This is ruining my birthday.

Thanks to all who made it out for our birthday celebration on Sat. I had a blast and it was great to see everyone. Special thanks to Tom and Jay for driving the furthest to be there and helping with the setup/cleanup of the party.

It's my birthday and I had to wake up an hour earlier than usual to be at work for a conference call.

Keep an eye on Cass's blog for pictures from the party.

Work? No. Today's gonna be a holiday.

Joint Birthday party for myself, Cass, and Colyn.

My place. 8pm. Saturday the 24th.

You are invited. Bring booze, we will have food.

If you need directions, email or call.

When you're mining for coal and you forget what coal is...

I've had kind of a spacy week. It started out with Martha lashing into me with a sarcastic barb that to be fair I probably deserved.

Last week Wed. was Valentine's Day which came and passed as it does every year for me: without fanfare. My feelings on Valentine's Day are as follows: yes, it is a greeting card holiday but what is the harm of doing something nice for each other?

That night we had co-ed ultimate practice and I convinced Cass to come play. She had previously mentioned that I never invite her to come learn the sport that I devote so much of my time to so on the evening in question I forced her to come play. We had a good time.

Thursday was Cass's birthday. Fortunately for me I had a meeting downtown (Sears Tower, 50 somthingth floor!) so I had a chance to stop by and pick up a new soccer ball and some socks for her. That night we had a good game and another victory for 4 Ton Mantis. Cass's parents and Jay watched us play which was fun and later Colin and Nate joined us at Tuman's for a birthday celebration. Cass got drunk, which as I said before is more cute than anything else.

Friday evening I took Cass out to dinner for her birthday. Dinner at Rosal's is always good. This time I got veal, which made me wonder what baby everything tastes like. I had a good time. Afterwards we journeyed to Logan Square for a night of poker. I lost my $10, mostly to Nate I believe. I'm okay with this since his hair is growing out and I can convince myself that I lost my money to a feudal lord.

Saturday I had an ultimate game against DePaul. We won 17-10 in about three inches of snow. It was a blast but it didn't really help us evaluate anything in the way of what we need to work on. Sloppy conditions more than lack of experience changed the game. Saturday night Andre and Katie were in town for Katie's birthday and they invited me and Cass downtown for dinner and drinks along with Katie's brothers and Gabe and Emily. These people are always good company. Andre was entertaining as always.

Sunday morning I made waffles and had Ultimate practice. Practice turned out to be a good workout and strategy session. Our meeting after was entertaining and productive. Then we went to Logan Square for games and conversation that was not productive and only marginally entertaining. Then I stopped talking to the dog and had a good time with everyone there.

As I typed all that out I realized I had a busy week last week. That's what I meant when I said it was a spacy week because I barely remember

"I found a fatal flaw in the logic of love..."

Colin: Everyone blog about this. Jay, do it.
Jay: Well, I don't...
Colin: If you don't do this, we aren't friends anymore.

Happy B-Day Lily.

What did we do with the ball?

Team 4 Ton Mantis started their win streak last night. We finally got to play a game against opponents that were not overtly aggressive. We played well together, using tight controlled passing to open up our game and get some quality shots on goal.

Anne impressed all in her first game showing great poise and delivering powerful strikes at the goal when given the opportunity.

BJ as always played every end of the floor and served as a stopper, stealing the ball from the opponent on our end of the floor to turn their attack into a chance for us.

Cass was able to turn her aggression down a notch for our friendlier opponents, but still played strong and controlled her end of the field, in addition to finding the spaces for strikes that found the back of the net or hurt someone foolish enough to stand in the way.

Colyn showed athleticism in all parts of the field, able to cover half the field if necessary and skying every opponent to put a nice head on the ball. Colyn is all about nice head. And killing shots fifteen feet high of the goal.

Dave Lamb placed some nice shots and played his usual confusing (that’s a compliment, the opponents are confused) style of British football. When he isn’t deftly touching the ball he is saying something funny and British.

Dave M. played hard and had numerous excellent scoring opportunities from nice touches or clean passes. His strikes were very good at finding opponents’ hands.

John continues to improve his game every week. This week he attacked in addition to outstanding stopping ability in the goal against opponents at even point blank range.

Leslie did a very good job of controlling her area of the field and clearing the ball from danger. She also continues to improve her game and should be a superstar by the end of the season.

Martine played a strong control game and attacked opponents who dared to enter her area of the field, stripping even the most adept strikers to prevent chances.

Mike played every inch of the field and showed great teamwork by passing to others instead of forcing shots. He accounted for half of the goals scored in the night if we count an own goal.

Seth played in the box almost exclusively and shut down the opponents. Solid strikes were deflected away as easily as annoying flies by the cow’s tail, and he also showed no fear in advancing far out of the goal to strip the ball from an attacker.

Lastly, Janice cheered well and performed all the duties of a captain, proving that her team spirit was not injured in the fall.

4 Ton Mantis won it 8-2.

Thanks to everyone for making it a fun night. I regret that there were members of the team unable to attend. We made up for some of the absence by screaming “Wahck eeyt!” from the sidelines as often as possible.

I am a monkey.

Tom and Steve were in town this past weekend so I spent most of my time hanging with them and being sore. The soreness came from running a lot with the Frisbee team on Friday, not from me being upset at something.

Super Bowl was fun even if the Bears couldn't manage the win. I went to two parties. Both were enjoyable and I got to spend time with a lot of friends that I hadn't seen in a long time. I did miss the halftime show. Thank god for YouTube.

Currently, what has been dominating my thoughts has been my ears. Perhaps this requires further explanation. I will make this so.

After the Super Bowl at BS, CT, and JM's, we all went outside to the square for a game of football. Good times were had by all, but some facts are worth mentioning.
-It was well below zero with the wind chill.
-I was not dressed appropriately.
-I was very drunk
-Every football game should have a bottle of whiskey in a fountain ready for access.
-The cops were called to break us up.

Every one walked away bruised and sore. Not to be self-centered except that I'm about to forget about everyone else's little wussy problems and focus on mine, but I got beaten up. My nose got cracked at some point so now it is soft, sore and swollen. My knees got rocked as my jeans provided little padding. The left was covered with frozen blood after the game. Most importantly, I was drunk and didn't think to ask to borrow a hat and instead played with nothing covering my (stupid) head.

The result of making this decision? Frozen ears, possibly frostbittten, as after returning home and showering they turned bright red and swelled up to ridiculous size. Cass snapped this picture to capture the first manifestation of my inner-monkey that has waited so long to finally make an appearance.

Still had a good time.