Roller derby explained in a simple YouTube video

Sometimes, when I tell people about derby, one of the most difficult things to explain about the rules is that it's a points scoring game, where BOTH teams play offense and defense at the same time. For some reason, this is confusing to people.

In the past, there's been a standard roller derby explanation video that I've seen at bouts:

 However, it's literally the basic rules, and doesn't really get into a lot of the strategy, or why people do what they do in a pack. There are other pretty simple rules that explain that.

Here's a video that Rose City put together which sums THAT up pretty well, as well as with the basics:

I guess the only tricky part is if you're not familiar with American currency?


Plus, it also says Roller Derby > pretty much every North American sport, so yeah. Enjoy, and learn!

Intermission: San Francisco is set to break a world skatey record

Yeah, so I haven't updated this recently, mostly because of real life stuff. Long story short, I'm moving to Seattle for a whole bunch of new adventures! But if anyone is going to be in San Francisco next week, here's something fun that you can do: strap on some skates and break a world record!

Deets are: Sunday, June 8 at 11am. And it will be in Golden Gate Park on the Great Highway (the road running through GGP), which is super close to the skate place in the park. I think the old guy dancing on skates in this blog entry is going to be there, which is AWESOME because he has some mad skills.

Roller-Thriller in the park. This is what everyone needs.

Some of my friends from Sonoma County are going to be there, and it looks like all you have to do is do some kind of pace line but actually touching the person in front, and slaloming, which doesn't look too hard. Plus it's not every weekend that you get to go break some world records and get to do super awesome skatey fun stuff!

Disney princesses also get in on derby

I'm not a huge fan of the whole Disney princess thing, but I came across collection of disney princesses who are supposed to be derbified. I've previously seen DC and Marvel Superhero derby so hey, why not. This work is by Amanda Robinson. I'm digging her art style.

Okay, so it looks like Disney princesses with skates on, and revealing-er outfits. There's no pads, helmets or anything, and it looks like they're wearing those tall artistic skate boots.

That said, they're not your standard run of the mill princesses. They look like they can kick ass, and I have to say that the derby names are pretty incredible and creative. In a lot of cases it's a combination of the character's name and some pop culture-ish reference, in the way that derby names actually are made. So yeah, I think this gets most props for the awesome names.

You can see the full collection here.

The road to Funky Town is paved with meth

I've mentioned Breaking Bad a few times before on this blog, but here's a little bit of a throwback from before Walter White was Heisenberg (or Walter White, for that matter):

Apologies for the shonky quality of the video, but you get the idea. I approve of the fact that he is wearing appropriate safety gear and has some pretty good toe stop work.

Apparently there's an episode of Malcolm in the Middle where Hal (played by Bryan Cranston) has to teach Malcolm to skate for his roller hockey team, and then this comes out. Cranston did a lot of his own skate tricks, and even put on this lovely sequined number:

And if you want a BB mashup, there's also this, where Hank gets the wrong DVD:

A roller derby quiet book

You know those interactive books you get when you're a kid and it's all like "feel the bunny's fur" or "lift up this tab and see some random thing" or whatever, so that you'll get distracted from yelling and carrying on like a kid, and do fun activities instead? Well, now there's one for derby.

Obviously it's not in print or anything, but it should be! You can do derbyesque activities like dress the skater:

And get the ref to signal calls properly:

Cutting! Major!

And do an actual 3D bout!

Adorable! :D
(All pictures in this post are from this page.)

A very derby weekend

So two weekends ago was very derby-eventful:

Hehe, Mouse with a mouse. I am so funny sometimes.
(Photo: Bettie Lockdown)

Thursday was the league's Trunk or Treat at the skate rink. Basically all this means is we do Halloweeny stuff and give out candy to the local kids. I can't say that this event is a great success, since there's usually a godawful low turnout of children (well, the rink is kinda far away from everything really), but I got to eat a shit load of candy bars and pixie sticks. And I revived the pikachu outfit but this time it was family friendly and I was sober (but full of sugar).

Halloween is also the anniversary of my munty hand injuries. One year later, my fingers are still slightly crooked and still require physical therapy. Good times.

Friday was a party at Pumpkin's house. Pumpkin is my Team Pie collaborator here at NRV. She is super artsy and makes awesome food. So a party at hers means a shit load of awesome food and lots of nice homemade arts and crafts things. A bunch of people from the league showed up (in costume!!) and I learned about some awesome American cultural practices like this totally INSANE game where you wear oven mitts and punch open boxes (yes, WTF!) and then we did things like drink a lot of booze and play spooky bingo.

Arrak-Kiss and I wanted to play a geography game where people would have to list the states in Australia (given that I get shit for not knowing where ANYTHING is in the US, I thought it'd be nice to reciprocate), but we had maps of Australia and Canada and I didn't even know Canada looked like how it did until someone pointed out that I was looking at a map of Canada. MEGA FAIL. :P But it was a super fun night, yay.

Okay, seriously, how the fuck was I supposed to know? :P

Then Saturday was pre-bout day! The B-team had a bout out in WV, and a few of us decided to take Beth's RV and go camping the night before. Hell, it was more like GLAMping--this RV is the fucking shit. It was super fancy and had a TV with cable and a fancy kitchen and oven and running water and everything. It was seriously good fun and an awesome team bonding experience.

FANCY SHIZ YO! (Note presence of TV)

And we got to have fire-roasted bananas and smores for breakfast the next day! How fucking fancypants is that, really!

Fucking breakfast of champions!
(Probably not really, because too much chocolate = crash)

And finally, Sunday was bout day! We had a lazy morning (complete with smores--see above), showered, played with some of the native wildlife (well, some of us wanted to throw grasshoppers in to the fire... :/), then we packed up the RV, and then headed over to the Civic Center in Charleston for some bout prep. There's an entry about it here, but this was basically the pinnacle of an awesomely derbylicious weekend. Yeah. That felt good.

Yeah! Science, bitch!

Well, not really, and this might just be the Breaking Bad withdrawals or whatever, but I came across this roller derby periodic table (click here for the high res version) and it looks pretty neat.

I like how it spells out what the penalties are, and the bottom block are the variants of the ones in the top part of the table. The only thing that could make it cooler is if the "atomic weights" of the offenses were such that they related to the sections of the WFTDA rules, but otherwise, this is pretty cool. (Plus it makes it easier to learn the codes you need for being a NSO penalty tracker!)

Also, I just wanted to post this:

Needs more punctuation. But you get the point!

Super heroes do roller derby!

Yep, and now there's evidence of it!

Check out these cute DC vs Marvel comic rollergirls, done by Kevin Bolk (aka K-Bo).

I have to say that I certainly do approve of them all wearing appropriate derby gear, since you get so many pictures of "roller derby" where it's a girl on skates without pads or a helmet. So this at least gets that bit right. But hey, they have pads on, but not just any old pads; their pads are character specific. I mean, check out Harley Quinn's wrist guards or Spider Woman's kneepads.

And they have proper derby skates on, not those artistic crazy boots. Yay!


More of his art is here on Deviantart.

Squee!!

What is this I don't even

So in my internet trawlings, I randomly came across this yesterday:

Two things:

1) Richard Simmons has a music video.
2) THE LA DERBY DOLLS ARE IN IT.


WHAT?!

Happy Friday :D

Jam Timing is fraught with peril

So in the last post I said that the Jam Timer stuffed up in a WFTDA Divisionals bout.

Specifically, it was during the Santa Cruz v Tri-City bout, and it was a close one, so hence the controversy. There's information about it on DNN here.

In particular, this part:

"It transpired that the jam timer thought overtime jams were 60 seconds long, and whistled the end at that point. Discussion followed and Rule 2.5.1.1 (if an overtime jam ends before two minutes for any reason, the bout ends immediately and the score stands) came into effect. Santa Cruz won, 236-231."

So there are a couple of things that come into mind. Obviously at a divisional playoff you'd think that the officials would know the relevant rules. But overtimes are really not that common, so perhaps the JT wasn't familiar with the rule in practice.

But are they completely to blame? On the interwebs I'm also seeing things like people saying the Head Ref (but not Head NSO?) is also partially responsible; before the overtime jam happens s/he should call an official time out to go over the rules again with the ref/official crew. The Head Ref is pretty much like the captain of a ship in this sense; if shit happens and the ship goes down, then it doesn't matter who made the ship go down, the captain still assumes responsibility. Or so the online discussion goes.

I'd like to think that that's only partially true. Individuals who assume positions of responsibility are, well, responsible for what happens in their role. How about that? So only to the extent that the Head Ref is responsible for what other, responsible agents are doing, that's all they are to blame.

But then there's also some broader issues. WFTDA currently doesn't have any recourse for situations like this. I think all they've said so far is that all they could do is follow 2.5.1.1, but there's no rule in place (yet--there probably will be soon though) for resetting the jam or points or anything like that. Also, given the wording of the rule, it seems like it'd be easy to throw a game one way or another, just by having someone whistle off the overtime jam early. In this case it was totally an accident I'm sure but the possibility of less scrupulous motivations would still be problematic under this rule.

I'm jam timing today, so I made sure to look up the relevant rules, in case this happened again. Lightning striking twice and all that, right? :P

Thunder in the Valley, the prequel

Tomorrow is the Thunder in the Valley double header over in Salem!

 Star City Rollergirls are hosting, and basically the nearby leagues are coming to bout. NRV's All Star team is playing Chemical Valley in the first bout. And then the NRV B Team skaters are skating for Blackwater Rollers as guest skaters, and there will also be some other skaters from Iron Mountain to round out Blackwater's lineup.

It'll be a long day for me. I'm NSOing the first bout and then skating in the second. I'm also NSOing a position that I've not done before, and it's probably the scariest one to fuck up. I'm jam timing. I have to practice blowing my whistle. Fox40 whistles are fucking confusing, especially to get the four blasts to end the jam. I feel like I'm drooling everywhere. And because of the venue, I'll have to be extra shouty. And then of course when I'm bouting I'm going to need to be extra shouty too.

I'm particularly nervous because Jam Timing is one of those positions where if you fuck up, EVERYONE knows. So apparently tonight at the WFTDA Division 2 playoffs, the JT thought that overtime was one minute jams, and then stuffed that up. I haven't found out all the details yet, but knowing that there will be a sufficient amount of rage if I fuck up makes me a little twitchy. Hell, you have a whistle and if you sound wimpy blowing it, then you kinda suck. Now I'm not a super loud person so this will be an interesting experience on the boundaries of my comfort zone.

In fact, I think I'm going to go down to the car and lock myself in it and practice blowing my whistle. :P

In an unrelated note, the place we are bouting at tomorrow is also know as the stadium where the rodeo scene for Borat was filmed:

I hope the audience will be more friendly. :P

Need new wheels? Try this!

Every time I need new wheels I get in a giant bind about all the possible things I could buy. There are so many options for what surface you are skating on and what style of wheel and if you want slims or talls or mids or whatever the hell. It is always an indecisive clusterfuck and it leaves me wondering if I have buyer's remorse or not.

Introducing the Wheel-a-ma-jig.

It's like a search engine thing for derby wheels. You simply put the hardness, hub style, height, and width of the wheel you are browsing (you can do a range for hardness and size) and it returns possible wheels that fit your criteria.

Of course, it can't tell you what wheels would be ideal for your size, skate style, surface you skate on etc.. You still need to do that sort of work yourself. But at least if you've narrowed that down (Atom, for example has a Performance Matrix which should help you get an idea of what hardness wheels to get at least) then it should make your indecision less terrible. I also would recommend asking other skaters for their opinions on wheels that they have used, or, better yet, actually getting some of the wheels and trying them yourself.

This actually came out in October last year, and I know there are a couple of new wheels on the market that came out afterwards (like the Faster Demilunes which I am dying to try out). I'm not sure if they are on this or not. But this should cover pretty much all your main derby wheels.

Happy rolling!

China establishes its first Roller Derby League

A year or so ago I was lamenting that there wasn't a roller derby league in Hong Kong. There's been some general speculation that roller derby isn't something that has taken off because of cultural perceptions of women (apparently evidenced by the fact that the leagues in Asia are predominantly run by expat women), a lack of interest in the sport given that China already dominates in approximately 352035623 other sports, not to mention potential opposition from the state.

It looks like things might be changing. Meet the Shang-High Rollers. There's a Derbylife Article about them here.

It makes sense that the first roller derby league in China is in its biggest city, and once they get a foothold it'd be really interesting to see how far this can spread across the Middle Kingdom. There is already a sister league forming in Beijing, and I think as interest and momentum gathers we can hope to see leagues starting up in other cities too. I think that China is the last major country without the presence of any derby, and in the past year we've seen derby make its way to Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and South Africa. If this takes off then future Blood and Thunders could be very interesting, especially as the sport becomes more global and less dominated by traditional western democracies with skate venues and sponsorship and whatnot.

The Rollers noted on their blog that they've been having some trouble securing a venue. I'm not sure if this is due to actual opposition to derby (or even that it is devalued so the practice space--which is a skating rink--can be used for other non-skatey things like BADMINTON). I know that space is pretty limited in big cities in China, so even trying to do an outdoor skate might be tough. However, I think time on skates might be good for practice and also exposure, even outside a rink.

Anyway, imagine how much untapped potential for derby there is in China. I'll be keeping my eye on this one. I just hope that eventually derby makes its way to Honkers...

A possible #Rollerderp contribution

I'm a huge fan of #Rollerderp. I check it every day even though I know nothing will have been updated in the last twenty minutes since I last checked it and whenever, but I do it anyway.

If I knew how to make a video thingy for Rollerderp, it would be this. This is totally how I feel when I have to take out a skater twice my size:

(Okay, so it's considerably longer than the normal Rollerderp 2-second video loops, but it has a miniature pig in it, which is AWESOME.)

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.

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.

Virginia is for lovers, or shovers, or something

So here I am in Virginia. More precisely, I'm in southwest Virginia, like, the bit that sticks out and borders with West Virginia, North Carolina and Tennesee. It's a lot different here than anywhere else I've lived, that most of the places I've lived have been flat and politically liberal, and apparently here it's mountainous and conservative.

I took this picture while I was driving on a highway.

Anyway, when I found out I had a job offer and was possibly moving here (so, back in April) I looked up the nearest roller derby league to this town. Actually, my job choice was essentially a function of 1) how good the actual job was in terms of job security, salary, whether they would pay for my health insurance, etc.; 2) what the actual city was like; 3) how far the nearest roller derby league was. For the record, #2 ruled out Detroit.

That said, Detroit is about to get a Robocop statue, so
I might have to visit there anyway. Check it out here.

Anyway, so the nearest league to me are the NRV Rollergirls (NRV being New River Valley, which is some general description of this entire area which is surrounded by the Appalachians), and I've been in contact with them about training and stuff. They asked me about my bouting/scrimmaging experience, eep. And they train three times a week and do 30-60 minutes of scrimmage EACH TRAINING. And they train Sunday, Tuesdays and Wednesdays so there's minimal recovery time. Holy crapballs. I am going to die. I'm not skating with them yet, because the university hasn't given me my fancypants employee health insurance, and knowing how munted I get I am not skating without health insurance. Also, from my experience with BAD, WFTDA insurance is supposed to be supplemental to your own insurance, so were I to get munted I wouldn't be covered anyway. But once I get my health insurance sorted out, I'm going to go and skate with them and I will report back.

Part of the Huckleberry Trail.
It looks okay, but hilly.

Another thing is that this place is unintentionally skate-friendly, even with the hills. There are a lot of bike tracks, and they're usually asphalt and (more or less) sealed. There's a particular trail I'm going to test on the bike called the Huckleberry Trail that goes into the next town (I think it's like a 12-13 mile round trip), but that one seems to be okay with skaters. At least, it's apparently okay for "inline skaters" so presumably quad skaters won't die on it. It'll probably cure my fear of outdoor and hill skating.

I am also considering skating to my classes and to work but the sidewalks here are sometimes mega-shitty or actually just flattened dirt for a block or something. And they're quite narrow, so if I plow stop I'll take up the entire sidewalk, and that's with my stumpy legs. Still, I'll have to scope it out. Also I have work Tuesday, Wednesdays and Thursdays, so in theory I can be on skates four days a week, and on Tuesdays and Wednesdays I will be on skates for most of the day. Hooray indeed.

Finally, I am in the process of changing my derby name! Don't worry, you can still call me Mouse. But keep your eyes peeled on that one...

Boudi and Mouse in San Francisco, Part 3

Sea lions!

After we finished stuffing our faces with awesome seafood, we headed down to Pier 39 to see some sea lions. Pier 39 is the touristy one and kind of ridiculous to skate in, since it's made up of boardwalk boards and full of people (with children in prams--and one rude bitch rammed her pram into the back of my legs so I would get out of her way and she could park her child in front of the sea lions, and she kept yelling at me in Spanish. WTF, really). We walked around that one, and then geared up for our Embarcadero skate! (However, the sea lions were pretty neat too.)

The Embarcadero is the waterfront road/pier area in San Francisco, and it pretty much goes from just before Pier 39 down to near AT&T Park (where they play baseball). It is about 5.8 miles all up, but quite flat (since it's all waterfront). It's got tourists galore though, and also cyclists and those weird bicycle-rickshaw cart things. Plus there aren't any barriers to stop us going onto the road or into the water. However, it's considerably wider than the Golden Gate Bridge, so we weren't at risk of running over sock-and-sandaled feet. It's also not consistently paved, so some bits were much smoother to skate on than others which felt like we were getting a nonstop foot massage on a massage machine that was having a seizure.

This is something to look at when you're skating the Embarcadero.

There isn't much really to look at when you're skating the Embarcadero, building-wise. We passed the Alcatraz ferry launch and also a building that was Pier 29 1/2 (where the "/" in the 1/2 was a lightning bolt like in Harry Potter). The busiest part was around Pier 1 and the San Francisco Ferry Terminal where people were actually using the ferries and being tourists and whatnot. However, because the footpath was really wide, it wasn't a problem getting around them. I found familes with gaggles of children a little bit annoying to get around (because they would walk like five abreast or something, and also unpredictably stop or change direction) but even then it wasn't too tricky to manouver.

At the Bay Bridge.

Our endpoint at AT&T Park.

Again, people were really nice and supportive of the fact we were skating. At one bit I had to slalom around a whole bunch of metal grating and some random guy was like "Nice moves!" and another time we skated past this guy that was like "faster faster faster faster YEAHHHHH" which was a bit weird but he was all smiley so, yeah. We also passed lots of people who saw us skating and were really happy and smiley, and of course we smiled back. We stopped briefly at Rincon Park to take photos of us at the Bay Bridge, and then continued onwards to AT&T Park. As we were heading towards AT&T Park, we started having to slow down for clumps of baseball fans (some of which were carrying or towing coolers) and the footpath narrowed a whole bunch and got mega bumpy. I ran out of water, and I had to go into a cafe (which included walking up stairs on my toe stops) to buy more, which I think was amusing and somewhat confusing for the people eating in there. But I didn't stack, so hooray.

I think our skate overall turned out to be over 8 miles, since we looped back.

We skated back to the Ferry Building/Pier 1, and geared down outside. It was pretty sunny so we sat there for a bit and aired out our gear (that is, maybe the blazing sun and the breeze from the bay will make our wristguards non-stinky). Then, a quick walk through the Ferry Building and around the Embarcadero Center Market (where they have specific "no roller skating" signs), and then on a streetcar to The Castro! (I'm not sure what the difference between a streetcar, tram and trolley is, but it is apparently different to a cable car, which is the touristy thing you hold onto.)

Anyway, we took the streetcar down to the Castro area, which is seriously one of my favorite areas of San Francisco. It's the gay district, and everyone there is happy and shiny and there are really cool shops and stores with names that bring out your inner twelve-year-old boy (a nail salon called "Hand Jobs"? Titter.) There's also a good cookie store called Hot Cookie that sells delicious baked goods and underpants/hotpants that say HOT COOKIE right on the crotch. Hee. Anyway, our first stop as we got to The Castro was the Creme Brulee Cart! It's not really a cart; it's a food truck. I love food trucks, but that is another story.

The Tupac. California knows how to party.

Our new friend. Also, he made his own shirt.
We didn't even get his name, so he will be
forever known as Glitter Spats Guy.

Anyway, so we got some really delicious creme brulee (mine was called "The Tupac", heh) and we're just sitting at the streetcar terminus in the garden eating our little tubs of creme brulee and this guy skates past us with the shiniest skates I have EVER seen in my life. Of course, then we had to chase after him and talk to him, but we were still stuffing our faces with creme brulee and he looked like he had disappeared down Castro Street, which was very sad.

But then we saw him come out of the Hot Cookie store, and he was skating towards us! Of course we stopped him and told him he was awesome, and how did he get his fantastic skates and whatever. He actually stopped and talked to us for like ten minutes about how he made his "glitter spats" for his skates--they were velcroed on skate covers over his Riedells, with little pockets so he could put his wallet and cigarettes in them. Then he told us where we could buy glitter spats fabric in the Castro, haha. We told him we did the Bridge and the Embarcadero that day and he was like "Oh, that's so awesome! I love skating in this city!" and then we talked a bunch about the skate culture in San Francisco and also suggested a bunch of skating places too. Whee!

Close up of GSG's glitter spats. They have a velcro
piece on the side and elastic strap up under the trucks, and
under the spats are little pockets over his laces for
holding stuff in.

We walked through the Castro for a bit and came to Harvey Milk's camera store, which is now a human rights centre. By that time, we were pretty wiped from being out skating all day, so we hopped on a bus to get home. Well, we had to take two buses. On the first bus, the guy sitting across from Boudi randomly started talking to us about how he wants to give some girl who was his best friend relationship advice or something, and that almost started a fight on the bus.

He sounded pretty camp, and there was a lady who was sitting in front of him and she was listening to our conversation and mumbling some apparently homophobic stuff and first we were trying to ignore what she said but then the conversation went something like this:

Guy across from Boudi: So anyway, what should I tell her, because she's my best friend and I love her to death but she just can't find a man--
Old lady: Well, maybe you should be with a woman.
GAFB: Nobody's asking you, bitch.
OL: What did you call me?!
GAFB: You're a bitch.
OL: (jumps out of her seat and goes and stands next to him) What did you say motherfucker! I'M GONNA FUCK YOU UP!!

Double runner ice skates.

And all this time everyone's like sitting in their seats thinking, "Whoa, what the fuck!" and this old lady's jumping out of her seat while the bus is going and yelling at this guy and telling him to step outside and she will fuck him up and the bus is still driving and she's threatening to hit him and everything and then finally the guy sitting across from me is all like "hey, sit down" and stuff and eventually she calmed down and sat down again, and the bus driver actually had to turn around and ask if we were all okay. Wow. But then GAFB started talking to us again, but then almost missed his stop and had to run off the bus and OL was all like "YEAH, THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT." when he got off the bus, and the guy sitting across from me had to engage her in conversation to get her to shut up and whatever.

Anyway, there is a skatey point to this story. To defuse the sitaution, the guy sitting across from me saw that we had skates and then started talking to us about roller skating and how he used to ice skate a whole bunch like 10 years when San Francisco had a bunch of ice skating rinks, and we said roller skates are different to ice skates because ice skates just have one blade and on quads your weight distribution is different and then he started talking about these crazy ice skates with two blades that we could use because the weight distribution would be the same and then asked me where I got my Antiks and I told him that I got them at Cruz, and he was all like "yeah I know where that is; those people there are awesome" and stuff. So yes, look at that, it's the power of skating coming to make people less grumpy and more happy and awesome! Whoo! And then he wished us a good day when we got off the bus.

Chantilly Mace (aka Skater 26). OMG I JUST REALISED
I HAVE WORN THAT JAMMER PANTY AT BAD TRAINING.

So, we were all like WTF WAS THAT when we got off the bus, and then we had to transfer to another bus. It's not like any more random conversations can happen, right? Oh ha. And then on the second bus, the guy sitting across from Boudi there basically saw us and was all like "Do you guys do roller derby??" and then we had a pleasant conversation with him about Skater 26 and how he knew the people that made it until he got to his stop, and he also wished us a good day. How nice.

Then Ze Boyfriend bought us Puerto Rican food for dinner because by that time we were exhausted and starving. And then we watched Die Hard 4 which is an awful movie, but that doesn't matter. And then I discovered I had a mega reverse farmer's tan from my shoulder getting sunburnt and my arms not getting any sun from being in my elbow pads. Also, my chest is really red.

Boudi and Mouse in San Francisco, Part 2

MASSIVE EPIC SKATE DAY TODAY. After a bit of a sleep in, we packed our skates, gear and water (it was pretty warm!) and took the bus up to the Golden Gate Bridge. Yep. Our first skate for the day was on the bridge, and we went from the southern base of the bridge to the North Tower. It's apparently illegal to skate the bridge, but I couldn't find any information on that online. Travis from BAD had told me that she skated it with a couple of other people and was told it was a $10,000 fine (but they didn't get fined) but I didn't see that online, and the only thing I found was something about how officially the law permits skating "on sidewalks in residential areas", which is absurd. You'll see why in a second.

Anyway, bridge skate. We started at the south base, just past the pavilion. I have to admit that was I a bit nervous when we were gearing up, like as if we were doing this and then the cops would come and arrest us or tazer us or something before we even started. But nobody came to tell us off when we were putting our gear on, and a guy tried to not-very-surreptitiously take photos of us. Anyway, then we put our shoes and warm clothes into our packs, and we were off! (Well, we did stop when we got onto the bridge to be like "EEEE We're on the bridge!!!" for a second before we started skating again, but you get the idea.)

We took this picture AFTER our skate.
This is the only sign we saw the whole time
about the impermissibility of skating the GGB.

The bridge has a slight slope at both ends, and we had to also go around pedestrians and tourists. There's also barriers on either side, so we weren't going to fall into the bay (which has a 98% success of death rate) or get hit by cars. Anyway, the first part of the skate was just us getting used to the path, and there were some spaces between the pavers in the sidewalk that were weirdly shaped--like, every third one was slightly wider than the others--and there were also metal gratings and whatnot. If you skated too slowly over them, your wheels would get caught and you'd stack or something. There were a few times when I would get wobbly because I wasn't going fast enough over the cracks, but it was okay. Luckily nobody caught my flailing arms in the mouth.

Then we got to the South Tower! It wasn't very busy so we could stop and take photos and have a water break and whatnot. There was a little bit of getting around tourists taking photos of giant orange metal rivets and whatever, but nothing that couldn't be done by hopping around on toe stops. After that, we kept skating onwards. By this time traffic was picking up a bit (it was about 12:30 or so) but it wasn't giant tour groups or anything, so it wasn't too tricky to negotiate.

It wasn't clear if we were pedestrians or bicycles.

I think after this point we kind of realised that we would be okay skating the bridge and wouldn't stack and die (although I guess getting tazered was still a real possibility). But then we started to enjoy ourselves on the skate, rather than more "oh god let's just hurry up and do this". People were looking at us all in our gear and stuff, and kids would point and smile and one guy on a bike was like "Roller skates! That's awesome!" and everyone was really happy and excited that we were skating the bridge. I think that made us a bit more confident with what we were doing, and we were smiling back and stuff. We got to the halfway point (the dip in the cable) pretty quickly, and then after that the bridge started on a gentle slope downhill towards the northern base. There was a bit more plow stopping that had to happen here, but it wasn't too bad.

Note random Asian tourist umbrella lady
who basically came around the blind corner
and didn't stop staring at us for 5 minutes.

We got to the North Tower and had another break. The slope down from that to the Northern Base is a bit steeper, and it wasn't clear where we could stop afterwards. (Later, it turned out that we could have stopped in a little concrete section near the base, but we couldn't see it from where we were.) Anyway, we then turned around and headed back to the Southern Base. We also stopped for some photos again, and ended our skate at the Southern Base before the blind corner. Basically, at this corner, pedestrians go one way, and cyclists another, but the cycling thing is hella steep and kind of dangerous (since it's a giant steep hairpin with no barriers). So we geared down, did some stretches and put warm clothes on (it was cold and foggy) and hopped on a bus over to Lombard Street.

The only casualty on the bridge skate was a tourist who was leaning against the roadside barrier and then stepped forward without actually looking to see if there were oncoming cyclists and skaters, and I may have run over his foot a little. :P Well, I felt a little ba-bump kind of thing. Boudi was behind me, and when I stopped I said, "I think I ran over that guy's foot", and she said "yeah, then he made some kind of "Arrrggggghhh" noise when I skated past him". Whoops. But he seriously didn't look, so if I had been a bicycle or something he would have been much more run over than just "Arrrrggggghhhh". Also, I think he was wearing socks and sandals as well, so maybe he deserved it. I wonder if that's just traumatised his bridge experience or whatever.

The idea of skating down this part of
Lombard makes us want to cry.

Now, let's speak more about "traumatic". Lombard Street goes over the many hills in San Francisco and has ridiculously hilly bits, like where your driveways are at a 45 degree angle or whatever. We climbed up one of those hills (with our gear and skatey jelly legs) and looked down behind us and it was seriously a death skate. So we didn't do that. However, Lombard is also famous because it has this CRAZY crooked part with zigzags. We joked about skating it. Technically, it's a residential street (i.e. has houses on either side of it), so it's legal to skate on Lombard. I think if we tried to we might (in some possible world) have succeeded, since it'd be like shitlots of slaloms and plow stops. But tons of cars drive down it as a tourist attraction, and it does open out onto a road with more cars, and if that doesn't stop you, the wall of millions of tourists at the bottom taking pictures will. We just walked down it. Then we walked up it again. It's fucking steep and has stupidly shaped steps, plus we were carrying all our derby gear and it was the middle of the day and the sun was blazing hot, so if you can think of a better workout for your ass and legs while also taking in views of the San Francisco Bay Area and photobombing like 20 tourist shots, I'd like to hear it.

*random nod to CRDL*

At the top of Lombard, we caught a cable car down to Fisherman's Wharf. Now, I didn't take any photos on the cable car because it was like how it is in the movies with people hanging off the sides. Specifically, we were hanging off the sides of the cable car, since it was full by the time we caught it. I now have hulk arm from holding onto the cable car with one arm, which also happened to be the arm that my backpack and skates were hanging off (because I didn't have time to put my other arm through my pack strap). And there was one part when our cable car was going downhill and another was coming uphill and we were SO close to the people on the other car we could have high fived them. I had to derby stance the whole way down to not fall out or drop my gear. But then at the bottom we were just north of Fisherman's Wharf, and it was almost on 2pm and we hadn't eaten since breakfast.

We went to Alioto's and ordered from their "Fried foods in a basket" section of the menu. Seriously, that is what it is called. Fried calamari and fried fish and lots of chips, nom. It also came with salad (pfffft) or clam chowder. YES PLEASE. They also gave us half a baguette and like six hundred pats of butter before our food and we pretty much inhaled everything. I even made my own bread bowl for my chowder too because I am classy.

NOMTASTIC.

When I grow up, I want to be a rollerbull

So, New Orleans does an annual Running of the Bulls which is supposed to be similar to the one they have in Pamploma, Spain. But instead of having bulls, the NOLA version has local roller derby league skaters (and selected other skaters from over the US) as bulls, complete with horns on their helmets and wiffle bats. From what I can understand, basically you run from skaters and if they hit you with the bat or check you, then you've been gored by the bull and are down or something. And people take their children to it. And there is sangria at the end.

I wonder how you get beads when you're a bull, since bulls don't have udders?

Check this out from a bystander's perspective:

(It's kind of low quality, and not very interesting until the skaters come in about 2 minutes into the video. But holy crap, watching those people flee for their lives from a bunch of women on skates is AMAZING. Also, the Elvises (Elvii??) on scooters at the end of the video makes it that much awesomer.)

And check out this one from someone who runs with the bulls:

THIS IS THE MOST AMAZING THING I HAVE SEEN TODAY. I have to go to New Orleans now. It's not too far away from where I'll be in the US, right??