morning’s gnarly practice – I turned on some golf to nap to. Does anyone else think Twirly is a dead ringer for Rory Sabbatini?
The afternoon got better with a 2nd viewing of 300 (HOOH HOOH HOOH) at the dolla fitty theatre down the street. Next time I’ll bring some Febreeze for my seat. Stinky people see cheap movies.
Looking forward to the Colorado Cup updates…. Peace out from the SE side.

hey happy hour tonight chitown peoples! if you’re reading this then you already know… well probably be at lemmings with cans in our hands to start out… 6ish so holler.

i love you
frank

this summer has been great and all, but it’s speeding along at a different pace than the epic summer of 2006. here are a few things we’ve been missing:

1. frisbee
1(a). potlatch - what a great tourney. we want to put together a chicago n’ friends team for next year. who’s in?
1(b). summer league - the competitive games are great, but we miss playing twice a week.
1(c). briefcase - ms. ulty misses her teammates and sunday practices at uic, and miss casual has no excuse for a manicure since she’s not doing admin.

2. terrycloth
2(a). dresses - last summer we dressed up for a party as good and evil terrycloth, this summer the dresses haven’t even been busted out.
2(b). see (3) below - ms. ulty’s beach towel has only been used once this year. we concede that this is a first world problem.

3. playing in the water
3(a). the beach - every weekend seems so jammed with other stuff, there’s no time for an old fashioned tanning session.
3(b). swimming pools - and the people-watching surrounding them. ms. ulty might have to head up to her grandma’s this weekend for a chlorine fix.
3(c). see (2) - water-based recreation is usually a prereq for wearing and use of terrycloth.

4. good news from the tour
4(a) no more doping people. we cant handle it.
4(b) remember lance? he was so dreamy…

5. happy hour
can there ever be enough? we think not. so in honor of ms. ulty moving to the east coast and tbrizzles birthday and just never having enough happy hour were gonna do something next friday. put it in your outlook.

happy friday

(oh and by the way… how on time are we with the poll about li-lo? she is totally back in treatment by labor day!)

last night was a great night for beach. lots of people came out which was very nice indeed. also it was tigers birthday and the weather was perfect. i mean perfect. the only issue was that herds… troops… armies of people who used our beach field as a path to the sidewalk. no matter that we asked them to go around the cones, or that dr. liz had to pick a child up at one point and carry her to the sideline to avoid being run over, or that we were all running at high speeds… sigh. we needed sidelines last night for the first time. definitely.

highlights… lyrica skied colb. no joke. ripped the disc right out of the air in front of him even though hes like a foot taller than her. all the guys who play for duffy’s dodge ball team are now in love with her. mr. cooper was not wearing underwear. hence the post title in which ms. ulty gave him the nfl butt pat and got more than she bargained for. tbrizzle and the boss both had some sick nasty layouts. at the top is a picture of hellyer (who is the total package) and lyrica (who runs so much liz and i are convinced she is, in fact, a cyborg of some kind) facing off nemesis style.

tonight is the casual ultimate birthday party as you already know. its gonna be bananas so come early if you want some of the free beer. and to fully celebrate this first year of the blog we figured we better throwback to our first post. thanks to tbr we really brought our leisure time into focus in the last year. and tonight will be no exception. cant wait to see you all!

today is our one year blog birthday! its difficult to believe we’ve been doing this for an entire revolution around the sun but here we are. it wouldnt have been possible without you. you are the wind beneath our wings.

if you didnt already know from runnning into one of us, a week from tonight at high dive (chicago and damen) from 6-9 we are throwing a happy hour birthday party. the first 50 pbr’s are on casual ultimate. after that 3$ drafts. we even got buttons made to honor the occasion. so bring friends and come help us celebrate a year of shennanigans. all week well be posting links to our favorite throwback posts in the last year so today we’ll start with the very first post to see where it all started.

last night on the eve of our anniversary we went out and saw lots of our favorite people. we stopped at beach and ran into most of team ‘close your eyes’ in addition to baker, vijay, and of course the viking. it was a lovley night for ultimate except for the 50 mph winds and some stray dodgeball hussies who wouldnt get off of our field. the cu staff left a bit early to beat the rain, which never came.

when we ran into the chifggers, oren dubbed the ‘big storm’ the ‘new cicada’ since it was talked about much but never happened. we toasted all our bike friends with free beer at weegee’s one year bday party. coincidence that their bday is one day before ours? we didnt think so either. all us geminis stick together. friendhugger spilled beer all over miss casual’s blinged out feet before we retired to streetside for burgers and champagne. here he is looking innocent. thats how we roll. a year later and still more to come…

the people were fun, the food was veggie, the birthday was ultimate. the c.u. staff plus out-of-town reinforcements plus zibsters and agatha celebrated ms. ulty’s b-day (21, finally!) with a chic dinner at the green zebra, followed by drinks at fulton lounge and the new fulton lounge (what was that place’s name? not sure it was filled with loud music and crazies) before realizing we weren’t meant for that kind of class and finished things off with a pbr at gold star. green zebra was delish, but we were surprised by the repetition of certain ingredients throughout the tasting menu (lots of asparagus, fennel). we were also hungry about two hours after dinner because of the total lack of protein - real vegetarians couldn’t eat that way. we also think they could spruce up their decor a bit - too much grey. all in all though, good times and it’s fun getting dressed up every once in a while.

that was only the start of the b-day weekend, though, as ms. ulty and bacers hit up the batting cages on saturday afternoon and won exciting prizes (bouncy balls, paddleboards) at skee-ball. we ran into mel; actually she was something like the sixth person we’d run into in 24 hours, with schultzie, sfolk, ruth, liz and even old family friends out and about in the double deuce. of course we also saw pirates of the caribbean on friday - good, go see it, but watch the 2nd one on video first. no the out-of-towners are gone and we’re back to the usual. it’s sad, but we’ll see everyone again soon, and bacers had to go take care of her kitties.

and speaking of our usual antics: happy hour, a.k.a. balloon time! we’re thinking of doing a regular balloon time this friday, but put *friday june 15* on your calendar: it’s the blog’s 1-year birthday and we’re having a party at the high dive on chicago near damen. it’ll be at happy hour time, of course (6-9), and we’re buying the first 50 beers for our friends and then it’s $3 drafts from there on out. everyone’s invited. be there or be in the spirit division.

our post title is courtesy of ben friendhugger…it’s hard to explain, especially on a family-oriented blog such as this.

where to begin? tuesday night: we forgot how much fun it is to hang out at chez tbrizzle, now chez tbrizzle-casual. if you haven’t seen it yet the apt. looks awesome; who knew lucite lamps that cost more than rent go well with cogs and pistons found in old hardware stores? the c.u. stay, the (b)r’s, j dot and ms. mmms all shared a delicious meal while watching the bulls bite it; these pistons don’t look good with our bulls.

Wednesday was happy hour at the peach pit with some new customers. we forgot how good that pizza is. we were also surprised to see a new beverage on the menu: malt liquor. it’s actually quite good, and comes in a paper bag. it’s about time a classy microbrewery gave o.e. a run for its money. order the dolomite next time you’re in there - we think it would go well with the bbq chicken pizza. there’s a chance we’ll be back in there to test that theory before the weekend is up.

we’re not sure if it was the dolomite or the cubs win that went to everyone’s heads, but there was quite a bit of storytelling. two stories tied for weirdest, and only one of them is appropriate to be put into words. we’re saving el presidente’s story about pee pants and the shedd aquarium for tomorrow. morgan’s story could best be titled, “peanut butter and ladies,” and is the tale of one man’s desperate attempt to entertain himself with….perhaps we should call the story, “i love crepes,” because there were actually no ladies involved. it can’t be put into words, but let’s just say it’s related to today’s title and is also the name of the collegehumor.com summer softball team. speaking of which, if bryan plays his cards right we’ll get him one of these t-shirts to wear while blogging.

dinner was followed by a skidding lesson - my. ulty can go two and a half feet, so watch out boys. she’s hoping that learning every bike trick in the book will mask the fact that she still can’t do a track stand.

this afternoon ms. ulty and el presidente are heading to the cubs game, then booking it to beach at 6. be there or be square - word on the street is tbrizzle may be back on with casual ultimate. we’re not sure where this leaves the blog, but it does mean miss casual only had to lug cones to work today.

this weekend was so much fun. thank heaven for sunshine and blue skies. we thought the summer of 2006 was the best it can get, but 2007 is shaping up to be fantastic.

friday night worlds collided at happy hour (hereafter to be known as h60), where bike and ultimate friends drank beer and discussed the land ethic in harmony. everyone was laughing, having fun and the bartender even poured the c.u. staff a couple of beers on the house, but a shadow was cast over the evening when we learned of a death in the family. The death of ameri-can, that is. Lemmings has *stopped serving American beer*. You heard it here first. The replacement is milwaukee’s best. Replacing American with the beast is like replacing ultimate with freestyle. If freestyle tasted like water and hated democracy, that is.

saturday was spring league, and we went 1-1. we’re still not sure what’s up with teamocil; even a saturday night viewing of “switch hitter,” our inspiration, didn’t provide any usable strategy tips. (other than sending miss casual to work for the competition for a week.) regardless of a frustrating loss, we had a ton of fun. rory showed up, finally, and turned out to be at least six inches taller than you might think at first look. baker and casual did their best chicken dance impressions; we’ll see if we can get the video up later. in the end, though, miss casual’s threat of “no burritos for losers” didn’t inspire the masses in that first game, although we rallied for the second. the c.u. staff, dp and hendude still went for burritos after the game, though. note: lemming’s may be out of american, but the margaritas at chipotle aren’t half bad. new h60 venue?

by nighttime we were too pooped from daytime fun to do anything crazy, so it was packing and a.d. for old time’s sake. it’s sad that c.u. HQ will no longer be the 1200-1400 blocks of paulina, but miss casual’s in a better place. the set-up at the former br ranch (the k-br ranch now?) is awesome, and slider’s already learning to love hip hop. miss casual already taught him to bark ‘wamp wamp’.

sunday morning was moving and brunching, respectively. miss casual cleared out the last of her household goods while ms. ulty brunched with bike friendlies. you wouldn’t think it, but oval waffles are actually better than round ones; maybe because they hold so much fruit and syrup. after brunch, while casual and tbrizzle were setting up the new place, ms. ulty peeled off ot spend the afternoon at the velodrome in northbrook. it was *awesome*. it’s like a rollercoaster you make yourself. there’s a very small chance ms. ulty might even start a new blog, www.seriouscycling.com. if you see her in a bike shop considering the purchase of spandex anything, please try to stop her. here’s a picture of two speedracers going faster than pegasi.

some briefcase peeps and the usual beach suspects played at north ave. sunday afternoon, although c.u. missed out. it was a tough call, but guiding movers and going to the track won out. this is only just the beginning of summer; there will be plenty of days wash the sand out of our toes in the coming months.

so wednesday night (the new thursday) found the cu staff antsy and ready to explore a new and exciting location. and by location i mean bar. so we went to cleos for pizza and grilled cheese because ms. ulty had never been there and then retired after dinner to high dive, which you might remember from such posts as ‘revenge of happy hour : who will survive?’.

miss casual, who we all know works in a very high design snooty pants architecture firm, was explaining to ms. ultimate the intricacies of the design process in the firm. ‘this kid who sits across from me was playing with jenga blocks at his desk all day because he like their proportion’. ahem. ms. ultimate suggested knocking them all off his desk and screaming ‘jenga!%^@’ in his face. sad but true revelations from the world of the pro-dejiners. so we played our own jenga with ashtrays and candals much to the dismay of the bartender.

and speaking of pro-dejiners check out these people at the milan furniture show. seriously. look at that guy. ugh ’shudders’. miss casual decided she will become this girl by getting a severe haircut and straightening, continuing her all black rampage in wardrobe, adopting an austrian accent and going by the name ‘jesika taunhaus’.

also discussed was the fact that when working overtime at the office the people with kids always have an out. like ‘i havent seen my kids in days’ blah blah blah. hey buddy…i have a kid too. its called the blog. and i havent posted in days so lets not all cry about our life stories. just because you chose to procreate and we chose a loftier goal, total internet domination, doesnt mean that your problems are any worse than ours. so can it.

on this dreary friday morning miss casual is giggling about our weekday antics and wondering how ms. ultimate’s night went last night watching some track bike race at friendhugger’s and then celebrating with aaron for his big bday. also we are looking forward to spring league tomorrow am and an epic happy hour tonight in honor of ms. ultimate’s last week at work. get on the party train people. you know where its headed. the land of ameri-CANS and shennani-gans, lemmings. hope you all come out. holler at us.

xoxo
miss casual

p.s. hey rob why did you move to mke from chicago again?

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.

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.

what a weekend. friday night we started out at handlebar with a paulina sub-committee meeting. dp, liz and the cu staff talked weekend strategy over samosas and alpha king. we were joined by other vips and discussed future party themes such as ‘the rubix cube’ and the ‘2007 is like a tuxedo t-shirt’ before settling on turtle races in two weeks. ms. ultimate noticed a mailbox with the name ‘p. frisbey’ on it so we left them our card assuming their first name is ‘play’. before leaving for lemmings we made friends with people we already knew at the bar through cookies and bicycles. the guys at boulevard bikes are the best. they didnt even need the cookies cause theyre already so sweet. also we think in ms. ultimate’s future senate run ‘peace through cookies’ could be a powerful foreign policy.

but her main campaign slogan, ‘i motherf%^king love this country’ was born of ameri-cans at our next stop, lemmings. ahhh lemmings. packed though it was it always brings the best crowd and beer that tastes like freedom. we stood at the bar next to some people we’d end up going to the bulls game with the next night strangely enough. the cu staff discussed the attendees later and realized that we had a perfect storm of a guestlist… all our favorite regulars plus some new people to keep it interesting. ms. ulty’s cool uncle and mac (an old nemesis cohort of dr. welsh) turned out. and the professor and vusi showed up just in time to debate the winning potential of bears vs. snakes with miss casual, the boss and a very unfriendly ‘young’ lady. our conclusion? snakes by two.

it was a winning weekend in many regards… the bears, lots of friends old and new and cookie distribution seem to be the major themes. we laughed, we cried, it was better than ‘cats’. in conclusion miss casual has to print a retraction of a previous comment regarding payton manning and if you want to know about the post title you’ll have to ask the staff or the boss since it is not b-rated (safe for blogs).

well maybe we are living up to our reputation casue last night got a little out of hand. going out with architects on school nights is always dangerous but when rob shows up things escalate quickly.

we made some new friends at rodan first. heres ms. ultimate trying to convince one of them to make us a shot luge for our new years party. eventually he agreed. and by ‘agreed’ i mean relented after us asking a million times just to get us out of his face. but thats what pro-dejiners do isnt it? make stuff? wed have to ask rob since hes the pro-dejiner. heres a holaroid he took of the cu staff later on in the evening when the group dwindled down to just the three of us and we changed location. i think this is right before we drunk dialed bjorn and after we invited the bartender to new years but i cant be sure.

sometime saturday the cu staff realized our weekends have a pattern. friday night happy hour turns into happy 6 opr 7 hours and then saturday night is ice cream and movies at headquarters so that sunday we can shop/write personal statements with a clear head. our wicker park weekends are still being tweaked of course but this weekend our system seemed to be firing on all cylinders.

friday night pre-happy hour mike d. and the cu ladies went by tbrizzles office for show and tell and some ping pong spectating. then it was off to lemmings to join pfil and bjorn for ameriCANs. jess and schultz joined us along with lauren, here holding it down pregnant lady style with a cold beer (non-alcoholic of course). hendude made an appearance to represent the now-defunct WPDT. then dinner at silver cloud had tim and katie plus vijay and carlo joining us for smor’tinis. cbr had to pay for ms. ulty’s chicken pot pie becuase he bet against her finishing it. silly carlo. we play to win.

here’s a staged pic of miss casual and vijay titled ‘reuinited and it feels so good’ taken by our master photographer pfil. the story we are acting out is that we were in love and then vijay went to iraq and we lost touch and when he came back we ran into each other ice skating and miss casual fell when her skate broke and he stopped to help her fix it. what a night.

after refusing to wait in line at map room (who put that place on metromix?) we ended up at dannys for some pbr before calling it a night. then saturday it was dane cook and cookies and cream on paulina. next time someone sneezes, go with the atheist response: ‘nothing happens when you die.’

right now we are chez br hoping miss casual’s lasagna is as good as it is heavy. well keep you posted natch. happy monday.

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…

no that’s not lindsey lohan and paris hilton on the way to the grocery store. its casual ultimate on the way to fall league saturday morning. with a tennis skirt, leggings, and carlo’s sweatshirt, and ea’s cu hat, prada sunglasses, and valour pants respectively, we set out for chilly fall ultimate. we had a devastating loss to rob and his syndicate but played some very casual ultimate and won our second game of the morning. ms. ulty cheered the public news team on our pledge drive with a cry of ‘next d gets a canvas tote bag.’ even though miss casual broke every fingernail she had it was lots of fun and rick buying us hot chocolate capped off the afternoon just right.

friday night was spent at happy hour with cbr, pfil, bjorn, and ‘where’s my michael’ denardis. we were exchanging parent stories when mike d. made the mistake of telling us about a time when his mom smoked pot with his brother, got paranoid about the baby of the family being in trouble, and ran into a screen door yelling ‘where’s my micheal?’ and we know where he was friday. he was putting hanson on the jukebox at the chipp inn.

the diverse (read: creepy) crowd loved our punishing 80’s string of song selections, from mariah carey to hanson to n’sync. who knew bjorn could sing all the words to an n’sync song? cu is considering forming a boy band which we could manage and now we have a lead vocalist. here’s our future star with lucas in his halloween costume at treem and aaron’s. notice the remarkable hair style similarity.

what could end such a blissful weekend? the ambrosia of brisket at RWIP last night. ea was in attendance which is always a special added bonus and he brought us some rubber lance type cu bracelets. youll have to work for them, but maybe theyll get you a pass to skip in line for the wave pool at great wolf this year. bryan’s cooking was magic and another in a series of marriage proposals from miss casual almost followed the revelation that there was indeed cookie dough in the brownies somehow.

we know you all missed the CRAFT club and since we have so many reasons to celebrate this week we are bringing it back at the chipp inn friday afterwork. the post happy hour after hours late night post party will be hosted by treem and aaron who you might remember from such posts as ‘miss casual gets assaulted times deux’ and ‘que buena! mas mojitos!’

last night with the afterglow of a nationals bid in her eyes, ms. ulty came by and we went out with treem and aaron to toast mr. briefcase and the rest of chicago ultimate. we realized that chipp inn, which is located at the corner of happiness and awesometown, was the perfect spot for happy hour, with its schizophrenic jukebox, golden tee, and cheap beer. if you go to google maps and cant find this intersection, try heading up honorary harriett levitt de la rosa blvd. then when you see the wobbly senior citizen crossing sign you’re there. and in the immortal words of fitty cent, you can find us in the club. or in this case the chipp inn. friday. 530-6 ish. be there or… we’ll be talking about you. or something.

also we are actively looking for a logo for casual ultimate. and by ‘actively looking’ i mean ‘pestering tbrizzle every other day or so with some kind of guilt ridden email’. but hey our other casual brothers and sisters may have mad graphic skillz so if you have an idea holler… or ‘jauler’. it might be a soft j.

when this is where your night ends you know it was good. we drank pfil under the table…or at least he got sleepy and tried to take a nap under the coffee table on paulina sometime around 230am. or maybe this is him getting ready to play golf on saturday. or maybe he just wanted to ensure his appearance on the blog. whatever is going on here, this is the end of our casual friday happy hour so lets work back to where it all started shall we?

the vip after hours party landed pfil, adam, and the c.u. staff on paulina with a bottle of veuve and a frozen pizza. big pimpin. before that we went to high dive on chicago with carlo ‘the sprinkles on our cupcake’ ruth and met up with pfil’s brother who looks just like pfil in profile. we also were hanging out with tara, a friend of adam’s who looks so much like me our friends kept getting us mixed up all night.

before that we had a crazy turnout at black beetle. our new friend bill came out as did charlie, our friend from the first c.u. happy hour. but that was really just the beginning. there was a joke on paul when ms. ultimate ordered us all shots and got one full of water for lauren. pregnant ladies taking shots…represent.

then there was pfil and vijay throwing us the c.u. which we deeply appreciated and totally not acting gay at all. mike d. requested a song on the jukebox that never seemed to come on and left for date night without telling me what it was. (ahem…i expect a comment from you here with the verdict on redlight and the name of the song.)

thor showed up looking like the power lawyer that he is, dressed to kill. and since ms. ultimate was held up getting casual, the night began with mike d. (who seems to think happy hour starts at 4pm) and i holdin it down and getting a live demo of pfil’s crazy throw to dp from wednesday at summer league. holler.

so thanks to everyone who came out. hopefully you had as much fun as pfil obviously did. we’ll see you all soon and it will involve pfil’s new roof deck, a kiddie pool, a giant tv, and lime popsicles.

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

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.

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.