New Years Jam 2007

Post by **Zac Miley** » 02 Jan 2008 08:29

slapdash21 wrote:did ANYONE have a good flight home??

my flight was delayed 3 and a half hours, i was surrounded by kids on the plane, and i had to break into my own house at 4:30 in the morning and it sounds like my flight was one of the better ones.

A catering truck broke down behind our plane. My dad had to pull somebody's car out of a frozen driveway.

It wasn't too bad.

Zeke · Post by **Zeke** » 02 Jan 2008 08:34

NYJ has officially ended for me this morning when I had to say goodbye to Jeremy Mirken before I left for work. First of all, I'd like to thank all the people that stayed @ LaRAZA for being wonderful guests. Thanks to all that attended, hope you all enjoyed the event as much as I did. Big thanks to all our sponsors, our prize table was full of footbag goodies for players to pick out. Big thanks to Nathan, Tom and Reile for all the preparation that they did before the event and the work they put in during the event. Super big gi-normous thanks to Steve Goldberg for the shred room this year (again). Hope you all had fun here in Chicago!

Colin · Post by **Colin** » 02 Jan 2008 10:18

I'm not the write-up sort, but I'd like to say a few things quickly while they're fresh in my head.

I was nervous about this whole thing as I'm mildly socially retarded and tend to be very withdrawn inside large groups and also in one on one situations where the ice hasn't been properly broken. This showed a bit at most of the crowded spots of the jam (event site, shred spot, CIC suite, ect), so if you saw the guy with the scraggly full beard several times over the course of the event and he didn't speak to you or introduce himself or anything, please don't take it personally. He was intimidated - baffled by your beauty or some such shit. This goes double for the people who made efforts to introduce themselves to me and were met with some guy one step above mute. I'm pretty disappointed that I didn't do better in this regard. I'm entirely too old to be handicapped by this sort of thing.

That said...

I had an amazing weekend in Chicago and I regret that it has taken me so long to participate in the community at this level. I was floored by the quality of the people I met (I don't mean their freestyle skills) and by the level of camaraderie between old and new friends. The genuine interest displayed by elite players for other people's games was inspiring. Being present for the dissection of Jay's game by my entire room (minus Evan and plus Zac) was the most educational experience of my footbag career. I couldn't imagine better roommates - I'm not sure that I've ever laughed so much in one weekend.

I wish I had been able to play more, but I won't fault myself for the restraint I exercised - it was necessary. I wish I had played better, but it was unrealistic to expect anything given my playing history over the past couple of years. That said, I'm more inspired to play and reach my potential than I've ever been before. If I make it out next year, expect a completely different game from me. Hell, expect a completely different game from me if I make it to Montreal in the spring.

This event stands as a highlight of my life up to this point. Thank you to all attending players for being such great people, particularly my roommates. Thank you to the CIC for being such enthusiastic hosts, particularly to Eric Reile and Mary-Anne for driving me around on several occasions, and to Nathan for putting me up for two nights and seeing me get to the airport. Thanks to Steve for the shred room, and thanks to Vern for being such a sweetheart.

Happy New Year guys. Hopefully I'll make it out again next time.

Oh, I'm sad to report that I found my car buried in four feet of snow.

Post by **Zac Miley** » 02 Jan 2008 10:58

lol Colin, you and Henry were like the funniest people there.

professor · Post by **professor** » 02 Jan 2008 17:58

PICTURES and VIDEOS.

Post by **Zac Miley** » 02 Jan 2008 18:41

lol. Awesome.

Thanks Ben. Where are the clips of Dave though?!?!?!

Reid · Post by **Reid** » 02 Jan 2008 19:10

amazing event... thanks CIC, Steve, Jeremy and Fletcher, and everyone else.

Dat · Post by **Dat** » 02 Jan 2008 19:55

http://www.flickr.com/photos/digitalaud ... 618544247/

CIC flurry · Post by **CIC flurry** » 02 Jan 2008 20:08

Colin wrote: thanks to Vern for being such a sweetheart

LOL

Senor Grommet · Post by **Senor Grommet** » 02 Jan 2008 22:53

Bacon and I had some great mo's with Reile and Zeke last night.

Playing scrabble with many footbaggers was quite fun.

I even played a minimal amount of freestyle! I sucked of course, and I hope everyone will forget it ever happened.

Playing net with Bevier was pretty fun too. Thanks.

Had a great freestyle battle with Jordan from Indiana and Nick Laroche from Montreal, which was possibly the highlight for me, even though my performance was sub-par.

2nd in 4-square had to be a fluke!

Snow takraw was a blast.

Hope to see everyone again soon!

Thanks especially for that CIC friendship and hospitality I've grown to love.

CIC flurry · Post by **CIC flurry** » 03 Jan 2008 00:03

Reile, you were a joy to be around at all times. You never showed any stress. You were even funnier and chiller and more on the same wavelength as me than ever. I was glad to be moving cars with you at 3AM in the bitter cold amongst all the other stuff.
Zeke and Reile: I think this was the most stress free event we've run. Though the lack of sleep put me a bit on spaz mode at times.
Nathan makes the best banana pancakes!

My favorite person this year was Emily. Always around for advice and being solid. We hung out and talked more than usual - I think we're more on the same wavelength than ever before. The morning with mullet head and line and messed up teeth and mullet jr. messing with camera was nice. We finally got to 4S and freestyle together enough, and for that I'm thankful, because it's been years. You've gotten quite good at freestyle, and I'm proud. Very precise textbook moves. I'd like to see you spin.

I'm really glad Reid chilled and hung out this year.
I wish I got to chill with Henry and Zach more. We should have a midwest invitational or something.
Mathieu was also great to be around. Much more talkative than usual. So funny.
My favorite new attendee is Nick Laroche. Such a pimp. Montreal is land of coolness. All you guys are dope. I want to visit.
Jeremy Mirken is coolness incarnate. Fun, smooth and witty. Thanks for teaching me about net. I love your competitive spirit and shit talking.
Matt Cross is quite pleasant.
Holly and Brian - you're my scarf and mittens, and make me feel so warm. I'm glad we got to go to that sushi place. I hope you enjoyed it. I'll show you some other kinds of places next time. And if it wasn't for that I wouldn't have gotten to know Matt E. and Cody B. Cool homies. You all need to use your slight southern accents and innocence to get mad hunnies.
Oh Ben Skaggs: good at everything.
I almost got to freestyle with Dat. But I did for a moment with Mike H!

I finally played one game of 2 square with Steve Goldberg. Score: 11-7 and 11-8. I'm sure I could have won on some more games. I learned a bunch though. I feel like if I played with him a few times I'd learn his shots, and learn to stop giving too many good passes. I did win lots of 4S and 2S with line. I get quite heated in 4S sometimes, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings anyone. lol. Thanks to Aidan for busting out the shuttlecock and we had an awesome 4S game with it.

I enjoyed watching Flash more than ever.
Kansas: you guys have mad skills. Zac - ur ultra smooth. Grant and Cody, you guys got hella sick moves. I can't wait to see how you guys improve next year.
Props on TATW, Eric. I saw it.

All in all I had a good time. I always try to be a good host. Hopefully I wans't overbearing at times. Zeke was super master of prize organizations...

OMG the 6 square for the Mirken bag was SICK! Zeke was fucking like, you know that movie where this kid is really good at this space shooter video game (that aliens had actually sent out to find a good shooter) then the aliens come and employ him to win their war, and at the end he's fucking shooting down spaceships all around him 360 by 360 spinning around lasers everywhere! That was Zeke's feet. UnStoppable. I really wanted that prize. I'm glad Mathieu won though. That bag will get good use.

...Oh and I emcee'd - thanks for the circle rules, Ianek. My monotone voice was the shaz. Thanks for MC'ing Matt Cross during Sick1/3. Suggestions are welcome for the event - in here or by PM. I like being a leader and organizing, though at times I miss out on the smaller group stuff that makes NYJ so special, and missing lots of stuff due to responsibility. BTW, going to Joy Yee's was off the chain. That's the stuff I love. I intend to try and do more of it next year. I can't wait to reap the downtime in going to an event that I'm not co-running. There should be a big event in a warm spot in the winter

.

Thanks to Scott. It was really nice to hear how much thanks he has for us. Thanks to Steve for hooking up the shred room again. We'll work something out on that 5 hundo.

Thanks Jerm, Mosh and Mike for judging, and Zach and Fletch for helping to seed.

Suggestion by me: have a better NY Eve planned.

I have pics and vids I'll post soon.

Frank_Sinatra · Post by **Frank_Sinatra** » 04 Jan 2008 07:52

Write up here, in my Andersodacious Andersog

If you didn't make it into the recap, I guess you'll need to try harder for next year.

Thanks for coming, everybody!

acxel22 · Post by **acxel22** » 04 Jan 2008 14:05

I finished importing all I filmed, and I'll make the following:

- A david video (I have too little of Evan/Ben to include in it)
- Jeremy trying to hit a Merkon (combo generator)
- Zeke getting is gift

Zeke · Post by **Zeke** » 04 Jan 2008 16:14

acxel22 wrote:- Zeke getting is gift

Uh-oh...

Jon & Peng, we have your cords

professor · Post by **professor** » 04 Jan 2008 19:57

Anyone get the circle comp on video? If you're not going to release it, I'd love to see it.

Post by **Zac Miley** » 04 Jan 2008 21:40

Cody and I got some of it I think. I know we got the finals. It will be released next week.

Moxie · Post by **Moxie** » 04 Jan 2008 23:04

Tom, The Last Starfighter?

Zeke · Post by **Zeke** » 05 Jan 2008 07:51

That kid didn't have the God Mode cheat I did though

After award ceremonies on early Sunday afternoon, I announced that all interested participants for the Mirken bag challenge to gather near the prize table. I think like 18 players came up! So in an attempt to thin out the crowd I said that any one who had already won a prize through competitions were not able to compete. I think that eliminated all of 2 people. My second stipulation was that you had to be a freestyler and you would actually play with the bag. I would prefer that it not sit in anyone else's collection.

So with the players set, I announced that it would be a modified game of 6 square where I was always in king square and the winner of the bag had to ace me an x amount of times. Most players only had to ace me twice and the better players had to ace me 5 times, I believe. An ace is where a pass lands cleanly and uncontested in another players square without the defender ever touching the bag. The perfect kill IMO. I had to be in the court the whole time so any player that killed me (that wasn't an ace) resulted in me staying in ksq while re-serving to that same player. If I fouled someone, that player would automatically get a hack off. Any other player that got killed would go to the back of the line as normal. Steve happily judged from the sidelines but the players were encouraged (thanks Emily) to vote first and to vote fair. No lying, no whining, no CSI re-enactments (God, I hate those!), just point. If you didn't see the play, don't vote. So that's basically what I came up with to be fair to all the players that participated. I'm sure there a were a few flaws to be fixed and some tweaks to be made if I really put in more time to think it through.

The flow of players in & out of the court and gameplay moved quickly but lasted somewhere from 30-45 minutes. Probably boring for everyone else but it was definitely wearing me out as the game went on. I was a nasty, sweaty waterfall after only a few minutes into it. I could have easily played cheap and gotten some kind of contact on any inbound shots to get killed instead of aced but I went all out on defense to try and get control of the pass to set myself up for something.

If it seemed I was making an extra effort to kill you and get you the hell off the courts, please take that as my deep respect for your skill. I was determined to keep my bag and favored absolutely no one to win. The general strategy was to remove any major threats as soon as possible. If I was unable to kill you within a few volleys then I targeted an unsuspecting square to get a quicker kill and conserve as much energy as I could. At one point, I got 'in the zone' and I was in a long stretch of consecutive kills with no re-serves or hack offs. Sometime in the middle of that, Al had showed up and was trying to talk to me but I was so focused I didn't even know he was directly behind me.

I managed to get a few sips of water in between rounds to keep hydrated, but to be honest & and at the risk of sounding like an arrogant ass clown, the growing frustrations on peoples faces really kept me going. I savored all the eye rolling, the dropped shoulders and the shaking heads as you found your way to the back of that long line. I was particularly energized by reactions after any spectacular kills or saves. I utilized just about everything in my arsenal; axe kicks/sole shoves, snakes, double taps, flying knees, powershots, self-screens, kick fakes and dinks to keep that line moving. I even invented a shot on the fly that got some good reactions. On the flip side, I was equally disappointed with myself for every foul I committed, and every time I was killed or aced. I tried to stay focused and kept pushing myself to play as well I as I could. No one was just going to walk off with my bag.

Eventually Matthieu won (Read: EARNED) the Mirken off me. Hope it was worth me (gently

) kicking you in the face! Much thanks and love to all of you that participated, it just shows how valued Jeremy's footbags are that y'all would all put up with all my bullshit to play for that bag. Props to anyone that killed me and much props to anyone that aced me that day, that's probably the best I've ever played for that amount of time.

Thanks again for all that played, you all helped to make that my absolute favorite moment of NYJ 07.

Keep playing squares!
Zeke

Edit:
photos by Scott Davidson

pips · Post by **pips** » 05 Jan 2008 18:33

I felt like I just watched some action movie! Nice contest Zeke.

CIC flurry · Post by **CIC flurry** » 06 Jan 2008 02:16

Nice call, Emily. I actually didn't remember the name. Zeke, nice writeup.
The ultimate weapon I was analogizing to your play in this is called The Death Blossom, and can be seen in this video at the 6 minute mark (it's only a few seconds long):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRQuEFk-r8E

(Also I noticed you don't have to wait for youtube vids to load anymore, u just click in the middle)