I always have a problem with titles

Zero. Fire. Sir.

I'm trying, but not even the combined powers of Patrick Chapin and Arctic Monkeys can't turn it back on right now. At least I'm trying, though.

I am an excellent example of why you should never take time off.


Resolutions:
50/50s
Water (Everyone should)
Walk to class at least once a week
Actually learn how to throw
Blag everyday
Use tags when I blag
No boozing until Regionals
Rep' Creeperin

Only miss 1 class a week (combined)
Read for at least one class every day

Remember all the cards in a pack before passing it
Mulligan more (Everyone should)



Baby steps.

Rider, Day 2

We got an e-mail late Saturday night. Three people looked at it and had decided that we didn't need to show up until 1020. Upon further review today I can see how that logic is flawed. It was. We got a call from some bro that BJC knows (AKA Everyone) and missed our first game. Don't worry, it was double elimination. Before we left, Rob's mom (BEST MOM YES) again had cookies, brownies, cupcakes, coffee and tea ready for us before we left. 

We show up somewhat on time and meet up with David to find the field for the 2nd game. It was Goucher again. They wanted to go eat wings instead of play Frisbee, although they did propose to play a game of WAH for it. I was happy to go that route, but the legislation never passed. We got our first win of the tournament. Because of this bye we now didn't have a game until 2pm. For those keeping score at home, that is a lot of hours to wait. 

BJC and David played for Montclair St. to pass the time. Rob, some blonde chick sitting out for Montclair, and I played Fantasy. I of course 1st picked some guy wearing a hat that was number 4. Everyone knows that the best player on the team is both always a handler and always wears number 4. Rob picked a Freshman. This would lead one to beleive that I would easily win this game. Unofrtunately, I lost -2 to 6. I failed to notice that Number 4 (Montclair) had a nosering. Thems the beats.

We ate some (someone ate a lot of them) cookies that we had from Rob's house and went to go get Bagels at some place that was probably a Bruggers and just changed its name. David paid for my bagel (Sugar Cinnaminidfjksfhsdkljf obv.) because I am a bum and my money was in Rob's car. The bagel was passable. It tasted like food.

Our final game of the tournament was against some team wearing black. Our injuries were alright, but people were definitely tired. I liked our chances considering it was our only game that day and David was fresh. We went down some ungodly amount of points (5?) through our normal tactics of dropping passes and swilly throws. At some point they threw zone at us for two points and then never threw zone again. I wish we weren't so completely dominant at dismanting a zone so we could play against it more since that is really my only strength as a handler (ten yard forehands). Regardless, we came back after half and we got soft-capped making the game to 12, brought it to 11-9, and got hard-capped after scoring to make it 11-10.

This was our third game losing by 1 point. Two were comebacks, one we lost it after having 3 game points (two on offense). There are several reasons behind this.

List:

• We take too long to get into games. Either we don't warm up enough (Showing up the fields late, Jerking off, etc.) or we don't get mentally into the game. We often come back after half because we spent the entire first half warming up.
• We don't make mid-game adjusments, often waiting until half. This is waiting too long. We can't give up 3-4 points trying to sort stuff out until half. 
• We get complacent(sup 2x4) when up by a few points. We think that we are just a better team than them and don't play as motivated. This also happens when we are down.
• There are three ways to handle pressure. One is to be dwarfed by it and have your game suffer. Two is to ignore it and play your normal game. Three is to use it and play above yourself. There is no one on this team that is in the third category. 
• That was a list inside a list. What up.
• We don't have a kill-switch. We can't say on the line "We're taking this point" and know that we're taking the point. This isn't to say we don't have the play to be able to run something and get the point, but we need to be able to just turn it on and take a point or half.
• Taking too long on the line. We get hard-capped enough that we should not be taking a minute+ figuring out who is covering who and what side to force. This is a simple thing that can be taken care of before the line is out and we literally needed ten seconds longer to force universe point in our last game.
• I forgot the rest. Should have written an outline.

I rode home with David/Ellen/Tom. I played ff5 and had to pee really bad.

Props --

Rob's mom. The best.

Fields. Not the best, but at least they were a normal size. They also didn't cancel the tournament even though the fields got owned.

Alex for not turning the disc over like ever.

Rob for finding out the password to his wireless internet

Wireless internet

Slops --

Sloppy fields

Rob's car almost exploding

$9 tolls

Tolls

unnessecarily long slops lists

Bridges

2-3 subs

injuries

Dropping pancakes

Getting caught in the thunderstorm while carrying my stuff inside and then getting bluff checked by the rain and Tom.

I have come to the conclusion that this team could be anywhere from the best team at a tournament to the worst depending on how many pancake catches we want to drop. We easily would have won 4/6 games this weekend if we caught most of them and would have been in our remaining two games instead of getting blown out by ten.  

This is honestly because of one thing -- Practice intensity. Every sports program places a premium on practice intensity because it is difficult to play at one speed all week/month and then just turn it on for the weekend. Not sprinting(sprinting>running) during drills and things like that affect your play during the weekend even if you are already a good player. Sloppy play and organization during practice translates into sloppy play and organization at a tournament. Every player at Rider droped passes, every player made bad throws, every player made poor decisions. You can always get better. 

Sports.

Need

I need to stop sucking at:

• Throwing IO flicks. They aren't tough.
• Running. Likewise not difficult
• Playing defense. It's just footwork.
• Using my low-release flick in games. It's nasty and needs to be deployed.
• Jumping. My calves are huge.
• Being aggressive on the handle. I don't make enough tough throws that I know I can make.
• Layout D. I am so good at it on offense, I just have to manup and do the same on defense.  I'll just layout at everything and learn that way, like I did for O.
• Not being sick. I haven't been to practice in nearly 3 weeks. Blech

First post

1) I'm overtired.

2) It's almost 6am.

3) I haven't played ultimate for about ten minutes and it's getting to me.

d) Ben's too optimistic in his blag and needs someone to show him up.

5) So Tired.

6) Or at least make him strive to be the best blagger on the team!

7) Fuck lists.

I cannot believe I am doing this. I have to be drunk.

I'm also putting it in writing that the ultimate training program starts Monday. For reals.  A minor delay of one week will not stop me from looking like Arnold himself come springtime. 

Plus the more jacked I get the better those corn rows will look

Boy do I enjoy line breaks. 

Also, Smash Mouth is overpowered. Most likely going to be nerfed next patch.

I miss my real keyboard. The shift key and the delete key are much too normal sized on this.

I've gotta cut it out with these line breaks.

Most of my ultimate related insight, which is pretty valuable considering my tournament record of 2-25-2 ( That's a win percentage of about 7% for those of you who are playing along at home) will be coming with the spring semester, because we're done for the semester unless we decide we want to lose another game to Marist before going home for Christmas.  I'll probably post something about people not showing up to conditioning either before we leave for the semester or after, depending on when the captains decide its a good idea to stop sucking.  All I know is that the people who put the time in will look and play like true division 3 athletes.  At this rate, if we make it to sectionals on time it'll be an upset. 

I also heard that smoking weed decreases your sperm count, which conflicts with my dream of living off of the money I get from sperm bank donations. Time to find another way to destroy my body!

I'm pretty pumped for jerseys if we ever get there. Apparently getting a design for one nailed down takes over 3 months. That's a lot of man-hours considering we have 4 captains that meet roughly every ten seconds. I think we've finally settled on orange being a color on the jerseys someplace, although that still might be up in the air. I'm still pushing for Darold to be the logo but I don't think I can force that kind of legislation through. Maybe next year if we run a better campaign. 

For the amount this team practices, its immensely frustrating to see how little we get out of it.  Stacks, a zone D that doesn't rely on the other team dropping it, a zone O that gets something close to resembling wing play, and even a consistent warm-up regimen are things I don't think even Santa can give to this team. 

I'm trying to push through legislation to make us not suck next semester,but you won't see me make a bet on it going down. If you ever watch us play a legit game, you'll see that all of us, including captains and veterans, contract a case of the drops every time we play. We all have to make the incredibly difficult decision of throwing a 30 yard OI flick into the wind or just turfing it to save time.  Going to the disc is just too much running, yet half of us like to make deep cuts at the same time with the disc on the end-line into the wind. We never sub during a game, which is fine because we're not tired ever. But practice rolls around and you're begging for a sub after two points. 

I just searched for fifteen minutes to see if I could find the Beau play in Sportscenter form. No luck. I'm convinced it's a myth.

Bottom line, we're talking about practice. Not a game, but practice. 

If we run this team like this is a team, I would put money on us making it to Regionals.  Sure, we can talk about being committed to making this team good, but when leadership players on the team don't go to practice because they just don't feel like it, that person on the fence about actually trying in practice for once won't. When leadership players don't finish out a drill or take warm-ups seriously, new players won't either. When leadership players play injured, new players will too. 

I've had enough of people on this team spending time trying to learn how to throw a behind-the-back-future-thumb-scoober. Learning how to stack would be a nice alternative. 

Boy am I annoying.