BLAAGH

Busy Busy Busy

There is so much going on right now.  Especially on the derby front.

The WFTDA North Central Regional tournament (the Brawl of America) is happening in St Paul RIGHT NOW.  It's been going on all weekend.  I missed the whole thing mostly because I budgeted both my time and money really really badly this month.  Looks like the rankings will shake out with my league - the Northstar Rollergirls - in 5th place.  Not too shabby for a region with almost 20 leagues.  Only the top ten leagues qualified to attend.  The top three teams are going to Nationals.  EXCITING TIMES.

Our home season has just started.  I was working with the Recruits all summer (with the exception of two weeks I took off to move) so I already feel like the season should be half over.  I think the travel team feels the same way, some of them are pretty surly already and we're only a couple of weeks into practice.

I am also trying to save money for new skates because hooo-boy the fit on my current boots is FUCKED.  The heels have gotten super loose, I feel like they are coming off every time I take a step.  OBNOXIOUS.

The husband and I went to see District 9 last night.  It was awesome. I wish I had an option to hide spoilers on this blog because I have a lot of things to say about the movie that I won't say in the interest of folks who might stumble on this (somehow) and have things ruined for them.  Maybe I will write a review when the DVD comes out.

We also both bought Blackberries.  Blackberries! Because apparently we are yuppie scumbags.  But we are both glued to them because technology is amazing.  I synced my Google calendar to it on Friday and I was so tickled with the whole thing I was texting people.  "THE FUTURE IS AWESOME YOU GUYS DID YOU KNOW WE ARE LIVING IN IT". 

My Words

So the husband and I are gearing up to get new phones.  I realized there are probably not a whole lot of features that I use on the current phone so I was playing around with it to look at stuff I don't normally see.

I think probably most mobile phones have that "My Words" thing (or maybe it is just Sprint?) that allows you to set it up so that you can autocomplete some frequently-used words of yours when you are texting.  I went through My Words and it made me laugh since it offers a bit of a window into the madness (sort of disconcerting to get a window into your OWN madness, that almost never happens), so here they are - minus mispellings and names - in order:

>_<

^_-

^_^

Ahahah

Ahhaha

Chipotle

crap

ARGH

ASSHOLES

D'oh

DAMN

dokie

fuck

fucked

fuckers

fucking

GAWD

inlaws

hooray

Hooray

HOORAY

Nah

Okie

OMG

NSRG

scrimmaging

RG

shit

Rookies

stethoscopes

Suzis

tricorders

Obligatory Harry Potter Post

What follows are a number of spoilers:

I finally saw the new Harry Potter movie with some friends today.  Everyone who had not read the books was confused.  I had a number of problems with the movie.

Why was the Burrow burned down? Couldn't you have taken the time put into an invented scene and used it on something that would have been some exposition for the next movie? (They are going to have to do some serious re-writing to ensure some of this crap makes sense for the next go-round.)

You are gonna pay Natalia Tena to be in this movie and then stick her in just a couple of scenes? Lame. You couldn't even throw her a bone and give her the train scene?

How is it that Daniel Radcliffe supposedly weeping doesn't invoke any emotion but TWO LINES from Maggie Smith almost makes me cry?

Did Dumbledore die or was it a fucking Led Zeppelin concert?

Overall: not impressed.  I'm so bummed.  If I ever meet Steve Kloves on the street I am going to kick him in the crotch.

Good things:

Katie Bell being cursed (creepy, the shot of her screaming made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up).

The Inferius weren't too shabby (though I was a little thrown by the Gollum-esque appearance).

Sectumsepra was way bloodier than I was expecting (awesome).

Michael Gambon saying "mind if I use the loo?".

Elarica Gallagher who plays the waitress in the beginning.  SO. CUTE.  And with an afro! How can you go wrong?!

PILULES!

I have taken to labeling my more delightful spams so that I could share them with you again, internets.

Let's not beat around the bush and just get to the sexy ones first.  I am still receiving lots of emails about how to deal with the size of my penis and the pleasuring of my women, of which I have hundreds.  Maybe I could figure out how to take care of them on my own if that Benny Hill music wasn't playing.  It makes it really hard to concentrate.

I told my younger brother about the "iron-strong" email and his response was "someone's been reading anatomy textbooks!".

44 steps to hit a G-Spot? Maybe I'm misunderstanding.  Maybe by "G-Spot" they mean "Germany".  The other thing I like about the sexy emails I have been getting lately is the constant reference to pilules! and pilulles! which I am a little bit disturbed by.  I also wasn't aware that dudes were trying to get up in my entrails all this time which explains a lot.

I've also been getting a lot of spams about celebrities.  For the sake of space I have included politicians in the celebrity category.  Most of these are still sexual in nature (not surprisingly).

These ones look like they could actually be from people I know:

TRICKSTERS! Thomas Ludwig-Mayer would never tell me to suck it.  He is a really nice guy.

A series of subject lines which read like book titles also began turning up.

I was really disappointed to learn that the whole Crumpetty Tree thing was not original content created by some spammer but actually a literary reference.  Who knew? 

Lastly I submit for your approval some of the most truly bizarre and random spam subject lines I have ever read.  Some of them are health-related.  The third one down reads as if I will open the email and STOP CANCER IN ITS TRACKS just by virtue of clicking the link.

 
And look, there's FedEx getting back to me about that dinosaur I ordered.  FINALLY.

So What's New?

BABIES that is what.

My best friend had a baby! I have known this woman since I was four years old so it is really weird that she has had this amazing, life-changing, nigh-indescribable experience which I have not (will not) have.  He is pretty cute from what I have seen in photos! You know how some babies look kind of creepy when they are first born and not at all like human offspring? NOT THIS ONE.  He is totally adorable.  I am very relieved I didn't have to fake enthusiasm about his cuteness though I TOTALLY would have out of LOVE.  

Not too much going on with me though.  I was voted captain of my roller derby team, kind of crazy and daunting but I'm excited.  I'm on the Recruiting Committee this season and tryouts are happening soon so I've been working with our fresh meat to get them prepared for that.  They are pretty rad girls.

We have to move again.  This apartment we are in is too goddamn expensive.  We moved in here when I was making significantly more money and I'm sure they are going to raise our rent again.  Screw that.  We have never had problems like we've had in this place and it's the most expensive apartment we've ever lived in.  Moldy and shit.  Gross.  So we have to start looking for apartments now.  I think it would be sort of funny to move back into the first apartment we lived in when we moved out to Minnesota.  Show up to the rental office kind of "hi, remember us!" Ha ha.  The apartment parking lot ran right into a little grocery store parking lot so it was pretty handy.  Someone got shot over there about a year ago though so I'm not sure what has become of that neighborhood.  When we moved in we weren't sure if it used to be a nice complex and was going sorta ghetto or if it HAD BEEN sorta ghetto and they were trying to fix it up.  I guess it was the former.  Anyway it is still the suburbs of Minnesota it cannot be at all scary or dangerous just as a general rule.  I'm sure the guy who shot the other guy did it for very passive aggressive reasons and probably apologized profusely afterwords and offered to bake him a casserole. 

Dear Internets,

How are you? I am fine.  Except for the fact that I have a big zit next to my mouth.  This happens whenever I have PMS.  It is terrible.  You'd think I'd be used to it after more than ten years.  Apparently not.  Instead I just act surprised when my face decides to grow an extra head. 

I have been super busy with roller derby.  Trying to bust my ass a little bit more and try a bit harder and all of that jazz.  It is rough.  I am debating buying new skates but I am going to have to drop about four hundred clams to do it.  D'oh.

Also! I think I have allergies? I mean, I know I have allergies (I have never been tested), I just don't know to what.  And I've been having a lot of sinus stuff going on lately.  The other day I woke up and I felt like my eyeballs were swollen, like they were going to pop out of my head.  It was odd.

I am trying to get myself motivated to go back to school and that is hard.  I just don't know when I am going to find the time! I have been putting it off for a while now and I really just need to put up or shut up at this point unless I want to be a wage slave for the rest of my life.  I am almost thirty, dudes! I need to figure out what I am doing with myself.  I also need to stop using the word "dude", I think.  It is a hard habit to break.

I am tired as hell, internets.  I feel like an old woman.  Instead of going on lunch I take naps in my car.  My sleeping habits are so terrible! I have no one but myself to blame.  I was actually all excited when it started to get warm because that means I can take naps on the lawn in front of our office building.  I went and got screened for celiac disease (my mum has it) because I have had longstanding stomach problems and my doctor actually thinks it might be my gallbladder - makes sense since all of the women on my mum's side have had their gallbladders removed (with the exception of my mum?!).  I actually think that is sort of hilarious even though it really isn't.  You guys if I have gallstones I am totally going to make a necklace out of them. 

You won't help from boasting it

Hello, internets.  I have the plague.  I went to work on Monday and felt fine but a little congested in the chest.  By Tuesday morning I felt like I had been hit by a truck.  Tuesday night I was sore everywhere, even my EYEBALLS hurt.  Terrible! Anyway, there are worse things than having the flu so I don't need to bore everyone with it.  Only my husband.  Who must listen to me complain about it constantly.  I wish I could afford to put him up in a hotel room for a night so that he could get the hell away from me because one of the side effects of any illness I contract is CONSTANT WHINING.  Ugh.  Horrible. 

In the interest of providing something amusing to read, I bring you this:

The Spam I get seems to fall into three categories:

Swiss watches
Where to buy Viagra and Cialis online
How to please your woman

I have no use for any of these things.  I don't know why the internets think I am a man.  I often wonder if other chicks get a lot of spams touting the cheapness of Online Pharmacy penis pills or if surfing habits and keywords in your email dictate what you end up with.  I suppose spams targeted at ladies probably wouldn't be any better and would probably consist largely of messages detailing where you can get cheap knockoff Coach purses and how to increase your bust in 30 days! and so forth.

In any case, I have recently begun taking screenshots of some of my more delightful spams.  Here they are for your viewing enjoyment.

Featured here are a sentient watch (!), a seasonal email from some sort of lamb dish and another from a polygamist named Solid Freundlich.

Adolph Baker knows I have problems with IT.  If he means Tim Curry dressed up as a homicidal clown I fully agree with his assessment.  This screenshot contains a pretty high quotient of excellent "How to please your woman" emails, including a reference to my "love-beast", a couple of odd object references (to a hose and a rocket respectively) and an email from me about my "loveing machine".  There is also a somewhat dubious email suggesting that Oprah has a No. 1 Superfood* which will help you lose weight naturally.  What?

I just like the direct, no-nonsense, to-the-point flavor of this one.

Finally, I have received one of my favorites to date from Ailbert Austin (My private xxx life makes it sound like there is moonshine involved which isn't entirely inaccurate).  Also featuring an email from Graham and Ludmila Moss.  Oh, Ludmila, of course! Didn't we meet on that cruise ship? How the hell are you? 

*The Superfood in question is Acai Berries so they may as well have said Oprah's No. 1 Snake Oil.

HYSTERIA ON A MOTHERFUCKIN PLANE

What is up friends? I will tell you what is up.  PLANES.  They are vomit-inducing. 

I mentioned in my last entry that the first time I flew (almost ten years ago probably at this point) I was sick and miserable the whole time.  I was hoping that since I had my Big Burly Husband with me and was a bit older and wiser I might not be such a basket case this time around.  It was truly a feeble hope.

I was nervous the instant we entered the airport for Christ sake.  Let me take a moment here to say that the Minneapolis Airport is actually a pretty nice place.  I was impressed.  You go through security right away and then after that is the food court and shops and so forth.  (This was in stark contrast to the Orlando airport which has stores and THEN security so if you go through security and realize "shit I would like some crossword puzzles or something" you are SCREWED and must go through the whole  take-your-shoes-off-and-put-them-in-this-bucket-please-ma'am rigamarole all over again.)  My husband tried in vain to get me to eat something.  He offered to buy me booze.  He was very understanding and sweet and it didn't help at ALL. 

Once we were in the air I felt like crap.  Never bad enough to actually barf, luckily.  I couldn't look out the window without getting the sense that something very bad was going to happen, especially if I happened to glance out when the plane banked to the left a bit.  Awful.  And just when I thought I was going to get calmed down and feeling a bit better we hit some turbulence and it started all over again.  Takeoff and landing were especially bad since I had some vision of the plane skidding off of the runway and rolling over like a minivan on an icy highway.  Except the minivan is full of FUCKING JET FUEL and will EXPLODE INSTANTLY.  Jesus.

Anyway, we had a very nice vacation that neither of us wanted to go home from.  Florida is very warm and sunny and the area we were in was very odd and unlike any place I've ever been before.  We were in the suburbs and the outlying areas were a mixture of the super rich and super poor and the contrast was amazing.  Lots of spots had a very creepy horror movie lake cabin feel about them and those were the places I advocated purchasing a house.  We drove through part of one little town in particular where almost every house on the block was tiny and abandoned with the exception of one GIANT house on the corner which was ALSO abandoned.  The only one that appeared to be inhabited was a little pink house which had a couple of dudes sitting out front drinking lemonade. 

Overall it was a good vacation, we saw lizards and frogs and alligators and stood outside in the yard barefoot on X-Mas which was a first for both of us.  My mother hilariously left real estate magazines lying all over the house as if this trip were just an extended infomercial to convince us to move there.  She even threw one at me upon returning from one of her trips to the grocery store.  

When it came time to leave I begged my mother to help me out and give me a Valium for the plane ride home.  I was actually going to go ask my doctor for a few and never got around to  it.  And it was amazing! Like someone had waved a magic wand and granted me the ability to act like a normal person during a flight.  I did word searches and looked out the window EVEN DURING LANDING and ate a bunch of food.  For the record: if you are flying NWA and they offer you one of those snack boxes for five bucks? Totally worth it.  Ours even had Stacey's Pita Chips which are one of my comfort foods. 

And now we are back in the Frozen North and even though I really like Minneapolis a lot I am starting to think I cannot live here for the rest of my life like I have been saying I thought I could.  It is just too depressing during the winter.  That makes me sound like some kind of whiny little bitch but trust me when I say that having lived in the Midwest my entire life winter is nothing new to me.  What WAS new to me was realizing how depressed I was here and how much better I felt down South.  I am not ready to pack up and go anywhere just now but it definitely gives me a lot to think about. 

So I Suck At Blogging

I pay money for this thing and then don't update it.  THAT IS NOT A SOUND BUSINESS MODEL. 

Things have been going just fine for me, not much new to report.  My roller derby team won our opening bout in October.  I have to confess that this was the first bout I came away from feeling like I had actually contributed and being overall pleased with how I did.  It was a pretty great feeling. 

The day before the November bout a horror convention called Crypticon came to the Twin Cities.  My roller derby league had a table there and we got to meet some pretty cool people.  John Kassir, who many of you will recognize as the voice of the Crypt Keeper, had a table and actually came to our bout and served as a Guest Announcer for a bit which was pretty badass of him.  He was a really good sport.  I even got to chat with him a bit!

 
That is Stalker Channing - one of my teammates - on the right.  I was half in the bag when this photo was taken which is why I was ballsy enough to put my arm around him.  I babbled a bunch of stuff about feeling like truly talented voice actors are really taken for granted but I must have sounded coherent enough because he seemed touched.  That sweater he is wearing in the photo? SUPER. SOFT.

I also met Doug Jones at Crypticon and although I don't have a photo to share with you, a few were taken - I will post them once I get them.  He said my fuzzy head was adorable and couldn't stop rubbing it.  He gave me a huge hug and told me he wanted to put me in his pocket because I am so tiny and wee.  I am embarassed to admit that I almost cried when I was talking to him but I was really excited; I am always impressed by actors that can be expressive even under a thousand pounds of prosthetics and makeup.  I totally gushed about his performance in Pan's Labryinth and I think I even used the word "captivating" which sounds like movie review talk and was probably not what I would have normally said BUT I'm sure he met people over the course of the weekend who said much odder stuff.

My mother is flying the husband and I to Florida for X-Mas for a visit, I am pretty excited about that.  I miss my little brothers a lot.  I am not looking forward to flying, however.  I have only flown once before (coincidentally, to Florida from Wisconsin and back, so the flight will be pretty similar) and I was in such a horrible, panicked state that I was sick the entire time.  Basically from the time the engines started until the time I was permitted to exit the plane.  It is pretty much impossible to avoid being sick when you are thinking OH MY GOD THIS TIN CAN IS GOING TO FALL OUT OF THE SKY AT ANY MOMENT WE ARE ALL ABOUT TO DIE the entire time.  Terrible! But that was some time ago so I am hoping I will be more collected this time around.  I think I am going to see if I can wheedle some Valium out of my doctor just in case.  She is pretty cool, she may prescribe me a couple. 

ALSO because I was bored at work and because I wanted to see what all of the fuss was about, I read Twilight last week.  OH! If you are like me and delight in terrible books and movies you should at least hit up your local library and check this puppy out for a day.  It is easily one of the worst books I have ever read.  I wrote a review for Amazon.  Here is an excerpt:

"The plot is nonexistent, consisting almost entirely of the development of the "romance" between Bella and Edward. These characters are husks, unable even to hold up this unwieldy story arc in an interesting manner - like trying to prop up a house with dried corn cobs."

For those of you out there bitching "BUT AT LEAST GIRLS ARE READING" you can shut the fuck up now.  I would much rather they weren't reading at all if this is the kind of horseshit they are going to call "the greatest book evar!!1".  ATTENTION TEENAGE GIRLS: PLEASE HAVE SOME STANDARDS.

The day after I read Twilight I read Flowers In The Attic which is also brainless and awful AND full of craziness that requires total suspension of disbelief.  It is so unbelievable the main character could have said at the end "Oh also we are all elves" and I would have thought "well THAT explains some of this mess".  It is fantastic.  I picked up a hardcover at Half Price Books for two bucks. 

In the "good books" category I also found old paperback copies of Rosemary's Baby (!) and War of The Worlds (!!!) which I am really excited to read. 

That is about all I have right now.  Except I did want to say before I publish this that my heart goes out to the family of the man who was trampled while working at Wal-Mart on Black Friday.  That is horrible.  I imagine anyone who has worked in retail found the story disquieting - when I read it all of the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.  I think people really underestimate how insane people are when they start their X-Mas shopping.  It is very, very disturbing.

DUDES.

Dudes it is only a few weeks into the season and I ALREADY sprained my ankle at roller derby practice. FUCKING. WEAK. This is the third time I've sprained it (only this time and the second were derby-related, the first time was when I was 17 and working at a greenhouse unloading a truck of these things called BioLogs. They were made of coconut husks and prevented erosion. Some hillside still exists somewhere in Wisconsin and the price was essentially my ankle.  YOU'RE WELCOME HILLSIDE.)

We were working on some blocking drills with new recruits on Monday. It is actually not too bad, the doctor says 2-3 weeks and I'll be back on skates.  It doesn't even hurt much.  Hopefully this means I will still be able to get all of my practices in before the October bout. On top of all that, the doctor says this is now officially a "chronic injury" (JOY) so I have physical therapy to do once it gets better (on TOP of the physical therapy for my knees son of a bitch).

I went to the doctor about that but ALSO because of my asthma.  I had been prescribed an albuterol inhaler but it seemed to actually be making things worse (I would get really shaky and a wheezing cough for about 10 minutes after using it).  The doctor agreed that it wasn't working for me but after she assessed how often I've been using the inhaler (5 times a week on average, 3 times for derby, twice just randomly during the week otherwise) and decided I would benefit more from a daily maintenance inhaler.  Which is a steroid inhaler.  Sort of scary! It has a fancy-pants counter built into the dispenser so that you can see how many doses are left (possibly part of the reason this inhaler cost me FORTY FIVE GODDAMN DOLLARS).  Plus she gave me a different variety of rescue inhaler which seems to work quite nicely, no gnarly side effects with the new one.

On a related note there was a mold problem in our apartment.  The ceiling in our bedroom bathroom has been replaced three times now.  The first time it was caving in and there was water dripping from the ceiling fan whenever the people above us showered.  The second time it was caving in and water was POURING from the ceiling fan whenever the people above us showered.  This last time there was no water dripping but rather a few odd water stains which morphed into horrific black mold creeping across the ceiling.  This was in our bedroom bathroom.  Our BEDROOM.  Where we sleep.  Did I mention how disturbing I found this whole thing? So we complained and they scheduled someone to fix it but the night before they did I woke up because I could SMELL MOLD even though the bathroom door had been closed with a towel stuffed under it for more than a week.  So we knew it was bad.  Like "in the walls" bad.  And they only replaced the ceiling.  I guess this was better than nothing but any contractor worth their salt would have looked at this ceiling and said "There is mold all up in this mofo" and likely would have insisted on tearing out every bit of drywall they could reach.

So my wonderful husband complained and I think probably brought up that his wife is tiny and has asthma and told them he wasn't comfortable with the lipstick job that had been done in there.  The property manager agreed (!), said they knew were going to have to rip out the walls and rebuild the bathroom and that we basically have two choices:

Move to another apartment in this building

OR

Live in here while they tear the walls out of the bedroom bathroom.

So tomorrow my wonderful husband is calling to find out what units are available so that we can move.  Move! Our address will be the same except for the unit number which is sort of a pain in the ass.  That means we will have to get new driver's licenses to replace three little numbers! Oh, well. 

I don't have any new products in my shop to hock you guys right now, mostly because I am going to have one of the Professional Photographers who works with my roller derby league take photos of everything for me this time around.  He has agreed to do it as a favor to me because he is a big ole' sweetheart but also because he is going to shoot this stuff so that he can recommend what sort of camera I should buy to replace my FujiFilm FinePix 2.5 MegaPixel camera.  2.5! That is nonsense.  I can't believe it.  I bought that camera as a 19th birthday gift to myself and it was THREE. HUNDRED. DOLLARS.  Because 2.5 MP was a LOT back then! Holy shit consumer electronics upgrade quickly.  I mean, I know this because I used to sell them for a living and I'm still amazed.  I tell people I have a 2.5 MP camera and they laugh at me.  One of the new recruits had her daughter at one of our promo events recently and I'm pretty sure the point-and-shoot camera her six-year-old was running around with was better than mine.  How embarassing.  Anyway, hopefully I'll have a bunch more stuff up for sale soon. 

Also, I always wonder if people actually read my Twitter stuff.  The other day I was going to Twitter that I passed a boat on the highway called "Wet Dreams" and how it grossed me out but I couldn't because texting while driving is DUMB and DANGEROUS and also now a primary offense in Minnesota that you can be fined three hundred dollars for! Wow! So I didn't.  I was still pretty grossed out, though.