What to Wear for a Fancy Dress Party?

I've been to a few dress up parties.

• Geeks and jocks
• Superheroes and villains
• School spirit
• Red carpet
• London Tube map
• Christmas in July

This past week, Dave and I were invited to another fancy dress party, but it wasn't just any costume party. It was a 'goodies and baddies' party. This theme was a great idea, but there seemed to be so many options for costumes. We thought about going as a cop and robber, but that was too obvious. We thought objects like carrot sticks and candy, but that was too boring. I even thought about being Osama Bin Laden, but that was too involved and I'd get really hot in a bar with all the fake facial hair. Dave had the idea of being a priest with a little boy, but that just seemed too wrong.

We had dinner reservations at 7pm the night of the party. We decided to look for costumes at 5pm. We went to the $2 store in Kings Cross, but nothing was clicking. We dug through old Halloween costumes and even sexy Santa outfits.

We went over to the LGBT area of Sydney - Oxford Street to look for costumes. If there was a section of Sydney to find a costume in July, it would be here. We went to every costume shop we could find, but still nothing clicked. This was a dress up party and we were gonna make a statement.

Deflated and seeing the time tick closer to 7pm, we decided to visit the first $2 store we had been to. On our walk, Dave turned to me with a brilliant and relevant idea - the black swan and white swan of the Oscar hit Black Swan!

We searched through every corner of the $2 store and found a sexy Santa outfit that had a tutu attached. Not sure why a sexy Santa would have a tutu, but it was exactly what we needed. We bought black hair die spray and headed for the counter.

With the last two sexy Santa outfits in the store in hand we decided to bargain at the counter. We made our case stating they were the last ones, Christmas was far away and even Christmas in July was over. They wouldn't budge. In the end, we got the equivalent of the spray die for free.

We rushed home and spray painted one of the tutus, Google Images the movie posters and set out the right shades of makeup.

After dinner, we hurried home and got dressed in 30 minutes. On our way to Kings Cross Hotel, we passed by a group of eight gay guys who immediately hooped and hollered at us yelling 'The Opera House is that way!' So flattering to be cat called by gay guys.

We arrived to find an entire floor of some of the most inventive costumes I've ever seen. The birthday girl was the Queen of Hearts. Other friends were Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf, sexy pink Marshall, black angel, Mario and Luigi.

The biggest shocker was there was actually another Black Swan! Dave's version was still much more impressive. I'm so proud of him for thinking of the costume and pulling it off. He got three butt pinches that night! Poor guy though - he had to go to the men's restroom in his costume. Awkward experience at the urinal indeed.

Can't wait for our next costume party. What's your favourite theme?

Flawless Makeup

Eat Your Heart Out Natalie Portman & Mila Kunis

White Swan & Black Swan

Dave with the Other Black Swan

Dave's Secret Weapon to Fend off Guys - the Armpit Hair

Don't These Look Fabulous?

Queen of Heart's Birthday Cupcakes

Swans are Aggressive and Territorial

It's been over a year since I've moved to Oz and I'm finally watching my first footy match. Game? Not sure what to call it.


Footy, the colloquial name for Australian rules football is like NFL to Aussies. Their governing body is called AFL or Australian Football League. Each team has 22 players fielding 18 players a side, which can be an Aussie rules ground or a cricket oval. Apparently, it was created for cricketers to keep fit during the winter.


The aim of the game is to score as many points by the end of four thirty minute quarters by kicking it through 3 sets of posts. The outside posts are worth one point while the centre post is worth 6 points. Players can move the ball any way with their body by either running, kicking or hand-balling it between players. If you run with the ball you must bounce it against the ground like dribbling a basketball because you're not allowed to hold the ball. When a player catches the ball from someone else's kick, that player is allowed a free kick. This free kick is called a mark, which is probably the most desired form of play a player wants to get because no one can touch you. It's quite difficult though because players are tightly marked and are often tackled to prevent a mark from happening.

The Sydney Cricket Ground - SCG

I didn't know any of this before the game and sort of taught myself while I watched my first footy game at the Sydney Cricket Ground aka SCG. This is the same place that held the first test match in which Australia played England. Big rivalry still goes on today.

Sydney Swans v Western Bulldogs

It's was a cool winter day, Sydney style which means all you need is a light jacket. Thankfully the sun had made an appearance between curtains of rain and grey clouds.

The Proper Way to Call Shot Gun

We got tickets from Dave's boss who had season member tickets meaning we got to sit in a 'special' area where you can't come in dressed like a bogan. When we walked in, we were given a sticker which allowed us to save any of the members' seats we wanted till the 2pm start. With Dave leading the way, we arrived a good hour before the game. First we sat ourselves right up to the field with only the cricket picket fence separating us. I'm still not sure if I should call it a pitch, field or ground. Looking at the grey sky, we decided to sit in the covered stands. I placed our sticker on our chairs and walked around the members' area. On each level there were meat pies and pints being sold. Very Australian. I still can't get into meat pies. I'm still a big believer that pie should have fruit filing. Dave on the other hand, loves them.

The Meat Pie - My Worst Enemy in Australia

We ventured into another grand stand of the members area and found an even better view. Dave dashed to get our stickers from where we had left them and came back to where I was sitting. He had gotten some flack from the guard because we had Swans members tickets. This section was the members section. So what area was this? Oh well. We took our seats and watched the Sydney Swans take on the Western Bulldogs enter the stadium - if I can call it that.


Watching the pregame rituals of breaking through the banner and warming up brought back so many memories of watching the Lufkin Panthers a la Friday Night Lights. My high school football team would run out of a huge inflatable helmet with smoke machines blasting. Out of the smoke they would barge through their banner to be welcomed and cheered by a row of cheerleaders and drill team dance members. The entire stadium would be standing grinning with pride as the band played the familiar entrance pump up beat. This moment got the heart pumping with excitement because you knew you were going to see a real show.

Pregame huddle

Looking around the SCG, I saw a half-empty stadium with everyone sitting and watching the teams run up to their banner, pause for a photo and walk under their banner - a very un-climatic start to one of Australia's favourite sports. I kept my enthusiasm as up as I could because after all this was my first experience at a footy game and the game hadn't even started.


The 32 players took their positions and the centre ref took the ball, something that looked smaller than a rugby ball, and threw it down so hard on the ground that it bounced a good 10 feet into the air. The players scrambled as you would in basketball where the lucky guy who jumped the highest in into the air tapped the ball towards their teammate, who stood outside of the central square. The game would then be played like hot potato with players getting rid of the ball as fast as they could trying to get closer and closer to their uprights - the posts.

Tackling and Falling All Without Pads

I'm sure an Australian female coming to America to watch gridiron action would probably have felt the same way I did about the match. There were a lot of hot guys ages 18 to 31 in very fit shape, wearing very short shorts - true eye candy. Beyond this, there was a lot of tackling, hitting, bumping and falling. Undoubtedly, the view was quite similar to an American football game, just without pads. My eyes wandered elsewhere.

Umpire preparing for the throw in and a lift off!

My favourite part of the game was the referees or umpires - taken from cricket. First of all, there were seven of them encircling the cricket oval. They all had whistles, but found a way in which to never out whistle each other. They too wore very short shorts and run the field just as much as the players. There were always umpires standing at the uprights with the sole purpose of signalling one point or 6 points.  If someone scored one point, the umpire would use his right hand and position it like he was pointing. He would crook his arm and wave the hand up and then forcibly down till the arm was bent 90 degrees and was pointing directly at the field. It looked like he was giving you a good 'yellin at'. If a player scored 6 points, kicking the ball through the centre posts, the umpire would do the same motion, but with both hands. The serious nature of these moves cracked me up because it was like they were robot traffic controllers.


My second favourite part about the umpires was their distinct throw in style. They would face the crowd so their back was against the players. Like a bride throwing a bouquet, they would take the ball and hold up up longways. They would bend down and using one hand at the ball's base, they would place the ball as low as possible. From this nearly squatting position with one hand in between their legs balancing the ball and the other hand keeping balance, they would catapult the ball behind their head as if there were single ladies at a wedding behind them. There would be so much force used, the umpire would be in mid-air looking like they would fall backwards.

Syd 'Swannie' Skilton

Swans are Actually Aggressive and Territorial

The game started at 2pm and ended at nearly 430pm - one quarter too long for me. The Swans won 114-75. It was a good experience to take in Australia's game. Next time I'll have to go with more knowledgeable people or just pregame a little harder so I can keep up. I still like American football better.

Game Highlights

You Should Play for the Matildas!

Moore Park Soccer Fields

The Matildas is the name of Australia’s women’s soccer team and today I scored a goal like I was on the national team.

I have been playing with Maccabi FC women’s team since April and it’s been only in the last few weeks that I actually feel confident about my style of play. Before playing for this team, I played co-ed intramural soccer at Fordham and before that I played club soccer for Lufkin FC and varsity for Lufkin High School. Traditionally, I play right defense. Back in high school I was fast and had strong kick. I could chase down the sprinting forwards and send the ball to our midfielders and forwards. So when I scored, it was pretty shocking. The last time I scored a goal was when I was a senior and we played our rivals the Nacogdoches Dragons. We were tied with our rivals, who interestingly included some of my city club team players including their sweeper and goalie. I somehow managed to get myself up the right side of the field where the ball landed at my feet and I shot with my left foot right past my club teammate! Even though I cut the tie-breaker, what was most exciting for me was that I scored at all! It was an unforgettable highlight of my high school career.

This past weekend, we played some makeup games due to bad weather. In our league, we play each team twice. On this particular weekend, we were playing the same team on Saturday and Sunday because we had never played them before due to rain-outs.

Our team was a hodgepodge of players. Throughout our season, we’ve had girls go on holiday and experience injuries that would see them out for the rest of the season. From our original twelve, we had seven. So for each weekend, our team manager scrounged up players from as low as the U-16s, U-18s and Over 35s! Today, we had 4 U-18s and one Over 35. The biggest blow was that our leading scorer had the start of an upper respiratory infection. She sucked it up and played goalie for us.

Waverley Old Boys FC was the team to beat. They stood in third place and we were somewhere below middle in the standings. If we could beat this team, then maybe we would have a chance to make it in the top 4 for playoffs. They came out strong. They kicked far and won most headers. Their strategy was to hold their back line high right at the circle to get our forwards offsides when we had the ball. We learned their game and did the same. In the end we won 4-2 with better passing than I’ve seen the entire season. As for me, my goal was to better my corner kicks. Using my skill to kick strong and accurate, I’ve become the designated corners taker. The other thing I’ve been trying to improve is my position as center midfield. Coming off playing right defense since I was 12, it has been a tough transition. I’m not as fast as I used to be, but I still have the skills I learned from playing all-year-round and being coached by Mike Fray, a 'crazy Jamaican' who loves his step-over’s. The team we played weren’t the fastest, so I was able to bust out some of those moves. However, the highlight for me was scoring one of the four goals. Our left winger was unfairly tackled in their box and we were awarded a penalty kick. No one else wanted to take it and I so I decided sure why not? The ball was placed 10 yards in front of their tall keeper and I studied her. She stood in the center and looked right at me. I looked back at the ref and looked back at her. He blew his whistle and I saw her move to my right. My initial plan was to kick in the bottom right corner, but I quickly changed my mind and kicked low and swiftly to the bottom left corner because I knew there was no way she was going to get there. It felt like shooting practice, but it was real. I finally scored!

On Sunday, we faced the same team again. This time, we played at their home field and we had no coach. Coming off a high from yesterday’s win, we felt good about playing them again. After warming up, we were ready to take the field. Our team manager raced to us with her mobile in hand. She had been calling the U-18s coach to bring player cards because the other team would not stand to play us if we didn’t have our cards – Eastern Suburbs Football Association rules. We all had our cards, except our two U-18 players. Waverley FC was firm. They gave us an ultimatum – we either play with 9 until the cards showed up 30 minutes later or we forfeit. We decided this was no team to forfeit to, so we took to the field with 9 players leaving me playing sweeper, center midfield, right and left wing and at times forward. Within the first 30 minutes we scored 4 goals and of the four, I scored again! This time it wasn’t any freebie PK.

They had kicked the ball out and we had the corner. Taking my corner specialist position, I ran for the ball and placed it at the top of the left corner. I looked at my players all huddled within the goal box and decided to place the ball there. My leg swooped down and I looked up at the ball not only sailing in the air, but curving in towards the goal. The keeper called for the ball and she hesitated. The ball grazed her fingers and hit the back of the net. I saw this all happen, but I didn’t believe it until I heard the ball cascade the net and saw the net ruffle. My eyes widened and my arms went up with tight fists like I had won the lottery. This was the single most spectacular moment of my soccer career.

My teammates ran to me with huge grins and wide eyes. I received congratulatory whoops from the sidelines and huge high fives as I jogged back to the center of the field. My teammate even said, “You should play for the Matildas!” and "Goal of the season!"

Completely elated, I played the best game I’d ever played this season. I was supportive, commanded some plays and even shot at the goal a few times. After four goals, the two U-18s were allowed to join us and we went on to win 8-1, our best record yet. This was the last game of regular season and we made it count. Hopefully with this win, we will be in the top 4 for playoffs.

If you had asked me a month ago, I would have said I’d be happy for the season to be over because I wasn't confident about my skills. Playing each weekend, sometimes twice a weekend, has made me hone my skills, improving my level of play and increasing my love for the game and my team.


Now I'll have to do something like a bicycle kick to outdo my 'Bend it like Beckham' moment. Apparently, David Beckham scored a goal from a corner today. Coincidence?

Discussing Pre-Game Tactics

Pre-Game Huddle with the Sydney CBD in the Backdrop

Waverley FC v Maccabi FC

Marking Tight

Marking Your Woman

Celebrating My Goal from a Corner Kick

Half-Time Talks

Discussing Our Second-Half Game Plan

Maccabi FC Women's Division 2 Team 2011

Front row: Sammie-Jo, Jaimie, Shadiyah, Bec D, Dani

Back row: Sophie, Jen, Maddie, Lauren, Kim, Rachel

Missing: Amy, Lola, Nicola, Bec J, Shira

What does D.C. stand for in Washington D.C.?

4th of July Surprise from Taurus

Happy 4th of July everyone! Although I'm living in Oz, I haven't forgotten all the great holidays I would normally celebrate if I were at home and today was no exception.

Since the weekend, everyone has been asking me what I'm doing to celebrate. Since Friday the 1st of July, I've been celebrating with expat Canadians and Americans toasting to Canada Day and Independence Day - and these expats really know how to party! I have even witnessed a 'full mountie' show!

I do wish I was at the beach watching fireworks and drinking a Bud with all my American friends, but I'm glad I am surrounded by such caring people who want to make me feel at home.

Today, on the 5th of July (the 4th in the States), I walked into the office in typical fashion - right at 8:15am ready to turn on my computer. I'm usually the second one in, but today everyone was already in and shouted 'Happy 4th of July!'. To my surprise, my desk was covered in American flags, streamers and pom poms. In front of my key board was a gift basket full of American goodies; A&W root beer, Reese's pieces, Hershey's cookies & cream and donuts. I love that the donuts made it - does this say something about how non-Americans perceive what Americans love? I blame the movies and their stereotype of police officers and Homer Simpson.

For lunch, I planned a quiz lunch complete with hamburgers and fries. Everyone paired up and we went through four rounds of trivia including history, geography, pop culture and sports questions. The history and geography questions were correctly answered by only an average of 3 out of 10 questions. Pop culture and sports were correctly answered as high as 8 of 10! No one got the answer for what does D.C. stand for in Washington D.C. YIKES! In the end, the winners were the two youngest people in the office Jason and Graham our social media guy and intern. Second place went to the two oldest people in the office - the CEO and her number 2 (both named Sharon!)

See if you can answer any of these questions:

• What number president is Barack Obama?
• Who is on the $20 bill?
• Which state is the farthest South?
• Which state is the fattest state in the US?
• Who is the second richest American?
• Who is the most bestselling children’s author?
• Who is the highest paid female athlete?
• What decade saw NFL jerseys display names?

What a fantastic day. All I can think is: What an amazing group of people I work with! I'm so lucky to be in an office where we not only celebrate each other's holidays, but are curious to know more.

*Answers: 44, Andrew Jackson, Hawaii, Mississippi, Warren Buffet, Dr. Seuss, Serena Williams, 1960s

The Wing Girl

I've never been one of those girls who can be the leader of the pack – the Queen bee if you like. I've always been the supportive one who will go to any party with her friends just to have a good time. No agenda. If I get lucky and find a hot guy, that’s great. If not, I still know I had a blast and wouldn't take it back for a moment. Any guy I've ever dated never came from a chance encounter at a party or a bar. My dating track record always seems to stem from a shared class, soccer, clubs, work or friendship. But I wonder, what would it be like to actually go ‘on the prowl’ at a party or a bar?

Out of university, I went to Seoul, South Korea and my dating track record was fabulous. Everyone I knew was a) a foreigner, b) an ESL teacher and c) looking for adventure. With three ticks already common to all, it was very easy to strike up a conversation, which led to a very easy dating life. If you don’t like one guy, you move on to the next because we’re all here for the same reasons.

Luckily, Dave was of course all those things, but was also one of my best friends before we started dating. Dating Dave now for nearly 2.5 years, I can confidently say I've been ‘out of the game’ for a while. Said with more certainty, if I were out of the game, I really wouldn't know what to do.

Moving to a big city and making friends, you hear all about their lives and what strikes me the most is what it’s like to be a late 20s early 30s single girl trying to make it in the dating game. My single girlfriends have affirmed over and over that it plainly sucks dating in Sydney. I'm sure any girl would say that about living in any city though. I've actually heard comparisons to what dating at Fordham University was like. My Fordham girlfriends labeled most of the guys as ‘squirrels’ – short, chubby and not very good looking. There of course were ‘non-squirrels’ and we had a list of 10 going on our fridge in our senior year apartment. The women of Fordham were exceptional. They were of Italian or Irish stock, well-dressed, career driven and feisty in the dating game. There was a 60/40 ratio of women to men and with all the women aggressive for any man, ‘squirrel’ or ‘non-squirrel’, the ‘squirrels’ who outnumbered the ‘non-squirrels’ knew they had their pick. They could go after girls they wouldn't normally go for or drop a girl because he could go for the next girl. The backwards food chain. This scenario is exactly what I've heard about Sydney, a place with a much larger pool of people than a co-ed campus of 6,000 plus.

Last night, the Sydney American Expat Group I belong to from MeetUp.com held a 4^th of July celebration at City Hotel. A proud American living abroad, I wasn't going to miss this opportunity to celebrate Independence Day or meet more Americans, which has been hard to come by even after living here for over a year. I decided to invite my friend Lauren, a London girl who has been living in Sydney for over 2 years and fit the profile of the single female fed up with the dating game. Because I didn't know anyone at the event and she didn't either, I decided it would be easier to meet people together.

I showed up at the bar at 7:45pm with Dave who immediately bought 4 Miller beers so opening up would be easier. After a lap around the room of 200+, we decided to split and meet people. He knew my agenda with Lauren and was very understanding that I was playing ‘the wing girl’. However, I was there to meet girlfriends too. I ended up talking to 2 Sydney girls and a Chicagoan new to Sydney. They knew each other, so I felt like the new girl at school begging to sit down at their table in the cafeteria. Lauren showed up 10 minutes later and I left the girls to get some drinks. Taking Dave’s cue, we too double-fisted and took another lap around the room to scope out ‘the buffet’. We planted ourselves around the bar because getting your confidence up does take some liquid courage. After taking off my ‘girlfriend glasses’, we found a group of 4 guys who looked like they were in their late 20s all standing in a circle. For about 10 minutes, we strategized how we would break in. Lauren, a complete Clueless fanatic tried out her ‘valley girl’ accent on me. She said as a non-American at an American meetup, she was either using the Valley girl accent or upping the English accent to a higher and stronger decibel. We decided neither would be the approach. She then tried her Southern accent. Like a voice coach or at this instance an ‘alter-ego’ coach, I asked her where she was from and when she arrived in Sydney. Her response was West Virginia and a few months ago. A London girl trying to fake a West Virginia accent wasn't going to cut it. Desperate, I suggested she break into the group of guys and ask if anyone was from West Virginia, because she’s always wanted to meet someone from there. Lame idea Shady.

I looked at Lauren and said with determination, ‘We need to take a shot.’ This was my default setting. After all, I hadn't approached a group of unknown guys since I was in college and we were going to need more liquid courage. In my experience, shots always open up the flood gates of conversation. After two shots of Jagermeister, we found ourselves standing right next to the group of guys. One of them approached us and asked if we were American. Ecstatic, I said, ‘Yes! I’m from Texas.’ He said, ‘No, you aren't.’ I can’t hear your accent.’ Damn all those years living in New York and Seoul! We started talking to him a little more, but I was peeved at his dismissive nature. In typical fashion, he changed the subject and pointed to everyone’s shoes. Lauren and I found ourselves standing in the group of guys who were all wearing different shades of Converses and they all noticed the shoes and more importantly us!

The guy I stood next to was an Irish guy, who came with some of his American friends. He was good looking and had an adorable Irish accent. I have no particular interest in Ireland nor him, but I wanted to be there for Lauren. After exchanging the usual where are you from, when did you get here, how long will you be here information, I started babbling. To preface this story, I have to describe an encounter I had on the train going to work.

Coming from a client meeting at St. Leonards, my colleague and I debriefed on the train ride back to Artarmon. Hearing me speak loudly, a scruffy bogan (redneck) like character who was probably not right in the head Aussie guy asked loudly, ‘Are you from South Carolina?’ I told him no, I was from Texas. When most people hear this, a lot of things can be going on in their mind. Perhaps images of cowboys, desert or wagons pop up, but this guy shocked me. With real curiosity, he asked, ‘Is the Texas Chainsaw Massacre real?’ Wow. I said I’m not sure. He then told me in detail that he reads a lot of mystery and crime books and that he had never read anything about the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but thinks it might be real because the movie said it was based on a true story. Thankfully, our stop appeared when he finished his diatribe on his passion for crime and mystery. I told him perhaps it was a true story.

So this wing girl told the sweet Irish guy this story and then asked if things like this happened in Ireland. I am clearly ‘not in the game’. He didn't think it was a weird question and actually talked about some woman who had killed a bunch of people. My attention was interrupted when I saw Lauren had moved on to a different guy in the group, which turned me around to another guy as well. This guy was American from Chicago who had been in Australia since October on the working holiday visa. I threw in some knowledge about Chicago sports mixed in with my love of Texas sports. It was a good conversation starter. Talking about sports with a red-blooded American guy is an obvious tactic, but it indeed worked because he tried flirting with me and joking about how the last two Super Bowl’s didn't happen because his Bears didn't make it.

Feeling good about our banter, he started to disclose himself further by describing his life in Australia and whether or not he wanted to stay longer. He had difficulty in getting some temp jobs because there are so many foreigners in Sydney vying for them. Putting my professional hat on, I asked him what his resume was like. For the next 20 minutes I gave him advice on what to include and how to describe each experience. It may have not been the typical bar conversation, but he was very impressed with my advice. Then, Lauren tapped my shoulder to go to the bathroom. Before we went, both guys we talked to asked us our names and we left the door slightly open by saying we’ll see then when we get back. Interesting how we had talked for about an hour to this group of guys and it took them an hour to ask us our names.

For the rest of the night, we roamed around the party filling up on more cocktails and shots of Jager – to open up of course. We met a guy from Sydney who was 22 who kept following us around all night, a group of 21 year old Sydney guys who were pretty cool, but just too young and a strange and very outgoing Argentinean DJ who ended up forcing a kiss on Lauren while we were dancing. We even saw the guys we were talking to from a distance and waved hello across a growing room of over 400. We danced to old school hip hop and finally found Dave. I was so relieved because it was exhausting doing all this wing girl work and now I would rest assured of the one guy I knew I was going home with was here next to me. At midnight and with our last drink finished, we took off to McDonald's and had ourselves a Big Mac in true singles form.

The next morning Lauren texted me saying the guy she had met had given her a business card indicating he was a Marine Biologist. He told her he had made business cards because it was so hard to get a job in Australia coming from Ireland, so he needed to expand his network. However, on the card was a goofy cartoon dolphin and Lauren remembered this silly joke when she woke up. She found the card in her bag and texted him about the dubious business card. He texted her back asking her out for a coffee and a walk around the Botanical Gardens.

Hearing this was joy. I played the wing girl and I got my friend drunk, a kiss and even a date all from one night! The funny business guy may or may not work out for Lauren, but I was glad to play the wing girl for her. That night I experienced what it was like ‘to be on the prowl’ even though I still feel like a complete weirdo talking about Texas Chainsaw Massacre and how to improve your resume. The entire act was fun and exciting, but it is a good feeling to know that I’m really not ‘in the game’ anymore. But as I've done in the past, I will gladly be the wing girl to help a girlfriend out because we all deserve to end the game at some point.