bikesdogsderby

I love call centres

huplescat — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 01:49:34 +0000

TPG dude: Oh hello there, I’ve been monitoring your account and noticed your connection is down…

Me: Yes, my house burnt down

TPG dude: …so I checked out system and it was ok, so I figured there is a fault elsewhere…

Me: That *could* have been my modem melting into the floor

TPG dude: …so I called Telstra and they said that there was a fault with the line…

Me: Yep, that’s probably because the house burnt down

TPG dude: …and they looked into it and said there’d been a fire so the line was damaged

Me: Yup

TPG dude: Oh uh…sorry, that’s awful…I…sorry….Can you…er…provide proof of this?

Me: what, other than Telstra being the one to tell you? No. I can start sobbing down the phone if you like though?

TPG dude: Uh…I’ll call you back.

Thanks for the laugh TPG.

huplescat — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 12:33:48 +0000

So once again the roller derby aspect of this blog has been neglected and it’s due to a strange mixture of being flat out and also lazy.

Last I wrote I was trying out for VRDL. Turns out we were all pretty ok so they welcomed us in and threw us into a fairly full on bootcamp that culminated in a test around 3 weeks ago. The group ended up divided between bronze and silver levels, bronze being roughly equivilent to white star, silver around yellow. I made it into silver!

I made it to 2 sessions, one ace fun the other pretty challenging, before my house burnt down and took out my skates with it (dirty bastard). I suspect the aerosol cans in my skate bag removed any fighting chance they may have had and not much was left of them by the time the firies had finished working their magic…

Left skate:

Right skate:

*sob*

As a result there has been no training done, but plenty of cleaning, moving, crying, moving, sifting, crying, spending a lot of money on replacing stuff and a fair bit of misery all round. There have been a lot of jokes flying around that have helped make the situation easier, but at the end of the day it’s shit and I hate it.

However the marvellous silver (or rather black and white) lining of the shit cloud that descended on my life last Tuesday is the fact that I got to go skate shopping yesterday.

My intentions were good, I was going to upgrade from my beloved Sure Grip Rebels to something that was a modest step up. Not revoltingly expensive, just a little more. Knowing I have some cash coming my way from the fund raising efforts of some very amazing ladies, coupled with pay day proved a bad combination. That and the bloke at Bayside Blades speaks derby very well and also has a knack for leading the desperate and skateless astray. Not that I’m complaining mind.

And so, the gaping hole in my bank account presents:

Despite getting numb toes and crampy insteps, I am in love and very amazed at the difference. Training tomorrow night will be interesting. And painful. And I don’t care, I have skates again so screw you house fire!

Who has a good recipe for dog meat?

huplescat — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 03:22:56 +0000

Dear owner of 4 dogs in of Toorak,
I would greatly appreciate it if you could spend a very tiny amount of cash on a proper latch for you gate so that as soon as I’ve finished delivering one overweight golden retriever back to the house another one doesn’t immediately rush out to take over te task of trying to silence the postie bike.

I know you’re awfully busy buying shares, fancy cars, gold teeth and trinkets but sometimes these things need to be done to prevent your postie from fantacising about pretty golden retriever fur coats.

Mwah mwah darling,

Your dog loving, but slightly deranged postie.

Simple but bloody good riding links

huplescat — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 03:07:52 +0000

I came across these in my bike related wanderings, painfully simple but I think this is the kind of information that, if it sinks in, can save lives. It’s also a good reminder for experienced riders, I know my scanning habits go to shit quickly when I haven’t been riding as often, it’s very easy to become lazy in a car.

http://www.msgroup.org/Tip.aspx?Num=170

The Great Animal Move of 2010

huplescat — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 10:27:57 +0000

Well the creatures have all been moved safely and all at once which could be described as unwise or, more accurately, completely idiotic given I have a tiny car, a large dog and only one cat carrier.

Regrdless, Ari surfed a precariously rocky cat tree in the back and pretended to be the queen of the car. Caesar spent the first 5 minutes plastered against the door opposite Ari because she terrifies him and the next 10 minutes avoiding falling furniture. Basil howled the entire trip from the safety of the cat carrier. Evidently he felt he was missing out on all the excitement and that his pillow was far too soft.

I know the truth though, if the little bastard had been loose in the car I’d still be trying to unvelcro him from the ceiling, the carpet under the seat or my head. The last time I allowed free range travel for the special ginger whinger, he attached 2 sets of claws to the door and the other 2 to the back of the chair and proceeded to howl, screech and wail his way to the vet and refused to be dislodged at both ends of the journey. Strangely enough he was a total bloody angel with the vet and she didn’t believe that I’d just spent 5 minutes in the car with an alleged torture victim. I swear, there isn’t enough oxygen supplying that cat’s brain…

VRDL made my legs unhappy

huplescat — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 07:39:32 +0000

So it’s been a little while since I’ve updated this and it’s mostly because roller derby is awesome and there is not much else to say on the matter.

Well it’s still awesome, but today was the much anticipated VRDL tryout. I’ve been waiting for it since February this year, I think some girls have been waiting even longer.

Due to a shortage of training space they’re only taking a small number of skaters (30-ish) and are more or less testing at yellow star level. Not too big a deal in terms of skills for me, but my god the stamina is a problem.

The first 10 minutes or so went great, my legs felt pretty good and my balance was decent considering I was quietly shitting myself. Then I started to get wobbly and by the time we got to jumps and knee taps I was all over the shop. They worked us hard in those 20 minutes and I’m really feeling it now. So it’s hard to say how it went, it was obvious I was fading hard at the end and endurance/fitness is a big part of what they’re looking for. Fingers crossed, we should be told how we went in the next couple of days.

There was an amazing level of skill from all the girls trying out, so many have worked so hard at this and the girls at VRDL are going to have a tough time deciding who to ask back for further testing and who to pick to invite into the league. It’ll be close, damn close.

And tomorrow is the white star test for Southsea, can’t wait although my legs are begging for mercy. No mercy you lazy bastards.

Bootcamp fun

huplescat — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 10:16:34 +0000

Well last Sunday was the 3rd round of SSRD bootcamp (I missed the first one). I’m still gimpy as the physio was unable to put my wrist right so yeah, um, I don’t know what’s happening with it but hopefully the x-ray and ultrasounds tomorrow will shed some light. Doc thinks it’s a ganglion, physio says out of place bone. I like the bone one more, it sounds cooler.

So despite not being able to do pushups or 4 point falls, it was another fun session and this week I was able to sit down to pee on Monday without bracing myself against the toilet walls. Win.

I’m also really excited by how much everyone is improving, there are some future amazing derby girls who I have the privilege of skating with regularly.

One of them held a BBQ afterwards and we all consequentially discovered the joys of outdoor skating

and obtained inspiration from the gurus of the time

All in all an awesome night was had.

Also, I have finally scored a decent visible bruise on my thigh

I have no idea when it happend, but it’s definitely skate related

my dog is a badass

huplescat — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 10:00:43 +0000

Squeaky toys are out, dumbells are in…

He just wandered up, casually picked it up and walked off to chew on the end. It’s a 3kg one, but I think he can do better. Wonder if they make doggy weight benches?

(note: it has since been removed from doggy possesion, I’m certain the rubber coating isn’t intended to be consumed)

Eltham derby class (god I hate their surface)

huplescat — Thu, 27 May 2010 10:32:21 +0000

A while ago I attended the derby classes at the Eltham skating rink when it was run by VRDL stars Kitty Decapite and Splatterpuss. Only got a couple of sessions in before they stopped taking it and school holidays suspended classes anyway. Then I started Vietnamese lessons on a Thurs night and have been blobbing around at Rollerama on other nights doing more socialising than skating ever since (the quality of socialising has at least been high).

Today I cancelled Vietnamese lessons as it turns out I suck at them. And I went back to Eltham. Now there are 2 girls and a guy running it, very nice and friendly although there’s a definite anti-VRDL vibe about the place which is a little sad because I think everyone should be happy, smiley friends and shit.

Anyway. They were testing for the beginner class for those who wanted to go up to intermediate. Thankfully they gave me the ok to go up, I’d have been pissed at myself if after months of skating I was still at a beginner level. My speed test result was white star level apparently so that was rather pleasing.

The only thing stopping me from going up immediately tonight is the unfortunate lump on my wrist that the work physio said is probably from *cough* falling on it. Which I do. A lot. As she’s working on a work related thing she couldn’t banish said lump, but tomorrow arvo I’m heading to another physio to have it exterminated. And by exterminated I mean they’ll stretch it out, form some kind of vacuum (I don’t do physio terminology) and pop out the miscreant bone that’s decided to take a holiday somewhere it shouldn’t.

In the meantime I can’t do deliberate falls as it hurts like hell with any kind of pressure or impact. Next week fter the bastard lump is sorted I’ll do some uber awesome falls to seal the deal and then up to intermediate I’ll go. It’ll probably be a little tender still on Sunday for Southsea’s bootcamp, but I’ll let em know and see how things go. Getting a reprieve from falls won’t be a bad thing anyway.