New things

For the first time in... a long time, I have a job. And in my second full week of work (next week), I'm being sent to Las Vegas for a trade show. For a week. Everything paid for. Can you say awesome?

Also, since I have a job, I can start coaching again. Shweeet.

Watch This...

Watch this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYtXoUZbUCQ
Feel insignificant yet?



Good luck to Polar Bears this weekend.

The Rules

http://www.usaultimate.org/resources/officiating/rules/11th_edition_rules.aspx
This has been up for a little while, but with the Club Series upon us it is a bit more relevant.

If you haven't read the rules already then you obviously have no respect for our sport and the SotG that we all claim to try to follow. In a player-officiated sport it is usually pretty important that the players know what and when to actually call something.

For those of you that have read this before then please reread this version. The UPA USA Ultimate has finally put a notes to clarify most of the harder to understand rules (in red.)

So check it out. Especially before you make some mistaken call this weekend.




P.S. Congrats to the Polar Bears for their sectionals win this past weekend. Regionals in 17 days (according to 808's daily ticker.)

Discos 2010

Discos Calientes is this weekend: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AmeLsG3nk9lMdGNUTTUxUzhFN3FsXzlOMWtpeVBJSWc&hl=en&authkey=CNyR0oEH#gid=0
We are in a pool with Seduction... and 3 other teams that I have no idea about. But really I don't know who any of the teams at this tournament are. All I do know for sure is that it will be hot, and that we have the worst possible schedule. Most of us won't be arriving till well after midnight, and we have a first round game. Then we play late on Sunday, which means most of us won't get back to So Cal till well after midnight. Oh well.

My fever finally broke today, so I should actually be healthy enough to play. I've been sick since Venus left last Thursday. A week. Usually I'm only sick for 2-3 days. Oh well.

I took a page out of 808's book. New team, new role, new number. 

 

-#24

PS. Good luck to Polar Bears, Safari, Streetgang and Metro this weekend at ECC. Make some highlights for me to watch on Ultivillage. 

Numbers

7, 14, or 24? Which is best?

USAU Club Finals

The USAU Club finals will be a repeat of last year's finals (Revolver vs Chain Lightning). Can't tell who will win this yet but it should be rather exciting (as long as Revolver goes more than 10 deep). Apparently Chain is getting Jolian Dahl, Sam C-K, and Kiran Thomas (three of the top cutters in the nation) while Revolver is getting the top talent from JAM. 

Going to be an exciting season.

Food

So I just got back from dinner at my friend's place. His family is full of amazing cooks so I relish every opportunity I have to go over than and stuff my face. They usually don't mind because they enjoy making fun of me. I think it is a fair trade. 

Here is what was on the menu for tonight:

Baby back ribs (that fell off the bone), goat cheese melted on baked spinach and lobster ravioli, mushrooms, asparagus, fried potatoes (with some sort of Spanish sauce on it), and a beer. For dessert we were going to have a Spanish baked apple thing, but it imploded into a sauce, so my friend's sister turned it into a topping on toasted bread with goat cheese. So tasty. 

Anyways, this got me thinking about cooking, and how I need to learn to do it better. Since I've moved back home I've gotten rather adept at most breakfast foods (eggs of multiple varieties, sausage, french toast, etc) as well as grilling hamburgers and turkey melts. 

Typical breakfast/dinner:

But I haven't really forayed into any real dinner dishes. No real cooking. Part of that is because when I'm hungry I want to eat, not cook. So I never really think ahead for what I'm going to have for dinner. The most I ever remember is to defrost the hamburgers. Also, it is hard to cook nice things when I'm the only one that is going to enjoy it. But oh well. At least I have something to look forward to. 

P.S. I got A-'s in my last two classes at UCI. Officially done. Woot.

The Show

So it looks like the UPA have finally released the end of season rankings. Somehow the GL got 3 bids (wasn't this new system supposed to stop stuff like that?), but it also looks like UCLA was able to do well enough at Centex to give the SW a 3rd bid! And CSULB 'strategically' messed up their roster for Easterns so their 3 losses didn't end up hurting us.
That brings up a good point. In the past is was only going to be beneficial for teams to travel long distances to play quality opponents that they've never played before. But in the new system it can be a double edged sword. Now that every game counts towards the bid allocation going to tournaments in which everyone is out of region will only help the SW (in particular) if you win the games. Just a thought.

In any case, now that the SW has 3 bids, who do you think is going to make it?
I think the two easy choices are Colorado and UCSD (as long as neither chokes). That 3rd bid is going to be a dog fight between UCLA, SDSU, and UCSB. So far UCLA is 0-3 combined against the other two, but I have faith. Plus it would be awesome to see them finally go. Then again, regionals are in CO again (stupid), and even worse, they are in Fort Collins (even worse weather than Denver.) Hopefully some CO team used to the weather doesn't end up taking the 3rd bid when they don't 'really' deserve it (a la Psychoplastique, a 9 seed, at NW mixed regionals last year.) But hey, win the games that matter and you get to go to the show.

Good luck in the series.

The Off-Season

My off-season has been pretty successful. So far I'm 3 for 3 in tournament victories. City Wok won Club TiV over the Wisconsin Alum team. Then 'Humboldt Alum' (aka ABB: Always Be Boosting) won BTOYL 3 over New Mexico. And then this last weekend Polar Bears dominated at DUI beating BCBC 11-5 in quarters, then beating Mischief 11-3 in semis, then finishing off beating CTR 11-6 in finals.
I didn't count Polar Bears at Lei Out because I was filming instead of playing. But they did make the finals.

In case you haven't seen it yet, Zip made a super sick highlight video from the footage I took at Lei Out. Check it out here: http://vimeo.com/9831097. I love how you can tell how drunk I got over the course of the weekend.
Polar Bear love. 

Run

3 Miles - 24:08. Pitiful.

Gotta start somewhere. No college season to keep me in shape is definitely hurting.

Foxy

I like it that certain people call me Boxy instead of just Box. Thanks Enway for starting that. :)

The Universe Hates My Car

Last night I locked my keys in my car at dinner. First time ever. Not a big deal, by the time I'm done with dinner AAA was out there and I had my keys back.

Later last night. I come out of my friend's house to find that my car was broken in to. First time ever. Only stole my loose change and my iPod. Lucky they didn't find my wallet that I forgot to grab from its hiding place. Worse than locking my keys in the car, but not all that bad really. Sucks that my iPod was taken, I love that thing. Oh well.

This morning. I wake up to a crash and I see a white pick-up truck speeding off. My car got hit and run. First time ever. Bumper knocked out of position. Gaping hole in the front driver's side quarter panel. Not good. I got the police report, called the insurance. Only going to have to pay my deductible, but that is money I don't have.

A friend said that at least I got all of this out of the way in one 16 hour span. Hopefully it won't happen again for quite some time. But still, why does the universe hate my car?

City Wok does Vegas

Shitty Wok beat the Hodag alumni team in the finals to win Club TiV. Great playing by everyone. Bigger/better update soon.

The Weekend Part 1: Great Goonie Gettaway + OC Sunday Pickup

The last few days have been pretty awesome so I figured that I would document them for posterity's sake. :)

I guess it all started on Saturday after I picked up Grip from John Wayne at 430. Then went to dinner at Island's with her, Annie, Elmo, and baby Elmo (her brother Frank.) That of course was a fun filled time (besides the uncomfortably expensive pint of Hawaiian Lager.)
Anyways, then it was time for the Great Goonie Getaway at the Goonie's House (of course.) It was a little weird partying there with almost none of the Irvine crew, but at least Khosh had finally made his return. Plus Andrew 'Coppa' was there, so that was pretty awesome (Andrew^2.) Fish and I beat Annie and Elaine early on to dash their hopes of making the wall, but Coppa and I went 0fer on the night (sad face). All in all a good night partying, spent the night there that night.

Sunday morning some of the girls made pancakes and hashbrowns and little breakfast weenies then we all went to OC pickup for some ultimate action. There was a pretty large crowd there (mostly young guys again.) I love pickup during winter break because it seems that most of the old geezers are busy, and all of the young college guys are back in town so it's actually competitive. Big surprise to see Goldmember for the first time in over a year as he was back from Australia visiting during his holiday break. 808 also showed up to play, and for some reason I always play harder with 808 on my team. Put in some good effort in the game. Meeko also graced us with a surprise visit on her way back from her home in Santa Clarita. I'll try not to give away the whole story, but I will say that she didn't get back to SD till today.
After pickup Meeko and Sam went back to JSS to hang out and watch football while a couple of us went to hit up Tap Ex for some delicious boba (and some squid balls for TK.) Then most of us went over to Sam's to watch the game. While watching football and generally hanging out I mentioned to Meeko that I had yet to see Avatar, so we made plans to go see it Monday, which meant she had to stick around for at least one more day (keep in mind, I think it was her original plan to drop by in Irvine just for a few hours to hang out, then continue on her way to SD.) Plus there was Rocketsauce pickup Monday night, so Meeko decided to stay. Hooray.
Iris, Meeko and I also went to go pickup Allen from John Wayne while blasting Taylor Swift the entire time. And Del Taco ("Absolutely not!" haha).
So I finally went home Sunday night after not being home for close to two days.

Rain

I love the rain.
But I hate when it ruins my Ultimate plans.
Bumsy.

All I Want for Christmas

Is this:
http://estore.asus.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=231&catid=132
Then my computer will be almost fixed. Now I just need to figure out this dead monitor issue.

Regionals Preview

http://upa.org/scores/tourn.cgi?div=124&id=6094

The UPA Club Southwest Open Regionals are this weekend in Scottsdale, Arizona. We are seeded about where I figured we would be at 6th overall, 3rd in our pool. Johnny Bravo(1) and Streetgang(3) are the two seeds above us with Monsoon(8) and Sunburn(9) below us. Sadly the tournament has dropped down to 9 teams now, down from 12 at the beginning of the week. It's very unfortunate that the SW region can't consistently (read: ever) put together a 16 team regionals tournament while almost every other region never has a problem fielding a full tournament. But oh well.

This will be the first tournament that Monster will have our full roster of 26 ballers. Our top 10 can hang with anyone at Regionals (save for Johnny Bravo) so I'm pretty excited to say the least. That's not to say that the rest of the team isn't up there, because I don't mean that at all. Everyone on our team made big plays at Sectionals, and I expect more of the same at Regionals. We are going to surprise a lot of people (and probably ourselves on the way.) Anyways, this is turning too much into my own pump up instead of the preview I meant to write.

So. Preview time. We have game-bye-game-game-game. We play Johnny Bravo after our bye (after they play Monsoon), and we play Streetgang last. Should be a fun day. I'm kind of glad that we are in the pool with 5 teams instead of 4. With our huge roster it will help us more to have more games. At the end of day 1, I see Pool A holding seed (sad.)

Pool B on the other hand is a different story. All 4 teams are very strong. Sprawl is the bottom seed and they took 2nd at Desert Sectionals with their only loss to Sweet Roll on DGP. And now they are the last seed in their pool. Brutal.
We got shellacked by Condors at sectionals in our worst game (and their best game from what I heard) of the weekend. They are a good team who has fought through a lot of personnel losses to remain a strong team. They might surprise Sweet Roll (who only got seeded above them late this week) but I don't think they'll be able to take down Strike-Slip. They got trampled at Sectionals in a very one sided game. Anyways. The Sweet Roll - Strike Slip match up will be interesting, but I still see SS taking that pool. Strike-Slip battled through a lot of early season losses, but finally seemed to have put all the pieces together when it matters. Or at least for Sectionals. I'm hoping they still have what it takes for when it matters this coming Sunday. We'll see.

Back to us. I keep looking at possible paths to the game to go. (I know its a very long shot, but I think that people underestimate our potential... and it is fun to see the possibilities.) Anyways. Assuming all of the seeds hold (long shot, but its a hypothetical situation anyways) then we will face B4 in the first round on Sunday (Sprawl). Very winnable. After that we face the loser of the 1st place semis (likely a SoCal Sectionals rematch between Streetgang and Strike-Slip). Possible upset there. We do have the surprise factor. And I would love to play spoiler to one of those teams. Obviously I would love to see Strike-Slip make nationals. I have a lot of close friends on that team. But how sweet would it be to ruin their shot. I mean come on. The 'B' team beating the 'A' team. Anyways, lets get back on track here. After that win (hypothetical) we'd play the winner of the other 2nd place semi's who would probably be... Sweet Roll. No idea what that team is capable of. They had sweet jerseys last year (John Wayne's face on the front). But yea. Then we play the loser of the finals. Very far-fetched, but hypotheticals are fun.

So yea, I'm excited for this weekend. I'm driving out with a bunch of cool people. I'm staying in a bombass hotel for super cheap that is only 1 mile from the fields. The fields in Scottsdale are awesome (at least they were last time I was there.) So yea, just need to get through the next two days.

Do work Monster.

Sectionals Recap 2

Hopefully I start to remember more of the weekend while I write this, but who knows.
Unfortunately for us, 5 Ultimate was not able to get our jerseys to us in time for the tournament so that kind of sucked. But we have them now, so no worries.

We started off the day against Get That Fly, a group of older guys from LA. We win 13-6.

Our second game of the day was against the Long Beach team Little Giants. We played a scrimmage against them the weekend before where we won 11-6. It was a fun game. Ed got a few big Ds on Reggie that kind of surprised me. We won 13-2 going away.
Up to this point I think I had played a total of 4 points. I was sick or hungover or both. (It was Iris's birthday the night before.) Anyways.

Third and last game of the day was against SD Streetgang. I know I said before that we didn't really have a legitimate shot at this game, but boy was I wrong. We came out firing on all cylinders trading to 5s I think. Our D line was getting at least a block a point, we just couldn't punch in the break. We finally get a break before half to go up 6-5 (I think?) It is a bit fuzzy. We get the disc again to take half. Tommy bombs a backhand huck to KG super open streaking deep (I was the closest guy to him) but it gets called back on a travel call. We turn it. They break twice to take half 7-6. After half they started throwing zone a lot to mix us up a little. I think they got maybe 1 D on us the entire game, the rest of our turns were mental mistakes (throwing while not set, drops, etc.) Gordy, Tommy, and Bishop in the backfield were shredding through their zone. Anyways. They went up a few breaks in the second half. up 9-11 game to 13. We trade downwind with two hucks to Jake who skies Dollar without jumping. Cash in an upwind break (also to Jake.) I think they broke back. We pull on game point 10-12 and they win with a huck to a wide open Kory. GG Streetgang. We put up a solid showing though. This game reminded me a lot of the Strike-Slip game we had at Chico. Partly because we came out so strong and really played to our potential (almost) and partly because I'm pretty sure they thought we were just going to roll over. Hopefully we get another shot at them at Regionals. Would love to play spoiler.

So we played 3 games then we were done for the day. Pretty nice schedule for us. I spent the rest of the day watching mixed. Heckled the Metro-BCBC pool play game with most of SS. Watched Metro almost throw it away (won on universe.) There are a lot of turns in the mixed game. But it was nice to watch Metro pull it out.

So. Day 2.

Our entire pool got a first round bye, but I showed up a bit early to watch SS play a bit. Seduction was up first on Sunday. They were definitely underseeded (10th overall) and I didn't want anyone to take them too lightly. They are a mix of UCSD and SDSU kids that got cut from Streetgang (analogous to the Monster/SS relationship, but we picked up a lot of extra talent.) They had a few too many throwaways, and Matt had some sick grabs. We won 13-5.

Last pool play game was against ACR. Mix of SLO, Redlands, and APU kids. The score says 13-7, but I don't remember it being that close at all. They came up with some lucky second chance grabs in the endzone I guess.

So, a 4-1 record in pool play set us up against the Condors. They have had a serious drop off in talent from last year. They lost all the LA people to Strike-Slip, Welsh to Metro, Paymaster to Johnny Bravo, Dugan to the Beyondors, Hester to JAM, and Whit and KVB to Revolver. So yea, they lost a LOT of talent, but they bolstered their numbers with a lot of UCSB kiddies fresh off a Nationals run (plus The Arbiter from UCLA.) I think we were tired by this point, and we didn't come out with the fire we did against Streetgang. We traded the first few points, but it just didnt feel the same. We lost 9-15. I double scored twice (both from Tommy), one point Tommy actually quadruple scored (got called back each time.)

Last game of the tournament we played Seduction again in the 4/5 game. We lost Ed at the beginning of the game because he had to go to some family function. Also lost Tommy halfway through because his ride was bailing. They had a lot less drops/throwaways. And we were very tired after a big loss to the Condors. We traded most of the game. I think they went up a break late in the game. We tied it at 14s, win by two, hard at 17. Matt ended up scoring the last two points on some pretty sick plays. We win 16-14 and take 4th place out of So Cal Sectionals.

We have a huge team this year. 26 guys on our roster. I think we had 23 playing this weekend, and EVERYONE made big plays all weekend. Regionals is this coming weekend and I can't wait to have our full roster (hopefully Louis can actually make it this time, that'll be a huge pickup.) I am so excited to make some noise in Arizona. Should be an awesome weekend. And even if we don't do so well, which I doubt, it will still be a ton of fun playing with this group of guys.

Congrats to Strike-Slip for winning the open division over Streetgang. We were playing on the field next to them, and they were playing balls out all game. Linux's grab to end it was spectacular. Hopefully they'll be able to pull it off again next weekend. You know I'll be rooting for you guys.

Also congrats to Metro on winning the mixed division over BCBC on universe after blowing a lead. Better increase that margin next weekend. I want to see domination.



Pre-Regionals post once the schedule is up. I'm predicting 11 teams go and we should be the somewhere around the 6/7 seed (but I doubt we'll end the tournament there.)

Sectionals Recap

0 turns
1 D
4 scores
4 times scored on (all on sunday)

better recap coming soon

So Cal Sectionals

Southern California Open (and Mixed) sectionals is (are) this weekend and the schedule was finally put up (sort of, no times, no brackets yet.)

http://upa.org/scores/tourn.cgi?div=127&id=6208

Pool A:
A1: Streetgang (1)
A2: Monster (4)
A3: Get That Fly (6)
A4: ACR (7)
A5: Seduction (10)
A6: Little Giants (11)


So we have a pool of 6 and a pool of 7. Not much of a surprise here as there is only one approved format given 13 teams with 8 advancing. The seeding is a bit different from what the UPA calls for, but who really cares. Anything after the top 4 seeds is a wash, so seeding them is rather arbitrary anyways.

Streetgang is the 1 seed overall, and the favorite to take the second seed to The Show behind Johnny Bravo. We play them in the 5th round (should be the last round on Saturday.) As much as I want to say that we have a shot, I really don't think we do. They are the only team in the section to play at the elite level all year (Colorado Cup and Labor Day.) Although they had some solid late wins at CC they got rolled at Labor Day. Oh well. Hopefully they can find a good game in the finals against SS or the Condors.

I don't know anything about Get That Fly other than Score Reporter says they are from LA.

Monster played ACR last year at sectionals. From what I remember they had some APU guys and some Cal Poly SLO guys. Athletic, but young. I'm pretty sure we'll play them first round on Sunday, so we'll need to come out strong to secure the 2 seed in the pool.

Seduction is the second team out of San Diego. Outside of the top 4 seeds, they are the only team to have actually gone to any tournaments over the summer. According to Score Reporter they had a rough Discos Calientes, but they did put up a fight against Condors. They are seeded 10th overall, which I think is pretty low, especially since they actually have results. Oh well.

Little Giants is made up of mostly CSULB guys with a few community players tacked on. We scrimmed them last Saturday and came away with an 11-6 win. They have a few ballers, but are still really young. Its good to see that they ended up putting a team together though. Should be a fun game.


Our team has the potential to play really well (a la Strike-Slip at Discos) or choke (a la the Army of Darkness game). We have a solid group of guys that have been working hard all summer and now is when it is going to pay off (I hope.)


On a related note:
This will likely be the first time in over a decade that the Condors do not win sectionals. Pretty impressive feat, but it had to end sometime.