It is with a heavy heart that I think the time has come to officially put this blog on the long-term backburner. As you've all noticed, my posts here have become increasingly erratic and consequently mostly huge event dumps. I need a change of scenery. From this point forward, I will do the bulk of my blogging on my brand-spanking-new tumblr: Constellate. For those unfamiliar, Tumblr is a streamlined blogging platform well-suited for shorter and more frequent posting. My plan is to become a DAILY blogger! Keeping up-to-date like this should make blogging much less intimidating (no more 2 hour blogging sessions) for me and give ya'll the regular posts I know you are craving so much. I may still use this blog for longer posts or something from time to time, but if I do, I will definitely mention it on my tumblr. So without further ado, my final post with Nerd...The Computer Kind as my main (don't forget to switch all of your links and bookmarks to constellate.tumblr.com)!
Spring Break 2010:
Four words: Best Spring Break Ever. NYU's men's and women's ultimate teams head down to the Georgia coast for spring break ultimate and shenanigans every year, but I couldn't go last year so I was quite pumped this year. It did not disappoint. Both teams (14 guys and 14 gals) stayed together in one house literally 2 minutes from the beach. The house was pretty nice and surprisingly not very cramped. I ended up getting a couch spot (<> floor spot obv) near the kitchen/living room which meant I got the least sleep of everyone (since I had to wait for everyone else to go to sleep and was always awoken by the breakfast of whoever woke first) but it also meant I didn't miss out on any happenings. For three of the days there, we attended the High Tide tournament and ended up going 3-0 Day 1, 0-3 Day 2, 0-2 Day 3; disappointing but with only 3/4 of the team there (many possibly hungover while playing too), understandable. The rest of the week was spent hitting the beach, exploring Jekyll Island (where we were staying), and just having a good time. It was a great chance to get to know people a lot better and overall just a really fun, relaxing time. Also, an interesting coincidence: my two favorite trips of all time were both to Georgia (the other one being FBLA Nationals '08).
School:
OrgComm - Ended up becoming even more ridiculously time-consuming, fulfilling its destiny I suppose. I was glad to have the presentation practice but it was hard to get too excited/enthusiastic about Tim Hortons. Good times doing group work though.
Entrepreneurship - A tremendously useful class because of how hands-on it was and all of the great contacts made. My group (well, 4/5) even decided to continue working on our venue recommendation business, enjoyn.me (soon to be renamed); that's how I spend my weekdays from 6:30PM-10:30PM this summer in fact.
FSA - Very interesting class, but I probably should have tried harder to absorb the material. I did well, but I just feel like given the quality of the professor and material I could have gotten even more out of it. This class resulted in me applying for (and getting into) the Joint BS/MS in Accounting program though; fast track to CPA, woo!
CSO - Skipped a lot but only because the material was pretty easy and class was just not that useful. Now I know C as well as some assembly, my GPA is further padded, and I have completed my Computer Science minor!
World Cultures Russia - Despite a lifelong difficulty absorbing Russian history, I managed to do pretty well and do feel like a more educated person. Now when I talk about those damn communists, there's a chance I actually know what I'm talking about!
Ultimate:
This year was Haze's year and we knew it. After a number of frustrating spring tournament postponements, cancellations, and rejections we managed to attend two after Spring Break. We went 5-2, getting all the way to the finals at Roll Call but losing a tough one to Penn State (revenge for beating them and winning the tournament they hosted in the fall I suppose). The following week not many people were available so we ended up having a lame result at Huckbuddy: 2-4 and a forfeit after one of our freshman laid out and broke his collarbone in 3 places (after laying out before and dislocating his shoulder and continuing to play).
April 17-18 brought the all-important Sectionals. Everyone was hyped and it showed. We went 5-1 and won the backdoor finals for the coveted second invite to Regionals. Against all but Columbia, we dominated. Beating everyone by at least 5 points was only made more pwnage by the fact that 3/4 of our team were sporting mohawks, lulz.
Regionals was icing on the cake to this year, but that didn't stop us from working fucking hard to make our name known. We spent a lot of time practicing in the two week interim after Sectionals despite our 16 seed (out of 16). That low seed only made our 7th place finish even sweeter (2-2, beating Georgetown and Queens-Kingston, losing to Pitt (who ended up getting to the semifinals at Nationals) and Penn St (ugh again)). I even threw two assists (granted they were both somewhat questionable high-release backhands...)! Last year's disappointing end is fully behind us, Purple Haze is now a Regionals caliber team. Fuck yeah.
Now, I am playing on a summer league team in the Manhattan Ultimate Disc (aka MUD) league. It's not too high level, but at least it's somewhat competitive and a fun time. My team, Royal Pain isn't too shabby when everyone shows up and the intensity is up; we've gone 5-3 so far. That's a bit better than Bottomless Stack Fries I do believe...heh.
Visit to Shoreline:
I may be an official New Yorker now, but I still had to visit home at least once this summer. It was only from May 15th to 25th, but I managed to spend time with most all of the family and friends that I could. It was a bittersweet time seeing everyone but knowing that I had to leave soon; if anyone ever even thinks about visiting NYC, you best let me know. I've got a futon in the living room, just sayin'.
And with that, I think I am just about all caught up. While this blog will be pretty quiet from now on, remember that's because the focus is elsewhere (constellate.tumblr.com). Goodbye forever.
Thursday, July 01, 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
School Up the Wazoo
While a lack of blog updates is nothing new for me, this semester's scarcity largely due to how much crazier/busier this semester has been than usual. School has been clobbering my time, and then with ultimate and the occasional socializing on top of that, I haven't had much downtime. Without further ado, some updates on my life:
Classes:
Organizational Communication and Its Social Context (aka OrgComm) - Infamous at Stern as one of the most time-consuming classes that everyone has to take at the business school. The point is to make you good at all the forms of communication that one might find in business (emails, letters, speeches, powerpoints, etc.). Furthermore, group work is a large part of this class and that means even more outside time taken up. Kinda fun and interesting, but terrible time suck.
Entrepreneurship for the New Economy aka Entrepreneurship 2.0 aka Ready, Fire! Aim (aka rfa or ent) - The professor is a partner at a venture capital firm volunteering his time, not actually a teacher so the class is naturally a bit unorthodox and unorganized (see the multiple names that the class has been called). The idea behind the class is to create a hypothetical business and role play presenting it to a board of VCs but my group (Nicky and me and 3 others) have decided to actually try our hands at starting something for real (which I will write about in another post). Hands-on, non-traditional, cool speakers every week, but again just as much of a time suck as OrgComm if not more.
Financial Statement Analysis (aka FSA) - Higher-level accounting class. That means no more making balance sheets; statements are already done, we get to analyze them. Not too much else to say here...practical, good professor, and I sit next to a 919.
Computer Systems Organization (aka CSO) - Final computer science class needed to get a minor. So far all we've done is learn C programming so it has been pretty laid-back. Optional homework, stereotypical/crazy CS prof, chill class where Cori and I mostly don't pay much attention and it hasn't hurt us yet.
World Cultures: Russia Since 1917 (aka Russia) - Last general education (or as NYU calls them, Morse Academic Plan) class. I never liked the choices for World Cultures but I figured I might as well get this shit over with. A fair bit of reading, but I stopped going to lecture a while ago because it just wasn't time-effective (especially on the days I fell asleep, lulz). Recitation has a surprisingly high number of hott chix (though only surprising because my normal classes are biz/compsci). Basically, class is a meh, could be better but it could be worse too.
Ultimate:
We've gotten a lot less outdoor practice than we would have liked since one tournament got snowed out and another got postponed and shrunk. Aside from that, stuff's been going pretty good although we still are not quite living up to our potential as a team. Still got a month before sectionals to tighten stuff up though. I've been feeling good about my deep cuts recently, gotta still work on speeding up my throws and fakes. We got our uniforms a couple weeks ago and they look way more badass than last year's, even got matching shorts too, woooo.
Other Stuff:
I've gone to two shows so far this semester. I went to see Oberhofer, a band that Nicky's roommate from last year was in, with Nicky and Kristen a couple weeks ago. Really surprisingly good, although Mike (the roommate) is pretty pro with music so I should have expected as much from a band he was in. Last week I went to a concert sponsored by the NYU Ski/Snowboard Club and Burton where Javelin, Born Ruffians, and Man Man played. Nicky, Kristen, Max, and Henry went too although Kristen and Henry were busy with their respective +1s. I wasn't super excited by Javelin and the crowd didn't care too much either. The Born Ruffians were sick though, everyone was getting pumped. Unfortunately I couldn't stay for Man Man cuz I had to go to frisbee practice. $7 well spent nonetheless.
There were two sweet frisbee parties a couple weeks ago too. One was a potluck at the childhood home of one of the Femmes. It turned out that Kahyee and I were the only guys that showed up. That was fine though because we got to enjoy the culinary contributions of 11 ladies for the small contribution of some sweets (I baked choco chip cookies). The following weekend some of the chicks from that party had a macaron-making get-together. The macarons (not macaroons!) didn't quite turn out (more like piles of macaron material and ganache), but they were tasty nonetheless.
Jack visited briefly for around 24 hours, which was cool although his early departure was unfortunate. Some weekend soon hopefully I will be free (ie no frisbee) and so will Jack and we can have a real solid bro weekend.
Also watched a fair number of movies recently:
Leap Year: Saw this with Liz cuz she needed a movie buddy. It was a pretty mediocre romcom but Liz loved it (she loves anything Irish).
Up in the Air: Great movie, not quite what I was expecting. I agree with the "movie for our times" description though for sure.
Up: Another instant classic adorable Pixar movie.
Last Tango in Paris: Weirdly sexual, definitely European. Interestingly, Marlon Brando reminded me of my dad a lot of the time.
A History of Violence: Surprisingly explicit (both sexually and violently) but still a good time.
The Hurt Locker: Very well done war movie about a different side of the effort. Glad it won over Avatar although it wasn't like my favorite movie ever.
A Serious Man: Odd but quality stuff; also the most Jewish thing I've ever experienced.
Alright, I gotta finish up this blog post now cuz I gotta pack for spring break with the frisbee team in Georgia!!!
Classes:
Organizational Communication and Its Social Context (aka OrgComm) - Infamous at Stern as one of the most time-consuming classes that everyone has to take at the business school. The point is to make you good at all the forms of communication that one might find in business (emails, letters, speeches, powerpoints, etc.). Furthermore, group work is a large part of this class and that means even more outside time taken up. Kinda fun and interesting, but terrible time suck.
Entrepreneurship for the New Economy aka Entrepreneurship 2.0 aka Ready, Fire! Aim (aka rfa or ent) - The professor is a partner at a venture capital firm volunteering his time, not actually a teacher so the class is naturally a bit unorthodox and unorganized (see the multiple names that the class has been called). The idea behind the class is to create a hypothetical business and role play presenting it to a board of VCs but my group (Nicky and me and 3 others) have decided to actually try our hands at starting something for real (which I will write about in another post). Hands-on, non-traditional, cool speakers every week, but again just as much of a time suck as OrgComm if not more.
Financial Statement Analysis (aka FSA) - Higher-level accounting class. That means no more making balance sheets; statements are already done, we get to analyze them. Not too much else to say here...practical, good professor, and I sit next to a 919.
Computer Systems Organization (aka CSO) - Final computer science class needed to get a minor. So far all we've done is learn C programming so it has been pretty laid-back. Optional homework, stereotypical/crazy CS prof, chill class where Cori and I mostly don't pay much attention and it hasn't hurt us yet.
World Cultures: Russia Since 1917 (aka Russia) - Last general education (or as NYU calls them, Morse Academic Plan) class. I never liked the choices for World Cultures but I figured I might as well get this shit over with. A fair bit of reading, but I stopped going to lecture a while ago because it just wasn't time-effective (especially on the days I fell asleep, lulz). Recitation has a surprisingly high number of hott chix (though only surprising because my normal classes are biz/compsci). Basically, class is a meh, could be better but it could be worse too.
Ultimate:
We've gotten a lot less outdoor practice than we would have liked since one tournament got snowed out and another got postponed and shrunk. Aside from that, stuff's been going pretty good although we still are not quite living up to our potential as a team. Still got a month before sectionals to tighten stuff up though. I've been feeling good about my deep cuts recently, gotta still work on speeding up my throws and fakes. We got our uniforms a couple weeks ago and they look way more badass than last year's, even got matching shorts too, woooo.
Other Stuff:
I've gone to two shows so far this semester. I went to see Oberhofer, a band that Nicky's roommate from last year was in, with Nicky and Kristen a couple weeks ago. Really surprisingly good, although Mike (the roommate) is pretty pro with music so I should have expected as much from a band he was in. Last week I went to a concert sponsored by the NYU Ski/Snowboard Club and Burton where Javelin, Born Ruffians, and Man Man played. Nicky, Kristen, Max, and Henry went too although Kristen and Henry were busy with their respective +1s. I wasn't super excited by Javelin and the crowd didn't care too much either. The Born Ruffians were sick though, everyone was getting pumped. Unfortunately I couldn't stay for Man Man cuz I had to go to frisbee practice. $7 well spent nonetheless.
There were two sweet frisbee parties a couple weeks ago too. One was a potluck at the childhood home of one of the Femmes. It turned out that Kahyee and I were the only guys that showed up. That was fine though because we got to enjoy the culinary contributions of 11 ladies for the small contribution of some sweets (I baked choco chip cookies). The following weekend some of the chicks from that party had a macaron-making get-together. The macarons (not macaroons!) didn't quite turn out (more like piles of macaron material and ganache), but they were tasty nonetheless.
Jack visited briefly for around 24 hours, which was cool although his early departure was unfortunate. Some weekend soon hopefully I will be free (ie no frisbee) and so will Jack and we can have a real solid bro weekend.
Also watched a fair number of movies recently:
Leap Year: Saw this with Liz cuz she needed a movie buddy. It was a pretty mediocre romcom but Liz loved it (she loves anything Irish).
Up in the Air: Great movie, not quite what I was expecting. I agree with the "movie for our times" description though for sure.
Up: Another instant classic adorable Pixar movie.
Last Tango in Paris: Weirdly sexual, definitely European. Interestingly, Marlon Brando reminded me of my dad a lot of the time.
A History of Violence: Surprisingly explicit (both sexually and violently) but still a good time.
The Hurt Locker: Very well done war movie about a different side of the effort. Glad it won over Avatar although it wasn't like my favorite movie ever.
A Serious Man: Odd but quality stuff; also the most Jewish thing I've ever experienced.
Alright, I gotta finish up this blog post now cuz I gotta pack for spring break with the frisbee team in Georgia!!!
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Break Braking
Gotten behind again; school has just been swamping me. I even finished most of this post 2 weeks ago but then I never got around to finishing it =/
The second half of break was far less exciting than the first half. I spent most of my time sleeping, working out, or playing frisbee. But then what else would you expect from me?
Ultimate:
Guest played on the UWB team again, along with David. There was a double header on the 9th which provided a lot of great ulti, although by the end two people had sustained some possibly severe injuries which was no good. I ended up bruising my heel or something, which is similar to a foot problem I had last winter which went away so it's probably nothing. Aside from injuries, the double header was quite fun and I finally got to get the Burt Connection (TM) going with Marisa (a fourth cousin of mine who is a couple years older, fyi) since she came out and played. She also invited two other female alums: Jasmine, who looked really familiar despite the fact that I don't think I've ever actually met her before; and Mickey Hansen who was my link leader (high school freshman orientation leader). We (Marisa, Jasmine, Mickey, and I) went to Gordito's (mexican place in Fremont) for a late lunch/early dinner. They have burritos as big as babies there. Literally. There were pics. All in all, best day of break.
Guest played again on the 17th with David AND Steven this time. Even though we got trounced for most of the "game", once they called out "game to 5" we stepped it up (also, they were tired) and won that 5-3. The rekindling of the Steven-Orion telepathy definitely helped (I loved those outside-ins, Stevie). I invited Sara Levy, and Marisa also played and brought Jasmine and another friend of hers, Rachel. As it turns out that meant we had just as many women subs as men subs when playing 5-2 (after Ryan injured his back).
Getting Running Shoes (Jan. 15):
Given that I was in sore need of actual running shoes and I wanted a knowledgeable recommendation on what to get, my mom recommended that I go to Super Jock & Jill because Karsten's dad, Chet, works there. So, I did, got some good shoes (which as it turns out, are the exact same shoes David wears), caught up with Chet, and also ran into Alexia Diorio (girl from the Highly Capable years) by chance.
Mini-SWood Half-Reunion (later on Jan. 15):
David and I went over the UW to get some lunch with Drew and Nikki. Not the complete reunion we were hoping for, but it was still good to see those two at least. After nomming some teriyaki, David and I hung out at Drew's place for a bit. That may have been the first time I've been inside one of those college student houses built for like 8 people. We also stopped by Lucy and Sarah's dorm and chatted with them for a while before I had to leave for a family dinner. Overall, a nice trip down to the UW.
Media:
He's Just Not That Into You - Not at all what I was expecting. A lot of honesty about relationships, but I sure hope these truths weren't too surprising to people. Decent movie, not that great.
Friday Night Lights, Season 2 - You could tell there was a higher budget for this season, but I felt like it lost a bit of the charm of the first season. The finale was quite abrupt as well (due partially to the writer's strike I think). I've heard the 2nd season is the weakest though, so I'll let you know after I watch season 3.
Advance Wars: Dual Strike - Finally beat the normal campaign which I had been tackling off and on for a couple of months. I spent a lot of time grinding to level up COs and unlocking as many as possible too, on the off chance playing multiplayer ever came up and because unlockables are kinda addictive.
The second half of break was far less exciting than the first half. I spent most of my time sleeping, working out, or playing frisbee. But then what else would you expect from me?
Ultimate:
Guest played on the UWB team again, along with David. There was a double header on the 9th which provided a lot of great ulti, although by the end two people had sustained some possibly severe injuries which was no good. I ended up bruising my heel or something, which is similar to a foot problem I had last winter which went away so it's probably nothing. Aside from injuries, the double header was quite fun and I finally got to get the Burt Connection (TM) going with Marisa (a fourth cousin of mine who is a couple years older, fyi) since she came out and played. She also invited two other female alums: Jasmine, who looked really familiar despite the fact that I don't think I've ever actually met her before; and Mickey Hansen who was my link leader (high school freshman orientation leader). We (Marisa, Jasmine, Mickey, and I) went to Gordito's (mexican place in Fremont) for a late lunch/early dinner. They have burritos as big as babies there. Literally. There were pics. All in all, best day of break.
Guest played again on the 17th with David AND Steven this time. Even though we got trounced for most of the "game", once they called out "game to 5" we stepped it up (also, they were tired) and won that 5-3. The rekindling of the Steven-Orion telepathy definitely helped (I loved those outside-ins, Stevie). I invited Sara Levy, and Marisa also played and brought Jasmine and another friend of hers, Rachel. As it turns out that meant we had just as many women subs as men subs when playing 5-2 (after Ryan injured his back).
Getting Running Shoes (Jan. 15):
Given that I was in sore need of actual running shoes and I wanted a knowledgeable recommendation on what to get, my mom recommended that I go to Super Jock & Jill because Karsten's dad, Chet, works there. So, I did, got some good shoes (which as it turns out, are the exact same shoes David wears), caught up with Chet, and also ran into Alexia Diorio (girl from the Highly Capable years) by chance.
Mini-SWood Half-Reunion (later on Jan. 15):
David and I went over the UW to get some lunch with Drew and Nikki. Not the complete reunion we were hoping for, but it was still good to see those two at least. After nomming some teriyaki, David and I hung out at Drew's place for a bit. That may have been the first time I've been inside one of those college student houses built for like 8 people. We also stopped by Lucy and Sarah's dorm and chatted with them for a while before I had to leave for a family dinner. Overall, a nice trip down to the UW.
Media:
He's Just Not That Into You - Not at all what I was expecting. A lot of honesty about relationships, but I sure hope these truths weren't too surprising to people. Decent movie, not that great.
Friday Night Lights, Season 2 - You could tell there was a higher budget for this season, but I felt like it lost a bit of the charm of the first season. The finale was quite abrupt as well (due partially to the writer's strike I think). I've heard the 2nd season is the weakest though, so I'll let you know after I watch season 3.
Advance Wars: Dual Strike - Finally beat the normal campaign which I had been tackling off and on for a couple of months. I spent a lot of time grinding to level up COs and unlocking as many as possible too, on the off chance playing multiplayer ever came up and because unlockables are kinda addictive.
Saturday, January 09, 2010
Breakneck Break
Christmas (Dec. 25):
Cornell & Co. came over around 9AM and we opened our presents with them. For not asking for anything, I got a surprising amount of good stuff. Notably, I got a Wii (jk, it's for the whole family), some base layer clothing (needed since I lost some of mine...), Friday Night Lights Season 2 (such a good show), and a BlackBerry Storm2!
The BlackBerry was a very ironic gift because it was the exact phone I was going to ask for when our contract was up in March, but I hadn't mentioned it to my parents yet cuz I figured that would be rude. My dad just figured that would be the phone I would want and bought it randomly. Well he did buy it at the same time that he bought a netbook (since cancelled after I made him realize it was a waste of money for him) BlackBerrys for my mom and him. Apparently he was very worried after Emma/Noel posted "my parents both got blackberrys" on Facebook because he thought that would clearly lead me to the conclusion that there was a deal where he would have bought me one as well. I did not in fact intuit that (I mean even buying 2 phones on a different network when you are still under contract for 4 more months is silly, I didn't think he would have made it 3) and thus was completely surprised when I opened the new phone on Christmas.
A bunch of our relatives came over after presents for brunch and an early dinner. Davis also showed up after that, and we hung out for a while, enjoying many a lol. My dad provided many of those lols and the most memorable one came when he was discussing some of my Facebook photos that he had seen. He stated (with my mom and sisters and other relatives nearby) that he saw me in some pictures with a bunch of girls who "looked like they could be in pornos." I'm not sure exactly who he's talking about, but probability-wise here's looking at you KK, Liz, Sarah, Khalehla, and Becca!
Cheney (Dec. 26 - Dec. 29):
At 6:30AM my family began the 5 hour drive out to Cheney (eastern WA, near Spokane for those not in the know). We stopped for breakfast at our usual spot, although the name of the place escapes me. There was a cute waitress checkin me out, but I played it cool. Over breakfast, I showed my family what the BlackBerry could do and they were astounded (It knows where you are?! You can go on the Internet?! You can scan barcodes?! You can find nearby establishments?! etc.). We arrived right before noon at Tamara's new house. Well it was new to me at least; she had moved there earlier in the year when she and her ex-husband separated. We spent the rest of the day having a "second Christmas" basically, with more gifts for everyone and another turkey dinner, nom! That night, I introduced Emma and Noel to the classic 90's-ness that is Full House since there wasn't much else on.
Most of Sunday was spent helping Zoe and Callie (Tamara's two daughters) play with all of their new toys, including their own Wii. That afternoon, my mom finished my replica of Jayne's hat from one Firefly episode and it turned out awesome. Loves it. That evening, my family went to see one of the families that we met during Emma's adoption. The adults and kids quickly split into two separate parties; I remained with the adults and had a good time enjoying the awkwardness & hilariousness that is caused by a tipsy Roy. Conveniently for him, I was there to be DD.
Monday, we went ice skating at EWU which I didn't much care for given how uncomfortable the ice skates were. I don't think I've ever worn even a semi-comfortable pairs of ice skates in my life. I stopped early and just worked out at their weight room. After that, everyone except Tamara and I went swimming at the motel that my parents were staying at. We went back and watched The Hangover on pay-per-view. My mom nearly watched it with us because for some reason she thought she would like it (wtf?) but thankfully I convinced her not to, that would have been too weird. Emma and Noel also wanted to see it (even though I knew they wouldn't enjoy it) and they insisted on watching it when they got back (PPV was a 24 hour rental). Sure enough, they only times they laughed were when people got hit by opening car doors. I thought it was a pretty hilarious movie, not the funniest thing I've seen, but fairly up there.
Headed back to Shoreline around midday. Nick and Wilfred came over in the evening and we chatted for a while since Nick was getting his tonsils out the next day and would therefore be "unable to chat for a while."
Token D&D Session (Dec. 30):
First order of business was Sai and David revealing Davis' (6 month late) DINOSAUR & DIE birthday cake (D&D, get it? also punny because it depicted the dinosaurs dying)! David introduced his newest character (#3 for those counting), a druid. Druidic powers proved to be a very powerful thing in the hands of David. Excerpts from his blog post:
NYE:
I spent most of the day creating my mom's birthday present which was a nice slideshow of the day we visisted the village in China that my grandfather came from. In the evening, Emma and Noel invited some friends to hang out with and I had to hold down the fort while my parents went out for dinner. Eventually we had cake and sparkling cider to celebrate the new year and my mom's bday and I hooked up my laptop to the big TV and showed the slideshow. Kind of a lame NYE, but hey I didn't have high hopes anyway.
Token Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 Session (Jan. 1):
David, as requested, acquired Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 (Christmas present I do believe) and so we managed to get in a nice long play session from about 4PM to 11PM. Pretty fun sequel; they do introduce a lot of changes which is nice, although the character selection and customization leaves something to be desired. We did take a break to meet up with The Asians at Red Robin for dinner. Josh got volunteered as the "birthday boy" when he left to use the restroom and was very surprised when he received balloons and a sundae after returning. Also, Davis pretended to hit Alex's nuts which resulted in him accidentally doing just that.
Ultimate:
I've been doing a lot of working out to prepare for spring season this year. Hitting the gym, lifting weights, crunches and pushups at home, etc. I need to get in more running, even though I hate it. I went to DiscNW sponsored pickup two days ago and it proved to be some good practice. Everyone there had a lot of experience (definitely more than David, Steven, Eric and me), but hey challenge is good, right? I failed completely at every JC (jump competition) and had 2 drops, but at least by the end I got a foot block and a layout D :/ Also, it was definitely busier than I had hoped and we did not get much playing time the first half of the time we were there. I've also been guest "coaching" at the Shorewood ultimate practices this week which has been fun since at the very least it's a chance to throw with Steven, David, and Eric, and if I can help out some nooblets while having a light exercise as well, so much the better. They've got a couple somewhat competent players, but most are newbies so it will be interesting to see how much SD&E can train them up.
Movies:
I've also watched a lot of movies recently because of convenient access to stuff I want to watch (HBO OnDemand ah yeah) and stuff that is convenient to watch when there's nothing to do (because at least one sister is probably watching something on TV). Anyway, I thought I'd throw 'em down just for kicks (and you can probably tell which movies fall under which category).
The Proposal was a terrible movie compounded by its many weird moments and the eternal awkwardness that was a love developing between Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock; Ryan, my friend, you should have gone for that cute barista at the beginning that smiled at you.
Burn After Reading lived up to the mediocre standards I had pegged for it; a little funny at parts, but generally just too weird to really matter.
The Incredible Hulk (the one with Ed Norton and Liv Tyler) was pretty decent; just a popcorn action flick but much better than the other recent one in my opinion.
Minority Report was a movie that I had wanted to see for a long time and the sci-fi stuff in it was awesome--if only they had chosen someone other than Tom Cruise as the lead *sigh*.
Revolutionary Road was an extremely well done movie with great acting all around (especially the "slightly crazy" son, those were the best moments of the movie for me), but for some reason I just couldn't get as "into" it as I would have liked.
27 Dresses was utterly predictable from start to finish, just blah. I can actually appreciate a solid romcom, but this was not good at all and Katherine Heigl (who did a great job in Knocked Up) was just silly.
Amorous Affairs:
None that I can remember. And for me, that means none period.
Cornell & Co. came over around 9AM and we opened our presents with them. For not asking for anything, I got a surprising amount of good stuff. Notably, I got a Wii (jk, it's for the whole family), some base layer clothing (needed since I lost some of mine...), Friday Night Lights Season 2 (such a good show), and a BlackBerry Storm2!
The BlackBerry was a very ironic gift because it was the exact phone I was going to ask for when our contract was up in March, but I hadn't mentioned it to my parents yet cuz I figured that would be rude. My dad just figured that would be the phone I would want and bought it randomly. Well he did buy it at the same time that he bought a netbook (since cancelled after I made him realize it was a waste of money for him) BlackBerrys for my mom and him. Apparently he was very worried after Emma/Noel posted "my parents both got blackberrys" on Facebook because he thought that would clearly lead me to the conclusion that there was a deal where he would have bought me one as well. I did not in fact intuit that (I mean even buying 2 phones on a different network when you are still under contract for 4 more months is silly, I didn't think he would have made it 3) and thus was completely surprised when I opened the new phone on Christmas.
A bunch of our relatives came over after presents for brunch and an early dinner. Davis also showed up after that, and we hung out for a while, enjoying many a lol. My dad provided many of those lols and the most memorable one came when he was discussing some of my Facebook photos that he had seen. He stated (with my mom and sisters and other relatives nearby) that he saw me in some pictures with a bunch of girls who "looked like they could be in pornos." I'm not sure exactly who he's talking about, but probability-wise here's looking at you KK, Liz, Sarah, Khalehla, and Becca!
Cheney (Dec. 26 - Dec. 29):
At 6:30AM my family began the 5 hour drive out to Cheney (eastern WA, near Spokane for those not in the know). We stopped for breakfast at our usual spot, although the name of the place escapes me. There was a cute waitress checkin me out, but I played it cool. Over breakfast, I showed my family what the BlackBerry could do and they were astounded (It knows where you are?! You can go on the Internet?! You can scan barcodes?! You can find nearby establishments?! etc.). We arrived right before noon at Tamara's new house. Well it was new to me at least; she had moved there earlier in the year when she and her ex-husband separated. We spent the rest of the day having a "second Christmas" basically, with more gifts for everyone and another turkey dinner, nom! That night, I introduced Emma and Noel to the classic 90's-ness that is Full House since there wasn't much else on.
Most of Sunday was spent helping Zoe and Callie (Tamara's two daughters) play with all of their new toys, including their own Wii. That afternoon, my mom finished my replica of Jayne's hat from one Firefly episode and it turned out awesome. Loves it. That evening, my family went to see one of the families that we met during Emma's adoption. The adults and kids quickly split into two separate parties; I remained with the adults and had a good time enjoying the awkwardness & hilariousness that is caused by a tipsy Roy. Conveniently for him, I was there to be DD.
Monday, we went ice skating at EWU which I didn't much care for given how uncomfortable the ice skates were. I don't think I've ever worn even a semi-comfortable pairs of ice skates in my life. I stopped early and just worked out at their weight room. After that, everyone except Tamara and I went swimming at the motel that my parents were staying at. We went back and watched The Hangover on pay-per-view. My mom nearly watched it with us because for some reason she thought she would like it (wtf?) but thankfully I convinced her not to, that would have been too weird. Emma and Noel also wanted to see it (even though I knew they wouldn't enjoy it) and they insisted on watching it when they got back (PPV was a 24 hour rental). Sure enough, they only times they laughed were when people got hit by opening car doors. I thought it was a pretty hilarious movie, not the funniest thing I've seen, but fairly up there.
Headed back to Shoreline around midday. Nick and Wilfred came over in the evening and we chatted for a while since Nick was getting his tonsils out the next day and would therefore be "unable to chat for a while."
Token D&D Session (Dec. 30):
First order of business was Sai and David revealing Davis' (6 month late) DINOSAUR & DIE birthday cake (D&D, get it? also punny because it depicted the dinosaurs dying)! David introduced his newest character (#3 for those counting), a druid. Druidic powers proved to be a very powerful thing in the hands of David. Excerpts from his blog post:
-I jumped off a ledge and transformed into a tree in an attempt to crush our enemy (at Sai's suggestion) that none of us could damage. Sai tried to get out of the way, but failed and I came one point of damage away from killing him.We also tried to go to Taco Bell for dinner, but they were severely understaffed and after a 15 minute wait, we got a refund and went to Taco del Mar instead. Saw Taylor Naten somewhat awkwardly at TB and perhaps just as awkwardly saw Mick (guy from ultimate 2 years ago) at TdM. In the end, we D&D'ed from around 1PM until 10PM, a solid session indeed.
-Some mouth enemy ate me (while I was in velociraptor form), but while I was inside it about to be digested, I transformed into a tree and the enemy basically exploded everywhere.
NYE:
I spent most of the day creating my mom's birthday present which was a nice slideshow of the day we visisted the village in China that my grandfather came from. In the evening, Emma and Noel invited some friends to hang out with and I had to hold down the fort while my parents went out for dinner. Eventually we had cake and sparkling cider to celebrate the new year and my mom's bday and I hooked up my laptop to the big TV and showed the slideshow. Kind of a lame NYE, but hey I didn't have high hopes anyway.
Token Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 Session (Jan. 1):
David, as requested, acquired Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 (Christmas present I do believe) and so we managed to get in a nice long play session from about 4PM to 11PM. Pretty fun sequel; they do introduce a lot of changes which is nice, although the character selection and customization leaves something to be desired. We did take a break to meet up with The Asians at Red Robin for dinner. Josh got volunteered as the "birthday boy" when he left to use the restroom and was very surprised when he received balloons and a sundae after returning. Also, Davis pretended to hit Alex's nuts which resulted in him accidentally doing just that.
Ultimate:
I've been doing a lot of working out to prepare for spring season this year. Hitting the gym, lifting weights, crunches and pushups at home, etc. I need to get in more running, even though I hate it. I went to DiscNW sponsored pickup two days ago and it proved to be some good practice. Everyone there had a lot of experience (definitely more than David, Steven, Eric and me), but hey challenge is good, right? I failed completely at every JC (jump competition) and had 2 drops, but at least by the end I got a foot block and a layout D :/ Also, it was definitely busier than I had hoped and we did not get much playing time the first half of the time we were there. I've also been guest "coaching" at the Shorewood ultimate practices this week which has been fun since at the very least it's a chance to throw with Steven, David, and Eric, and if I can help out some nooblets while having a light exercise as well, so much the better. They've got a couple somewhat competent players, but most are newbies so it will be interesting to see how much SD&E can train them up.
Movies:
I've also watched a lot of movies recently because of convenient access to stuff I want to watch (HBO OnDemand ah yeah) and stuff that is convenient to watch when there's nothing to do (because at least one sister is probably watching something on TV). Anyway, I thought I'd throw 'em down just for kicks (and you can probably tell which movies fall under which category).
The Proposal was a terrible movie compounded by its many weird moments and the eternal awkwardness that was a love developing between Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock; Ryan, my friend, you should have gone for that cute barista at the beginning that smiled at you.
Burn After Reading lived up to the mediocre standards I had pegged for it; a little funny at parts, but generally just too weird to really matter.
The Incredible Hulk (the one with Ed Norton and Liv Tyler) was pretty decent; just a popcorn action flick but much better than the other recent one in my opinion.
Minority Report was a movie that I had wanted to see for a long time and the sci-fi stuff in it was awesome--if only they had chosen someone other than Tom Cruise as the lead *sigh*.
Revolutionary Road was an extremely well done movie with great acting all around (especially the "slightly crazy" son, those were the best moments of the movie for me), but for some reason I just couldn't get as "into" it as I would have liked.
27 Dresses was utterly predictable from start to finish, just blah. I can actually appreciate a solid romcom, but this was not good at all and Katherine Heigl (who did a great job in Knocked Up) was just silly.
Amorous Affairs:
None that I can remember. And for me, that means none period.
Labels:
frisbee,
holiday,
movie,
tabletop games,
vacation,
video games
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Quickly Now
The business of finals put me behind in my catch-up schedule. Time to update quick hits style.
Kristen's Party (Nov. 13):
We went to the sit-down Paquito's for dinner and got hella burritos. Delicious. Met a bunch of other friends of KK, including the infamous and hilarious Lady Lana. We went back to her room where the drinks were broken out and chilling commenced. We had to peace from her suite at midnight because of a possible sexiling and so everyone hung out up at 2k4 for a while. En route to 2k4, we lost Henry, Max, and two other dudes (Bernard and Patrick). It turns out they had gone to "McDonald's" (aka Henry's room) for "Big Macs" (aka gettin hiiiiiiiiiigh) and then gotten written up for it. Everyone chilled in 2k4 for a while, enjoying the Max being super stereotypically silly show.
Thanksgiving Break:
The evening before Thanksgiving, Henry and I went to Jessicia's for a small dinner party with her, her boyfriend, and another friend of hers. There ended up being a very nice spread of food and seconds were no problem since there were only 5 of us. A very nice return on a contribution of a green bean casserole and rolls and it was really nice to see Jesse since she lives in a different dorm this year.
Thanksgiving day I marathoned Band of Brothers by my lonesome self. It was a very quiet day since everyone was gone, but it was also very relaxing. Also, clothes were only optional. I had a nice dinner of leftovers that I was sure to snag the night before. The optionality of clothes became an issue when someone invited me over for pecan pie at night, but I never turn down free food so I quickly got dressed and got me some pie.
Friday, Nick (Setterberg) and his friend Dan came into the city and we hung out for most of the day. We got lunch at Lamazou's (sick sandwich place up the street from Gram), chilled, and went up to Columbia to visit Wilfred and get some dinner with him. Kinda ridiculous that I hadn't seen Wilfred until then, but better late than never. It was cool to hang out with some good friends from the old days; made me realize how long it'd been since we were all in high school.
Firefly Marathon (Nov. 20 & Dec. 4):
During the summer I watched the first half of the season of Firefly while I was recovering from getting my wisdom teeth out. I failed to finish the series though, and so when I found out one of players on the women's ultimate team, Lizzie, was a fan, had Firefly on DVD, and wanted to marathon it, it was a no-brainer. Because of scheduling concerns, it ended up taking us two Friday nights to get through but it was worth it. The second half of the season seemed way more exciting as well as hilarious. I am now hoping my mom will make me a replica of the hat that Jayne receives from Ma Cobb. Knowing how much she likes to knit, that shouldn't be a problem.
Henry & Liz's Party (Dec. 12):
Planning came down to the last minute, but that didn't stop us from having a good time. BYOB Indian restaurant (often jokingly referred to as Panna II for those in the know but actually the Royal Bangladesh I think) provided some good noms. Henry had wished for jungle juice, so when we went back to Gramercy that was the drink of the night for those partaking. Apples to Apples was played for a while much to my dismay. Ariel (Max's girlfriend) made her first appearance ever at a social function of our group of friends! By the end of the night, Henry had gotten quite drunk, also just as he wished. All in all, GTs.
Frisbee White Elephant (Dec. 15):
As its name implies, the NYU ultimate frisbee teams had a joint Christmas party. The white elephant was done a bit differently than I am used to. Each person opened a gift and then got to decide whether or not to swap with someone else, rather than each person having to decide between opening a new gift and stealing an already opened gift. I liked this new way less since it meant the swappees got kind of screwed, but it wasn't a big deal. My addition was a "Secret Hippo" package containing a drawing of a hippo, a hippo toothbrush holder, and a hippo ice pack. A Nerf Maverick (google it if you haven't heard of it, it's my favorite nerf gun of all time) was the most frequently stolen item. I ended up going home with a box of Insomnia cookies (well-known NYC cookie store). All in all, a nice break from all of the finals stuff and a good chance to see mah frisbee peeps before the holidays.
My Amorous Affairs:
Since Davis posted a particularly vague section about his amorous affairs, so shall I. Pre-Halloween thing was dealt with in an unfortunately awkward fashion, but at least it's dealt with. Met a really cute girl two weeks ago and getting coffee with her went really well, but it turns out she's studying abroad next semester which means I won't be seeing her for at least a year; phailsauce :(
Whew. And I think that covers most everything, I am now caught up--it's a Christmas miracle!
Kristen's Party (Nov. 13):
We went to the sit-down Paquito's for dinner and got hella burritos. Delicious. Met a bunch of other friends of KK, including the infamous and hilarious Lady Lana. We went back to her room where the drinks were broken out and chilling commenced. We had to peace from her suite at midnight because of a possible sexiling and so everyone hung out up at 2k4 for a while. En route to 2k4, we lost Henry, Max, and two other dudes (Bernard and Patrick). It turns out they had gone to "McDonald's" (aka Henry's room) for "Big Macs" (aka gettin hiiiiiiiiiigh) and then gotten written up for it. Everyone chilled in 2k4 for a while, enjoying the Max being super stereotypically silly show.
Thanksgiving Break:
The evening before Thanksgiving, Henry and I went to Jessicia's for a small dinner party with her, her boyfriend, and another friend of hers. There ended up being a very nice spread of food and seconds were no problem since there were only 5 of us. A very nice return on a contribution of a green bean casserole and rolls and it was really nice to see Jesse since she lives in a different dorm this year.
Thanksgiving day I marathoned Band of Brothers by my lonesome self. It was a very quiet day since everyone was gone, but it was also very relaxing. Also, clothes were only optional. I had a nice dinner of leftovers that I was sure to snag the night before. The optionality of clothes became an issue when someone invited me over for pecan pie at night, but I never turn down free food so I quickly got dressed and got me some pie.
Friday, Nick (Setterberg) and his friend Dan came into the city and we hung out for most of the day. We got lunch at Lamazou's (sick sandwich place up the street from Gram), chilled, and went up to Columbia to visit Wilfred and get some dinner with him. Kinda ridiculous that I hadn't seen Wilfred until then, but better late than never. It was cool to hang out with some good friends from the old days; made me realize how long it'd been since we were all in high school.
Firefly Marathon (Nov. 20 & Dec. 4):
During the summer I watched the first half of the season of Firefly while I was recovering from getting my wisdom teeth out. I failed to finish the series though, and so when I found out one of players on the women's ultimate team, Lizzie, was a fan, had Firefly on DVD, and wanted to marathon it, it was a no-brainer. Because of scheduling concerns, it ended up taking us two Friday nights to get through but it was worth it. The second half of the season seemed way more exciting as well as hilarious. I am now hoping my mom will make me a replica of the hat that Jayne receives from Ma Cobb. Knowing how much she likes to knit, that shouldn't be a problem.
Henry & Liz's Party (Dec. 12):
Planning came down to the last minute, but that didn't stop us from having a good time. BYOB Indian restaurant (often jokingly referred to as Panna II for those in the know but actually the Royal Bangladesh I think) provided some good noms. Henry had wished for jungle juice, so when we went back to Gramercy that was the drink of the night for those partaking. Apples to Apples was played for a while much to my dismay. Ariel (Max's girlfriend) made her first appearance ever at a social function of our group of friends! By the end of the night, Henry had gotten quite drunk, also just as he wished. All in all, GTs.
Frisbee White Elephant (Dec. 15):
As its name implies, the NYU ultimate frisbee teams had a joint Christmas party. The white elephant was done a bit differently than I am used to. Each person opened a gift and then got to decide whether or not to swap with someone else, rather than each person having to decide between opening a new gift and stealing an already opened gift. I liked this new way less since it meant the swappees got kind of screwed, but it wasn't a big deal. My addition was a "Secret Hippo" package containing a drawing of a hippo, a hippo toothbrush holder, and a hippo ice pack. A Nerf Maverick (google it if you haven't heard of it, it's my favorite nerf gun of all time) was the most frequently stolen item. I ended up going home with a box of Insomnia cookies (well-known NYC cookie store). All in all, a nice break from all of the finals stuff and a good chance to see mah frisbee peeps before the holidays.
My Amorous Affairs:
Since Davis posted a particularly vague section about his amorous affairs, so shall I. Pre-Halloween thing was dealt with in an unfortunately awkward fashion, but at least it's dealt with. Met a really cute girl two weeks ago and getting coffee with her went really well, but it turns out she's studying abroad next semester which means I won't be seeing her for at least a year; phailsauce :(
Whew. And I think that covers most everything, I am now caught up--it's a Christmas miracle!
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Rutgers Heiko Gross Memorial Tournament
Final tournament post of the fall '09 season. It ended up being longer than I expected, sorry ya'll.
Rutgers Heiko Gross Memorial Tournament @ Rutgers University, Nov. 7 & 8
Friday, Nov. 6:
We left for NJ at around 6:30PM and finally watched Space Jam. It was a running joke amongst the members of Purple Haze that, whenever a movie choice needed to be made, everyone should shout for Space Jam. No one ever had it so the joke gained a long history. VP brought the goods this time though and we got to rewatch that gem from our childhoods. Seriously, props to the crazy motherfucker that thought that a movie where Michael Jordan goes to Looney Tunes Land would be a good idea.
Only the men's team went to this tournament, but Lu managed to get a quality hotel (quality = pool+hottub+breakfast, it was a Doubletree) without the help of the women. I lucked out once again and got in a three-person room. My roommates were Richard (chill sophomore, shortest guy on the team, aka Dick Schlong) and Evan (a freshman). After everyone hit the pool and hot tub (as per usual), I went to Ruby Tuesday with Lu, Larry, Richard, Nova, and Clay (we saw a deer while walking there!). It turned out that it was the same Ruby Tuesday that we ate at during sectionals earlier this year.
Saturday, Nov. 7:
I woke up at 6:45AM and went downstairs by 7:00 for breakfast. I was the first person at the hotel restaurant which made me nervous that perhaps that was not where the continental breakfast was and therefore I would have to pay $15 for food. Luckily, it was the correct place; everyone else was just slower than me. After a scrumptious breakfast, we headed to the fields.
It was very chilly in the morning, but as the day wore on, it became warmer and ended up being pretty solid frisbee weather. Our first game was against Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Garbage team, but we didn't stomp them like we should have and only won 11-8. Our lack of intensity that first game was a sign of Bad Things to come. Game 2 was against Rutgers, one of our big rivals. They are a good team, but having seen the potential that our team demonstrated so far this fall season we should have been able to beat them. That lack of intensity from the first game reared it's ugly head though and we lost our first game of the year 4-9. After a break for lunch, we had Game 3 against Delaware. Another good team that we should be able to keep up with. Luckily, our loss the round before gave us a little more drive and we stayed in this game all the way through to a 9-8 win on universe point. We didn't play our best, but it was definitely an improvement from Rutgers (although the fact that we played better just hours later made the loss to Rutgers even worse).
Once we got back to the hotel, I realized, to my horror, that I had left my cleats at the fields. Fuck. I hastily called up the TD and he said they didn't find anything matching my description. Nothing I could do but wait until the next day and pray. For dinner, we took the bus to an Old Country Buffet that was like 45 minutes away. With stomachs rumbling, the ride to the buffet felt far too long. While I don't really think too much of Old Country Buffet (one of the places way too high on my Dad's list of fine family dining), any all-you-can-eat establishment makes for a good dinner after a tiring day. After returning to the hotel quite stuffed, everyone retreated to their rooms and watched Braveheart.
Sunday, Nov. 8:
After checking on the cleat situation once again, I discovered that while my cleats had not been found, a mediocre pair of cleats in the same size was found. This led me to the realization that when my cleats were found, someone probably decided to get themselves a shoe upgrade instead of positive karma points. The TD said I could borrow those crappy cleats for the day, but I just ended up using Nova's cleats instead because he was too injured to play.
Our first game was against Columbia. They've always been a rival since Columbia and NYU are the two sides of the college in NYC coin (the rest of the schools are the edge of the coin since no one gives much of a shit about them and it'd be real silly to pick any of them over Columbia/NYU), but now that Columbia's men's team is coached by the ex-NYU-women's coach that rivalry is a little more heated. They played quite well though, and we just did not play our best (the disappointing trend of the weekend). It wasn't as bad as the Rutgers game, but we definitely could have made it closer; we lost 9-15. That knocked us out of contention for anything above 5th place. We played WPI again and beat them 13-8, but our heart wasn't really in it. We got matched up with Rutgers to see who would get 5th place, but since that didn't matter much, the captains decided we would just play/scrimmage with whoever wanted to still play (aka rookie time!). I played a bit and had some fun (played two points on an Asians-Only line), but I had already gotten a fair bit of playing time during the rest of the weekend.
Once that last "game" was over, we headed to The Greece Truck (see that sectionals blog post) for dinner as is tradition. After we had ordered, Delaware showed up and that's when shit nearly went down. A short aside to give some context: [[ At one point during the Delaware game, Larry was thrown to in the endzone and Delaware's captain was guarding him. They both jumped for it and their captain tipped it and then fell down. The tip wasn't very effective though and Larry caught it on the second after he landed. He then celebrated a little bit (not too much since it was kind of a garbage goal) and the captain flipped the fuck out. He started shouting stuff about how Larry shouldn't be celebrating like that, which was confusing to me since Larry def hadn't celebrated inappropriately (ie didn't spike the disc) and while it was a silly goal, there's no reason to get that much in a huff. As I was running on the field to play the next point, I replied to one of his shouts with something along the lines of "Are you really getting upset about someone celebrating after scoring a goal?" Apparently he called ME a faggot after that, but I didn't find that out until later. ]]
Anyway, long story short is we already thought the captain was a bit of a dick when him and his team showed up at The Greece Truck. Seeing the large crowd, the guy manning the register then announced, "There are too many of you for me to keep track of who ordered what. Just come up and grab the food you ordered when I call it out." For some reason Delaware (most specifically that captain), decided that was an invitation to FUCKING SNATCH OUR FOOD. Keep in mind that none of them had ordered and we had all ordered. Well when our first sandwiches were announced, the captain of Delaware grabbed them and pretended they were his. We immediately started shouting, calling out his dickly move. He looked at us for a few moments and then calmly turned back towards the guy at the cash register, paid, and took the food. It was really crowded so no one could move too well and after a bit most of Haze settled down. I was extremely pissed because the sandwich he had taken was of the type that I had ordered; he had robbed me of my sandwich in front of my face, the bastard. I was real close to starting shit, but no one else seemed as pissed as me so I let it slide. I learned later that Dan Berk was just as mad as me, which was probably good that I didn't know at the time otherwise we might have resorted to fisticuffs. Nonetheless, Delaware (at least its captain) has become my new enemy.
Well that was far longer than anticipated. After The Greece Truck, we drove home and watched Anchorman (I finally realized what whore island was from!). Overall, the weekend was definitely disappointing as we did not show our best side and it cost us in every game we played. The bright side is that we were the only team that beat the winners of the tournament (Delaware, coincidentally) so our potential is still there. And now, hopefully, the taste of defeat has awoken the hunger for victory. Fuckin' psyched for spring season.
P.S. Since I lost my cleats at this tournament, I had to order new ones. I ended up getting the Nike Vapor Jet 4.2 (one of the lightest football cleats you can get) in an electrifying black/yellow style. After a lot of complaining, shipping, and exchanging I received them in the mail today :) They are exceptionally light and look sick as well. I'm just sad I won't really be able to break them in much for a while.
Rutgers Heiko Gross Memorial Tournament @ Rutgers University, Nov. 7 & 8
Friday, Nov. 6:
We left for NJ at around 6:30PM and finally watched Space Jam. It was a running joke amongst the members of Purple Haze that, whenever a movie choice needed to be made, everyone should shout for Space Jam. No one ever had it so the joke gained a long history. VP brought the goods this time though and we got to rewatch that gem from our childhoods. Seriously, props to the crazy motherfucker that thought that a movie where Michael Jordan goes to Looney Tunes Land would be a good idea.
Only the men's team went to this tournament, but Lu managed to get a quality hotel (quality = pool+hottub+breakfast, it was a Doubletree) without the help of the women. I lucked out once again and got in a three-person room. My roommates were Richard (chill sophomore, shortest guy on the team, aka Dick Schlong) and Evan (a freshman). After everyone hit the pool and hot tub (as per usual), I went to Ruby Tuesday with Lu, Larry, Richard, Nova, and Clay (we saw a deer while walking there!). It turned out that it was the same Ruby Tuesday that we ate at during sectionals earlier this year.
Saturday, Nov. 7:
I woke up at 6:45AM and went downstairs by 7:00 for breakfast. I was the first person at the hotel restaurant which made me nervous that perhaps that was not where the continental breakfast was and therefore I would have to pay $15 for food. Luckily, it was the correct place; everyone else was just slower than me. After a scrumptious breakfast, we headed to the fields.
It was very chilly in the morning, but as the day wore on, it became warmer and ended up being pretty solid frisbee weather. Our first game was against Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Garbage team, but we didn't stomp them like we should have and only won 11-8. Our lack of intensity that first game was a sign of Bad Things to come. Game 2 was against Rutgers, one of our big rivals. They are a good team, but having seen the potential that our team demonstrated so far this fall season we should have been able to beat them. That lack of intensity from the first game reared it's ugly head though and we lost our first game of the year 4-9. After a break for lunch, we had Game 3 against Delaware. Another good team that we should be able to keep up with. Luckily, our loss the round before gave us a little more drive and we stayed in this game all the way through to a 9-8 win on universe point. We didn't play our best, but it was definitely an improvement from Rutgers (although the fact that we played better just hours later made the loss to Rutgers even worse).
Once we got back to the hotel, I realized, to my horror, that I had left my cleats at the fields. Fuck. I hastily called up the TD and he said they didn't find anything matching my description. Nothing I could do but wait until the next day and pray. For dinner, we took the bus to an Old Country Buffet that was like 45 minutes away. With stomachs rumbling, the ride to the buffet felt far too long. While I don't really think too much of Old Country Buffet (one of the places way too high on my Dad's list of fine family dining), any all-you-can-eat establishment makes for a good dinner after a tiring day. After returning to the hotel quite stuffed, everyone retreated to their rooms and watched Braveheart.
Sunday, Nov. 8:
After checking on the cleat situation once again, I discovered that while my cleats had not been found, a mediocre pair of cleats in the same size was found. This led me to the realization that when my cleats were found, someone probably decided to get themselves a shoe upgrade instead of positive karma points. The TD said I could borrow those crappy cleats for the day, but I just ended up using Nova's cleats instead because he was too injured to play.
Our first game was against Columbia. They've always been a rival since Columbia and NYU are the two sides of the college in NYC coin (the rest of the schools are the edge of the coin since no one gives much of a shit about them and it'd be real silly to pick any of them over Columbia/NYU), but now that Columbia's men's team is coached by the ex-NYU-women's coach that rivalry is a little more heated. They played quite well though, and we just did not play our best (the disappointing trend of the weekend). It wasn't as bad as the Rutgers game, but we definitely could have made it closer; we lost 9-15. That knocked us out of contention for anything above 5th place. We played WPI again and beat them 13-8, but our heart wasn't really in it. We got matched up with Rutgers to see who would get 5th place, but since that didn't matter much, the captains decided we would just play/scrimmage with whoever wanted to still play (aka rookie time!). I played a bit and had some fun (played two points on an Asians-Only line), but I had already gotten a fair bit of playing time during the rest of the weekend.
Once that last "game" was over, we headed to The Greece Truck (see that sectionals blog post) for dinner as is tradition. After we had ordered, Delaware showed up and that's when shit nearly went down. A short aside to give some context: [[ At one point during the Delaware game, Larry was thrown to in the endzone and Delaware's captain was guarding him. They both jumped for it and their captain tipped it and then fell down. The tip wasn't very effective though and Larry caught it on the second after he landed. He then celebrated a little bit (not too much since it was kind of a garbage goal) and the captain flipped the fuck out. He started shouting stuff about how Larry shouldn't be celebrating like that, which was confusing to me since Larry def hadn't celebrated inappropriately (ie didn't spike the disc) and while it was a silly goal, there's no reason to get that much in a huff. As I was running on the field to play the next point, I replied to one of his shouts with something along the lines of "Are you really getting upset about someone celebrating after scoring a goal?" Apparently he called ME a faggot after that, but I didn't find that out until later. ]]
Anyway, long story short is we already thought the captain was a bit of a dick when him and his team showed up at The Greece Truck. Seeing the large crowd, the guy manning the register then announced, "There are too many of you for me to keep track of who ordered what. Just come up and grab the food you ordered when I call it out." For some reason Delaware (most specifically that captain), decided that was an invitation to FUCKING SNATCH OUR FOOD. Keep in mind that none of them had ordered and we had all ordered. Well when our first sandwiches were announced, the captain of Delaware grabbed them and pretended they were his. We immediately started shouting, calling out his dickly move. He looked at us for a few moments and then calmly turned back towards the guy at the cash register, paid, and took the food. It was really crowded so no one could move too well and after a bit most of Haze settled down. I was extremely pissed because the sandwich he had taken was of the type that I had ordered; he had robbed me of my sandwich in front of my face, the bastard. I was real close to starting shit, but no one else seemed as pissed as me so I let it slide. I learned later that Dan Berk was just as mad as me, which was probably good that I didn't know at the time otherwise we might have resorted to fisticuffs. Nonetheless, Delaware (at least its captain) has become my new enemy.
Well that was far longer than anticipated. After The Greece Truck, we drove home and watched Anchorman (I finally realized what whore island was from!). Overall, the weekend was definitely disappointing as we did not show our best side and it cost us in every game we played. The bright side is that we were the only team that beat the winners of the tournament (Delaware, coincidentally) so our potential is still there. And now, hopefully, the taste of defeat has awoken the hunger for victory. Fuckin' psyched for spring season.
P.S. Since I lost my cleats at this tournament, I had to order new ones. I ended up getting the Nike Vapor Jet 4.2 (one of the lightest football cleats you can get) in an electrifying black/yellow style. After a lot of complaining, shipping, and exchanging I received them in the mail today :) They are exceptionally light and look sick as well. I'm just sad I won't really be able to break them in much for a while.
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
Halloween '10
A quick update is in order; I will try and write the next tournament post in the next day or two as well.
Halloween this year was actually fairly similar to last year's, although I was significantly more tired and sore (from the night before *wink wink nudge nudge*). As per usual, costume preparation was left until the day of. I copped out by dressing up as Seraph (minor character in The Matrix 2 & 3), all it required was buying some cheap glasses and wearing a dress shirt and pants. Lame, but better than nothing. Other people had better costumes: Nicky was a giraffe (because of his giraffe-like appearance), Max was Maxwell from Scribblenauts (he had gotten a Scribblenaut hat for preordering the game), Cori was the Blue Screen of Death (maybe lame, but at least she had a scythe in addition to an error message), and that's all I can remember actually.
At around 6PM, I went with Liz and KK to get some free Chipotle, since every halloween you can get a free burrito if you "dress up like a burrito". By dress up they basically mean wear a small amount of foil on your body. I went with a gauntlet of aluminum foil this year.
Around 11PM, Cori, Cori's kinda-sorta bf (who dressed up to similar Hercules and used my Dragon Age sword), one of Cori's suitemates, and I headed out into the rainy world to get to the ultimate frisbee Halloween party. It ended up being more drinking and dancing than I expected so we ended up leaving after an hour or two. We went back and hung out in Cori's room for a couple hours and then that was the end of that.
P.S. And as far as I know, Nicky did NOT have another wild night. Incredible!
Halloween this year was actually fairly similar to last year's, although I was significantly more tired and sore (from the night before *wink wink nudge nudge*). As per usual, costume preparation was left until the day of. I copped out by dressing up as Seraph (minor character in The Matrix 2 & 3), all it required was buying some cheap glasses and wearing a dress shirt and pants. Lame, but better than nothing. Other people had better costumes: Nicky was a giraffe (because of his giraffe-like appearance), Max was Maxwell from Scribblenauts (he had gotten a Scribblenaut hat for preordering the game), Cori was the Blue Screen of Death (maybe lame, but at least she had a scythe in addition to an error message), and that's all I can remember actually.
At around 6PM, I went with Liz and KK to get some free Chipotle, since every halloween you can get a free burrito if you "dress up like a burrito". By dress up they basically mean wear a small amount of foil on your body. I went with a gauntlet of aluminum foil this year.
Around 11PM, Cori, Cori's kinda-sorta bf (who dressed up to similar Hercules and used my Dragon Age sword), one of Cori's suitemates, and I headed out into the rainy world to get to the ultimate frisbee Halloween party. It ended up being more drinking and dancing than I expected so we ended up leaving after an hour or two. We went back and hung out in Cori's room for a couple hours and then that was the end of that.
P.S. And as far as I know, Nicky did NOT have another wild night. Incredible!
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