Saturday evening, I went with Eric, Sonia, and Leonard to the Asolo Theatre, for the inaugural FSU/Asolo 10-Minute Play Festival and Student Film Screening. It was held on Friday and Saturday, but unfortunately play portion was only being… um… shown on Friday night. For the student films (which we did see), basically it looks like the Acting department collaborated with the Film department to produce 6-7 minute shorts. I saw some great and some not as great films, but what I loved about it was that they were all original ideas. Lots of fun. Incidentally my faves were “The Crossing” (for character development), “The House of Lords” (for immersive experience) and “Pin The Tail” (for humor).
Afterwards we hit an almost invisible Ethiopian restaurant/bar, Fly. I know what you’re thinking, and I hate to say it but the plates were pretty skimpy considering they were $10 each (think chicken curry with one tiny drumstick). Sonia kept them honest though, and we ended up getting another drumstick, no charge. The food was very interesting; it seemed like a mix of Indian and Mediterranean styles. They also had a great imported apple beer from Canada for a very reasonable price ($4.50).

The place was dead, though, admittedly, we left at 11pm. Still — it was a Saturday night! Apparently they have a reggae night Thursday that’s quite popular with the students, so one of these nights I might check it have to check it out after Ultimate.
After Fly we circumnavigated St. Armand’s Circle and ended up downing some ice-cream. Chocolate almond. Mmmmmm. The Circle is also where I saw the mannequin pictured above. It rang a bell — specifically, a bell which sounds like Julie’s pictures from Thailand. Hah. How funny is that?
Sunday Lickety Split had a team practice, in which my ankles were killing me. Not sure if it’s shin splints, but boy did it hurt. I’m hoping I’ll be better in time for South Regionals in Orlando this weekend. 16 teams — we’re ranked last, but hey, you never know 🙂

Making the catch
Thought I’d finally give this flickr thing a real try… Flickr Uploadr for Mac OS X made things easier; I have a couple UI nitpicks with it but overall it’s pretty nice. You can view the rest of the photos from last weekend here.

I think it’s time for bed.

Continue reading See Serenity Sept 30th →

From: Stubear
Date: September 21, 2005 5:04:23 PM EDT
To: Krishen Greenwell
Subject: Regional bid for Lickety Split
Krishen, my name is Stu Downs and I am the mixed Regionals Coordinator. I got your email from [Orlando Ultimate web guy] Kirby Bell. 16 bids for Regionals were allocated and a team from Texas has declined to accept. Your team is next in line to receive a bid, are you interested in coming to Regionals?
Please reply now so I know you got this and if you need to discuss with others do so quickly. If you want me to discuss with someone else please put me in touch with that person by forwarding this email. Or give me hers/his. We will wait a couple of days to hear back, then move on to the next in line.
Congratulations.
— Stu

So, I got back from the Ultimate tournament about 11pm Sunday night. Whew, what a way to spend a weekend! Each game was either to 13 points or 80 minutes, whichever came first. Lickety Split played 9 games and a total of 177 points (think 1 point per “touchdown” as it were); an average of 4 minutes between points.
Now, it might seem obvious, but I’m going to say it anyway: at tournaments — especially Florida tournaments — it’s a good idea to have a big team. The sun will drain your energy while you stand still. Lickety had 17 players and it was just about perfect (only 7 are on the field at a time). It was really nice to be able to sub out before the heart-about-to-explode stage. 🙂 My teammates were wonderful — shouts to Jenn, Jennifer, Chris, Kathleen, Sonia, Deb, Butch, Mike, Steven, Tim, Rex, Joe, Scotty, Jimmy, George, and Eric.
We did not advance to Regionals; the score of the deciding game was 8-13 — not a win, but not a blowout, either. What we DID do effectively was improve as a team. This was our first chance to play together, so there was a whole lot of gelling going on. With practice I know we’ll improve.
As far as our competition went, Space Coast Re-entry drilled us 13-3 (we lovingly nicknamed them “Rearentry” for our post-game cheer) . They were also excellent hecklers. Alpha Omega Ultimate out of Fort Myers (who I wrote about previously here) were great opponents and once again demonstrated excellent spirit (while simultaneously crushing the hopes and dreams of Lickety fans everywhere). Speaking of spirit, we cheered every team we played on the weekend — and not just “Good game X!”. Big ups to Tim for pushing us to get creative, it was a lot of fun.
We had a few cheers for our own team too. The call-and-answer “Lickety!” “Split!” (x3) was so catchy, even players on the opposing teams started replying back. Also popular was “Lickety lickety lickety!”, for which the response — arrived at by several of us simultaneously — was: “Split split split!” While on defense, calls for “Lick-e-D!” were made (feel free to groan), which begat the somewhat more awkward “Lick-e-O!”.
Though dinner and beer was provided by the tournament on Saturday night, Joe, Rex, Kathleen, Eric, Sonia and I decided it would be nicer to get a shower and find a restaurant. We ended up at RJ Gators, and man, for such a tiny town did that RJs ever put the one in Bradenton to shame. Quite big, and quite a few things on the menu, too! I ended up carboloading on a tasty chicken-pasta dish.
We stayed at the Best Western in Vero Beach — and I’m convinced half of the Ultimate tournament was there with us Sunday morning getting their continental breakfast 🙂 Don’t have much to say about the Best Western, other than, well, I think all this traveling I’m doing for work has spoiled me. But, it was more than adequate. I just need to remember to bring my own shampoo next time.
The 2.5 hr trip home was quite entertaining and mostly involved probing Rex’s brain (he teaches several music classes at a nearby college). Would you have guessed rap and opera were related? No, me neither.
Anyway, lots of fun — pictures to follow soon.

My new bike is awesome! Took it for a spin tonight with Nkosi. We toured around a bit and then did catwalks and jumps. It was great.
More pics in the extended.

Continue reading My new U2 iPod bike →

Tomorrow morning I head to Vero Beach on the East coast to play in the Florida Sectionals Ultimate tournament. The winners of this tournament in the open, mixed and women’s divisions go on to play in South Regionals (Oct 1 and 2 in Orlando, includes 9 states, see map here), and from there, the UPA Club Championships (Oct 27-30 in Sarasota).
I’m playing on a mixed division team named “Lickety Split”. Darren’s going to be there too, playing in the open division with Bulge. If you want to keep track of how we’re doing, I believe the scores will be updated live via the interweb: Mixed Division, Open Division.
Today’s picture brought to you by the Gulf of Mexico, which never fails to deliver. 🙂 Taken with a 1/1250th of second exposure time and an aperture of f2.0 (deliberately underexposed in an attempt to better capture the crepuscular rays).
And with that, I’m off to look for a bike!

Following on the heels of the July 31st debacle in the Czech Republic, another rave was broken up with the use of extreme force. Probably in another ex-communist country, trying to control “dangerous anarchists”, right? Wrong. How about right here in the United States?
The whole situation disgusts me. There is NO WAY that kind of force was necessary, even IF the party was illegal.
[Discussion at digitallymported.fm]

Continue reading Another rave broken up by force →

Inês and Joe at the Old Salty Dog — click for the big
Well, I wanted for these to be separate posts, but time has scrunched them all together.
First off, a big goodbye to Inês, who completed her internship and returned home to Portugal on Wednesday. Inês, it was great fun having you back for another term — hope our paths cross again soon 🙂
Cam, Melissa, Inês, Nkosi and I hit Lido beach Sunday, and afterwards we stuffed ourselves with ice cream from Settimi’s:

Cam and Melissa

Some of us were more stuffed than others. Photo by Melissa.
Second, the Manatee Ultimate league started its fall season this past week, and we actually managed to split up the teams which have been playing against each other for the past two years. It’s actually kind of exciting. Of course, my team lost something like 15-7, but I’ve got faith we’re going to get better. We’ve just got to gel a bit. Yeah.
Third: My brothers Davin and Anand (AFK and Tiebreaker) are in iTunes!!! How cool is that? I am so proud. Buy their EPs, Dreamcache and Prominence. My personal faves are “Dreamcache” (unremixed) and “Prominence (AFK Mah-Seev Breaks Mix)”.
That is all! Have a good night 🙂