I'm still voting for McCain

... but that doesn't mean I can't have some fun with my mad amateurish Photoshop skillz.

A lot of people like to rip on Sarah Palin. I guess it's kind of the "in" thing to do at this point.

Honestly, she's kind of a badass. She hunts moose. She played in her high school state basketball championship with a fractured ankle. I don't think either of those qualities necessarily entail a productive vice-presidency, but the fact remains that she'd be a pretty high-ranking MILF in any suburban neighborhood.

Anyways, as I wondered, via interweb, to one particular founder of PreemCroft Enterprises, why hasn't anyone done this yet?


If you get the obscure Simpsons reference, kudos to you. If you don't, you need to do some serious boning.

Philosophy of sport... probably a class at some state school

I'd like some perspectives on this, so please do comment if you have the desire to do so.

I was party to a discussion this evening about goals and goal-setting. Members of IUs team who were in attendance were mad that others on the team didn't think the team could make it to Nationals this year.

In fact, one side of this argument was saying that your goal should be Nationals, every year. They disparaged those on the team who said that Nationals was out of reach for our team this year (or any year). When asked, I did not come down on that side of the argument.

It's an interesting discussion. I can see both sides, and as much as I was driving home tonight wanting to come down hard on one side or the other, I can't definitively swing the sledgehammer of fallacy on the other side of that argument.

I definitely lean towards setting attainable goals, though. I think that a lot of people want to make themselves out to be badasses, trying to seem like tough guys around others by setting an absurdly high bar for themselves. Honestly, if shooting for Nationals every year makes you work harder, then by all means make that your goal. I just don't think it's appropriate to criticize others for being sceptical about the chances and wanting to set more attainable goals.

When I came here, I was 90% sure that I would not be going to Nationals again. I knew that from the first tournament, when a bunch of our starting players toked up behind a fence during our bye round. Does that mean I didn't give 100% at every tournament? Does that mean I didn't spend a whole shitload of my free time in the weight room or taking the time to prepare healthy food? I challenge anyone to contradict me on those points.

On the other hand, everyone should be constantly striving to be the best they can be. I think that's a basic aspect of athletes and competitors in general. Otherwise, why compete? Most of the people who read this blog know me pretty well, and know that I'm pretty competitive about basically everything. At the same time, I don't think I can come down on the side of "Everyone should be striving for Nationals every year." I will admit, though, that I have a hard time directly answering the question of "Why not?"

In the case of IU specifically, I don't see how people can set Nationals as a reasonable goal after barely making it out of Sectionals last year. I think first and foremost, IU should be worried about making it out of Sectionals. Believe me, I know what happens when you start to look past Sectionals...

Furthermore, IU has two (2) established handlers. I look back on the old g-dub teams that made it to the games-to-go and we had handler lines that were four, five, six handlers deep. Sophomore year -- Ben, Bert, Tufsky, Timmy, Snaus. Junior year -- Tufsky, Lasky, DJ, Shed, Lyle, Pete. (Sorry if I missed anyone, I really have to get to this translation...)

The point is, g-dub was an extremely deep team with a lot of people who had Regionals-level and Nationals-level experience. We also never finished lower than fourth in our region while we were there. In contrast, for a team that finished 15th of 16 at Regionals last year, going to Nationals is 100% not a reasonable goal. Beyond that, I think it's completely fallacious to assume that just because someone doesn't think the Mama?s can make it to Nationals, they won't be trying their best every time they step on the field. That is simply absurd.

I guess really the only logical argument against the strive-for-Natties argument is that an unattainable goal is pretty much useless. Even that argument, though, mostly ends there.

What can those of you who still read my blog add to that? I'm interested to hear some arguments, because it's hard for me to directly address the comments my friends were making.

One of the crazier things that has happened to me in ultimate

Now, this is an interesting event. In 2008, I remember it was, I got up in the morning and made myself a piece of toast. I set the toaster to three - medium brown...

Then, in our second game of the day at Cooler Classic in Wisconsin, we played some team. They were not super, and played with a handful of gash on the field at various times throughout the afternoon.

Anyways, I was covering one of their better handlers. About 0.01 seconds after the disc left the guy's hand on one particular throw, this happened:

As the disc left his hand, I footstomped it. It was not a foul, at least he didn't call it. I somehow caught the disc in midair with my foot, and then brought my leg down with enough force to drive two cleat-holes in it.

Needless to say, that is up there among the craziest footblocks I have ever gotten, along with summer 2005 when I kicked a disc straight up then skied the dude to get the disc.

Next up: getting a footblock and catching it for a Callahan. I will stop playing ultimate on the day that that happens, as I will have reached the pinnacle of my skill set.*

PS- Thank you to the girl whose disc this was, and let me keep it as a conversation piece.

* - (this offer void if I don't feel like quitting if/when said event happens)