My soul is dying...

...because I'm so busy.

Had a great time in Philadelphia. Saw some amazing flat track roller derby. Did a lot of boutcasting. Heard a lot of bitching about some strategies utilized in the game(PS: shut it. Do yourself a favor and counterstrategize instead of complaining. Thank you.). Ate and drank a lot. It was delicious. Saw the Liberty Bell and walked by Independence Hall. I'd go back to check the city out a little more thoroughly if I could.


Work is killing my endurance. Staring into a computer screen at close range seems to literally suck the life force out of me. Thank goodness the crew is pretty danged awesome, or else I'd totally lose the will to live.

I did an uncharacteristically stupendous storyboard section for this latest project, and unfortunately it looks like it'll never see the light of day. Which is ticking off just about everyone on the crew. I shake my fist in futile anger at the jokers in charge of this project...they do not have their father's vision.

Are you in LA this weekend? Then come by the GirlsDrawinGirls booth at the CTN Animation Expo in Borebank! I'll be there Saturday midday. Buy a calendar and some buttons and I'll let you live!

How to Spend a 15th Year Anniversary...

Friday, Nov. 13 will mark the 15th wedding anniversary of the Dear Husband and I.

What will we do for this momentous occasion?

We'll be in Philadelphia for the WFTDA 2009 National tournament.

Pretty fucking rad, if I do say so, myself.





















As I type, the DH is already whooping it up in Philly. I had to work today. Taking two days off was a guilty pleasure enough as it was...to go with the originally-planned three days would've been semi-career suicide. Well, beyond my usual charming disposition when it comes to work politics, at any rate.

I had to drive him to the airport this morning.

At 6am.

Those of you who know me know that seeing either of us awake at that time is akin to the Second Coming...it just doesn't happen that often. It was ugly. REAL ugly. I've gotten about 4 hours of sleep within the past 24 hours...the only thing that's keeping me awake is the early morning cup o' Yum Yum Donuts coffee. FUCK STARBUCKS. If you want to be awake, Yum Yum is the way to go for 1/3 the price of Starfucks.

I've never been to Philly. Neither has the DH. Of course he has an entire Philly Cheesesteak Extravaganza planned. We also have Amish folk to visit. Should be fun! Hopefully I'll get enough sleep on the plane to be enthused for the one, provolone, witout that I want waiting for me when I land in the City of Brotherly Love.

Oh, Kitty!

Last Friday I was finally staying on schedule to get to work at a reasonable hour.

As I stepped out the back door to get the murdersickle out for the morning commute, I almost stepped in this:
















A beheaded bird.


A closer look...if you're in to that sort of thing:

















Kitty at first was proudly lounging nearby...until I tried to take a photo of him. Then he excitedly got up and trotted over while I investigated the crime scene. I shooed him away from the corpse(I was still taking photos of it, dammit), and that hurt Kitty's feelings. When I was done, I tried to pet Kitty, and he shied away. Awwww, poor Kitty! It took several attempts at flattery to get him to finally believe me(he doesn't know that I was doing that just so he keeps the killing spree to a minimum). Then I fed him some nice wet cat food, which he infinitely prefers over the dry kibble we've been leaving out for him lately.

The Dear Husband says that a dried-out bird corpse was brought to the back door a couple of weeks ago. He said that Old Blue(the only cat that Kitty is afraid of) was the one that brought this previous victim to light when he was batting it around the back patio. The DH didn't take photos, but just disposed of the dead thing quickly.

My theory on this is that Kitty killed the bird but left it somewhere on the patio (much like the baby squirrels that were brought to us in September) where it wasn't found right away. Then Old Blue brought the corpse to our attention at a later date when the handiwork wasn't complimented enough(or they got really impatient with the continuation of the Dry Kibble Cat Diet).

It worked...the outdoor cats are now getting more wet food. Little conniving bastards.

Photo, Shopped.

This weekend was mainly wasted on much of nothing, which is great.

The one thing of note that the husband and I did was be a photography subject for our good friend Papaboop. He's always been a good photographer, but now he's taking classes to become a great photographer. See example below:





















Can you believe that shit?! I look pretty damn good for once...that's how good he is!


After posting the above photo to Facebook, my friend Gary came up with a clever response:













I always loved the Road Warrior movie, and now I get a cameo!

The logjam of radness has been released unto the world.

First we have Fight Crew's skateout from last Saturday. While the video was playing, we just huddled in the infield, then did a quick lap around the track.





Then we had fun winning.














Which included saying goodbye to retiring Siren skater Paris Killton.














But finally having a victory photo was SO WORTH IT.
















Stalkerazzi put together an animated montage of all the photos he took Saturday night. Fascinating to watch!




Just to throw you off a bit, I've included a DRAWING. That I did! HOW ABOUT THAT?!

This is a Get Well card I did for my favorite TXRD person in the whole wide world, Cherry Chainsaw. She's been with the league from the very beginning in 2001. She just had her last game a couple of weeks ago.

Her team, the Cherry Bombs(yes, a TEAM was named after her! How awesome is that?!)made it to TXRD's season championships for the first time. This was Cherry's LAST GAME EVAR. Her team was doing great and so was she, until she managed to snap her leg giving a whip to her own jammer. FUCK! She asked afterwards, "I've been skating derby for nine years without a major injury. WHAT ARE THE ODDS THAT I GET INJURED IN MY LAST GAME?!?!?!"

I concluded it was because she tempted the Retirement Gods too much, for she had claimed she was going to retire two seasons ago.

Heal fast, Cherry!

Early Results

Still waiting for an updated webcast archive, as I want to see Saturday's game.

Still waiting for official photos from Saturday's game.


But we have these...

The Sirens' Dash Assault and I say O HAI on the track:
















Stalkerazzi caught this mellow moment right before the game:
















Hurricane Ken and I show off our charming personalities at the afterparty:
























Yeah, it was that type of night.

IT'S ABOUT TIME!

FINALLY.

After two seasons of being the Charlie Brown team, Fight Crew finally won a regular season game last night against the Sirens! The score was 101-88.

WOW!!!!!!!!

Some highlights from last night include:

• I didn't get kicked out of the game. Which makes this season extra-special since I didn't get kicked out of any game the entire year!

• Being told that I am no longer "notorious" as a result.

• Having the Dear Husband's parents in attendance. They hadn't been to a game in about a year. I think they enjoyed themselves...they at least got preferential parking and VIP seats!

• Having Papa Armov give me a kiss on the forehead before the game. The derby folk who caught that were apparently freaked out because they didn't think I'd let anyone do that. I say it's an old Jewish custom that helps teams win roller derby games, so shush!

• Having our good friends the Boops show up and take photos. They haven't been to a game in at least two years, if not longer. They were impressed with the ever-upwards production value of the game. Woohoo!

• Hurricane Ken dragging "Area 51" , Tara's fan club to the game. It's always nice to have friends screaming, "WHAAAAT!?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" during the entire game.

• I think I did a good job in the game. I don't think I was as consistent as the previous game, but apparently I did well enough to keep me going in every other jam the entire game.

• Wrecking announcer Evil E's new invention: the Tara Armov Drinking Game. Whenever I get sent to the penalty box, everyone takes a drink. Didn't work well the first half, as I wasn't sent to the penalty box at all. However, I made up for it the second half, where I would've gotten kicked out of the game if there had been one more jam!

• Whenever the refs called a time out, I'd yell either, "NAP DRILL!" where everyone on the track would fall down and pretend to go to sleep, or I'd yell, "BOOTY SHAKING DRILL!" where everyone on the track would shake their butts in time with the background music.
  

• Having our jammer Haught Wheels take a whip off of my belt so hard that I was sent flying backwards onto my butt. The audience LOVED that!

• Throwing a heinous penalty that was NOT CAUGHT by the on-duty refs, but made the off-duty refs stare open-mouthed in amazement. PS: sorry about shoving you like that, PITA!

• Seeing my team really keep their shit together during the game. It was a close game throughout, but for the most part, everyone kept their wits about them and did what they needed to do. It was beautiful!

• We had by the far the weirdest skateout ever in LA Derby Doll history. I'm proud of that.

• Meeting an animator at the afterparty who also works at the studio I'm currently working at. He squinted at me and says, "You look kind of familiar." I say, "I'm the one who rides a motorcycle." He brightens up and says, "OH! I've seen you walking down Ventura Blvd! I said to myself, 'Why the hell is she wearing a leather jacket? IT'S THE VALLEY!" Ah yes, I'm that Insane Leather Jacket-Wearing Freak. Nice to meet you!

There's more, but I'm hung over and lazy today. The pain is juuuuuuuuuuuust starting to set in. Tomorrow will be long and painful!

I can't wait to see the webcast!