the cake

Momma made a cake recently based on a dessert she serves where she works. The dessert is two chocolate truffles served with some fruit and some fried wontons and some coconut milk. I'm not sure what all else it may have as I've never actually had or even seen the item.

I have seen the cake. I don't know the whole story behind it, but an ex coworker celebrated a birthday recently, and coworker who is friends with the ex co asked Momma for help making a cake. I don't even know who actually came up with the idea to made cake version of this dessert, though I do know I didn't actually get any of the cake.

Something learned from this cake is that chocolate ganache does not flow evenly over the butter cream frosting that Momma used as filler to round out the top of the cake, and big chunks of fruit can hide the places at the bottom that didn't get covered when you ran out of the ganache. Ganache is basically chocolate sauce that has been melted tempered so that it produces a shiny coating on your truffles.

We do have a container of cake, but it's the leftover cake that was sawed off the sides to make the truffle shape, and there isn't any sort of frosting or icing or ganache nor even a dipping sauce of any kind, just cake bits.

Momma also made a blueberry pie which is really good. I made some whipped cream to go with it which was the entirety of my contribution. The Boy asked for pie for both breakfast and lunch today, and if there's no sushi for supper, he may well ask for pie again before much longer.

more rockin' out

In my continuing efforts to blog about as many ska bands as I can find on YouTube that I will also soon be seeing at Ska Weekend, I present The Hits. These guys are local to me and are, in the video below, playing the Longbranch, the place that hosted our last derby after party. It's a nice little place, and they finally started taking cards, so you don't have to hit the ATM on the way.

I don't really know much about The Hits. I've missed them the few times when they've played around town that I noticed. Being old, having children, suddenly you don't get to get out and do the things that were once common, like seeing live bands.

You can check them out on their Myspace page HERE, though they currently only have one song up. The sound is good on the Myspace page, though it's really rough in the video. However, from the video you can get a feel for the energy they seem to bring, and a good ska show really hinges on the energy the band brings. They are definitely one of the bands I'll be checking out when Ska Weekend finally rolls around. So enjoy!

is that a little skull on your back?

I've tried a couple of times now to write something witty and hilarious about this picture and about roller derby in general. Crazy things happen around roller derby. Momma, the one with the skull face, is known to share some of that skull face with others, hugs and affection and craziness that are the natural fall out of roller derby. I've been known to wander around with a black dot on the tip of my nose from a quick kiss.

In the end though, it's just a great picture that speaks for itself. In the red is the lovely Sauvingnon Block, a great blocker and all around cool person. Momma you will of course recognize as the lovely young lady in black, a great jammer and all around cool person.

The skull on Sauvignon's back came from Momma in a brief meeting between the two on the rink. It was a clean hit, if a bit of an accident, that sent both to the floor. Though many people may end the night with a bit of skull on them, never has it been so perfectly imprinted as in this picture.

nerdy me

Thanks, Ron, just what I needed. Ron and Andrea at Atypical Homeschool are white and nerdy, and they may well be white and more nerdly than am I. I wouldn't think it would take much to be more nerdy than me, but that's only my desire to play down my own nerdliness. Also, I'm having trouble spelling today, but because I'm quick on the backspace, you didn't notice me write "to me bore nerdy" just a bit up there.


How White and Nerdy Are You?

stupid dryer

Look, a post that's not about derby, though the item in question was in fact purchased from a derby girl whose presence in the league and on the all star team is sorely missed. The young lady and her husband have left our fair city and moved out west. Their new home apparently came with washer and dryer, so they didn't need the ones they had here. Our dryer has recently gone down, so we purchased theirs.

I'm pretty sure all our dryer needs is a heating element. The motor works, and the dryer blows air, but the air isn't warm and doesn't dry the clothes. Thinking that replacing a heating element should be an easy job, I turned the dryer so that I could access its innards, pulled off the panel on back and was immediately rewarded for my efforts by frustration.

The heating element does not appear to be replaceable. It's mounted inside a metal sleeve and both appear to be welded or riveted to the machine, not what I wanted to see, and certainly not the kind of thing that a screwdriver would make quick work of.

We spent a couple of weeks washing clothes and drying them at the laundromat. That was not only eating up our time but also our quarters. The solution then was to begin hanging things. I should by now have strung up some sort of outdoor clothesline, but I haven't, so the clothes have been hanging around the house on coat hangers, towels draped over drawers, clothes hanging on the shower curtain rod, in a closet not generally used for clothes, and in doorways. Not a bad solution, if also not optimal considering the towels dry very scratchy when hung to dry.

We've had the newish dryer, the one that should work, for nearly a week. I had to spend a morning driving the unregistered and uninsured truck which preceded a busier than normal day just to get the dryer which then had to spend some time in the garage waiting for me to get it into the house. I thought I was waiting for a friend to loan me his hand truck till I realized that the thing under the refrigerator condenser thingamajig in the garage was in fact a wheeled cart that converts to a hand truck by moving the handle position. This house, mostly the garage and attic, is spotted with random items that are left from Momma's grandfather, things he didn't take when he moved and generally no longer wants or needs. I've found some extremely uninteresting and useless (to us) things over the few years we've lived here.

Upon discovering the hand truck, I realized that I could switch the two dryers and get rid of the growing pile of laundry. I was even able to get the two dryers switched without Momma even realizing what I was doing, hoping to somewhat surprise her with mounds of clean clothes. Assuming the very best outcome, I'd have had all the laundry washed dried and even put away when she came in from work. We'd have clean, soft towels again, and best of all was my plan to wash our good sheets and replace the shit sheets that are only ever on the bed between removing and washing the good sheets. The good sheets don't come off the corners making you wake up several times in the night on bare mattress. Also, when your sheet can so easily ease itself off, you may find yourself losing needed traction when things are happening in the bed, things that two grown people enjoy doing.

In somewhat of a blaze of glory, I switched the two dryers, getting as far as attaching the hose that carries that hot air and lint away. Imagine the sheer joy I felt when, leaning over the dryer looking for the outlet so that I could plug it in, I realized that the prongs on the power cord did not in any way match the outlet. I can't describe the feeling of happiness that surged within me knowing that we'd spent seventy five dollars we couldn't quite afford on a dryer that we could in no way use.

I doubt this is an issue we can resolve easily. The options involve either an electrician to make the changes to our electrical system that would allow us to use the newer dryer or finding out how to change the heating element in the older one, quite likely the option we should have taken in the first place. The deal was too good to pass up at the time, a much newer dryer at a fraction of what it would have cost new.

I'm stuck for ideas at this point. I will most likely not be doing laundry tonight, though I might just do a few loads that I can quickly dry at the laundromat in the morning. Tomorrow is our homeschool park day, so I'll need to be up early (for me) and drying clothes because I'd rather not miss seeing our friends, and the boys of course need their playing Ninja Warrior at the park day.

And as I've written this, my frustration has lessened. My anger level has dropped considerably. I did carry a fair amount of anger over the hour after this incident unfolded, an anger completely unfocused with absolutely no one to blame or hold accountable. I wish it were someone's fault, someone who needs a good choking, but alas, such is not to be the case.

finally

I think I've finally figured out a way to have as close to a blogroll as I care for. I've been messing with Google reader and have moved all the blogs and news stuff I read there. Now I've added a shared items widget so that I can add things I enjoyed or that made me feel thinkfull. So now, in addition to the time I've helped you waste by actually writing something, I can help you waste more time with other people who've written something. You can thank me later, and if you write and show up there on the side and wish you hadn't, well . . .

stumble

I might have mentioned that I've got a new job. It's not a cash paying job, more a volunteer position. I've now announced two separate roller derby bouts, and based on their smiles and compliments, the league seems to like me.

To an extent, I'm almost worried that my abilities are not so much good as they are better than the last guy. I hate to say too much bad about him, especially considering all the bad that's already been said about him. I have to imagine at some point that karma may swing around and whop me in the butt, but there's also the fact that he did indeed suck, long and loud, though not really too loud as one of the complaints about him involved an inability to understand or even quite hear him.

So with two bouts under my belt, I'm much more comfortable doing it than I was when it was just this thing looming on the horizon. Our next home bout is not till August, so it will be that long till I get my talk on again. That one is our first intra league bout of the season.

Our last bout was not a "real" bout, in a sense, but it was certainly real enough as any of the participating skaters can verify. It was put together almost at the last minute in a bid to decide what we think of a new location as well as to let the new location decide what they think about us. The three teams that make up our league played three periods, but rather than time them, we set them to be twelve jams each, something that didn't quite work in the end, as we ran pretty long. It was the only way to really make it fair though, to make sure that each team, playing staggered jams, had the same amount of time on the rink as well as having each team face each other an equal number of times.

It was an exciting bout. Momma's team pretty much flattened the other two, though all the teams were skating down some girls. Between injuries and people being out of town, we are missing a few people.

As far as announcing goes, I'd agree that, for the most part, I did a pretty good job. It's really not hard for me to talk, and it's certainly not hard for me to get excited about roller derby. I know the rules, and I know the skaters, and I've absolutely fallen in love with both roller derby and our entire league. I can only hope that my excitement comes through and infects our fans, building our fan base.

And that's really where it's hard for me to express myself. I think I'm gracious with praise, maybe slightly less so with criticism, though I do want to know people's opinions, want to improve myself and the job I do. The skaters and refs have all fairly lavished me with praise, almost to the point where it starts to sound like flattery, leaving me to wonder if it's me or just that I'm not the other guy.

One of the biggest differences between me and the last guy, I'm not doing this for me, though there is a part of me that's proud to get to be involved, that loves the acceptance. It all comes down to the fact that I really believe in these girls. I believe in our league. I believe in the power of roller derby to bring out the best in people and to show women what they are truly capable of.

And then we come to the things I've fucked up, whether or not anyone else heard it happen. There was the first bout when I referred to LP as a jammer, which she happened to hear and which she is certainly not. She is in fact a blocker, one hell of a hard hitter as well. In the expo bout I referred to her three separate times as MM, another blocker, equally as amazing with her hits. I suppose I had Momma's team Machine Gun Kellys on my mind when I called the penalty box the machine gun box, though I can honestly tell you that I really have no idea how that came out. There was at least on instance, which a few people caught, when I almost called one of our skaters by her nickname, Douche-ass, funny but best left a bit private as it certainly is not her derby name. There were several other random flubs that I caught at the time, though they weren't as memorable as they could have been.

And that's the story of my new job. It may not pay cash, but I get paid back when the league has that much more fun, when the fans scream and cheer that much louder, when people start to understand derby and start to fall in love like I did. And really, how hard is it to convince people that roller derby may be the best thing to ever happen to them? even when I am stumbling over my words.

they like sports now?

I'm not generally one to send letters or emails to companies unless I have a problem and need help working it out. From a post at Good As You, we learn that the San Diego Padres recently sponsored a gay pride event. Of course the freaks jumped on this one, arguing that the Padres are corrupting youth, families and baseball. Too bad so many people can carry such hate.

Because the Padres are likely getting letters and emails from the anti equality freaks, G-A-Y suggested letters of support. As mentioned, I don't usually, but this time I kind of felt motivated. I'm tired of this unequal bullshit, and I'm tired of a few loud nut jobs getting to pretend they have some sort of copyright on family. So here's my letter.

I read recently about your sponsorship of a gay pride event. I'd like to thank you for doing so, for helping make the idea of equality and acceptance a message more people are likely to hear.

I'm sure you will hear many negative messages concerning your event, but I would ask that you not bow to pressure from those that would force their narrow views on others.

With the acceptance of Jackie Robinson so many years ago, baseball helped our country in working for racial equality. Perhaps baseball will be the first sport to help us all work toward full equality for all.

Thanks again for supporting equality, even when it seems an unpopular decision. There are all types of families, and each of the children of those families needs the same acceptance as any other.

It's not a great letter, and it certainly doesn't flow with the usual frippery I tend to add to my written words. I didn't cuss or make any jokes that would make folks uncomfortable, but I like it, and I think it needs to be said and said again.

UPDATE: In answer to my email to the Padres I got an answer informing me that they didn't actually sponsor the event but have sold tickets to the pride group. The writer also pointed out the fact that they agree with, that baseball must in inclusive rather than exclusive. It really is good to see more mainstream groups actively opening themselves up and, as he said, being inclusive. One day, perhaps inclusiveness will be the norm.

what I said earlier

Cleaning turned into rearranging today, though, for the most part, the cleaning did actually happen. I'm basically waiting for Momma to get home soon and tell me she hates it how it is. The change isn't huge, mostly involving the television/video game end of the room.

It didn't help that I let a rant escape earlier today when I was supposed to be cleaning. I'm almost afraid to go back and read it, because I'm sure I came off sounding a little half cocked. I cooled on the issue a little bit, though rechecking comments at a couple of places, I could easily get hot all over again. And that's what got it started again, what got me thinking of that damn rant that I'd have probably forgotten completely otherwise.

Thanks Chris for the link, but I don't have any discs and my DVD player is at least slightly busted anyway. I'll see it, probably, though I actually never watched his last movie now that I think about it. Hell, this my prompt me to figure out the machine and buy a blank disc finally.

At one blog I read (read past tense, not read as in regularly, but linked to from a place I do read regularly,) the kind of place where feelings run away from liking Michael Moore, a number of the comments lean heavily toward bashing him, branding him a liar, cursing his name with chicken blood so that the curse takes.

Someone, the lone liberal that should let the sheep be to bump each other with their butts and bleat stupidly, asks for information as to what Moore has actually lied about. Instead we get links to Buddy Someshit's blog, because he'll by god tell you about the lies, though oddly, we only get links. There's never any sort of well reasoned discussion because the people haven't seen the films and must rely on heresay from an obviously biased third party source.

A necessary part of the conversation is the lone agreeing Canadian, telling us how lucky we are that we don't have to wait years due to bureaucratic nonsense to get our anal clutch valve tightened. The US system is so perfect compared to theirs, and believe it when he says it, the taxes they pay are so horrible. I guess that explains why so many Canadians are coming here for medical treatment. Vermont's just eat up with people able to converse both in English and French, though they pretend to only speak French and expect us to put up signs and label things in two languages. I for one don't want to have to fucking learn to say burrito in French.

And now that we've brought it up, one of the most vile of arguments, the soon to be classic, if the US system is so bad, why are all those dirty brown people trying to come and steal it? Yeah, dirty brown people, they just want free health care, so they can go back home and be all well while they take our jobs. It can't be that their option is that much worse. The right actually attack this one fading twinkle of concern for your fellow man, the fact that hospitals have to treat you if you come in sick, even if the bills come back as undeliverable.

Never once in the entire discussion does anyone suggest anything better. Someone will agree with the exorbitant new tax burden, and another person will chime in about how they ain't damn well gonna pay no lazy ignorant so and so to go to the doctor for free. They work hard for their money, and they don't care about lazy shiftless people who can't get their own care. "They can get a damn job! I've got two myself." They are certainly happy to discuss the liar filmmaker who shouldn't even call it a documentary because it's biased, and gol dang they just hate him so.

Completely absent are any new ideas. If it exists at all, the concern for the sake of humanity as deserving of better is completely invisible. The idea that people have to earn medical care permeates the entire discussion. Being able to see a doctor is treated as a privilege that only those who work hard should be able to attain, with no explanation of what "work hard" quite means either.

They never mention children. They never talk about a family that pretty much has a decent life but for their general inability to be able to see a doctor in a timely fashion outside of emergency care. One of the parents makes enough money to feed the family, to keep the bills paid, to make a niceish life for her family, but her employer doesn't offer her insurance, and if he did, she couldn't afford to accept it. She has a really great opportunity at this job, and for the most part she likes it. There may or may not be a future in this particular location, but she's learning skills both in the kitchen and as a leader and as a manager of a restaurant that will likely serve her well in the future.

But she doesn't have insurance, and she and her husband have priced it before. They can't afford to pay for the insurance that is available to them. Perhaps if the husband were to return to work, but he would then have to work his way back up in a whole new restaurant before he was possibly able to reach the point at which he would be valued enough to have earned insurance, or he would work solely to pay for insurance bought privately. He would be willing to return to work, but the reason he quit was to open the door for his wife to take the opportunity she has. If he were to return to work full time, it would rearrange their entire lives for the worse. The family would have less time together, with the husband and wife rarely seeing each other.

I don't want free health care as such. I'm willing for the insurance industry to go to hell and for health care to be funded sufficiently to take care of people as needed, whether or not that means a slightly higher tax burden. That tax burden would lower other medically related burdens to equalize the whole very near what it is. People would earn their medical care by being human and deserving of it for that single reason.

How anyone can justify for profit medical is completely beyond me. I don't want to think these people are evil, because maybe they've just had it really good their whole lives and don't know better. Maybe they don't know what it's like to sit with a sick child hoping like hell they get better. You imagine those people that just go to the doctor because they have one, a doctor that recognizes them and greets them by name, a doctor that's gotten to know your kids over the years. You imagine yourself taking a spill playing on your adult soccer league, something you absolutely love doing, but something that makes you feel guilty sometimes because one wrong turn, and you've just cost your family a few thousand dollars. And then you think of your child playing soccer, or climbing a tree, or just being alive and a child.

so sick of

I haven't seen Michael Moore's new movie Sicko yet. I will not be seeing it in the theater as I refuse to spend that much money on a movie that doesn't need the big screen. I will see it as soon as I'm able after it is out of the theaters.

This post isn't about the movie, but having been reading around the internet today about the movie, health care is on my mind. It's been on my mind before as my family is in that group of several million uninsured Americans for whom medical care, even the most basic, is sadly out of our grasp.

We are currently paying off a couple thousand dollars debt that accumulated due to a single emergency room visit that my wife made a few months ago. She has asthma and a few allergies which are usually not a concern for her. There have been a couple of times though when the asthma flared up, and she was unable to fix the problem, and the problem was continuing to worsen. There's a certain hell that someone goes through as they try their damndest just to get a good breath. There's a whole other hell in knowing that you should have been able, with a simple doctor visit, to have gotten control over your health issue any time in your past. There's that same hell in knowing that, because our country has allowed the enrichment of a few corporations and individuals on the backs of the ill, you are going to have to suffer.

The health insurance industry is one of the most vile and evil ideas ever dredged from the mind of man. That we can actually describe something and use the words health and industry should make us all ashamed. That people can make money because others are sick is disgusting. The medical insurance industry does just that, and I can't say it enough. They exist for no other reason than to turn your and my illnesses into profit for them. We are no more or less than a plus or a minus on their ledgers. If we are well, we are a plus because they keep our money. If we become ill or are hurt, we become a minus as they have now to spend the money we've been giving them.

I'm mostly amazed the right wing bloggers that will refuse to see the movie. Perhaps they think that Michael Moore is no more than a liberal shill and troublemaker. He may have asked a quesiton in the past that made them uncomfortable. They assume words from him he never said and tell us they don't need to see his movie to know what it will say.

I'm especially amazed by the giant balls on so many right wingers. I'm working now from what seems an obvious and apt assumption, that many right wing people are also christian. Not to make this a christian versus not-so-much issue, but if your god tells you that how you treat others is how you then have treated him, then what does that say about so many people's unwillingness to help make sure that all people are afforded the same level of medical care? If you are so inclined, go HERE to see a list of verses from the Bible detailing what god thinks of the poor and what he commands his followers to do in relation to the poor. It is Bible stuff, so you're going to have to wade through some craziness.

Did you know that god even commands his followers to actually leave some of their crops in the field? to not beat the olive trees a second time when harvesting? They are to leave these things and more in the field for widows, orphans, elderly and poor. So if god tells you directly to make sure the poor are fed, I wonder what he might expect of his followers in our modern age in regards to medical care?

Finally, I'm certainly not anti christian, but I'm amazed at the religious fervor from the right in regards to certain issues. The same people that throw the Bible in the way of equality for all are suddenly silent in using the Bible to uphold the idea of medical equality for all. Outdated passages of hatred to damn gay people, sudden silence when the same book reminds them to care for others. Tricky, very tricky.

reading

Big Brother has finished reading Inkheart, a book I read to him a couple of years ago. We've not read much with him in a while, though as Momma and I have been reading the first Harry Potter to The Boy, he's been hanging out to listen in.

Big Brother always enjoyed being read to, and The Boy never didn't enjoy it, but Big Brother has always been drawn to reading. We've pulled a couple of books from him before as deemed inappropriate just yet, most recently Stephen King's Pet Cemetery. That was a well intentioned gift from a roller girl friend. Any new book that I don't personally suggest draws him, begging him to read. I'm not sure how far he got into the night he got it, but after he went to bed, Momma flipped through it and decided to read it first.

She's seen the movie, and I haven't. I've read the book, and she hasn't. So now she's reading that. She's also been working on Appetite for Life: the Biography of Julia Child, by Noel Riley Fitch, the book that really made me fall in love with Julia, and she may very well have a third book floating around some place.

I hate that she's reading Pet Cemetery before me because she'll read it eventually, as she feels like it, and there's that whole other book competing with it. Like Big Brother, I'm excited at the idea of a new book, even if it's not really new. It has been several years since I read it, and I haven't read any Stephen King since that thing I went through a few years ago during which I read him almost exclusively. But suddenly, I want to read his book again. I've settled instead on rereading Philip Pullman's Ruby in the Smoke.

I love Philip Pullman. Rereading Ruby in the Smoke reminds me why I love his books. He writes for a wide variety of reading levels, and he creates stories that are really classic tales, but you can't really even describe his approach. He makes you realize that, at some point, all stories are old stories, but in a good way.

Ruby in the Smoke has been one of the books that's stayed on Big Brother's inappropriate list for some time, though he's enjoyed a number of Philip Pullman's work. I love the book, but the one theme that really worries me as a parent shows up and with no real moral stance. A few people smoke opium in the book. For one it's a devil of addiction, while for another it's used only once to some benefit.

I am in no way anti drug. I think I may have mentioned some things in the past, some rants I've made against a certain failure of a war on drugs. At the same time, I believe that the reasons behind drug use are much more important in helping people control their usage than trying to force people to do it with jail as your main deterrent.

And then we get to the part where it's my child that I'm talking about. It's such a great story, and I know he'd love it. I'm just not sure how much the opium smoking bothers me at this point. I don't really want him to smoke opium, but I also know that I might give it a try if the timing was right, and we had an all night babysitter. Millions of dead Chinese and European sailors can't be wrong.

Maybe when I finish it, Momma can start reading it, added to her always growing and shifting pile of things she's reading. Then we'll figure out if it's appropriate. It's going to come up at some point, but I'm stuck at does-it-have-to-be-now?

huge mess

The huge mess behind me is not nearly as huge or as messy as it could be. It was only a couple of nights ago, some wild hair up her ass, Momma dumped all the Legos into the floor. We have three separate tubs of Legos and the random Mega Blocks that are basically Legos ( or would that be legos?) Before Momma's big Lego tub dumping, there was no order in how the Legos were separated into the tubs, as Lego cleanup has long ago become of the order of scoop and dump.

The Legos were already out, just not all the way out. The soccer set never go much chance to be a soccer set, but they were a good portion of the reason that the Legos were out at all. Big Brother built a Ninja Warrior course, a good portion of which was made up of the green rectangles that make up the Lego soccer field.

There are plenty of Lego people, most of whom came with the soccer set. The majority of Lego people are currently sitting in piles, completely pulled apart. Big Brother has even gone so far as to pull their little hands out of their arms.

I'm pretty sure it's the current fascination with Lego Star Wars video game that has him pulling the people apart. One of the features of the video game is the ability to build new characters using the cast of characters available in the game.

You might wonder how Ninja Warrior and Lego Star Wars fit together. Well, it comes together when an eight year old boy builds a Ninja Warrior course out of Legos and then builds people to compete using random Legos and imagination to build the characters from Lego Star Wars, such Luke Skywalker on Dagobah, Han Solo as a storm trooper, and so on.

I began writing this post last night when there was still a mess behind me. I didn't finish it and left it till today. Momma did in fact pick nearly all of the Legos up that she had dumped. Her original goal, for whatever reason, was to dig out all the parts that go into the Slave1, Bobba Fett's ship. It's a difficult thing to do, and it's possible that Big Brother never did succeed in building it when he first got it. He tried on and off for a while before growing frustrated and putting it away. By putting it away I do mean of course allowing the pieces to become mere Legos as opposed to pieces of a bounty hunter's transportation. They became merged into the tubs.

There are still three tubs, but we now have a few extra containers to house the various parts and pieces. Because the Bionicles have their own separate tub, and because we had the plastic container that one of them came in, we now have separate storage for wheels and axles. We have an old baby wipe container holding the random pieces, the one of a kind tiny pieces and we have a plastic takeout dish from the Thai place that once held soup, maybe even tom yum, that now holds the people.

Damn, now I want some tom yum soup.

expo bout

Our roller derby league was lucky in the earliest days of the league to find a place to skate, a place for both practice and bouts. There have always been some issues with the rink, and location and size have always been the top issues.

Saturday night Hard Knox Roller Girls present Triple Threat, our expo bout where we check out a possible new location. The Icearium is huge, lots of parking, serves alcohol, has parking, is still technically in our town, et cetera. Did I mention they sell beer?

The fact that our current home is in the next county is enough to throw some people off. People just don't want to go to Maryville, as it seems like a drive. It's not any closer or farther for the average person than the Icearium, but sometimes it's just the name.

All three of our intra league teams will be playing in Triple Threat. I'm not sure how we're going to manage it, though some system of staggering the teams on the floor will occur so that each team skates the same number of jams and each team faces each other team the same number of jams.

If you live anywhere within the sound of my voice, I suggest you hitch up the mules, help grandma and the kids into the wagon, and come out and show your pride. Whether you wear Kelly purple, Betty red or Lolita black and white, your favorite team needs you to come and show your love. More than that, your league wants you here, screaming and cheering for us all.

borrowed theme

Carol Borges, blogging at KnoxViews, has an interesting piece about the possible racism in damning the violence and misogyny in hip hop music when "white" music has many references to similar actions and attitudes. She listed a few songs to make her point. I hadn't really considered the issue this way before. Though not much of a hip hop fan over all, I do listen to a few groups and tend to steer away from a lot of gangsta rap as well as the more overtly sexual groups. For me it's more some quality I see in the groups I do enjoy versus the content of their songs.

Celebrating the misogyny as well as the bling culture that so much of hip hop seems to have devolved into is more damaging I feel. To some extent, the more violent music, at least at one time, could have been argued to open a window onto the reality of life for too many people, but at some point even that rings a little hollow when you wonder why so many artists can get rich at the expense of the suffering and yet the gangs still continue to hurt people and make neighborhoods unlivable. What good is the money when all the community sees is gaudy diamond encrusted watches and necklaces? Of course there I seem to hold black artists somehow responsible. If we are to suggest this, then why not also suggest that country artists are responsible for rural communities?

I grew up in Atlanta, in south Dekalb County. We attended church and school in an area that would have been considered white at the time, though south Dekalb is and was decidedly not. On some level I've always had an interest in issues of race and equality. It seems like it's always questions and never enough answers.

them toes

Before I say anything else, the following post is to be in no way misconstrued as a comparison to any real injury earned in the actual bout. Yes, you are getting another post that is in some way derby related, but I really have to reiterate the whole not comparing thing. I'm not including bruise or contusion pictures, because this post isn't about that, and I don't have any.

I do have some toe issues though that are related to the bout. This was my first time as an announcer for the league. For the most part I did team and skater intros, I introduced the refs and tried to do a reasonable play by play. I exhorted our fans to cheer louder and audibly swooned over the soul crushing hits our team dealt out.

My toe problem is related to both the shoes I was wearing and the physical stance I take when actively observing a roller derby bout. I tend to squat on one leg, a position that is not quite standing or sitting but leaves me in a position from which I can easily stand to shout encouragement or even to leap into the air with joy when our jammer makes that move past the opposition's pivot, faking a quick step before ducking to the inside and hitting the power as she skates away, hands raised high in the devil horns.

And here is where we come to the shoes. They are some absolutely sweet shoes, black and white wing tips, a good bit clunky, and they even sport a steel toe, for whatever the hell that gets me these days. Steel toes on me are nothing more than added weight. The shoes get really uncomfortable after an evening of being out, so I tend to reserve them for those random nights that we actually have an all night baby sitter and it's worth getting dressed up.

Getting to cheer on the league that much louder is certainly a worthy event, and that they match the team's black and white motif makes it that much harder not to wear them. However, combining them and the squatting stance, I've temporarily fucked my foot up. I've almost convinced myself that it's the shoes fault and not that I squat like an idiot on one foot. At the same time I'm sure it's not the shoe's fault.

Monday morning I woke none the worse for wear except that the toes on my squatting-on foot felt numbish. They'd bothered me throughout the bout, mostly in the breaks between periods when I climbed down from my perch and walked around, and I knew it was from the squat or maybe the shoes, but I assumed it was just a thing, too long in one odd position kind of thing.

That does happen to me, but it's because I squat, and it's never something I don't just walk off. I do it outside smoking sometimes too. I don't really think about doing it, and it's weird to occasionally realize you've bypassed a perfectly good chair in order to squat on your haunches.

I may just have to stand up when I do the announcing, but at the rink we currently use, the place I have to be is just this crazy perch in the air where I'm just standing like a dancer in a cage without the cage part. There are people crowded all around it to the point where I almost feel like putting up a sign that reads "servers only." Maybe it just feels weird that I have absolutely no separation beyond height from the people I'm talking too. It bears thinking about I'm sure. Maybe it's looking down and realizing I'm standing in someone's face.

The toes don't hurt. They're actually a sort of numbish, asleepish feeling. I can feel the feeling coming back into them with each day, but I also feel that I need to rethink those shoes. I really never thought I'd be concerned with the price of beauty, and in many ways I really feel I should be able to be above it. But you should see those shoes. And that leads me to think I should just wear the shoes. Who really needs to squat anyway? We're evolved past squatting. Hell, we've evolved to the point where our women can pit themselves against each other in feats of strength and speed combined. The least I can do is look good for them.

ooooh, derby stuff

Want to see some derby action? You know you do, so click HERE to go to the video. It was produced and is hosted by a local group, Mind Punch that is basically like a local Myspace. I couldn't figure out how to embed the video in this blog post.

Our team is in black with our pivots and jammers in red helmet covers. As usual, look for Momma wearing the skull face. She's an amazing jammer, which you might know if you'd come to town and watch our league tear shit up. You might also know if you ever read here, as I kind of have a habit of making sure people know that my wife rocks.

If you do in fact pay attention and find the girl with the skull you might also see here take a couple of hard hits. Pay special attention and see that she deals out some hard hits. I'm not sure how many roller derby leagues have jammers that hit as do ours, but I doubt there's too many jammers that hit as well as ours. Another of our jammers, Goblynn, is also seen knocking an opponent ass over tea kettle.

The match is our Hard Knox Roller Girls versus Tragic City Rollers from Birmingham Alabama. They beat us in our first ever bout last year and have beaten us again. They took an early lead and not only held on but increased it. The score totals between the different jams however was all over the place and, in my opinion, gives a better view of the skills evident in both teams.

I can't speak for playing with them as I'm not allowed, because of my dude parts, but our team seemed to have fun, and TCR was a blast at the after party. I don't know if any of them will read this, but I'd love to tell them thanks again. Thanks for a great game and for great after party. I'm pretty sure we and they all made it back home and in one piece, so outside of the fact that the win is ours next time, we couldn't really have asked for a better weekend.

fresh ink

I've always wanted a pinup tattoo, but it wasn't something that was necessarily at the front of the line of ideas queuing up to be sunk into my skin. I was quite certain that my next tattoo was going to be something dragon related, another of the classic tattoo themes that I've always loved.

The inspiration for the jammer inked onto my arm was the jammer I'm married to. It was in fact the top picture that screamed at me, "Wouldn't I make an awesome tattoo?" And I had to agree that it was indeed a great idea.

I won't assume you are familiar with roller derby, though why you haven't found a local team by now is beyond me. Seriously, just google your town and the words roller derby, but that really isn't the point right now. My tattoo is a jammer, or point scorer. This is signified most obviously by the star on her helmet. The hands at her hips indicate she's calling off the jam. That she obviously kicks ass could be an indication that she's a Hard Knox Rollergirl, though without hurting the other teams' feelings, you see the purple Kelly love in evidence.

Finally is the shout out. Corey at Saint Tattoo etched this onto me, and he does great work. His calling card graces the skin of several people I know or have known around this town. Of the people I know that have seen the tattoo and thought to ask who did it, they all knew immediately when I said Corey, and they all answered the same way, "He does great work." So thank you to Corey because it is awesome and I love my jammer.

I'll be honest with you, I'm at least a little bit thinking about getting a blocker pinup so the jammer doesn't get lonely but only a little.

I'll probably update this in a week or two, assuming I remember, so that you can see her without the fresh ink scabby parts, just so you know.

rate me baby

Who always has the fun? Pissed Off Housewife, because she finds great finds, like this rating doohickey.

Anyway, my blog, as if I needed to ask them, gets . . .

Mingle² - Online Dating

The rating was earned because of the following words.
kill-used seven times
ass-used five times
shit-used four times
punch-used one time

I don't know how far back they look when they peruse your blog for their rating, and I'm not saying I disagree with NC-17, but honestly, if that's all they found then they didn't look very hard. How about all the times I say fuck, jizz splash, cock gobbler and santorum? Didn't they even try? Punch apparently is a bad word, but it's not like I was talking about neck punches and throat babies.

I'm calling this a meme, so go and play along, but I don't expect too many people who show up here to even get past a possible PG. I know who you are.

nothing really

Yet another weekend plus full of me not writing. The Saturday and Sunday parts of me not writing are easily explained with two words, roller derby. We had a meet and greet cookout Saturday night to welcome the skaters from Birmingham, and Sunday was bout day and early to the rink after rushing to get the boys to the babysitter followed by much too late of a night at the after party.

Friday was out because I spent a good portion of it with some guy jabbing inky needles into my arm. My arm stayed stiff for most of the rest of the day from the odd position, and the skin is slowly growing less and less tender. Thankfully Momma found my tube of Aquaphor in the place we'd both looked at least once each.

She is now going to fetch the boys. She also needs a bath, and I need to figure out something to cook for supper. I'm really not feeling the cooking. The actual bout last night left me feeling almost deflated. I feel like kind of a dork for even thinking like this. I was not one of those girls hitting and getting hit. All I did was stand on a box and holler about things and get sweaty hugs from awesome girls. But I still feel a tiny bit drained. I'd almost rather have the bangs and bashes, but there isn't enough duct tape to convince them I'm a girl.

I'm quite likely going to ignore a large portion of dirty house today. It's been begging for attention and is now screaming for cleaning. Along with not posting, I've spent the weekend letting things pile up in Bloglines, so I have a fair amount of reading and catching up to do as well. Right now, I just need a smoke.

Bonnie and Clyde

My most recent post, concerning a certain fellow who continues to question without the benefit of listening, has drawn more comments to a single post than I've ever had. One commenter mentions my picture of Bonnie Parker, and another commenter, from Europe, is at first unaware of who Bonnie and Clyde were. Upon learning about them, she asks, "Why are these people a hero? Is it possible I can never understand completely the American sensitivity?"

I love that question, but I'm afraid I may not really be able to answer it.

As Americans, we do seem to cheer for the bad guy, often seeming to develop a sort of Robin Hood view of some of our worse societal elements.

It's true that Bonnie and Clyde were murderers and robbers. It also has to be understood that their heyday was during the American Great Depression. This was a time when the gangsters ruled the street, prohibition was in full swing, and Americans thrilled to the exploits of those daring rogues.

In a sense, we seem to have always been a people that loved the outlaw side. Our nation was founded by people who could, in a sense, be considered outlaws, bucking the system of laws that were in place from the King of England who was in fact the ruler of the colonies as they then existed. It was not until several of our founding fathers turned outlaw and bucked the system that we eventually became our own nation.

Looking at our founding as a nation, it's not a large leap to see ourselves in love with the rogues. We still do that to this day, the dark and troubled hero being more popular than the shining example, uncertain motivation and a sense of brooding being more popular than purity of desire.

One can also look to our fixation with the old west, the cowboys that we imagine stepped out of bed in the morning directly into a pair of boots and a gun belt. We don't love a John Wayne that always did right but the John Wayne that swaggered in, fists or guns blazing, whichever seems appropriate to the situation.

So why do we so often idolize the scoundrels? Is this only the US, or is it a human thing?

I think as a final thought we should examine the double standard of this view. While we may romanticize Bonnie and Clyde, we certainly would not look forward to being the bank teller the day they showed up. Many people are currently fixated by the idea of some cutesy piracy that completely ignores the truth of the men and women who we celebrate. We overlook the murder and the deprivation, the added shares from the prize for those sailors unfortunate enough to lose a limb or an eye. We ignore the fact of entire ship's worth of people being drowned rather than being allowed to become a burden to the crew who were after more prizes, more robbing, raping and looting.

So what's your idea? Why do we celebrate the rogues and scoundrels, the Bonnies and Clydes?