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.