Category Archives: Outings

Paintball 2003

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On September 20, 2003, Chicago Force had it’s Second Annual Paintball Extravaganza! OK, maybe it wasn’t ‘extravagant’, but it was a great day for paintball. Not too cold, not too hot, nice and sunny.

There was a good turn-out, with 27 people showing up to shoot Hawk…er, to play a rousing game of paintball. And how about those Star Wars scenario games, eh? Boy, we really hyped those didn’t we? That was going to be a lot of fun, we’re a Star Wars group, we’re playing paintball, we should play Star Wars paintball games…

Well, they sucked. I admit it, they didn’t work at all. Not even a little bit. In retrospect, I think I was making the rules too complex, and in the heat of ‘combat’, the fewer rules you have to remember the better. Also, there was a bit of friction with the management (we don’t need to go into that now; it’s a quality field, run by professional people, but everyone has their bad days), and we were only able to try one scenario: the Geonosis Arena. It seemed that the material I chose to make the ‘impenetrable’ Jedi lightsabers out of…well, let’s just say that paintballs went right through it. The armor of the AT-ATs was the same stuff, even if we would have been able to use them. The moral of the story is either keep the rules simple, or stick to tried-and-true paintball games.

That’s not to say that we didn’t have a good time. Everyone that I talked to whole-heartedly gave the day a thumbs up. Blast Camp is a great field, and Nate was an excellent ref. He was able to keep a rowdy group in check and had some great games for us to play.

Most of the post-game talk was along the lines of “Can’t wait until next year!”, and I think it’s safe to say that Chicago Force will be back at Blast Camp on the third weekend of September, 2004. Who knows, we may even drag along some Trekkies to shoot at.

Have I talked enough? You just want to see the pictures already? OK…

Chicago Bulls Game

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Looks like the Bulls hit a nerve at LFL. When we arrived at the United Center, we were told that even though 20th Century had approved the CharitaBULLS screening, LFL had not, and that they had sent a Cease & Desist order to the Bulls hit idea on having the charity screening.

The staff for the Bulls was incredibly nice to us and the costumers spent a couple of hours before the game, walking the corridor and talking to everyone who would listen, taking pictures with people, etc. It was, as predicted, a huge hit. If we had been able to sell tickets, we probably could have sold out both showings and started working on a third. They allowed us to watch the game from a press box at the top of the stadium, and many people stayed around for the entire game.

So it looks like as long as LFL has the Bulls hit with this block, we can’t do anything towards the charity screening. The Bulls said they would fight it, so stay tuned for updates.

Whirylball makes its CF debut

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March 16, 2003 marked the first-ever Chicago Force Whirlyball outing. You say you have never played whirlyball? Well, neither had we.

Whirlyball starts with those plastic scoops you played with as a kid. You know, the ones where you would scoop up a ball and fling it at someone. They would try and catch it with their scoop and fling it back at you. OK, now add a court and basketball-style goals. Now put everyone in bumper cars. That is Whirlyball.

If you didn’t make it out, you missed quite an event. Everyone had a blast, and we played with the abandon of those who have no idea what they are doing and know they look silly, but don’t care because, well, everyone else looked silly too.

Chicago Force views AOTC on the big screen…and we mean big!

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In November 2002, “Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones” was released nationwide in IMAX theaters. IMAX film is a high-definition format, where the film is literally twice as big as the film used in normal theaters (70mm instead of 35mm). The result is a picture that is bigger, sharper, and more colorful than is found in regular theaters.

As “Attack of the Clones” was the first movie to be filmed, processed, and distributed entirely on a digital format, it presented the IMAX theaters with a unique opportunity to create a 70mm film print that was far superior to anything they had done before. Although they had to remove 23 minutes of film to fit the picture on the projectors, the two hours of movie they were able to convert was truly amazing. Most people who viewed the movie on the 6-story Navy Pier screen knew they were in for a treat as soon as they saw the 20th Century logo.

Navy Pier IMAX was very generous in donating 150 tickets to Chicago Force for an 8 AM showing on the morning of release. Chicago Force in turn donated 80 of our tickets to the Metropolitan Boys Academy, to let some children see the movie that may otherwise not been able to.

It’s not easy getting people out to a movie at 8 o’clock on a Friday morning, but by the time Obi-Wan and Anakin were assigned to protect Senator Amidala, the theater was mostly full.

Here are picture from the first midnight show, and the 8 AM show the next morning:

Annoying people with camcorders

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Chicago Force had their First Annual Video Scavenger Hunt on October 19, 2002. The primary goal, as always, is to get together with like-minded people and have fun. The secondary goal is to place people in embarrassing situations so we can laugh at them later. Both goals met with spectacular success.

The tasks took the teams all over the city, and ranged from giving speeches in public places to interviewing strangers to trying to get members of law enforcement to participate in skits.

After the video taping, we met up at Bootlegger’s to wind down and watch the videos. The event was well attended, and I think it’s safe to say that everyone involved had a great time.