WIP

This-here is the skateboard deck that I'm working on for a Missoula skate park art auction thingy. They're raising money to continue to build a kick-ass skatepark:













































This has been fun to do...I think all I have left is to sign it and clearcoat it.

Clearcoating has been my nemesis lately. I've been screwing up the toilet seats due to clearcoating issues. I'm doing it when the day is at its hottest, which may be a problem. So I'm switching to mid- to late- afternoon to see if my results are better.

Steady as She Goes...

People amuse and boggle me at the same time.

It's interesting how an individual can realize their shortcomings and will even mention it as a personal pitfall. But if someone else dares agree with them or point out such a flaw at a different time, well, the audacity of mentioning the obvious!

I know someone who will freely admit to not "playing well with others". They have a lot of life struggle going on in everything from their job to their living arrangements to their kids, but insist on taking on secondary obligations and responsibilities that they possibly can't do effectively. They'll flake on these secondary obligations consistently (the only instance where they are consistent in their lives), apologize, give a sob story as to why they couldn't come through, promise to improve, mention that personal pitfall about knowing that they're not doing what they need to do, but then the cycle starts all over again. All the time. For years.

It's not that this person is bad or stupid. In fact, they're scarily intelligent. But sometimes they're not very smart. I've seen genius people who can barely function in the real world and I've seen high school dropouts become rather successful. This person is definitely more of the former than the latter. I think some Better Living Through Chemistry in their past plays a part in the flake factor, too. Sad, because this person's talents are absolutely wasted on them. Even sadder when they know what to do to maintain their responsibilities but they don't/won't do it.

Yeah, I'm not part of the clique they'll casually say when they're called on their track record. No mention of their own petard-hoisting that leads to everyone around them eventually demanding that they sh!t or get off the pot. It's never their own fault when they flake, there's never any payback for having others cover their spot when needed. No follow-through on anything, but it's everyone else that is acting like they're still in high school in the eyes of this person when they can't wiggle out anymore and push finally comes to shove.

I dared this person to follow through on their requirements...they couldn't do it. Yet I get hated for their failure. Such a shame, such a waste of energy. My time was wasted then, their energy in hating me and using silly name-calling is wasted now.

It'll be interesting to see what their next distraction will end up being.

The Safe Place strikes again

I started getting ready for Rollercon this week.

Good thing I started a day earlier than anticipated, because I can't find stuff that I need for the trip. Such as the purty dress that I was going to wear to the Black & Blue Ball Friday night. Apparently when I last wore the dress a year and a half ago, I decided to put it in a Safe Place.

A real Safe Place, as I can't remember for the life of me where the hell that Safe Place is.

Crap.

I have a backup dress that's in need of a quick wash but is useable, but it's not as cool as the dress I wanted to wear.

Dammit.

I hate it when this happens. I know that next Monday I'll find the damn dress while I'm searching for some other totally non-related object.

This has been happening with increasing frequency to me. I thought I was a little young to be so scatter-brained, but that's not the case, apparently. I'm also missing about ten CD's that I had in constant rotation in my car the last time I worked in Tejas. Wherethehellcouldthosedamnthingsbe?! My house isn't that big. It's been over a year since I've seen those CD's.

Fooey.

btw, the above image was done by a guy named Daniel Steeves. It came up when I googled "Safe Place".

Wednesday already?!

Here's a hilarious photo that I insisted that the husband take before we went to last Saturday's bout:




















And here is one of the toilet seats that I'm shipping off to be shown in the Rollercon art show. That's right, they're having an art show this year! So I did a skater-themed seat for the occasion:



















If it sells, I'm donating the proceeds to a Sin City skater named Pirate who got jumped in a parking lot recently. She got the living bejeezus beat out of her and is uninsured and facing thousands of dollars of hospital bills. Yikes!

I thought I'd be able to take a week off from derby bidness and concentrate on art crap, but that ain't the case. Of course. I wish the derby stuff paid something...anything! It'd make the headaches more worthwhile.

The heat is still turning me into a sweat-pig from hell. Damn my overactive sweat glands! I hate running errands on the bicycle because I get comments from people who think I'm about to keel over from heat exhaustion. Jeez, like my being a sweaty Betty isn't bad enough.

Today's goal: to have lunch with Cute Friend Becca.

If You Didn't Go Downtown on Saturday...

You missed some fun!

The Tru$t Fund Terrors went up against the Sirens in a helluva game Saturday night. I got to be a team manager which turned out to be the perfect job for me. I'm almost looking forward to retiring from skating if I can still be a team manager. Seriously.

I decided to get into character and glam myself up:













In case you think you're seeing hallucinations, yes I'm wearing makeup and false eyelashes with rhinestones along the base.

I got to carry around a clipboard and yell my lungs out at my skaters. I went so far as to run on the infield beside them while they skated on the track, yelling all the while. I totally got into it, and I'd like to think that it helped. The audience was amused, to be sure.

Oh, and before you think you're hallucinating again...yes, I was wearing white. All white. With gold hot pants. See? This is what you freakin' miss when you don't see a Derby Dolls bout!













The TFT's didn't win, but goddam they have a lot of fans. Those girls didn't give up. They gave the Sirens hell. The capacity crowd loved it. Three skaters ended up with injuries, including my own co-cappie, Myna Threat. We're now like demented bookends, since she now has a shoulder injury very similiar to mine, but on the opposite shoulder from me. Feh!

Why am I about to spank TFT captain Broadzilla in the below photo? Because she got herself thrown out of the game! This chick is tough, and got fouled out of the game at the end of the second half. Again, the crowd went ape.













The afterparty consisted of me getting groped by other women a lot. If I were gay, it'd be totally hot. I think the husband thought it was hot. I was merely amused. If this is what looking girly is about, maybe I'm better off with my slovenly standard.

Sunday morning found the husband and I blearily driving to Hollyweird to check out the Ant Bully. It's a good flick! Even with my work in it! I was pleasantly surprised by that. I also found out that some of the people I worked with in Tejas have been reading my blog, as I heard them mention lurkers under their breath when talking to me. I'm rather amused by that. Anyway, GO SEE THE MOVIE!!!! IT'S GOOD!!!!

This week I get to catch up on art crap and go to a lot of meetings. Oh joy.

F*** yeah!

I'm done with my f***ing board. F*** yeah!

I'm psyched for the f***ing bout this weekend. Are you going?! If not, YOU F***ING SHOULD!

Sunday I'll be seeing the f***ing film that I went to Tejas for three years ago. I can't f***ing wait!

I have to ship the f***ing painted toilet seats I did for Rollercon. That'll be f***ing cool!

It's been humid as f*** lately. I'm sweating like a f***ing pig.

Why the f*** am I posting f*** so much? Because I was sent this piece of brilliance.

I f***ing love that movie.

The Pain is Worth the Fun

Yesterday I managed to be out of the house most of the day.

It started with an emergency email from the Derby Dolls' own Mr. Wolf, Iron Maiven saying that she has a boot on her car, her cellphone is at work in Santa Ana, and she needs a ride from Glendale to Santa Ana. So I sleepily responded to her through email that I'll pile on some clothes and go to Glendale to give her a ride to work.

Two hours and an entertaining conversation later, I was back on the Westside and changed clothes to get on the bicycle to meet up with the husband for lunch. It was a farewell lunch for one of his coworkers and they were all at El Cholo. The food there isn't worth writing home about, but the margaritas are totally kickass.

Two hours and a large, potent margarita and a semi-decent quesadilla later, I shakily ride the bike home and prepare to go to TFT practice.

I get to the track. I'm the first one there. So I put on work gloves and start rolling up the tarp that covers the track on the rooftop. A ghetto bird starts circling overhead...which is unusual, since they only tend to circle the track and beep their siren at us when we're skating. Anyway, I look up and wave. They keep circling. Must be a slow news day. They eventually leave.

Two and a half hours and a good workout later, I drive back to the Westside to meet up with some girls from the other roller derby league in town for an art party. I brought the skate deck that I'm painting for an art auction in Montana, paint, sandpaper, snacks, and a bottle of wine.

Seven hours, a bottle of wine ingested, snacks devoured, spankings delivered, skatedeck sanded and scribbled upon, waxing experiences told and retold, comparing notes on league meetings, and a box of cocks later, I stumble home safely. Goddam, I'm LOVIN' the art parties!

Today I wake up, very bleary-eyed but happy. I completely blew off work yesterday, so I shuffle down the hall to start work and look out the window. Another sign of the apocalypse is seen. I'm enjoying it while it lasts, but I don't expect it to last very long.

I have a lot of work to do between now and next Friday. I'm trying to keep myself locked up for most of the weekend, except for that whole going-to-see-the-Renegades-skate thing tomorrow. So far, so good.

Non-sequitir...I'm finding some people to be very amusing right now.

lurking

One of the great new pasttimes these days is lurking on the internet.

I know people lurk here but don't post comments. It's kinda weird when I'll be talking to someone whom I haven't talked to in awhile and they'll ask about a recent event/artwork/injury/rant. Huh? I'll think to myself, and then they'll notice the confused look on my face and they'll quickly say, "Yeah, I saw it on your blog."

What I'm beginning to wonder is how many people are actually lurking and reading this who hate my guts? Before I disabled the feature that allowed lurkers to make anonymous comments I started getting some snarky anonymously-left stuff. Did I know them? Did I work with them? Or were they just using the "Next Blog" button at the top of the page?

I've started finding blogs and MySpace comments from people whom I don't like. No one from the world of work(ha! Like I get a lot of that these days anyway!), but a couple of self-imposed exilers from my roller derby league and a random other person here and there who have managed to alienate most of the internet. Yes, it's possible!

It's fascinating to me to kinda-sorta get a portal into someone else's mind whom I don't agree with for whatever reason. Sometimes I'm surprised at how much I'll agree with them on a particular point, and then a sentence or two later there will be a 180-degree shift. Ah, human nature! Sometimes I have to restrain myself from posting a comment.

I don't want them to know I'm lurking.

Maybe that's why so few people leave comments here. Maybe most of my readers think I'm a depressed whiner and just watch this blog for the chimp-at-the-zoo-throwing-feces aspect of it all.

It's just us, the internet, and all those wonderful people out there in the dark!

Workity workworkwork and other random stuff

Despite the freelance I'm working on being less complicated than the previous script, I'm still steadily falling behind on it due to the bout preparation below:
















I didn't do this flyer, which is why it looks so good. One of my teammates did, though.

I need to get a union gig. There are folks who are anti-union, but animators need all the help they can get. Reading the union blog has been entertaining for the different viewpoints from different artists.

My shoulder doesn't like giving whips at practice. It'll happily hit people just fine. In fact, it feels great after I smack someone around a bit. It doesn't like to help others. Weird. So I definitely won't be skating in the bout on the 22nd, but I'll be the team manager for the TFT's.

Yesterday Mudsock told me that he and Starfish are expecting a baby in January. WOW. Apparently it was a surprise to them, but they're happy about it so it's all good. My first reaction was, Well, they didn't f*** around, did they? but then I realized that actually, they did. Um, wow.

This coming Sunday we're driving down to San Diego to check this out:


























We saw the Arizona Renegades skate against the Texas banked track league last year. It was amazing. Easily one of the most talented bunch of skaters out there. My favorite is Mayhemily.

I just got a skateboard deck in the mail. I get to paint it up for an art auction for a skatepark in Montana. Yep, Montana. I bet my art will be HUGE in Montana. Just you wait!

I'm Officially Old

I tried to sit through Donnie Darko over the weekend, since it was on cable and easily accessable as a result. It's one of those cult favorites that all the kids love, so I figured I should check it out and find out what the big whoop was about.

I don't know what the big whoop is about.

Is it a generational thing?

Probably.

Which makes me officially old, as far as I'm concerned.

Not like that should be big news, since I've felt old since the age of 23 or so.

But still.

Apocalyptic bunnies just don't do it for me.

In other news, The Big Lebowski still cracks me up even though I've seen it about a hundred zillion times.

I counted.


Here's a couple more photos from the Fight Crew shoot. This calendar is gonna rawk!




















The thing about the top photo is that I got hypnotized by the size of my quadrocep muscles. It's bad enough that I have a major case of cankles, but jeezus! my legs are going beyond the range of tree trunks altogether!














Lookit this bunch of party animals. What a bunch of goofballs!

I'm back to freelancing on the Korean kid show stuff. The script isn't as nasty as the last one, so I might not have to freak out to get it done. Which is good.

Stuck in the Middle with You

Today my team had a photo shoot.

I hate planning stuff like this, because most of the details are left to me, as captain(or "craptain", as ACDG skater Vida Loca likes to call it) to deal with.

I had to suggest themes.

I had to find locations.

I had to set the date.

I had to lineup a makeup artist(thank god one of the girls in the league, Jenna Tailya, was available).

I had to make a list of props.

I had to supply over half the props on that list.

I had to wake up early on a Saturday morning and drive downtown.

I had to sweat profusely.

I had to deal with some minor crankiness.

I had to get dirty.

I had to literally hose out my suitcase afterwards due to fake blood spillage.

And one last thing:
I had to contain myself once I saw the results.


We did this shoot because the Derby Dolls are putting together a calendar. Oh hell yeah, it's gonna be cool. Our team was the first shoot for the calendar. We had two months that we had to do. One month had to be of the team in their uniforms. The other was free-form fun. Since one of our months is October, we decided that Reservoir Dogs would be a great influence for that. So we got out our guns, blazers and ties and found ourselves a cop to mess with:














As you can see, the results are quite pretty! The Sirens' Emma Geddon was our "victim". At least she got her ear back when we were done with her. We also did a setup mimicking the Buscemi/Keitel face-off. It's hawt!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is our uniform shoot. We had originally wanted to do this in a jet plane. One of my girls is friends with someone who works for a large airline. We asked the airline if we could sneak onto a plane. They said no. We couldn't go anywhere near a plane, even if it was outside of the plane. Jeez, like we're scumbags or something. Well, based on the photo below, I guess I can't blame 'em:



















Think there's enough RED in that photo?!?!

The photographer for all this fun is Roger Snider. I haven't seen anything outside of the Derby Doll stuff that he's done(he's shot several of our bouts since last November), but I like what he does for us!

The bar we shot this at is owned by a Derby Doll: Pocket Rock-it. She's awesome. She's also responsible for getting us a space to set up our banked track for July 22. If you're ever in downtown LA and need a drink, go to Bar 107 on 4th St. @ Main. Seriously.


My shoulder is feeling significantly better. I find that if I put a heating pad on it at night, it's less cranky in the morning. It's still sore, but it's not ohmyfuxxinggawdIneedtogotothehospital sore.

I may be able to skate in all white yet!

OWCH!

Not a good day today.

Last night at practice one of my teamates and I were sent flying into the infield. When I landed, my right arm was outstretched and possibly twisted. My right shoulder is in a lot of pain right now as a result. Why don't you go to the doctor? you're probably wisely asking. Because I don't have insurance right now due to not having enough union hours to keep it going.

Oh yeah, I'm loving life.

I can't do anything with my arm where my elbow sticks out. I can lift my arm in front of me, but not to the side. I can't swing my arm out to the side. Letting it just hang is painful. It's really amazing how much range of motion one takes for granted until they lose said range of motion.

The husband is amazingly sympathetic. He says, "We don't have insurance?! Great, now I can't ride the motorcycle to work!" Nevermind that I'm in a lot of fuxxing pain right now. Well, he did suggest that I eat the cost of an office visit and try to get x-rays. Unfortunately, being unemployed doesn't make that option too fantastic.

I really don't know what to do about it, besides take ibuprofin and alternate ice and heat on it. Oh, and of course be grumpy.

I was supposed to skate in a little mini-bout for potential sponsors on Friday. Not now. I was supposed to sub for the Tru$t Fund Terrors in two weeks wearing all white(something that everyone was really looking forward to giving me sh!t about). Probably not now. Hell, I can't go buy the 50 lb. bag of kitty litter that I ordinarily can casually throw over my shoulder with ease anymore. Jeez! Stoopid skating!

Weekend Siege

The annual July 4 weekend BBQ at Eva Destruction's Mansion went off with an interesting hitch this year.

Usually there's the standard drinking, eating of veggies and cooked flesh, dressing in whatever theme Eva's husband comes up with, and a few loud motorcycles in the driveway. This year there was most of that...well, except for adherence to the BBQ theme("America, F*** Yeah!").

A side note...usually people go all out on these Mansion party themes. As in, whatever I come up with, I look like a total amateur compared to everyone else. But for "America, F*** Yeah!", people seemed to not care. Or be stumped, I'm not sure. The husband and I were the only ones who bothered. We went to the local Salvation Army and got ourselves some damn ugly patriotic clothing. Between the two of us we spent around $10. It was awesome.

ANYWAY, back to the BBQ. Below is a photo of Pocket Rock-it's shoulder, me in my hideous Salvation Army outfit, and Eva's husband Hot Carl waiting in anticipation for the corn-on-the-cob eating contest to get underway.















I won't show you the hideous photos of the six of us during the contest(Jihad and Janis Choplin also participated). It's ugly. As in, time to vomit ugly. Like, seeing Martha Stewart in the nude ugly.

Last year's winner, Jihad, didn't mess around, and managed to eat seven freakin' cobs in two minutes. How the hell she did it, I don't really know. I managed only four, and it was a struggle. Here she is with the corn-eating crown:



















Not long after the victory photo was taken, we all noticed a police helicopter swarming about:















It didn't go away. In fact, it kept getting closer until it was right overhead. We had been making jokes about it tracking us, but stopped when the copter didn't go away.

Pocket Rock-it's boyfriend, Red, waltzed up and said, "Some guy just popped over the yard fence and asked for a bandage. When I said 'no', he left." Apparently the cops were looking for that guy, and blocked off the street soon after Red's encounter with the fugitive.

The police came and talked to Red, along with Razorslut's husband, Mr. Slut. Mr. Slut saw the fugitive as well. When he was done talking with the cops, he told the rest of the party that the fugitive was wanted for stealing a car. Wow, getting a whole street blocked off for stealing a car?! In LA?!?! That's pretty damn impressive!

Red finished talking with the cops and reported that the fugitive robbed a liquor store. Hmmmm. Robbed a liquor store and then stole a car, or stole a car and robbed a liquor store?

During all of this the helicopter kept swarming directly overhead.

After 2o minutes we were told by the cops to get inside, as the fugitive was suspected to be still lurking about. We grabbed the beer and whatever meat was on the BBQ and headed indoors.

We ended up having to stay indoors for the next two hours. On a hot summer night. With no air conditioning. Um, yeah. Good times!

While we sat inside, the cops came onto the property with their police dogs and searched the side and back yards. It was kinda surreal to see flashlights cut through the night with the shadowy figures of the dogs flitting through occasionally. They seemed strangely hyper, those dogs. We dared to break protocol and stepped out onto the front porch, where I took a photo of the cops. They didn't like it when I did that.















The party people got restless. And cranky.

So did the cops. They kept coming up and asking to talk to Red Rock-it and Mr. Slut about what they saw of the fugitive. Added to the car-stealing and liquor-store-robbing was a count of climbing over a 2o-foot fence topped with razorwire(hence his asking for a bandage from Red) as the siege wore on. For some reason the cops thought we weren't cooperating enough, so they said that the guy also shot a baby. This last count was a total fabrication. The party people were not amused:















After two hours and the constant drone of the police copter overhead, we finally heard that the fugitive was caught the next block over. Finally!

So we promptly left.

Well, after catching this charming moment of one of the party people passed out on the floor. How he got his head under the endtable, I'm not too sure.

The Hunt

Over the weekend I started searching around for my stash of glitter so that I can finish the twelve thousand toilet seats that need to be clear-coated. That's right, twelve THOUSAND. You think I'd exaggerate? How dare you!

Anyway, I couldn't find the glitter. Which is annoying, because I know it's around someplace. I can't imagine someone wanting to steal glitter. Just glitter. Well, I suppose you never know, but somehow I doubt it. I'm sure I put it in a Safe Place. You know, that place that's so safe, even you forgot where you put your stuff. I hate it when I do that.

Yesterday I went to get more glitter. A piece of cake, I thought. I'd just go to the local hobby shop and restock allllll of the glitter colors and varieties that I had before. No problem.

Riiiiiight.

I go to the hobby store. First, they've rearranged the layout, so I couldn't even find the damn glitter for fifteen minutes. I just wandered around in over-lit confusion until I found an aisle that had a small selection of feathers, feather boas, masks, and glitter. Apparently the trend in glitter is that loose glitter is passe and glitter glue is all the rage with crafters. Well damn. And the selection of loose glitter is on a scale from middling to pathetic. Double damn. The only cool thing they had were tiny glitter stars in a variety pack of four colors. I grabbed a couple of those and some basic colors of regular glitter and decided to hit a fabric store nearby that also has some craft/hobby type stuff.

A side note: I was on my bicycle for all of this running around. Yesterday was windy, cloudy, and humid as hell. I thought I was breathing underwater it was so damn humid. The wind didn't help matters. I now know what an asthmatic feels like.

So at the fabric store, I find that the property that the store is sitting on has been sold, hence the store is going out of business and isn't selling a wide variety of anything, much less glitter. Jeez, I had no idea that good glitter could be so hard to come by. Why can't I remember the Safe Place that the old stash of glitter is so calmly residing in? I know that as soon as I'm done with the toilet seats with their inferior glitter, I'll find the good stuff. ARGH!

I made do with the just-a-notch-above-middling glitter selection that the fabric store had, but I'm ticked off about it. I have to find another source of glitter. How stoopid is that?!

Below is some more derby artwork. Drawing skates is tedious, but thank goodness for Google when it comes to searching for nice, clear images of skates to trace, and double-thank-goodness for Illustrator for making said tracing not too soul-crushing.

The Morning Rant

I hate getting wound up over stoopid stuff, but today I am just that.

The Art Dept. of the derby league is feeling some growing pains. There was a meeting last week to decide on bout themes for our games. The bout themes and dates would be handed off to individuals for them to design the bout posters for each game. I wasn't at that meeting. Why? Because I thought it was cancelled.

It wasn't.

Dammit.

The list of bout theme ideas consisted of really off-the-wall ideas such as a Halloween theme for October and a Back to School theme for September. Yes, I know...just contain yourselves over the daringness of these ideas. Gosh, who woulda thunk to use those themes for those months? There were other themes listed, but weren't assigned to specific months...like a ninja theme. Um, OK.

So shockingly, the final vote by the league has the Halloween theme for October and Back to School for September.

Ugh.

I'm not volunteering to do the bout posters for those months due to my brain automatically shutting off from boredom. The husband told me that I'm experiencing expectation failure. Damn right I am. It's not as if the Quadfather's Day bout idea was freakin' brilliant, but it wasn't the typical theme one would use. I like putting a twist on stuff; not going for the obvious. This crap that's been decided upon is pathetically obvious.

What can I do about it? Not a damn thing except whine. Whining to the Art Dept. isn't much of a useful option, so I whine here.

Because I can.

At least the latest toilet seat is done except for the clear-coating. This week is clear-coating madness as I have to get a seat or two ready to show at Rollercon. And then I have to sift through my computer files and do some catch-up work there. And then I have more seats to paint. Jeezus, if I only got paid for this stuff!

Last night a freak thunderstorm moved through our area. It was amazing. I was sitting around watching Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle on cable when I hear a loud rumbling. At first I thought there was a very sick plane landing at the local airport two blocks away. But no. I go outside and was treated to a light show of epic proportions that LA usually doesn't get to see. I could smell the ozone from the lightning, and it was wonderful. It reminded me of Texas weather. Rain fell after the thunder and lightning moved on, but only for about five minutes.

A good way to end a weekend.

Art art art

I'm almost done painting a toilet seat that's going into a gallery in October. Now I gotta throw it onto the pile of other seats that are in dire need of clear-coating.

Below is the new Derby Dolls recruitment flyer. The screaming skater is my very own co-captain, Myna Threat. It was taken at the SxSW bout in Austin back in March. She's damn cute:




















I don't know if I mentioned that this week all the teams had "votes of confidence" for their captains and co-captains. It essentially was a way to find out if the teams were happy with their captains and co-captains. Both Myna and I made the grade and we're still in like freakin' Flynn. Which I should take as a compliment, but deep down I know that the reason why I'm captain is because no one else on the team wants to do it.

Anyway, I have tons more art crap to do. I'm feeling very close to being productive or something. How weird is that?!

This is it.

This is the whole one photo I have of myself from Saturday's game. I look cranky, don't I?

I'm going to blaspheme...

Oh yes, yes I am.

Last night I went to see Cars.

And I wasn't impressed.

OK, that's kind of a lie. I loved the backgrounds, especially since I'm a big fan of travelling along Route 66 and recognized a lot of the Mother Road influences in the art direction. But the story? Not so much. I was underwhelmed. One colleague o' mine calls it a "honking turd". I wouldn't go that far...I've seen much worse movie-wise. But it is kinda sad that the best part of Cars was the spoofs of Pixar's own films at the end. That was hilarious!

You know what I liked much more than Cars?

Over the Hedge.

Loved it! Good art direction, voice casting, layout, storyboarding, animation...the whole shebang sat quite well with me. Much more so than Cars. It's about time Dreamworks got its head out of its ass and did something really fun. And so they did.

Next, I have to see Nacho Libre. I hear it's hilarious.

The Other One

Here's the second sticker design for my own nefarious uses that I sent off to Monsterpress. I'd better get something cool back or I'm going to cry like a little baby.




















Now I have to concentrate on getting a recruitment flyer for the Derby Dolls done and sent off to be printed. Things are crazy, plans are changing, nerves are frayed, and I just want to curl up in a hole and whimper quietly to myself until it all blows over.

Oh, by the way, did I mention that my team won on Saturday? The score was 26-13. The lowest scoring game the Dolls have had to date. Mainly because of the heat. Luckily no one got heat stroke or injured...especially since we kinda-sorta forgot to get EMT's for the game.

Ooooooooooops.

My team got to wear our spiffy new uniforms and got to meet our uniform sponsors. At first the sponsors(a husband-wife team)were kinda blase with us...well, OK, with me. I gave them the card that I made as well as other things like a Fight Crew shirt, buttons, Derby Dolls stickers and even a Fight Crew bracelet. They set the package containing the goodies aside when I handed it to them. I left. After the game they were much more enthusiastic about us. Probably because we won. I sure stunk up the uniform, though. The drycleaners are probably having to wear extra-heavy-duty hazmat suits to handle the stench.

Back to work. Someday I want to take a real vacation.

Yay, Monsters!

On one of the sites that I check obsessively throughout the day, one of the printers there was offering an interesting deal. You design a sticker for his business, and he'll print a sticker for your personal use. In other words, a trade.

Below is the sticker design I did for him. I still have to do my own personal design for my own personal stickers. I'm pretty happy with the way this turned out, considering I didn't know what the hell I was doing, as usual:




















I have until Friday to do the other design.

I also have to do a recruitment flyer for the Derby Dolls. I still have a ridiculous amount of painted toilet seats to finish clearcoating, too. Sheesh, for a week off, I'm not getting to take a freakin' break!

Thanks

Here's the thank-you card I made for my team's uniform sponsor. Hopefully the lady who owns the company will like it:













Today I had to ride to the Valley to drop off my freelance work. My god, it was stoopidly hot! And I have to skate in it tomorrow afternoon! Who the hell thought this was a good idea?! It doesn't help that I'm what the league calls a "sweaty betty". It's rather self-explanatory...when I perspire, I essentially turn into a walking Niagra Falls of sweat. My face goes red, too. Highly attractive, I might add. The other sweaty bettys in the league just sweat, they don't have the redness thing going on. Ha! I got them beat!

I'm also PMS'ing like crazy. That just adds a fun layer of snarkiness and uncomfortable-ness to the whole weekend's festivities. The topper would be if I started bleeding during the game. Oh hells yeah, that'd be fun.

I'm looking forward to having next week off for my own fun. I have about six toilet seats to finish up, and I'm thinking of actually doing a painting. A real painting. On canvas. Something which I haven't done since jr. college. Hmmmmmm.

TGIF!

Friday.

Blessed Friday.

I finished my freelance crap at around 1:30 in the am last night/this morning. Ahhhhhh, it feels soooo good to be done with it! I "celebrated" with a apple martini or three which I needed to counteract the Red Bull I knocked back a couple of hours earlier when I was dozing off in my chair. Today my head is fuzzy on the inside.

As usual.

Now I gotta concentrate on this weekend's bout and finding another job next week.

Oh yeah, and I have to make a card for my team's uniform sponsor. The uniforms are gorgeous, so drawing up a card for them ain't no thang. It'll look way better than this squirrel:











For chucks and snicks I went to the animation union blog yesterday and was nosing around there. Ended up making the most idiotic and rambling comment on an entry that was a few days old. This morning I look to see if anyone called me on my crap and found that Geena Davis posted a comment after me. Yeah, that Geena Davis.

She didn't call me on my crap. In fact, she hardly registered its existence.

Probably for the best, really.


There's something so secretive about typing in the tiny font. I like it! Too bad I don't have anything shocking to reveal here.

Bleeding...

Right now I'm in the midst of storyboarding a dippy song for this dippy storyboard on a dippy kids show.

It's awful.

Gawdfreakin' AWFUL.

There's kazoos in the song. It's not good. Especially since it's a song about having good table manners. Kazoos do not belong in songs dealing with that subject manner. End of story.

Pardon me while I pour battery acid in my ears.

Directions

See schedule below.

Click on it to see full-size web version.

Read the dates carefully.

Pull out schedule-planner.

Write down the dates.

Go to the bouts on those dates.

Say "hi" to me.

Yell your lungs out.

Have fun.

Serves as many people as we can cram into one space.

I HATE COMPUTERS

So I try to update my stoopid website with pictures. It shouldn't be a big deal. Open the page, edit the page, save the page, upload the page, look at the results.

However, Dreamweaver doesn't like uploading my pictures. FUXXERS. Whatever text I upload and save is there, but I get little red x's for the pictures. WTF?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?! It's pissing me off. BIG TIME.

Anyway, below is the poster I did for the competing roller derby league here in LA. Enjoy its smallness...if my FUXXING website was working I'd post it there. DAMMIT ALL TO HELL.

A Fearless Leader

Since our coach left the Derby Dolls, we've had to put together a training team to run practices. This team consists of the captains, co-captains, and few other badass skaters. So I have to run practices a couple times a month, which I hate doing. With a passion.

It just puts me on the spot. Like I really know what the hell I'm doing. I don't. Really. It's amazing how a loud mouth makes up for a working brain sometimes. Is this how regular teachers feel? I hate it. This "being responsible" sh!t is just buggin'.

It also doesn't help that the day-job freelance is in high gear and I have a derby-related flyer and two posters to complete before the weekend. Oh, and one of the posters I'm doing is for the competing LA league. Yes, that's right, I'm a sellout. A cheap sellout, but a sellout nonetheless. This brings up the issue of league loyalty. As it should.

Artistically, me doing stuff for the other league is like being released from a straightjacket. But skate-wise, uh...they're competition at this point.

Dude.

I'm in wait-and-see mode right now. I like having different approaches to different leagues. It rocks my little pea-brain. I've done artworkfor two other leagues with no moral dilemna. But can I really be an artistic derby slut? Only time will tell, evidentially.

From the Pet Peeve Dept.

I never, ever spell my name with a y.


EVER.

It's too damn hot outside to do anything productive.

I might get some ice cream and take a nap. Freelance work be damned!

Enjoy this sex-ay babe drawing that I did at a restaurant a couple of weeks ago. There's something about drawing on butcher paper using a crayon with a tablecloth underneath that makes for some nice work. Not like you can really tell from this crapacious scan, but trust me when I say that it's mind-blowingly amazing:













I've been reading a new blog by artist Eddie Fitzgerald. He's a funny guy and a funny drawer. He's of the type that makes me want to shake my not-nearly-so-talented fists in the air and scream, "Damn you, Eddie Fitzgerald! Damn you for being so damn funny! It's not fair!!!!!!!"

But instead I'll just hole up in my art room and look forlornly out the window. After my nap and ice cream, that is.

Back to Chinatown

Today one of the skaters emailed me some photos from two weeks ago when we set the track back up at our old Chinatown rooftop home:









In case you can't figure out, I'm skating backwards in the first pic. The ridge behind me is the rim of Dodger Stadium. There's nothing more amazing than skating on a rooftop in Chinatown over the July 4 weekend when the fireworks are going off at the stadium. And they say LA doesn't have cool stuff going on.









I love the composition in this second photo. Too bad I wreck it by looking like such a doofus! In my next life I'd like to come back as a truly pretty person. This knuckle-dragging stuff is annoying.

I have actual work to do. Yeah, work-work. Freelance has hit. I haven't even begun to put a dent in the actual art stuff I needed to get done. Ah well, I guess I need to get to know time management better!

More Squirrels

Over the weekend I was farting around with a stencil that I made. I don't know what it is about squirrels, but they're damn fun to draw and make stencils out of. Anyway, the photos below show my stencil and my awesome overspray-prowess with spray chalk. You wish you could be this sloppy:










Sorry for the ridiculous amount of blue that these photos have. I tried fixing it in Photoshop, but it didn't work too well. Oh well. If you want to see the true grandeur of this hot pink squirrel, come visit my backyard.










I'm thinking of airbrushing the lil' booger on a t-shirt for fecal matter and guffaws. However, I'm thinking of not including the overspray. Try to contain your disappointment, sports fans.


Tonight there's a meeting after derby practice in which a bunch of us will talk about how we're going to run our bouts this season. That includes any and all rule changes(we play the game differently from every other league out there, because our old coach who has since quit said so), how long each period will go for, how the referee situation will be set up, etc. I was looking forward to this meeting, but now I'm not. In fact, I'm seriously contemplating going back on my two-month personal ultimatum I gave myself to stay with the Derby Dolls because one of the league owners is pissing me off so bad. She's acting like a Hollywood producer in that she has to have her hand in just about everything. Which would be OK if she were focused, but she's not.

I don't want to quit the Derby Dolls, but I may have to for sanity's sake.

I Dunno...

...which is more disturbing, the 3-armed baby:















Or the "family heirloom":

What I did last week...

Can I just say that building a roller skate in Illustrator is not easy?

Mark your calendars now and SHOW UP:

Scurry Up

I have this week of day-job-freeness going on. No deadlines, no being nice to anyone.

But I'm still busy.

I have 3 toilet seats that need to be started, 3 more that need to be finished. A bout poster needs to be tidied up. Stencils need to be made and cut and ready to use by the weekend. And I'm running derby practice tonight. Oh, and I'm still coughing up almost-solid chunks of phlegm. Good times!


Here's a rough drawing of the seat I've started for a gallery show in October that I'm supposed to be participating in:








Cute, isn't it?

Yes, repulsive.

Fuzzy

My head is still fuzzy from this cough/cold/flu thing that I've been "enjoying" over the past 4-5 days. Also, my computer has decided that it doesn't need to see the D drive within its innards. Which is a big problem, because that's where allllllllll my artwork is stored. Oh hell yeah, good times! So no pictures for now. Which may be a relief, for all I know.

My last day at work was a pain. The sequence director suddenly decided that many drawings that have been in the boards for three weeks or more were suddenly unacceptable and I had a lot of redrawing to do. What made it really maddening was that he didn't compile a list, he just kinda decided on the fly what he wanted changed as he flipped through the entire board throughout the day. So I'd have a revision. Take the page to his office, he'd look at it, say yay or nay, and either have me redraw that page again or hand me one, two or three more changes to make at a time. Rinse and repeat.

So I was running back and forth between my cubicle and his office all freakin' day. I think I wore through the carpeting between that horrible cubicle and that horrible office. And I was driving to Sacramento as soon as the last revision was completed. He knew it, but kept with the straggling drawings here-and-there until I was seriously thinking of just throwing what I had left to do at him and leaving without getting my final paycheck from Human Resources. Note: not a very good plan.

I just want to say that I don't mind doing the work, as long as it's somewhat organized and useful. What happened on Friday was random and chaotic and DAMMIT, it was my last fuxxing day!

The last thing I want to hear when I'm trying to get work done and get the hell out is: "Hey, it's lunchtime, go talk to your derby friends and take a break." Um, NO, how about you figure out somewhat quickly what else you want me to redo so that I can get it done and get the FUXX outta here, never to darken your doorstep any more?

Now that's a great idea!

I was in a foul mood, to say the least. You'd think that the sequence director would want to get rid of me as fast as possible, but I really think he enjoyed torturing me.

To add insult to injury, the production person on the crew forgot to give my final timecard to Human Resources, so they didn't have my final paycheck cut and ready for me. Bastards! So I could've walked out after all, as my paycheck was mailed to me. Sheesh.

The last comical aspect of all this? The supervising director kept saying to me, "You should become a director! You'd be GREAT!" Uh, riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Not Again...

I have some kind of flu-cold-ick thing going. I hatehatehate it when I get sick, as it's usually because I've been exposed to someone who refused to stay home and get over their sickness so they're spreading it to everyone else in the free frickin' world. So did I stay home when I started getting it last Friday? Oh hell no, I went to my last day of work and then drove up to Sacramento! Yes, I specialize in hypocrisy, why do you ask?

So I saw the Bay Area Derby Girls and the Sac City Rollers do their thing. It was really weird to be a spectator and not have any responsibility to do anything except say, "Hi, I'm from the LA league." and buy shirts from each league.

BAD girls: they debuted two new teams: the Treasure Island Goldiggers and the Alcatraz Escapees. I cheered for the Goldiggers, as they had cool uniforms and I was staying with one of their team members, Fighty Irish. Their games are split into three 20-minute periods. The skating goes by really fast, but the breaks in between the periods are as long as the periods themselves, so it really killed the flow of the game. It didn't help that the only entertainment they had was a magician/freak show guy who specialized in putting drill bits up his nose and laying down on a bed of nails. snore. By the start of the third period, a noticeable chunk of the crowd had left.

The pack was tight and moving at a good pace. The jammers were pretty good. Didn't see too much in strategy going on, and part of that is because the pack didn't look around to keep track of the jammers often enough. No one did any whips or jumps. One skater, Rolemite, landed on her face when she jammed. We feared that she was truly injured, but she recovered and came back in after sitting out a couple of jams. In the end, Fighty Irish from the Goldiggers and Motley Cruz from the Escapees really stood out as exceptional jammers. The Goldiggers won by a sizeable margin.


Sac City Rollers: this was their first exhibition bout. They had their new girls, the A-cups (I love that name! Better than the "Fresh Meat" term that the Dolls use) play a game of musical chairs to the tune of Black Sabbath's Sweet Leaf that was hilarious. The sister of one of my old friends from high school participated in that and she hung in there for a good long while. After a short band set, the league's two new teams, the Shakedown Syndicate and Operation Assassination played for one 20-minute period.

Their packs were slower and more spread out, which makes it easier for the jammers to find holes to skate through. They started playing pretty clean, but they ended up getting rather handsy with each other...I saw a little grabbing, which is highly illegal. It was still a fun match to watch, and the Shakedowns won. I was impressed with Loco Coco, Billie Club, and Mugshot Mary skate-wise. I was asked by manymany of the skaters after the bout what I thought of them. Wow! As if my opinion matters, but I must admit I was a bit tickled by it all. They're a great bunch of girls and I hope some of them make it down to LA to watch us play.

This is such a boring trip report, but it's hard to be entertaining when I'm dizzy. Feh.

Horse

A few weeks ago one of the husband's biker friends emailed me saying that he saw a photo of me in a chopper magazine called The Horse. I was amused, since The Horse is a somewhat typical biker mag in that the women seen in its pages are usually wearing veryvery little and are draped across motorcycles that they don't own and therefore don't ride. So what would little old me be doing in a magazine like that?

Skating at the No Love ride, of course. Click on photo to see bigger copy of said photo:












It's a crapacious scan, but the photo is pretty funny. Appropos for the mag, since I almost have cleavage showing.


I'm still shovelling Scooby doo. One of the sequence directors is making friends and influencing people by totally flaking on getting his section done. The board artists on his crew are disgusted...and after I saw what their boards look like(absolutelyfreakingamazing stuff, they're doing), I can understand why...the director's stuff looks like an autistic koala on LSD drew it out. I can't wait to hear what happens next.

Miss Manners

In the new roller derby world, it's been customary in the not-too-distant past to let out-of-town rollergirls get into bouts for free. However, for the bouts that I plan to attend this coming weekend, that doesn't seem to be the case. Either the Bay Area and Sacto leagues aren't up on said etiquette, or that etiquette is already a thing of the past. San Diego didn't honor that etiquette either, which I disagreed with. Luckily I was able to sneak my way in. Nevertheless, it sucks when I'm trying to plan this shit.

I'm not whining about this because I'm cheap. Well, I am cheap, but damn, I'm driving all the way through the central CA valley to see these bitches skate and I don't get a break?! Um, jeez. Makes me love Texas that much more...they know how to treat their guests!

Well, at least the Dolls have a way to cut down our guest list for upcoming bouts, I guess.

Oh, Sweet Release...

I'm a happy girl today.

Yes, you read right. I'm not my usual miserably whiny self. Why?

Because we got our banked track back up and running at our old rooftop home in downtown/Chinatown. Oh, blessed skating release!

How could this get better? My job ends on Friday. Oh hell yeah, I'm happy!

But wait, there's more!

The Derby Dolls have an actual season lined up. Yes, a real, honest-to-goodness season.
We're having flat-track bouts in June and July, with a weekend of banked-track fun in August. Oh by-the-way, if you're in LA on Saturday, June 17, you're required to show up to the Fight Crew v. Tough Cookies bout in NoHo. We're going to be in our spiffy new uniforms kicking some wannabe Girl-Scout ass. It'll be fun. You'll enjoy yourself, especially when you're cheering for your favorite miserably whiny Fight Crew captain. Oh yes, you will.

How can this be topped?

Glad you asked.

I'm going to NoCal next weekend to see the Bay Area Derby girls do their thang. And then I'm giong to see the Sac City Rollers have their first in-town bout the following night. This will be the last time I'll be able to travel for awhile(if you call going to NoCal "travelling"), so I'm really looking forward to it. Yes, I'm a derby-aholic.

I'm doing a Snoopy dance of joy on the inside.

And now, a totally incomprehensible doodle that I did several years ago. I must've been drunk.

Grumpy Again...

Is it wrong to want to throttle the boss?

It really sucks to work for a person who keeps changing their minds, as all it does is create more work with less results. It'd be a helluva lot easier for the boss to actually sit and think about what they want before telling people to change what they've done already, especially since it ends up being changed about five more times after that. Grrrrrrrrr!

Only two more weeks.

Only two more weeks.

Only two more weeks...


Anyway, here's a Swamp critter to gaze upon. I don't remember where it came from. It just...became.

Summer...?

I almost forgot to mention...summer is creeping up on me again.

The best indicator of summer's presence is the yearly return of movie screenings at the Hollywood Forever cemetery. Some folk might find it kinda morbid to bring a picnic dinner, a bottle of wine or other libations and a blanket to a cemetery to watch old films. Of course I don't, and apparently there are a couple thousand other people who are freaks like me.

Tonight is the first screening of the year: The Maltese Falcon. Yes, these guys go for the classics! Next week they're showing The Birds. They were taking suggestions for other films to be shown during the season, so I emailed them. Amongst my suggestions were Chaplin and Keaton films, Blazing Saddles and Fast Times at Ridgemont High. I forgot to suggest Rock n' Roll High School...shame on me.

Five-o dee May-o

Most LA folk spend Cinco de Mayo drinking margaritas and partying. I'm certainly not adverse to such activity, but this year I did something different.

I went to a wedding at the LA Zoo.

Yes, at the Zoo.

It was pretty fun...we got to ride a tram, see the giraffes and an elephant, make fun of peacocks, and -- the best part -- we had chimpanzees screaming throughout the ceremony. That was cool. The groom (Mudsock) and bride (Starfish) looked wonderful and put on a great gig. To be honest I always thought that Starfish would rather lick the sweat off of an obese gymnast's buttcrack during a particularly humid summer afternoon than talk to me, so I was pleasantly startled to be included in the whole chimp-screaming adventure, since it was a small, intimate affair. It was also pleasant to see other work colleagues whom I haven't talked to in about forever. Hi kids...leave a comment, dammit!

Anyway, it was a fun evening and a heartfelt wedding. It was quite nice to go to a ceremony that wasn't caught up in ceremony.


In other news...

Two weeks left on Scooby Doo, then it's blessed unemployed release. I'm thinking of going back up to Sackoftomatoes for the Sac City Rollers' first hometown bout. I also have two toilet seats to paint, a monkey logo to draw, and those damn buttons that I keep threatening to order need to be ordered.

On Wednesday I went to a fundraiser at a local bar for the new flat-track derby league that broke away from the Derby Dolls. Overall I had fun and even bought a shirt. I had a long discussion with some skaters who haven't made up their minds about whether to stay with the Dolls or go to this new league. What's the problem? Well, some of them are up to be placed on Derby Doll teams, but these girls are kinda opinionated about which team they want to be on. In fact, they said that if they're placed on a particular team(not mine...they apparently like my team...as they should!), they'd rather quit the Dolls and go to the flat-track league. Oy vey! What the hell am I supposed to do with that information?! Seriously, I'm at a loss as to how to handle it. And this is happening during our supposed league hiatus. Hiatus, schmiatus, apparently.


I have to work this weekend. As well as go to San Diego to check out the first exhibition bout for the sister league. I'm looking forward to that, as I'll be able to use my human megaphone powers during the game for good instead of evil.


Below is a doodle that was drawn when I was depressed a few years ago. I forget what exactly I was depressed about when I drew it, but I remember the general feeling of misery when I look at it.

More Entropy...

The latest in @$$hole neighbor activity here.