2006 UPA Founder's Sectionals
Blah Blah -- Carlisle, PA -- 9.8.06 - 9.10.06

Pictures

Cline -- Clearly this man has too much hair on his face.	Cline -- This man needs his face to breathe more. It's cur...	Cline -- This man just hasn't shaved in a day or 2.	Cline -- This man must have shaved 10 minutes ago.
Cline -- This man's problems won't be cured by a mustache. ...	Cline -- This man kills drifters just to get an erection.	Cline -- This man already has awesomeness on his face. NEX...	Cline -- Kristen is clearly resigned to her fate. A 3-way ...
	Cline -- Cleary & Goose are tickled by how much Flav is goi...
	Cline -- Putting the final touches on greatness.
Cline -- Would you f*ck me? I'd f*ck me. I'd f*ck me so h...	Cline -- The only thing missing are the serial numbers and ...
Cline -- This is how close you need to zoom to see Scott's ...	Cline -- I think it's awesome that even Goose's nose has a ...
	Cline -- For once, my beautfiul blue eyes are the 2nd best ...
Cline -- World... Meet Larry. Larry... Meet the World.
			Cline -- Larry's clumsier than Jon, but much, much hotter.
		Cline -- This is a pivotal moment in the weekend. Jon was ...	Cline -- I'm not sure Kristen's ready for Larry.
Cline -- Wait, she's a little intrigued.
Cline -- Larry don't need no Viagra.
	Cline -- I'm surprised my camera didn't melt (or get pregan...
		Cline -- Rachel not exactly buying into the whole team unit...
Cline -- Cat smugly knowing that her downstairs mustache wi...	Cline -- I'm trying to distract Doc by asking what his turn...
			Cline -- Hey jerk, can Mikey call "Injury" now?!?
		Cline -- Naturally, Flav & Marie decide to roll down the hi...
			Cline -- Well... hello there...
			Cline -- Sirloin steak, covered in A1, ketchup, & hot suace...
			Cline -- 4 hooligans, up to NO good.
Cline -- That's some star power, right there. I'm getting ...	Cline -- Larry smolders, Goose grimaces, I mug, and Phil is...		Cline -- The Bar-B-Q Tavern will always get a thumbs up fro...

Videos

Recap

FRIDAY:

Goose, Scott, Sullivan, Rachel & myself get a bit of a late start thanks to someone's sloth, but we're on the road by 9. A sound thrashing of Goose in Music Challenge, several impatient phone calls from an over-haired Frentzel anxiously awaiting our arrival to start the shaving party. Good omens awaited us as we got off the Turnpike in Carlisle. A BBQ Tavern right next to a Mature Fantasy adult bookstore? AND a Waffle House?!? What more could we hope for except for beer-filled pillows?

And once we did, the shaving party was ON! We took a lot of "before" pictures and then started trimming and shaving. Words can't do what we did justice, so check out the pics. Cleary & Mikey had fun holding the beard trimmings to their lips and chasing around their ladies. And yes, someone who couldn't/wouldn't grow a lip mustache, did allow someone else to shave his butt hair into a pretty impressive backdoor mustache.

A certain, hilarious on many levels email was also interpretively read by several individuals. Much jocularity ensued.

Oh, and Pretzel (aka Larry) did a fabulous six-shooter dance which, despite our best efforts, never blossomed into a pants-off, dance-off.

We actually got to bed at a halfway-decent time. When a goatee dreams, it dreams it's a mustache.

SATURDAY:

Rachel took care of getting us up, much to the grumpy chagrin of those she got up.

After several wrong turns as to the proper direction of the fields, we finally got there. The big news was that Katie & Kristen, who stopped at Waffle House for breakfast, got to meet the founder of Waffle House, Tom Forkner, (http://myspace-275.vo.llnwd.net/01156/57/25/1156155275_l.jpg). It
was hard to not race there and shake the man's hand, kiss his ring, and spit-shine his car.

Our first game against Huckleberries (#6 seed) was pretty non-eventful. They kept it close for the first couple of points before we pulled away.

The next game was our big one against Kenji/Goat Chew (previously a glass/screen door). Win this one and we were almost guaranteed at least 2nd in our pool and no worse than 5th at Sectionals. Kenji knew how important the game was too. They came out fired up and ready to roll. We, however, did not. They built a 5-1 lead before we took our collective mustachioed heads out of our collective mustachioed @sses, and were able to close the gap to 7-5 at half. The second half was tooth-and-nail, as we repeatedly got within 1 point, but couldn't get the D and convert to get over the hump and tie them. It was 11-10, and they scored the last 2 to win 13-10. The
last point, especially was frustrating, as there were several turns and the winning score came on a Stall-9 Prayer Blade that went over several people into the waiting hands of 1 of their women.

With that loss, we knew we would have to take care of business in the rest of our Pool games AND have some tough games on Sunday. We handled Love Bomb pretty easily 13-6 before moving fields for yet another game against AMP.

And we played probably our best game against them. Rather than spotting them a big lead, we actually went up early and frustrated them. We even had Doc & Knappy sniping at each other to "STOP PLAYING THEIR GAME!" right in front of our bench, which of course we never referenced again. We had several 2-point leads in the first half, and eventually TOOK HALF 7-6. We caught 3-4 points off of deflections or bobbles, because that is how we roll. Their depth began to show in the second half, however, as we made some questionable decisions and executions, and they were much more consistent and took the game 13-8.

The only contentious point was one where Mikey's toe was obviously bothering him on D, but he waited till we got a turn to call Injury. This douche on AMP took exception to that and thought we were trying to make a offense/defense substitution. We (and his teammates) tried to explain to him that (a) Mikey's a handler, so we want him on offense, (b) it would have been far more dickish to call Injury while on D and stop their flow, and (c) we aren't smart enough to cheat like that. He wasn't having it, so Mikey
gutted it out. Douche. He did give me the finger later on when I heckled him about it later, and he turned his back on Mikey after the game when he tried to talk to him about it. Douche.

So we were 2-2 and had our work cut out for us on Sunday.

But more importantly, we had a date with destiny. And by "destiny", I mean a wonderfully dive-y BBQ Tavern filled with cheap beer, good food, and all the sketchy regulars you could shake a stick at. We piled in there, 20-strong and started ordering our beers. Some chumps got Yuengling, some got Bud. Me, 16-oz. Old Milwaukee. I think we know who won that selection process. We had to immediately put our order in for food because the bartender was also the cook. We ordered up a crapload of Pulled Pork, Beef BBQ, and some other non-BBQ crap I ignored.

Our ladies mingled with the regulars. And in Carlisle, you mingle by inviting said ladies (well, Katie Drake) out to your pickup truck. Stupidly, Katie turned him down. These were charmers. I tried to talk everyone into coming back later when the DJ would be spinning some boss tunes, but didn't get any takers. Odd, that. Goose, Cleary, & myself all agreed there was one thing missing from the place. A pinball machine.

On the way in, we were asked by a patron of this fine establishment if any of us knew how to fix computers. My loyal teammates naturally pointed to me. I tried to demure, especially when he said his laptop was at his house across the street. I was able to buy some time while I looked for an exit out the back of the bar. As our time there was winding down, David (laptop guy's name) pushed harder and wouldn't take no for an answer. So I acquiesced and found out he just wanted to try and set up an email account.

He brought his laptop to the bar, and we were able to finally steal a wireless signal from the Rodeway Inn next door. I set him up with a Yahoo account, and was going to verify that it worked by logging out and logging back in. Of course, this didn't work, so I had to start the whole fricking process over again. About this time, Goose & Scott (who were riding w/ me) decided to come out and help. And by "help", I mean stand over my shoulder and engage David in inane banter. At one point, David mock(?) threatened us that he had "friends" who we should meet. We countered that we also had "friends", and maybe his "friends" & our "friends" should have lunch. We also think he may know Bernardo.

I finally got him set up and after turning down repeated offerings of beer and top-shelf water, we were headed back to the hotel. We did some pool and hot tubbing before retiring to watch the Phillies tie the game in the 9th but lose in extra innings. Luckily for my beautiful mug, Ryan Howard kept getting walked, because if he hit a home run, everyone got to punch me in the face. This is also when we started the "LESSON/PLAN, LISA NEEDS BRACES, HELLO JOE!" chant that was a little funny at first, then got kind of annoying, but then got funny again.

SUNDAY

Our first game against Running With Scissors was pretty easy, but also pretty costly. Flav went down with knee & shoulder issues, and then on game point Bridget went down hard. Looks like it might be both a meniscus & ACL issue. Not a great way to start the day. On the upside, Bridget was finally transport in a manner she'd like to become accustomed to. In a throne, carried by servants.

That win meant we were 3-2 in Pool Play and finished 3rd out of 6 teams. This set up with a battle against a team from Messiah College called Christketeers. We had been warned that they were a pretty good team and better than the 12h-ranked team coming in. They were right. The injuries to the Glimmer Twins meant we couldn't go 3-4, which was suggested as a way to slow them down. They had a really good player with a Jewfro and a bunch of other solid players.

Our slightly heretical cheers of "JIHAD!" & "BLASPHEMY!" did amuse them, but not so much that they didn't give us one hell of a fight. We were down a bit early, then battled out to an 11-8 lead. I think we relaxed more than a little bit because they rattled off 5 straight points to go up 13-11. We clichéd (dug deep and battled) our way back to universe point at 14-14. After getting a turn just past midfield, we worked it down to the goal line and showed some uncharacteristic patience before Lauri scored the winning point.

That was huge because it guaranteed us a bid to Regionals and that we couldn't finish lower than 6th. I shudder to think what a loss would have meant (2 must-win games to get the 7th bid).

It set up a game against Animal where a win would mean we'd play another game for 4th/5th. Needless to say, we weren't exactly looking forward to 2 more games. And the fact that we had shortened lines for the Messiah game meant our handlers were exhausted. And we collectively benched Mikey to not put any more stress on his toe. Combine all that, and we lost fairly easily to Animal. We played hard, but the we had shot our load against Messiah.

We decided that a team trip to Waffle House (sadly, but necessarily snubbed for the BBQ Tavern) was needed. To celebrate our bid to Regionals, it was chili time. I got a sirloin steak (drowned in condiments, naturally) and an order of hash browns "Scattered All the Way" (onions, cheese, ham, jalapeños, mushrooms, tomatoes, & chili). There was rumor of a salad that came with the steak, but I think it was just gossip. Goose? He had a big bowl of Bert's chili (including jalapenos & cheese) along with a sandwich of some kind and hash browns. Mikey manned up with a wrap and Flav offended all of us by ordering plain hash browns. To be fair, I like WH's wraps, so Mikey got no guff from me. Goose, however, gave him a guff bukakke.

After a couple of team and those-with-mustaches pictures, we were back on the road. Our trip seemed considerably shorter due to the talents of Ron Wolfley, the Arizona Cardinals radio color broadcaster. He was nothing short of phenomenal. Such Wolfley-isms as "Spankety-spank-spank" and "he was lit up like Bin Laden at a Bar Mitzvah" almost necessitated us pulling over to the shoulder so as to not end up in a ditch. A special moment was when both Ron & the play-by-play flip-flopped 3 times on the outcome of an Instant Replay decision.

And that was that. Great weekend guys, especially as we are limping to the finish line in 2006. But cross that line, we shall at the end of the month. Let's send our year to its flaming death!

Cline