casual ultimate

well as you can see from out super technical map here the weekend is shaping up to be lovely. there is a high crunk system moving in from the west … the rwip party is lurking on the horizon. so tonight theres a slight chance of pbr with the winds shifting tomorrow to bring in a sparxx front at irving park in the evening. with ms. ultimate still out of town it will be a tough weekend for casual ultimate but well get out the rain gear and batten down the hatches.

also we need to send a get well shout to mr. tristan who got hit on his bike yesterday. thats three of our friends who have gotten hit in the last two weeks and hopefully thats the end to this spree. best wishes for speedy recovery and good painkillers to tristan, neil, and jessi (of c’n'd fame.)

your long term forecast is a steady drizzle of antics throughout the holiday week with a hurricane of activity beginning thursday when the dego teas start rolling in from the west coast and the dirty souf. stay tuned for flash flood warnings and torrential shennanigans.

xoxo
miss casual

I am blogging live from Wimbledon. I just nearly ran into Serena Williams on the stairs - literally. i can’t tell if she looks tougher or like a regular (of course world-class) athlete in person. Laura won her second match handily; I would say she destroyed her Austrian opponent’s soul, but I think tennis is more polite from that. but for the record, she did. It’s looking like she’ll be playing Hingis next. I’d make her blog nickname casual tennis but, you know, she’s hardly casual going into teh third round and all. The all-white dress code is also making me think briefcase may want to make Sunday whites an all-weekend thing.

so, yeah, things are exciting here. i have to say an all-access pass is the best way to see the greatest tennis tourney in the world. i feel like i’ve been in the cafeteria line next to every major player; too bad i can only recognize a few of them. i could get used to this. and cheering for laura is so fun!!! i’m her no. 4 fan, besides her parents and sis.

the city of london ain’t too bad either. Meet the london fixed gear boys (of course no girls) for a few pints was fun, of course, and the tour de france prologue et al is going to be a blast. I hear there are some pics posted on their site; I want to say it’s lfgss.com, miss casual please correct me if i’m wrong. sorry no pics, i forgot my cable.

heres a picture, hot off the presses, of ms. ultimate with some friends from the london fixed gear / single speed bike forum. we miss you so much here! and im so jealous of your all access pass to wimbeldon! please slap high fives with andy roddick and report back. also you are no longer allowed to go to yale. i forgot to tell you. we voted and youll be attending u of c in the fall.

in other casual world news… this weekend looks like a throwdown in honor of this country we love so much at the house of the rwip. saturday could be dangerous. bring your beer pong helmet.

and last but certainly not least… the voting is going down as we speak for the cusl board. with all the animated conversations that have occurred in the forum over new policies in the last year… you all better vote. casual ultimate is endorsing our very own russell, the ja rule to miss casual’s ashanti. so get on it people. vote for rick… four times even.

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

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

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

happy monday

this is going to be quick because i have to go to the airport in a little bit. if i can i’ll be blogging live from wimbledon and then the tour de france, but more likely miss casual will be taking things over for the next couple of weeks. it’ll be like training wheels for august (sniffle sniffle).

there are no pics from beach last night, so we’re posting this stock footage of sand. a ton of people were out: all the regulars plus some newbies that brown bear and dan knew, and rachel who is apparently the newest addition to briefcase….this is what happens when you don’t go to practice, you have to learn about your former team on the streets. there might have been over a dozen boys out; kind of sucks when you’re playing 5-2, but people we’re trying to attract and retain women to thursday beach, and we all have to make some p.t. sacrifices. tiger asked if we blog about beach: yes, we do, every single week - where do you think your girlfriend got her gchat picture?

after the game ms. ulty, morgan, the viking, brown bear, c(b)r and prof. berg hightailed it over to corcoran’s for some fat tire and burgers. the waitress there was…not good. she forgot the bacon on my burger and got all confused when i asked about it; then she came out five minutes later to bring our beers (finally) and gave me a face/attitude and said, “your bacon’s on the way, they are actually cooking it” - emphasis on ‘actually cooking it’. as opposed to what? defrosting already cooked bacon? anyways, we needed the grub to fuel brown bear storytime…ask him the one about kolb. hee hee.

there was also a bit of talk about sandblast 2007: glass shards in your feet. only time will tell, but briefcase will have a tough time overcoming bjorn/chuck/becky’s team, also known as quite possibly the hottest beach team known to humankind. it should be a killer tournament, definitely worth spectating for the finals/semis/quarters even. too bad ms. ulty will be biking along with the prologue and 1st stage of the tour….oh wait, no, that might be kind of cool too.

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.

the blog birthday party on friday night was a riot - thank for coming, everyone. the OG crew was there in force: tbrizzle, who brought an amazingly casual cupcake cake, bk, joe, baker, professor berg, hanging with mr. cooper, the boss, akira, roadhouse, candice, hendude, brownbear, anderson, the d.a., liz - all those guys. we saw paulina liz later on in the evening, at pfil’s; she got a little carried away at the air guitar championships. play freebird! kolb played the part of the viking, who had to be at a wedding out of town. poor excuse, but he looked good in the homemade backstreet boys-style t-shirt we made.

unfortunately for the ultimate folks the bike kids got there earlier and drank the lion’s share of the free pbr. adam, oren and public emily initiated a frosting fight with the aforementioned cupcake cake. good times, but a bit of a mess to clean up. you know ms. ulty got into trouble doing something similar with ice cream on her 12th bday at zephyrs. we should have seen it coming, especially since she did the same thing to carlo about six months ago. someday we’re going to play ultimate with ben vc, simon and all the other fixed gear kids so that the blog worlds can truly unite. a few of our respective (former) coworkers rounded out the group - way to represent, ladies, kolb loved meeting all of you. the manager of high dive went so far as to say it was a great group, come back any time. too bad he didn’t show his affection with free drinks.

this is one of the few photos the c.u. staff has of the evening, as our new staff photographer was snapping professional pics left and right. you can check out his flickr album here. thanks triple-a! we’re not sure if it’s reality or the filter on his camera, but take a peek - you all are very good-looking people.

of course we had to pour a little out for the out-of-towners who couldn’t be with us: becky, dr. welsh, denardis, cho and of course chucktown. c(b)r and ms. mmms were out of town too, and rick and ea….well, we’re not sure about them but i’m sure the excuses are good.

the rest of the weekend was recovery and fathers day. saturday night the c.u. staff, tbrizzle and morgan made a fantastic meal that included pork chops draped in bacon and a twenty six dollar apple pie, served a la mode with klondike bars. casualultimate, inc., a subsidiary of let’s get crunk llc, is thinking of launching a brunch spot if only to serve our newest creation: an apple pie with a thick granola crust and a lattice top made of bacon. i think everyone here can agree there aren’t enough places in wicker park to eat brunch. ms. ulty spent sunday in the warm glow of her family and had to miss briefcase tryouts….not like i’ll be playing this year, but i miss playing with you guys. thank goodness for competitive league tomorrow - cross your fingers for no rain.

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!

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

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

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

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

its so good to lay around the house when youve had a hectic week. so last night the cu staff chatted on the couch chez ulty before miss casual pealed out to do laundry and ms. ulty took off for a bbq at morgan’s. sunday afternoon proved nice on the homefront also since bjorn and tbr were working on bikes and the cu staff was lounging and making frozen cocktails. we messed around a bit and while tbrizzle was looking at old posts we remembered that haircut of carlo’s and dropping the boss’s couch over the front of his new house which is our throwback post of the day. ahh casting the casual ultimate movie. why has that not hit the big screen yet?

actually i think what brought it up was a picture of new kids on the block in which joey mcintyre looks just like cbr. check it out. guy on the right? cbr? separated at birth?

looks to be a busy couple of days with chicks and drinks tonight, beach and tiger’s bday tomorrow, and the cu birthday party friday night. lots of fun surprises are in the works for friday so you better reckidnize and come on out.

alright lets hug it out.

xoxo miss casual

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.

heres a typical sunday chez tbrizzle / casual. the girls of cu are in the kitchen, making frozen cocktails out of lemoncello and lime popsicles and the boys, tbrizzle and the viking, are in the back yard stripping the paint off their bikes. watching wes anderson movies and making fruity cocktails was all we had left after an eventful weekend.

miss casual had adam in town from nyc to squire her about town and explore the edge of culinary art. friday night the 25+ courses at alinea changed our lives. i cant even begin to truly describe how perfect the whole experience was so instead ill just post some photos of things that we ate. maybe therell be an in depth analysis on our brother site, scrumptulesence. well keep you posted. after four hours of nausea nirvana miss casual will never be the same again. the next night however… we went to moto and honestly… i want my money back. maybe alinea is too tough of an act to follow… or maybe the bread didnt really taste any better from being dyed in squid ink, frozen in liquid nitrigen, and set on fire tableside. whoever said moto was as good as alinea is dead to us.

but overall a fantastic weekend which harkens back to this other moment in our casual ultimate past. a culinary adventure of another sort… our throwback post today is that time we went out for ribs after cho came to beach drunk. drunk cho, our video game winner, we miss you.

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…

with miss casual holding it down in chitown this past weekend/week, ms. ulty traveled to wisconsin to visit sis anna banana (yes she went to carleton, no she didn’t play for syzygy) in beautiful southwestern wisconsin and catch a couple of ballgames in milwaukee with anna, professor berg and some new friends.

spending time in the country is so relaxing, especially when your sister lives miles away from the closest internet machine and cellphone reception. highlights of the trip include moonrise s’mores over an open fire (more authentic than the s’mores we had with bacers), anna’s new puppy, baby bunnies everywhere, sunbathing, etc. we went hiking in wyalusing state park and had the first actual cicada sighting of the year (see photographic evidence, miss casual), saw the monument to wisconsin’s last passenger pigeon and dipped our toes in the mississippi huck finn style. also, ms. ulty learned the hard way that biking is not 100% fun when there are hills involved - it can actually be exercise. a 1.5 mile hill followed by many many other hills taught her that; turns out i need to go running more.

tuesday brought a trip to a ginormous bike store in madison and a long drive to milwaukee, where we met up with professor berg, his roomie, and his roomie’s 10 closest friends who were all attending the brewers-cubs game. we learned a few things in miller park:

(1) the vendors there sell sparks - here’s prof. berg as living proof
(2) it takes 18 minutes to close the roof
(3) tobacco tastes like a farm when you’re in wisconsin
(4) there are almost more cubs fans than brewers fans in the stands when they’re playing eachother
(5) brewers fans cheer for packers during baseball games

and, oh, milwaukee is a really cool town. ms. ulty loves its old industrial stylo and thinks it’s better than madison (sorry georgia). before the day game on tuesday we went to a place called comet cafe for a fantastic brunch. the bloody mary there is super good and come with bacon and a pony bottle of high life. all of our sandwiches were delish, even though our new bestie (bffn, not bff, brian) barely ate half of his mr. awesome (it would go well with piece’s baron von awesome). there are so many cool joints in that city, plus the parks, buildings, zillions of square feet of future loft space - buy real estate now, people. we were having so much fun prof. berg and ms. ulty barely made it to the train station in time. we will be organizing some trips to our neighbor to the north soon.

now it’s back to chicago, where hopefully the rain holds off and we get to play some beach n’ bikes tonight. there’s a rumor the prof. might be joining us. it’s also weegee’s 1-year anniversary and they’re giving away free drafts from 6-10; not sure how that will factor into the night’s activities.

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.

friday evening started with some chicks and drinks with the usual ladies plus a new amy, simon’s wife. we messed around for long enough for miss casual to fall and skin her entire right side from a bad skid before retiring for dinner at handlebar with simon and amy. ms. ulty stopped for a beer with the boss, the hales, and the viking along the way. we waited out the rain discussing the phenomenon of surly waiters at handlebar and then went across town for saturrday night’s race preparty.

we were worried approaching a club in the gold coast called funk, but hey, free drinks from 9-10? we drank a few. and then took over the dancefoor and then the stage with the rest of the chifg crew. who knew coyote, adam, friendhugger, amy and emily had such fierce moves? unfortunately ms. ulty was out for the race because shes visting her sister but amy and miss casual took the viking and barreled through traffic for a couple of hours on saturday night. heres a pic of bjorn and amy with their race faces on at the last checkpoint. the viking rolls with sparxx natch. team c’n'd finished the whole course and definitely earned the beers that flowed freely at tumans. tbrizzle came out to meet us and the picture at the top is of all the racers bikes on the fence at the bar.

tomorrow night marks the beginning of summer league so heres hoping competitive league starts with a bang.

last night the cu staff regrouped chez ultimate to plan our attack on tricks and drinks at its new way up north location. after checking in with the kittens and battening down the hatches we proceded on bicycle to kumas in order to fuel up for an evening of skids. however it was super packed and we waited almost an hour for our burgers. ms. ultimate almost went blind with hunger. luckily our bartender was mr. kuma himself and he bought our burgers since they took so long. let me tell you… a burger never tasted so good. in a shocking triumph of will, miss casual annihilated her mastadon.

the wait gave us plenty of time to discuss the late-breaking competitive summer league news whereby games are switched from wednesday to monday night and south side kids have to play some games up north. switching days is no big whoop, but we’re bummed that we’ll probably have to miss some of the up north games due to work hours (miss casual) and transportation issues (ms. ulty). and it’s sounding like lady numbers will be very tight on the teams. perhaps we can organize some sort of complex carpool system. anyone have room for a bike in their car on the way home? we considered trying to switch back to regular CUSL just to ensure we’d get to play enough games this summer, but we know baker would kill us for even making the request.

well, with an after glow from red meat and alpha king we booked it up to t’n'd. we drank some beers and practiced our tricks with most of the usual suspects. miss casual had a scary skid that ended up going off road and we had some adoring fans from the surrounding neighborhood chatting us up all evening. it was a beautiful night under a blue moon and we are looking forward to another fun night of tricks with the ladies tonight.

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.

have you ever seen anything so pretty as a million skittle colored bikes like this? this is where miss casuals holiday weekend ended. well i guess technically it ended doing laundry and icing my ankle watching law $ order but really michelle and aaron’s super badass cupcake and bicycle filled bithday bbq was my last stop so well retell the weekend memento style and start at the end.

pulling up to the birthday bbq it was easy to pick out the house as it looked like a parade of pretty bicycles. michelle and aaron were great hosts and amy made some fierce vegan cupcakes. it was nice to drink some sangria and lounge with the ladies of c’n'd. we at casual ultimate feel very lucky to have met such wonderful ladies with such similar interests as ourselves. amy and miss casual are mentally preparing to race our first alleycat on saturday. we need to think positive. theres no ‘i’ in win. but before then there will surely be some tricks as miss casuals skids need work and ms. ulty wants to perfect her skid hop move.

previously the cu staff and stacy had stopped by a bqq thrown by dp and liz. looks like hales is back in town for good and is our new neighbor. baby audrey came looking like she meant business and the boss’s neice was the envy of miss casual in ruffly pink socks and perfectly fluffy hair. with all the babies around it occurred to us that briefcase could easily be renamed ‘team earmuffs.’ good to see the letter j out and about and again we were glad to have friends that appreciate grilling and beer the way team paulina does.

all the bbqs came after recovery brunch because stacy, brooke, and the cu staff started at piece the night before with malt liquor and determination. crunk or die. miss casual had bumped into nat on armitage and he let on the it was going down at dannys so off we went. stacy bought us a shot and it was ON. super dance party all night til stacy looked like she might be napping at the bar. we havent danced so much since… well since the last time we were at dannys probably. a stranger had given stacy and ms. ulty ballons on the walk over from piece so we tied them above our table to indicate clearly ‘this is where the party’s at.’ balloon time.

ms. ultimates bday needs its own explanation from the birthday girl. she also is in further photographic evidence so ill leave it to her. back to the architectures. lates.

theyre out there. i can almost hear them through the doors. and the duct tape over the seams in the doors. and the plywood over the windows. cicadas have come to chicago. i know because i watch the news. its been three days since i holed up chez casual with slider, a box of saltines, two bottles of champagne and cable tv to wait out their brief lifespan. i have my tennis raquet in case one sneaks in and i looked for goggles but couldnt find any so im just wearing my sunglasses. i called tbrizzle and told him to stay with mk because i couldnt risk a security breach by opening the door for him to come home. ms. ultimate offered to bring us some food and lemonade but theres not much that can be slid in the hairline space between the door and the metal threshhold so were gonna have to hold out on our own.

im halfway through the second bottle of champagne trying to get my courage up to leave the house tonight. it is going to be an epic evening. not only are we celebrating ms. ultimate’s day of birth but we also have reinforcements coming to our bacchanal of eating at green zebra and who knows what after that. plan A is coming in from brooklyn. bacers (as shes knows to ms. ulty) has already arrived from the west coast. we also get the pleasure of zibby von tramp coming to 21 year old us. only the strong will survive. and thats just friday night. holler at us this weekend if theres shennanigans happening near you.

im going to watch one more episdoe of law $ order svu and then unpeal a bit of the tape around the back door and see if i hear any buzzing. i mean were running out of champagne anyway…

we’re posting this 2006 pic of lucky’s new hi tops because (1) it’s too hot to do anything blogworthy and (2) parents are writing to us that their children are getting frightened by brownbear’s ’stache. guess it’s just too awesome for them to process.

a lot of folks have been complaining about the heat recently - but isn’t this what we’ve been waiting for? beach weather? and isn’t it going to get much, much hotter and more humid? ah, chicago summer, i love you. at least the zibster’s back home and we can set up our lemonade stand in wicker park. it will be part performance art, part commercial venture. seriously though zibby: i’ll give you 10% of profits, just like in the old days. remember how fun it was?

no cicada sightings yet for miss casual. i feel like tomorrow’s gonna be the day. please send us your updates on cicada watch 2007. hopefully they don’t come out tonight, because ms. ulty’s going to the sox game. the cicadas love america’s favorite pastime.

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.

it was a tough decision to put up another post since chucktown’s was so entertaining and actually, you know, about ultimate, but life goes on. and so do we. how we do it is no mystery - we blog.

beach is tonight at north ave. 6 pm sharp. we’re hoping the weather cooperates; it’s actually pretty cold outside. ms. ulty attempted to go yogging this morning and had to wear tights. the general plan is to head from there to lemmings, and we might be going earlier rather than later if it’s too cold and no one shows. but we’ll at least be tossing for a bit. there might be some tricks n’ drinks in the works, but we’re not sure yet. ms. ulty’s just about over her fear of bike tricks and miss casual’s numerous and inexplicable injuries seem to be on the mend.

for those of you who will be heading out to the polo fields for the spring league tourney this weekend, we couldn’t help but notice that this weekend is naper settlement’s civil war days. if your team gets eliminated early, you might be able to catch a discussion on fashions of the civil war (1 pm), or the Gettysburg address delivered from the paw paw post office porch by none other than abe lincoln himself (130 pm). unfortunately the big battle is on sunday. thank you, free subscription to timeout. team teamocil will be missing the festivities, however, since the finals aren’t until the end of the day and surely we’ll have to stick around for the awards ceremony as well.

in other news, el presidente shared this story with us last week and we thought you’d want to hear it too. true story:
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This woman that works with my child therapist friend was a chaperone on a special education class trip to the Shedd Aquarium a few weeks ago. One of the boys in the class disappeared for a while, and the teachers couldn’t find him. He mysteriously returned to the group towards the end of the trip, and his pants were wet. No big deal, they thought, he probably wet himself…special ed….blah blah blah. They didn’t say anything to him about it, and put the kids on the bus to go back to the school. As they drove away from the aquarium, a police car pulled the bus over. The police boarded the bus, and asked the teachers if they had any students on the bus with wet pants or shoes…a penguin had gone missing from the penguin exhibit at the aquarium! The teachers interviewed the boy with the wet pants, asked to look in his backpack, and….there, among his pencils and notebook was the missing penguin!

How do you steal a penguin and your teachers do not notice? Didn’t it make noise? Maybe even smell fishy or something?

Meanwhile, you should know that I hear the penguin is okay and has been returned to his little penguin friends and family.
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Hi, everyone. Mr. Town here, Miss Casual’s brother. Check out our new site:

www.casualtown.com
: ist das Community Browsergame FORREALZ-ischlagen!

Let’s catch up real quick: How are you doing in Chicago? Nice. Yeah, good to hear; I was going to ask you about that, so it all worked out then? Oh, it didn’t. Sorry to hear that. Well she wasn’t right for you anyway. Oh she was, and it was your fault? Yeah, well I mean, I guess life goes on. It doesn’t? Listen, I didn’t want to get into a whole discussion here, but seriously, we used to be friends and I remember that.

I’m doing fine out here in SF. I live in the city now, and let me tell you something: dudes love some dudes out here. I mean, I think it goes deeper than friendship in a lot of ways, especially one way. It’s not affecting me though. I’m straight as an arrow, and nothing will change that. I don’t even give awkwardly long hugs to guys more than once a week or so. That’s a fact.

Anyway, here’s a day in the life so that you can get an idea of what my life is like these days (Midwest translation is in brackets so you can follow what I’m saying): I get up at 7:30 (9:30 CST) and take a shower. I hop on my normal bike for losers (fixed-gear bike) and hit the road. I’m hella tired (tired), but I hop on the downhill slope (like the Midwest but kinda slanted) and just coast for a while. I realize that I forgot to shave, and then notice a few girls (lesbians) riding bikes alongside of me who also forgot to shave…their faces. It’s cool though. I breeze by a couple Carl’s Jr’s (Hardees) and swerve to avoid hitting an old Asian women (black guy). I work for 8 hours (10 hours), and then I marvel at the beauty of the Bay Area on my way to watching the Warriors (Bulls) go down 1-3 to the Jazz (Pistons). I then go to sleep in an 800 sq. ft. 3 BR apartment (3500 sq. ft. 4 BR) while my openly gay room-mate (…errr…) watches South Park.

Here’s your pre-season scouting report for Ultimate out here in the Yay Area:

COED:

Brass Monkey: Sweethearts, great leadership, returning their core for one last go of it. Expect a good year from them. I may roster up with them again since it was such a great experience last year, and they have a spot at representing the US in VanCouver in ‘08 if they finish at the top this year.

Mischief: Defending National Champs in the coed division. They have one guy that wins all their games for them: Tyler Grant. He is back again. They will win again.

WOMEN:

Fury: They picked up five really good players, and they just happen to have an amazingly good coach: Matty Tsang. He’s the reason they will win again when it counts.

New Team: This other women’s team that is a mixture of Homebrood (RIP) and Skyline. They have no identity and fragmented leadership (a la Justice League last year). They will probably have a tough year.

MEN:

Jam: Idris is captaining again this year, and Hollywood and the Body (aka Greg Husak and Brandon Steets) are coming up from the Condors to join an already stacked team. These guys don’t seem to play with a lot of heart, but this team has the players to win a title if it all comes together. They’re also no longer pretending not to be Jam. I’ve been trying out with these dudes, and it’s a lot of fun.

Revolver: Lot of ex-Stanford on this team. They play small ball, breaking the mark, taking high-percentage passes, and really grinding with teams. There’s some great chemistry on this team, and they are looking to add some height (possibly me) to their roster. We’ll see if it’s a fit. Nick Handler is something else. I’ve never been impressed with dump cuts before or seen a guy who is 5′7″ go deep as well as he does. Rivaled maybe only by Josh Wiseman (same team, same height, almost solely a deep).

I guess that’s all there is to say. I will be at Poultry Days with USDA, getting there early on Friday and staying Sunday night if you wanna hang. I’ll be at Sandblast (Thu-Tues) with Dago Tea, a really fun crew mostly from the Bay. Let me know your plans for those two. Unless you’re Jacob Dee. Then just sit tight and wait for your spanking.

Chuck

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.

ah, wrigley field. there’s nothing better on a summer day. i suppose it would have been more fun if they had won. turns out wrigley has bicycle valet on the northwest corner of the stadium, which is pretty cool. not sure if it’s better than just locking your bike up, though, because you have to wait in line to retrieve it after the game.

after the game we convened for a little beach ultimate action. turns out you can play with just cones, and they’re a lot easier to carry to work (thanks miss casual!). it was ladies night for a while, with the c.u. staff, lyrica, leah and annie representing; cobb was there on the boys side. soon enough the rest of the regular crew showed up - ms. mmms, tbrizzle, the viking bk, etc. c(b)r, where were you? the games were pretty good - so nice to run around on an uncrowded beach on a nice day.

misses casual and ulty gorged themselves on penny’s while watching the bulls game with tbrizzle and the viking - or baby bjorn, as we’re calling him now that he’s shaved his beard. oh bulls, why do you do this to us? ms. ulty tore herself away at the start of the fourth quarter to practice her skids at tricks n’ drinks. given ulty’s sore legs and miss casual’s potential major ankle injury, we might have to take it easy at the inaugural meeting of chicks n’ drinks tonight.

as far as spring league, team teamocil is getting fans and maybe even cowbells tomorrow morning, so our opponents had better watch out.

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.

a haiku to working overtime

work is not so fun
tomorrow looks to be nice
lets get our beach on

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.

Ms. Ultimate just got a beautiful bouquet of bright yellow flowers from miss casual, tbrizzle, the Viking and c(b)r. you guys are the greatest friends ever!!! I wish I had my camera hookup thing so I could take a picture because they’re so pretty. Also, we don’t have a picture for today’s post.

today is ms. ulty’s last day at work before a summer of fun and games or, as our post title inspiration and future guest columnist chris put it, I’m about to be funemployed. it’s going to be weird not coming to work every day, but the transition to full-time blogging, ultimate playing and bike riding should be a smooth one. the only thing needed to make a 14-year-old boy’s dream summer perfect is daytime access to the cartoon network, which miss casual is reputed to have at her new pad. please make me an extra key this weekend.

last night we got things started off on the right foot by hanging out in an empty parking lot, watching bike tricks and getting champagne crunk on a school night. Miss casual is still the trackstand master, but ms. Ulty has the rear dismount down to a science. Eh, it’s a way to stop so it works. Tbrizzle and the Viking showed up for a few minutes before heading to the peach pit for dinner; tbrizzle’s going to tweak his derailleur so that every time he shifts a little electronic voice is going to say “gears are magic.” It sounds complicated but luckily the viking’s an electrical engineer/dejiner of some sort. Thanks for coming, because ms. Ulty was scared to be hanging out with so many strangers and misses the comfort of the c.u. nest.

Lucky for us, the tricks kids are the nicest bunch ever. And a little bit crazy too, but a good crazy: friendhugger and others are going to bike 160 miles on Saturday! And we thought two morning games of ultimate was a lot to handle. Evan tried convincing ms. Ulty she could do a social century in the near future but she’s going to leave that hardcore riding to miss casual for now. After the fuzz came we all hit the no-name bar across the street for a nightcap and a little chris isaak.

And the best part of it all is, the weekend hasn’t even started yet. It’s gonna be packed with playtime and cinco de mayo hijinx. Miss casual just downloaded fergilicious….things could get crazy.