Keeping Parity Great - High Fives for Everyone!

Submitted by Christopher Keates on Wed, 2017-03-15 12:57

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Everyone has been doing such a great job at parity that I think everyone deserves a high five or fist bump or thumbs up or non-denominational congratulatory gesture of your choice. This week we have a number of things to celebrate! Yet more successful parody and parity, some new Parity app features, some highlights and some lowlights, at least one comically long breakdown of all sense and reason in the 10:00 pm game, some new faces, and the relative success (or failure) of the trade window.
 
App Features: If you haven't been paying attention, the app (https://parity-server.herokuapp.com/) has some new features. Weekly stats now show weekly salary increase, and there's a new leaderboard view that lets you see some top 10 lists.
 
Mortgage Payments: Parity's hottest power couple, Fred Caron and Heather McCabe, had the two highest salaries this week, combining for $345,000! Those two could buy a house* with their parity bucks! Fred dialed back his throwaways and went for 1/6/6/2, and Heather put up a remarkable 4/4/4/1 with zero turnovers for the week.
 
* in a suburb or community far removed from urban centers because of ridiculous housing prices
 
Safety First: Safety is important! I saw Kevin Barford peel off from back-side help on a striking Josee Guibord, which was kind of him. Josee's positioning and angle of attack on the disk meant she couldn't see him, but Kevin could see her and rightly chose not to make a play. Thumbs up.
 
Rob Tyson and KQ did something similar on a double-strike to the end zone off of a Sina huck. But the difference is they are both on the same team and they figured the other player had it. Because they didn't agree who would get the disk, Sina gets a throw away and Rob and KQ get a thumbs up for playing careful ultimate in the write-up that I promise is not at all sarcastic or backhanded.
 
Somewhat related, I played with a reckless disregard for the safety of my ego*, and really should know better considering how safety conscious I am at frisbee. I'm still in recovery! Remember kids, safety first!.
 
* more on this in a bit.
 
LOWLIGHTS:
 
Slapstick: Dan Thomson likes to refer to particularly bad Parity frisbee as "cake of sadness" while he pantomimes eating cake on the sideline and talking about how delicious it is. This is an apt analogy, because Parity often combines bad frisbee (sad!) with sideline mirth (good, or in this case, cake!). It is sometimes said that "schadenfreude ist die beste freude", so sit back and enjoy the retelling of a Benny Hill-esque schadenfreude filled sadness cake* from a man who survived the point to tell about it.
 
It is late in the 10:00 pm game, and the score is close, with Kells up 3. Kells has sufficiently pumped up his team and they are hummin' along like a well tuned bicycle. Rob's team is playing fierce D and being reckless on O, precisely what he drafted for. Momentum has swung in Rob's favour, and a gap that opened up in the middle of the game has slowly closed. Then it happens. The Point.
 
A series of possession plays drives Kells up the field and Christine Beals turns it over. Meagan Doyle picks it up and bends one to the end zone for Sully, but it fades the wrong way and he's unable to toe the line to keep it in bounds. Higgins picks it up and throws to no one in the middle of the field. I pick it up and throw it to no one in the end zone (Sully ran a cut and stopped because Higgins was closing the space, I couldn't see any of this from behind Martin's enormous frame, and floated one to a corner). Kells and Co. work it up the field and Tim Kealey ends the run with a flick break that never broke from its vertical plane, was completely unnecessary, to a covered player, and over a mark. I picked up the disk and tried a break scoober over Martin that failed because he's 17 stories tall. Higgins made a mistake and let Tim Kealey touch the disk again, which he promptly threw away in a similar fashion to his last turnover. Rich Gregory picked up the disk and hit Jonathan Champagne in the middle of the field but Champs is on the other team so that was a bad'un. Finally Kells scored.
 
The number of single-touch possessions in this point: 5. Total turnovers: 8. Total length of point, maybe 120 seconds. It was happening so fast the sideline didn't know what to cheer or jeer, and the stats keepers were furiously pecking away at the touch screen to capture all the glory. Justine Price was on the field for this incredible display and proudly commented "I had nothing to do with this mess!" at the end of the point. Kells' Angels and 99 Problems baked a lovely cake of sadness, and it was delicious for everyone not on the field. 
 
* if you are paying attention, the mixed metaphore/layered joke cake I have just made is 5 layers deep, but if you need an explanation of the jokes and their meanings I'm sure Sully will chime in to explain the quintuple entendre**.
 
** scratch that, just hit layer 6.
 
Zone Defense?!: Amos decided that his team should play a zone in indoor against smart and crafty handlers. It was punished fairly severely, although rumour has it a turn or two was generated. No word yet on if the zone forced the turn or if general parody did that for his team. I reached out to GM Amos for comment on this decision, but I received no response at the time of this publishing.
 
EDIT: Caught in my spam filter, Amos had this to say:

We ran zone D for 6 points. We were down 2-4 by then. Obviously I had sinister intentions by running the zone, I think that's all that needs to be said. The zone was starting to see the benefits I was hoping for but it was costing our team a lot of energy to run it. And I took stock of the team after 6 points in a time out to see how they felt and I don't think anybody was enjoying it. So we went man instead for the rest of the game. Fun strategies are only fun if my team actually enjoys running them. Otherwise it's a dick move to ask my team to keep running it.

But, that's not to say we won't run it again ;)
Mildly Evil Robin Hood: Sully robs from the poor to give back to the poor. He stole (!) a catch from Trevor Stocki, ripping it right out of his hands! He was immediately beset by guilt and threw it directly to Trevor Stocki to make up for it. Those sweet parity dollars were rightly Trevor's, so it's nice that you were kind enough to return them to him (and by some bizarre capitalist alchemy double them), but why not just let the poor guy catch the disk in the first place?
 
Dr. Doping: I think Chris Tran is doping. He's strong. Too strong. He throws I/O flicks approximately 60 yards, despite being only 10 yards from the end-zone line.
 
Is This A Chirp?: Hadrian writes in, "I skied Barford pretty bad, which seemed to get in his head. 'You coming back for the rest of my balls?' he asked the next time we matched up. (I was.)" Uh.... Sometimes Parity gets really, really weird.
 
This Is A Chirp: Amos, statkeeping, rode Klimowicz pretty hard all game. "This is why we traded you!" for every mistake or perceived mistake. Klimowicz made a wonderful bid on a disk and got it full in his grip before the impact with the turf knocked it out of his hand. No reasonable person would say anything other than "That was a sweet play, dude." Good thing Amos isn't reasonable! "This is why we traded you!" At least Nick, 1996 Canadian Juniors Champion, smiled.
 
Just Drop It Already: Kyle Sprysa had a moment where he bobbled the disk for a solid 5 seconds before dropping it. There were a good 13 seperate contacts with the disk before it finally hit the turf. Lucky for him, you can only be credited with a single drop per possession, no matter how many attempts you have to get it right.
 
Might As Well Be A Drop: Two throws in the late game stand out. Tim Kealey attempted a zero-rotation push pass that failed. It didn't fail as spectacularly as Scott Higgins' flick that stuck in his hand, spun around his finger and fell to the ground immediately behind his mark.
 
STATS
 
Goaaaaaaaaal!: The players sticking their arms out and running around like an airplane this week were Jon Rowe and Martin Cloake, each with 7 goals. Megan Robb continued to be a dominant endzone target and put up 5, while Alisha Zhao might still be tired from last week and only (?!) had 4. Taka, Heather, Carrie-Anne also had 4, along with Trevor Ryan who might still be mad at Dr. Tran for the over-throws that kept him from 6. Chow had 5 but we're used to that.
 
I'll note that if you look at the leaderboard, despite missing this week Ashlin is still up by 5 on the rest of the league.
 
Helpers: A lot of usual suspects on this list, but lets look at the people who were up there for the week who usually aren't. Brian Kells had 5 this week, and in the first 4 weeks only had 10. Ryan Mussell dropped 6 for the week, where in his first 4 weeks only had 10. Matthew "Skynes" Schijns had 4, so maybe he's deciding not to be an endzone target anymore? Proulx had 3 in her ongoing re-imagining of herself as a handler. Tyler Mulcock put up 4, which is strange because he's young and tall and fast and should be in the end-zone when he catches the disk but at least he's making the most of his cutting deficiencies.
 
Leaderboard race is tight, with the top 4 all within 3 assists of each other! Sina has an edge at 23 right now, although it should be 24 and he's not at all bitter Rob and KQ! Justine officially has 21 but unofficially has 37 which I think makes her the favorite to with this title.
 
You Shall Not Pass: Jeremy Bryan had 5 D's this week. 5! Nina had 2, and so did Megan Robb and Alisha. Jonathan Champagne put up 2 for a solid performance. League Co-ordinator Kevin Hughes had 2, and so did Seb who people inexplicably throw to.
 
Jeremy's 5 D performance has vaulted him to second on the session at 11, but Seb still (somehow) rules supreme with 12. At least at D, Alessandro Colonnier is the Best Alessandro, as he is tied for 4th. So is Andrea Proulx, bid-machine.
 
Pew Pew Pew!: Me and Sina both had 7 throwaways. I looked off unders, threw dumb hammers, threw dumb scoobers, and was generally bad. Sina's general badness is harder to confirm as I didn't experience it first hand, but I will assume at 7 the throwing it away was bad. Angela Mueller probably tried to throw frisbees around light poles 5 times but couldn't quite complete them this time. Tim Kealey and Seb also had 5, and then a cluster of people being suitably reckless sit with 4 including our lovable Jessie Robinson who was competing with me for the wrong statistics in our game.
 
Despite nearly doubling my first 4 games throwaway total in a single evening, I am not on the leaderboard! Sina still tops it, with Higgins a close second. The chase for mediocrity is heating up!
 
Dropsies: No real standouts this week! A few people had 2, notably the formerly perfect Chris Sullivan. 2 is greater than 0 by a factor of infinity or undefined, I can't quite remember my maths here. Jim Robinson is normally sure handed but also had 2 (also his first on the season).
 
Bisang is back a-top the leaderboard, with 7! I know it's early but, someone please make sure Bisang doesn't win this again.
 
NOTABLES
  • Paula Saliba has joined our ridiculous and motley crew! Hurray! Rookie statline, 2/0/1/1 on a very under-utilized 8 touches.
  • Tom Newman was 3/3/3/0 with 3 throw aways because he has internalized the power of three.
  • Amos was a goal away from a triple double with 2/4/1/3.
  • Rob Tyson had a very solid 3/2/2/2.
  • Jaime Boss put up a 3/1/2/1 evening.
  • Michael O'Hare went for 2/2/5/0, moving the disk very effectively.
  • Jay Thor had zeroes across the board on 6 touches. He didn't score, he didn't turn it over. Proulx just traded Ben Piper (1/2/3/2) for Jay.
  • Matthew "Skynes" Schijns continues to prove Geofford wrong with a 3/4/4/0 evening! Wow!
  • Kindha Gorman looks like she had a quiet night, but with nearly 30 throws and only 2 turnovers to her name plus the scoober clinic she put on, it's a solid night out.
  • Karen Kavanagh was drinking her Dr. Pepper this week, with a solid 0/2/3/0 game with zero turnovers.
  • Ryan Mussell had his best game of the year with a 3/6/3/2 week.
Thanks as always to contributors Amos, Seb, Hadrian, Kindha, Al, Geofford, Carrie-Anne and all you shiny happy parity people.

Sina Dee

Wed, 2017-03-15 13:27

My first throw away was due to the stickiness of Layout gloves.  If you need stickiness on your hands, think Layout gloves.

Amos Lee

Wed, 2017-03-15 13:35

Matthew "Skynes" Schijns continues to prove Geofford wrong with a 3/4/4/0 evening!

This is not why you were traded Matthew. 

Matthew Schijns

Thu, 2017-03-16 06:58

It's okay Amos. 

I understand. 

I am in a better place now.   

Nicholas Aghajanian

Wed, 2017-03-15 14:14

In the third game, Steve Chow had a sweet sweet full extension side layout D to rob Andre of an almost certain point.  The fact that they're teammates is irrelevant...

Chris Sullivan

Wed, 2017-03-15 14:41

It's hard for Trevor and I to sort out our cuts against Soho because so few of their men play defence. We could have stood there and played flutterguts for around 5 minutes before Sina wandered up to mark, but Amos gets mad when we acrue salary. Sadly I gacked up a nice find from Wynne the next time he poached.

Shout out to Scott H.   What do you do when your poach leaves the 6'3' guy wide open in the endzone for a point? Find a teammate and start making elaborate "this is why we were in a paired concept D" hand gestures. Much more subtle than the usual mid air "Switch!" call.

Throw of the night was a sweet forehand bomb to the endzone corner from Christine B.

99 Problems held Alisha to zero scores subbing for Kell's Angels. That is remarkable and also not a coincidence. Rob Ives' gang is again leading the league in points against and point differential. Hmmm???

Paula replaced Aleks on Amoslessly.  Hopefully Amos didn't go home and say, "honey, we won... that's why I traded you."  ha ha ha couch  (come cheer us on Aleks- Amos needs supervision)

Sina Dee

Wed, 2017-03-15 16:04

Truth.  Our defense is lacking.

If you have trouble sticking to your mark, think Layout gloves.  They'll help you stick to anything.

Christopher Keates

Wed, 2017-03-15 16:17

They'll help you stick to anything.

Otherwise you'd stick to your defensive assignment.

Frederic Caron

Wed, 2017-03-15 14:47

You can take some of my stats and give them to him. I didn't really listen when Proulx told me to stop throwing points and when I did throw it to him I immediately went upline and throw long again, sorry Proulx. I've now been threatened with being traded for making to much Parity dollars this week. So Hadrian, if you want to be traded you need to do better it seems.

Jay Thor Turner

Wed, 2017-03-15 19:20

So following one of the tenets of parity (rewarding success, not punishing faillures...<tears>apparently this isn't a tenet of your posts</tears>) we should look at the positives (or potential positives) of me dropping four doughnuts on the stats board:

  • I significantly reduced the risk of incurring Proulx's rage...sort of...since I set the bar so low in the first game with her team and it can only get better from here on;
  • I offset Fantastic Freddy's (or is Freddy Fantastic...maybe ask Heather) salary, worst case if Fred keeps racking up big salary gains I'm confident I can make my weekly delta negative with little to no effort (Worst Al: note the irony between this bullet and the previous, I'm winning at it like I just drank a PowerThirst);
  • Krooked Kells got a hellavu (this is great dip btw) deal on acquiring the Pied Piper; and
  • Only because I heard there were a bunch of nerds trolling these forums, I was able to take some of the excessive hype of Pi-Day by celebrating another important number...zero and zero (note I'm not trying to say that 3/13 is zero-day since that would inspire a who new band of nerds to storm in here).

Heather McCabe

Wed, 2017-03-15 16:19

I enjoyed having Matthew (somehow always completely open - dude, where's your D?) on the swing side of the field (one of my favourite places to throw). 

For the 8:20 game and 9:40 game, there were a lot of "who do we give that stat to" and I clearly heard Geofford (calling the 9:40 game) say "score that as you will". There were many bobbles being D'd to another bobble and other ambiguities all over the place.   

Steve Bisang

Wed, 2017-03-15 22:00

even my opponent (Aggie) vehemently opposes that drop. It was a leap (or what can be called a leap for a hobbit my age) for and end zone pass that was way overthrown and glanced off my finger tips.

I guess I am destined for the crown.

Sebastien Belanger

Thu, 2017-03-16 16:09

For future reference, the stat keepers can be bribed! Just tell us in advance who on your team you would like to assign the drop to :-)

(just kidding... or am I???)

Mehmet Karman

Thu, 2017-03-16 15:08

What's this?  People are playing zone, and it wasn't my idea?  Who is this fellow iconoclast and counterintuitive visionary - Amos?!!!

I'm setting up a diagram exchange program as we speak.