I went to my first Mischief practice for the season today. It was at Baylands and, well, Baylands kept up its reputation by having just the best, gusty winds. I headed over late because, well, uh, can I just say some stupid game distracted me at an inopportune moment and leave it at that? Yeah, stupid game. I hate it.

So, when I arrived, and saw a big "Park Closed, Private Event" sign, along with a long line of cars out of the park entrance, I was simutaneously annoyed (the park is NEVER closed for a private event, you can reserve the picnic areas, but not the whole park; the sign was deliberately misleading to keep "undesirables" out), and worried (I was late, and needed to get to practice, and I was late, and Andy doesn't like when people are late, and did I mention I was late? Yeah). So, I pulled a yooey (sound it out), parked across the street and ran.

Now, the nice thing about running over is that you're warmed up when you arrive at the fields. I'm reaching here, to find SOME good benefit of being late. On my run over, I decided that, regardless of what happened at this practice, I would forgive myself any errors. Having spent all of these years criticizing myself for bad plays during ultimate, instead of immediately trying to figure out what I should have done instead, visualizing the correct action, and moving onto what I needed to do next offensively or defensively, I've decided that this season I'll be more proactive in what I think, instead of destructive. I figure, what I've been doing hasn't worked, why not try this?

Out of breath, and in a hurry, I dropped my stuff, pulled of my pantaloones and hoodie, exchanged shoes, and dashed out to warm up with the team. I noted the people who crossed the street in front of me, but didn't hussle over, had to do a warmup lap to get their legs going before jumping into the warmups. I admit to being pleased at my hussle-double-duty.

As has been the trend over the last 2-3 seasons, the practice was well organized, thought out and well run. We started with a series of warm-up cuts in a box, then progressed to a review (for returning players, and an introduction for new players) of our pull plays. We then ran them for a while.

Next up was 8 pull, where each team receives the disc and has one chance to score, the defense having one chance to score on a turn. I think the end score was like 2-4-10 or something for dark / light / and neither scoring.

At this point, I was tired. Not exhausted, but definitely feeling my lack of fitness. The next drill, however, focused on isolation cutting, and whoo-boy, did I not realize I how tired I was until after this drill.

The drill consisted of a receiver and defender in a 8 m x 8 m box, and a thrower about 3 m outside the box with a defender on him. The receiver can cut and move anywhere in the box he wants. The thrower needs to throw to the receiver by the end of a stall count starting on 5. The defender and marker are, of course, trying to prevent the completion.

When partnered up with Adam Leventhal as my thrower, crap, I could do no wrong in my cutting. With Adam as the defender and my marking, he could do no wrong. I had problems throwing to Adam, completing only 2 of my five throws. My iso defense wasn't as strong as I would have liked, blocking only 2 (might have been 3) of the throws. I really liked receiving from Adam, though he did zing one throw in hard enough to leave a nasty bruise. Need to up the vitamin K, I think.

I really liked the drill, as it gave me a chance to throw, throw, throw, granted in somewhat artificial circumstances, but it was still a lot of throwing in tight situations. I'm going to see if I can convince some teammates to continue this drill again some evening this week. Steffi expressed interest, so only 2-4 more people would be needed.

We then played a game to seven. Dark, my team, was up 3-1, before going down 5-3 to light. We brought the score back to 5-6, but eventually lost 5-7. The game was really interesting, though I was remarkably exhausted. I can't believe (well, okay, yes, I can) just how out of ultimate-shape I'm in. It's awful. The extra 20 pounds around my hips are definitely announcing themselves on my knees. I ate a fabulous breakfast this morning (vegetable scramble with cheese and a large odwalla citrus c), so now is a great time to keep up the good eating. Maybe I can get rid of those 20 in 10 weeks.

My hamstring, though announcing itself, wasn't too bad during the practice. A little bit of the topical aspirin, and I was running just fine.

The last part of practice was an elmination marking game. Essentially, two lines of players face each other, with the front of one line receiving, and the front of the other line throwing against a straight up mark. The receiver can't move (much) when receiving the disc from the thrower. Once a thrower throws, she runs to the front of the other line to mark, much like a three man marking drill.

Now, the trick of the game is, if the thrower overthrows, turfs, or is handblocked, she has to prevent a completed throw when she marks next. If she doesn't, she's out. If she does, then she continues to the back of the line. There are no penalties for the marker for a completed throw if she had a completed throw when she threw just before.

I managed to overthrow on my first throw, we were throwing upwind, which was the difficult direction. I then handblocked the woman I was marking, forcing her to block the next woman. Eventually, the chain ended and someone else was the first woman out (we split into men and women lines). I did well in the game, making it to the final 4 (I think, might have been 5), before throwing a crappy upwind throw that just went over my receiver. Liz Gannes won it all, having turfed her very first throw in the game. I really enjoyed this game, too, which should indicate how much I enjoyed practice today.

Though, I'm going to be really, really, really tired tonight. I'm happy.

"You know, if I never see another happy bee, it'll be too soon. How does that song go? Something like a bumble bee? I'm something... I'm picking up my baby bumble bee? Yeah, that's it!

I'm picking up my baby bumblebee!
Won't my mommy be so proud of me?
I'm picking up my baby bumblebee!

...

What's next?"

"He bites you."

"Oh! That's right!

Hey! My bee bit me!

I'm squishing up my baby bumblebee!
Won't my mommy be so proud of me?
I'm squishing up my baby bumblebee!

Ew! That's gross!

I'm licking off my baby bumblebee!
Won't my mommy be so proud of me?
I'm licking off my baby bumblebee!

Wow, I haven't thought of that song in years!"

"You're not done."

"Huh?"

"Uh...

I'm puking up my baby bumble bee!
Won't my mommy be so proud of me?
I'm puking up my baby bumble bee!"

*laughter*

"How could I have forgotten that part?"

"That's the part the boys like."

"Ah."

Back in college, I worked in a bookstore. Well, in high school, too, but that was a different bookstore, in a different state. Having access to all sorts of books, what did I read? Yeah, science fiction, and fantasy (wizards and goblins, that sort). I also read a bunch of teen horror by Christoper Pike (heh, I wrote that Christofer. I guess Kris is getting to me). I pretty much read everything he wrote and published up until I stopped working at that bookstore (which, well, was the last time I worked at a bookstore, actually).

Pike wrote mostly teen horror (for readers 12 and up), which meant a book could be read in an hour or so, which worked well for my school schedule. I guess this fits in well with my general habit of reading books at most age groups, those some are definitely easier to read than others.

I really enjoyed those teen horror books. I can remember the general plots of several of them. One, an evil entity (they're all evil, really, when, if you think about it, they're evil only from the hero's perspective) invades the bodies of a small town's entire high school football team, giving them incredible strength but turns them into zombies, which the heros need to defeat to save the town from all becoming zombies. Or the book where a girl was murdered, only she wasn't, as she faked her murder to pin it on someone else, only another someone else really did kill her. Or the one where a girl's soul is transferred into a vulture, which is later killed when the girl as the vulture went to find her dad and well all crazy on him. The transferred soul was puzzled about why the frog they were dissecting in biology didn't come back to life.

Yeah. Fun stuff.

Pike wrote two books for adults, Sati and Season of Passage. I bought, I think in some discount bin, but I don't recall, the second book and, for over a decade, left it on my shelf unread. Oh, I tried to read it a couple times, but was really unable to actually stick with it. (Kinda sounds like Mote in God's Eye, Reality Dysfunction and Catch 22. Oh, and the Bible.)

Well, yesterday, I was finally (FINALLY!) able to start reading it. I can't say I particularly liked the writing style, but that's true of most books I read these days. I REALLY LIKE very few writers, with the common theme among the writers I do like is consistency from the narrator's point of view. Many writers will spoon feed every thought and action of every character, mostly in a mono structure format. Eragon was the absolute worst offender of this style. "He walked down the path. He stopped and looked up. He decided to keep walking. He continued to walk down the path." Boring, painful to read crap. The Bella Swan series is almost as painful to read. "He's so perfect. Oh, his voice is perfect. He's so beautiful. I'm a toad in comparison. Oh, I'm an uncoordinated clod whose mind can't be read by that perfect vampire. Oh, he's so beautiful." Gets tiring after listening to the 15 hours of "he's so perfect" crap interspersed with 30 minutes of plot.

But, yeah, back to the Season of Passage. I finally started reading it. After reading for about a day (400 pages, took me about six hours to read over two days, oddly enough), Kris asked if it was a good book. My answer was no, but I did keep reading.

When I was done, I, unsurprisingly, started ranting about the stupidity of the characters in the book. And when I say stupidity, I mean dumb, retarded, nitwit, stone stupidity of the characters, which should be smart, as they're NASA astronauts on a mission to Mars.

Since I'm 99% confident none of my friends are going to read this book (but if you REALLY REALLY want to, Google has a digitized version you can read), let me tell you how dumb these characters are.

So, the American mission goes to Mars. It's following a Russian mission which landed two years before, and perished. The American mission is going to land in one spot, check out some possible footprints in the sand of one photograph taken by a Rover craft from ten years ago (footprints that no one noticed in the pictures for years, mind you), then fly over to the Russian landing spot, and look for survivors.

Uh, sure. Two years on Mars, when the supplies would run out after two months? Ooooh-kaaaaay...

So, they land at the first spot. Hey, look at that, for a planet with no atmosphere, these 50 mile an hour winds are kinda weird. Oh, look, they're getting stronger. Oh, wow, now the sand is kicking up, and has blasted the paint off the side of our spacecraft. Maybe we better leave.

Um... paint? On a spacecraft?

Interesting.

So, they take off, back up to the orbitting station, head partway around the planet to see if they can land at the Russian landing area. Except that area is covered in a storm. No problem, land anyway, it's our mission.

Okay. Suspension of disbelief. Suspension of disbelief. Suspension of disbelief. That's what I'm chanting to get through this book. Suspension of disbelief. I can do it. Really, I can.

So, they land.

And find a survivor.

In a space craft with a temperature that's below freezing. "Oh, hey, well, maybe the human body adapted." Right. So, this "survivor" leads the expedition down a tunnel carved into the mountain they landed next to. Down down down they go, until they find a canal. Hey, let's follow this canal, so the CAPTAIN OF THE MISSION, the leader, goes BY HIMSELF with the survivor. His last words? "What? Hey!" Grunt, splash, loss of communication.

What do they think? The Russian survivor just killed their captain. What do they do?

They go after the captain.

Okay, fine, I think. They go after him. They find him alive, but weird. Okay, fine, alive, but weird. Fine. No problem.

But then the captain says, "Oooo, I've found something really nifty. Each of you needs to see it, but I need to take you there one at a time. I'll take you one a day for the next five days."

I think I forgot to mention that the entire crew is, at this point, down to their LAST GALLON OF WATER. Their last gallon of water. And the captain wants to take the next five days ferrying each person to see something really interesting in a hole that takes four hours to get there?

Okay, at what point does someone just think, "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON? SHOOT THE BASTARD!"

I couldn't stand the book anymore. I just wanted to be done with it. There was exactly one nice plot finesse in the book that I really liked. It reminded me of Pike's teen horror books, and that part actually made me smile.

The rest of it made me want to chuck the book at the dog, who was wiping her butt on the rug.

It happens. I admit. Sometimes, well, frequently, I just want a Coldstone Creamery Like-it sized cup of ice cream. I'm currently a fan of strawberry ice cream with crushed graham crackers mixed in. When the graham crackers are still crunchy (you know, like cereal is supposed to be!), oh, my, heaven in a bowl.

Though, B was confused why I had strawberry ice cream instead of chocolate at Chris' birthday party. Honestly, he acted as if the sun had gone out, the world tilted its axis 90° and I had given birth to a rhinoceros, all in one moment.

Apparently, my passion for chocolate is supposed to be unmovable.

*shrug*

So, tonight, as last night, I convinced the man I was with that he, too, wanted Coldstone Creamery ice cream, and off we went. Tonight, Kris managed to down the calories.

On the way back, I started complaining about the show Medium. If you don't watch it, the basic premis is, a woman often dreams about events (nearly always tragic and violent ones) that happened, are happening, or will happen. There are often no time references in the dreams. With these viewings of violent acts, she's able to help the police track down the person responsible for the crime she dreamt about, and bring said person to justice.

That's the premise.

It's a show on my Tivo rotation at the moment. Much of the acting, dialogue and scenarios in the parts of the show that show the main character's home life are quite realistic, though why I find that part interesting, I have no idea. You'd think life would be plenty that I wouldn't need to watch it on television.

So, I was ranting to Kris about how, after 20, 30 years of dreaming these dreams, and pretty much not one of them is actually what she initially thinks the dream is about, maybe she's stop jumping to conclusions when she first dreams a dream, and wait until the second or third nights before actually saying something about them (most of the dreams continue over several nights until the crime is complete or solved, at least, according to the show's writers).

Yeah, she never gets the crime or criminal right on the first go. So, stop jumping to conclusions before heading off to the cops to get the only one who listens to her off on a wild goose chase.

Kris patiently listened to me rant. "Well," he started once I had actually stopped, "maybe you don't see all of the easy ones. I mean, how interesting would those be? You see the complicated ones that have twisted and aren't what they seem."

I was quiet, thinking about what he said. So quiet that he had to ask, "Did I say something wrong?"

"Oh no," I answered, "so, when I was studying for the GRE, I knew my vocabulary was going to be a problem, so I bought a book to help me study ..."

Oh crap.

I just realized, I already told this story. I guess Kris doesn't actually read this site, as his reaction when I was done telling it?

"What a jerk. I would have thrown you a bone."

"Yeah, and that's why I'm married to you, and not him."

Kris and I went down to King CIty tonight with Andy and Robin to be two hours closer to Lake San Antonio tomorrow morning, when the three of them will participate in the 2008 Wildflower Triathlon. I'd link to their site, but they went from a reasonable URL scheme to their retarded one now, and I don't believe in rewarding bad behaviour.

This triathalon is the second one Kris is running, both triathlons on relay teams. Last time Kris ran in the Wildflower Triathlon, Kyle Smith and Ben Klasky were Kris' partners, and I managed exactly one photo.

This year, Robin and Andy are Kris' partners.

So, like last time, the four of us checked into a hotel in King City. Only this time, instead of the crappy hole in the wall place I found for us last time, we're staying in the spiffy Day's Inn. We checked into the hotel, along with another twenty carloads of triathletes, and wandered into our room.

It was pretty nice, with granite (or, at least faux granite), and a full kitchen (with a warning that use of said kitchen would incur additional room fees, to which I thought something like, "Bah, with how much we're paying, we're ALREADY paying for the kitchen!").

Unsurprisingly, I was the first person into the bathroom to use the toilet. A few minutes later, I wandered out of the bathroom wondering what the heck was wrong with the toilet paper in that room. Instead of, oh tearing off at the perforations, the roll seemed to cling together like old cotton fabric that just doesn't quite want to part. It was annoying stuff, and I wondered what I was using on my butt.

So, I looked.

This is what I was using on my butt. It's horrible stuff. I don't recommend it.

Worse, it can't possibly be helping my carbon footprint. I mean, does my toilet paper really need to be made in China?