Ahhh… the fine art of cutting.

Simply put, you want to get to a place where you are open to receive a disc from the handler. If your opponent is marking you aggressively, this can be hard.

There are a number of things you can do to increase the effectiveness of your cuts:

• Don’t fake too much: too much time spent faking leads to stall counts wasted and time spent clogging up the cutting lane.
• Boulder cuts are your friend. Don’t take one or two steps in a direction as a fake — take 4 or 5 or 6. Really commit. Then, if your mark is right on you, a 180 degree turn in the other direction and your defender is usually in the dust. (And if they haven’t bit on your 4 to 6 step fake, don’t make it a fake. Just keep on going. Even easier.)
• One the other side of things from the boulder cut, if you want to run straight in towards the handler and your defender is between you and the disc, run right at them and past their shoulder. In the time it takes for them to turn around, you have a couple of extra steps towards that reception. (A quick head fake to the opposite shoulder often gives you an extra moment here as well.)
• Finish your cut: many players, most notably newer players, don’t continue their cuts far enough. For example, they cut from a point on the break-side of the field and get to just in-line with the handler and give up the cut, before they ever actually crossed into the force-side of the field. Cut all the way to where the cut will be most successful.
• Your mark is always coming up behind you, so don’t stop running. I know you think they’re not. They are. They are always coming. So don’t stop running at that disc until it is in your solid two-handed catch. (I know, I know, you’re certain you lost them on the other side of the field. Just… don’t stop.)
• Watch your defenders eyes: It’s true — the best cut is when your mark is not looking at you. You don’t need to do anything at this point other than make your cut. Easy. Except… you have got to be aware of these moments when they come and at the very moment they happen. You need to be watching your player very carefully and yet still still have a solid picture of what is happening on the field. (It doesn’t help to be able to escape your mark only to run right into traffic.) When you get the field sense to use this, it will be your best friend. (It’s the secret of lazy wily vets everywhere.)
• Most importantly for all types of cuts… commit, commit, commit. Jogging is never the right choice on a cut. When you jog, your defender knows where you are and has no trouble positioning themselves in order to minimise your effectiveness. And if you are jogging, your weak cut is taking up even more time in the cutting lane that could be used for a cut from a teammate. On the other hand, a solid hard cut will either get you in the open or, at the very least, force your defender to take you seriously — hard cuts will keep your defender from poaching because they will have to judge you as a threat. (And if they don’t stop poaching, it’s your god-given right to make them pay for it.)

(P.S. These tips are courtesy of all those players those who have been kind enough to mentor me over the years. Special thanks go out right now to William, whose Ulty articles inspired me to throw up some of my own tips.)

(P.P.S. All of these tips go double for me.)

• Real Simple: Surprising Expiration Dates (via Lifehacker)

Most perplexing expiration factoid: “Pickles — Opened: No conclusive data….”

They are able to get very specific and long-term dates on a lot of other food (e.g. steak sauce: 33 months; vinegar: 42 months), but not pickles.

Thus, there can only be three possible reasons for pickles’ indeterminate results:

1. The interior of a pickle jar acts as a naturally-forming Schrodinger’s box, whereby the pickles are neither edible nor expired, but exist on a quantum wavefront of possibilities.
2. Seventeen years into their research trial, the researchers cut loose and enjoyed an evening of Reuben sandwiches, Texas-Hold ‘Em, and far too much tequila. In the morning, all ninety-three pickle specimens were unexplicably missing. In an effort to hide this fact, upon which rode the academic careers of three tenured professors and four postdoctoral fellows, the researchers swore a blood oath to never reveal the true circumstances of this fateful night.
3. They last for-freaking-ever.

Got back from UFO last night. Had a fun tourney with the Bunnies — it was basically a pick-up team, with some Bunnies, some Squids, some experienced vets, some newbies, all jumbled together, so we weren’t used to playing together. So the fact that we won the games we did and were close in some of the others was a good thing.

Day One: Cloudy with wet fields, but NO RAIN (the UFO curse is over, at least for this year!).

First game was against SCUM from St. John NB. This game was the real heartbreaker of the weekend. We were up the entire game until they tied it up at the horn. So we go into the tie-breaker point and we played panicky and they played hard. End result: 10-9 SCUM.

Next game was against SMUTT, the second Moncton team. They were a very new team with a lot of new players. We took the game something like 13-4-ish, but it was fun because they were so eager. I love that new Ultimate player smell.

Next we played Black Fly from Maine, who have been one of the top three teams at UFO in the past chunk of years. So, a hard game for our team, but one that taught us a lesson: Simple is good, simple is good, simple is good. Especially when you are playing with a group that hasn’t had weeks and months of time to practice team plays and strategies, simple is good. We tried a 3-3-1 zone, we tried a 1-3-3 zone, we tried our horizontal O, we tried our superstar O. The number of those that worked: zero. However, straight up vertical O and man-on-man D with a flick force? Pure gold. More proof that the simple stuff often works because it is simple — everyone knows it, understands it, can run it without thinking. They won the game 13-4-ish.

Our last game on Saturday was our crossover vs. Spawn from Freddie, the tourney hosts. They had just played Dal and lost in a one-point squeaker, so I thought they might be a little grumpy, but as it was the last game of the day I really emphasised that we should keep the energy in the game positive, and it worked. They were happy and we were happy. We still played hard and they beat us, but we scored a solid 5 points on them, most in the second half when we started to get fired up. It was a good game for a lot of the people on the team that are still quite new to touring — it takes playing against a highly competitive team to show newer players that higher level that they have to bring themsleves to, a level that they aren’t used to playing at, let alone starting the game at. Good experience.

Day Two: Not only no rain, but honest-to-goodness SUNSHINE!

Heartbreak number two, losing to MUTT (formerly known as Mudslides). Why didn’t we win this game? Because we started the game so very slow and let the first five points be our warm-up. Not a good strategy. They went into the game fired up while we were sluggish and clumsy. We did warm-up and begin a comeback, but it was just a little too late. Final score: 10-9 MUTT.

Last game was then against SMUTT again. We won something like 15-4. Another really positive spiritied game. I did get very grumpy in my last point out there… but, I ask you, how many times can the force get changed, broken, or just plain not set up in a freaking row before going crazy is the only option left? Really, I ask you. (I’m over it though.)

Random thoughts/observations/props from the weekend:

• Props to Brad for composing some truly nasty slag cheers, a rarity in the Maritimes. When half of our team almost balked at even saying the words he had written, I knew he had written something special.
• The huck is not my only throw. It is not even my best throw. It is a good choice on a few occasions, not many occasions…
• I’m getting much better at keeping myself running. I am faster than I think I am. It’s not always fast enough, but it’s fast enough more often I think.
• Why does it take me, a resident of a different province, to find an open liquor store in Fredericton at 10:30 at night on a Saturday? Amateurs.
• Props to Dave for almost dislocating his shoulder on Day One and coming back on Day Two to catch and layout like Day One never happened.
• Bad idea: wet cleats + enclosed car. Oh-so-very bad.
• When will I ever win at Cups? Answer me that.
• I have no pictures of Ed Fong dressed as a little cowgirl, so you must simply imagine.
• And I would like to apologise to the residents of Blair’s apartment building who were woken up to the sounds of discs on pavement at 8:00 in the morning on Sunday… we’re sorry we couldn’t catch better, but we were still hungover. Deal with it.

UPDATED: Photos from UFO

Ok Internet — I’m heading out to a tournament in Fredericton this weekend and I’m trusting you to be behave while I’m gone.

Now Internet… you be good now, you hear? No wild parties while I’m gone or there’s gonna be heck to pay… Don’t you worry about how I’ll know. You just worry about yourself.

You can have plenty of fun without having crazy party. You can have a couple friends over — a couple, I said — watch some movies, play some board games. Good clean fun. I’ve left you some sandwiches in the fridge… yes, they’re tuna… and there’s chips and Sunny-D for you and your friends.

I’ll have Mrs. Vanelli from down the street come and check in on you tomorrow, so you be nice to her. No sass.

Now give me a kiss and say goodbye to your Jason.

Yes… I love you too, Internet.

Now git.

• NY Times: “Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out” (via boingboing.net)

Likewise, many have been underwhelmed by the performance of Hayden Christensen, who plays Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. Only if you’ve seen the “Clone Wars” cartoons will you understand that Anakin is a seriously damaged veteran, a poster child for post-traumatic stress disorder. But since none of that background is actually supplied by the Episode III script, Mr. Christensen has been given an impossible acting task. He’s trying to swim in air.

You know, I agree with what he has to say. But that’s the thing — my problem with the new Star Wars films is not the story. The story is great.

It’s with how that story is told.