All Too Flat : Serious : Adventures : RPS2004 : Tournament

Now introducing, in all their absurdity, The All Too Flat 2004 Rock Paper Scissors Superhero Team!
Red Rock (The Boy Boulder), The Sheet, Scizzoro, Volcanic, Paper Cut, and Pinking Shears!

The team was met with the usual media presence and general fanfare, but we tried to not let it go to our heads.

Actually, that's not true. Of course it's not true. If there's one things All Too Flat doesn't do is not let things go to our heads. I would say we took it to the next level and The Sheet (whose alter-ego is a mild-mannered PR rep for a small Think Tank) made us an official Press Release (pdf).

Convenient that he is the Paper Superhero, so it didn't seem at all strange that he was carrying hundreds of copies of the press release with him!

Finally the referees were sworn in and the games began!!

The ATFRPS Team played extremely well in the early rounds. Scizzoro cut down his first 2 opponents with no problem whatsoever:

Red Rock's crushing rock demolished everything in its path:

Volcanic mixed things up, throwing paper to trivially cover her opponent's Rock for the win!

Unfortunately The Sheet, Paper Cut and Pinking Shears didn't play so well in the first round, and were eliminated before we could even take a picture of them! Disaster!

But then the tides turned! Paper Cut was given a bye to advance to the next round. 4 out of 6 Flatmates were advancing. And then out of nowhere our ringer showed up! Laura's friend Nikki arrived as Dynamite, the evil superhero representing the notorious illegal throw.

As you can see from this picture of her with Fox Sports News, she immediately fit in with the rest of the team:

Not only that, she was a dynamite RPS player, setting an ATF record by advancing to the final 32 competitors! But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

The first 2 rounds were over, and All Too Flat had 5 out of 7 players going into the final 256 competitors. We were feeling hot hot hot!! Nothing could stop us! Time for some pictures!

Team All Too Flat was called up on stage for a chat with the MC and a chance to talk to the crowds

Scizzoro posed next to his arch-enemy: the Bureaucrat!

Red Rock poses under a spotlight for a Forbes Magazine photo shoot (yes, you read that correctly).

Scizorro, Pinking Shears, and Red Rock pose with the Legion of the Red Fist

and the whole team takes a picture with the Ukranian National Team.

Kennyb pulled off his Red Rock mask (damn Spiderman 2 for making that sort of behavior acceptable) for a picture with Lisa Walker and her sister;

I have to say, I'm not proud of what happened next. Maybe we were distracted from all the media and limelight? Maybe it's because all of our statistical data was derived from amateur players, so it didn't serve us in the later rounds? I don't know. Maybe the game was rigged? But the statistical anomaly that transpired in the next round represents one of the darkest 10 minutes in ATF history:

With the next throw determining the winner, look at that determination on Scizorro's face. But obviously he threw scissors, getting trivially smashed by his opponents rock. One down.

Next up was Volcanic who threw paper to lose to scissors! Paper? Volcanic! You're supposed to throw Rock! Oh No! Another one down!

Paper Cut was up next. She one just one throw before this major upset. Look at that expression of pure dejection!

And then Red Rock jumped on the bandwagon. You'd think he would have learned something by watching Volcanic. THROW ROCK! You're the Rock Superhero and your opponent is throwing scissors! It's a no-brainer!

And finally, Dynamite, arguably our best player, was eliminated, and our ATF RPS dreams went up in smoke

Oh No! It was all over. The superheros were all eliminated! Nothing left to do but sit on a bench and drink beer.

But alas, all was not lost - we still had a 10 hour drive ahead of us to reflect on our poor play.

Next: Post-Game Show