RETROSPECTIVE: Farewell to the Ascott

Not too long ago, Ellen Wong (right) moved out of her Ascott apartment for good. This post is to commemorate the place. An room with thinner walls would have gotten her kicked out of the building much sooner.

Micah, pictured left, before his crippling hamstring injury.

WEEKEND ROUNDUP: Irish Ball success

Ellen, Alicia, Chad and YJ represented Beijing Ultimate at the Irish Ball on Saturday night. And they won the party.

Pictures from Alicia's camera:



Apparently there were Guinness cupcakes and Guinness ice cream!

Others went to Alex's place and played drinking games.

WEEK IN REVIEW: Big Brother's first practice on Saturday

No pickup Saturday because Big Brother's taking over the time slot for its first practice. Big things are afoot. Grand plans for victory.

A word to the people of Good News from Indonesia: if you're going to crib my man Kevin's blog post, word-for-word, about his trip to Indonesia and the Philippines, have the decency to give him a byline. His full name is in the URL of his blog. I'm sure you've heard of it: Kevin Reitz dot Blogspot dot com.

PICTURE OF THE WEEK:


GOOGLE GROUPS POST OF THE WEEK:

From Ellen on the Big Brother listserv, March 4:

http://beijing.globaltimes.cn/community/2011-03/629624.html

WEEK IN REVIEW: Welcome to the Year of the Rabbit

Bringing down the Boom since 2004, rollin' into the decade of doom.

PICTURES OF THE WEEK:





From Steph and Ken's party on February 2, eve of Chinese New Year.

GOOGLE GROUPS POST OF THE WEEK:

Tao, 1/31:

(Excuse the jumpiness in each video... trying to get that cleaned up.)

Youku: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjQwODc1ODEy.html
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=735559645435
(If the above doesn't work, go here:
http://beijingultimate.blogspot.com/2011/02/beijing-ultimate-2010-sli...)

Three parts plus a prologue, total run time about 34 minutes.

Thinking about February 19 as a tentative screening date. Like last year, we'll be at a bar with discounted drinks, hopefully.

The people, in order of appearance (parentheses implies either not Ultimate or not Beijing):

*PART 1*
Anthony Tao
Gareth Marshall
Helen Lu
Sandy Wang
Joe Pellicano
Matt Mueller
Jim Kirchhoff
Therese Mendez
Kevin Reitz
(Hilco Beukema)
Pat Li
Hsing-hui Hsu
Jeff Orcutt
Alicia Lui
Chris Boehner
(Dray Abrahamian)
Andrew "Baby Girl" Moffat
Candice Lee
Ellen Wong
Shan Wu
Michael Chaitkin
(Amy Gardner)
Steph Kwan
Char Lam
Tina Xue
Michelle Tang
Yin Kong
Brian Marterer
Ben Redden
Nina Helmke
Doc Tobin
(Amos Irwin)
Chad Hensler
Andy Young
Bill McGrath
Casey Guo
Nick Liu
Jesse Day
Richie Liu
Guy Sivan
Caleb Heine
(Nihir Shah)
(Christine Laskowski)
(Tom Pile)
Jehan Azad
(Warren Pottrill)
Zahlen Titcomb
(Alyssa Li)
Wang Bin
(Valerie Min)
Happy Rat
Kelly Yang
Lin Lin
Brice Dudout
Yan Hao
Ryan Perez
Zhang Yang
Cai Cai
Zhang Pu
(Omar Pandoli)
(David Brown)
Angela Chen
Jeff "Drunkbus" Kessler
Xie Yuhui
Xiao Zhi
(J.I. Nuega)
Joel Brand
(Liang Zhuang)
Emma Shyu
(Vince Chen)
(Edward Wang)
(Michael Hsu)
(An Zi)
(Kenny Zhu)
(Chen Jie)
(Matt Wang)
(Carter Li)
Steven Zhang
Lauren Reed
(Nick Hatt)
(Alex Hutson)
Jenn Brown
(Juliet Lu)
(Panoy Delos Santos)

*PART 2*
Kara DiFrancesco
Chris Carlsen
Sam Trachtman
Eileen "Peach" Regan
Peter Tzeng
Ricky Jassel
Kelsey Watterworth
Ethan Lo
Mandy Yeung
Jon Lin
Marc Hiller
Yan Lei
Ryan Leung
Carissa Wong
Tina "Pnut" Yen
Cal Lee
Brendon Mrosak
Wally Mann
Chirona Silverstein
(Chelsea Rudman)
Jane Li
Alan Faiola
Mark Wunderlin
Jen Howells
Larry Zhou
Brian Guo
Patrick Marco
Jordan Yust
Ziggy
Ovid
Helen Shyu
(Cause Abu)
(Fan Yang)
(Ivan Xu)
Xiao Di
Li Hao
Ken Dry
Addy
Zhang Wen
(Leo Feng)
Charis Chiu
Marc Zeiger-Guerra
(Box Zhang)
Wes Haynes
Zach Fanders
Rob Hogg
Liz Lin
(Zoey Lee)
(Zheng Zheng)
Tommy Li
Leigh Bloomberg
Alex Ornik
Ingrid Akerlind
(Katie Bradstock)
(Leslie Sim)
(Fabian Ho)
(Geoff Ng)
(Chris Calvert)
(John Kelly)
Matt Sheehan
Nitai Deitel
(Kirby Carder)

*PART 3*
(Pia Ybanez)
(Kristin Franke)
(Jon Greenberg)
(Lien Ngo)
(Jia Xie)
(Jason Lopez)
(Uli Burke)
Mark Scott
(Lincoln Cheung)
Ken Su
(Mel Lozano)
Nicki Fung
(Kevin Cho)
Angela Yang
Maggie Rauch
(Jack Yeh)
Yujuan (YJ) Tan
Aaron Leung
Adam Nowak
Alex Stephens
Apple Zhao
Eric Wu
Feng Qi
Haiyin Kang
Jia Zhe
Joel Rosen
Belem
Maria Filimonenko
Neal Jones
Nick Cheng
Aurora Wang (Yao)
Altay

SPORCLE GAME: Guess who appears this many times:
68
52
52
35
32
31
31
28
28
22 (tied 10th most appearances)
22 (tied 10th)

RETROSPECTIVE: The other New Year's Eve

Today, on the eve of Chinese New Year, we look back at December 31, 2010:


At Kro's Nest and Stumble Inn.

WEEKEND ROUNDUP: Ascott Bar Games Triathlon results

The results are in from the first ever Ascott Bar Games Triathlon. Teams were divided into two pools, and each team faced a true round robin with its pool. A matchup was "won" if a team won two of three events: foosball, beer pong or pool.

Pool A	Foos	Pong	Pool	Overall
Ellen, Chris, Micah
1	3-0	2-1	1-0	3-0
Tim, Kirby, Tammy
2	2-1	0-2	0-2	1-2
BG, Leigh, Gareth,
3 Sandy, Josh L	1-2	3-0	1-1	2-1
Mike, Zach, Josh, J
4 Claire	0-3	1-1	1-0	0-3

Pool B	Foos	Pong	Pool	Overall
Marc M, Andy, Jud
1 Janelle	1-2	2-1	2-0	2-1
Kevin, Alicia, Joe,
2 Rob	3-0	1-1	1-1	2-1
Jim, Nina, Marc,
3 Alex	1-1	1-1	0-2	1-2
Toju, Tim, Tom
4	0-2	1-2	1-1	1-2

A few observations: Chris Boehner and Ellen were not beatable at foosball. The closest game was 10-5.

Baby Girl didn't lose at beer pong. It makes sense considering all the Thursday night beer pong tournaments he's gone to at Pyro's.

All the teams in Pool B were 1-1 going into the final matchup. Unfortunately, the two Frisbee teams eliminated each other.

Gareth's team eked into the semis in its final pool-play game, when it beat Kirby's team (both were 1-1).

Things then got out of hand as we played slap cup. Gareth, Sandy and Rob did not feel well the next night (Sandy was especially bad trying to get out of the cab). Lots of embassy folks made fools of themselves but, hey, it's a party and we're all friends!

Pictures:







Championship shot...

WEEKEND ROUNDUP: Hsing-hui vs. Brian in a death match next weekend

On Friday Maggie, Robb and I went to a Beijing Ducks game to watch Stephen Marbury lead Foshan to a huge loss. Seriously, they got blown out. (Ducks won -- sorry for any conclusion). But the highlight of the game was, definitely, Sun Mingming, the Ducks' seven-foot-eight-inch (or something) giant who came on in the fourth quarter and saw a 37-some point lead get reduced to about 15 (take these numbers with a grain of salt ... I was drunk and only remember that the Ducks had 99 points after three quarters but finished the game with about 105, yet still won handily).

Ellen's birthday was Saturday, which is why a group of us went to Jazz-ya. Jim, Nina and Ellen continued their night at renovated Bar Blue, while Kirby went to the Den to watch football until the early morning.

Sunday night / Monday at 2 a.m., Kirby and I watched the Chiefs lose to Baltimore from the Den. We will probably be there again tomorrow for the college football championship game.

The Ravens (HHH) now face the Steelers (Brian Marterer's team) in what promises to be a game to the death. Start taking your bets now. A tale of the tape:

Brian: Male
HHH: Female
Advantage: Brian

Brian: Head of steel
HHH: Heart of gold
Advantage: Brian

Brian: Older
HHH: Younger
Advantage: HHH

Brian: Likes to laugh
HHH: Takes pleasure in ripping hearts out of chests
Advantage: HHH

Brian: Savvy
HHH: Reckless
Advantage: Brian

Brian: Breath of glory
HHH: Glare of death
Advantage: HHH

Brian: Beef jerky
HHH: Rawhide
Advantage: Even

Brian
HHH
Advantage: Even

WEEKEND ROUNDUP: Sweet bejesus, it's 2011

Fuck that. Fuck it hard and sideways to the next year.

In other news, a bunch of us went to Ellen's on Sunday morning to watch some bowl games. Connecticut -- Baby Girl's alma mater -- did not do so well against Oklahoma. The Rose Bowl was a fun and well-played game though.

WEEK IN REVIEW: Well, this is it

The end of 2010. There's really not much more to say than what's already been said. This is the end...

But wait... look! This is my desktop...



No, look closer, fool:


We live on. See you on the other side, happy campers.

PICTURE OF THE WEEK:

(Technically last week, but close enough)

GOOGLE GROUPS POST OF THE WEEK:

Ingrid, 12/31, 8:27 am:

(More) ultimate unrelated emails for the month long hiatus,

As I might have mentioned in an early-December chain email, I´m not going to another part of China after New Year, but returning to Beijing. More Beijing Frisbee!

I haven´t found my housing yet for that roughly six month January to August stretch. If anybody knows of somebody who would like another roommate, or has other leads, please let me know. Ideally it would be near Dongzhimen (which to some of you means I´ve come to my senses regarding where to live...)

Thanks a bunch,

Ingrid

WEEK IN REVIEW: It's Christmas Eve

It's Christmas Eve, and while Christmas is a fake holiday, we'll take this opportunity to rest our over-used typing fingers. Enjoy the holidays, people. We'll be back after the weekend.

GOOGLE GROUPS POST OF THE WEEK:

Ellen Wong, 12/22:

sorry for the non-ulti stuff, but since it's quiet xmas season and there's no "witty" repartee by some of the more talkative (less busy??) folks, i'm sending out two workish things.

a colleague's chinese friend is looking for a native english speaker to have conversational english sessions with her 16 and 3 year old children (as my colleague put it, "you know younger westerners who [hand gesture frisbee], right?") please contact ma jie if interested - her email is jie...@trade.gov - she said please also include your hourly rate.

on a different note, for those interested in the us foreign service, you can sign up to take the exam in beijing - information follows:

Register NOW to take the Foreign Service Officer Test (FSOT): Embassy Beijing will host the next FSOT on the following two sessions:

 Saturday, February 12, 2011 from 9:00am-12:30pm
 Saturday, February 12, 2011 from 1:30pm-5:00pm

To register for the test please go to: http://careers.state.gov/officer/register.html.

The deadline to submit completed Registration is January 24, 2011.

You MUST register to take the FSOT through ACT, the test administrators.
Please note that the Human Resources Office at Post is unable to schedule you for the FSOT.

Important Registration links and information:

 Register for the Foreign Service Officer Test (FSOT). Please note that this link will take you to the ACT registration website.
 Technical problems/questions regarding the Registration Process? Please email ACT, Inc. at f...@ACT.org or call (800) 205-6358.
 Download the Guide to the Foreign Service Officer Selection Process (756kb, PDF).
 Order the Foreign Service Officer Test Study Guide. Please note that this link will take you to the ACT website.
 View schedule of FSOT and Oral Assessment Dates.

WEEKEND ROUNDUP: Aaron, that fucking tourist

First, let me just say that this weekend was pretty successful, all things considered. Yesterday Ellen held a game night / afternoon. On Saturday, we ate at Sultan after the last pickup of 2010, then went to Second Floor in Sanlitun. On Friday Alicia hosted some friends at her place and we played epic ("surreal," as Alex put it) Kings. And Aaron Leung was not here to ruin any of it.

You remember Aaron, I'm sure -- That Fucking Tourist. He flew in on Tuesday from Canada on a white unicorn like fucking Fabio just off a masturbatory binge, then left on Friday like the fucking tourist he is with a roll of FUCKING PICTURES. And where was your yellow hat and tour guide flag, you fucking tourist douche? Next time you grace Beijing, leave the point-and-click at home and just enjoy the company, okay? Ah, who am I kidding... go back to France!

Disclaimer: Or Aaron took no pictures at all. That fucking guy.

WEEKEND ROUNDUP: The return of Liz Lin

After practice Saturday, Jim, Alicia and Tao hosted an Ultimate Frisbee event at a German Center festival. We were treated to free German beer and pretty decent sausages, though the place ran out of food too early and the lines were too long.

A good time all around though, sorta.

Afterwards, Ellen held a chill party at her place to welcome the return -- for a few weeks -- of Liz Lin, who has her own tag on this blog. Check out that crazy girl's antics.

More on her later, I'm sure.

WEEKEND ROUNDUP: A little bender

Thursday: Drinking at Nanluoguxiang
Friday: Yak Tipping
Saturday: Ellen's party and beer pong and Ben Redden's party and Sanlitun
Sunday: Wine

For more on Ellen's party, see Kevin's blog and these pictures from him:

WEEK IN REVIEW: Ningbo look-back

A reminder that Ellen's margarita party at Ellen's friend's house is this Saturday. Really bat-drunk bad shit (bat-shit?) is going to happen.

PICTURES OF THE WEEK 1:



Tao eating lots of food at the same time -- sausage, egg and waffles, dipped in yogurt, I believe -- at free breakfast at Howard Johnson. Picture by Michael Chaitkin.

Here's what Kevin had to say about the above:

We all universally enjoyed the buffet, but none more than Tao. Fifteen minutes before closing time, he arrives at this luxurious buffet, with more choices than Crayola has colors. He only has time to get one plate of food, and when he returns, it is a mound, piled higher than it is wide, layers upon layers of ridiculous combinations. He blindly stabs his fork into the heaping mess, shoveling down whatever bounty it comes up with. At some point, Jeff suggests it might be easier to eat if he adds some kind of lubrication to the mix. Tao's eyes flash on his yogurt, and a brilliant idea is formed. Soon, Tao is plunging food into mixed berry yogurt by the forkful: dumpling/potato wedge/sausage; ham/spring roll/waffle; bacon/croissant/wonton. It may have been horrifying to our Chinese waitstaff and fellow patrons, but it was pure amusement to us. If Tao bothered to chew between servings, he hid it well.

PICTURES OF THE WEEK 2:



Beijingers in Ningbo

GOOGLE GROUPS POST OF THE WEEK:

Really quiet on the board this week, but here's Tao pimpin' Candice Lee's kickball game:

Hey everyone,

Candice Lee's annual kickball league is happening again soon, on APRIL 24. Those interested need to register with her by APRIL 8. Email cdice...@gmail.com. It'll be around 60-70 rmb for kickball and LOTS of beer. Lots.

I'm a captain this year and will be trying to draft as many Ultimate players as possible. Taking applications for co-captaincy as we speak.

It got no replies. Damn you Great Firewall!

RETROSPECTIVE: What you didn't see from Ellen's party

You're not going to see a whole lot more, but here're a couple reasonably appropriate and non-demeaning pics that surfaced from Feb. 14:

WEEK IN REVIEW: An epic week of partying yields no casualties, in a manner of speaking

A little dumber and worse for wear, but everything should be returning to normal over the weekend. Whew.

A recap of this past week:

Saturday: New Year's Eve! Winning drink: baijiu (thank you to me, with a nod to Matt).

Sunday: Party at Ellen's (Mardi Gras theme) where inappropriate things that will never be spoken of again went down. Winning drink: jungle juice (thanks Gareth).

Monday: Party at Jim's (James Bond theme), where people drank the host's water-deprived gin. Winning drink: martini (thanks Jim).

Tuesday: Party at Baby Girl's, Tao's, Alicia's and Candice's, de facto Ben's and Chaitkin's (College Games + Southern + Big Lebowski theme). Winning drink: White Russian (thanks Jeff), just barely edging out Yanjing/Tsingtao beer. Lots of caps played. The party moved to Candice's friend's place, which was mansion-like, and it got really, really weird. Gareth puked while dominating flip-cup. Sandy got piss drunk. Ellen got piss drunk. Jeff got piss drunk. Baby Girl, uh... moving on... Baby Girl's friends got piss drunk. Candice got piss drunk. Ben got so drunk he passed out on a bed and something or other. Shan was probably piss drunk, though I can't be certain. Jim wasn't very drunk, though he was dancing a lot as if he were. Betsy was so drunk she fellated a cactus arm (no, I'm just kidding... she did grind up against Matt Mueller though.) Chaitkin was okay too. But if the piss drunks were to sit on one side of a seesaw and the not-quite-piss-drunks sat on the other, the not-quite-piss-drunkards would get launched catapult-like into the piss-drunkards and a fight would ensue with broken glass bottles -- speaking of, Joe wasn't at Candice's! GAR! -- and there would have been casualties. Uh-huh.

Alicia, Matt and I wound down our night at The Den watching Manchester United beat AC Milan 3-2 in a thrilling game.

And now your PICTURES OF THE WEEK, from Tuesday night:








GOOGLE GROUPS POST OF THE WEEK:

Lincoln, who's currently in Hong Kong, on Feb. 18:

im going to kunming. are you?

lets get trooooopicallll !!!!

And a reminder that the 2nd annual Kunming Hat Tournament is in two weeks, March 6-7.

Also, pickup this Sunday MAY BE OUTDOORS! Pack accordingly.

WEEKEND ROUNDUP: Shitstorm at Ellen's

Kevin Reitz and Jeff Orcutt both had gchat status messages of something along the lines of, "What the fuck happened last night?"

I'm pretty sure most of the photos from that night are unpublishable, but here are two of the tamer ones:



Photos by Steph Kwan

There's also a 20-minute video of body shots.

There are no pictures of Joe in his Spongebob tighty-whities (yellowies?).

Nor of Jim dressed (down) as the devil.

Or full-frontal nudity. (Images have been scraped from my brain.)

WEEKEND ROUNDUP: Super Bowl

At Ellen's (who else?). Jeff, Boehner, Jim, Shan, etc., crashed at her place on Sunday night and then watched the Saints upset the Colts. Nothing of note happened. Nothing of note. By which I mean nothing that is appropriate to note.

Ellen's surprise birthday party last night

Usually I'd leave this for Weekend Roundup, but Kevin's bday dinner is tonight, with The Redbucks playing at 2 Kolegas afterwards, and pickup Sunday, so I'll have plenty to write about on Monday.

Last night a group of us surprised Ellen at her apartment with cooking and a cake. Organized by Alicia, HHH and Jim were cooking with Ellen when Jeff, Gareth, Sandy, Alicia and I showed up unexpected. Then Kevin, Ace and Joe, Baby Girl and Leigh showed up. (Who's Lee? Ask Baby Girl.)

Fun and games ensued, and delicious pasta dinner and Park Hyatt cake with ice cream.