Ken's Take: Nothing Ultimate about Ultimate Frisbee

It's Wednesday and the Ken is feeling a bit under the weather today. Thankfully I had a chance to sleep in and got an extra few hours of sleep, however it does not seem to have been enough to cure me. Instead of a picture today, I figured I'd treat you all to a little something extra since I'm running late again today. Enjoy.

Ultimate, also known as (a.k.a.) Ultimate Frisbee, is a sport that is widely known as being many things ranging from tiring, to long, to boring, to a trademark ripoff. However, today I want to discuss the nomenclature of this sport. Join me after the break to hear my case.

Ultimate Frisbee (although it's officially called simply Ultimate from my understanding due to Frisbee actually being a trademark) is a sport where you play frisbee in an american football format. Now I do not play the actual game, I'm mostly involved in Street Ultimate formed from PuGs (Pick-up Groups for those not in the know) or preemptively however the game itself is not exactly what I wanted to talk about today. At least, not primarily. No, the reason why I write today is to comment on the ridiculousness of naming a sport Ultimate.

The very definition of Ultimate (Here, definition 3-c)is extreme, which in turn is defined as being drastic (defined here, definition 4, part 2), which is then defined further as being radical in nature (defined here, which is once again further defined as ""departing markedly from the usual or customary" as defined here in definition 2! (One might also note that we arrive, once again, at the term extreme at definition 1, part 2. One might also note that the word ultimate is stuck in an infinite loop, which is never really a good thing.) For those of you unaware what 4chan is, well... let me give you some advice.

Rule Number 1 of 4chan: Do not go to 4chan.
Rule Number 2 of 4chan: DO NOT GO TO 4chan.

Quite literally, your brain will melt, you will claw out your eyes, and any sense of the word innocence that you have will be violently ripped from you. (No joke about that last part there, there's some crazy stuff on that site.) However, 4chan must be acknowledged for its amazing contributions to the net in the form of lolcats, rickrolling and several other items.

Point is, it's awesome for its contributions, I pity the poor soul that happens upon it by accident, and God help them if they try asking for help or anything similar.

I digress. Where was I? Oh yes, Ultimate. You see, my problem with this game is that it just doesn't live up to my name. By definition it needs to deviate "markedly" from the norm. In other words, this means that once the rules become the norm for everyone, the game is no longer ultimate. It is a misnomer of sorts. This, my friends, is a great problem. But fear not! I have a solution(s).

I have here with me a list of ways to bring the Ultimate back into Ultimate (Frisbee):

1. Change the rules according to a chaotic mathematical formula.
2. Use frisbees that spontaneously combust.
3. Have players whose sole purpose is to harass the hell out of the other players.
4. Play with more than one disc at a time.
5. Insert a Golden Snitch in the form of a small child that has been given free reign in a candy store for a few hours and subsequently given a jug of coffee.
6. Play music that you have to throw and run in beat to.
7. Play on a rotating field.
8. Play on roller skates.
9. Have strobe lights all over the field at different rates.
10. Hire someone to act as the Black Knight and guard the center of the field.
11. Hire the Knights Who Say Ni to guard the end zones..
12. Hire the Killer Rabbit as the Golden Snitch.
13. Hire the Killer Rabbit.

There you go, 13 different ways to bring the Ultimate back into Ultimate (Frisbee). You might also consider equipping players with water guns, horses, and/or jet packs. All of these things would greatly increase the distance from the norm. Of course once these things become the norm we'll have to come up with a whole new set of rules, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

-Ken
[EDIT]: Added tags.