Monday, June 16, 2008

A hat tourney win

I was a captain yesterday at a four-team Beijing hat tournament, won by... my team.

Congratulations to...
  • Lin
  • Wang Mianfei
  • Steven
  • Gabe W
  • Roger
  • D.O.C.
  • Aaron
  • Aaron Rosa
...for being drawn out of a hat by my hand.

The game scores were 9-5 (vs. Boehner's team), 4-5 (vs. Reid's team, which had lost its first game 5-3) and 6-5 (vs. Ken's team). Incredibly, Boehner's team won its second game 8-4, then beat Reid's team 7-5 to finish with a better point differential. By dint of our head-to-head result, however, we were deemed champs.

For the record, the two teams that finished 2-1 had point diffs of +2 and +1. That's parity for you.

Well done, Jeff.

Pictures follow.

It wouldn't be a hat tourney without hats, and it wouldn't be much of a hat if it isn't of the best team in the world, the Kansas City Royals.



Aaron, Lincoln and Reid

Everyone gathered around as the captains announced the teams...


Our cheer before Game No. 3 was in honor of the girl dressed in orange: Char-bee.

If you're Chinese and slightly inclined towards the vulgar, you would get it.


Doc and Julia, the married couple*, hand-in-hand. (We were called Team Married, after Team Tao and Team Doc both got vetoed.)

Our first pregame cheer was done in Chinese and meant something to the effect of, "Prosperity in bed" (literally: wish you quickly have children). Our second -- introduced to gasps from a few of our Chinese players -- was, "Zaoru dongfang" (早入洞房), which means something to the effect of, "Hurry up and consummate" (literally: "Hurry to enter mountain hole").

*Not actually married. Reid, Julia's boyfriend, was close by for our second cheer, which was prefaced by my shout, "Doc and Julia." The team then replied with the consummation part.



The two women and children in the picture to the right might have waited all afternoon for us to be done with our waters. We deposited the plastic bottles at that corner and watched as they encircled it like vultures and started stomping the bottles flat. Let it be noted that nothing gets wasted in China.


Is that a shocker over Sandy's head?

At the restaurant near Dongzhimen:



Ganbei!

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