Now, the title may sound deceiving, but I can assure you, the game Spud has nothing to do with neither potatoes nor Russian satellites of any kind. I’m not going to lie, I was a bit disappointed when I came to this realization, but the game was a blast regardless. Spud, apparently popular from grade school days (although I had never heard of it) was some what a mix between dodge ball and freeze tag. Think extreme dodge ball…but drop the first “e”, and put the emphasis on the “X”, so it’s just X-treme!

Team XRT came out in full force for round one of Saucony Originals office summer league. Okay, so we had four players, one of whom wore skinny jean, but what we lacked in numbers, we made up for consistency. By which I mean we consistently lost each round, but we had our game faces on the entire time. I like to think we would have won the “Best Mental Attitude” award for the evening. After all, winning isn’t everything.

Little known outside of Sweden, Kubb is an ancient Viking game (so we’re told) where opposing teams throw sticks in an attempt to knock over blocks of wood lined up in front of the other team. At its core it’s not a vastly different game than horseshoes or lawn darts, but it’s made more fun by the fact that you get to throw sticks at your friends.

Next week our Chicago and Seattle teams get to try their hand at this ancient sport. Monday night Chicago’s teams face off in Humboldt Park and Wednesday Seattle’s teams battle under the Space Needle.

Another post with a picture of a group of people- yes! It is about Pitchfork!
There’s more awesomeness that we need to let you know about.

We have two group records that we’re going to attempt to set at the Saucony Originals tent. Both ensure chaos, hilarity & tons of picture taking.

Saturday’s Challenge: Largest Group to Sing “Saturday in the Park” by Chicago.
• Pitchfork attendees are welcome to stop by the tent anytime to pick up a lyric sheet; the song begins at 4pm. ***RSVP   to sauconyoriginals@drillteammarketing.com to sign up.

Sunday’s Challenge: Most people with shoelaces tied together.
• Festival goers should stop by the tent at 4pm on Sunday to join in!  We’ll have extra shoelaces onsite in case people wore flip-flops (although, gross.)

The next thing we’re up to is festival performers such as The Antlers, The Thermals, The Jesus Lizard and more have signed up to autograph a pair Saucony Originals for charity. The shoe will be auctioned of on eBay with all proceeds going to Saucony’s partner charity, Run for Good, which works to prevent childhood obesity through education about exercise and healthy eating. You can find out more about the charity on www.runforgood.com.

We’ll definitely have more info for you post festival with a complete list of bands that signed the shoe & when the auction starts.

Although kickball was canceled due to some cold drizzle, Venus Zine made it rain on the other teams as we won again — this time in a game of Trivial Pursuit. VZ displayed serious team effort — under Tighe’s oddly competitive leadership, we used our collective useless knowledge to talk through questions we couldn’t possibly know the answer to.

Happy to not be outside in the crappy weather, the four teams sat around a giant table at Crocodile Lounge on Milwaukee Avenue, sipping beers and Crispin Brut Apple Cider (amazing!), struggling to hear over the happy hour crowd. The Trivial Pursuit questions were often poorly worded (twelve is not a ‘tender age,’ especially in the time of Charles Dickens!) and completely obscure, but even with a smaller team this time around, we managed to muster up the correct answers to questions about Aspen, Edgar Allen Poe, and even the Stanley Cup. Venus Zine and Pitchfork/Mr. Design were neck in neck for most of the game, but the other teams caught up near the end. The game went for so long that our bar tab reached its max, naturally causing the My Open Bar team to forfeit (tsk, tsk), and we went into a round of sudden death which resulted in another win for VZ.

Shall we say “Booyah?” We’ll respectfully refrain, for now.

We’ve hinted at the fact that we were doing something outstanding at Pitchfork, but we weren’t sure if you were ready for it. Now that we’ve changed months & summer weather is finally here, we think it’s time to you let you in on the grandness we’ve been scheming over here.

Saucony Originals has teamed up with Universal Record Database to break records all weekend at Pitchfork. It’s going to be out of control! It’s gonna break your mind!

Choose from a list of 30 records that will give you a chance to win Saucony Originals or create an entirely new one with help from a heaping prop pile. There are also group records to be set! Check back for the scheduled time we’re asking everyone to the space to break the record- Largest Group of People Singing Chicago in the Park. (Don’t worry, we’ll have lyric sheets!)

We’re also going to have some performing bands stop by to try their hand at record breaking. If you’re not into holding world records you should still come by to watch the shenanigans!