First Annual Clarke Holiday Table Tennis Invitational

 It took me and Bill a long time, but we finally put together a sweet ping-pong tournament for our lab group. Here's the email we sent out:
Fellow Clarkers:

Next Friday at 4pm we are hosting the first annual "Clarke Group Holiday Table Tennis Invitational." It took Bill 1.5 years to find a ping-pong ball, but we are finally ready to promote some group unity.  We'll be competing for fabulous prizes including donuts, lab cabinet space and maybe we can even get a coveted "get-out-of-group-meeting-presentation-free" card! Please reply if you're up to the challenge so we can prepare the tournament bracket.

The Organizers

I thought was hilarious, especially because we have no lab cabinet space at all. We even sent it to the boss. Shortly thereafter he trumped our celebration by throwing a holiday open house the next day complete with this snazzy flier.

Bill couldn't stand our event getting shown up that way, so he made this flyer for it.

Now, our group is half Chinese and Bill and I were very worried about all the Americans getting eliminated in the first round, so we set up this bracket, which you'll notice has divisions from each country, thus guaranteeing at least one American makes it to the semifinals. (I feel like I could be an organizer for the BCS games!)

 And do we have a trophy? You bet your sweet bippies we do. I found an awesome piece of science that I converted into a trophy with the judicious application of some gold spray paint. Tune in on  Friday to see the trophy and pictures from the event!