Thursday, June 28, 2007

iWant

Man do I want an iPhone.

And I swear that I'm not just blinded by the hype...

Ok, don't believe me? For every negative aspect of the device, I bet I can list something that makes it worth buying. Just try me...


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The iPhone is only available through AT&T (formerly Cingular).
Awesome! I already use AT&T! Sucks for you if you don't.

The iPhone only has 4 or 8gigs of storage.
Hey, that's 4 or 8gigs more than my phone now has!

You can't use the iPhone wearing gloves. It requires skin contact.
Cool. How does it know that? (Take off your gloves!)

There aren't any games on the iPhone.
I hear the internet has games.

But the iPhone's browser doesn't support Java, Flash...
Yet. Doesn't *yet* support...
The AT&T Edge network (for internet) is slow and outdated. The next-gen. iPhone will be on a faster connection.
You're slow and outdated!

And for $500-600, you could get a iPod video and a new smart phone or a Blackberry.
Ok, shut up. You're missing the point.

---

Well, and seriously you are, if you're one of the people out there telling everyone they're stupid to buy, or buy into, the iPhone. Of course there's going to be something better in a couple of years. When hasn't that been the case with consumer technology? I actually believe that Apple is delivering pretty much what they said they would be when they announced the iPhone last year. They're asking a pretty high price, but nothing worth complaining about. The real money spent is on the plans with AT&T anyway, and here, I'm surprised to say, things actually look pretty good. $60/month for all the minutes I could use, all the texting I'd ever do, and unlimited data (internet). Maybe not enough for some, but for me, that'd work. Especially when you consider the combined cost of voice and data plans for a Blackberry. Good luck staying under $80/month.

So what's stopping me? The fact that I don't actually NEED any of the things this phone offers (that took me a while to come to terms with), so even if I'm getting a good deal, or my money's worth, it's still a good deal of my money.

So maybe if I rake in a lot of money doing freelance, or I find $600 in my sweatpants pocket I'll go get in line at the nearest Apple or AT&T store... Otherwise, if you get one, could I just hold it for a while? Thanks.

Monday, June 25, 2007

2007 Boston Invitational

This kind of says it all:
http://upa.org/scores/tourn.cgi?div=68&id=3537

Or maybe it doesn't if you're unfamiliar with the UPA Score Reporter, or the Club Mixed landscape... (Hint: Those are considered 8 of the very top mixed teams in the nation. Look at our seed going into the tournament, and look at the final standings.)

Yeah, we did very well.

Exactly HOW well we did is just sinking in too. Especially considering how much room for improvement there is on our team (just having a full roster would improve us for our next big tourney). Certainly it's possible (maybe even likely) that the other teams we played in Boston will improve as much as I see Moe improving by the time the series rolls around. But even if that's the case, it feels like Moe is going to have a much more competitive, productive and meaningful season than ever before.

Speaking of productivity - I'm starting Acceleration training tomorrow. Yikes.
I'm still a little worried about burning out physically, but I should hit my peak just around the Spawnfest tournament (Burlington, WA) in August, which is pretty much ideal. Between then and now... I just hope I have all the energy that I want for practice, etc... not to mention life in general. (I think Jeff has me a little over-anxious about his sprint-and-jump-'til-you-puke training stories from Acceleration.)
I am really looking forward to having a more structured workout program though. The idea of having an authoritative training figure (like it was to have a coach) back in my athletic life sounds good. We'll see how it goes.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

the raw story

I'm not entirely sure how accurate, or slanted, the views are over at rawstory.com, but I've been directed there twice by digg.com following interesting sounding headlines... Such as this one: "Cheney tells agency that Vice President's office is not part of the executive branch."

...ok, they're definitely slanted. But there seems to be some worthwhile content on the site. If nothing else, this was at least another endorsement of digg.com.

*Going to Boston for the weekend... wish us luck!

Monday, June 18, 2007

Tidbit.

A bullet shot from a perfectly level gun will hit the ground in the same amount of time as one dropped straight down, from the height of the barrel.

Monday, June 11, 2007

Poultry Days 2007

By far, the best Ultimate trip to Ohio that I've ever experienced. (In college I went to a tournament in Ohio, and with all of the crappy traffic we hit, and the crappy games that we played, I vowed never to return to that state... I've obviously, and gratefully gone back on that pledge. Flaming Moe and Poultry Days have saved Ohio for me.)

At the end of last week, Änna and I suddenly realized that we were actually going to play Ultimate - at a tournament - with Flaming Moe! ...something that we felt we hadn't done in a really long time... (7 months!) ...and something that we hadn't realized we'd been missing as much as we had.

Bright and early Friday morning, with expectations high, we got on the road.
The trip was relatively quick, and uneventful... which was great. We picked up Alicia in Rochester on the way down, ate some fast food, listened to some Dan Brown... We got into Versailles with enough light to set up tents and hang out/throw for a bit, before going to bed (early - like, 10pm... maybe trying to sleep a little extra for those who wouldn't be arriving for another couple hours).

Saturday we were matched up against a variety of teams that weren't as good as we were. :) Where every once and a while there would be a player on the other team that could match some of our players in individual skills/talent/speed, no team could match the cohesive offense and stifling team defense that Moe is already showing this early in the season. All of the tryouts vying for the last few spots on the team played well, both generally, and with in the Moe O and D systems. I do not envy the captains in their upcoming decisions.

Saturday night was fun. Much food was eaten. Lasagna, breadsticks, cheeseburgers, apple sauce... funnel cake! Watching Alicia in the All-Star game. Awkwardly walking through the carnival, waiting for it to get as fun as it looked. :) Circling back up at the tents, Moes expressing love via sarcasm. (Good point in your email, Dave, about how this can translate to the field.) Also, pistachios and vanilla wafers.

Sunday morning started off a little weird. The TD went nuts at us because we went into a huddle for a quick talk when the game was supposed to start. Instead of just letting us start a minute late, he yelled at us to get seven on the line, argued with us about the importance of starting on time, and caused us to start the game 2 minutes late. Pick your battles, dude. Anyway, Dave later talked to him and he regretted the incident, blaming the pressures of TDing for his attitude.

Then a major blow - Anton dislocates his shoulder laying out for a deep pass. It looked really painful. That sucks. Especially for Anton as one of the last few tryouts. I have no idea what the recovery process can be like for a dislocated shoulder (probably depends on if/what he tore), but I hope he can bounce back from this.

We got a bit down, and down on each other after this, and it showed in the game. Even up 7-4 at half some of us looked like we'd not only just lost the game, but that we'd caught our own teammates kicking puppies behind the wood pile on the other sideline. Dave said something like, "Come on guys! We're BFFs! We're winning! And those were evil puppies!" And everybody got there heads on straight to finish the game.

The next game we had was against a much higher caliber team. The kind of caliber that Moe most enjoys playing against. There were great plays coming from both teams, making the game easily the most exciting to both play in and watch. It seemed like we traded points in groups of three. Us, them, break, break. After our last run we were tied at 10s, they take a time out, and eventually score the last three. It'd been better if the pattern wouldn't have stuck there at the end of the game, but start-to-finish, each point was played hard, every disc contested, so I'm still happy with the result. Quarters finish for our first tournament.

Highlights: Mike and Elliot had some memorable layouts. Jaime ('that tiny girl!') kept beating everyone covering her. John was good in the air on 'O'. Mike's pulls. Jeanine and I got Callahans. Änna flicking everybody off.

I shouldn't have gone there...


The drive home's highlight was Ruby Tuesdays. We gorged on salad bar and burgers for a good hour. We got home just after 1am, which is so much better than 5am (although I think I'd still be able to blog at work either way). Meeting tonight to decide the final '07 team. I don't see how it can go smoothly. :) But I'm excited for the next tournament either way.

*Oh, and maybe I'll bring the video camera to check out footage from the weekend. I don't think I got anything awesome, but it could still be fun. (Could a Video Blog Post be on the horizon?!)

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Summer Plans, etc.

So are you anything like me? Are most of your weekends now busy... through, say, November?! This seems to happen every summer - being an Ultimate player, it's sort of expected, but it's still crazy looking at my calendar and seeing all the events that get packed into a summer.

It looks like it'll be a fun one though - there are some 'firsts' this summer that I'm especially excited about. Like backpacking in the Beartooths with the Melbys. We're thinking that'll happen the first full week in August. And I found out yesterday that I'm scheduled to go on a 'business trip' to Phoenix the 25th-28th of July. (Someone's moving up in the world!) On top of that, Flaming Moe has the most interesting and challenging schedule we've ever had.

So it looks like it'll be a good one, however busy.

Upcoming events:
Poultry Days in Ohio this weekend.
Film Club hopefully next Saturday.
Father's Day stuff next Sunday.
Boston Invite the 23rd and 24th.

*I've been really bad about posting my training stuff... mostly because I've been really bad about training. Tryouts always kill my motivation to workout, but at least they've been happening 3 times a week (keeping me pretty active). I've still been running a couple times outside of tryouts, and lifting maybe once a week. Last night I was really good - I lifted for 45 minutes AND THEN went on a good run. So that's that.