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!

AUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dear Work Computer Program and Email:

You're not making my life easier.

In fact, you're pissing me right the fuck off.

"Learning curve"? More like a learning RAVINE, assholes.

I can't fucking wait to master the new stuff and make all of you my bitches.

Things I Learned in Tuscon This Weekend

In random order:

• Dealing with an ant invasion in the kitchen because the cat didn't like his cat food from the night before when one is trying to leave the house was very, very frustrating.

• How to spell "Tucson".

• Remembering to bring an mp3 player for the longest. Drive. EVAR.

• Pants are optional, but nice.

• Freak heatwaves in October suck.

• Forgetting to pack a bathing suit is riDONKulous.

• Playing the Tucson league is FUUUUUUUUN.

• Losing is no bueno.

• LA Derby Dolls know how to throw an afterparty.

• The only worthwhile thing to do in Quartzite, AZ is to buy earrings with bugs in them.

• Gas up in Arizona, not California.

• The Days Inn in Tucson is apparently "ewwwww", according to Killo and Amber.

• The Holiday Inn Express is sa-WANK.

• The Comfort Inn isn't too shabby, either.

• Tucson skaters? SRSLY, they're awesome.

• I have never loved the marine layer on the LA Westside so much as I did today when we came home.

• Do not ever play covers of Robin Trower music in front of me from your mp3 collection. Play the real thing or deal with me screaming, "BLUESHAMMER!"at the top of my lungs repeatedly.

• If I can't get into the afterparty, make sure you have a sooper-VIP-afterparty-Afterparty so that I feel better. It works.

• Even when we lose, we win.

• Heckling is only as good as the volume at which it's done at. If we can't hear you, it doesn't count.

• Downtown Tucson is confusing to navigate.

• Every time I think that I hate LA, I find out what I like about it when I leave and then come back.

• However, California NEEDS Waffle Houses. SRSLY. That stuff is tasty. I don't know if I can live with myself for not trying them out when I was in Texas years ago. FOR SHAME.

• Is amused that the Cabazon dinosaur exhibits are owned by creationists. Some of the literature at the Gift Shop is...uh...interesting.

• Finding that the ants didn't reinvade the kitchen was very, very nice.

• I loveloveLOVE skating with the Derby Dolls. Truly a bunch of klassy broads.

Busy

Still a busy week for me.

The car had a faulty O2 censor in it, and so it had to be taken in for fixing. Unlike my last car, this was covered under the extended warranty I smartly bought, and so the total damage to my pocketbook was just over $100. WIN!

In the meantime, the rain kept me from being as mobile as I want to be. Ah well, it'll go back to being dry and miserable soon enough.

Skating in Tuscon this weekend. Will be driving out there. UGH. I kinda wish I wasn't going, as I've been needing to study character designs for the upcoming gig that I start next Monday. UGH.

And something to actually look at...

I started to actually use my flickr account as an online portfolio, especially since my old website hasn't been updated in...forever. I no longer have the website program to access said old website, so that's that. But yesterday I FINALLY added a set about my favorite hobby, drawing on people. I have a LOT of photos of my drawings on people, but this set is a pretty decent documentation of the general jist of it all.

Now back to doing stuff. Today it's a visit to the tattoo-removal place and practice. Just over a week away from the last game of the season for my team. It'd better be worth it.

Fallout

It's been a couple of weeks since Whip It! was released.

The DIY derby world expected the film to do spectacularly in the real world.

So far, it hasn't.

Not for a lack of trying when it comes to publicity, though. I've seen ads for the movie, interviews with the actresses from the film, and public-interest stories about DIY derby all over the place.(hell, I was on local tv last week, as a matter of fact)

The one thing that is sticking in my craw about the news coverage is that it's the same ooooollllldddd story: "By day, these women are, ______fill in the blank with societally-approved female role__________. By night, they're rough n' tumble ROLLER DERBY GIRLS!!!!!!"

Been there, done that. About five years ago.

Why is it that people find it so weird that some women want to do something that's heavily physical? Why is it that women involved in derby found the need to have "alter egos" for the sport, even though in just about every case it's not about actually having an alter ego, but a need to separate out this "weird" physical part of themselves away from the rest so that other folk don't just focus on this one aspect of their lives?

In this day of "post-feminism", why is it that women who want to be involved in a full-contact sport are still freaks that need some type of justification to do it, while guys who want to be involved in a full-contact sport are just...guys?

I know academic papers have been written by some derby women for their respective college classes, but I don't know if this aspect was really touched upon or how it was expressed.

My annoyed feelings on this also kinda go against my arguments for keeping derby names...if we keep the names, are we perpetuating the need to justify ourselves by having to stuff away our "alter egos" for the "right time and place" so that we don't offend anyone with our violent(and non-societal-approved) sensibilities?


Dammit.

While I ponder the above, I have a lot of prepping to do for skating in Tuscon this weekend as well as getting ready for the Working World again. I guess that means I have to start "behaving" myself again.

Dammit.

In the meantime, enjoy the below random photos:





















































PS: I think Whip It! will be a DVD/cult hit. No, really.

Sesame Street game

"Which of these things/is not like the others?

Which of these things/doesn't belong?

Can you guess which of these things/is not like the others?

Before I get to the end of this song?"














Last Saturday at the Tough Cookies/Varsity Brawlers game. Iron Maiven pulled out the girl scout troop leader uniform for my team managing pleasure. TC beat the pants off of VB. It was a good night.


I'm now trying to get during-the-day stuff done before going back to Employment Land. Such things include going to get a flu shot, and remembering to make an appointment to get my car an oil change. Oh joy! My life is flabulous.

Happy Snoopy Dance!!!!!!

My underemployed mojo was running strong for almost a year now. The freelance I'd been working on was fun, but the pay was...how shall I say? Painfully low? Meager? Made me reconsider starting a profitable meth lab in the back room?

Yeah, all of the above.

So I started looking for work in earnest recently. Got shot down a few times(but at least I didn't have to take a test!), was extremely stressed out since both the Dear Husband and I haven't been working for awhile, but FINALLY interviewed with a well-known small studio that is working on a new Peanuts special. AND GOT THE JOB!!!!

I'm definitely one of those people who loved Peanuts as a kid. I had quite a selection of Snoopy toys, and my first wristwatch was one of Lucy that I wore for years(wish I knew what happened to it). I could draw Snoopy fairly well for a dumb kid. I drew him a lot.

I read the comic strip every day. I discovered my favorite era in Peanuts when I got a book that was a compilation of some of the 60's strips which I find was the best design and most clever writing that Schultz did. The 50's era was very...round design-wise. The 70's brought the bulbous design that has steadfastly held on, just the line quality changed. But the 60's? Stylized, but fluid and solid.

And of course there's the tv specials. Who didn't freak the hell out in ecstasy when the CBS intro for their holiday programming came on?! Who didn't love watching the Xmas special, The Great Pumpkin, or the most sob-inducing, Snoopy Come Home? I sure as shit did!

So to find out about this particular project, get in for an interview and to succeed in landing the gig makes me feel like I was destined to do it. I think the last time I felt this way was when I first went to work at Warner Bros. I'm that excited.

So here's an appropriate Snoopy Dance of joy: