Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Colicchio Hits Game Winning 3-Run HR in 9th for Thrilling Comeback Victory

The Jive Wiffle Ball League began on Monday and continued last night with an epic come from behind victory led by a Jack Colicchio 3 run homer to dead center in the top of the 9th to give his team a thrilling 4-3 victory in Tome Lot. After Ian Hall and Kevin Cottington shut down their opponents on opening day with a 3-0 victory, play resumed last night on a beautiful and slick night.

Hall and Faith were joined by Toph, Simon and Mittens and were opposed by Jack, Jake, Nate and Sherm. In the top of the 1st, Hall struggled with his control and was definitely not the pitcher he was last night but kept the opposition scoreless. Jake took the mound in the bottom of the frame and worked around a single by Faith and a walk to Hall by getting Topher on an easy pop up to escape any damage. In the second, Faithful had control problems of his own. After Sherm led off with a double, Faith couldn't find the strike zone and ended up walking in a run to give Jack's team a 1-0 lead. He escaped further damage by striking out the next better looking.

In the bottom of the second, Mittens started the inning with a double off Jack. After a great one handed stop by Jake on a Simon grounder, Faith and Hall hit back to back doubles to give their team a 2-1 lead. Jack found his curve ball and was able to hold them to only 2 runs. Then the pitchers settled in....

Hall pitched the top of the 3rd and while his control wasn't there, his stuff was good enough to keep the bats quiet. Jack led off with a double and Jake walked but he was able to retire Nate and Sherm by way of the K. Nate making his debut ran into his own control problems on the mound by walking the two lead off hitters but somehow managed to escape with a zero on the board. Faithful gave up a single to Jack and walked Jake but again the bottom of the order had trouble getting the clutch hit.

Jake found his combo slider-screw on the mound and struck out the side in the bottom of the 4th. Hall again toed the line with his control in the 5th but kept his ERA at 0.00 intact. Jack looked his sharpest in the bottom of the 5th striking out the side. Faithful seemed to be regaining his confidence and pitched a quiet inning in the top of the 6th getting Jack to go down looking with a nasty bender that nicked the inside part of the plate. Nate came back to pitch a shaky but effective 6th inning, getting an anxious Hall to reach for a bad ball out of the strike zone to go down swinging.

In the 7th, Hall found himself in serious trouble with runners on base. Somehow, with a full count to Grefe and Sherm, he got both looking on cutters that nailed the outside part of the plate. Jake continued his dominance on the mound and struck out the side in the 7th. In the 8th, Jake led off and swung through 3 straight pitches to go down swinging, tossing the bat in frustration. After a mini rally by the bottom of the order, Faithful again got Jack looking on the almost same pitch he got him to strike out on in the 6th inning. In the bottom of the 8th with the score still 2-1, Jack struck out the first batter before Hall unloaded on a hanging 3-2 curve ball that reached the Tome building. A huge insurance run for Hall who was looking to nail down the save in the 9th.

In the top of the 9th, Jake led off with a walk. Hall then got Grefe to strike out. After getting to a 2-2 count on Sherm, Hall needed just one more strike for the win. He uncorked 3 cutters that missed the strike zone to bring the go-ahead run to the plate. On an 0-1 pitch, Hall through a high fastball that Jack got his bat on and drove to dead center, just clearing the fence to give his team the 4-3 lead. His team erupted while Hall looked absolutely stunned on the mound. After a single and error, Hall got out of the inning shocked at what had just transpired. Brimming with confidence, Jake took the mound in the bottom of the 9th to nail down the save. After striking out Mittens, Jake walked Simon to bring up Faithful. On a 1-2 count, Jake threw a tight slider to K Faith and give his team an unreal come from behind 4-3 victory.

W: J. Colicchio (1-0)
L: I. Hall (1-1)
S: J. Rainwater (1)

HR: Hall (1), Colicchio(1)

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Impressions on "The Illusionist"


The drooping of a rabbit’s ears. The overwhelming grief that encompasses the feeling of loneliness. A small glimmer of hope in a bowl that makes you hold on to something in life. The wonderful, fluttering yet subtle strangeness of a first kiss. That heart wrenching moment when you realize that what you once had is gone. When the lights go out in The Illusionist, a ripple of emotion pierces through you just enough to appreciate the real magic of this film.

The Illusionist centers on the relationship between an older magician and a young women. Both start the movie alone and seemingly unappreciated by anyone and find comfort and companionship with each other. The story chronicles the wants and needs of these characters. The elder magician, like the ventriloquist and the clown try to bring happiness to people behind their own veil of lonesomeness and sorrow. Despite the pessimistic undertone, the movie does not lack its uplifting and charming moments.

The real magic lies in how clearly human emotions are conveyed in this beautifully animated film where there is almost no dialogue. A dying dream, to drunkenly drown back into our despair, The Illusionist captures the full spectrum of emotion in a whimsical and touching story. A visually and aurally mesmerizing artistic achievement in film, it is amazing how so much can be expressed when so little is spoken.

3.5/4

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

New Blog Hype

The launch is near. According to sources, the most legendary blog is about to grace this fucking Earth either today or tomorrow. You want to actually read something worth your time, well you better check out "From The Mouths of Legends." Are you as excited as I am? You fucking better be. This is a once in a lifetime event. If you thought I was clever, which i'm not, you need to check out these guys. Your opinions are meaningless, their opinions should be taught in grad schools.

What can you expect from this new blog. Epic-ness of legendary proportions? You're god damn right. Prepare to have your feeble mind blown to bits. Like he said, even this blog will be more legendary than Betchtits. Drink from their cup of knowledge and inhale their fumes of superiority.

Their commentary will provide you with the insight you need to survive this world. Some other quotes from what people are saying.

"I stopped going to the Snar to read this blog" - Tyler Gagnon

"Whats a blog" - Ian Hall

"This shit is gonna be bigger than my twitter account" - Brian Sperling

"You wont" - Alex Vouga

"Shotty kills on that blog." -Jake Rainwater

"My penis is huge." -Cory Palmer

"Its not Johnskies" -Jack Colicchio

"EEEEEEEEEEEE" - Nate Grefe

"I quit playing frisbee to read this blog." - Bartlett Jackson

Anyway, expect "From the Mouths of Legends" to be up soon. Bookmark that shit. Tell your friends, grow a sack, chug a beer and write a blog.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

2011 Music

2011 has the potential to be one of the biggest years in music since...well I really don't know. 2010 was very solid but not spectacular. At least for me, Kanye West, Arcade Fire, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Beach House, Jack Johnson and Vampire Weekend all delivered this past year. Ill mention now that Spoon's early 2010 release Transference was a big disappointment but maybe because I hold them to such a high standard.

For 2011, several of my favorite musical artists that have either confirmed or are expected to be releasing a new album.

TV On the Radio - Got the news from Eddie Small via facebook post yesterday. Nine Types of Light expected to be released in the Spring has all the hype that would follow one of the most unique sounds in music and a group that has gotten better with each album.

Blink 182 - Another album expected to hit this Spring. How can you not be a Blink fan. it will be their first album in 8 years and their first since they got the band back together.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - The head shot, for me anyway. Their previous 3 albums have been nothing short of spectactular and waiting 5 years for another is just too long. The down side is John Frusciante leaving the band so the sound will definitely be different. None the less, the hype will be there.

The Strokes - This album has been rumored for some time and popular opinion was that it would be coming out in 2010. It has been confirmed that Angels, their 4th album will be dropping March 22. The question is, will this be a return to their first two masterpieces or a further deviation from their disappointing 3rd album First Impressions Of Earth.

Radiohead - Always there are rumors with Radiohead but its been 4 years since In Rainbows. Nothing sets the music word abuzz than hearing a rumor that Radiohead is releasing an album. Well there is a good chance that we could be seeing them in 2011.

No Doubt - Another band that is back together. Gwen is back with the band that hasn't released an album since the beginning of the last decade. Still waiting for a release date but no doubt it will be in 2011.

Coldplay - 4 great albums in the last decade. Their 5th album should be just as good as their last one and another reason why 2011 is great for music.

Dr. Dre - I should stop getting excited. Haven't we been waiting for this album for like 10 years. But rumors are that this will be the year and with the single Kush already out, it looks like this might actually happen.

More to come.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Vassar Bangers Weekend


This was definitely one of those weekends that you look back on and will point to as being one of the best highlights from college. It took me till my senior year but the Jive Turkey's finally made it to Vassar and in typical Jive fashion, we left quite an impression. It was the perfect tournament, and as a Jive rook, I could not have asked for a better tournament to start my college career.

By Friday 5PM, we had 21 Jive dudes ready to make the 4+ hour (in Matt's case 7 hour) trip to Poughkeepsie, NY to participate in the Huck for Red October. Sidenote on Vassar: Dickinson and Vassar have always been close in almost every aspect. Both are small liberal arts schools, very solid frisbee teams and great party'ers. They have been to almost every Jive Fest and several other Dickinson events so its about time we took part in some of their festivities. 5 cars left ATS including the frisbee van packed with Itkoff riding shotgun, Simon, Gabe and Shapes rounding out the crew. The ride up was great. An awesome crew and in Dan Jones fashion, i made everyone burn a CD for the car. I have never been more impressed with the musical taste of everyone in the car. Nearly every song that came on I enjoyed which is essential for long drives like this. We took a pit stop in Jersey for some MacDos and eventually arrived at Vassar a little after 10PM.

We were fortunate enough to be hosted by Itkoff's friend Zach for the weekend so big ups to him and his housemates. I mean, who would want 21 dudes to stay at their house, well unless they were Jive Turkeys. We pulled out a bottle of Mad Dog that got cannonballed in literally like 2 minutes. I blame Mittens. Luckily I had a secret bottle hidden in my bag plus some admiral so we were good. Before Hartwig arrived, all 3 bottles were killed. Some people decided to stay in the house, claim good bed spots and get some decent sleep. The rest of the team headed to the townhouses or TH's, a magical development of townhouses where drunk college students spill out into the front yards with kegs and everything else you could want from a party. Inside the one house we were at contained some sort of jungle juice that had an assortment of liquids, only one of them being non-alcoholic. Unfortunately, by the time I arrived the keg was kicked and the alcohol was pretty much gone. I hung out for a little before heading back to the house although stopping for some late night pizza slices which were amazing but very expensive. I slept on the floor upstairs where Jack was in a dog bed, Goliath in a closet, Nate being a bitch and sleeping on our hosts bed (What a guy!) and retarded Ian also on the floor. I say retarded because I woke up to him standing in front of Jack about to piss on him but fortunately for Jack and especially Ian, I yelled at him and made him go to the bathroom.

Waking up Saturday was an interesting process but we somehow managed to get to the fields in time for the Goucher game. It was a beautiful morning and the fields were simply amazing. Just seeing the fields made it worth the $300 dollar tournament fee. I didn't get a chance to really warm up and it showed right away. My throws were terrible and I made a lot of stupid turn overs but we were just a better team taking half 7-1. Even if we turned it over, and we did a lot, our defense was solid and Goucher was having a rough morning. A ton of frosh got playing time and the final score ended up being 13-6.

We had a bye next so a lot of people slept off their hangovers. Most us just chilled, enjoying the beautiful weather and watched the Goucher-Vassar game. Seabiscuit wound up announcing some of the game from the scaffold which was awesome and hilarious while Martin got some usual tournament action.

We had a solid warm up before Vassar and looked like the better team throughout the first half despite the score being close. Our starting O-line consisting of myself, Jack, Matt, Nate, Timber, Shine and Simon was getting the job done and didn't get broken the entire day. Our pull play was working well and by the second half, our D joined the party. Vassar seemed to lay down and Jive finished strong with a 13-7 victory.

The rest of Saturday was one of the more enjoyable afternoons I have ever had. We played a very cool and new team Central Connecticut and got the freshman on the field for a ton of playing time as well as certain people playing in spots they would not normally play. While the final score was 13-10, the game was never out of hand. The Vassar B game was even more fun. I played the game barefoot and spent most of the time watching people on the field. Dino, turtle points and ridiculous throws dominated the game while Jive wound up taking the "highly" contested match 13-10. Highlights go to a terrible Ian Hall hammer, a Timber blade that was easily one of the worst throws I have ever seen and Matt showing how to dominate B teams. After some showering and what not, we enjoyed a BBQ which was very sweet by Vassar. Ton of food and a good hang out with the other teams.

By 8:15, we were anxiously awaiting the start of the Vassar version of the HTOD. Jive was ready to go as evident by Timber launching a blade into a crowd.....hilarious stuff. We got separated into 10 teams and began to make our way to the events. Our squad included Itkoff, his boys, The Shiner and Vassar Noah as our captain. We did a "boat race" which turned out to be a stack race except we held the frisbee. This was troublesome because most of the beer spilled onto the floor. There was also some alcoholic basting in the other room. I wasn't feeling my best which figured becasue of the food and the 2 90 minute IPA's I consumed before. The next station was a smoking station and booty juice. This was awesome besides the fact that the booty juice nearly made me puke. One of the most interesting smoking apparatus' I have ever seen was a bowl attached to a frisbee that Radam showed us. Classic Vassar!

The next station was the Party Box which is always a classic station. After trying to chug some warm sparks, I knew I reached my limit. I ran outside and executed a flawless boot and rally. I had never felt better and returned to the party in prime form. I polished off two Colt 45s and was now chugging alcohol at tremendous speeds (love making GZA references). I was humming now and began cheering non stop "Shit, Fuck, Lets get drunk TH's." I think i texted ten people that at random points in the night. And yea I prolly said that 50 times over the course of the weekend. We got to the flip cup station which Shine and I decided to Wolf. It was only somewhat successful as half of the beer ended up on me and moonshine cut his gum. Well shit.

After this it was time to head to the Vassar Depot. I quickly realized that I was not drunk enough to stay here so I went back to the TH's with Sperling and Colicch. We didn't find much but a drunken Joe Stormes and some Ying pounders. AS we walked back, some Vassar DPS caught us and told is to pour out our beers. Stormes, noticeably drunk was asked if he was a student which he responded with "Yes...I mean No, Yes, No!" Luckily they were real cool and let us leave without incident. Being 21 is nice! The rest of the night for me was lackluster. The dance floor consisted of some Jive, noticeably Simon sucking face with some girl against the wall for a while. After some homo-erotic Jive dancing, Itkoff and I left for the TH's and chilled at some random party for a while. I feel like this happens a lot at Vassar. By 1:30 we left and got some food and i was asleep in the house probably around 2. While my night was fairly avg. other Jivers carried the weight. Stormes puked on a Vassar kid. Shine broke into a random Van with some girl, Jack took something and left his glasses but got them back, Simon and Gabe slept at the fields, Goliath in more closet's, Jack winning morning parties, Posey showing why they call him King Pose (ok that's only me), Gardner slept under a mattress, Sperling drank some loco bombs. The rest of the stories not mentioned simply pass into Jive Lore. A place where things may or may not have happened.

Sunday morning came and somehow everyone showed up to the field around 10pm for our semi;s game against Ramapo. I felt great and was ready to go but some of the team was definitely not in any shape to play. Ramapo threw a zone which we were not ready for. Fortunately, Matt played savior and was huge in the first half. I was launching backhand bombs and he came down with everyone. After being down 5-3, we took half 8-7. I stressed to the team that if we picked up our defense the game would not be anywhere near close and their zone would be ineffective. While we had some trouble on offense, our D was horrendous in the first half, mainly due to being lazy. Jack returned for the second half and began popping very effectively . Their cup grew tired and we started scoring with relative ease. Our D stepped up and clamped down and we jumped out to a 13-7 lead and finished off the scrappy Jersey squad 15-9.

This set up a rematch with Vassar in the final who had just beaten their alumni squad on universe point. I knew this would not be the same Vassar team that we beat yesterday. It showed when our O-line got broken on the first point which was rare. Our deep game was off but we kept putting it which put us in a hole. Our D was also lackluster as we were playing uninspired ultimate, expecting to cruise to an easy victory like we did on Saturday. Vassar had a big crowd behind them and they took half 8-5. They opened up the second half with a quick score to make it 9-5. We couldn't seem to break the Vassar momentum trading points until it was 11-7. We received the disc and turned it over. It was at this moment when the switched turned on. Matt and Simon were harassing the throwers with big marks while Jack and I had huge layout D's on in cuts to close the gap to 11-9. Jack was getting called for fouls all day by a guy who was having trouble getting open on him all game. Bad call after bad call didn't deter him when he came up with a huge catch D and yelled "disc don't lie!"

Again with the disc, Nate roasted his defender up line where Jack hit him with a push pass to make it 11-10. Nate emphatically threw the disc to the ground showing emotion for the first time ever. Jive showed pure guts as the score was tied 13-13. After a long point, we took the 14-13 lead knowing that we were going to win it on this next D point. After getting the turn, we worked it up with some big cuts and eventually got the disc to myself where I broke my defender with a quick flick to an open Matt to seal an epic comeback win and championship for Jive 15-13.

To be down 11-7 to the home team in the championship and win the game was something I was very proud of. Jive doesn't play a lot of big competition and winning this tournament to start the year was an incredible feeling. It definitely made the near 5 hour drive back much more manageable. Again, one of the best weekends of my college career.