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: Pictures from Autobots, Deploy!'s final show

Videos begin here.

RETROSPECTIVE: Summer is the time for vacation

Kevin Reitz and Therese -- Kevace for short -- are in Indonesia for a couple weeks, so in their absence, here's this, from summer of 2008:

I lost my camera shortly after taking this picture.

Ah, Olympics. Can't it be back?

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!

WEEKEND ROUNDUP: Ningbo Hat Tourney recap

Congratulations to Jim [update: dancing here], whose team went 5-0 during round-robin games, then beat Tao's team in semis, then Alec's team in finals. A brilliant run done with some brilliant captaining.

Fuller recap of tournament over at the newly re-launched China Ultimate blog.

Pictures of Beijingers (plus Nick Hatt, who may as well be a Beijinger) in action:








Not pictured but very much in our hearts and minds: Therese

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:

RETROSPECTIVE: In this new year of ours...

Photo by Kevin Reitz

WEEKEND ROUNDUP, part 1: Kevin's birthday party and The Redbucks

Happy... how old are you anyway? (At Crescent Moon, Xinjiang restaurant)

At 2 Kolegas.



We'll give you one guess as to who won the limbo contest. (It wasn't Therese, and not Joe, though someone who may or may not be his brother.)

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.

WEEK IN REVIEW: Sayanora to 2009

Well here we are, officially in a new decade.

2009 was good to Beijing Ultimate, but 2010's going to be better, so I'm not going to bother with a year-in-review in words. Also, the slideshow will sum things up.

PICTURES OF THE WEEK (from Ellen's New Year's Eve gathering):


Photos courtesy of Therese

GOOGLE GROUPS POST OF THE WEEK:

Kevin Reitz in the thread, "Our favorite Jim Kirchhoff" (slim pickings this week):

He's not MY favorite Jim Kirchoff.

There was another, a long time ago, probably the greatest Jim Kirchoff that ever lived. That Jim Kirchoff used to eat sparkles and paste in preschool. He could color inside the lines like nobody's business. I only knew him shortly, but it felt like a lifetime. And he could fart on command. That was hilarious to a 5 year old..

But our Jim Kirchoff is easily second favorite. For now...

That is all.

WEEKEND ROUNDUP: A bittersweet party for Beijing Ultimate

Barbie Reed

We'll have a tribute video up in the coming days, but for now these pictures of Barbie's going-away party will have to suffice. Also, Kevin's got a post up on his blog, and if you don't believe he and Therese were the most impressively dressed on the night (though Sandy and Baby Girl were impressive in their own way), go read what he had to do get ready

Pink Party 2009!









It was also Liz's last night in Beijing.





Lots of debauchery we can't write about in this space.