Happy birthday, Julia!

This gal here:


We celebrated on Saturday, the night of the Paralympic Opening Ceremony, from a bar called Nashville, located in Chaoyang district on "Good Fortune" Street down South Sanlitun. It was a good time.

The man on the right, who you may know as Boehner, tried unsuccessfully -- for obvious reasons I won't get into here -- to make the gal on the left, Casey, his fifth taitai (wife).

Across the way: Julia's longtime henpecked boyfriend Reid.

Joe (center) with that glazy look we all know and love.

There was a drum set on the first floor, leading our resident drummer, Kevin, to eye it with wolfish interest before quickly befriending the house drummer and ingratiating himself onto the set. Kevin has a habit of poaching drum time at bars, as you can read about from his blog.


The close-up:


And one more photo from the night:


This was taken after a long discussion of (Frisbee) politics led my evening astray, when I (and others) forgot that on this night the magnificent bronze creature pictured above so tastefully reposed was commemorating an event that truly happens once a lifetime, when she finally turned... actually, I have no idea how old she turned. Julia, what's your age now anyway, you old hag? (Just kidding!)

Funny note about the birthday gal: she was wasted all of Saturday, before, during and after our pickup Ultimate Frisbee session* (which turned out to be one of the most competitive pickup games we've had in a while; for the entire three hours -- counting the points we played before score was kept -- Kevin and I never took a sub, and we felt great afterwards). Which makes it all the scarier that we gave her a long serrated knife to wave in people's faces.

Julia, seven hours prior to wielding the knife:

Seven and a half hours prior:

Seven and three-quarters hours prior:


POSTSCRIPT*: We went up 3-0, only to see our opponents, led by Jim, Joe, Doc and Jen Brown, score four unanswered. We tied it at 4, then gave up the next two to face game-point. We scored the next three behind a series of hucks -- Reid and Sandy pulled down several all day -- but couldn't take game (win by two). They scored to make it 8-7. We scored the next two. They scored to tie it at 9. We scored. They scored. And then, with hard-cap at 11, we worked the disc to midfield to set up an inside-out forehand from Kevin that Sandy ran down in the end zone. 11-10 final.

POSTSCRIPT 2: Picture of the night:

Doc Tobin, everybody. He will not be signing autographs.

Pictures of the day

Couple Saturdays ago I went to Wukesong to watch Olympic baseball with Sandy and Kevin, where I lost my camera. Luckily, Kevin Reitz took some pictures:


Don't let anyone tell you ribbon-twirling is easy.




Kevin blogged about the day here.

POSTSCRIPT: For no particular reason at all, your weblog read of the day: Is human sex improving? [NSFW]

It's in Chinese, so I'll translate the first few sentences:

Is our sex life in modern times better than it was in ancient times? Do we do it better? Worse? Scientists say that although humanity branched off some 10,000 years ago, there are certain pleasures accorded to people in modern times that people of any era can experience.

It goes on to talk make a point that humanity's pursuit of sex through the ages qualifies the race as intelligent. Etc.

Jason and Stephanie's final day in Beijing, and other pictures

We had quite the going-away party for Jason Cox and Stephanie Zhang yesterday, first at a Russian place called The Elephant, where we were treated to a cabaret show, then at a bar called 2nd Floor in Sanlitun.

The highlight of the night, for me personally, was Jason chugging a bottle of 100-proof baijiu. I chanted "chug" when I passed him the white poison but had no expectation of him actually doing it. When he lifted the bottle, well, let's just say I couldn't press the RECORD button fast enough. I got the tail end of it though.

If you want to know how shocking this was for everyone, just watch the reactions of those around him: first Joe jumping up and down flapping his arms like a kid who just got his dream present on Christmas morning, then Jim cringing like a gambler with 10 grand on the table...


An entire photo album dedicated to the night is here (titled "Jason and Stephanie's last night / Joe makes out with Beijing").

Jason, we'll miss you.

From Betsy Beijing:

hey frisbee faithful,
trust me when i say betsy would not break her vow of silence for just
anyone. after what happened in shanghai this past june between myself,
lincoln, claire, toni's vomit, and barbie's pink barbie outfit, it's going
to take a lot more penance for me to win my way back into god's good graces.

but some thing's cannot be passed by without proper comment.

the day that betsy once warned you about has finally come. jason is leaving
beijing. it may not be in a straight-jacket like many of us predicted, but
it seems there's nothing we can do to stop it.

i've been in beijing since the dawn of beijing ultimate, and i can say with
complete certainty that over the past 3 plus years, no one has done more for
the expat ultimate community in beijing than jason has. if it weren't for
him, there's a high probability we would still be fighting for pavement
space in the gong ti parking lot. he's used satellite photos, gps
technology, and his mountain bike to go scout out fields for us. he's kept
track of our money, only skimming off the top for his and stephanie's
anniversary. he's designed jerseys for us, helped plan leagues for us,
helped start the beijing ultimate committee, gotten us to and from
tournaments without losing anyone (well, i haven't seen julio since sunday
night in jeju, but that's another story), and has turned beijing ultimate
into one of the fastest growing frisbee communities in asia. and that's not
to say he's only been focused on us expats either. he's been at the
forefront of helping to make frisbee more accessible and open for chinese
players. when jason came to beijing, ultimate here was heading towards one
of it's low points. jason is the number one reason it turned around. i
know there's been a lot of other people that have contributed to make this
growth spurt possible, but if it weren't for jason at the center of it all,
who knows where we would be? beijing certainly would not have just hosted
it's first ever tournament this past may.

so take a moment to think about what jason has meant to this community.
it's no accident that jason keeps winning our annual spirit award, no
matter how much doc thinks he deserves it instead. he's been at the heart
of beijing ultimate for three years, and it's going to be a tough, tough job
to try and fill his shoes. good luck trying, kevin.

so jason, as you move back to vancouver, and you think back of beijing
ultimate, i hope you remember us fondly. because when you come back to
visit, you'll probably find that we've eaten each other alive like the true
cannibals we are.

we'll miss you.

Jeff:

I missed the baijiu that ruined you but I was there later and I want
to reiterate from a drunken stupor at five in the morning how much
this community will miss Jason.

words cannot express the love that the entire community should have
for this man.

he carried us through to what I see as the other side. and here we are
and I hope we continue to kick ass in his name.

we will miss you Jason. We all wish you and Stephanie the most
happiness.

And more pictures, because not all could fit on Facebook (no duplicates here, so be sure to check out the link above):








Happy Rat set to attack Little Jason's nipples.


Rest assured, ladies, Joe likes you more.







Stephanie as buffer.









Hey, if it's your last night...




She's 16. Keep that in mind as we proceed...


Normal people!


On the left: like father and daughter. On the right: not so much.







Joe definitely won the party.

POSTSCRIPT: Anther photo album, this one of Beijing Ultimate. It's part one of two, going from the Tianjin tournament through Shanghai. Part two will come after the Hong Kong tournament in late October, which I will officially be attending -- just had my flight changed a couple days ago from September 12 to October 29.