casual ultimate » nationals

There were a lot of great things that happened this weekend at Nationals. I talked to Becky about life. I said what-up to Vijay after he sent me a benediction last week. I saw that Mischief is a really great group of people who care about each other immensely. I saw Tim Murray as a pretty respectable, mature individual who loves the game (that was really over the course of the season and not just this weekend). I saw the Ring/Backhoe social circles in motion. I saw how nothing really changes in that regard and how the lowest common denominator: drinking, mocking, hooking up, and other pretty dumb things seem to shine through in most cases. I felt the tug towards romance, and resisted it. I struggled not to judge myself and my team-mates at times. By Sunday, some of my better friends on the team had become so irritating to me that it was almost too much to be in a room with them.

Mischief lost in Quarters. Shazam showed up and played hard in all their games. They are good folks. I saw my humor turn towards ridicule and mockery this weekend instead of just light-hearted observation. I saw stress and anxiety bring out the best in some people (our late innings come-back against Shazam really made me happy to be on Brass Monkey). I saw one of the sickest D’s I’ve ever seen AGAIN from Wendy Chan on game-point against Shazam against a guy (Ladd). It was just unbelievable. Better, I think, than the one last year in semis that Wendy had. I saw Nate, the guy I would lie down in traffic for, one of the greatest team-mates and players I’ve ever seen grace a field, not win a title this year.

The sacrifices that people make to be at Nationals and to play at Nationals are unreal. I think maybe the best moments of the weekend were Saturday night after games were over, seasons were over, and dinner was over. Monkey sat around one of our condo units and told stories and gave speeches and just really enjoyed each other. I laughed more on Saturday night than I have since the last session of One Degrees in Tempe. What a soulful, filling experience it is to just laugh with each other.

I got to introduce Nate and Becky on Saturday night. It was like introducing someone to my family. I got to just say, “Look, Becky. This is the guy that I’ve told you about. This is why I love playing for him.” They talked for 10 seconds and Nate drove the conversation as he does the huddle, and it was just pure and simple. She looked at me after Nate had left, and I could just see that she understood. In 10 seconds, she just understood why I like him.

The first time I went to Nationals was in 2004, and I had been diagnosed with mono on Monday and was not able to play at all. My team, Machine, went 0-7, my new girlfriend at the time, Sarah, had way cooler friends than mine (Brood et al), and way cooler ex-boyfriends than me (Michael Jamkung, formerly Namkung). I had a knot in my stomach that weekend as big as a fist and I didn’t play a single point. I do believe the antibiotics that I had taken gave me a skin reaction that made me look like I had frickin pink polka dots all over my body too. I was so terribly unhappy. I was so hurt and hopeless.

My second trip to Nationals was in 2006 with Brass, and I had not played a point of Ultimate (other than the weekend prior) since the end of August due to a horrible ankle sprain. I wasn’t sure that I would be able to play at all. I prayed that my higher power’s will be done and that I could just be present and do his will. I played and played great. I really brought joy to my team, and in our big semifinal loss, I played one point, and I didn’t feel, at any time, like I was being cheated. I wasn’t hurt or hopeless. I was proud and honored to be on this team. My team had a lot wrong with it that year, but it had a lot right with it too. We have a rookie this year named Mike that reminds me of me last year. He’s just happy and proud to be with this group, and that’s a really awesome way to approach Ultimate, I think. On Saturday night last year, I left the team dinner to be with a good friend in a hard moment and grew closer to a few people. I wasn’t the life of the party that night. I wasn’t making some hot girl. I wasn’t doing anything but being me and doing what I thought was right. That was awesome.

This year, I went to Nationals healthy for the first time, again with Brass Monkey. This year, we had something that we didn’t have last year: the ability to pull together and play big in big moments. Our hearts weren’t fragmented and in close games, we were able to play up. I wish that we could have given ourselves a chance against Shazam instead of dropping down to a 7 point deficit and not getting our engine started until 12-5 or whenever it was. We played them to 11-14 and were really close to a couple blocks on that final point. It’s a little too much to ask to score 5 in a row against a great team like Shazam with the season on the line. I wouldn’t have put it past us though, the way we were playing.

On a personal note, I don’t think I’ve ever pulled as well as I did this weekend. They were huge airy bombs and they were all in bounds until the Shazam game. I would kind of like to just go up to Seattle or somewhere and scrimmage Shazam for 4 or 5 hours with Brass. I just like playing against them. I want to play a lot of points against them. It’s really fun. I don’t have very much fun at all against Mischief, and I’m not entirely sure why. I guess I can’t really think of anyone on that squad I like to guard for some reason. With Tyler, I’m usually backing him. With Kyle Smith, I’m usually busy nearly biting my tongue off while he elbows me in the face. With Shazam, it’s just a battle though. I love it. They are good, they are fast, the throws are on the mark, and for whatever reason, I like playing them. I like playing d and beating them and mashing their faces into a fine paste and then dousing their faces in kerosine and lighting them on fire and then breaking their mark, zipping down field for a wide-open 15 yd under and throwing a buttery goal to Nate up the line, while a faceless Shazamer runs after me with his burnt eyes trying to figure out what happened and why he will always be hideous for the rest of his life and never have children or friends. Whoa, sorry about that. What I mean to say is: Ultimate is fun.

This week’s episode of the Chris Farley show:

Chris Farley: Hey, Steve Finn. ‘member when you were on Sockeye?

Steve Finn: Well, yeah Chris, I do.

CF: Man, you guys were awesome…

SF: Why thank you, Chris.

CF: ………God, I’m so STUPID. I’m such an IDIOT.

SF: No, no, Chris, you’re doing fine…

CF: Really?…Oh, man…..You remember when you were on Brass Monkey?

SF: Yeah, yeah I remember, we won it in 2005.

CF: Man, you guys were soooo good….

SF: Thanks, Chris.

CF: …..God, I don’t know what I’m DOING on this interview. I’m such a FAILure….

SF: You’re doing fine, Chris. Really.

CF: You’re just saying that.

SF: No, really, Chris.

CF: Well…remember when you won your third consecutive Masters title at age 47?

SF: Chris, I’m not sure that’s happened yet although I’m sure it will.

CF: Oh….why did I SAY that?! I’m such a MORON!

SF: No, Chris. You’re really giving a good interview.

CF: No, I’m not. I’m making all kinds of mistakes all the time.

SF: Well, Chris. You know I’ve learned over the years that it’s not about whether you do things perfectly or not. Everyone makes mistakes. It has more to do with whether your mistakes ever result in something other than a National Championship. I think that’s where I’ve had a lot of success in my life. I only make mistakes that somehow lead to me being a National Champion.

CF: ….

I saw Ray Parrish’s teeth from about 500 yards away, and a few minutes later, I could see that the rest of him was also there as he continued to walk towards me. That guy was so huge for me at Sandblast when I had heatstroke and couldn’t take care of myself. I would marry him if I were some girl with really huge fake breasts, the way he likes. Sidenote: Can I just say that the reason Starsky and Hutch is a masterpiece is because it makes fun of homophobia? Can I just say that right now? I have made a living on that kind of humor (or no money at all as I look a little closer), and guys acting like they have no emotions and like they don’t care about their friends or anything for that matter is just not human. I care about my friends.

Thank you to Bil Elsinger for all the great photos and write-ups of the Mixed Division this year, which is a real division with uniforms and everything.

Dragon foot, ball of yarn, bamboo pole, Chinese boy…Prune Candy.

When’s Tempe?

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

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

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

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

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

hugs

miss casual

cleats? check.
jerseys? check.
toiletries? check.
socks? check.
butler’s rain jacket? check.
OU jersey to trade with Nielsen for haymaker jers? check.
Non-playing Machine jersey for Soda’s Doublewide jersey? check.
one frisbee? check.
book to read on flight? check. (Ira Glass’ New Kings of Non-Fiction…pretty awesome)
UnderArmour everything? check.
cash? working on it…
camera? bill’s got it. check.
OU wristbands? check.
Ipod and ITrip? check.
swim trunks? check.

condors? check.
bravo? check.
doublewide? ohhhhhhh check!

the ability to bring it together? CHECK.
focus? CHECK.
determination? CHECK.
blood-hungry defense? CHECK.
cool-as-cucumber offense? CHECK.

i think that’s all i’ll need for this trip…

love,
vijay

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

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

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

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

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

* casual *

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

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

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

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

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

play casual. stay ultimate.

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

so here’s the way it works

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

here

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

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

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

Due to the number and magnitude of events, this is going to have to be a post in two parts.

* ULTIMATE *

If you really wanted the play by play you’d have read it on the UPA’s championship site by now, so I’ll give a quick overview. Briefcase was glad to establish regional dominance (asterix) by beating Moe on Thursday, and of course it was fun to play Chucktown’s new team. I think their name is copper orangutan, i’m not sure, we called them Chuck’s Team. Deliverance brought the pain and the dueling banjos. Luckily mr. town was close at hand with his fiddle to defend our honor. After a relatively quiet night at the condos, we won a couple outside the region by beating hooray! and bad larry. We had to add a period after Mr. Briefcase. on the scoreboard to even the punctuational tables before playing Hooray!. Bad Larry was a fun, fun game, with some our lady alums on the other team to liven things up. We were psyched to go into the quarters play-in game that afternoon against Amp….unfortunately we lost. The wind picked up but our energy level didn’t; surprising the donuts Lauren brought to the breakroom didn’t do the job. Intense game, case.

Friday night put a starving Briefcase squad huddled around the bar at Daquiri Deck, thanks to the masters team that stole our table. Apparently they serve the blue plate special under an 8 o’clock reservation for “mr. briefcase.” We showed them who’s boss by playing flippy cup while waiting for the main course; keep it classy, chicago. And of course the osprey house drowned its pre-quarters sorrows in the pool and hot tub. Curry ref’d volleyball until everyone realized the that it was folly to challenge a team with Ness on it. Steve-o, remember when you whiffed that jump shot off the steps? Best play of the weekend.

A sleepy and ambivalent Briefcase awoke Saturday morning to find themselves pitted against an NYC team stacked with two 2005 BC interns. I wish we had beaten their asses, if only to punish them for going to work for the competition. We kind of got back at them by forcing one of their handlers to huck a disc into a bystander’s face - his girlfriend’s - at point-blank range. I’m sure she took the vacation days and made the trip all the way down to Florida for that. Our next game vs. Montana….well, Lainers brought us cookies. Here we are in the picture that’s going on the xmas card this year. Thanks for making the trip, quaddie!

We watched some fantastic finals games in the sun with our other Chicago friends on Sunday. Dubes won the spirit award for Briefcase, and Akira won by Machine - who won for Nemesis? Send us a picture of you in yourr fuzzy 5 ultimate hat.

All in all, the ultimate was hott and so was the team. It was a sad plane ride home. Ms. ulty and miss casual had so much fun formatting your TPS reports this year. This team went through a major overhaul in Q2’06, in both the roster and style of practice and play. The results would suggest our execs delivered for the shareholders. Thanks to everyone for a fantastic season - I can’t wait for next year! I think we’re going to come back better than ever.

play ultimate. stay casual.

ah, Monday after nattys. The skies are blue in Chicago, but it’s about 40 degrees colder than Sarasota. I wish my Briefcase colleagues could be my real colleagues. The water cooler downtown just isn’t the same - I wonder if my boss would let me wear my fresh baby blue hat to keep the dream alive. Unfortunately my real job is going to keep me from giving the lowdown w/ pictures on weekend games and fun until tonight. This is everyone’s warning to let us know if you don’t want the world to see your halloween costumes - C(b)R, you should probably email me. - ms. u.

thanks to our war room phone (its red) that connects miss casual at home base directly to mr briefcase we have some information from pool play at nationals.

briefcase lost two yesterday, one to their former colleague chucktown and his team brass monkey, but made it into a quarters play-in game with AMP this afternoon. unfortunately they lost but they had a good day overall, beating bad larry and flaming moe.

according to bk, our correspondant in the field, machine was in a similar position to briefcase, upsetting condors early but losing their play-in game to ring 12-15.

nemesis is in a similar position playing for placement tomorrow after losing a tight game to slowdown out of texas.

brass monkey won all their games and are headed to quarters in the morning along with becky and her ladies on backhoe.

well try and keep you posted as the weekend moves along and look for a big ol post monday from ms. ulty herself.

thanks to our new friend bil at ultimatephotography@gmail.com for the photos. we owe you some good old fashioned chitown hospitality (read: pbr) if you ever make it over this way.

any good birthday lasts a whole month and in the interest of continuing the revelry last night miss casual went out for another in a series of birthday dinners to celebrate with her chitown peoples. marya and the birthday girl did a little networking at parlor before heading to club lucky to meet c(b)r and tbrizzle, our casual brothers from another mother. tbr didnt have to teach last night becuase of this fire at left. with forces of nature aligning to get everyone together the night was sure to be a success.

tbr also brought the birthday girl a barbie tiara which she wore faithfully throughout dinner. it made it easy for ms. ulty to find us when she rolled up on her way home from a trip for work. it was nice to see everyone and catch up before the exodus to sarasota happens this evening. the fans are waiting on pins and needles to see what happens when brass monkey and mr. briefcase go head to head tomorrow. will chucktown be playing? will anyone be able to stop him if he is? will mama town bring her accordion to the field? will briefcase come up with a cheer befitting one of their former colleagues? who will come out on top? stay tuned. good luck to all our people headed to florida. reprazent for the chi-tizzle.

If you know anyone who has to fly out of Chicago to southern Florida on the evening of the 25th, you should call right now and tell them to book tickets, because all flights are about to be overtaken by hot ultimate players. Unless….are there enough to make a chartered plane worthwhile?

Chicago rocked Regionals this weekend, with Nemesis coming in first in the women’s division, Briefcase coming in second in mixed and Machine taking the third bid for the gents; Real Huck, the Masters team, won their game to go. From Saturday morning domination in bracket play to the last catch of the day landing in Ferrari’s hands in the Machine endzone, Chi-town/the‘ville represented for our visitors.

As far as final standings, Nemesis beat Bait to clinch the championship. Mojo came in second. Briefcase played an intense but high-spirited game with with Flaming Moe for second place, owing to the fact that both teams were guaranteed bids and were playing for seed. CLX won the mixed division, but turned down the bid due to the fact that they’ll be representing Midwest ultimate to the world and throwing some shrimp on the barby in Australia later this fall; thus, Briefcase ends up the #1 seed coming out of the region. Carleton alums, aka ¡Salsa Police!, finished fourth and got bumped up to take the third bid. Machine beat Madison for their bid. Sub Zero took first in the open division, and Big Ass Truck took second. Real Huck beat Chico’s Bail Bonds in the game to go; Twin Cities’Surly came in first.

It was perfect out for ultimate, not windy but just enough to keep things interesting, and the bluest skies for this weekend in recent memory. Briefcase will be seeing several 2005 season alums down in Florida: Brass Monkey won the Northwest, and we’re hoping Chuck will be in playing form by the end of the month. Justin and Carrie qualified with Puppet Regime, which came in second to Slow White in the Northeast. And, of course, Sals with Nemesis.

So, does anyone know what other co-ed teams might be skipping Nationals for Worlds? And does this mean that rightful 2006 mixed division title will be won down under rather than just down south? Rumor had it that Bad Larry would be foregoing their Nationals bid too, but they’re listed among the 16 on the Championship site.

Don’t put the sunglasses away for the summer, because you’re going to need them in a few weeks.