I am a man!

Hello all,

Recently it has been brought to my attention that it is not entirely clear what gender I am simply from the posts on this blog. This not only makes me feel inadequate, it might also alienate a possible blog reading audience who might benefit from occasional updates on stuff that's happening in the local frisbee scene. Plus it gives me something to write about on yet another slow ulty news day.

Thus, let's quickly profile the authors of this blog so you can get to know a few more of the movers and shakers (we're all definitely shakers, rather than movers) of the local community.

Twats started playing ultimate in Canberra at the very end of 1999 as a proud product of the legendary recruiting power of Nikki Shires. Nikki (who was teaching at a local boys school now found in the paper for all the wrong reasons) combined with PE teacher Pat Belgard (who apparently has some brother who played on top teams in Canada) to found a number of school teams loosely connected to the more established snow-sports program. These teams flourished briefly in the local leagues with the voraciousness
of a virulent fungal growth. Unfortunately, the departure of Nikki to greener pastures and the loss of Pat to a long-term injury proved the "Easy-Off Bam" to this renaissance of junior ultimate in the ACT. Without the administrative drive of these two, most of the juniors teams (which once numbered four in one league. In 1999. Unheard of!) folded. Only Team Pov, the most virulent strain of the infestation, had the drive to continue playing as a team and collected most of the left over players to continue playing as a juniors team. Twats was drawn into the Pov fold after his original team collapsed and was a stalwart of the Pov "Stampede" offense from 2000 until 2002. During the Pov exodus of 2003 (as players left school and moved to new cities for uni) Twats headed overseas and insodoing missed a significant period in the development of men's ultimate in the ACT. Returning for nationals in 2005, Twats was one of the develoment players brought into the Deathstar training camps and acquitted himself admirably as a cutter. Unfortunately, he had to wait until 2006 to play with Deathstar at major tournaments, including nationals and the world club championships and his experience on that deeply troubled team was formative in his attitude to and goals for ACT ultimate.

Since then, Twats has worked hard to provide cutting firepower to a number of ANU teams, played on the highly successful Barefoot NUFL campaign of 2007 with rave reviews and contributed to the Fyshwick United campaign of 2008 as a selector, admin director and through his dangerous on-field presence. Twats also holds the highly coveted record for the first head-spike on national television.

Bags started playing ulty in the prototype Nikki Shires juniors team in mid 99 before becoming one of the driving forces behind Team Pov. Unfortunately, some confusion between the distinction between a driving force and a leadership figure plagued Pov then and echoed through Bags' playing days until present day. Pov did not have leadership, rather team behaviour emerged from a number of conflicting internal drives. As a central element behind many of these drives (including many successful initiatives like the throwing of forehands and some less successful ones, like the growing of hair) Bags had a key role in directing the team without ever having any conscious direction of his own behaviour or the behaviour of the team more generally. First appearing in ACT representative teams at nationals in 2001, Bags was frequently included in teams in the hope that investing in young players would improve the player base ACT elite teams drew upon. In 2002 he attended the world club championships in Hawaii in what might turn out to be the stingiest appearance of an Australian player at any international tournament held outside Australia. Highly regarded for his ability to withstand sometimes enormous strain upon his body and digestive system, Bags pioneered the "coffee and doughnuts" approach to the transition from cutting to handling.

Bags and Twats combined in 2006 during the university season to try a new approach to team management in the ACT based on evidence suggestion a strong correlation between the amount of time spent talking during game time and the number of games lost. Unfortunately, Bags tore his ACL before his dream of playing ultimate informed by 19th century German nihilism could be fully realised by the ever suprising "Verfremdung, das Springspiel" at Mixed Nationals in 2007. Bags now directs his will for power into the local ultimate administration, rehabilitative gardening and a column on meditation in a local alternative lifestyle magazine.

Pookie has written a post on this blog if we include that one I wrote while accidentally logged in as her, so she gets a profile too. Pookie arrived in Canberra after growing up in upstate New York. She was quickly recruited into Team Pov after she betrayed her background of social ultimate in the US by throwing a suspiciously decent backhand to the Pov kids at a school function after collecting a stray disc. After a period of overseas travel during the great Pov exodus of 2003 Pookie returned with a renewed enthusiasm for competitive ultimate and worked her way into the ACT women's team Phoenix, which won spirit at world clubs in 2006. Since then, Pookie has continued to play as a cutting utility on a number of local women's teams and has made major contributions to a series of university campaigns. She has also pioneered the breaking of bones playing ultimate, breaking one collarbone twice and a leg. These injuries, combined with several periods of overseas travel, have ensured that Pookie continues to suprise opponents who don't recognise her soon enough to respect her committed cutting and dangerous throwing range. Strong seasons with the Factory Girls in 2007 and 2008 seem to putting an end to this luxury.

Pookie is currently committed to the ANU push to unigames and continues to take a direct, persistant and personal approach to recruitment.

So there you have it! The innermost details of the blog authors revealed! One day I'll learn to post photos and that'll make recognising us a lot easier. Can anyone else feel the rapport?