Subject: What's New

Date: 21 Apr 94

From: Uncle Terry, 73060,2661

Much has happened since we last wrote. I realize you're only receiving this a day later, but that was due to technical difficulties. We had trouble locating a phone line that we could use. Our hotel (yes, we're still at Formule 1-for now) only has a pay phone, and we have been unable to dismantle it sufficiently to find the appropriate wires to connect to. However, just today we discovered there is actually a press booth, and, after a lot of fast talking (who, me?), we convinced the proper French officials that we were writing for an important American Underwater Hockey Newspaper, and we were only making local calls (both true, of course).

In our last missive we seem to have forgotten the opening ceremonies. [MoJo taking over here] Besides being extremely hot without any ventilation and no one speaking English the entire event was an awful fiasco. As a matter of fact, Oncle Terry had to exit quickly to urinate and go on a Heineken mission.(French do better with wine than beer!) At any rate we all had to march into some sort of StarWars type of tunage and stand in front of a bunch of bald officials (Doc and company) and sing our national anthem which they cut off in the middle of "at the rockets red gl...". Terry and Baldo were so into it that they just kept on singing as the rest of us filed out. We were then forced to stand during a bunch of incredibly boring French talk with a Columbian translator (does that make sense). Then they did a operatic skit or something that apparently was supposed to be a history of France. According to Dominique, one of our multiple translators, first the Vikings came over and fucked the French, then the Normans(who) fucked the French, then Napolean fucked the French and finally the Americans came over and fucked the French but they liked that. At any rate they put on this skit and the most important and exciting part (also the part where Terry left for his OuiOui break) was the World War II part when they all had all of the girls and guys out on the bulkhead dancing the Schwing or something and half of them ended up falling in the water. They had a few pretty cool remote control boats with firecrackers that did a good job of littering up the masters side of the pool with firecracker remnants.

We also failed to mention the famed puck (that's PUCK) fiasco, because your faithful reporter didn't know about it. It seems that the Australians and New Zealanders claimed that the official pucks that the American team had been practicing with were not the proper weight (why they didn't just weigh them we don't know), so they confiscated them for a few days, so that they could resize to more of the New Zealander style of puck. What a coup! But the most excellent side of the day for the referees was that now it is possible for a woman to play in the Masters division. What a political win don't you think? Lose the puck war and win the coed division war. I am excited(Mojo speaking) with the prospect of being able to play with the likes of Oncle Terry on the Masters team! Yeeha! Or should I say C'est Yeeha! Fortunately the Kiwis and Kangaroos were unable to do anything with the pool bottom which is more to the style of US bottoms than the slick DownUnderers.

On the party front---imagine a dorm room with Oncle Terry and Party Dan. A Head Residents nightmare! Which is exactly what is happening to the night clerk at The Formula 1. Both the man and woman night clerks have come out in the party hall and thrown French fits at us. The worst was the night was Missy's birthday party (she's 17 now, boys) when we were cutting Timmy's hair in the hallway. We are now looking for a party barn for Terry and Dan to move into before the entire entourage is thrownout for excessive partying.

Meanwhile, on the actual playing front, at this point the teams are seeded 3^rd (Men's, 5-2), 5th (Women's, 2-4), and 5th (Old Farts, 0-8), and looking forward to the playoffs. Actually, the Men's team has one more game before the playoffs, against the beloved grenouille (whose teams have already beaten the Femmes and Veterans). We have been assured that their fate will be different.

To quote the wise Mr. Carbo (noted champion and all-around swell guy) "if we can't beat the Frogs, we don't want third seed".

More to come, demain.