Open Loop 4

2012-10-12: Dallas!

Notes & Links:

Transcript

Here is an AI generated transcript of this episode. This has not been edited or checked for accuracy, yet.

I’m recording AIFS 16-bit 48 kilohertz.

Very good.

And doing a mountain lion.

Huh.

So, you know, it still works.

What do you know?

Yeah.

But you did have some technical difficulties getting here.

I just want to be clear about that.

I love it.

Chords and such.

A poorly timed shutdown.

Yeah.

Hey, check this out.

Hey.

There you go.

That sounds like a podcast.

Now we’re podcasting.

What do you have?

Are you drinking a beer?

I am drinking a beer.

Oh, that’s the whole reason I was taking a look at that recipe.

Yeah, yeah.

I was going to put the…

I thought you were going to say that’s the whole reason we’re doing a podcast tonight.

Damn straight.

So you can have a beer.

Yes.

I don’t have enough reasons to have beer.

So I need to make a podcasting.

Yeah, yeah.

So I’m having my Rogan bread.

This is my 60% rye beer with only on bread of Mice’s yeast.

It’s…

A what?

A what?

A what?

A what yeast?

Bread of Mice’s.

What is that?

So bread of Mice’s is the yeast in sour beers.

It’s got some interesting characteristics that I have decided…

I declared after I opened this bottle that blew up all over my sink.

I will conquer this yeast.

Yeah.

Yes.

I am tired of it being delicious and yummy and perfect.

The, you know, two weeks after I bottle it and then two months after I bottled it making a mess all over the kitchen.

That’s…

I don’t like that.

Especially because that means delicious beers all over the kitchen.

Being wasted.

Exactly.

Is there any rye in it?

60%.

All right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It’s…

Aside from the mess, it’s one of my most delicious that I made yet.

Really?

I haven’t had this, right?

You haven’t had this.

No, no.

It’s…

But you’ve had sours before.

Yeah.

Yeah, like really good ones.

Yeah.

You know, they sort of have this like a sour cherry thing going on in them.

Yeah, they’re delicious.

Yeah.

Yeah, just like that.

I am having a Sweet Child of Vine.

Oh, yum.

Yeah, I picked up a…

I thought that was really nice of you to give Dobby a sixer of that.

You know, and I was happy because he hadn’t had it.

And I had emailed him to ask him if he was into hoppy beers.

And he said he was.

And so I went, yeah, I figured, well, then you got to get a Sweet Child of Vine.

Yes.

And I got to say that I continue to be super happy with what Fulton’s doing.

Everything that Fulton’s doing.

They please me.

Good.

Good, good, good.

I’m happy to hear that.

And…

And if you like hoppy beers, this is a great beer.

It’s a great beer.

And it’s not stupid hoppy.

It’s not like crazy.

It’s not like a hopsicle or triple hopsicle or quadruple hopsicle.

What I always liked about that is it’s…

Man, what a horrible website they have.

Good golly.

The Fulton Sweet Child of Vine is…

There, that’s a reasonable URL for this beer.

It’s got a really nice…

That’s a reasonable URL.

It’s got a really nice hop aroma.

A really nice hop aroma.

Unlike the ones that are just bitter to be bitter.

This one says, “No, no.

Hops can be fun.”

Yeah.

And it’s not, you know…

Have we talked about Lonely Blonde on here?

We haven’t.

But I always like to say that we know why she’s lonely.

It’s no good.

But I talk to people and I mention Fulton and they say that they just love Lonely Blonde.

And I don’t get it.

I’ve tried it.

You’ve tried it.

I think it tastes like dirty socks.

So, I don’t know if there’s…

I guess it’s probably a good thing that they make two beers and I like one and the other one.

You know, they’re hitting a market then, right?

They make four beers.

All the time?

Yeah.

What are the other two?

The Libertine is an Imperial Red Rye Ale.

So, I think it’s delicious.

Of course.

Of course.

It’s got rye in it.

Check.

It’s gonna be delicious.

The other one is the Worthy Adversary.

And if you haven’t, I highly recommend it.

It’s a Russian Imperial stout that’s…

They serve it in the small glasses because it’s very dangerous.

Oh, I think I have had that.

Yeah.

9.2.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, I think beers can have too much alcohol.

Sure.

I’m gonna go on record as saying that.

Sure.

The news, that Surly 6, too much alcohol.

There are a lot of complaints.

I haven’t had it, but I heard a lot of complaints about that beer.

I had it.

I had a friend over.

We’re cooking.

Nice, congenial evening.

We had some wine.

We had some beer.

Then we open up the Surly 6.

And the next thing you know, we are drunk.

Like, we went right from, hey, nice barbecue in the backyard, and hanging out and having fun, to like drunk.

Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I blame the 6.

I don’t even know how you can do an Umalt Y, in all honesty.

You just press Y and hold down.

ABV 15?

Dang.

Yeah, no, it’s ridiculous.

Wow.

Wow.

That’s dangerous.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Wow.

So do you brew more, do you do more homebrewing in the winter or summer?

I like to do it in the spring and the fall.

Perfect.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Winter is hard because historically, I’ve only done small bat– I mean, historically, I’ve done it on the stovetop.

And so that just makes a big old mess in the kitchen.

It’s all the steam and everything in the winter.

This year, I might try brewing outside.

If it’s mild like last year, I will totally brew all winter.

Well, you’ve got the turkey thing, right?

Exactly, yeah.

Yeah.

You could do that in the winter, couldn’t you?

Uh-huh.

You know, it doesn’t work, though, which is probably not surprising to anyone who took at least a freshman course in thermodynamics.

Snow does not cool.

Cool what?

Cool boiling pots of liquid.

No.

[LAUGHS] No.

No.

Which is fine.

Not unless you put shovelfuls of it in there.

Yeah.

[LAUGHS] Something I could put the snow in, which I didn’t want to do.

You know that they have snow melters?

You know that?

Hm?

That’s what they have at the airport.

That’s how they clear the snow at the airport.

Oh.

And I’ve been thinking about putting one in in my driveway.

Hm.

Because I got no place to put the snow.

Right.

Right, right, right, right.

So I figure a metal trash can, a turkey propane thing, and a hose, and I’m good to go.

Or just a flamethrower.

And I’ll just flamethrow the thing instead of the shoveling.

Your driveway is small enough.

I would think just a flamethrower.

Yeah, it would work.

Oh.

[LAUGHS] Well, I’m enjoying this beer.

I’m going to have two for sure.

Is it still brewed in– You know, it is still brewed in Wisconsin.

It’s a point.

Yeah, Stevens Point, Wisconsin.

I would think you’d be kind of proud of that.

[SIGHS] I would be super excited for that if it weren’t for a couple of things.

One of which is that Fulton has a brewery just miles from here.

And the second of which is everything is different in Point.

Everything.

Water is different.

Are they going to ship over a gazillion gallons of Minnesota water over to Stevens Point?

No, that’s ridiculous.

And so that’s my complaint is that it’s a different beer.

Have we talked about this?

How many times I get asked about this?

Yeah.

You want to talk about some Koob?

Oh, yes.

I am over– I just added the link on the show notes for the Dallas Oktoberfest tournament.

That was awesome.

That was way more fun than I anticipated it being.

You expected that it would be almost negative fun.

Yeah.

Yeah, I did.

Almost expected it to be– You thought, I’m going to stand here holding one baton, wait, I don’t know, several minutes, throw, wait several more minutes.

You know what I think it is?

I gave myself a job.

What?

Team captain?

So then you were occupied?

I was occupied, and I was thinking, and I was trying to at least keep the roster moving.

I remember I played a couple games.

In terms of overall job performance as team captain?

Towards the end.

Towards the end, I don’t know.

Towards the end, I think the majority of my team captain-ness was saying, Jake.

Jake, throw.

It’s your turn.

So the Kubbchuks, we played under the Kubbchuks banner.

You and I were the only official Kubbchuks.

Cooper, I think, is an inherited Kubbchuk, and Jake is an adopted Kubbchuk.

So Dallas was the very first Kubb tournament in the United States that required six players, which is why you were a little concerned about it.

Because you’re– People.

And I don’t know if there was a team that didn’t struggle.

I think every team struggled.

I mean, interestingly enough, when you look at the stats, nobody– there was a five-round round robin.

Wow.

Nobody left the round robin 5 and 0.

Nope.

Not a single team.

There were five teams that left the round robin 4 and 1, Kubbchuks being one of them.

Nobody 5 and 0.

Like nationals, we– Played a long time.

Played a long time.

And I want to say that our games are a war of attrition.

Yeah.

Which I think means– We don’t want to lose the game, so we just keep playing.

We just claw into the dirt.

[LAUGHTER] With our big front teeth.

[LAUGHTER] Let’s go through the rounds.

So– Walking into this, or imagining this, I just imagined it to be tedious and annoying and just a lot of people.

Yeah.

Like a day at work.

[LAUGHTER] Yes.

We need a meeting.

What it quickly evolved into towards the end– what I saw it quickly evolve into was the chance for some of the most elite play in the Midwest.

I don’t know– this wasn’t like the Loppet, where you’re just trying to figure it out, or even nationals.

If you’re going to go to Dallas in 30 degree weather to play Kubb outside all day, you’re going to– Well, and there was one local team, the hometown Kubbrs.

And they were– it was their first tournament.

They’d never played in a tournament.

But everybody else were all people that we’ve seen at other tournaments.

They were all– some of them, I would say, almost super teams, comprised of the best of the best.

I mean, the team that won it, right, six pack, those guys are heavy hitters.

Everybody in that team was a heavy hitter.

Sweden’s amateur ringers, I mean, there’s no novices in that group.

Fox Valley Kubb with the big red machine, I mean, there’s some serious horsepower there.

So yeah, it was not– there was nobody– there’s no easy prey, right?

I mean, it wasn’t like the Round Robin.

You didn’t have just lots and lots of teams that had never played in tournaments, or just kind of were goofing around in the backyard.

Everybody knew what they were doing and was ready to go.

But still– when the schedule came out and it said that we were going to play Steve Feathers in the first game, in the Round Robin, right away, I thought, OK.

Yeah.

We’re going to start serious.

And– And then we didn’t.

Instead, we started with big red machine.

Yeah.

[LAUGHTER] We’re going to start serious.

I mean– Yeah.

Yeah.

But I do want to say that what I thought was interesting is that it was great at Kubb, but it was also fun.

Everybody was really lighthearted.

Actually, less testy than at Nationals, right?

I mean, at Nationals, I think there were some teams that were pretty testy.

None of that.

And I think in part because everybody that was playing was– I mean, most of the people that were playing had played in tournaments and kind of knew how to flow, and we were kind of veterans of it.

But you kind of– it wasn’t a need to get all kind of up in anybody’s face or kind of pound your chest or anything like that.

It’s tough to get all feisty when there’s Lefse just a couple steps away.

Really good Lefse, too.

That’s the other thing great about that tournament, right?

That it goes with their Oktoberfest.

So you’ve got great beer.

You’ve got Lefse being made right there.

You’ve got Brats.

I mean, those Brats, dude.

Amazing.

The best Brats I’ve had in as long as I can remember.

And they were so delicious.

And water ball.

I mean– Yeah.

So during lunch, we walk over to get our Brats, and there’s the fire truck with two fire hoses coming out, one on either side of about a 50-foot kind of– I don’t know what you’d call– lane.

And then they’ve got a ball in the middle, and they’ve got fire hoses.

And they’re spraying the ball with fire hoses, trying to get it through the other side.

That’s what water ball is.

Awesome.

It was awesome.

And there were spectators for water ball.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I think there were as many spectators for water ball as there were for the KOOB tournament.

But I mean, water ball, I got to say, probably a little bit more exciting than the KOOB tournament.

Absolutely.

I mean, next time we play KOOB, I’m bringing a fire hose.

I bet I can knock some KOOBs down with a fire hose.

That’s right.

So yeah, so we played Big Red Machine in the first round.

That round did not last long.

Nope.

It never does with the Chads or Fox Valley KOOB.

No, even if they only throw one baton each.

You know what part of it is?

Like, I totally– that’s the first time we played those guys since when we played them at the Loppet last year.

And I was a little intimidated.

I was.

Yeah.

When they– they both– I mean, they both got those beards.

Yes, yes.

I mean, you know.

And they all have the red.

I mean, it’s just that red.

[LAUGHTER] It’s kind of like that Minor Threat song.

I’m seeing red.

[LAUGHTER] So good.

That game lasted– Yeah, but it was– –what, 20 minutes?

As painful as that was to lose right off the bat, I didn’t care.

I was a blast by then.

It was fine.

Yeah, it was fine.

It was actually– it was tons of fun to play, though.

And– but we did lose that one.

That was our one loss.

And we lost at, what, 0-2, right?

I mean, we didn’t win a match.

And it didn’t take all the time.

So we had a little bit of a break.

And then round two, we went into– who did we go into round two?

I just wrote this up.

Wasn’t the hometown Coobers.

And it wasn’t– was it Steve?

Was it Des Moines?

Round two, we went to– no.

Cynthia Plaster and Cassaray.

Was it?

Yes, the fellow Minnesota team.

Oh, that’s right.

That’s right.

Very well-dressed.

Very well-dressed team.

Well-dressed team.

They– and they struggled.

I think they were– I think they had some people throw– on some cold streaks.

Yeah, and they put us on the ropes.

I don’t remember how that one ended.

Was it– did that go three matches?

I want to say it did.

Yeah.

I want to say it did.

I want to say that was the first time that after the second game where it was split, where Cooper says, why do I have to play them again?

Yes.

Yes, it was.

Yes.

Yeah, so talk about Cooper.

He was playing with us.

He was playing with us.

He was doing pretty well, pretty well at the beginning.

I think towards the end, he was annoyed with his team captain.

But that’s fine.

That’s fine.

Boy, it wasn’t everybody.

He got some shots when nobody else got shots.

He got some doubles when nobody else got anything.

And that’s– He had fun.

That was nice.

Did he have fun?

It was nice to have a teammate on the team that would get the shots when nobody else would.

He had fun?

He had fun.

What did he say the next day?

Took him a half a day to get over it and then say– admit that he had fun, yeah.

[LAUGHTER] How old is he?

He’ll be seven next month.

That’s impressive.

Yeah, he held up pretty well.

He held up pretty well.

He did have a meltdown right when we got home.

But he held up pretty well all day.

So– Yeah. –nice.

So we played Cynthia Plaster and Kester A.

And we won that one.

I felt like that one, we were good.

We had good rounds.

We had good batons.

And we played on a good pitch.

I liked that pitch– Yes. –all the way at the end.

And then, actually, we played– We played most everything over there. –every other game on that pitch, didn’t we?

Only round one we played on a different pitch.

And then we played the hometown Coobers, which was the local Dallas team.

They were awesome.

They were?

They actually– it looked like they were having a ton of fun.

Yes.

And I talked to their captain a little bit before the game.

And he was a super nice guy.

And he was like, hey, this is our first tournament.

And if we do anything wrong, let us know, et cetera.

So of course, I had to get in their head a little bit.

Just enough.

Yeah.

That’s just a little line violation there.

You got to– [LAUGHTER] And we won that.

They came– did they beat us?

They did.

They beat us as well.

They beat us in a round.

They beat us in one game.

Because I remember that they took us down.

And at that point, we had given them their only win.

I don’t know if they had additional wins throughout the day.

No, we did.

But their first win was against us.

Yeah.

We did give them their only win.

Wow.

So I mean, just because we’re nice guys.

I mean, there’s a lot of love.

A lot of love here.

Right.

There’s enough win for everyone.

So then we had the break for lunch.

And then we came back and played Steve Feathers and the Shufflers, which was awesome.

Because I hadn’t played Steve Feathers before.

And I love Steve.

He’s awesome.

He’s got those overalls with the extra pockets.

And the shuffling thing was hilarious.

Just a great guy.

That was a long, hard slog.

Well, and that was the one that nobody won.

That was the one that we didn’t even finish a single game.

0-0.

Called after an hour and 15 minutes.

Yeah, right.

We just played one game for an hour.

We didn’t even play one.

I mean, we didn’t finish it.

We only got one game, 0-0.

And we won because we had two baselines to their one.

That was it.

I am always, since nationals, any game, I am always counting base goops.

Yeah.

Well, you got to– yeah.

But that was– I think that really says just how good the players that came to this tournament are.

Yeah.

Right?

You play for an hour, and it’s still a tie.

There are only a handful of sports where soccer maybe, hockey maybe, where that happens on a regular basis.

So then after that, and I think that was their only technical loss, Steve Feathers.

And then, yeah, because they beat Big Red Machine, and they also beat the other team.

Anyways, then we played Team Kaboom.

Yes, also fun.

Couple of kids on their team.

Great in-casters.

Talk about those kids.

Oh my– wow.

Yes.

Their driller is, what, eight?

I mean, this guy’s– Yeah, eight or nine, yeah.

He was throwing groups that were crazy.

I mean, spot on.

And they were a little kid.

What was he, like four?

I mean, he looked really little.

The kid that was assisting in-caster, eh?

Yeah.

He was four, I’m guessing.

Going on 30.

I mean, the kid, he stood there.

He didn’t even bounce around like kids do.

I mean, he was just totally hands in his pocket, watching.

Yep.

All right.

Good.

I’m guessing that’s what these kids do.

Play cube all day.

Yep.

They live on Championship Hill.

You got to, then.

Two houses down from Eric Anderson.

I was glad that we played Team Kaboom, though.

Because you know what?

I had kind of, in my head, I was like, OK, Team Kaboom.

I was kind of worried about them.

Really worried about them.

And I mean, not to say that there’s not reason to be worried when they’re good cube players.

But I was kind of like, oh, no, we’re walking into the meat grinder here.

This is just going to like sauce in half.

But we totally held our own.

Yeah.

But that game got called as well, remember?

That’s right.

It was– Was 1-1.

Well, we won 1, and then it got called on time?

No, it was 1-1.

And then the final one got called on time.

It got called on time, if I remember right, we were behind on the baseline.

Then we moved ahead on the baseline, and then it got called on time.

You know, nothing more inspires me to hit a couple of baselines than Eric Anderson saying, I have five minutes.

Standing there, looking at you, arms crossed.

Damn straight, I’ll hit this baseline.

No smile, just like– No.

Just like, you guys are taking too long.

I’m annoyed.

[LAUGHTER] Getting your game called.

But that’s something I think we got to work on that.

That’s part of, I think, what the Kupchaks– we got to work on closing our matches.

Yeah.

That was what we came out of– didn’t we come out of the Lop It?

We came out of some tournament with that exact same thing, like, we got to close this.

No, that was Nationals.

That was Nationals.

We just got– Lop It, we closed.

It just feels so long ago.

Yeah, that was– yeah.

And then we go into– so then I got to talk about it.

So we come out of that.

We go over– Eric is figuring out the– Hold up, hold up.

What?

We have not, I think, sufficiently exclaimed how enjoyable our DMK interlopers were.

Oh, yes.

They were really cool.

They were really cool and super fun.

And they were, I think, a perfect compliment and a perfect rounding out of our team for this tournament.

It was Heather, Mike, and– who was the other dude?

Jeremy.

I love Jeremy.

Yeah.

I wanted Jeremy to just be like– he was a great trash talker.

But– Mike was a trash talker.

Oh, was that?

OK.

The guy who started drinking as soon as the– that was Mike.

He started drinking as soon as the tournament opened.

He had his flask of whiskey.

It was awesome.

Yeah.

They were super fun.

And it was– I think it was great to have a cadre of competent players that mostly wanted to play, but knew that they didn’t want to play all the time.

Yeah, it worked out perfect.

Yeah.

So then after the five-round round robin, we come out 4-1.

Blew my mind.

At that point, I was in seventh heaven.

That’s more than I was expecting.

Well, then we go over, and Eric is calculating things.

And he had Steve Feathers and the Shufflers as the one seed out of our group.

And then we come over 4-1.

They’re 4-1.

But we beat Steve Feathers and the Shufflers.

Yeah.

So we go one seed.

I tweet it right around, like, we got one seed.

Super stoked.

And then we realized it was one of these weird triangle things.

We were 4-1.

Steve Feathers and Shufflers were 4-1.

And– You know, I had to put this into terms that a six-year-old could understand.

I told him it was just like cars.

And who else?

Oh, Big Red Machine was 4-1.

Yep.

So this is where the fact that we didn’t close games down killed us.

Yes.

Because we beat Steve Feathers.

Steve Feathers beat Big Red Machine.

And Big Red Machine beat us.

So it was a three-way triangle.

And at that point, it’s a complete even-Stevens tie.

So then you count up the number of individual games won.

We had only won five because our games went too long.

Steve Feathers and the Shufflers won seven.

Big Red Machine won nine.

So Big Red Machine takes first seed.

Steve Feathers second.

And Kupchaks comes in a distant third in games one.

Yes.

So then we go in to the quarterfinals and play six-pack.

And we got smoked.

Killed.

Which is fine.

Yeah.

I did what I needed to do.

Chris Hodges, that guy can play some cool.

Seriously.

I don’t know.

Where is he in the ladder in Des Moines?

Because I’m thinking– I don’t know.

He’s not one.

I don’t think he is.

I think Dobby’s number one.

And Grant’s number two.

That just shocks me.

Because Hodges is good.

Really good.

And they had a Minnesota guy, too, because they had one of the guys from– they had– what’s his name?

It wasn’t a John Cooper Mellencamp guy.

It was one of the– why am I forgetting it?

Totally forgetting it.

I don’t recognize– It was a Rosemont guy.

Anyway.

Yeah.

Anyway, we deserve to– by that point, I think we were just done.

Yeah.

Well, and we lost.

We did.

So we were done.

We decided to not score the matches and instead head home and see our families.

And Jake Freeberg played with us, which was awesome.

So much fun to play with Jake.

Loved having Jake on the team, even though he throws that weird way.

I like him because he throws that weird way.

I think it’s a good– I think we– keeps us all just a little bit more humble.

Yeah.

Throw in the weird way?

Yeah, because I’m sure he looks at us and says, why are they throwing that weird way?

Exactly.

Hey, I’m going to get my beer.

Yeah.

Be right back.

I’m back.

Nice.

So we’re definitely going back to Dallas next year.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

And I hope it’s not– 30 degrees, snowing, and windy.

Because that’s a fantastic Oktoberfest.

And I felt bad for all the vendors.

And I just know that if it was just a little bit better weather, that place would have been hopping.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

I think next year I want to bring the family.

And– Want to stop by and talk to the Amish guys and maybe buy some honey from them.

Two bottles, because we forgot to this year.

Or we ran out of time.

And they were packing up before we were– feel so bad for the horses.

So on the way back– so we’re driving back, right?

I sure wish that more Coob teams had websites.

And then I say, you know, I think Planet Coob should make it so that more teams can have websites.

You should be able to host a team website on Planet Coob.

You should be able to do that.

It should be a one-click.

You should just be able to do that.

And that was just such a good idea that it had to happen.

And now it’s happening.

I love how in an hour and some change drive, we completely re-architected– theoretically re-architected Planet Coob.

Yeah.

[LAUGHTER] So this is really exciting.

And we haven’t announced this yet on Planet Coob.

But it will be announced in the next couple of days.

And I’ve given kind of an early peek to a few people over email.

But Planet Coob, we’ve redone Planet Coob a little bit.

So now when you go to Planet Coob, you’re not immediately just thrown into the river of news that we pull and post.

That’s still available.

It’s on world.planetcoob.com.

Planet Coob now does show that.

But it also highlights the recent stuff from Ask Planet Coob and also recent things from Pitch and the recent stuff from the Planet Coob wiki.

But it now also hosts team websites or club websites.

So if you’re a Coob team and you want to have a website, contact us.

And this is the part that I’m still figuring out.

But contact us, and we’ll set you up with a website.

The Coob Checks are– we’re the first website to use it, of course, since we run both of those.

And– This is our backyard.

This is what we do.

Yeah.

This is what we do.

So we moved Coob Checks from coobchecks.com to now coobchecks.planetcoob.com.

And I just am totally excited about this.

I think we need to get more Coob– so this is interesting to me on a bunch of different levels.

First of all, this concept of Coob teams.

And we’ve really discussed the challenges of how ephemeral Coob teams are, that they might exist for a single tournament and never exist again.

I mean, in Dallas, we just mentioned Cynthia, Plaster, and Castray, or the– what, the Who Shot– Coob Shot JR.

Coob Shot JR.

Yeah, those are teams that– I’ve never seen it before.

The people who are in them are in other teams.

But we really think that as Coob develops, that we need to– or that it would be beneficial to Coob to have longstanding teams that are just known.

When you say team knockerheads, people know who that is.

You say the ringers, people know who that is.

You say the Coopsicles, people know who that is.

When you say Manchester United, you know who that is.

Yeah, or the Steelers.

Yes, or Soul Asylum.

[LAUGHTER] Yes.

So a quick detour.

There was an article in the Strip.

I’m reading the Star Tribune off the Kindle Fire these days.

It’s quite enjoyable.

Does that use an app for that?

I’m sorry?

Does that use an app?

Yeah, I’m using an app for that.

Yeah.

[LAUGHTER] It’s called your web browser?

Anyway, there’s an article about how the– here’s how poor I am at remembering and doing my research for these things.

Either the bassist or the drummer for Soul Asylum just left.

OK.

But hey, so– but that little story had us singing “Runaway Train” in the kitchen to the kids over breakfast, who were like, stop.

Please, God, stop.

[LAUGHTER] Worth any subscription price to the Daily Paper.

So I think having a web presence for a team is one step towards getting a team that’s just kind of more consistent.

And you know who they are.

And they have a way to publish information about themselves, their roster, write blog posts about going to tournaments, share videos, what have you.

So– Yeah, having a place to smack talk between tournaments.

Exactly.

That.

And I mean, a lot of this happens on Facebook.

But the way it happens on Facebook is very short snippets.

There’s no long form anything.

It can easily be syndicated outside of Facebook.

So none of that stuff appears on the Planet Kubb feeds.

All of the Planet Kubb team sites, of course, will be syndicated on Planet Coop.

So you instantly get distribution.

And anyways, I just am ridiculously excited about this.

I think it’s the most exciting thing that we’ve done with Planet Kubb to date.

And I’m really hoping that a lot of teams adopt it and use it.

And it will just make the Kubb ecosystem on the web better.

I think definitely more concentrated.

And it could for sure use that.

Right.

So I switched beers.

What?

I switched beers.

Oh, what are you drinking now?

Now drinking the Lakefront Brewery Wisconsinite Summer of Vice beer.

Summer of Vice?

Summer of Vice.

It is a 100% Wisconsin beer.

Well, you better– It says right on the label, if it’s not from Wisconsin, it’s not in this beer.

Wow, even the hops?

Even the hops, the malt, even the yeast.

Captured wild yeast from Milwaukee.

That’s brilliant.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Is it good?

No, it’s all right.

It’s a light vice.

I like the Haifa Vice in myself, but you know.

Did I lose you?

No.

Oh.

I was just shocked.

[LAUGHTER] So we’re going to announce the Planet Kubb sites probably this weekend.

I think that’s good.

I got a couple of people– There’s a little bit of housekeeping to be done.

And then there’s a sort of a phase two effort.

I’m fine with announcing before that phase two effort.

Yeah.

And we’ve already got a couple of teams starting up to get– so there’s something there when we do announce it.

But yeah, I think it’s going to be really good.

Wolfpack, that was the name of the team.

That’s the guy that was on six pack was from Wolfpack.

We played those guys.

We didn’t play Wolfpack.

We didn’t play Wolfpack at nationals?

No, no, no.

Thought we did.

No.

We watched them.

They were in the quarter.

The quarter, yeah.

Yeah, they made it to the quarter finals.

I think Koopsicles took them out.

Yes.

Pretty sure.

I believe that there is a game in the Wikiplanet Kubb that declares that.

Yeah.

So Planet Kubb sites– We have two– I just roll back half a step.

The Kubb Chucks have two goals for next year’s tournament season.

Oh, what are they?

Close games, make it past– The quarter finals?

Yeah, the quarter finals.

Whatever that first championship bracket is.

Because whatever that is, whether it’s quarter finals or not, that’s where we fall down.

No, no, that’s right.

That’s a better way to put it.

Make it past.

Because we’ve actually never made it past the first round of the championship bracket, have we?

Never.

We get there, and then we fall apart.

I mean, we did make it into the bracket at the Lopet, but we were in the consolation bracket.

So every time we’ve entered the championship bracket, we’ve lost in the first round.

I think that’s absolutely the right objective.

One more round.

Round.

Oh, that’s a nice chant.

One more round.

Let’s go, Kubb Chucks.

And then goal number three, bring the flag.

Yeah.

It’s on my list now.

I have– people on this podcast probably don’t know, but I’m not a GTD nutbag.

I’m not like crazy guy over here, but I got on the focus.

And I decided– actually, recently, I created this folder.

And the folder is on the very bottom.

It’s called Templates.

And the Templates folder has projects in it that are paused.

And those projects, then, are template projects.

So one of them is pack for a trip.

And so it’s got the stuff that I tend to forget to bring on a trip.

But I added one for pack for a Kubb tournament.

So I can remember to bring the table that I never remember to bring.

Oh, right.

And remember to get the flag.

Yes.

Jim’s got the flag.

I actually think that’s a way to guarantee that he’s on the team.

He’s got the flag.

That’s what he’s doing.

He’s holding the flag hostage.

So you’re taking the flag.

Yeah.

Invite me to play.

[LAUGHTER] He had a good tournament.

The Cooper Nards.

Obviously, if the calendar fell differently, Jim would have joined us for sure, I think.

He would have had a fantastic time.

Next year, he’ll be on there.

For sure.

So is there anything else with Planet Coop?

We got the Planet Kubb sites.

Ask Planet Kubb has recently gotten a redesign, but that’s nothing all that exciting.

And I mean, the wiki, I’m going to tee up a bunch of stuff.

If you go to the Planet Kubb wiki right now and you look at the Stap King entry, I’m really proud of that.

There’s not a ton of content there.

There could be more.

But it’s really good.

It’s got images.

It’s got all the right stuff.

And over the winter, when there’s no tournaments going on for a while, I really want to get folks in the Kubb community to work together to try to– I want to do a project around the glossary on the Planet Kubb wiki and really just get the content richer and deeper.

Fuller, because coming into next year’s 2013 tournament season, having Planet Kubb in the wiki as a resource is going to be hugely helpful.

Do– and I know both of us vented about Madwood on Ask at Planet Coop.

Well, I don’t know.

Vented’s not the right word, but we commented.

Commented.

Constructive feedback.

So Dallas, every Kubb tournament uses the old time game set.

And Dallas was the very first tournament– not only was it the first six-person tournament, but Eric Anderson also used it as the very first time to try a non-old time games competition set.

So we played with the Madwood Kubb sets.

Which you may have been able to find at Menards earlier this summer.

But they weren’t stock Madwood.

Eric painted them.

The paint I loved.

Yes.

The Coops, particularly, being blue and white, was awesome.

And it totally confirmed a hypothesis I have that this– there’s something that has said, no, all the pieces need to be the same.

No.

No.

The pieces don’t need to be the same.

And there are things you can do to the Coops themselves that make them play better.

And one of them is painting them two different colors.

Yeah.

I’m going to do this with the wood burning.

I’m going to– and we’re going to play on it.

But I’m going to take one of my sets– No, wood burning is too hard.

Just paint them.

Just paint them.

No, no, no.

Listen, what I’m going to do, I’m going to take the 10 Coops, I’m going to number them.

I’m going to put– You’re talking about Milwaukee.

The what?

That game, the Milwaukee game.

Oh.

Yeah, that’s right.

It’s not Milwaukee.

What is it?

It’s Mackey, or I don’t know.

Dobby did that right up on– I don’t know, it was weird.

I’m going to number them.

And I’m going to put A’s and B’s.

So then when you’re looking at it, you can say like, yeah, three should go up on B, two should go up on A.

Because that’s where the colors are really helpful.

Do three side, A and B, and three on C.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Paint.

The paint wears off.

I don’t know.

Yeah, I think that’s a good thing.

Anyway, anyway, I– But your point is right.

It’s clear to me, and I agree, that a tournament cube set would benefit from standardized markings on the cubes that assist in both calling cubes in and out, as well as in raising the cubes after the throw.

Yes.

That having– because we constantly are saying that one goes on white, that one goes on blue, indicating which side it would tip.

And I think that the only thing missing from that was some way to verbally identify which cube you were talking about.

If you say three goes on white, four goes on blue, exactly what you’re talking about.

And then they didn’t have a center line, but you did that with the dot, right?

Yep, I have that.

I’m playing with that right now.

And it doesn’t come in– at least in backyard play, it doesn’t come in– it’s not needed as much.

But it came up enough times at Dallas for me to say, yeah, there’s something here.

See, I think the cubes should have a line that bisects them on all planes.

And eventually, that just turns into a painted color, is my concern.

Actually, that’s the thing that I struggle with.

If I can just solve this problem with a small dot in the middle of the short plane of the cube, I don’t need to have a line that goes potentially at every angle.

Yeah, no, you’re right.

Because then if that dot’s over the line, it’s an in, right?

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Would there ever be– get out your geometry books here.

Is there ever a time when that dot could be out, but the cube isn’t?

There isn’t.

Because it’s the very center of it.

If it’s in the middle of the cube, then it is more than 50% in.

Right, regardless.

Then it is at least 50% in, yes, regardless.

And they look great.

The pictures look great.

They do.

With the cubes painted, they really made– it made me think that one of the things that I know in the marketing side, we want to make ways for more news agencies to write articles about cube.

Painting the sets makes it photographically more interesting, which is better for getting some newspaper article or what have you.

So the Madwood sets, they were painted, but that was Eric.

That was Eric.

And so I mean, I had no issue with the Madwood sets aside from the batons, which is a pretty big issue.

But I found the batons were not for me.

They were not up to the same level as the play was.

Yeah, they just didn’t have any fit and finish.

They had the rough corners on them.

Some of them were warped.

The weight variance was just far, far too high.

Was more than the OTGs?

The variance was definitely more than all-time games.

I mean, in general, they were all heavier.

But as a result, the variance was higher too, because I think they were all three times heavier.

But the variance was probably the same, but it was amplified by three.

So there were a couple of batons that you’d pick up, and I just thought they’d been soaking in water.

I mean, they’re just so heavy, which is weird, because I honestly would have thought that I would like to throw a heavy baton, but I don’t.

Like, my throwing style, I hate it.

I want to throw a light baton.

Yeah, OK.

I don’t know.

You know, so– I– And I thought yours– –pulled me away.

What disappointed me the most is, to me, the baton should be thrown 180 degrees, and it should impact or slide in impact.

That, to me, is a good throw.

Yeah.

It was so difficult to get that kind of throw with these batons.

Maybe it was because of the lack of routing on the edges.

Maybe it was because it was a crap pitch.

Combination of the two.

The heaviness.

Maybe it was just everything.

But it was so hard to get the kinds of throws that even a day before, I was happy with.

You know what?

I think you actually had a great idea on this afterwards.

And maybe it’s only relevant for tournaments, but I honestly think that it should be for all cube sets, is that there should be– right now, a cube set is just defined by dimensions.

Right.

And I would suggest that– I think what you said was, hey, it shouldn’t just be that they’re this by this by this.

It should be that they are– here’s the range of acceptable tolerances, including things like weight.

Absolutely.

I mean, a baton– we’re not going to say all batons have to be the same weight.

That’d be ridiculous.

But you could certainly say that for a tournament, a baton cannot be lighter than this and cannot be heavier than this.

And then you simply weigh them.

If you get batons that are too heavy, for whatever reasons, that section of wood was too heavy, it’s not a tournament baton.

You just don’t use that one.

And I think we were fortunate in Dallas in that there were enough pitches set up and enough games, especially later in the tournament, that if you had a baton you weren’t happy with, just, hey, there’s three dozen others lying on the ground, pick one.

Yeah.

But I really did think that those batons– I mean, I think that’s my number one feedback from Madwood is I think that the batons just didn’t get any attention.

It just struck me that somebody bought long lengths of wood at certain diameter and just sliced it into pieces, and that was it.

And honestly, of all the pieces that you’re going to give attention to, I think the batons deserve the most attention.

The one that we’re touching constantly.

Right.

I mean, kings get all this attention, but it’s ornamental.

And that’s all fine, but I mean, it’s not going to change gameplay.

I mean, I’m going to hit the king whether he’s got a crown on him or not.

And I think on the coupe side, in-casting is the only time I really touch the coupes.

And you can adjust quickly enough to the changes in anything on the coupe side.

And you thought those were great.

Yeah, those were great, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I mean, it was cool, though, to get another set.

And I think that Madwood should– hopefully there’s a feedback loop, and Madwood can make– maybe they can make a tournament a great set.

Downside, the only downside I see is that it would have been good if we know that moving forward, some tournaments are going to have Madwood sets.

We’ve got to be able to get Madwood sets.

Practice with him.

You know, Tony said that in Des Moines.

He put that on ask that he was going to get a Madwood set, because he wanted to practice on it.

And I was– I don’t know.

I was like– I guess if everybody’s– I don’t want to recall that we’ve got to get OTG sets, not those silly Beck sets, if we’re going to play tournaments.

Hey, hey, we know we’re not throwing Becks.

OK?

[LAUGHTER] OK.

I mean, come on.

Hey, so I’m watching the– Yeah, I know.

The Germans use Beck– I swear.

I think the Europeans use Becks all over the place.

Oh, man.

You look at those tournaments, and they always have the– the king always has that red crown, which to me is his signature Becks.

I don’t know.

And it’s– Because I don’t like that.

I don’t like those.

I was watching this Berlin tournament.

These were with the Kuplings.

I loved watching the Kuplings.

Yeah.

Tiny, tiny little Koops.

Yeah.

I don’t know.

I don’t know.

They do everything.

It’s metric.

That must be the difference.

[LAUGHTER] All right.

So much fun.

So much fun in Dallas.

Thank you, Eric.

Thank you, Dallas.

Eric– yeah, Eric, I think he felt that he was trying to do too much playing and stuff.

I think he did a great job.

He did a great job.

But I would agree that I think you can either run a tournament or you can play in it.

Yeah.

Well, we know you can’t play a game and score a game.

The same thing.

Yeah.

The same thing.

You could probably run a tournament and score a game.

That you– well, you know, you probably couldn’t even do that.

Somebody would ask you a question, and you’d miss a play.

Yep.

See, that’s the thing.

That’s the thing is I’ve run enough events to know that I can either participate in the event or I can run it.

Yeah.

But anyway, he did a bang up job.

As always.

As always.

You were at Iceland.

So, OK.

I should talk about the Kubb thing in Iceland.

Yes, you should.

So I was curious.

So because Iceland is a Nordic country.

Had no idea that it was actually the domain of Norway for a long time.

Anyway, so when we were in Iceland, we stopped in– I’m going to forget that.

I’m not going to remember the name of the city.

But we stopped in the city.

We stayed there actually one night.

And we went to the Viking Museum.

They had a full Viking ship put back together.

It was pretty cool looking.

But the guy there was talking to me.

He was pretty helpful.

He was telling me all sorts of stuff going on in town.

Anyways, then I asked him.

I said, you know, you guys ever play Coop?

And he said, yeah, first he’s like, Coop, I don’t know.

And then he’s like, wait a second.

The thing with the blocks and those sticks?

And I’m like, yeah, Coop.

And he’s like, oh, right, right, right.

Yeah, he’s like, we play that on our– we have a tournament when we have our Viking Fest.

They have a Kubb tournament there in front of the Viking Museum.

And then he said that in Iceland, most of the gas stations sell Kubb sets, probably Becks.

And so I didn’t see any Kubb in Iceland.

But at least from this one guy, it sounds like there’s definitely Kubb going on in Iceland.

Maybe we should get– maybe we could get a Kubb team from Iceland with a Planet Kubb site.

Anyways, I had a great time in Iceland.

And– Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. –those are photography trips.

And you got some good photos out of it?

Tons of great photos.

I still probably have another half to put on my website.

If you want to go there, it’s photog.thingelstead.com.

And that’s just my photography.

And you know, Garryk, I actually felt like– I felt like I leveled up in photography.

Like, I feel like it was a concentrated effort to do better photography than I’ve ever done before with guys that knew what they were doing, we were focused.

And like, I think that I leveled up.

And I am a better photographer now than when I– when before I went on that trip.

And so it was great.

I loved it.

I want to go back.

I still– this is honestly, honest truth.

Every day since I’ve been back, I’ve thought of Iceland.

Is that weird?

Not weird.

Did you ever travel outside of the States when you were younger?

You know, not when I was younger.

I did when I was older, but not when I was younger, no.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, no.

When I was younger and I traveled outside, it would stick with me for a while.

I seriously just– I’ve thought of Iceland nearly every day.

And I keep listening to Sigur Rós.

Maybe that’s why I keep thinking of it.

I’ve got to listen to something else.

[LAUGHTER] You know, some– I’m going to have to go back.

Tammy and Eric.

I forget that crazy chick.

Listen to some of her, and it’ll go right away.

It’ll just evaporate.

Who are you talking about, Bjork?

Yeah.

You know what?

Iceland is past Bjork.

In Iceland, there’s no Bjork.

It’s all Sigur Rós.

Great.

I remember last time we connected, you were talking about going down to Minnehaha Creek.

I did.

Great shot.

Oh, you saw it?

Look at it right now.

Yeah.

The creek is dry.

And it was actually– yeah, it was when we were going to the Coupe Tournament.

I said that, as far as I know, it might be another 20 years before the creek is dry.

I’ve got to take a picture of this.

And you know, it was hard.

I went over there right at dawn.

It was– it’s getting to be dawn later.

So it was about 7 o’clock.

I got up about 6 and walked over there.

And I actually think I wanted more like 9.

Like, that was the light that I was really shooting for.

But I like it.

It was a nice soft light.

And I think I got a few nice shots.

You know, here’s part of what I’m trying to do.

And I think this is something that– I’m trying to be a really good editor.

And so, you know, I took 30 shots or whatever that morning.

And I could have put five.

I mean, five of them were good.

Sure.

But I’m really trying to just say, like, no.

What’s the one?

What’s the one shot?

You know?

I think that’s something that, you know, particularly, you know, everybody posts, you know, thousands of pictures from their vacations.

And then you end up looking at each photo for like a second.

Right?

Like, I mean, you don’t even see it.

And so I’d rather just say, like, here’s the one picture.

You know?

Take the 14 seconds you would have spent looking at 14 pictures to look at this one picture.

And you will appreciate it more.

You’ll see things that you wouldn’t otherwise see.

So you’ve got to get– you’re doing some more photography, or some photography, period.

We are planning this long, wandering trip up to the North Shore of Lake Superior in a month or two.

I have these romantic ideas of a long, wandering trip through Scandinavia.

With a Kubb churner in the middle.

Yes.

And then maybe work your way down on the south side of the North Sea on the way back.

Or just make it about Scandinavia.

Yeah.

Fantastic.

I think this is good.