Love In This Chuck E. Cheese

A shoutout for Whale Cancer

Chris McCoy, ladies and gentlemen...

Solstice PreviewNOT

It looks like I'll be heading into Solstice this weekend somewhat blindly... I don't really know any of my teammates besides Joaq and Shy, their overall playing style, their individual playing styles, etc. On the plus side Joaq told me that the Slugs typically played a 3-4 pass longball O this year, which kind of gets my panties wet. I guess we did that with the Brains this year unofficially (pull catch, feed shy, feed maniac/markham, feed The Beast or sometimes lil' ol' me).
I also don't know anything about pools because the goddamn UPA website is down longer than they predicted (looks like my last post was right on point, huh?).
I don't even know what our team name is. Jaeger Bombs? Yeager Bombs? Revolver B?
I don't even know what colors to bring! pleasebeorangepleasebeorange
I don't know who we're staying with, I don't know what the Lou Burruss special rules are this year, and I don't know what role I'm supposed to fill.
But I DO know just a couple things:
1. It'll be a sweet sweet claremont reunion.
2. I'm out of shape like whoa.
3. I will still ball out of control if this club team is willing to put up some bomb bombs, and I think they will.

The New Ultimate Time

By the time I got involved with serious ultimate, Ultimate Time was mostly a thing of the past. Games start (pretty much) on time these days, and tournaments don't have to adjust round times as they go. The "new" Ultimate Time relates more to increasingly professionalized aspects of ultimate. Here I am talking about Sockeye, the UPA, and Ultivillage.
Sockeye has begun to present itself as a professional style team. They have advertising on their uniforms, they put their numbers on the front of their jerseys as well as their back to increase recognition, they self cover their own team news, and even sell team merchandise online. They've also begun to make promises that they haven't come through on (I promising I am not bashing them or any others, just pointing out an observation I've made). I consider myself to be one of the biggest ultimate fans out there, so it was with great anticipation that I awaited the news about who made the team and who was cut: "Personnel decisions will be made immediately after play ends on Sunday. The full 2008 roster should be announced by Tuesday, June 3rd" (From the Sockeye website).
The UPA undertook its most ambitious project since I've been aware of them with their Revolution. Of course, the conclusions of their survey were not released any time close to the deadline announced by the UPA. This is the most troubling of my three examples, because they are only organization that is expected to serve an audience well, as an organizing body.
Ultivillage has made numerous promises of "coverage of ___ will begin ___," and frequently doesn't follow through with those promises. The great thing about Ultivillage, though, is that you will eventually get what you pay for, no matter the timing. And it was great to see the same-day coverage Rob provided at college nationals.
I just want to re-iterate that despite these timing shortcomings, I am a huge supporter of all three of these groups, and wish them the best (along with a little punctuality!).

Howard Cosell on Ultimate

Funny little video of Howard Cosell praising the merits of ultimate, found on the Revolver website.

In Seattle

I'm in Seattle for a week and a half (until the 6th). It's getting in the way of me getting started in the Bay Area with club, but I think I deserve some time at home after graduating. Missing Cal States when I just moved to the East Bay sucks, but I'll survive.
Hopefully I'll get to play some ultimate with the Airtight homies, or at least the UW kids.
And I'll DEFINITELY get to play some late night neighborhood disc golf with Greg, with a Joose or two in tow on the way to the Knarr.

D-III Ultimate Media Panel final results

In lieu of finding enough money to fly the Braineaters out to Ohio for D-III nationals (which basically looks like a who's who of non-regionals qualifiers), I've created the OFFICIAL D-III rankings, voted on by the D-III Ultimate Media Panel (DUMP).
After tallying all the votes, here are the final DUMP standings (1st place votes in parentheses, 4 points for a first place vote, 3 points for a second place vote, etc.):

1. Carleton (1) - 4
2. Claremont - 3
3. Las Positas - 2
4. Wisconsin-Whitewater - 1
also receiving votes: Claremont-B Conchblockers

There you have it, folks!

Another Weak Future Post

Thought of another topic for future rumination:
Cordiality between opponents and myself and my teammates has increased greatly over my four years as a Braineater. Is this because after four years, i've personally developed relationships with other teams, or is it a broader phenomenon (within California colleges at least).

Lamest Spike in Ultimate

For some reason I have grown weary of the super-hard turfed scoober/thumber that bounces and skids: UV's Round 4 reel had a few of them. The tiny kid who played for CU last year did it a lot too, which especially bothered me because he only seemed to catch goals because his defender was always poached off him. I don't know where Daze's footage of last years SW championship game is, but there are a lot of examples there.

Clearly, the spike of the future is the Jughead Memorial Toe-Tap, coming soon courtesy of Markham Shofner to a field near you.

Future

1. Future of The Jughead Show:
-Posts about Senior Week, SW/Braineaters next year, Airtight/DarkHorse for Potlatch, YR/Joaqsquad/Whitteam for club this season, and if you and I are especially lucky a vain multimedia surprise.
2. Future of the Jughead:
-Unfortunately, I have no future, as I had to sell my soul to the UPA for this little hyperlink: http://upa.org/college/all-region/2008 . Here it is again: http://upa.org/college/all-region/2008 and one more time: http://upa.org/college/all-region/2008 . But, I am actually graduating on SUNDAY, moving to Oakland on Monday, then doing not much of anything until I decide to.

I'll leave you with this:
http://tinyurl.com/6lea7e
and this:
http://tinyurl.com/2g9mqh

Welcome to the Jughead Show

Hello teammates, friends, and stalkers,
I've been an avid (obsessive) ultimate blog reader for some time, and I thought I would be remiss in not joining in the conversation now that I am done with college. I was inspired to finally start a blog while researching my final term paper for a history course. The books A Social History of the Media by Asa Briggs and Peter Burke, We the Media by Dan Gillmor, and Fans, Bloggers, Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture by Henry Jenkins really convinced me to add my voice to the mix. I might post the paper later if I think it's appropriate.

Anyway, my current conception of this blog is that I'll critique (positive and negative) the posts of other blogs I read, as well as significant RSD threads. Most likely there will be more criticism than agreement...

I'll also write a lot about my former team/brothers the Claremont Braineaters, my Seattle ultimate friends/teammates, and whichever team in the Bay Area I end up playing for this club season (Whit's unnamed mixed team? YR? This Santa Cruz team Joaq keeps telling me about? A more traditional club powerhouse?). And whatever else I feel like writing about.

Enjoy.