What a ride!

Mischief finished second in the (full title here) Ultimate Players Association Club Championship Series Northern California Mixed Sectionals (whew!) in Santa Cruz this past weekend.

Second! Whoo!

Here's how Saturday went:

We started off seeded fifth. Fifth, and lacking a whole lot of our usual Mischief love. I'd guess the problem was essentially high expectations (and the pressures associated with them) and accumulating injuries. Throw in a little personality conflicts, a bit of differing priorities, an overworked leadership structure, and you have a whole little love.

We started off rough on Saturday morning against Blammo. We had last played Blammo in Ashland, Oregon, at Cramp-Up in May, and had a rough time playing them then, too. Admittedly, we had our B roster at Cramp-Up. But, truly, that's just making up excuses. We started off very slowly against them on Saturday morning, dropping throws, throwing away discs, and miscommunicating everywhere. Sheer athleticism enabled us to win that game 10-6.

Our next game against BTP ultimate was much easier. We had warmed up and were ready to play. The score was around 13-3 -/+, us, when the game was over.

After our next round bye, we played the Naturals of San Diego. One of our teammates, Chucky, who attends UC San Diego recognized 3 of the players as ex-captains of the UCSD Air Squids, the open college ultimate team, so we weren't sure what to expect. The 13-4 win was good.

Our last game was against Bender. Bender. Bender, who we seem to play at every tournament. Either Bender or Beer Run, every tournament. It gets tiring playing the same team all the time. We were very, very amped for this game. Not only were we gunning for the top seed in our pool, hence the easier run on Sunday, but we were seeking redemption on their insistence on being the 4th seed at the tournament, bumping us down to 5th from 4th.

Kris correctly rationalized the two games - bye - two games format the 5th place team had on Saturday was much better for our team than the bye - four games format the 4th place team had, and didn't contest the switch of us to 5th place. 4th and 5th played each other in the final round of the day, so why not take the bye?

From the chatter on the sidelines, it was clear that Mischief was hungry, and Bender wasn't going to win this one.

We ended our 4-0 day with a 12-6 trouncing of Bender, and celebrated at 99 Bottles.

When Sam came to visit, he arrived with a box from Mom and Eric. The box was intended to help Sam transistion into being away from his family (and with his crazy auntie), by distracting him for a little bit.

From that box, came the five dollars that made him the richest man in the world. Also in the box was Six-Wheeler.

Six-Wheeler is a little plastic guy on a motorcycle, who stayed nominally upright at lower speeds, and tumbled at higher speeds.

When Kris came home the evening of Sam's arrival, he heard of all the details of the box and Sam's first day. When the, then unnamed, Six-Wheeler came out, Kris was excited.

"Ooooooo! What's his name? Crazy Motorcycle Mike?"

Sam looked up at Kris like he was retarded.

"Noooo-ooooo-oooo," in the way only a five year old looking at the idiot adult can say no in three syllables. "His name is Four Wheeler."

"Four Wheeler? Why is he Four Wheeler?"

"Because he has four wheels." Sam replied, turning over the toy. "One, two, three, four, ..."

Sam paused.

"... five, six. His name is Six Wheeler."

So now we had a name for the toy. Six Wheeler.

Six Wheeler spent the next several hours zooming all over the house, usually chasing Annie, but mostly tumbling around, not quite riding anywhere. A small bump in the floor, usually between boards of the hardwood slats, would send him flipping end over end.

In exasperation, Sam commented, "Six Wheeler keeps dying."

Pause.

"He's dumb. He's just dumb."

Which has since become a favorite saying around here. When someone does something idiotic, moronic or even mildly stupid, well, "He's just dumb."

Entertainly enough, there's a lot of "just dumb" around here.

Good lord, people! I'm a girl! I am not a boy!

When referring to a woman or an individual within a group of women, the proper pronouns to use are "she," "her," and "hers" (not "they," "their," and "theirs," as so many people like to use).

That means, if you're talking about me specifically, use "she," not "he."

Just because I like web technologies, make a living programming, and enjoy the tech world, doesn't mean I'm automatically a boy.

Grrrr....

Maybe I should drop the nickname.

Or give up and let Boris' nickname for me stick.

Sheesh.

On live television this morning, Dick Cheney was giving a news conference in Gulfport, Mississippi. He was answering various questions about the flood, when, in the background, someone called out, "Go fuck yourself, Mr. Cheney!" Cheney looked up, and watched as the person who called out was led away behind the camera.

Another news reporter asked, "Do you get that a lot?"

From the distance, another "Go fuck yourself!"

Cheney replied, "First time I've heard it. Must be a friend of John."

Deadpan ha ha.

After playing the scene again (yay Tivo!), Kris turned to me to comment, "What cracks me up is the 'Mr. Cheney.' You have balls up until the point where you call him 'Mr. Cheney.'"

"Why not just call him Dick! at that point?"

"Exactly! You have the perfect chance."

Later, we watched a shot of Supt. Eddie Compass from New Orleans, who commented that in New Orleans, only police officers are allowed weapons.

Kris replayed it twice for me, watching my reaction.

"Hmmm.... I wonder what happened to the 2nd Amendment."

I looked at him stunned.

"And you have no comment. I wonder if the 2nd Amendment was suspended."

I was too stunned to comment.

What the hell is going on down there?

Hi!

You're probably looking for my other site, which actually has some Drupal related stuff on it. I'll be writing up details of the whole PostNuke to Drupal conversion (including some of the pain Bharat went through with it), which is probably more of what you're interested in than my dogs, my ultimate game or my transistion from emacs to vi.

If you're a PostNuke person looking to transistion to Drupal, well, yeah, I'll get those details up, too.

You can contact me in the mean time, if you have specific Drupal/PostNuke/Gallery questions that I can answer.

Pretty much the only way to switch from one editor to another, or one program to another that does the same job but with different keystrokes, or from one operating system to another, is to go cold turkey.

None of this half-ass, oh I'll just use this for a little while, until I learn all the commands and details I need to know to use it effectively crap.

Which brings me to my current pain point.

vi

Slowly, but surely, I'm learning how to use this editor. Slowly, but surely, I'm discovering, yes, even the great vi has issues, and that, truly, emacs would be reigning king if not for the control key pinky of death.

I'm going to go from the control key pinky of death to the escape key ring finger of death.