Fun with autocomplete

Like many (most?) people I have an autocomplete funtion on my browser; while it’s annoying sometimes I must admit it saves time. While typing in a search on Google, I started to think about what the entries below said about me. Hmmm. While on that thought, here’s a sampling of what comes up in my autocomplete with each single letter search:

A: “adobe acrobat”. One of those programs you just can’t live without.

B: “beer disc”. To find out how much beer you can fit in a disc… for a Discraft Ultrastar, it’s apparently about 54 oz., or about four and a half cans of beer.

C: “corydonia”. Links here, then I can just click on a bunch of my regular links rather than Google for them. Also I can check for comments! Which sadly never come.

D: “disc standards committee”. Actually found this in my earlier search for “beer disc”. Since someone on the UPA disc Standards Committee had been informative on a disc’s beer capacity, I searched on them later to see if the knew the probability of a disc landing up or down. No luck.

E: “en.wikipedia.org”. Because wikipedia knows stuff Google doesn’t.

F: “folk festival music store”. Seller of all things Folk Fest. Plus CDs, guitar strings, and concert tickets without horrendous Ticketmaster fees.

G: “greg macpherson”. Local singer/songwriter. I like everything I hear from him but don’t own an album. Must change that.

H: “hallowinona xii”. That’s right, Hallowinona XII in Winona, MN, October 28-29. Three more sleeps!

I: “imdb”. When you gotta know that movie quote… or what else that guy was in…?

J: “jamie bishop pbase”. Regina guy who takes great pics. Lotsa good pics in his albums, including some great ones of Chaos in Saskatoon this year, and I actually show up in a few from Bohdown.

K: Nothing. Weird.

L: “liquid assets ultimate”. They have a website. Which doesn’t tell you much. I wasn’t sure about these guys after Flatlands and one particularly bad call one of them made… but since then I’ve decided these guys are alright.

M: Bunch of good ones here: “manitoba organization of disc sports”, “married to the sea”, “mec”, “myhuma”. Except one of them only seems to get updated every few months. You know who you are.

N: “newwinnipeg”. Local forum, I don’t post much but good to keep an ear to what’s going on in civic issues, and what’s important to random people around town.

O: “oh canada tab archive”. Unfortunately not updated in months if not years, but a great source for guitar tablature for Canadian artists.

P: “plastic”. Down for most of the summer, the discussion forum of “the web’s smartest readers” is back up. It’s fallen a bit since its glory days but still often a good discussion of interesting stories and issues.

Q: “quality hotel regina”. Official hotel of Regina Riot, but we ended up staying with billets.

S: “songmeanings”. Lots of inane discussion, but also some insight into what particular songs mean.

T: “taping turf toe”. Treatment for a minor recurring injury.

U: “ultivillage”. Great site for ultimate DVDs and highlight clips.

V: “vc ultimate”. One of two major Canadian suppliers of ulti gear. I own more Gaia stuff, but no slight on VC’s products.

W: “weakerthans”. Winnipeg’s best band and one of my favourites from anywhere. Fantastic songwriting from a band that rocks and always puts on a great live show.

X: Nothing again.

Y: “youtube”. The video upload site that can provide hours of entertainment. Unfortunately my ‘lite high speed’ internet connection makes it a bit slow to load anything.

Z: Nothing starts with z. At least, nothing I search for.

Regionals Recap, Part 2

Game 4: Jawbone. Our final game of the first day was against Jawbone from Cleveland, the same team we had watched earlier in their marathon game against DingWop. Our game against them would not be much easier. For one thing, it was the last game of the day, and by this point we were tired and a few players were nursing injuries. The previous game had been mentally and physically exhausting, as we had let them stay with us far too long and barely scraped out a win. And to make matters worse, the game got ugly in a hurry.

First point, Jawbone had the disc and was working slowly upfield. Eventually a player sprung open downfield and a pass was sent into the endzone… a bit off, but catchable. The receiver caught the disc in a falling position, bobbled it, dropped it, then appeared to catch the disc between his thighs off a bounce. Everyone on our team though the disc had touched the ground before the catch. The receiver thought it was up (though during his fall, he had no doubt lost sight of it on impact and had recovered it subsequently). A few of their players initially indicated the disc was down, while others though it was up. The players who though it was down quickly changed their minds. This then devolved into a protracted argument about who had best perspective, and no one was willing to just send the disc back to thrower for a do-over. Finally, we got an observer for the rest of the game. Their first ruling was to send the disc back to thrower and we played on from there.

For the next few points the game was uneventful with the teams trading points. Tempers reached a near-boiling point again however when one of our captains scored, then casually tossed a floaty disc towards his defender. He defender spiked the disc back at him; he picked it up and returned it back. The defender spiked again and walked away… our captain threw another floaty pass that drifted right in front of the defender. Things could have snapped but for the intervention of teammates. The observer gave our captain a warning – any further actions would result in being kicked out of the tourney – and generally both teams behaved after that.

There was still a game to be played, and we managed to open up a lead early and slowly build on it to half and thereafter. Finally we found ourselves at 14-10 and on D – just like last game. Again though, our defence couldn’t close it out. Again, our O line turned it over on their first chance to end the game, and Jawbone pulled within 2. However our O line left us a bit more breathing room this time and closed out the game 15-12.

First day of the tourney was over and we were still in the running for second place. Back to the hotel for some relaxation and a decent night’s sleep. No party at Regionals. The next moring we were up early again and back to the fields for the remainder of our games.

Game 5: Madison. Our first game on Sunday was a rematch against Madison, who had beaten us on universe point in the semifinal at Sectionals. Madison was young and athletic, but we knew we could play with them; it would be great to avenge our sectionals loss. I remembered how much I had detested playing against them the first time and was hoping to draw on that for this game. Unfortunately, we didn’t have it in us on this day. After the first day of the tourney we were down three starters and were hurting particularly on our O line. Meanwhile our defensive line was having trouble keeping up with Madison’s cutters, let alone challenging for D’s. We never folded but never really challenged either, losing about 15-7.

Game 6: Machine. The loss to Madison knocked us out of the second place bracket but we had made it far enough that we were now in triple elimination, and were playing for third. We found ourselves matched up against Machine for the second time this weekend. We had had some success in making things difficult for them the day before, and countered their adjustments with some new ones of our own. It might have worked any other day, but from the start it was clear that Machine had come to play today. First point, my guy broke free on the break side and caught a huge layout for the score. Offensively, we were being pressured more than all weekend and without some key handlers working the disc upfield was difficult. Machine went up 3-0 and kept rolling even as we got a few back. Halftime was 8-4. Second half, Machine kept pouring it on, while we had little left in the tank. At 12-5 we took a timeout; the final outcome by this time was general, but as the captain who called the timeout reminded us, we still could give them a good finish. We owed it to them, and to the teams they would face in the following rounds, to show we came to play. Just win the game to three. The speech worked and we came out with whatever we had left. After a D, I broke free for a long run and ran down the nearly overthrown disc for a score. Gotta love those half field sprints when it means coming up with the disc. We got a few more points back and battled Machine for the rest of the game, eventually going down 15-8. Machine seemed to appreciate our finish, acknowledging it in the post-game handshakes. They went on to take 3^rd in the tourney, beating the hated Madison squad for the last spot to Nationals.

While it was disappointing to end on a couple of losses we could be proud of our performance – 6^th place, apparently the first time a Winnipeg open squad had finished in the top 8 at Regionals. Things are looking good for Strike next year if they can get a similar squad together. As for me… my preference is still to play mixed, and hopefully Chaos is back for next year (I’ve heard rumours that many key players will be playing open/womens next year), but who knows how it’ll turn out.

That’ll do it for competitive touring for me this year. One more tourney on the horizon – Hallowinona at the end of the month – and then it’s just indoor league to tide me over. Hallowinona recap and a postseason roundup to follow.

Regionals Recap, Part 1

Fourteen hours in a subcompact. Each way.

That’s how I spent a good chunk of my Thanksgiving weekend, travelling between Winnipeg and Naperville, Illinois for the chance to play a few games of ultimate. Not just any games, though – this was the Central Regional tournament of the UPA Championship series. Three teams of 16 in the open division would be heading to Nationals in a few weeks. Having earned a spot at he sectionals tourney weeks earlier, we were among those 16 teams. General Strike, from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, seeded 10^th in the region. While we had no delusions of actually going to nationals, we certainly were out to make a mark.

The ride down was long but uneventful. Most of the team had been prescient enough to take off all of Friday and had left Thursday night, getting in on Friday afternoon. My car was the late one. Leaving at 1:30 pm on Friday, we arrived 4 am Saturday morning. Little to do but quietly set up our thermarests on the hotel floor and catch a few hours sleep. We were to be at the fields for 8 am.

Morning came much too quickly, but with the help of a mediocre continental breakfast courtesy of the hotel, and several cups of coffee, I perked up enough to get to the fields. We pulled in and found our game location on the dew-covered polo fields where the tourney was being held. The weather was cool to start but the sun was rapidly warming the air. It would be a great day for ultimate. The team got together for a long warmup jog, then a stretch, followed by some throwing drills to warm up. First game would be important. As would the rest of them – the tournament was a bracket format, double knockout (triple knockout, if we made it far enough), so any losses would make it difficult to advance. Lose a couple early and we would be done the tourney on Saturday afternoon. With a seed in the bottom half, we’d need to come up with some upsets early to make it very far. With that in mind, we headed into our first game.

Game 1: Illinois X. Our first game was against 7^th-seeded Illinois X, a team of U of Illinois products haling from Champaign, IL. They had finished second in their section to nationals contender Machine. Despite their higher seed, they didn’t look to be as strong on paper as we were, and we were fairly confident goin in. As the game got underway, our confidence was borne out. We went up a few breaks early, and then continued to dominate the first half, taking it 7-2. Second half we started on D and I was in, and got a big layout block, then converted for the score – Bookends! I was happy to get some production on both sides of the disc early in the tournament, as I hadn’t done much of anything at sectionals. But enough about me… we continued to roll and while we eased up a little at the end, Illinois X was never in it and we ended up winning 13-6. Upset #1 was complete.

With our game ending so quickly we had a chance to rest and take in some other games. Right next to us, DingWop (who had received a late bid on Thursday night that week, after some other teams cancelled) was in a dogfight against Jawbone from Cleveland. Dingwop at 11^th seed had a chance to take down Jawbone at 6^th, and was close to pulling it off – down 11-10, they tied it up, then got a break on a very long point to go up 12-11. One more break could win. However Jawbone tied it up on another very long point and the teams proceeded to trade points for an eternity – there was no cap but the time cap, which wouldn’t go on for a while, so what would have been a game to 13 did not end remotely close to that. We had to leave to warm up again before we could see the end, but we later found out DingWop lost in a heartbreaker, 18-16. Too bad for them – but, back to us.

Game 2: Machine. Unfortunately even with our upset in the first round, the bracket was not friendly to us with a matchup against #2 seed Machine from Chicago. Machine was well structured and showed it early on by scoring within a few throws on our defence, then breaking our offence and getting another quick score. Reeling, we made some adjustments on D to stop their set plays, and began to have some success. We eventually got some breaks back and made their offence work hard even when they did score; our offence got back on track and worked a mix of patient play and hucks to great success. At halftime we trailed 8-7, and the first point after half the O line tied it up 8-8. But alas, we could not kkep it up forever. Machine was slow to adjust to our adjustments but eventually countered our huck-stopping defence with some good handler movement, which we had less of an answer to; and their defence found an answer to our offence, running off several breaks. We gave up a 7-1 run to watch Machine close out the game 15-9. With that, we exited the 1^st place bracket. However, second place was still in reach; we’d need to fight past some lower-ranked teams, then battle the quarterfinal and semifinal losers to do so. One game at a time though.

Game 3: Cork Juice. After getting bumped down into the ‘losers’ bracket, our fist game was against Cork Juice fro Kalamazoo, Michigan. They had come in ranked 9^th – just in front of us – but had lost in the first round before winning the next for the right to stay in the running for 2^nd place. As with our game against Illinois X, we knew we were likely the better team despite what the seedings said, and we were looking forward to a victory. One of our captains said something to the effect that our goal should be to win the game 15-0. That seemed to be the general attitude on our team going in. The game got underway with us on D. First possession by Cork Juice, they worked it up before taking a shot into the endzone, to my guy. I was a bit behind him as the throw went up but saved myself with a layout block. We couldn’t hold onto the disc off the turn though, and gave them another chance where they scored. No worries – down 1-0 on a D point, and where they were heading downwind. Our O would do their job and we’d get another chance. Sure enough we went up 2-1 as expected, but they got another back on us. This kept up a while, as we traded points but couldn’t start to break away. Finally it was 7-7, we were receiving to take half… and turned it over giving them a chance to lead. Luckily, our O line turned it back over and then scored, so we led 8-7 at half. By this time we realised we were playing far too complacent and needed to bring our A game to win this, even against what looked like a weaker opponent. We refocused and finally started to build a lead. The D line started to roll and scored several consecutive points. Finally we were up 14-10 with a chance to win on D… but Cork Juice got one back, bringing the O line back to finish it. The O line faltered, giving up a break, then another, and suddenly it was 14-13 and another break would mean a game to 16 or more. The O line finally delivered – 15-13 – and we were through to the next round.

Yes, I'm still here.

OK, so I have been remiss on posting for the last while. No posts in the last month... shameful, I know. But I've been busy.

Busy with what? Largely, work. Which is not interesting to write about, unfortunately. I'll just say I've had plenty to do at the office and don't feel like sitting down to do some writing at home. Kind of a lame excuse, but there it is.

What else...? Well, I have been keeping up with ultimate, no surprise. League wrapped up shortly after Nationals with Trogdor finishing a respectable 3rd place in Monday A. And also right after Nationals, I started practicing with the Men's team, General Strike, who had been largely dormant all season but revived for the UPA fall series. I ended up making the roster and we've already played our Sectionals tournament, which took place a few weekends ago in Maple Plain, MN, just west of the Twin Cities. I don't feel like doing a full writeup so I'll just post a link to the scores if you're interested:
http://www2.upa.org/scores/tourn.cgi?div=127&id=2772

The scores pretty much tell the story... we finished third by beating DingWop in the game to go, second time we faced them on Sunday. Losses were first day against Sub Zero (no surprise) and a double-game point loss against Madison... I don't think Strike has ever beaten Madison, at least not recently, but the loss was hard to take. Especially since Madison (and their badger state bretheren, Wisconsin Hops) were, to put it diplomatically, a very unpleasant team to play against. Also had a bunch of easy wins against lesser teams, and a satisfying victory over Liquid Assets. Net result is that we qualified for Regionals, which is happening this weekend in Naperville, Illinois. I'll post something following that... and if anything else interesting happens in my life. Watch this space.