You've Got to Lie to Me, Baby

I'm not a huge Tom Waits fan, but I really liked the song he performed on the David Letterman show the other night. Me likey a lot!

Sacred!

Hmm, for some reason, one of my drawings isn't showing up. Ah well. This-here is a logo idea for the breakaway roller derby league in Sacramento, the Sacred City Derby Girls.

Yes, a ripoff of the Virgin of Guadalupe. I might be going to hell for this, if it's chosen. Which I have no idea whether it will be or not. Whatever, it was fun to do.

I still have the cold from hell. The husband has a cough from double-hell. Last night he couldn't sleep because every time he laid down, he'd start coughing. No matter how much cough medicine he took, he still coughed far into the night. Poor thing! He ended up sleeping on our couch which has a recliner feature so that he wasn't completely perpendicular to the ground. That helped a little bit. Hopefully he got in to see his doctor today so that he could get some killer cough medicine to help him get some sleep.

While the husband was coughing away, I caught a documentary on cable about Charles Bukowski called Born Into This. I've never read Bukowski, but I'd heard of him before. Interesting guy, but seems rather misogynistic. What's ironic about his misogyny is that he didn't seem able to function very well without women in his life. I think that's true about a lot of guys, unfortunately. I also think it's not just a one-way street...women can be quite hateful towards men and not be able to cope without them, either.

Funny how life works, sometimes.

Back to work for me. I might get this stoopid storyboard done this week after all...woohoo!

Sick again

There's nothing like spending Thanksgiving weekend being sick. Especially when both the husband and myself feel like absolute ca-RAP.

We both have this cold thingy that's knocked us down pretty good. He's had a fever, stuffed nose, dizziness, and coughing galore. I've had the stuffiness and galoric coughing. No fever. Thank goodness. Slight dizziness. ugh.

This is the third or fourth time this year that we've gotten sick. Argh.

Ever try to do storyboards when you're sick? It's not fun. I had to ask for an extention on the board deadline because I haven't been able to put in the time needed to complete the stoopid thing. At least I work from home so that I'm not getting anyone else sick. I might have spread my disease to family members and a few of the roller derby breatheren, though. oopsie.

So I'm not much into ruminating what I'm thankful for right now. I guess I could be thankful that I'm not more sick. Feh.

I'm definitely not liking the Blogger beta crap that's going on right now.

It's Thanksgiving week, and I'm hoping to catch up on work. I only have to be at one roller derby practice this week, and I have clearcoating galore to do on toilet seats.

One thing is really bugging the bejeezus out of me, though.

Why the hell is LA traffic even more messed up than usual?!

It takes me an hour to go 13 miles in the evening for derby practice.

A FREAKIN' HOUR.

I really started noticing this a few weeks before Daylight Savings Time ended. Now, when DST ends, people freak out for the first week or so when they have to *gasp* drive at night when previously it was still day. But usually they get over themselves and driving can commence at a more reasonable pace after that initial week of adjustment.

Not this time. Everyone in the LA metro area has left their house and is on the road all the time now.

Last night I went to a dinner in Silverlake and decided to take the motorcycle just for fun. Luckily I did, because I ended up lanesplitting at least half of the distance. On a Sunday night. Made me wish I was in Texas, where a lot of businesses are closed on Sunday, hence making traffic a breeze.

Where is everyone going? Are they sure they have to be in a car to go there? Is it the nice, summery weather we're still having? Whatever it is, it's making me extremely cranky.

Anyway, while the weather holds I hope to finish the Mudsock Commission lid as well as another seat that has to go into the travelling edition of the Toyroom's Everything Nice show that's going to be at ThinkSpace in December. I sold both pieces I had in the show, so I have to come up with at least one piece for the travelling version. How neat is that?!

Three Easy Steps

Yesterday was the husband's and my anniversary. We've been married for...uh...I think it's 12 years.

Is it?

Crap.

This is what happens when you've been married for a long time. You forget potentially important crap like how long you've even been married.

Anyway, here's the anniversary card-making process.

First, I start with doodles done while I was on the phone discussing fishing lures. Don't ask.









Next, I pick the doodle that sucked the least and drew it all big and stuff.

Thank goodness I have loads of old storyboard paper around. It makes the best doodle surface ever. As you can see, I can't draw worth a crap despite having such good doodle surfaces at my disposal.













The final product. I used a brush pen and markers on bristol board. My markers are rather old and I need to buy a new set one of these eons. However, I don't use them quite enough to justify spending a couple hundred bux on a good set. Ah, the irony.

The husband seems to like the final result. So he says.

We went out for sushi at a place on the border between Santa Monica and Venice. I'm still new to the sushi realm, and so my horizons are limited. Anything that says, "spicy" in the title is worth a shot, though. This place didn't disappoint. We got full very quickly on some good schtuff.

Afterwards we visited one of the few Westside Dolls at one of her jobs in a bar across the street from Sony studios. It's one of the few divey bars that hasn't been taken over by hipster scum. The clientele is very diverse, and it was fun to people-watch while talking about stupid derby crap. Luke Wilson lurked in a corner. I wouldn't have known who it was if it wasn't pointed out to me.

Nice, low-key evening.

I'm such a geek!

No, really.

This has been passed around the internet a lot lately, but I think it's freakin' hilarious. So will you.


Now go laugh.

Video from Saturday's bout

In the above clip you can see me give the smackdown to Amber Alert! early on in this jam.




I think our jammer Judy Gloom is trying to get through. See Apocalyptica take a quick fall. I'm lagging behind because I'm lame.



The worst injury in this game went to the Sirens' Dinah Beatcha. I'm not sure what the hell happened, but apparently she was at the bottom of the pack pileup. She got majorly concussed and had to sit out the rest of the game.




The last jam and our makeshift victory flags.

Undefeated in 2006

Yep, undefeated.

My team pulled quite a coup last night in Little Tokyo. An undefeated season. I'm feeling pretty damn accomplished about it. I can't really tell what the rest of the team thinks...or the rest of the league, for that matter. I think some assumed that we'd win. I think some resent that we won.













Above is our skateout/introduction to the crowd at the beginning of the game. We had lights, fog machines, and one of the guys dressed as airline ground crew. Our skateout song was, "Push It" by Salt N Pepa. Yeah, that's how we roll.

The girl who was supposed to sing the National Anthem didn't show up, so the scorekeeper, Clobber Girl, sang a sweet rendition. The audience started singing along. Um, wow.

The first half of the game was insane. The score was tight, the hits were hard, and the pack was flying at the speed of light. My team wasn't at its optimum performance level. By the end of the first period we were ahead, but by only five points.















Here I am obstructing the forward progress of the Sirens' Amber Alert! I look pissed.




















I look really pissed in this photo. My team was getting penalties up the wazoo, which meant that most of the second half, we skated short one blocker on almost every jam. It was crazy. I got a little angry about that. The Sirens were getting penalties too, no doubt. But we were at quite a disadvantage the second half. Luckily my awesome co-captain Myna Threat and I managed a helluva pep talk at halftime to motivate our girls to do their bestest.




















But in the end, justice prevailed and my team won. The score was something like 40-17. The Sirens put up a good fight, but we fought better. That's why our team tagline is, "We Love to Fight and It Shows".

At the afterparty I made a total a$$ out of myself and lost all the buttons on my uniform shirt. And there's photos. Nice! But I think that since it's not every day that I win a league championship, some slack should be given for my idiotic behavior.

I'm sore. My shoulders are sore, my legs are killing me, and I took a smack to the jaw that misaligned something in there. Damn good thing I don't have to show up to the track until Wednesday...I need the rest.

Dirty and Quick

Here's the quick and dirty version of the Babydoll Brawl flyer.

It turned out OK, but it's so hard to do a quarter-page-sized flyer. It really limits the style of font one can use and have it still be readable. Whatever. It's done for now. Next week I work on a color version.

Tonight the team is coming over for pizza and DVD watching. Should be fun. I can't wait for Sunday and for all of the Championship stuff to be over. In the meantime I have to tidy up the house and be stressed for a bit. Ugh.

Got a letter from one of the studios that I took a failed test for telling me to come and get my portfolio or else they're going to throw it away. Jeez, the cheap jerks didn't even call me to tell me my portfolio was ready in the first place. I guess I'll take care of it next week.

Is it Sunday yet? I wish it were.

Babydoll Brawl

Here's a rough drawing for the special after-season bout the Dolls are having on December 2.

Instead of the regular teams playing, the up-and-coming Dolls(aka, "fresh meat") will be playing in what I'm calling, "the Babydoll Brawl". Catchy, isn't it? They've just split up into teams and the new captains are already setting training schedules and figuring out how to get everyone up to speed. It should be fun.

Since popular culture is rife with fun images to use, I ripped off the Coppertone girl for the poster. I'm in the process of building it in Illustrator now.

Project Mudsock is coming along nicely, too. More on that later.