Keep in mind that I've yet to find a black marker with which to draw in the facial features of Optimus, plus you don't see my silver belt, blue shin armor and blue fists of steel, i.e. shoe boxes around my hands concealing bottles of silly string which I can blast out of apertures. Also, that tubing on my arm, when rolled up, looks so much cooler. (I have trouble getting out of that thing as is; with the tubing on my shoulders, forget about it.)
Let me explain: I'm leaving for Hong Kong tomorrow via train for an Ultimate Frisbee tournament, and at the Saturday party our team is going to dress up as characters from the catchy music video Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny and do a reenactment. One of our captains, Doc, came up with this idea, as he comes up with all our good ones. At the last tournament in Shanghai we made Monopoly placards and had conditions written on the front, such as "If hotel is owned, lick nipples." I was Waterworks. Those who stood next to me had to take a swig of baijiu, which I was double-fisting... until someone bought a bottle off me using Monopoly money.
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.
