The off-season

On Wednesday we had our last practice session before we took a break for Christmas/NYE. So of course, it was WFTDA skills test! Honestly, I have no idea how I went; I was still kind of sick and had a massive coughing fit in the middle of the test and choked on my water and snotted everywhere. It was gross and awkward. I thinkI might have failed but we'll see.

Anyway, off-season. What does one do on the off-season? Stupidly, because it's Christmas break, I suspect it's when people stuff themselves full of food and therefore get all sluggish and stuff before they get back. We only have two weeks off but I'll be going back to Oz so I'll be away for a month or so, plus there's Christmas and New Years and two weddings to go to so I'm sure I'll come back a bloaty fat ass.

When I was a kid my mum would never make this shit (maybe once she
made ham, but I don't eat ham). We used to have spaghetti and garlic
bread for Christmas Eve, and then go to a restaurant for Christmas Day.

I also wasn't planning to bring my skates so I guess I'll have to make up for it by doing crap loads of off skate work while I'm away. I'm thinking something along the lines of:

• alternating 30,60,120 minute planks
• sit ups (2, 5, 10 sets of 10)
• pushups (2, 5 sets of 5, contingent on munty shoulder and hand, blah)
• occasional running
• bicycles (I actually like these and will probably do these until I collapse)
• lifting heavy things (groceries, wedding presents etc.)
• knee up/downs (10, 15, 20 sets of 10)
• actually stretching in the mornings and after I do exercise

Haha this is all very ambitious I guess. But we'll see how it goes.

Happy holidays! (I don't care whether this is politically correct or not; it's at least accurate if you are on holiday.)

Beefcake.

So, at Season's Beatings, in my attempt to be an athelete, I got that big ass bottle of gatorade and some muscle milk. I don't know if drinking protein shakes and whatever is effective, but if it helps me recover faster and fix my muscles and whatever, then hells yes. I also tried to eat things like protein bars and peanut butter and banana sandwiches to get my energy up.

No.

Last week, I bought my first actual pack of protein shakes. I don't want to be like super muscly or anything, just have a better recovery time after my muscles get a workout. I feel like sometimes if I skate really hard then it takes me a day or so to recover or at least stop feeling sore, so I want to improve on that. General conditioning I think will help, and so will stretching after practice (which is what BAD taught me but I've not seen any other league I skate with do that), as well as eating better.

I've generally been a pretty healthy eater. I don't really like candy, and I'm definitely not one of those women who will sit in front of the TV and eat an entire block of chocolate or whatever. But I know I don't eat very much meat and don't get protein from that. I eat mostly carbs, and my favorite foods are pretty much all carbs. Before Beatings I accidentally carbo loaded the whole week before instead of a few hours before. Oops. Yeah, I'm not good with that sort of thing. But I do want to lose a bit of weight so I have less to carry when I'm jamming, and also make it lean muscle so I can take and give a few hard hits.

So I've started drinking these protein shake things:

Fancy science shit in fancy sciency looking packaging!

It's like 500ml, so I drink half on my way to practice, and half immediately after, and then usually I have dinner when I get back home, maybe about 30-40 minutes after practice.

Importantly, it doesn't taste like ass. It doesn't taste like rich dark chocolate either, but we'll see. Anyway, I've been doing this for the past week or so and I don't feel beefier or anything. I guess I need to do this longer and more consistently to see if it's improving my performance. Maybe I will just be super beefcake in the next few months or something. Or maybe this stuff is just going to make me ridiculously flatulent. We'll see.

Now I'm beat, part 2

After my nap I had to go back to the Convention Centre (actually just down the street from the hotel) for the last bout I was in. I think the 6.5 hour break was not a very good idea; I felt sluggish and it took me a while to warm up properly. It took me the entire previous bout (Pirates vs Ninjas) to warm up, and still I felt a bit bleh.

Speed Junkie helping out her jammer in one of the other bouts.

The last bout I was in was Rum Balls vs Fruitcake, and I was on team Fruitcake. (I'm surprised there weren't any jokes about balls that I heard.)

Oh yeah, speaking of balls, I forgot to say that this happened during the day as well:

It was right after the second bout; I have no idea what was going on but it was some kind of giant inflatable ball racing thing. I reckon this would be cool to do in a swimming pool. I didn't get a go though; there was already a huge line and I was still on skates (you had to wear your gear but not skates to have a go in the ball).

Anyway, third bout. It was set up like the second bout, with the benchie just allocating positions for people. I jammed a few times, but I felt pretty tired and I didn't do any big points-scoring laps (also I think by this time people were aware of who was used to jamming and would wall up MUCH more than they did for people just "trying out" and stuff). There was one jam where I didn't even score any points and got pummelled by the opposing team and it took me like 3 laps to get through the pack. Ugh. But yeah, I blocked a bit more there and I did some good, hard hits on people, and then usually got them busted for cutting because I scooted back and brought one of my teammates with me. But yeah, I was pretty happy just to block but not do any fancy shiz.

3/4 of Team Sparklebutt: Slam Gamgee, me, Shirley McSlain.
All our pants are different shades of sparkly yellow.
(Photo credit: Jugglenaut)

It also turned out that three other people on my team had bought gold or yellow derbyskinz during the day, so we made it such that we had a Team Sparklebutt lineup. It was really fun. And it was just hilarious because our strategy was basically just to stick our shiny butts into the opposing team's faces and let the camera flashes do the work. Of course, that wasn't REALLY our strategy, but it was fun anyway.

I also didn't pivot the entire day. The first bout I was more focused on just getting my jamming/blocking skills done, and the second bout I was only ever given the jammer panty when I was in the lineup. The third bout I was given the pivot panty, ONCE. And then on that jam when we went to line up I looked and the pivot was in the bin. FUCK. So then I had to rip the pivot panty off my helmet and throw it off the track, only I ended up throwing it at an opposing blocker, who of course was like WTF is this and then the whistle went and we had to kick the panty off the track. Whoops. But I had to do that because otherwise there'd be two pivots and WTF is that bizzo. Anyway, we lost that bout as well and I was so knackered at the end of it.

Protip for jamming: be fueled by the sheer terror of getting hit.
(Photo credit: Jugglenaut)

But then, afterparty! Only there was a little bit of clusterfuckery and the venue was at capacity so we couldn't even get to our own afterparty. And then they had a buffet but they ran out of food. But we ordered food at the bar and then Shirley brought me a beer which was nice of her. She was on my team and a really good, shouty pivot. Then there was a lot of 90s hip hop, and then some spoken word/rap thing which got weird very quickly (e.g. one of the rappers was talking about how when he was 9 he got raped by his babysitter and then there was another one where basically the entire rap was "fuck the police"). We were all super tired by that point, and just wanted to leave, so it seemed to be a good time to bounce.

The next day we loaded back into the car and drove home. But that was all pretty hard to do; I woke up and my joints were stiff as fuck and I could barely walk. Even now I have to pick up my legs with my hands to cross them or get up stairs because my legs are so sore. But yeah, now I've bouted, had a great time (thanks, RCR!!) and I met a whole bunch of super awesome people, and it's good to be home.

Now I'm beat, part 1

OMFG SO MUCH FUN. I'm super tired now and just got home and my brain, arms and legs don't work properly, but I'll see if I can write this out before I forget.

We drove up to Richmond yesterday at 6am, and we got to the venue around 9:15 or so. The event was hosted my River City Rollergirls, and they were all super fun. My first bout (with Banned Aid) was at 10:30, so we got there, got our gear on and warmed up for a bit. It was at the Richmond Convention Centre in one of their big convention hall/pavillion things. They had set up the room so there were rows of chairs around a bit marked off as the track.

Inside the pavillion, from the corner. It was a big room.

The surface we were skating on was polished concrete. It was just the floor of the room, and outlined with a rope that was duct taped down. Basically, it was slick as fuck, and REALLY hard to fall on. There was no give (unlike the roller rink floor at NRV). Basically if you fell, you just went THUD and then slid for about 20 feet. I had four of my old super Gs on as well as my new yellow bullets, since my pink bullets were 91s. And even then I had trouble slowing down. I tried doing some plow stops on it and it took a LOT of push to try to stop within a reasonable distance. I tried hockey stops and almost fell on my face. It was tough.

SO SLICK. I'm surprised I didn't break my face.

I think the first bout was my favorite one of the day. It was Zombies vs. Vampires, and I skated for team Vamp so I didn't have to bring multiple shirts. Haha. 40 (our benchie) had done the mass email where we all introduced ourselves, so at least we felt like we had known each other a little before we met. Lineups felt pretty organized, even though we'd all only met each other. We were encouraged to try whatever positions and stuff, and it was all for fun and experience, so why not?

I have to admit I was pretty nervous jamming though, but once I got into the hang of it it was fine. On my first go as jammer (I think jam #4 or something), I appparently forearmed someone on the way out of the pack and didn't get lead, but then the other jammer got binned so I had to jam the full two minutes myself. I think I scored like 17 points on that one; it was super awesome and I felt great afterwards when I fell onto the bench. Haha. Also, because of the floor, there were times I came out of a corner and almost just fell on my ass for no reason. I think everyone was skating slower than what they were used to because the floor was so weird. But it was good; once we got the hang of it things picked up.

I need medical assistance and chapstick.

I jammed a few times again after that, and also did some blocking. They were only half hour bouts, so not very long at all. At one point I hit a girl out so my jammer could get through, and as she got through she thanked me by hitting me in the mouth with her elbow. :P Then for the rest of that jam I was skating with blood on my face and in my mouthguard and all over my teeth. Gross. When that jam ended, I had to go to the EMT to get my mouth and mouthguard rinsed out, and stop my mouth from bleeding. But then I was on my 4th minor and binned, so I had to sit in the bin while washing out my mouth and spitting into a cup and icing my lip which ended up getting all fat and bloody. Ugh. I have to say, for team Vamp, I'm not really liking the taste of my own blood. I am however happy to report that that was the extent of my muntings; hooray!

That was pretty much the end of the bout, and we won! Hooray. I was about to jam the next lineup but then we ran out of time. Actually, it turned out that I was always going to jam the next lineup when the bout was over. WTF. Haha. Every time we did the hug/high five line I had a jammer panty on my head. HA. But yeah, I felt really good after that bout; in the hug/H5 line random people from other leagues and in the audience were congratulating me and talking about how I did well and stuff and all these little kids wanted high fives. :D Hahaha. It made me feel less sucky about my skating abilities, and I think I am slowly getting over my fear of jamming and taking hard hits.

Ghetto icepack, and lunch sandwich

Anyway, after that bout the EMTs gave me a towel covering a makeshift icepack, which turned out to be a rubber glove full of ice. It was fine, but then then it was lunchtime so not very good for eating. I stayed and watched the co-ed bout (Hanukkah vs Christmas) and that was fun; Gritz was in that one and she knocked some boys over.

The second bout (sugar plums vs. candy canes) was after the lunch break, and some of the girls on the Vamp team were also on that one, so we had an idea of how each other worked. I don't think our lineups were as organized. Our benchie basically designated people positions, and unless you said something you were put into some position; like she just handed out the jammer/pivot panties instead of like in the first one with 40 when had chairs designated J, P, 1, 2, 3 and you could sit where you wanted to try out that position.

All I did for that bout was jam. I jammed like every 3rd one I think. It was exhausting, but I pulled in some points (although not enough for us to win, boo). I need to work on my conditioning. I think I really like jamming; I like finding holes and pushing through people and I forced a couple of out of plays because I would just come up on someone positionally blocking me and roll right into her butt and push her out of the way. It was fun. I have to admit that I also like that the commentators got to the point when they were like "and it's Chairman Mouse jamming again" and people would cheer. :D

Random wares for sale at Beatings

But yeah, I think our defense was good for that one, but we just didn't score many points because for half the bout the jammer was in the bin. :P So we ended up losing. But it was still a fun game, and then it was time for a massive break! I had over 6 hours until my next bout, so I did a bit of random derby shopping (pink astro-nuts for $6/8, yellow sparkly derbyskinz(!!!) for $20) and checked out some of the other stuff they had. In retrospect I should have probably got some wristguards without the slide-on thing like what mine currently do, but instead the velcro straps, just because right now my fingers are so crooked that it sucks to put those wristguards on. But I forgot to. Whoops.

I ended up going back to the hotel and then doing a bit of work and then passing out. When I woke up, I had a bit of time to get ready for the third bout, but I'll write about it in the next post or something,

It's beatin' time!

Well, it's just after 5:15 am and I'm fully awake for Beatings. We drive up at 6, so I'm doing important things like updating my blog, putting on at least most of my bout stuff and moisturizing my legs. I'm excited to be bouting, like, FINALLY. I'll probably also stay awake for the whole drive up even though I should really sleep--I went to bed last night at 10 and was still awake at 12:30 because I was so excited. :D


Wish me luck!

Derby girl problems

Packing for Season's Beatings is ridiculous. I'm doing three half-bouts in the day, and all I need for that is my gear and maybe some spare clothes to wear the next day (and maybe in between bouts). Normally all my gear (and my water bottle) fits into my backpack, and I just carry my skates. This is what I do for practice.

All this gear (except skates and helmet) fits into this bag.

But for a road trip I have to also take an overnight bag, yeah? So I have to bring my toothbrush, and at least a clean shirt for the trip back. My bouts are at 10:45, 1:30, and then 8:00. So I've got a chunk of time in between, so I was also planning to bring my laptop to do some work--I have to write my classes for next week. And then I decided to buy a bunch of food for energy between bouts and after going to the store, I somehow ended up with:

As if you can't tell that I have an eating problem.

• A bottle of muscle milk (cookies and cream flavored!)
• Nutter butters to eat in the car on the way up to Richmond
• 4 bananas
• A bag of dried cranberries
• Two boxes of granola bars (they were 2 for $5...)
• A fucking huge 64 oz bottle of gatorade bigger than my head

I was going to make peanut butter and banana and chocolate sandwiches from two bananas, and bring the other two up just to eat. But now I have way more shit than can fit in my derby bag because of this stupid bottle of gatorade. Also, that's not to also mention that I am bringing a hoodie to wear in between bouts, a water bottle, and maybe my microfleece blanket because I can't wear pants with my gear on.

I also have a bag of other small skatey things: spare 88A wheels
(in case I need to switch out my new 91As), 3 different skate tools,
spare laces, bandaids, blister bandaids, two kinds of strapping tape,
an ankle brace, and a partridge in a pear tree.

What to do? The obvious solution is to make my overnight bag my derby gear and assorted food bag for things to have at the bout, and my backpack for the measly things I need for overnight. So that's what I ended up doing. This means that all my stuff will stink, derby or not. But now my street clothes will smell like derby stank, and my derby gear will smell like bananas. What the fuck. It is super ridiculous; this is all the stuff I have to bring for the bout (as opposed to the hotel):

And this is all the stuff I have to bring for just staying there overnight:

Fucking ridiculous, I tell you.

This gatorade bottle is so big it makes me tired to hold it up for this picture.

Pre-bout crafternoon

Season's Beatings is this weekend!! Squee!!! I am super super stoked. It's offically my first bouty type thing; but I wouldn't say a real proper bout since they're only half hour bouts, and it's not like with a team I identify with. But still, smashy time! I feel like I'm behind the curve on this one really.

It's being hosted by the River City Rollergirls, which is a pretty awesome team. I am skating in three bouts, and conveniently in each I picked the team that would mean I've only got to bring one shirt (red). Heh. It's also the newbie level ones, but whatevs, I think intermediate by US standards is a bit out of my ability range right now. Plus I am just coming off a munting so it's not like I want to get REALLY smashed.

Anyway, what is getting me excited is the fact that the team sent out one of those mass emails when you get to know the other people on your team, and everyone is so excited about this bout. I hope it's okay and that we don't suck super balls, but we'll see. They're from all over Virginia and even Maryland and North Carolina. And I painted my shirt last night, which was super fun. This post is all about arts and crafts, yay.

Basically, I didn't want to fork out money for fancy printing and whatnot, so I was going to do a homemade version. But I have pretty shit art skills, but I don't want something that looks super shit, you know? Beth (who is at NRV and also skating in all the same bouts as me, yay!) bought some fabric paint to do her shirts, so I borrowed it. But I have shit paint skills too, so what to do? Well, I have fabric paint, and I just need to get the paint onto the shirt in a not crap way. Some people suggested stencils, but 1) I'd have to make/buy stencils, and that is annoying, and 2) last time I tried stencilling anything we were doing the Prisoners of Smashkaban shirts and we ended up doing the inverse instead of the print.

But it turns out that there's an easy solution. I printed out my name, cut it out and pinned it to the shirt. Then, with a sharpie, I just pressed onto the paper until it soaked onto the shirt and did the points on the edges of the letters. The font I use for my helmet is pretty much all triangles, so it wasn't that hard to do. Then it was a question of just joining up all the triangles.

Of course, it wasn't super fantastic looking at that point because it was just the outline of the name and all done with a pile of triangles. It actually looked pretty ghetto. But it was working. The spacing wasn't too bad either; I put a phone book under the shirt to keep it from wrinkling too much when I was drawing the outline, and the pins kept the paper bits in place.

When it was done it looked something like this:

A kindergartener could maybe have done better, I suppose.

Okay, but that's just the outline! Then it was painting time! I got a super cheapo paintbrush for like 28 cents from the art store, and it was just a question of putting the paint on the shirt. The paint actually had a really thin nozzle so I could do the outlines and then just color in with the brush. But the brush turned out to be a bit fatter than what I required for painting, plus if I wasn't spreading the paint evenly you could still see bits of red under the black, so I had to ditch the paintbrush and I ended up using cotton buds instead. What a waste of 28 cents.

Hi, my name is Chai Mo.

And then, it was done! Beth said hers took like 3 days to dry, but I did my one a lot thinner than hers and set it to dry over a heater when I went to derby practice. Then I did little touchups when I got back and today it is more or less dry although a little crunchy. I just don't want to wear it on Saturday and have the paint transfer permanently onto my back or something, that would be gross.

But yeah, here's the finished product:

I ended up freehanding the number because that was easier.

 Yay, so I get to wear it on Saturday! Also there'll be a couple of people going up to Richmond (like 3-4 hours away) where it's beind held. We're leaving here Saturday at like 6am and driving up so we'll get there in time before my 10:45 bout. I'll see if I can get some pictures of me wearing it on the weekend. Whoo! I am so excited to get my smash on.

Guaranteed to offend

So today for shits and giggles I randomly googled "Derby Jesus" to see what would come up (and also because I wanted to know if other leagues also had a Derby Jesus or what), and I came across this link on the first page. It's some discussion forum for a Baptist Church in Iowa where the topic of discussion is "Roller Derby? Is it safe for a heterosexual like me?"

This kind of Baptist church I like.

I honestly don't know whether to laugh at the ignorance in the discussion that ensued, or just get really annoyed at the fact that there are a bunch of intolerant religious fucks out there hating on derby. Okay, and granted, it was written three years ago and I just came across it now, but still? I don't think much would have changed.

I don't have anything against organized religion or anything like that, to be sure. If people all want to go around praising Jesus or whatever on their own time, that's fine. The judgement and assumptions is what I don't understand. It just strikes me as weird that people make the derby = lesbians = demon spawn jump so quickly. I was really amused at the reasoning for the lesbians thing though, since OF COURSE DERBY WOMEN RIDE MOTORBIKES TO PRACTICE! Where the fuck are we going to put all our gear on a bike, really? Oh, and also WE ALL DO DRUGS AT THE BOUT. Because that's totally what goes on in the sport, yes. I'm surprised nobody mentioned the blood orgy that happens at half time though, given the respondents' expertise in the area, clearly.

Sarcasm aside, I did like how the woman who did go ended up thinking that the women at derby were okay and not terrible sinners, and that her only complaint was that their skirts were too short. I suppose it could have been worse if she thought derby was so terrible that she left or had to pray for everyone there or douse the place in holy water or something, but she didn't say anything like that, just that they had short skirts.

I guess it's all baby steps though, right?
 

This is a statue of Big Butter Jesus in Ohio. The first time I drove
by it, it was dark and foggy and suddenly Jesus was just there and
looming out of the fog with these creepy lights on him. I'm surprised I
didn't crash right there. But it looks like he is saying NO PACK.

New wheels! Whee!

It's not even that hard to see bits missing off this wheel.

I got some new wheels for my skates. About fucking time! My old ones were over a year old, they were bald and the urethane wasn't softening up so I was sliding out of turns, and chunks of them had actually broken off on three of my wheels (I think it's my inside wheels because I push pretty hard on those). I cleaned them about two weeks ago and was like "the edges of these feel weird" and they were bits missing. I don't know how long I'd skated like that. So for my birthday I decided to blow a bunch of money on new wheels and other derby stuff because I am a grownup and clearly responsible with money.
 
After doing some online research and polling, I decided to have a go on the new radar bullets. They feel lighter than my old wheels and they actually have treads, and I wanted to try something new--wheel configurations to get some optimal combination of roll and grip. I am pretty slow and I wanted to get more roll because I feel like I'm constantly pushing my stumpy legs; something that gives me more roll for my stride would be great. I ended up getting combination of the 88 and 91As. I didn't want to go much harder than that because I still need some grip.

SO FESTIVE! They look like frigging candy. I want to eat them.

I love how new wheels makes me feel like a goddamn viking. I was super stoked when they arrived, and they are SO pretty! Eeee! They're bright pink and (YESSS) bright yellow. Now I'm like bleh because I have one red shoelace and red toestops and you know how red and pink don't match, haha. :P But I'm testing out configurations and whatnot and I'll report on that once I have an opinon. Actually, just having the different hardness wheels gives me the opportunity to mix and match at all, so hopefully that will work well.

Note that I am assembling skates on my laptop because I am smart.

I have also been munted, so getting back to practice with new wheels was pretty rad! I think I was more confident as well, and I managed the 25/5 in 4:27, which wasn't too bad. Plus my wheels are still clean and pretty. I guess I'll really get to test them out when I go to SEASON'S BEATINGS NEXT WEEKEND. EEEEEE!

Return from munting

You'd think from all the munting I did that I'd get used to how awesome it feels to come back. I haven't, but it still feels awesome.

I have new gear too! New wheels and configurations, and also some anti-blister sock things. I'll have to do a product review of both of those at some point.

We were working on stuff for the WFTDA skills test, so we did 25/5. It was a good opportunity to test out the wheels, and I think they were okay. It was good to be back and I felt faster and more controlled in the corners than I had before. I did 25 laps in 4:27, which I think was pretty good for a month off skates. I want to knock that down to 4:20 though but I was happy with the result.

We also did a "pace line with hitting someone out of bounds" drill which was fun. Because of my size, hitting isn't the easiest thing for me, so Gritz suggested I try swooping/leaning people out instead of trying to hit them because if I bounce off them, all the worse for me. Basically, I should plant my foot in front of theirs and point my foot in the direction that I want them to go and then lean all my weight on them. It's much more effective than me trying to hit people twice my size, so I'll work on that too.

I also learned to (at least try to) do something I'll call the Sex Move--not because it's inappropriate or anything, but because Sexaqshunher was doing it. Basically you skate up to someone in the pace line, transition so you're going backwards, and then check them out of bounds. Because you're backwards, you're already ready to run back so they have to backtrack as well. It doesn't come naturally to me in derby yet, but that's something new to try out. Yeah. Being back on skates is good. :)

Bout time, in about two weeks

My VDL peeps are currently at the Gold Coast for Rollercon (eeee!) and I'm still slowly getting off the munted list. My fingers are still borked but at least I can sit down now. In the meantime, I have some new wheels to play with and I'm figuring out things like configurations and whatnot for them. In retrospect I probably should also have got some new bearings as well. Oh well.

Anyway, we're in the tail end of the year and a bunch of things are happening. I'm heading to practice this week for the first time in a month (after muntings and hospital visits). I'll also have new wheels and stuff, and WFTDA skills test is on next week at NRV, and then it's off to Season's Beatings! I'm listed to play in three bouts (the three newbie ones) and hopefully I won't suck too much. The roster is up here. I also did it so I wouldn't have to bring a bunch of different colored shirts, heh. Gritz is driving up and I am rooming with her which should be fun. I haven't been on the road with NRV before so I'm kind of excited about this (since they do a bit of travel to bout other people, so getting some experience with that this year before I bout with them will be good). Also, afterparty and whatnot.

Anyway, I have to admit I am a bit nervous because some of newbie people actually ARE bouting now and stuff and I'm still being crap and not drafted to a team. But we'll see how it goes; all I want is to not get mega injured or whatever.

Happy derbyversary to me (and Boudi obviously)

One year ago today, while I was drunkenly running around at my birthday party, Boudi and I got derby married. I wrote about it here at the time. So yeah, now it is our wedding anniversary, haha. We have both come a long way in derbyland this past year, what with rolling around at the gym right when VDL started (hell, even before it was called VDL) and now between us we've skated with like over 8 leagues and learned a whole bunch of mad skillz.

Okay, I'm not going to be all like reminiscing like an old fogey right now (although we both ARE founding members of Team Nanna, and I just realized that there is no Team Nanna superpower of talking about what happened when I was your age or the olden days or something) but my wife is amazeballs and I like the fact that we are such an awesome derby couple. I think part of that is because we also have similar interests outside of derby so we can also support each other there as well, which is all good. Anyway, check out this awesome present I got her (since she was the one who had to propose to me last time, I felt it was  only right that I also showered her with gifts and whatnot):

And it is sparkly and red!

It's cute; it's like those little necklace charms you have when you're 12 years old with your best friend or whatever. I have the left half and I sent the right half to Boudi. I was talking to RayWoWW about derby wives a while ago at practice here; she's a transfer skater also so her wife is out on the other side of the country or something and she was like "I'm the husband in the derby wife relationship" since her wife is the one who does everything or whatever. Ha. I think I'm kind of like that too. But I was inspired by her for the helmet decal; that was her wedding present from her wife when they got married.

I haven't put it on my helmet yet (partially because I don't know where to put it on my helmet given my helmet is covered with other stuff) but I'll have to put a picture of it here when I do. And I can get Boudi to take a picture of her helmet with her half on it or something and maybe we can smash our helmeted heads together and make the decal line up or something in the future. Ha. Anyway the whole point of this post is that my wife is amazeballs. Hoorah.

News from VDLHQ

So back at VDL there was a bout yesterday. This was their second bout ever, and with almost full benches! I'm so proud of my ladies there. Apparently it was also a super close game, which makes it all the more awesome.

Eventually the Cheerbleeders won 213 - 191 over the PhDemons, but at half time the Demons were in the lead. I'm not sure if they do MVPs or whatnot, but hey, from the pictures it looked like there was some ass kickery going on (and no reported muntings, hooray). It's weird because of the people that skated in the bout yesterday, less than half of them were in my cohort and there are fewer people that I know there. It's a bit sad, but hey I'm over here having a proud, so whatevs.

Some pictures from the bout are here.

More adventures with the US healthcare system

After my munting I thought things would be better, so I just tried to go to sleep. Then the next day everything was fucking shit. The blood pooled in my butt bruise overnight so I had this fucking huge purple ass crack, and my fingers were swollen up like little sausages and didn't bend at all. I dropped my toothbrush twice when I was trying to brush my teeth. Also I was going to a conference that afternoon.

Splints, hospital ID bracelet, hospital gowns.

So I stopped by the hospital on the way to the airport to fly out to said conference. The doctors put me in for some scans, since there was so much swelling and pain they couldn't really poke at anything to see if it was broken. They pushed on random bits of my spine and above my pelvis it seemed okay, but my sacrum/tailbone area hurt like the dickens. Then they also brought in the sports medicine doctor who said that even if I could bend my fingers they could still have fractures, so they splinted up my hands and then sent me off to radiology for some X-rays.

Because they were X-raying my butt, they made me change out of my jeans (with metal bits on them) into a hospital gown which seriously was draping on the ground because I was so short. They were nice though and gave me two so I could wear one backwards and one forwards and have my ass totally covered the whole time when I was walking through the hospital. The hospital gowns were stupidly huge and didn't do up (not that I could use my hands to tie the little tie-y things together anyway because my hands were in splints) but wearing a backwards and a forwards tent at the same time was at least not too terrible, even if it was really... breezy. Also lying on a cold X-ray table in a variety of different positions on a giant squishy bruise was not comfortable.

My whole that thing is brused and sore.

Anyway, so then they were done with the X-rays and I could get back and get dressed. I didn't get the results that day, but basically it turned out that there aren't any fractures, just a crap load of "soft tissue damage" in my joints and also possibly what looks like tears along my finger ligaments. Also, I found out that my tailbone is a fucking weird abnormal shape, which is why they couldn't tell on the X-ray if my tailbone is broken. Normally tailbones curve anyway into your pelvis thingy (yes, I'm so good at medical terms) but mine has a tiny kink in it. I've never had a problem with it but that is why on the X-rays they didn't know right away if something was up with it. So that was pretty cool to find out. But I don't know if that will ruin my dreams of having a prehensile tail at some point.

Anyway, so basically I'm out of action for at least 3-4 weeks, depending on how long it takes to recover. This also sucks because that would be riiiiiight when we are doing the league-wide WFTDA skills test. I'd hate to not be able to test because of my stupid muntings. They only do these every 6 months too, which sucks.

I'll post the X-rays when I get them!

And also here is a random leg bruise I got but
didn't notice until I was at hospital.

Trick or treat

Mostly tricks for me tonight. We were doing a new drill where you had to juke through a giant pack while still cutting to both the inside and outside lines. It was fine, but then there was a bit of a pileup. Chatterbox fell and took out RayWoWW, and they were both behind me and I was like "yeah I can get out of the way" and then the next minute I was flat on my back on the ground. Two things hurt like the dickens: my butt, and my right hand. I had to stop skating and that was the end of practice for me. Sadface.

Foreground: fingers taped together for sprain.
Background: bag of ice on cushioned chair.

Gritz got me some ice and I spent my time alternating between icing my hand and sitting on a giant ziploc bag of ice. I think two of my fingers are sprained or jarred or something because I fell awkwardly my hand, but I can bend them a bit, so nothing broken there, I am sure. The butt is a whole other story. I have to be really slow with sitting and getting up and putting weight on it sucks. I am sitting on a bag of ice right now. I tried to shower before and even stepping into the shower (over the lip of the tub) resulted in a load of cussing and shit. Also because my hand is munted I couldn't shampoo my hair properly. Argh.

Apparently what happened was that  Chatter fell and as she did her leg came up and took me out. I'm not sure how: either she kicked me square in the butt as she was falling, or I fell and landed square on her skate. Either way, there was butt-to-skate contact and it was hard.

Anyway, this is what my facebook status says now:

Trick: I might have broken my ass (literally) at derby.
Treat: I am getting an awesome bruise.
Trick: I can't show anyone because of its inappropriate location.

Because I am pretty sure I can't post a picture of it here either without violating Blogger's terms of service, let me describe it for you: I am starting to get a bruise on my ass, right at the base of my spine where my spine intersects with my pelvis, basically at the top of my ass crack. And then the bruise goes INTO MY ASS CRACK AND ON EITHER SIDE ON MY BUTT CHEEKS. WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK.

I'm sure you all just had to think about my butt. I'm sorry. I will have it checked out but apparently there's nothing doctors can do for a broken tailbone? Also I have a conference to go to tomorrow which means sitting on a plane for the whole day, and then sitting for two days after that. Fuck. Also this post took over an hour to write because I can only use one hand. Happy Halloween.

Time for a quick recap

I got some 187 ReCaps for my kneepads. There's nothing wrong with my current ones, except pne thing I noticed with the material on the caps is that little black bits of shit shear off them every time I do falls. But this was much more just for aesthetic purposes than anything like getting new gear because I needed new gear. Plus they were only $20, so yeah.

Everything is velcro.

Basically, the 187 derby kneepads are made up of wads of velcro and you can switch out the caps. I'm always a fan of kneepads where you can replace the caps, since your knees probably take the most beating of all your padded up joints. Also, I've known people's kneepads to crack from them just falling really smashily (yes now a real word) on them, so having a set which are replaceable (as opposed to the ones that are riveted to your kneepads) makes your pads last a bit longer since you don't need to replace the whole pad. Plus with these ones you can take the caps off to wash your pads.

They're all nice and clean and unscuffed now, and I can't wait until tomorrow when I can get some good scratches on them. Because we're on a roller rink surface for derby, you need to get some good scratches/nicks in your pads for extra stoppage. Also the other day I was talking to one of the freshies who had new pads, and she was sad that her pads were getting scuffed, but I was all like "no that means you're doing it right!" so yeah. I want to get some scratches in. I've still got my black kneepad caps, and those are fine, but I might use the yellow ones anyway. Yay.

I have a residual worry that the material for the colored caps might be worse than the black ones so the colored ones are structurally weaker, but I have no reason to actually think that. We'll see anwyay when I have a slide on them tomorrow.

So yes. This is me blinging out my derby gear. I'm such a glamor jammer, ugh. :P But yeah, they're not too expensive, and they're pretty cute. See?

This one needs an angry face to match my elbow pads.

Time for some new wheels, methinks

I was looking through my blog and I realized the wheels I'm skating on (my Super-Gs, which I reviewed here) are now just over a year old. Happy birthday, wheels. They've sure taken me a lot of places. They're also completely bald. I have been thinking about regrooving them for about 6 months, now, but I am a lazy butt and can't be bothered.

So cute! But too high (and wide).
Sadface indeed.

I want to get some new wheels. Suggestions are welcome! I like the fact that my Super-Gs are pretty low, at 58mm (instead of the normal 62). That 4mm difference really makes me feel much closer to the floor, such that I'm more confident with picking up my feet and agility stuff. They're also really grippy, and at the time when I got them I was moving from a 95A so a 88A was like insta-control. But given that I am now skating on a stickier floor, I really want something that will give me more push for each stride I take. I really want to get more speed, now that I've got a bit more agility and control over my feet.

There are a couple of wheels I'm looking at, like the new Atom Snap (and it comes in yellow!) but that is a 62mm and I don't know if I'd want to go back to that. Plus the wheel is quite wide (44mm) which means more push, but at the cost of more likely to get clipped/less agility. I was also thinking about Jukes, but they only come in 93A, and I think that might be a bit too hard. Because I don't have much weight, I need something in a lower number for some grip and control. But I don't want something with too much grip because I also don't have much strength for pushing.

Maybe I should just get the Super-Gs in the 91A red core, WHICH WAS WHAT I WAS GOING TO DO A YEAR AGO ANYWAY.

NSO...K

NSOing wasn't so bad. Specifically, penalty tracking wasn't so bad, and I didn't lose my shit or fuck it up or anything.

My whistle is still not bout-tested. Sadface.

We had to get to the skate centre at 4:30 to set up and be briefed, and then doors opened at 5:30 for the 6pm bout. We didn't have our NSO briefing until about 5:15 or 5:30 so it was pretty stressful because until the bout started I didn't have any idea what the fuck I was doing. Plus it turned out that the other penalty tracker wasn't there, so there was a moment when there was a possibility I'd be penalty tracking for both teams and I almost shit my pants. I was worried about doing it for one team, but two? WTFF?! I almost had a hernia. Luckily, we got someone to pen track for the other team, so we were each only doing one. And the penalty wrangler had experience with pen tracking and explained it to us, so it wasn't that bad.

The first couple of jams were fucking confusing. You have to do all the following at the same time:

• Mark on the sheet when a skater has a penalty the following things: what penalty, major/minor, which jam it was.
• Check these with the inside whiteboard person.
• Check with the outside whiteboard people for extra penalties.
• Check all of this with the penalty wrangler.
• Let the penalty wrangler know when someone is on 3 minors or 6 majors.
• Tell your jam ref how many minors your current jammer has.
• Try not to get run over by skaters/refs.

Also, you should mark off the number of the jam on the bottom of the tracking sheet to keep yourself up to date with which jam it is, mark off penalties when you get 4 minors/7 majors and then run after the refs and tell them to send people off, which can be hard because everyone is shouty all the time.

The bout layout was also something I wasn't used to. It looked something like this:

In this picture, the big green thing on the left is the scoreboard, the green circles are outside whiteboard, the little green thing in the middle of the track is the inside whiteboard, and the purple thing is the bin. The pink and blue things are the team benches, so they had 10 chairs (5 a side, back to back) and that's how they did their lineups. The yellow spot is pretty much where all the audience was. I guess that way you have audience on three sides of the track, which gives more people more trackside viewing.

But that also meant that the inside of the track had two teams, their coaches, the jammer refs, the pack refs and 4 NSOs all clusterfucking in one pretty small area. Luckily, our penalty wrangler was really good and could relay us info without us having to wander too far, but I really wish that the coach for the other team sometimes would STFU. Like, we couldn't hear the ref calls because he was busy swearing at the refs, or yelling unhelpful stuff like "Go [team name]" or something like that. Anyway, there was a bit of douchiness but whatever. It just made my job harder though, so bleh.

Anyway, I did feel better when the bout was over, although I barely got to pay attention to anything that actually happened in it since I had to keep looking at bits of paper and whiteboards. But it was good experience and not as traumatic as I thought.

The one picture I took at the afterparty was during the first
time they played Gangnam Style. Of course.

Also NRV won the bout 182-173, and the afterparty was fun because I ate half a plate of chili cheese fries, introduced people here to a shot that doesn't exist in the US, took photos, got lots of beers and danced to Gangnam Style. It was good, and that made me happy. Also I got to drink on a Sunday night. Yeah.

Hahahaha what

Okay, so apparently I'm not jam timing, so I got a whistle for nothing.

I got put on penalty tracking/wrangling.

Okay, what the fuck. I have no idea what that is. Is this both jobs I'm doing? I read the manual for it and understood about 50% of it, and then it was seriously like, I don't even understand what this is. The list of responsibilities is ridiculously huge. I saw the example diagrams they had in the tracker/wrangler manual and my brain shut down already. It makes me want to cry because I'm seriously like what the fuck, I don't get this at all and tomorrow night I have to be doing this in front of hundreds of people and hoping that I don't fuck up, lest I incur the wrath of everyone. Ugh.

I can't do math to save my life, I don't even have any real familiarity with the codes used by WFTDA to track penalties and this is an actual WFTDA sanctioned all-star bout and they want to put in someone who has minimal NSO experience to do arguably one of the most complicated jobs that there is out there?


This is really stressing me out, and given what's happening in my non-derby world and the amount of stuf I need to do there, I am at that point where I'd rather not go to the bout and NSO than have to penalty track. But that sounds wrong, doesn't it? :/

Whistle if you want to see my instrument

NRV are doing their final home bout of the year this weekend. I'm not on the roster (and it's an all-stars bout anyway), but I'm going to be there as a NSO.

Specifically, I think I'm jam timing, or that's what I put my hand up for. This is hilarious, because I've never jam timed in my life, and this is going to be a proper, official, WFTDA bout thingy. Argh. From what I undetstand, all I need to do is be able to blow a whistle and work a stopwatch. If someone gave me a stopwatch and told me how to press the buttons, I think I'd be okay.

But, here's a bit of an admission. I didn't even know how to work a whistle properly until about two days ago. I figured I should own a whistle anyway for derby purposes, so I got a nice one from Fox 40 off the interwebs. It's yellow. :) I've been practicing doing four tweets and stuff, but I keep spitting everywhere. Ha.

I am registered to do my first bout.

So Richmond (in Northern Virginia, for those of you--like me--still not familiar with US geography) has a league that holds an annual holiday bouting thingy called Season's Beatings. It basically is just like a whole bunch of bouts for different levels. I've never bouted before, and I know some of the NRV ladies are heading up there, and for some reason I thought I might be interested in doing that.

I don't know what possessed me to to think that; I still find US derby intimidating, and I don't know if I want my first bout to be in some random tournament when I'm not really representing a league that I'm a member of. But I can't bout with NRV until sometime next year, so River City it is. And they even have categories for people who are >1 year experience, Intermediate, Advanced (i.e. on all-star teams), etc. And there are co-ed bouts. I told Ze Boyfriend and he was like "uh, you are going to get crushed and killed." Little does he know that most of the hits on me will probably not be in a legal target zone on me because I plan to just cannonball the whole time, bahahaha. But yeah, they are also for people who are Advanced, so not me. Anyway, sometimes I doubt my abilites to do these things because what if I am super crap and munt myself or faceplant in front of everyone and whatnot?

It took me about two whole days to decide whether or not to even register. :P With the encouragement of my wife, I have now registered for a whole bunch of festive bouts at the end of the year. Seriously. I put myself in >1 year (since, technically "intermediate" requires that you have had some bouting experience) and I've spoken to the organizers and they said that if >1 is too easy for me then I can get moved up during the day, which will be nice. :) I don't want to be completely fucked up out there getting my ass kicked, but I don't want to be completely unchallenged. But yay! I hope I meet lots of fun people there and stuff. I also want to go to my first afterparty.

WFTDA posts Championship bracket

BAD made it into the championships so they're on their way to Atlanta! Well, not right away, since the championships are in early November. A bunch of people from NRV are driving down from here, but stupidly I have a conference on that weekend. But no socializing for me since I'll probably be watching DNN the whole time.

Here's the bracket:

Click to enlarge

It's a tough bracket, but at least BAD wouldn't have to meet up with Oly until after Philly and TXRG. Anyway, these are all freaking amazeball teams, so it will definitely be one to watch. I'll have to break out my BAD shirts for the whole weekend while everyone else is wearing fancy suits and whatnot at this conference.

If you want to help BAD make it to Atlanta, click here.

Blog updates

Hello, little red book.

The blog name has changed to reflect my new derby name. Don't worry, you can still call me Mouse. Also, the URL is the same; it's just the actual title of the blog that's been changed.

To be honest, I'm actually surprised at the number of people who think the name change suits me--I don't know if this is suggestive of my dictator-like qualities, or the fact that I'm going to execute a lot of intellectuals, or whatever.

Don't worry, the content is still the same random crap that I've been writing about stuff I'm learning and what it's like to be moonlighting as a skater.

Tonight I've got drinks with the league, yay! Also it's down the street from here, so within good staggering distance. Having a new derby family is a bit weird to start with, but we'll see how that works out.

Jammer Candy

We've been working on scrum starts, and one thing that we looked at was the fact that we didn't all have to be in a line right on the jammer line. In fact, your jammer can do a lot of work in directing where the opposing pack goes and how they work.

Suppose (for the sake of simplicity) we have a 4:4:1 situation, so let's say it's a powerjam for red. The green blockers are going to move whereever the red jammer is, and so the red jammer can lure them etc. to whereever she wants. Plus, if her blockers don't just line up in a giant line in front of the green blockers, it gives them more room to set up this play:

 After the jammer is released, the wall of green blockers will move with her. This is where a quick jammer can act as a lure for the green blockers. So, suppose she goes to the outside, and the blockers follow her:

This then gives her team an opportunity to swoop in on those blockers and pin them against the outside line. If your jammer is fast enough, while the opposing blockers are pinned on the outside, she can sweep behind on the (now open) inside line:

So that's the jammer candy: using your jammer as a lure to get the other blockers to go where you want them to so you can trap them there and make it easier for your jammer to get through the pack. Whee. Of course, when you have two jammers, it's hard (but possible) to get this to work both ways.

(I have to admit that I stole the title of this post from this. But it is totally true.)