1. we have lost A LOT of points by going for extras at the end
2. the other teams are getting better. we haven’t played a “gimme” all season
3. i’m toast by the time my third jamesons goes down
4. honestly, we’re not getting the lucky breaks we were getting last season
5. we’re dispirited

and at 1-5, who wouldn’t be?

in any event, last season’s bocce success was an aberration for me. and when we started this season a woeful 0-2, it felt like coming back home. back to high school, back to hoping that we just have fun cause we’re sure as hell not going to win. but the interesting thing about winning and then starting out the next season poorly is that it’s not fun. at all. we expect to win, and when we don’t, we get mad. i sulked for at least a half hour during the game. ask daya, she had to put up with me.

we had 2 games last night. we didn’t win the first game. we got crushed, again. i still think we’re pushing too hard. we’re not taking the easy points, we’re going for the extras. we lost at least 5 points last night by continuing to roll when we had points on the board, and blowing it. bad form.

there was an hour break between games 1 and 2, and fatoosh was delicious. but we all sat around with long faces. after dropping the first set of the second game, it just seemed like we couldn’t catch a break. i took myself and daya out of the second set, which i still feel bad about. winners want the ball, and i did not want to be anywhere near it. but the rest of the team kept us in it thanks to some clutch rolling, and i was back in for the deciding set 3. i didn’t play a great set, but the team kept it close, and i managed to seal the victory with a decent long ball that the other team couldn’t knock out or beat. so we won. phew! now we need to win a lot more, quickly…

here’s the juice: the team we beat on forfeit last week dropped out of the league, so the commish asked us if we would waive our win against them and instead play their replacement team next week. and of course, we agreed.

as for the actual game, it was just one of those “the balls aren’t rolling our way”. we had our share of good shots, but every time the other team needed a breaker, they got one. every time. so we won the first game then just got killed on the next two. daya and i had our share of great moments, but i think we turned in a -6 overall, which is terrible. even the awesome power of team ITP wasn’t enough to overcome the bocce court karma. well… at least this time we won’t have such high expectations for ourselves.

late night sara and i had waaaaay too many drinks at last exit, where we went for “one more drink”. one day i will actually go for one more drink, and not have 6, including shots. who does shots on a tuesday after 4 jamesons and no dinner? this guy, that’s who. this morning i be hungover. as usual. sigh. clearly sara remembers more about this than i do, her recollections can be found here

also, i’ve noticed that my heartbeat seems to be very fast when i drink. is this normal, or a sign of my liver collapsing? i should ask the doctor…

the crew (minus sara and daya) showed up at floyd, ready to make it back to the championship game this season, and hopefully not get killed like last time. i gotta be honest… we came in rusty, and we came in cocky. we didn’t really take time to warm up, hell, i decided to roll out a brand new style of pitching (which was kindly referred to as “dainty” by the rest of the team), and we just got outplayed. we were overconfident. at one point our opponent asked me if i was bowling ambidextrous style, and i said: “no, but i can if you want me to.”

so yeah, we went down hard in the first game. then the next team didn’t show up, so we got the forfeit win, but it wasn’t an encouraging start to the season. i’m hoping we’re just doing a little snake order from our last season, so we’ll lose our first game, and then never lose again. i apparently need to work on my mechanics, for fear of being “that dainty guy playing bocce”, and we need to get our heads in the season.

the MVP goes to Matt S. who didn’t play a single round, but showed up halfway through after having spent a grueling 12 hours on amtrak the day before, and coming right from penn station to bocce. Matt, you are a better man then I.

oh, happy valentine’s day all of you. i spent the night at the gym, so hopefully next year me and my amazing new body won’t have to do that again.

so, to set the scene. We’re playing the sweet meats. we start a little early, which means that we’re not quite as drunk as we like to be starting a game (edit: with the exception of Sara). so Matt, Kevin and i take a nice tequila shot. chilled. of course, the bartender ends up putting too much in the shaker, so it ends up being 2 tequila shots each. wow. i should note that i don’t really do tequila shots anymore after one night out with Briehan a few years ago, where I puked my guts up, then called my gf at 3AM and dumped her. so, suffice to say, i’m not sure how this will affect me.

Teams are as we’ve been doing all season. Alex and Karen, Kevin and Sara, Me and Daya, and Matt with whoever does the best from the first round. Alex/Karen and Kevin/Sara start us off.

these guys are good. they’re calling their shots and hitting them. no one appears to be a dead weight on the team, everyone seems to be a sharpshooter. on our side, Kevin is all over the place to start, but Sara is rolling like she does it for a living, so we’re holding our own. Alex and Karen are solid as always, and we win a 7-4 game to go up 1-0 in the match.

the second game is a little odd. Daya and I jump out and give us a commanding 3-1 lead after 3 games, but then we have a few odd turns where we think we’re closest and it turns out we’re not. daya and i leave at least 6 points on the court over the next two games, and matt and Sara can’t pick us up. we lose game 2 3-7

game 3: everyone’s in. Daya and I split (always a teary eyed event) and she rounds out the Matt/Kevin/Sara side while I form up team ITP with Alex and Karen. the games are tight. Sweet Meats are rolling well, but for some reason they sub in a newbie, who isn’t all that good. they get 3 points in the 3rd game, but team ITP reaches back and throws down 3 in the 4th. with the score at 6-4 (us) Kevin et al get 3 balls DQ’d, giving them 2 points with 2 left to throw. luckily, their last minute sub totally blows her shot, and the other guy (their weakest link, though still a thrower) cracks under the pressure and shorts it. so we escape with only a -2, making it 6-6. the last game alex just takes over, throws a wicked opener, and they blow 4 balls trying to beat his first, and still don’t do it. we win!

to get ourselves motivated for the last game, we were very negative about our opponents, but in retrospect, this team was more like us than any that we’ve played. except for the t-shirts, they seemed to take things to about the same level of commitment, and while they weren’t the friendliest team we’ve played, they were complimetary and graceful in defeat. i hope we don’t have to play them again.