(OT) Star Trek imagery

Slightly o/t but Wheels seems to be taking it in the rear from the salt monster AKA Nancy Crater


while Rog is letting the Gorn know exactly how he feels

Vegas "Vacation"

Usually afer 10 days of vacation you come back relaxed, with your batteries recharged and ready (while perhaps not being happy about it) to go back to work. Assuming you have a job. But that's not how it is after Vegas. The last Friday team match finishing at 3:00am, the next match at 9:00am and an overnight red-eye later the same day after 8 other days of pool can have an effect on the body. Whatever it's size. Or age. But let's start at the beginning....

The Pachebat family began the trip travelling to the airport with Julie to fly to Vegas with Continental from JFK. All seemed to be going smoothly, cab on time, no traffic, etc.. 'til Julie asked why we were at the Continental terminal when we were flying US Air. Good question indeed. Not sure what Pachebat was thinking of. Couldn't find any reason to blame the wife so had to take full responsibility for f'ing up himself. Very embarassing.

Anyway, we got to the lucious Riviera without incident & with luggage, unlike Elise & Sean. Something about missing cues. Dumped our s**t in the room which actually had a fridge and a ledge by the bath tub to put stuff on. These little things are so important. Trundled off to the main room to check out the tournament boards and start to get a feel for the tables and the atmosphere. Some Italian food, sleep and then the next day, battle commenced.

The Scotch doubles starts at 9:00am Friday morning and continues until you are knocked out or reach the final few or murder your partner, which is an automatic disqualification aparently. Death by natural causes can also be an out. Anyway, while supposedly being good preparation for the singles, the doubles can ruin many a good relationship. Happily all NY partners were still together at the end of the day including the Rosenstocks (one of whom was surprised to hear she was married to her partner). And all were dead tired. The only team to stand out were Yedders & K-Pao who were playing for the hot seat in the masters. Food for thought eh, Howie....

Saturday brought singles with limited progress by most of the team. Weasly did the best out of our lot in the open but Slipper had a magnificent masters tourny, coming in 5th. Finally beaten by a strong shooting Spanish dwarf. And he was rewarded with Grand Mastership, in a closed ceremony involving hooded people, incense and a large paddle, rumor has it. The only evidence I can offer to this is that Slipper seemed reluctant to sit down the rest of the week. Skipper decided to hone his stroke by entering the second chance tourny, following Jude's mention of it. Unfortunately Jude (henceforth known as J-Mo, short for Jude-Monster) did not enter this himself, waking up after the field was full. The highlight of that was beating someone called Bustamante who was kind enough to put his cell phone down while he was shooting.

Tues brought the team dinner, as much Yorkshire pudding as one man could eat & there was some steak too, I think. Liz Fordreich was the only non-male there & made it known that she had been blogged with a nickname, "The Green Machine".
Personally I believe that "Green Monster" is equally good but we'll see if it catches on. Anyway, a belly-full of red meat swimming around in some red wine & we were fully prepped for Wednesday morning's campaign.

Oh, did I mention we put Sean Morgan on the team? A Monday phone call from John Leyman suggesting it, together with a brief discussion with each team member, a little paperwork & suddenly we had a new team member.

Weds @9:00am, the team contest began. One NY team operated by Tim Edmonds (or are they an NJ team? I get confused) was a little unprepared for the start & everyone but Tim was violating the dress code. We had one of his guys begging for a pair of jeans that he could borrow then & there. It was hilarious. I think they'd all been drinking for 24 hours anyway.

Wilson Cruz was MIA. Nice one Tim. Fortunately, our finely tuned battleship was experiencing no such difficulties. And the first two teams we played only won 4 racks between them. One of those was when a girl in the first match, shooting much like an APA 4, took it to our Grandmaster. I think he was still recovering from the previous day's ritual. And the less said about it the better. Pretend I didn't mention it.

The third match at 7:30pm was a different matter. We were down 11-12, with Alaska on one table and the Bulldog on the other, in the 25th spot on the sheet. Alaska's rack was long for him, winning it in about 20 mins. This pailed into insignificance in comparison with the Dog's rack. In a prolonged
safety battle where Dog's opponent looked like he'd rather be anywhere else, Jeff found himself hooked with one ball left on the table, just as his opponent had. Dog looked at a jump shot once, twice, set up for it, stopped, thought some more got down for the jump, and stopped again. The rest of the team were dying. Skipper was laying on the floor pounding it. The whole room seemed to be awaiting the decision. And Jeff was looking at it again. Finally, he played the shot but fouled. Fortunately his comatized, shaking opponent hooked himself on the 8, didn't make it & Dog got out. To thunderous applause.

Thurs & we're still on the winners side. You get good match times there. 4:30pm is nice. Our 4th match was a bit easier & we won 13-9. We had the rest of the day off for good behaviour & trotted out Fri @2:30pm. This match went hill-hill again & the Dog played the 25th match again. Winning again. More thunderous applause. The most popular man in the house. Permanently cementing that slot for himself.

And then we ran in to The Corporation. From Texas. We'd met them before, one or two years earlier & they'd knocked us into the losers side. Bastardos. And they'd won the BCA team 9 ball tourny one of the last two years. So they're not bad. And they drilled us again this time, 13-7. What else is there to do in Texas???? "I don't see no horns boy".

Moving to the one-loss side, I reduced the rotation, a decision which I'll be losing sleep over for the forseeable future. There was a delay on the losers side & by the time we got to play they were running about 90 mins behind schedule. This match went 12-12 with Jeffery grinding out the deciding rack to even louder wooping & cheering. I swear blind I saw that bald cranium expanding.

On to the Portuguese. The best the country could offer? It must be around 1:00am now & we arrive at the table & there's nowhere to sit. All available seats were occupied by their team and their friends. I suggested moving to another table, with vastly more space & perhaps playing on 3 tables, seeing as the winner of this match had to re-appear at 9:00am. They weren't impressed & wanted to stay there. In my most controlled diplomacy of the week I said something like "if we're staying here then that lot are moving because we want to sit somewhere". There may have been an f word in there but I don't think so. They thought about it & obviously fearing my menacing presence, moved to another set of tables. Only 2 though. Anyway, around 2:30 am it's 9-12 them. Then Jude wins. And Sean wins. And Rog & Jeff are playing the last two racks & in an amazing change of fortune, Dog doesn't spend 40 mins grinding and wins quickly, leaving Rog the chance for someone not called Jeff to win the deciding rack. Which is what happened. So we win 13-12. Again. It's nearly 3:00am now and we're f'd but happy.

8:30am Sat. Early morning coffee at Kristoffers. Everyone is shagged. We discover that if we win the next match, we'll be playing in the team masters next year. Great. That's motivation. The team'll probably have to split up. Fabulous. Anyway we're playing a team from Ohio & guess what? It's 12-12 & the Dog is playing. Suddenly he's got a 5 ball out but he rolls too far to take the ball back in the side & has to play a safe. Which didn't work & the opponent got out. And honestly, I wasn't in the least bit unhappy. If we had won, I would've been fine too. Karma. Next year in the open. Super. What a tournament. 17th place out of 650+ teams from around the world.

After all that pool, the only shots that stuck out in my mind were:

Mike - 8 ball kick, frozen to a ball
Dog - the 8 minute jump shot that failed
Lap - a back cut bank after having sat out for what seemed ages
Rog - one ball Portuguese slice

Steve, Sean & Jude, you guys played so well that you didn't seem to find yourself in the crap situations that the above 4 shots resulted from.