Death of a Cat

My barely 1 year old cat had to be put down last night after a month of poor health ended in him lying in a puddle of his own dripping urine.  What we originally had been told was a urine infection, and then maybe urine stones in his bladder was in fact his kidneys failing.  With no apparent cause, the best thing to do was to simply put him down as he would most likely relapse as soon as he returned home.  RIP Turkey Bacon aka Jerkface Kitty.

Meltdown

I am terribly broke and depressed and I think it's time for me to move back across the country so that I can get a better job because I can't even get an interview for the life of me here but I don't want to tell my SO because it will mean breaking up.  Anxiety is a powerful force in my life and right now its hitting me with full force and I can barely breathe.  I don't know what to do and I mostly just cry.  I keep thinking, I just need to get through a couple more months, this summer...  I don't know.  But I'm 30 and educated and need a job.

Wheel Review- Heartless

So after playing my first season exclusively on Radar Flat-Outs, last August I took the plunge and bought new wheels.  My rational for not changing them earlier was simply that I wasn't a skilled enough skater to take advantage of any better wheels.  Realistically, it may have been the case that they were holding me back.  So last August I ordered in some new wheels, Heartless Voodoo and Breakers.  These were the Burgundy (Voodoo, 86a) and Red (Breaker, 92a) wheels if you go by the colour coding system.  They look like this:

I put them on my skates, and tried them out during our off season, when we hold boot camps for potential new recruits.  After a couple of clumsy cross-overs, I was skating them just fine...  And I loved them.  Nice and narrow, responsive, and light!, and I was immediately more comfortable lifting my feet and moving around the track, jumping, slicing, running and spinning.

As time wore on, I got more comfortable with the idea of harder wheels, and ended up with Creepers (90a) and Vanish (96a), and I've used those pretty comfortably on some pretty slick surfaces.  I've heard people say that things like snowplows took time to relearn or remaster, but I didn't find it true for myself.

Personally, I think they are a great wheel for a mid-point price range.  You can get them here, but I'm in no way affliated with that site, I just <3 Rollergirl.ca.  I also don't necessarily agree with their assessment of what these wheels are and aren't good for.

Derby!

A more detailed write-up of this years Beast of the East, by my friend the Derby Nerd can be found here.  Unlike me, he actually remembers most of the weekend.

And it's only a week away for the Sexpos- our game against the Dutchland B-Team.  Although everyone played during the Beast weekend, and we'd love to take some time off to recover, there is no time so we are all trucking along to practice and trying to pull it together.

Beast of the East

Well, this weekend was an amazing tournament of roller derby in eastern and central Canada (and some of our closest sisters in Vermont!), the Beast of the East III.  Last year playing Beast was my first bouting experience, and I got bumped around like a rag doll most of the time.  This year was a totally different story, and while I may not have been the strongest player out there, I did pretty damn well and it didn't go unnoticed.

My team came in 2nd place out of 16, and MTLRD took 1, 2, and 3 out of the 16 teams.  We all faced off, either in the finals or the semi finals, and it was a taste of the amazing season to come.  There was absolutely some brilliant jams going on, and the come down is pretty tough.  Going from being a little bit of a "star" to dialing on the phones today was a little rough on the ego.  But the weekend is over, and there are less than two weeks left until my next game, a travel team double-header hosting Dutchland here in MTL.  I'm sure we will all be humbled by the experience again.

In the meantime, I'll probably spend a lot of time watching the action from this weekend here.

Montreal!

Well, it was 28 hours of driving time over 3 days to play for 1.5 hours in total against 2 separate leagues, make an epic trip to Target, eat at a sonic, and visit Party City.  Totally worth it.

We drove all thee way to Kalamazoo on Friday to arrive at midnight at the hotel, tired but not at all cranky.  The next day we wasted our time before playing, making a visit to Target and a nearby mall, where we all rode an indoor, two tiered carousel and went to Hot Topic where we spent a bunch of money.

But on to the good stuff.  We got ready and hit the venue for the game.   Killamazoo Derby Darlin's were very gracious hosts, and there was a ton of food and treats waiting for us when we arrived.  But we all geared up, signed waivers, and hit the track for a warm up.  To be honest, the game was a blur, and I was sent out every other jam in the first half.  We picked up an early lead but struggled to keep it through the first half, unable to consistently gain the critical lead jammer status.  At half-time, the score was something like 46-48 for us, and it was still anybody's game.  Our efforts to refocus and regain our positive mojo were only temporary, and though we scrapped it out, penalties crippled our game.

In a cluster fuck on the bench we fielded only 2 blockers on the track for a jam, and some of our greenest at that.  As our bench could only look on in horror, one of those blockers took a major, leaving a first time player skating alone on the track.  Comical now, it allowed Killamazoo a 25 point jam.  But bad luck followed for Killamazoo shortly after, as their jammer lost her wheel in an equipment malfunction and we were able to score a heap of unanswered points.  It wasn't enough, however, and at the end of the last jam, the score was 120-97 for Killamazoo.

Good times and hard lessons were had.  In a game like we played, we didn't lose because we couldn't win, we lost because we lost our shit on the bench.  We'll work on never allowing that to happen again.  We should never lose because we can't hold it together, we should only lose because we fought, held it together, and in the end the other team was just better.

Still, we implemented some of the strategies we've been practicing lately, adjusted our style on the fly, and did some great stuff.  And to start and end the game, both teams got together and skated in a friendship snake.

Oh, and I won this:

Which was overall pretty rad.  The beer did not immediately come in the glass.

The next day we woke up in varying states of hangover and drove our asses up to Grand Rapids where we participated in a half hour scrimmage against their B team.  This went a little better for us and we were able to implement our strategies pretty much unanswered by their mostly green team and skated our way to a 149-17 score.  So we ended our weekend on a high note and began the 2 day drive back to MTL, where I am very happy to be back to sleep in my own bed.

Helllllllooooo Michigan

I'll see you tomorrow!

2 games this weekend, one in Kalamazoo and one in Grand Rapids...  Wish us luck!  This will be the first time I've played with this team and a full roster, even though we borrowed players from the league...  Most are former Sexpos.

We go in style, so it's a 12 hour drive.  

Dear Job,

It's not considered work unless you actually give me hours more than one day every three weeks.

Me.

What a struggle, it's pretty poor.  Well, I'm pretty poor to be honest.  But I've been retooling my resume with the help of an awesome friend for a pretty decent job that I don't think I'll get, but it should help me maybe find something else.  This past year of un- and under- employment has been pretty tough.  I'd call it my year of loss, for reasons I won't get into.

But on to better things.

Because they are out there...

DA 45

Well, since Rollergirl, from Rollergirl.ca, was going to be in the same city as me for Quad City Chaos (awesome!), and my pivot cups did not seem to be arriving anytime soon, we decided to meet at MTLRD's merch table so she could drop them off in person.  And that we did!  So I carried them home from Toronto, along with my new Smith Scabs knee pads (love at first fitting, I'll be talking about them at some point), as though they were precious gold.

Four tiny nylon white cups.

In the style of most road trips, the ride home took much longer than the required 5.5 hours, and I got in at 2am to go directly to bed.  But the next morning, I got up, set up all the required equipment, went to the store for what I still needed, and put on the new DA 45 trucks that make everything worth it.  I did take picture, but when I went to post this I discovered that they did not save for me!  So my planned detailed post was lost.

Now, I don't have a lot of space in my apartment, so I did what little I could to feel them out before I has a chance to skate them.  This included balancing stationary on two wheels, some tight spins, and rolling from the chaotic living room to the kitchen (5 feet, if anything).  And I liked them.  A lot.


But the truer test came for the derby practice last night.  When I first got the skins as a SA set up, it took me a week to skate them as well as I could.  But last night, I hopped on and did my thing, no problems.

 Now, I'm not saying I can do things with these trucks that I wasn't able to do before...  but I *might* be saying that I can do the stuff I could do before a little better, and with less effort...

Time will tell how much of a difference these trucks make, as the cushions need to be broken in and I may actually get a better performance out of some softer cushions, but my current thoughts are that I like them, feel stable, and more like a super star.

And in other news, tonight I will trade wheels with a fellow gear geek, my Omega's for her Jukes, so we can each try them out for a bit and see what we think.  Honestly, if these Jukes are everything I've heard, then I'll get a pair and move from a super star to a super hero on skates.  Beautiful.

Coolest Skids on the Block

Quad Chaos was awesome.  The four biggest leagues in Canada went head to head for honour and respect, and the biggest winners were MTLRD's New Skids on the Block.  3 Bouts in 2 days and they kicked ass in all of them by far.  208-26 blow out first in a private WFTDA bout off the schedule for the tournament against Hammer City who were not expecting nor capable of shutting down the tight defensive work of the pack nor the aggressive, point scoring jamming.  Penalties on the part of Hammer City's Eh! Team gave the Skids plenty of power jamming opportunities, and the Skids were able to capitalize them in jams that gave out 13, 14, and even 24 point power jams.  Heck, Hammer City's jammers couldn't get a point on the board for the first 15 minutes of the game and until very late in the period looked like they would only manage 3 points against Skids before gaining a little more to end the first half and chipping away a minor gain in the second half.

Next on the chopping block were the Terminal City All-Stars who were a little of an unknown factor in this tournament, primarily because of the geographical derby distance.  The Skids had gone up against them a couple of years ago in Vancouver, but so much changes in that time.  For their part, Terminal City proved to be scrappy fighters in their first game against Toronto Roller Derby's CN Power, and came the closest in scoring against the Skids, grabbing 55 points and only allowing the Skids to take 160 for the game, which was to be their lowest score in the tournament.

Evidently, ToRD was watching, but not close enough as the Skids made short work against them, allowing 45 points to their pink neon sisters but taking 229.  Penalties again plagued ToRD and there were a couple of downed skaters in pink through the game but no major injuries.

An amazing show by everyone attending but the Skids really left their mark as the uncontested queens of the Canadian derby scene, with the only blow-out games for the tournament.  Skids t-shirts flew off the merch table, and the buzz was high as the Skids took this opportunity to show the leagues closest to them in experience what they've been working on and what Canadian derby could be.

Way to go, Skids.  Well played.

Quad City Chaos

I'm heading to Toronto in a few hours to watch Quad City Chaos!  It will be a two day tournament style play of the three leading leagues in Canada, and it's only five hours away!  So I'll be following my A-Team to Toronto to watch them in action and sell some t-shirts.  Should be good fun, and I'll see some people who moved to Toronto that I love seeing.

Now, to tell you the truth, I expect that The New Skids on the Block will blow all the competition out of the water.  They are far more experienced (as far as I can tell), and are on a super hot streak at the moment, with 4 consecutive WFTDA wins.  But as always, I am excited to see how the other leagues play.  I've seen CN Power in action against my home team, and I played (mostly from the bench) against the Eh! Team, but a huge unknown to me is the league from my home town, Terminal City Roller Girls.  If I hadn't moved from Vancouver to Montreal when I did, that's the league I would have played for.  So it's like watching two presents, one real and one potential, battling it out on the track.

Another thing I'm looking forward is to finally be receiving those pivot cups I've been dying to get.  They were sent out and then promptly lost in the mail, so Rollergirl, who plays for TCRG as well as running an awesome skate shop, will bring me pivot cups this weekend.  That means that Monday I will install the suckers (hopefully with few problems and many pictures), and Tuesday, finally be skating the set-up I've been dreaming about since December.

All the Single action

I love love love this video!

Words cannot express.

And I'm nearing the end of my time on my not quite complete skates.  The pivot cups are in the mail, sitting somewhere in Canada Post right now, waiting for me to receive them.  Then it's just about putting the trucks on and voila!  Done (for now, at least...  something tells me I really want a shorter wheel base).

So I wrote a quick mini-review of the single action plates.

I loosened up the trucks (and keep loosening them, actually- but there's not much room on the king pin to get them as loose as I want) and they skate better for me.  When I first recieved the skates the action was super tight and the skates felt pretty unstable and were almost unskateable.   I noticed I want to use harder wheels with them, so I'm thinking the 45* angle keeps more contact with the floor, which I think is a definite benefit.  I even ordered a new set of wheels to try out, but partially also because I wanted to check out that particular company's products after hearing tons of goodness about them.  I think this is a matter of the 45*, though, mainly because my friend Razzie noticed a similar thing about her DA 45's, it's easier to stay in on corners and maintain the contact with the floor...

On an more intuitive level, it feels like these plates are longer than my old plates because of the extra effort to make tight turns.  To be honest, I've measured and measured again and I think I should have pushed for the size smaller.  The wheelbase is really the same size as my old plate, which are on boots a full size bigger...  They just are mounted more forward.  Actually, not my old skates feel funny because the wheels are too far back under the ball of my foot.  I didn't notice that so much before.  So who knows, maybe I'll do a 122/Skins DA 45 combo as outdoor skates and order the smaller size to put on my beautiful boots.  I'll have to sell my old skates first, though!

I think for how I skate, or at least attempt to skate, wanting to play with speed control and tight cuts/ transitions while blocking and jamming, the SA would work better with an even shorter wheel base and way looser trucks.  Then they would skate pretty sweet....

But my thoughts are if I'm doing all that to get them to skate more like a DA, then what's the point? 

The plates in general feel pretty rigid compared to whatever stock plate are on my old skates, and I feel a lot more power in my stride, and they remain pretty light, which is good because I like to run on my skates sometimes, so I can get more comfortable on them and have all the movements feel like second nature.

I did notice that there are some quality issues that would make a difference to me long term- some uneven axle widths and a couple are a little loose- not slipping but there's a slight wiggle- but that could happen with DA Trucks too, it's just about quality control.

Overall, I have enjoyed the opportunity to skate SA, it's been a cool experience and I'm glad to know I can skate SA and it's not a huge deal...  They way some people talk it's all important and SA are way to unstable for derby or something...  They aren't, just different and I don't see why anyone would scare players off from SA plates.  

New Skates, Part 3

So I finally managed to take some pics of my new skates and upload them my computer, thanks in part to my new phone, and thanks in part to my friend sweet nothings who provided me with the micro sd card and usb adapter needed to complete the job.  So I will curate my new skates for you here and now.  First off, the colourways are a delightful gray and green.
 

 

Now, the boots are 125's, which is what I had before, they are just a full size smaller for me this time.  But there are a couple of customizations I'd like to point out.  Obviously, the grey leather is custom.  But 125's are also known as RS-1000's, because that is normally written on the side of the skate.  But I had them replace that very unexciting stamp with the Riedell script logo, found on the 265's, 195's, 126's and 695's.

 

And the final customization on the boot is it's awesome leather lining.  Usually the boot comes stock with a cambrelle lining, which is okay but not as soft and pliable as a leather lining.  This change should make the break-in of the boot faster and better, as well as prolong the life of the boot itself, so it's kind of awesome.

 

Another thing I am excited about is the plates.  Not only are they an awesome green colour, but there is something particularly special about them.  They are 45* trucks.  Right now, they are single action, but one day, hopefully soon, they will be 45* Double Action trucks.  This, I've heard, is awesome.  So I can't wait to try them.  But first I'll have to get the pivot cups that will allow me to use the trucks on these plates.  So here are the plates in their single action glory.

 

So far, they are doing well, except for some tightness at the toes, which I resolved by heating the leather on the inside and outside of the boot a little and then tying them on and skating around the house.  I've also got a couple of blisters on the inside of my right foot, which will hopefully heal and resolve with the boot breaking in a bit more.  

If I wish I had done one thing, I think it would have been to narrow the heel.  As it stands, my heel slips a bit.  But they are still miles ahead of the fit of my old boots.  In fact, I used my old boots in a scrimmage on Wednesday and I was surprised that my calves were actually tired because of the extra room in the boot.

Crappy Job Post

Okay, I will post about my crappy job.  I try as much as possible to work a maximum of 33 hours a week, a maximum of two full days in a row, and a maximum of 4 doors a week at my stupid job.  Otherwise, I'd go nuts.

Now, as far as the job goes, it's a pretty crappy market research call centre.  I call people to do surveys and 98% of the time they say no, in various levels of aggression.  But even if they say no, I am still obligated to try and get them to change their mind, which also varies in increasing levels of aggression.  I'd say of everywhere I call, I prefer the American South.  'Cause, gosh darn it, "those people" are so darn nice when they say no, and mostly wish me a good day to boot.

So yesterday I was switched projects from one that was calling in America and talking to a generally nice sub-section of people, to one that was calling in Canada, and primarily in Ontario.  Now those people?  Were generally rude.

One of my first calls I made was to a Library, so, that was rad.  I really dig librarians for surveys.  For one thing, they know the value of research and are usually, if they have the time, okay about contributing.  So when I call, I always want to tell them I'm a fellow librarian, but never do.  Maybe next time I should...  Anyway, the project basically sucked and people were really angry with me a lot.  And this one woman made me cry because she treated me like I was a total dummy and I realized....

That a year makes a lot of difference.  Because a year ago I was sitting in a cushy, higher paying and slightly more prestigious job that I didn't really like either.  But comparatively that was a dream and I'd be blissful if I could find that again.

So what's my point?  I don't know, maybe next time someone calls to conduct a survey just remember that it's possible (but unlikely) that the person you are speaking with has two Masters and not a lot of options so just suck it up and give them your ten minutes rather than being rude and berating them.

And to the woman that made me cry?  You are probably fat, miserable, dumb, and unloved, and I am none of those things.

February Blah

So most of February I've been sick.  First a cold, then a SKIN INFECTION, which was so gross I am still disturbed by it, and then I came down with another cold (or maybe a sinus infection, I'm not sure).  So, I haven't been posting.  But some exciting news:

My new skates arrived, and they really are beautiful.  If I had a camera I'd show them off a little.  But I don't, so...  there you go.

I wore them to my first full practice with them and have a couple of blisters, but I can tell when these things break in they are going to be sweet.  Is it bad I already wish I had gotten the narrow heel?

Upcoming blog posts may include my crappy job, sock monkies, and unicorns.

New Skates, Part Deux

After much waiting... more waiting.

But this time for something a little more exciting: they are being shipped out today!  And I've seen a picture of them as they will be (more or less) and they look like the are made with awesome sauce!

To recap, we were waiting on pivot cups to arrive...  And they didn't come in the expected shipment, and then the next shipment was delayed... And they weren't in that either.  Life, you make me crazy!

But my awesome awesome skate supplier came up with a solution.  The nitty gritty details are these: the pivot cups are for converting the plates from 45*SA trucks to 45*DA trucks, which will be far more awesome.  So hence the wait.  But now, due to mondo delay, the skates will ship as 45*SA with the DA trucks on the side, so I will get them sooner and skate my little heart out, and the pivot cups will ship when they arrive so I can swap out the trucks and get the awesome DA action.  Woot!

And my gross skin infection is going away so I will be looking more normal sometime soon.

As if that wasn't enough, today was really good weather to commute on my bike to work, and I wasn't really late.

Skin Infections

Skin infections are gross and I never want to go through that again.  Especially not on my face again.  I've been wearing band-aids to work for a week and it's still healing.  No pictures for this, I just couldn't do it.

On the other hand, I played my first bout of 2010 and it went well.  We lost but it was a solid showing for us, at least in the first half, and we'll really be able to take a lot from it for the future.  New skates are still not here.  But my old skates are dying little by little, and I'm getting annoyed at how big they feel on my skates.  It's going to be EPIC when they arrive.

New Skates

New skates are slightly delayed (again) by a missing part.  It's such a bummer, because it's such a small but essential part- the pivot cup.  Not that I know too much about the anatomy of a skate, but I think skating without the pivot cups in would be like trying to run a bike without bearings in the headset- you could do it for a while before you totally mess up the headset and have gross mechanical failure.  Or maybe it would be as inane as running this:

I ordered the skates in late December and through the process discovered that my current skates are a full size too big.  I mean, I knew that they were a little big but once I figured out that they are a full size (!!!) too big, all I can feel is my arches cramping and my heel sliding around in them.  But although my new skates are sitting across the country in their (currently) unskateable glory, I have one single, beautiful picture of them that I look at every time I doubt my decision to go custom:

 

I can't wait to get them.  Rollergirl has been part of the process since I first started asking about new boots and has been able to give me awesome and cost-conscious guidance and excellent customer service.  It's really sad (as well as no one's fault *caveatrollergirlisawesome*) that something as simple as these:

Can keep me away from the awesome.   C'est la vie, or something like it.  Now I just need to get over this cold so I can bout this Saturday in the first Sexpos game of 2010!

Spirit Animals

An email circulated around my team regarding "spirit animals".  Without going into top secret details, I came to the conclusion that my derby spirit animal is the Vulpes vulpes, aka the red fox.  It's not about the colour, I'm not a red head, but there are a few reasons for it.

First of all, they are darn cute:

Also, apparently their eyesight is quite poor and near-sighted, just like mine.  And I like they they are considered "sly" and smart, that suits me just fine, too.  Fast, predatory, opportunistic, hunter- these are all things I want to bring to my derby.  The truth is, I only ever saw a fox once, and it kind of looked like this:

 

Which is how I feel at the end of a bout or scrimmage.  

But honestly, even though I know I'm getting to be a better player, stronger blocker, and much more experienced on the track, I still mostly feel like this:

Also cute, also blind.  Lacking the fierce.