All Hands on Deck!

That phrase sounds like it should be a poker term, but it's not. However, since this poker party is partly Zissou operated, I figure it fits.

Last year when the girls were gearing up for Utica, we threw a poker fund raising party. It worked so well, we're going to do it again. Here are the details:

$25 buy in
Food and snacks
Winner gets a Blu-Ray prize pack
including a BD Player and a bunch
of new BDs

Prizes for 2nd and 3rd place as well

Raffle
Rock Band Tournament
Pool, Shuffle Board and Super Chexx Hockey

The girls will be serving drinks for your tips, and we'll gladly accept donations for all your beverages. Each game table will have a bucket for your donations, drop in a dollar and play a game of pool or shuffleboard. Bring your quarters for Super Chexx, the classic rod-hockey arcade game.

The Rock Band tournament is simple, gather three buddies, three strangers or any combination thereof and rock out. $10 per team to enter, and top score at the end of the night wins! Enter as many times as you want.

RSVP with me, via the Facebook page, or at bondgirls.curling@gmail.com.

Merry Happy!

And a Jolly Snowflake Day as well.

This Christmas is turning into just another day. No travel, no gifts (I've already gotten my golf clubs, curling pants and Cajun seasoning) and all our friends are out of town. So, in order to get me in the mood, I've decided to share with you some of my favorite old (and new) holiday fare. So whip out your knorks and get ready to dine on the lamb tacos that are these videos.

I alluded to it in my Thanksgiving post, but this was one of my favorite specials when I a kid. Had many dreams of one those giving chairs. Now Jen sells them (bazinga!)!



I thought this was pretty well done, but since I don't watch 24 it felt disingenuous to embed, so instead enjoy this clip from icanhascheezburger.com.



One of my favorite artists posted this link. He does a much better job at selling it than I do, but just watch it. Good, creepy fun!



There are many other clips I could include here. Rudolph, or Peanuts or even He-Man. Hell, I could post the incredibly terrible Star Wars Holiday Special. Instead, I will post possibly the greatest holiday special ever. If you're not aware of Clone High, USA, the short lived MTV cartoon brought to us by Bill Lawrence of Scrubs fame, you're missing. This is why I gave Cougar Town a chance. If someone can entertain me this much, for this long, he deserves a look at whatever he does.

I went so far a few years ago as to download all the episodes, put them on DVD and create cover art for the case. I let someone borrow it, and now I don't know where it is. Luckily, the internet has evolved since then and you can basically find anything.

Now that I've oversold it, I'll let the clip speak for itself from here on out. The theme song sets up the premise in a perfectly catchy pop song. So, cuddle up with your balls of meat and try to stay of Snowflake Jake's ill-mannered list while you watch this gem.


Watch Clone High Episode 11 in Animation | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Week 9: Blerg

Last week at work was super busy, so no time to really go into our league stuff (not that most people care). I have to be in to work this week, which is pretty pointless, ultimately, so I should have some time.

Anyhow, last week we played in our league semi-final game and we won, but it was a pretty uneventful game. The real action was on the other sheet between the No. 3 and 4 teams. I think it went into an extra end and came down to the last rock, but the Untouchables came out ahead of You Say Zombie! We Say Where? I asked the Zombie Hunter skip to do a recap since our game wasn't entertaining, to which he replied

"Normally I would, but most of the game is a blur. I remember a couple moments, but most of it is just random shots."

Well, that's how I remember most games and that's how I'm remembering last night's game.
-------------

Paul was out last night, something about a honeymoon or some BS excuse. Whatever, I hear New Zealand is the poor man's Australia. So I stepped in as skip last night, emboldened with my good play from Seattle last week. I also haven't skipped a team in over a year.

The game started out well enough. We stole a point, then held them to one. Then I let them steal 3, so we spent the next few ends chasing them and clawing our way back. It's here where we really stepped up our game. Everyone pitched in to make the right calls, and hit the right shots. Ryan nailed a sweet run back take out, Tim was nailing his guards and judging the rock weight perfectly and I hit a couple of draws.

After all that, we came back, and took a one point lead going into the eighth end. They had the hammer, so we just needed to hold them to one or less. In retrospect (as Nick pointed out to me after) I should have tried to blank the end. I did not, but I'm not convinced that that's why they ended up scoring. The rocks were in a place where guards didn't really come into play. Had they been in those spots without any guards, the same line would have to be played to get to them, regardless.

So, they end up sitting two with my stones up. I draw in to try and freeze up to their stones. I don't quite get it and I'm sitting wide open. Nick takes me out, and they're sitting three, with shot in front of the button. If I freeze to it, I think they're still sitting two. We decide I need to bump it back, so it's not shot, but still in so I have a back guard. The weights a little heavy, and I take out shot. (On second thought, maybe they wouldn't have been sitting two, because after that take-out we were shot. I guess we just played aggressive, for the win.) Now our shot rock is a sitting duck, and the curves in the ice make that shot a can't miss. As soon as Nick let it go, I saw it was on and he nailed it.

Ah well.

You learn more from hard fought losses than easy wins anyhow. I think this knowledge will come in handy down the line. Playing so well gives us a good feeling going into the playdowns next month. I'd imagine Paul would have done a better job calling the game, though I only want back 2 of those 8 ends, but if I could only pick one, it would be the eighth end to do over.

I'd really love to replay this game on real ice. When we missed, we tended to miss by inches and we didn't help anything. When they missed, they tended to miss by feet and get a good plan b. Ice being keen, we have four (three in the case) guys who can execute finesse shot, whereas their back-end matches up well with ours, I think our front-end would be the difference. But now we're getting into ifs and buts. Both our teams played well last night, it was a good final.

Holiday Spiel Day 2 - aka The End

Yesterday brought the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, relatively speaking. I'll begin with the late draw.

The Hollywood team played at 8:30 and we played at 11. It was clear, on their fourth game of the day, they were totally out of sync. They lost handily and it was hard for us to watch, because we know they can play better than that.

So we hit the ice after their game, and it's almost the exact same game. Got behind big and fast, forced to play catch up, but just being off with every shot. Wrong weight, missing the broom. We didn't get the close ones going our way that game, and it was pretty much over by the third end.

But all that's ok, because we won a giant game earlier in the day.

Our second game of the spiel pit us against a team composed of three guys who played in the Olympic trials. Needless to say, we didn't expect to win. When we scored first, then stole a couple more, we started to gain more confidence.

They were chasing us almost the entire match. We did a good job of keeping our stones in play and making things difficult for them. They had to think about a lot of their shots, and when they finally scored, it was off a crazy circus shot, the kind of shot we expect them to make. They ticked off a corner guard (it was so far out, I hesitate to call it a guard) and got the roll to sit two.

We were all playing well. Jen was doing a great job judging weight and sweeping well. Jon was calling a solid game and hitting his shots and j-dub was throwing those guards and keeping them in play. But, this was easily the best game I've ever played.

I had my weight down and j was hitkng the broom There were two shots, in particular, that stand out. One was a raise through a tight port that barely made it aroud the guard. I got the bump and that was the scoring stone. The second was an awesome double takeout with a roll behind the guards, that one scored as well.

After the game was awesome. It meant we didn't have to play back to back games, so that was nice. Plus people came up and congratulated us for winning, and I specifically got complimented, so that was nice.

We finished the spiel 2-1, getting knocked out by my new arch rival, Ari (he bear us in the Summer league at Hollywood). That win, though, will last me for a while, and now I'm pumped for playdowns next month.

- Posted using BlogPress on my iPhone, two days later after I could have done it on a computer.

Olympic Profiles: Chris Plys

I'm not going to do a jokey profile for him, but instead just point to some interesting things he's up to. I think the things he's up to are actually more interesting than anything I can make up.

Rockin' the red Zissou beanie.

Name: Chris "Follow Me on Twitter" Plys

Country: USA

Age: 22

Curls out of: Superior Curling Club

Teammates: John Shuster, Jason Smith, Jeff Isaacson, John Benton

Highlights: 4 time US Junior National Champion, 2008 World Junior Championship Gold Medalist

Favorite Condiment: Marinara Sauce

Hobbies: Guitar

He's been writing blogs for USA Today, been on TV during Monday Night Football and soon the Colbert Report. He'll also be on E!'s Bank of Hollywood Show, where he is going to make his case to get some Hollywood cash to take his family to the Olympics, including his father who is recovering from brain cancer. Brain CANCER!

In addition, he's also a musician. You can check out his tunes on his MySpace page or download them here. I think Jen Lindsay should start a curling record label. Sounds pretty good, bare bones guitar and vocals done up in Garage Band. I can dig. Can't wait for a music video.

Also, follow him on Twitter.

Lastly, here he is, showing off some moves at the Plainfield Curling Club.

Day 1 Complete

After the ordeal that was our flight was over, it was nice to spend some time in freezing Seattle. It was even nicer to get on the ice, especially because it was warmer on the ice than inside.

We played our first ae, and we played well. The wife hit some nice draws and swept great, while I nailed some nice takeouts, including a double. We went up 5 to 0 after two ends.

They came back and scored two, then stole two more in the next end before tying it up on the fifth end. We were reeling just a lite, but pulled it together to win 7-5. Skip Jon came through with the game cinching takeout.

We get a nice break, our next game is at 2:20 tomorrow. Though Jen is waking up early to sub for Paul and I have to go pick him up from the airport. However, that game is against a team that features three guys who played in the Olympic trials. Good times. The worst part is if we loose, then win, we'd keep playing until we loose, up to seven game total, I think. At that point, I think I'd rather loose and play shuffle board.

Speaking of shuffle board, the wife and I entered the tournament. We lost the first game, after we had a comanding lead, but it's double elimination, so we got to play again and we won. Now we have two competitions we're playing for.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

In Seattle

Holy crap was getting to Seattle rediculous. Getting to LAX wasn't a problem, took the Van Nuys Flyaway, no traffic. Short line to check in, all is good. Then we get to TSA check point, where the line isn't terribly long, but my God, was every stereotype in the book in front of is?

First, everyone is acting like they're the last people in line, taking their sweet ass time. The pinnacle being the ethnic family that looked like they unpacked their bags on the x-Ray belt. Plus, this all happened when the second machine broke. Once they finally made it through, we were almost up when the line ground to a halt again behind an old couple and their airport escort. Isn't the point of the escort to help get them through quickly? It was as if he was surprised to find out he hand totake off his boots, and the old dude had to open his computer.

So, we finally made it through, and sprinted to our gate. Barely making it to the gate in time, we were greater by the Alaska air guy with an attitude. He said our seats were probably taken, so just find an open seat. I made a comment about the crappy TSA line, and he said I should have gotten there earlier. What a dick.

Then, this guy passed out on the plane and we didn't get our snacks. Whatever.

When we finally landed, everything seemed fine until I realized my ID was missing. First, I thought it fell out while sprinting to our gate at LAX, but I decided to check with Alaska first, and sure enough they has it.

Ugh, that whole flight was just a pain jn the ass, bit we made it, and that's what really matters.

It could have been worse, my buddies flight got canceled, so he won't make it out until tomorrow morning and will miss his first game. The good news for me is I didn't have to pick him up tonight.

Our luck turned around, when we easy found our recommended food place, Pike Place Chowder. The crab sandwiches where good and the chowder was even better.

Then, to top it off, Nike town had the gold pants I wanted, and they were half price. Score!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone, please excuse any errors in spelling, fact or tact.

Location:N 137th St,Seattle,United States

Old Timey-ness and Sweaters

I've made no secret of my love for Uni Watch Blog. Paul Lukas is a big fan of the classics, so every now and again something curling related will come up.

In the ticker recently was a link to some super old footage of outdoor curling on a lake from Scotland. It's from 1952 and it's notable for a couple reasons, other than being old and stylish. First, the ice has a layer of water on it, I wonder how normal this was back then, but it seems that in this case, the sweeping clears the water away to let the stone travel further. Also, the delivery is much different than we're used to seeing. It's a stand-up method that looks closer to bowling. I wonder if this was due to the water, because they would need much heavier weight. The hacks seemed made for this type of throwing, so it was probably a regular occurrence. All just wild speculation, though.

Love the duds. Dudes playing in pea coats and newsie hats (what are they called, anyway?). I particularly love seeing people smoke cigarettes while curling.

Just like I love retro hockey sweaters, I've grown fond of old curling sweaters. I've been trying to get one of my own, and this week there were a few on eBay I was trying to win. Unfortunately, they all fell out of the zone I was willing to pay. Seems the going rate for a good, vintage sweater is about $60. The first two looked pretty sharp, the white would have been a good non-curling sweater, too. The last sweater would have been rad for the vintage patches.

Speaking of patches, there was a lot of Canadian provincial patches on eBay as well. I was totally going to bid for them (what I would do with them, I don't know) but I missed out. Just as well, as it would have been difficult to the wife to explain why I spent $30 on Canadian patches.

They look swell, don't they? It also reminded me that we need a patch for our USCA region, MoPac (that's Mountain Pacific). I think a crest would be rad, but what do you put on it? Especially if it encompasses six states (I think that's right). Hopefully we can get them done for club nationals this year.

Lastly, a couple of Uni Watch readers wrote about their experience at the Chicago Curling Club. You can read about their whole experience here, including their visit to the American Curling History Museum. I liked the effort this guy put into his first curling outing.

Stay tuned this weekend for updates from Seattle where there should be some truly hideous curling attire and some fun and exciting curling action.

Roar of the Rings - Uni Edition

I thought since I couldn't watch it live (and apparently I can't watch the VOD either as it's not loading for me) and give thoughts on the actual games, I could do the next best thing and critique the uniforms. However, that turns out to be pretty useless as well, since every team is outfitted by Mondetta, so it's essentially curling's version of the UFL.

I'm curious as to how the colors were picked. Do the top ranked teams get their choice? Is that how team Martin ended up in solid black? Or the Jones rink got Canadian red and white? Or how the new kids on the block got stuck with solid neon green? (I would link to individual pictures, but that would take a whole lot of extra work on my part. Instead, check out the gallery for yourself and check out these cool photos too.) The biggest disappointment for me is Kevin Koe, my curling fashion champion, getting relegated to this lime green and white eye-sore.

The jerseys and jackets the teams are wearing basically come in two tones. Some are inverse of the others, and some are solid colors (see Gunnlaugson's photo below), but the basic paneling still applies. There are a few with shoulder strips, instead of the panels (See Webster's photo below). The patch situation is also very uniform. Tim Horton's patch on right shoulder, ROTR patch on left breast, and team sponsor patches on right shoulder.

Crystal Webster showing off the shoulder stripes and ROTR patch

Team Lawton front end, Sherri Singler (showing off Tim Horton's patch)
and Lana Vey in the other blue color scheme.

Team Martin went with the all black. It's not really intimidating because they're all still smiling, but it does automatically paint you as the bad guys. Think the Hawks in The Might Ducks movie. Couldn't get you a red panel in there somewhere? Maybe white should stripe? Or gray shoulder panels?

The only picture that really caught my eye is this photo of Jason Gunnlaugson. First, interesting delivery. I have to try and find video of him to see how this actually works. Seems very awkward to me, but he's had some success and is playing in the Olympic Trials, so who am I to judge? Second, he's the only guy I've seen wearing white shoes. Not sure how I feel about it yet, but I do like seeing something different.

Lastly, check out this photo of Team Howard. You get a good view of the NOB (name on back). Every team has this same arched style in the same font. They got the team Canada red and white shirts and paired them with a white belt. Well done, sirs.

There's also a good look at all the adverts on the ice. Not sure if they're different logos on different sheets, but they managed to get a few extra sponsors in there. Regardless, it looks much better than all the hockey lines and logos in our ice.

Roar of the Rings

Tim Horton's Roar of the Rings sounds really impressive as it should, being the Olympic qualifying tournament for Canada and all. However, once I realize Tim Horton's is a Canadian fast food chain, it kind of looses it's luster. But then I realize that Canada has the best curlers in the world, and the whole event is glaringly shiny again.

Since I can't watch curling regularly, I don't really know all the movers and shakers. Obviously, the big time skips are pretty well known, and there are plenty to go around in Canada, so it should be exciting. You can read a real breakdown of the competition here.

So, I'm going back to the well and picking Kevin Koe. By all accounts, he's on the verge of finally breaking through (though it probably won't happen here). He's not the sexy pick, but if I'm right I look smart. If I'm wrong, whatever, I'm some blogger from Los Angeles, what the hell do I know about international curling? On the womens side, Jennifer Jones, I guess. Although I just like the name Kleibrink, sounds like a stone cold curling machine. So, she'll be my pick. Regardless of the winners, it'll give me eight new choices for my Olympic profiles.

TSN has the coverage, beginning Sunday. I believe the matches will be on-demand after, so that's pretty cool. If I can avoid some blogs, perhaps I'll get to watch and still be surprised. I'll have to do a test run on the ol' PS3, and hopefully I can watch it on the old flat screen.

Curling Public Relations

Curlers know they have an uphill battle for attention. The sport gets dismissed as a curiosity every four years, and is relegated to the back pages of Obscure Sports Quarterly. Once people play, they usually enjoy and appreciate the game, and if we're lucky, they come back for more. The hardest part is getting them interested in the first place. Today, there are two big Curling PR stories out, one from USA Curling and one from Italy.

Italian curlers and media are not prudes (NSFW)
Click through for picture, but here's the translation from FreeTranslation.com. (I could have edited to make it sound like normal English, but it's more fun this way):

Irene Schori*, gambler of curling Switzerland, was photographed for a calendar. In the boiling release of 'Ice on Fire', the Schori shows to find itself to its comfort also in water and not only on the ice. The 25enne, in couple with Tones Muller, is an of the strongest gamblers of curling and will be secure protagonist to the next Olympic Games of Vancouver.

USA Curling is just doing what we're all thinking anyway
If you're immature like me, you constantly giggle when a female skip is yelling "hurry hard" across the ice. It pleases me to no end. The forward thinking USCA has tapped into our collective gutter brain to do some good with "Hurry Hard" condoms.

The idea for the project started when USA Curling's staff was brainstorming ideas for fundraisers, and someone joked that "hurry hard" would be a good name for a condom. The more it was discussed, though, the more serious the idea became.

The goal is to help promote HIV/AIDS awareness, but more importantly curling awareness. It's a great publicity stunt that can do good for everyone involved. However, it will be a while before the ultimate impact to junior curling is known.

*I think we have Irene's new profile picture for the Asham site. Also good to know she's right handed.

Holiday Spiel Attire

Next week a bunch of us from Hollywood are heading up to Seattle for their annual Holiday Spiel. We have been told that there will be an ugly Christmas sweater competition, so some of us have really stepped up to the plate. I'll post their picture from the spiel after we're there as I don't want to ruin the unveiling, but needless to say it's quite hideous. Part of me hopes it's some elaborate prank on us and our guys will be the only ones showing up in garish holiday wear.

The wife and I are playing without our usual teammates, as half of Team Zissou and the Bond Girls' skip are forming a team. They came up with a complete team uniform that is sure to cause more hurling than the copious amounts of Fireball that will be consumed over the weekend. This has caused me to not even try to contend with their likes.

That is, until I saw this...


Man. I'm speechless, really. Would it even be possible to curl in this? Plus, the matching shoes! Wow. Really. Wow.