casual ultimate » CUSL and league play

holy moly i really don’t recall the last time i was this sore. yesterday was my first day at spring league and today.. i can feel it. biking up there felt pretty good and actually playing was a lot of fun except that im so rusty and the fields were essentially a large swamp. seriously. ive never seen anything like it. there was one moment when i was trying to change directions and my cleet stuck in the ankle deep freezing mud and my foot started to pull out of my shoe altogether and i remember thinking ‘am i doing this? what in the hell are we doing out here?’ i thought our first field was rough with a few mucky patches and a couple pools of standing water but our second game? there was no grass to speak of except right on the sideline. thats brown bear there in the foreground taking a break from the mud bowl.

so i could complain a lot of things… from my idiotic choice to bike up to schiller to the field conditions to playing savage after not running for 6 months… but honestly it was a lot of fun. my team ‘and 1′ is a great team and miss casual is psyched to be a part of this squad of ballers. also after watching some and 1 videos and actually figuring out what ‘and 1′ is and what the nicknames are all about… i’d like to request a nickname revision. can i be hot sauce? that guy is bananas.

the photos courtesy of the future mr. casual who was nice enough to explain ‘and 1′ and its implications after standing in the cold watching us for like 3 hours.

in closing id like to extend an extra special guilt trip to team paulina since it sounds like they have some big news of their own that they have yet to share with the blogosphere. good to see you guys. now blog already.

well fall league came to a close this weekend with the ledonnes (shakes fist) winning again. public news team did well in the tournament though winning our first game and then losing in the semis. im no sports strategist but im just gonna guess that it had to do with the round of walking beer schtick our team played on the break. drinking 4 beers didnt help our performance? go figure. i think it also added a bit to the hostility level in our semi game. the best part of the day was cheng coming by. her team, the dreaded syndicate, got knocked out by team ledonne in the first round. i asked how the game went and she pointed at her cup and said ‘well im drinking a bloody mary so you can guess we lost.’ as i looked across the field at my teammates slamming beers and walking very fast i thought ‘thats why cheng is a champion and we will nearly get into fist fights over bogus line calls in the next round.’

still a very fun day overall. hopefully a team dinner will happen this time as there needs to be more togetherness in the off season. yall are gonna need to drag me off the couch so that tbrizzle and slider and miss casual dont collectively weigh in at 476 lbs in the spring. i mean law $ order mini marathons are great and so is heroes and 30 rock but tv cant be your whole life. (can it?)

on another note… marc jacobs and bcbg are opening on damen right near the old vessel office. looks like miss casual and ms. ultimate will be shopping in beverly hills 60622 at thanksgiving. bucktown is the new soho? discuss.

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

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.

the first competitive summer league tourny went down in history with bill finn’s team beating team pizza pizza beer in crushing final on saturday. it was a long day (3 pool play games then semis and finals) and hot as blazes but the games were fun and mr. baker deserves accolades for the season and tournament.

unfortunately russel’s team had to forfeit their game after he drove miss casual all the way out to naperville. so he took off into the air conditioned truck just as pizza pizza beer finished up their first victorious game against the benjamin team. second game was bill finns team and ppb lost a tough fight in this game. last game ppb squeaked out a win against professor berg’s team. so being the 2 seed in our pool put ppb in the semis against the clark team.

we had expected to face the 1 seed from the other pool, a team with many cu friends on it lead by jake cooper. there was some drama in the pool play however which left three teams going 2-1 and cooper’s team being eliminated from afternoon play by point differential.

ppb won their semi game with lots of time to sit in the shade and wait for finns team to battle out a long game against bakers team. both teams were playing hard and trading points but eventually bakers team lost out and we faced our earlier opponents in the final. we played a great first half and were up 7-6 but the second half was all theirs and they beat us by 4 points i think too be the first competitve league summer champs.

highlights included : lyrica handblocking the s%!t out of bill finn himself in the final game and then scoring for pizza pizza beer which gave brown bear material against his new roommate for the rest of his natural life. a great blob tag game with team pizza pizza beer as a warm up for the semis. rick bollinger and joe little being absolutely everywhere at once. and bk showing up in time for semis with tons of cold stuff and those spooky demon eye contacts.

miss casual was too wiped out to enjoy the post tournament festivities at rwip and brown bear’s but it was a great time and hopefully someone will post some comments about the after parties.

on a last note cu will dearly miss two of our friends lyrica and tiger who are taking off for the east coast very shortly. you guys are the bee’s knees. send us posts from the east coast.

last night team pizza pizza beer, formerly known as team close your eyes, staged a masterful win against our former nemesis, team 7. we’re sure baker would say “they only lost because i wasn’t there,” but really we know he’s too scared of the c.u. staff’s tight game to play on the same field. you could tell it was a competitive league game because there were a lot of picks called, one potentially spiteful travel, and thor and goff ganged up on one of the opposing players at the end of the game. not sure what that was about, but we won and that’s all that matters in this league. our cameras were broken/forgotten at home, so here’s stock footage of our captain looking like the fearless leader he is.

we’d played this team before (seems to be a league theme this year) and it had been a tough and exciting game. thus we were worried when we saw the additions of mel, of teamocil fame, and dr. jason to their sideline. fortunately for us, paul was a long scoring machine on h.o.t. throws; caleb showed his dad who’s the boss; and bradley lived up to his new nickname of ‘b train’ by steamrolling several members of the opposing team in addition to our very own miss c. both teams went on scoring runs during the game, but we pulled it out, inspired in no small part by our halftime chant of “pizza pizza beer.” we figured that if we put our noses to the grindstone to finish the game fast we’d be the first team at piece. and we were right.

we laid claim to a of third of the pit at piece, positioning ourselves for optimal pizza acquisition once the pies came out of the oven. we got some rude glares and comments from other players, but guess what: this is competitive league. you can get a table and talk to a waitress if you want a guaranteed dinner. a couple burned fingers and a stack of greasy napkins later and we were stuffed and sleepy.

miss casual went home, and ms. ulty stayed around just long enough to learn that matt anderson will be moving to south bend tomorrow to start a new gig as a lawyer - sad that you’re leaving, but congrats! is everyone going? lyrica, tiger, eventually thor and liz - who’s next? it seemed like there were a lot of young and unrecognizable faces at the peach pit last night. sunrise, sunset. clearly there’s only one rock of stability and honor you can count on at times like this: rick russell. *vote rick russell for cusl board now!* woo hoo!

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.

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.

today’s post title comes from one of chicago’s finest, who was overheard on his bike-mounted radio on our sideline at summer league. even we admit that some things are more important than ultimate. namely, missing children.

last night team ‘close your eyes’ had a crushing 12-15 defeat vs. team ‘baker i can’t believe you allowed our opposing team to form despite the new player rating rules’. it was a great game, though, and playing with all these fun people is beginning to make ms. ulty very sad about leaving chicago at the end of the summer. everyone on team close your eyes had hot plays, and billy only yelled “c’mon! are you kidding me?!’ at one foul call. we probably should have done a better job baiting him. here’s lyrica finishing up one of the coop’s fudgesicles; ask jake why a medical supply company sent him haribo gummy bears instead of enzymes. funny story. also ask about their next family vacation.

last night was also our experiment biking to and from wash park - we’ll be doing it from now on. what a fun ride: we got warmed up and energized to play on the way there, and it was a relaxing and traffic-free way to get home in the evening. at about 25 miles roundtrip, it’s also a nice way to put miles on our majestic steeds. we talked tun into escorting us all the way back to piece, and a chifg’er-turned-cusl’er buddy came as far as the loop. we ran into j.simon from chifg downtown, and he came to piece for a pint.

piece was…piece, of course. the only drawback to that bike ride is there’s no chance of us getting any pizza. luckily we scored some of the jacobs pie and settled in to catch up with friends. professor berg was wearing a necklace he claims to have “found” today during his summer relocation from the ‘burbs to chicago proper, but in fact it was purchased last weekend at a dave matthews band/hootie and the blowfish inventory sale. this is why his students love him.

all this talk of summer league of course means that today’s throwback post has to be dial m for passionfruit. mostly because it features one of the top three baker pics.

last night was the beginning of chicago summer league and was the first night ever of competitive league for cusl. if you want to read or comment about the ups and downs of this system check out the forum, but id like to congratulate mr. baker and the cusl people cause last night was bananas. maybe its just because we have an overabundance of fun people on our team, or the fact that we won in spite of the rain, or that fact that we got to piece so early there was tons of pizza and no fighting… but summer league is looking good.

you might already know some of the lovely people on our team. bk, from such accomplishments as he cooks a mean brisquet, and joe little, from such quotes as ‘daybreak… chicago’. rachel from such posts as ‘rachel saves our lazy butts at fall league’ or lyrica from such skills as ’shes the best lady with a plastic disc in this city’, and tiger from such feats as ‘he had to guard kolb who’s a foot taller than him and still brought the pain at beach’. or even thor and liz, who youll recognize from ‘they won summer league last year and are the coolest couple ever.’

ive already warned the team that if they dont want to be on the internets they best come up with a new team to play for so its on. ill be passing out waivers next week. ms. ultimate missed our first game but we won in her honor. due to a name game played at the half with our eyes closed im dubbing the team ‘close your eyes’ until we think of something better.

cant wait for next week already.

well this weekend was quite a marathon of frisbee and beer so we need to break it down into three pieces. hence the post title courtesy of the king of r&b, kels. (when is that new album dropping anyway?)

the show

baker had told us very directly that we were not allowed to get crunk the night before the tournament so friday night the cu staff prepped for the spring league tourny by hanging with the ladies of cnd in the double deuce and neglecting bike tricks in favor of dinner and lively conversation. jessi’s newly finished bike is so pretty it makes unicorns jealous. then saturday am it was road trip dance party with dp and liz and the cu staff. all of team paulina was singing my humps by 830am. the first game for teamocil was a close one which we lost by a single point inspite of heroic leaps by rory and rob. so into the loser brakcet we went to face off against our own it dept. and his partner in crime ms. angela. baker tried to psych us up by performing some sommersaults on the sideline and yelling and jumping a lot but to no avail.

thats when the beer came out.
and then it was on to our last game which we won long after everyone stopped caring. our only sustenance was old style and pizza that tasted like cardboard. it was hot and we were tired. however in spite of all the hardships and the fact that we are the most underperforming team in cusl history, we had more fun playing with teamocil than we deemed possible. funnest. team. ever. we watched the finals in which there was briefcase on briefcase action, mr. phillips vs. the volkmans (or team earmuffs as we like to call them). team ledonne took it to the house and won spring league again. nice work people. must be in the dna.

our team’s spirit award went to mel (seen above avec beach towel even thought she ditched us later on) and the league spirit award went to teamocil although it was totally unmentioned and apparently means nothing at all. our cu spirit award goes to vijay and his bumble bee shorts and new moustache, seen here flexing for the camera. on the way home listening to my humps again, the part about mixing ‘your milk with my cocoa puffs’ came on and all that could be said was ‘im not sure what a cocoa puff is, but ill bet ive seen vijays.’

the after party

after being comatose and icing the heck out of various body parts we lost our ride to the lee-martins wedding celebration. congratulations to you two. you are the best and most fun couple ever and were sure you have many more years of love and happiness and winning summer league together. we ran into some people coming from oak park at twisted spoke. the spring league party ended up being very nice. beautiful night out. great location. fun crowd. we spent the evening chatting with the coopers and baker and rob. lets just say middle names were changed in leaglly binding contracts and im getting a package in the mail which i am not allowed to open at work. the real insanity began after miss casual went home to dreamland so im gonna let ms. ulty explain since she brought her a-game to the hotel lobby portion of the evening.

the hotel lobby

…that two-hour dinnertime nap must have done the trick, because after closing down the party at twisted spoke ms. ulty followed rob, jake and much of the spring league committee (sans baker) to carol’s for some country style dancing. technically we dragged jake, by dismantling his bike and putting it in sparks’ car before he knew what was happening. we’re tricky that way. man carol’s is fun. we even ran into one of ms. ulty’s former neighbors; we couldn’t be friends because our parents were feuding like the hatfields and mccoys, and now whenever we run into eachother it’s some sort of awkward hello. but what’s more awkward is when rob and jake start yelling her name in a bar. repeatedly. there was dancing, pitcher beer drinking and even sleeping on tables. not sure whose idea it was to stay until the 5 am close (probably the friend of the blog who wished to remain nameless), but it almost killed poor devin/david. next it was an ill-advised trip to the burrito joint next door and then over to chalet sparks for a sleepover party. thank goodness sober was driving - you’re the best, not sure if we told you that enough on sunday morning. i’m still not so sure how i feel about going to sleep when the sun is coming up and the birds are chirping, but it couldn’t have been with a better group of kids (unless miss casual had stayed awake, of course).

this might be my new favorite picture of ye olde beache ultimatee, even though it’s just the viking and miss casual waiting for everyone else to showe uppe. the cold weather didn’t keep the faithfuls away, and we had five-in-five almost all night. a fun time was had by all, with baker and tun showing up to everyone’s surprise. it took a while to get tun to take off his bike helmet and shoes, but he eventually joined the game. our team was the c.u. staff, baker, tun and sally, so other than sally it was good warmup for the tourney this weekend. way to squeeze in that extra practice, teamocil. baker, we promise to be good girls and not go out tonight (other than chicks n’ drinks, which is wholesome fun and games) so we’ll be ready to rock tomorrow morning, 9:00 am sharp.

the c.u. staff ducked out of beach early discuss 1st birthday party plans with the manager at lemmings. he told us something lame, like we’d get a quarter off of drinks for our friends, but we’re going to bargain with them until everyone drinks for free. or, for a dollar off drafts. ms. ulty is going to put together a posterboard matrix of bars at which to hold this party, then we’re going to do the hard work of visiting each one and weighing the pros and cons. we might have to visit some of them more than once just to be sure. quenchers, the green eye, cleos II and high dive are all on the docket.

after dinner at pennys (of course), ms. ulty persuaded miss casual to come to tricks n’ drinks by using the kryptonite-like powers of champagne: casual can’t resist it no matter how hard she tries. it’s good she came though, because her skids are dead on and we’re about ready to have a ladies skid comp. we finally met andrew, the owner of the bike baby that our bikes would make, last night at Tn’d. i know that doesn’t make much sense, but luckily we have this pic to illustrate [photo credit: morgan]. ms. ulty got the very basics of a bunny hop down and we’ll be practicing all this and more at chicks n’ drinks tonight, top secret location, etc. tricks are fun, we’re getting good at them; soon enough we’ll be able to do the two backwards circles and 720 front wheel spin that steve may or may not be able to do, we haven’t seen the proof yet. speaking of steves, work steve stopped by with the fiance while walking their pup. remember this at your desk today, steve: the only thing better than working any good job is working no job at all.

sure it was 7 on 5, but at least mr. serious showed up this time. he and his band of illinois brothers couldn’t throw a cup strong enough to contain teamocil’s desire to win that game. too bad not a single woman on their team felt like playing ultimate on the most beautiful day of spring league. props to the one lady they had, who was speedy and savage. arguably the turning point in the game was mr. serious’s soul-crushing turnover in front of his endzone, which was immediately followed by a swing and a huck to ms. ulty for the score. congrats to team teamocil on our two wins (isn’t it fun to win?). this is our fearless leader doing a victory dance, thinly disguised as g.o.b.’s chicken dance [stock footage]. drink lots of water and visualize success for the tourney this weekend - if we don’t win spring league we’re nothing! thanks to our #1 fan for watching both games and going on a beer run - we’re nominating you for the spirit award.

thank goodness for vitamin i, or else miss casual and ms. ulty might have missed all the action saturday morning. both ladies were crazy sore from the inaugural meeting of chicks n’ drinks, whereby ladies with shiny bikes practice their tricks away from the boys in an undisclosed location. here are a couple pics of the members of team unicorn practicing their skids. next friday, everyone on the team will receive a self-destructing notice of location and tricks to be practiced 90 minutes before meeting time. miss casual informs ms. ulty that holding a cloth soaked in white vinegar to a bruise “sucks the bruise out” - doctors, any truth to this? because we’ll try anything at this point to be able to wear shorts again.

sunday was a day for culture and legal education. after calling their respective moms, the c.u. staff brunched it up at toast and then rode to the art institute to catch the last day of the cezanne to picasso exhibit. good show, but approx. 300,000 mom-and-child pairings had the same idea and it was a little crowded. given their bike- and ultimate-induced injuries, we went back to home base to relax on the couch for a bit. “a bit” turned into “seven straight episodes of law $ order” and one plate of nachos and a frozen pizza later it was time to call it a night. too bad we couldn’t make it to beach, but we were dying. oh, and ladies, there’s a pair of hot pink pedal cages on the market if you’re interested.

I wish this could be some kind of epic post about cinco de mayo hijinx and the first weekend of the rest of ms. ulty’s life, but the fact of the matter is that the biggest accomplishment of the weekend was a 4-hour nap on Saturday afternoon.

Friday was ms. ulty’s last day of work, and the ladies and gents of her workplace made sure it was a night to remember. or forget, depending on how you look at it. toasts were given with bottles and bottles of veuve at bin 36, and louise convinced some of the youngins to club it up rusky style after cocktails and dinner. ms. ulty was rather moved by the may day immigrant rights march, but louise taught her how some of the p.y.t.’s of eastern europe earn their citizenship solo. upon seeing one of our inebriated coworkers getting his groove on with a beautiful and scantily clad young lady, she observed, “she took one look at him and said, that’s my greencard.” god bless america. narwhal, we need to go dancing again soon when i’m not carrying a vase of flowers.

Saturday was spring league, of course. it felt like we played well - seemed like mel was open all day, of course rory was catching (almost) everything, hendude had some nice weaving once he and treemboat felt like showing up, miss casual made a sweet trailing edge catch in the endzone - but still, losses. it’s getting a bit frustrating, but at least we have fun, right? right? it’s been decided that we’re going to have the most fun team BBQ in the league, to be hosted by liz sometime in the next couple of weeks. details on that to follow.

the c.u. staff had lunch at kumas; it must have been the burgers that put us in comas (which sounds like kumas…coincidence?). soooo good; eating all the beef on their menu clearly has to be a summer goal. saturday afternoon was ms. ulty’s aforementioned 4-hour nap. miss casual, against all odds, stayed awake and even had dinner at the new cleos with the russells, TBR and julio. unfortunately even a restful afternoon didn’t give us the steam needed to get the most out of otherandy and baker’s mayo5 par-tay. luckily andy represented for teamocil, as evidenced by his expertise with the pinata. lesson learned saturday night: adults don’t get enough smarties and sweetarts.

sunday was dp’s surprise b-day party, which turned out to be not such a surprise. still, good times were had by all. their yard has a grassy area that is *perfect* for bags, so that’s where you’ll find us between frisbee games and bike rides.

that’s about it. let’s get our toss on this evening, it’s perfect outside.

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?

im dedicating today’s post to that guy rob because of his outstanding achievements in disregard for health, the laws of chicago, and the laws of physics and his continuing excellence in the field of troublemaking. i believe he, or colonel sanders, said it best when he said ‘im too drunk to taste this chicken.’

last night was no exception. turns out rob has siblings. and they are also awesome. his brother and rob talked miss casual into after work antics at the tasting room which wasnt difficult because it is one of her favorite locations. after the second bottle of champagne things degraded quickly. its not worth recounting all the details but robs brother told out waitress she had nice eyes while we contemplated his upcoming weekend driving ferraris and jumping out of airplanes in san diego. clearly we need a guest post. long after miss casual peeled off to stop by tricks and drinks the mayhem continued it seems because she got a txt at 730 from rob leaving his brothers house. not a good sign for a happy well rested friday.

ms. ultimate was all tuckered out so she didnt come join the fun because as she said ‘we all know robs goign to wake up four months from now in milwaukee, realize he made a huge mistake, and be back here within 6 months.’ so true.

lastly in some other business (not the kind liz deals with at work) the cu staff will both be out of town this weekend so teamocil will need baker and rob to step up to the winning plate and hit us a home run in our absence. also this week miss casual is moving off of paulina. sad to leave but she is the new BR as she will take cbr’s spot in tbrizzles apartment. at left is a picture of casual friday at tbrizzles office submitted by the vessel boss himself. it looks like a good time surely but not a safe place for children.

ms. ultimate: phew, i’m exhausted. what did you think of today’s games?

miss casual: well, i got mauled by a cougar, i didn’t learn anything about ultimate, and i ruined my crystal gale shirt. how do you feel?

ms. ultimate: like committing harey carey.

miss casual: take me out to the ballgame?

ms. ultimate: no, like the samurai suicide ritual.

that pretty much sums up saturday’s performance on the field. we’re not sure how it happened because our team is actually stacked full of ballers, but there it is. it might have been a result of ms. ulty’s boxstep and miss casual’s broken fingernails. a bit frustrating. needless to say other performed like a squeaky bionic man; tun came out of nowhere to handle like a maniac; we found out matt is on our team; mel was everywhere; and we caught just a fleeting glimpse of roadhouse, thanks to the end of tax season. baby you know we call you that because you love it. it turned out that joe was a good trade, 85% because of the hat he was wearing.

it all started off so positively, with dp, liz and the c.u. staff carpooling to save the planet and fueling up on victory twizzlers. they soon turned to bile in our stomachs.

we had given up the weekend as a lost cause, but then rob called ms. ulty to say that he and the benders would be in the city in an hour. she was on the couch in her PJs in the dark when the call came, but against all odds she rallied. miss casual was long gone. luckily mini, doobs and rob brought fun back to town, and we went to annette’s party in logan square. it’s a little known fact that playing shoulders with the rodells is the best way to de-lame oneself. it was all fun and games until ms. ulty got voted off the table in survivor cups. one northside and an underdog later, she had recovered.

sunday brought sun, taxes and potstickers. lookout for mayhem as that guy rob is abandoning us for milwaukee next weekend. this week may be dangerous.

so after our lovely evening with girl talk the cu staff split up to cover both fair cities - ms. ulty took off at the breaka breaka dawn to bring it at spring league and miss casual stayed in mke to ‘race’ in her first alleycat and see the city with our most gracious hosts evan and emily.

ms. ulty and team teamocil went 2-0 beating vijay and finn’s team and taking us to week 2 undefeated. miss casual got coerced into racing in the milwaukee messenger invitational with a fantastic group of people including a couple from mke on a tandem and some other chicago natives. we did most of the checkpoints but got lost somewhere just north of evanston and stopped for directions (read: beer) at a bar called buck’s on the south side of milwaukee. the ride back was a breeze and we made it back in time to eat ourselves silly at buck bradley’s (how many dudes named buck live in milwaukee anyway?) and drink some pbr.

sunday was a meteorological miracle and upon arrival back in chicago miss casual got on sugarbomb and met bjorn for a ride to rogers park to have brunch with monica and tbrizzle. aside from our surly waiter and a flat which j dot and bjorn fixed, it was a perfect summer day…albeit in the middle of march. milwaukee was fun but its good to be back in the chi.

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

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

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

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

fun weekend people. keep it trill.

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.

the public news team reported the shit out of the news saturday morning, winning both games after a depressing five-game losing streak. apparently you’re more likely to win if you run a little bit and actually try to make connections on throws. the weather was awesome, and so was a big hammer by rick to bk (inspiration for the post title). little sacrificed his body for the team, weathering a kick in the head by a teammate and a mid-air bodycheck by an opponent. we’re going to fundraise for recspecs. while we’re sad it doesn’t look like haymaker will be going to regionals, we’re glad we have our little back. rachel is….fast and fierce. for future reference: it’s a lot easier to cheer “cheese wheel” than “i’m not even mad i’m impressed.”

well thankfully summer league is over becuase we cant hang with team M. they are too hardcore for the casual ladies. last night we had our team party and things went well beyond ‘casual’ into ’staying out too late on a school night and singing skynard’. thats right you heard me…freebird. thats how we roll.

we started at rodan with ollie, ruth, jim, and our lovely hosts the khales. they all got out before it got ugly although not before we all got to drink some yummy champagne and verbally abuse the waitstaff in front of dave, the big boss. baker was already willing to do anything to get on the blog. witness his hot dance moves.

then we went to nicks with a smaller crew… megan, evan, jason, baker, and the c.u. staff rolled up in there ready to cause trouble. megan has some inside connects so all of a sudden there were shots. pfil, who’d been busy making dollars in a focus group for playboy.com all afternoon, rolled up with dp and thats when the real trouble started. we played some pool and miss casual, being total deadweight in this regard, caused herself and jason to lose to meghan and baker. i believe there was some wager involving miss casual singing ‘ive got friends in low places’ to baker and meghan but the details are fuzzy.

then dp and i tried to start a bar brawl but it didnt catch on quite like we hoped. there were jukebox wars all night and we had a round of singing and dancing to johnny cash before walking back up paulina at some rediculous hour of the night / morning. pfil apparently needed that playboy money cause he got two parking tickets while throwing down with the c.u. ladies.

the post title was supposed to be something along the lines of ‘i just had all my pubic hair ripped out’ becuase baker said that at some point in the evening, although we have no idea when or with regard to what exactly. the only reason we even know this is that ms. ultimate, in her ever vigilent dedication to our faithful readers, emailed it to me at 130 am when she got home. thats love people.

well the summer league tournament was an affair to remember. even one of the b(r)s showed up with slider. (thanks for coming out carlo…represent). after a stellar season, team M went down early, losing to mike d’s assassins in the first round. but we couldnt have lost to a more casual team. ms ultimate was greatly missed but hopefully she did something she’ll regret in california. after miss casual’s best attempt to tackle mike, we played the 3-4 game against lyrica and tiger’s team, who went down to cho, thor and liz. it was a fun game, especially since we were drinking high life before, during, and after the regulation play.

after the comissioner and i went on a beer run, we played another game in the loser bracket (for no apparent reason) while thor’s team took down the assassins. miss casual tried to get out of the game by playing drinking games with the casual crew (pfil, dp, lyrica, tiger, mike d, and joe little) but got guilt tripped into playing by jason, baker, and the cutest kid around, quinn (the kales’ little one).

after winning that game, the team M love fest broke up in time for some spirited sideline adventures during the finals. dp (the big spirit winner) and pfil kicked his disc’s ass while baker and mike d. spooned. at one point mike spiked the game disc onto the field and made some dude in spandex call for a new disc. (buddy shoulda called for some frickin pants while he was at it. its a family program bro.) baker even blushed at some of the heckling… and at mike and i ripping new holes in the already disappearing shirt on rob. rob, who was making fun of yours truly for her casual lifestyle with dan benjamin, admitted he “love(s) the blog” before being permitted readmission to the casual collective.

the post title comes from thor, who reigns victorious with his team after the finals on saturday. he was talking about the precision with which cho plays ultimate. sometimes he seems to calculate how much awesome-ness to put on any one throw, so as to save some for later. his awesome-ness suffered later on that evening at the real world house when he was still roaming around wearing his championship medal. (how lame is the medal? if he ever leaves the house wearing it i give you permission to tell people he won the long jump at the gay games.) but bk’s cooking brought us back to life as usual and all is well in the casual universe.

last night at piece was great except that it was for such a sad occasion…the end of summer league. however the c.u. team was all smiles and giggles since we beat pfil and dp’s team and won the wager. get ready boys cause i feel your dirty dancing solo coming on… team M cheered their team with the chorus of the song and ms. ultimate and miss casual reenacting the lift scene from the movie. ms. ultimate layed on the ground and yours truly ran up and jumped on her feet to do an airplane. (we need a photo of this…) but the boys version will be even sweeter im sure. we agreed to wait for karaoke of ‘ive had the time of my life’ along with another song of c.u.’s choosing. we were thinking bossy by kelis but then i also think maybe a destiny’s child song would be fun. bootylicious anyone? rest assured well let you, our reading public, know when the performance is going to go down. probably next week or the week after.

another event to keep on your calendar is an upcoming happy hour. we are planning on hitting the new bar at chicago and california, ‘the continental’, tomorrow night. we’ll post the time once we get all coordinated. if you dont know, last weekend was cho’s birthday so come out to buy him a drink. the post title is apparently on his family crest or something.

last night there was also a party in hyde park so you peeps who went, post us some comments with what went down. the seeding for the tournament at piece brought lots of people out but team M got a tough draw. we thought we’d meet bk, ay, and jt in the first game but we are up against mike d’s assassins. we’re just gonna have to play dirty. look for miss casual to throw elbows. or just plain tackle mike. or whatever it takes to win for ms. utlimate in her absence. cheers to a great season with team M and hopefully a great day on saturday.

tomorrow night pfil, dp and liz get yet another chance to try to beat c.u. in summer league, their third for the season. word on the street is dp’s trying to psych his team up with motivational emails. well it ain’t gonna work. sorry mouthbreathers. in order to make this a little more interesting we’re soliciting wagers from our faithful readership. we need to bet something more precious than gold. something along the lines of honor, self-respect, etc. right now the only thing on the table is that the loser has to drink a disc at piece. the only challenge there is finding a clean disc. i’m sure we can do better. suggestions?

so last night we actually had a team at summer leauge, barely. dp and liz’s team was savage but it didnt get very far becuase of mother nature and her wild-ass lightning storm. we were playing like our old selves though and it was fun til our game got called.

pfil texted the c.u. staff from his plane to seattle saying he’d been sitting for two hours on the runway between a crying baby and a man who was aggressively occupying the armrest. he freely admitted, however, that all of those shenanigans were just to avoid playing team M in summer league. i mean i was gonna say so anyway but im glad he didnt front.

then piece was crazy since games were canceled early. couldnt get to the bar, no pizza, it was mass hysteria. so the c.u. staff took off for darwins with the real world household minus ferrari and cho, plus rick and tiger. bk totally stole our parking spot with the minivan. oh sure like the guy with the $1550 micro-convection oven is going to save a spot for the chicks who dont make that in a year…come on!

team M lost their first game on wednesday. it sucked. we just fell apart. i cant even discuss it becuase it makes me sad and whiny. alls i know is we are not going to lose another one. this little uplifting image came from my friend rob at work who also gave me the best piece of advice ive gotten lately. i told him i have the taste of an 18 year old boy, what with my fondness for will ferrell movies, rap music, and playing sports. he told me to drop acid and hang out in the american girl store for an afternoon to straighten things out. werd.

after our devastating loss, we rolled up to piece in the minivan and i was telling akira that he was either really lucky he moved out or really unlucky he moved out becuase my roommates had a blowjob class in the house last week. miss casual doesnt participate in such un-ladylike activities so dont post a bunch of comments asking about the curriculum for the class, what happened, who was there….cause i dont know. i didnt stick around to find out. all i know is there were no men involved, gay or straight. im not sure if thats good or bad. im getting the ick just typing this. moving on…

at piece the war for bedrooms started in the joe squared, cho, akira, king household. i do believe joe ferrari and cho are running a marathon in two weeks for one of the rooms and from what i gather both of them will be sleeping in the living room until its decided. there was talk of an amazing race and segway jousting, both of which make us at c.u. excited for photo ops, but i think its the marathon thats on so well keep you posted.

lastly, this photo was taken by our c.u. correspondant pfil ‘daddy warbucks’ broering who is closing on his place this morning and would like to invite everyone to black beetle for a happy hour repeat and then popsicles on his deck and a look at this view, albeit with less clouds. congrats to the property owner. post a comment giving the c.u. readers a time for happy hour, a breakdown of the closing, etc etc…

Faithful readers, your comments to miss casual’s post suggest you want to see more references to B-movies on the blog. Here at CU we aim to please.

Leaving the fields on Wednesday night, Baker and Oli pulled up next to eachother at a stoplight. They exchanged casual glances (rather like the ones pictured to the right), and Baker started inching forward… When the light turned green he peeled out of there like miss casual cutting to the endzone, with Oli following close behind. Oli accelerated and swung around on the right, then cut Baker off [picture a tall angry white guy hitting the steering wheel] and they both landed at the next stoplight, engines revving. At this point Baker mentioned how ironic it would be if there was a cop behind them, given the fact that he had a $120 city sticker ticket in the back seat, issued that same day in the Millennium Park garage (isn’t this entrapment? rick?). They played cat and mouse down the street, and had just turned onto the highway on ramp when Baker spotted the fuzz in hot pursuit, cherry lights going, siren on - even the loudspeaker: “move to the right! move to the right!” They passed Baker and we thought for sure Oli was toast, but it turns out they had bigger donuts to eat and sped by both of the speedracers.

phew! Baker was free to go on vacation next week, along with approx. half of the summer league team, and Oli lived to resume his career taping interviews with porn stars. that’s right. it’s all for the college fund.