Big Brother 2014-15 Season-in-Review Slideshow

We haven't done this in a while, have we? This is the Big Brother Ultimate Year-in-Review Slideshow for 2014-15, made by Tao and Alicia. For more information, please check out Big Brother's Facebook page.

Big Brother players who attended at least one tournament:

Aaron Leung

Nitai Deitel

Alicia Lui

Anthony Tao

Alex Ornik

William “Ginny” Perry

Peter Behr

Jarred Mihalik

Kevin Reitz

Jeffrey “Drunkbus” Kessler

Brendon Schramm

Sam Dreiman

Matt Sheehan

Michael Austin

Jared Getzoff

Adam Lerman

Ken Su

Jonathan Wright

Mitchell Sayasene

Ivan Xu

David Libo-on III (Dada) 

Jeffrey Rodriguez 

Dominic Famorcan (Baboy)

Udo Lam

Evan Kornbluh

Alex Lindahl

Theo Glauch

Quoc Tran

Daniel Tremblay-Sher

Caroline “C-Chow” Chow

Esther Moss

Sarina “Sarz” Zhou

Hannah Lincoln

Zhang Wen

Katie Lepak

Lin Lin

Dana Fong

Kelsey Bilek

Zoe Berling

Jillian Bowzer

Helen Lu

Charlie Blair

Mikaela Koke

Danielle Connelly

And here's the video on Youku:

Alicia's layout D in Shanghai Open finals

Brought back due to foul call (GIF via Weibo).

UPDATE, 7:02 pm: A bit more info: This happened on game point, 14-13. After getting this one back, Shiok scored a few throws later (going downwind) to win 15-13. Congratulations to them.

(p.s. Beijing Big Brother, last year's champions, is in red.)

UPDATE, 7:26 pm: crowd reaction, at 3:16 mark: 

RETROSPECTIVE: Nanjing Open pictures

Another team picture here.



The roommates

Poor kids took the soft seaters down. For more, see Barbara's Facebook album.

RETROSPECTIVE: One more of Big Brother at Shanghai 2011

From Omar Pandoli's Facebook album

RETROSPECTIVE: Highlights from Big Brother's "Ultimate Prom" in Shanghai

Full album here.

WEEKEND ROUNDUP: Frisbee golf at Chaoyang Park and a post-Shanghai BCD

Now that the summer season's over, we get a few weeks to rest and relax.

Saturday was a chill day, as they say. First, Frisbee golf from Chaoyang Park's west gate:


Tom in the water... but no stroke penalty???


E in the water

The evening's boozy Chinese dinner at our normal place, with battle caps:




Some people went out to Sanlitun until the break of dawn. Kids will be kids, and Kevin.

WEEK IN REVIEW: Shanghai wrap-up

Big Brother will have a boozy Chinese dinner (BCD) tomorrow to celebrate the end of its spring/summer season, which ended with the team -- you may have heard -- winning Shanghai Open last weekend. Kevin Reitz has recently posted a blog about the event titled "How Beijing Owned Shanghai in 2011." The party was his "Opus."

Meanwhile, Gina of Korea and Zahlen visited this week, and Korea's Dray and Tori are in town.

PICTURES OF THE WEEK:


From Zahlen and Gina's Wednesday "BCD" at Dongbeiren Restaurant (not a real BCD cause the restaurant took away our caps).

PICTURES OF THE WEEK, part 2:

Some of the better pictures from last weekend of Big Brother came from Vince of Shenzhen, who, in addition to the GIF linked to below, also got a nice GIF of Ginny's layout D and Pia's layout. He also took these photos:

Dray's poach D

Jim a bit late to help on Dray

Ginny and Zahlen

Tao D'ing some Korea guy

Gareth catching it on Derek Ramsay in the finals

Rumor has it that Stallion took about 800 pictures on Mike Shyu's camera. It remains to be seen whether those are better than Vince's.

GOOGLE GROUPS POST OF THE WEEK:

Marshall Wang, who someone got this before any of us in China (6/15):

SUBJECT: Have ya'll seen this?

http://i.imgur.com/ZAnMK.gif

The full point:

RETROSPECTIVE: Video of the Big Brother vs. Team Philippines finals from Shanghai Open 2011

Not every point is included, but nearly every one. Thank you, Wanda!


Click here for the entire playlist of 25 videos.

The prettiest point:


Alex's grab of Tao's huck:


The final point:

WEEKEND ROUNDUP: Shanghai 2011 champions: Big Brother!

Big Brother ended a seven-year winless drought at international tournaments by winning Shanghai Open 2011, trailing only once all weekend (in the semifinals vs. Korea). The team from Beijing beat Team Philippines 15-10 in the finals, with its O-line committing only three turnovers all game (no breaks). Tao was selected finals MVP along with TP's Pia Ybanez (who has a tag on this blog because she's visited Beijing before), and Lauren Reed, for her O-line handling, was selected onto the Mythical Seven team.

The top three plays of the weekend (as selected at a team party on June 18 (this part is backdated)):

3. Kevin at the party (see below)

2. Alex's layout on Saturday vs. Team Philippines ... the first point, he decided he'd layout about chest high for a score.

1. Christian's defense in the end zone vs. Korea on Sunday. Big Brother was down 6-5 (and before that, down 6-4) when Christian pulled it, then sprinted 80 yards to D the first throw. Tao proceeded to throw a break score to Micah after a timeout to tie the game as part of a 9-1 run for Beijing, which eventually won 13-7.

Brother's three captains deserve praise: Jim Kirchhoff, one of the team's founders; Gareth Marshall, in his second year leading BB; and Mike Shyu, whose diplomacy, line-calling and stat-keeping were first-rate.

There are four Facebook albums currently up with pictures: Sunday, pt. 1; Sunday, pt. 2; Party pt. 1 (Big Brother Presents: Once Upon a Time Prom); Party pt. 2 (Big Brother Prom Photobooth).

More pictures to come in the coming weeks.

vs. Korea:


vs. Team Philippines in the finals:

One of Tao's four assists in the game to go with three goals.

Big Brother, which has a history of dominating Shanghai parties, went into this year's extravaganza, themed "Once Upon a Time," determined to not just "win," but win so convincingly that IF the party award went to any other team, the entire idea of a "tournament party" would be exposed as a farce.

Big props to Kevin Reitz for this idea: to rebrand the party as Big Brother's prom (themed "Once Upon a Time Ultimate Prom"), effectively Shanghaiing the event (pardon the expression). He printed up banners and we prepared a dance, a musical playlist, spiked punch and a king/queen ballot box.

Highlights:




Alas, Shanghai decided a team could not win both the tournament and the party. But Zahlen put it best (paraphrasing): "There's a difference between 'winning' a party and 'owning.' They haven't invented an award for owning, yet."

But they should. It would be called the Big Brother Party Award.

Here's Kevin on Sunday morning:

RETROSPECTIVE: Big Brother at China Nationals 2011

Picture by Neal Jones

The following pictures by Michelle Tang:







Picture by Neal Jones: