Midwest Warmup

"And it's a testament to Matthew and to others who've been the victims of attacks not just meant to break bones, but to break spirits -- not meant just to inflict harm, but to instill fear. Together, we will have moved closer to that day when no one has to be afraid to be gay in America. When no one has to fear walking down the street holding the hand of the person they love.

But we know there's far more work to do."

- Barack, 10/11/09
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I don't update for weeks, and then I put out numerous posts in the same week? Good thing none of them have any substance to them!

Welp.

We're a couple days away from Warmup. I feel like it's been forever since our last tournament, so I'm really looking forward to this. Additionally, the weather is going to be fantastic and everything Illinois in November typically is not, so I'm just really amped. Warmup is going to be totally Vinny Del Negro! Even though shit got a little real at the end, the Legion pulled through once again, and I know it's going to be a good tournament.

Just some thoughts:
For a team that won Glory Days, went to semis of No Wisco, and graduated only a few people and kept a big group of talented kids, I think Northwestern may have been a bit underseeded. I guess we'll see, though. The Bro Claire/Great Lakes Gung Bro rematch should be interesting. Another team I'm interested in seeing is Penn State. I haven't seen them since spring '08, but clearly there have been a lot of changes, because they're coming into this at #4. They've also got Texas in their pool, who always has a strong team. If I were a betting woman, I'd put Bro Claire and M-A-D-I to the S to the O-N in the finals. This will kind of be like a rubber match for them, with Sol winning Hucktoberfest and Bella winning No Wisco. Hopefully I'll actually get to watch the game this time around.

As for Illinois, it looks like we've got our work cut out for us. I don't know anything about Harding, so no speculation here. It'll be good for us to see North Park, see what our regional foe is packing; they always have a really scrappy team, and we always have really close games against them. Iowa State should be a fun game ... I just hope I'm not the victim of a Jazzy Phe production. Speaking of utter embarrassment, I have to admit that I'm a little nervous about the St. Louis game. We played them in the finals of Chicago Invite last year, and on one point, I was guarding this girl on D when I clipped the back of her cleat and it came off completely. Luckily, there was a call and play stopped. Instead of putting her cleat back on though, old girl busted deep and got a layout grab in the endzone. I would say that I tripped over her cleat trying to catch up, but I think I really just tripped over my jaw on the ground. Welp. That's mortifying. I wonder if she still plays for SLU, and if she still remembers that play? Ockwurd. Too bad I wasn't hanging out with Milan every day at that point, but that was a REAL shit on my dick situation.

Quite possibly the most important part of this weekend is that it is the debut of the one and only Cathy Chu, who is not only the COOLEST person I know, but is also totally VDN.

I know you are excited.

Anyway, a pump-up video, and also because I miss it. (It looks like the person who did the taping has almost the whole game up on the 'Tube. I haven't had a chance to watch it all yet, but that's really awesome. Haha make do with what you can since Ultivillage wasn't there. The guy who caught the score, Donald, had one of the sickest layouts I've ever seen in my life at the HK tournament we played in last fall, at the same venue. As I'm watching these clips, I'm also watching out for Xtian, red trucker/white cleats. He played on Sunken Pleasure when I was playing with Shanghai last fall, and he was just a sick athlete. Looks like he's handling in a lot of these clips though so I guess we'll see what amazing plays he's a part of.) You can probably just skip ahead to like, 0:55, because the first half of the video is just the pull going waaaaaay out of bounds and Xtian going to get it:



On an unrelated note: Not that I should be judging or anything, but did anyone see the Top Chef reunion dinner and think Richard Blais got a little bigger in the middle? Well, either way, all I know is that this week without Padma was ROUGH.