More than you ever wanted to know

So about a month ago, Fire Fairy gave me a Liebster Award over on her blog. Aaaaand because I'm a giant slacker (and also had everything planned out to ensure that my 500th post didn't fall on a Monday), I'm only just getting around to saying thank you. So thank you, Fire Fairy!!

11 facts about me:
1. The most comfortable pair of pants I own is a pair of jazz ballet pants that I bought for a dancing concert in 1997. They have holes in them and I don't care. (To clarify: they're exclusively used for sitting around the house when I don't have to go anywhere)
2. When I get angry, I cry. It's a pain in the arse.
3. The last time I bought an item of clothing was in April.
4. If I can find a way to get out of having to leave the house, I will.
5. I rarely wear skirts/dresses. After 12 years of school uniforms which required me to wear a kilt/pinafore/skirt to school every day? NO THANK YOU.
6. My current pet peeve is groups of people who walk insanely slowly while taking up the entire footpath. Especially in the city.
7. I find it weirdly fascinating to watch how other people sign their names. The conclusion I have reached from this? Everyone else has FAR more grown up signatures than I do.
8. I didn't drink until my 24th birthday (Well. Apart from that time I got drunk when I was six).
9. According to a form we had to fill in for class earlier this semester, I've saved $2,500 this year by using my local library instead of buying books.
10. I hate dusting to the point where I'll use the vacuum cleaner to try and suck up the dust from shelves/window sills/whatever so that I don't have to dust.
11. I leave my shoes EVERYWHERE. I currently have one pair in the study, one pair in the family room, one pair on my bedroom floor, and three pairs in the kitchen. This drives my mother up the wall. I, on the other hand, have realised that I'm FAR more likely to be able to find my shoes when they're NOT in my wardrobe.

Fire Fairy's questions:
1. If you could befriend any Disney villain and help them mend their ways, who would you choose and why?
Oh jeez. It's been a really long time since I saw a Disney movie in the traditional sense... On the basis that Disney owns Marvel Studios, I'm going to go with Loki from Thor/The Avengers.

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2. You've been invited to a fairy tale themed fancy dress party. Who or what do you dress as? (I need inspiration for attending such a party myself!)
Maybe Belle from Beauty and the Beast?? Then I'd have a legitimate reason to carry a book everywhere!

3. If you could choose any activity to be made an official Olympics sport, what would you pick?
Roller derby. Because it makes a million times more sense than synchronised swimming.

4. Where in the world would you most like to go that you haven't already been to?
I can never decide between my top three - Ireland, Italy and Egypt.

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5. What is your ultimate karaoke song? If you don't ever do karaoke, what would it be if you were forced to sing?
I don't do karaoke (although it's on my 101 in 1001 list. I'm a huge chicken though. I don't sing in front of people...), but I'd probably do something super cheesy that everyone knows the words to, like Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" or Abba's "Super Trouper", which I have an irrational soft spot for.

6. If you could have any famous historical figure over for dinner, who would you invite?
Just one?? Probably Charles Dickens.

7. If you went to Hogwarts, which house do you think the Sorting Hat would place you in?
I'd like to think Ravenclaw, but I'm terrible at riddles, so I'd probably never be able to get into the common room if that were the case!!

8. What was the best science experiment you did, or saw your teacher do, at school?
There are three that stand out: 1. In high school chemistry, we made mayonnaise (We were studying emulsions). 2. At school in England, our teacher separated a tiny quantity of crude oil into its various products. Because, you know, that's EXACTLY the kind of thing ten year olds need to learn about... And 3. Our school in England had 54 acre grounds. So for a biology assignment (again, JUST the kind of thing ten year olds should be studying!), we got to spend a class roaming around the grounds, collecting snails and measuring their shells with calipers. The point was, I believe to produce a bell curve. But mostly, we got to play in the woods for an hour. WIN.

What, you weren't drawing diagrams of fractal distillation
of liquids at the age of ten?? 

9. What's your favourite way to spend a hot summer's day?
At the movies or laying on the sofa under the ceiling fan, watching The Day After Tomorrow. Because you can convince yourself that you're cool while watching a movie about an ice age.

10. What's your favourite way to spend a freezing cold winter's day?
Cold for Melbourne is like 10 degrees C, so it's not really FREEZING as such! But probably sitting under a blanket watching movies and drinking hot chocolate. As you can see, I'm not really big with the whole outside thing...

11. If you could dye your hair any colour you wanted just for fun, which colour would you choose?
Purple, I guess?

I'm going to nominate the following people:
Pretzel Thief
Kat
Leah
Emmy
Gina
Kim

Your questions, some of which I'm going to steal from the questions I was asked in my 500th post because I'm brain dead right now:
1. What's your favourite fictional pairing and why?
2. If you went travelling with the Doctor, what's the first place you would go and why? (Gina/Pretzel Thief - knowing that you guys don't watch Doctor Who, I'll reword it just for you: If you found a time machine that could also take you anywhere in the universe, what's the first place you would go and why?)
3. What's your favourite Halloween related movie?
4. If you could be any kind of animal, what would you be?
5. Cake or cupcakes?
6. What's your favourite song at the moment?
7. What was your favourite subject in high school?
8. What's your favorite 90s TV show?
9. If you could be any superhero, who would you be?
10. What do you like on your pizza?
11. Do you have any weird phobias?

The rules:
1. Thank your Liebster Blog Award Presenter on your blog.
2. Link back to the blogger who awarded you.
3. Copy and Paste the award to your blog.
4. Nominate at least 5 blogs (up to 11) to receive the award.
5. Inform them of their nomination by leaving a comment on their blog.
6. Include 11 random facts about yourself in your post.
7. Answer the 11 questions the person that has nominated asked you and create 11 new questions for the people you have nominated.

Feel free to answer the questions in the comments if I didn't tag you! (Hell, even if I *did* tag you, feel free to answer in the comments)

K xx

Movie Monday: Whip It!

It took me a REALLY long time to decide which movie to watch for this week. I spent hours debating between Stardust, Maverick, and Ten Inch Hero and still couldn't come to a decision. But after seeing a bunch of tweets and Facebook status updates from the CRDL over the weekend, I changed my mind completely and instead went with this:

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It's like She's the Man or Bend It Like Beckham, but with roller derby. WIN.

Reasons why Whip It is awesome:
1. Ellen Page as Bliss (aka Babe Ruthless).
2. Hip checking the bitchy girl at school.

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3. Drew Barrymore as Smashley Simpson. She stars in it AND it was her directorial debut.
4. The soundtrack. It's pretty phenomenal.
5. Kristin Wiig as Maggie Mayhem.
6. Smashley Simpson's rainbow striped hair. AWESOMENESS.

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7. Juliette Lewis. She's FANTASTIC.
8. Playing 'Marco Polo' in the wheat field while looking for Oliver's keys.
9. Jimmy Fallon as the derby commentator.
10. Turning up at a beauty pageant with blue hair.

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11. Razor, the Hurl Scouts coach.
12. FOOD FIGHT.
13. Bruise comparisons. If you know any derby girls, you'll know that this is a fairly common occurrence.
14. Eulala Scheel as Bliss's little sister. HILARIOUS.
15. The hilarious aprons Bliss and Pash wear at work.

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16. The team names.
17. Bliss' dad's sneaky watching-football-in-his-truck plan. Genius.
18. Daniel Stern (aka Marv from Home Alone!) plays Bliss' father.
19. Smashley Simpson's broken nose and her team mates' reactions.

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20. Giving Bliss' little sister a goth makeover.
21. The scene where the Hurl Scouts turn up at the beauty pageant.
22. Jumping over the whole Holy Rollers team.
23. The leg whip. I couldn't find any footage from the movie, so here's some real derby girls instead:

24. The scene with her dad hammering a "Babe Ruthless" placard into the front lawn.

25. ROLLER DERBY. Sure, it may be full of illegal hits and moves that would get you sin binned for life in the real world. Also, it's banked track derby and in Australia (as far as I know!) we only have flat track. But as a way to introduce people to the sport? It's pretty great.

Plus, the following quotes:
- "I just wanted to tell y'all that...you're my new heroes." "Well, put some skates on. Be your own hero."
- "Shoes are a gateway drug."
- "I'm Maggie. Maggie Mayhem." "I'm Bliss. But I can change that." "...Yeah, you'll have to."
- "You don't have the balls." "I'll grow the balls!"
- "I like smart girls. That's why I married your mama. Well, that and I knocked her up."
- "So, are you ready for your big debut?" "Has anyone ever thrown up on the track before?" "...Yeah."
- "Yeah, let's celebrate mediocrity, that's great!"
- "You're gonna have to roll over, you smell like a dead goat."
- "We deserve better villains."
- "Let's go apeshit."
- "Play number 8. You ready for the whip?" "Put your arm out. I'll be there."
- "So what, are you like...alternative now?" "Alternative to what??"
- "Have a swell day at school, sweetheart."
- "I feel so stupid for falling for it." "That's why I like a good fondling, you know? It's much simpler."
- "Screw you and your grandmother's Chevy Celebrity!"
- "One day, you're going to thank me." "Yeah, in my suicide note..."
- "What's your derby name?" "Pocket Rocket. What's yours?" "Jabba the Slut."

Have you seen it? What did you think? Also, have you been to a derby bout? Because you really should. Not that I'm biased or anything... ;)

K xx

30 Days of Books - Day 13

Once again, I'm an epic slacker. But Friday night was taken up with a junior curatorial Royal Wedding party - did everyone enjoy Princess Beatrice's hat? Bat. Shit. Crazy... I'm rather pleased to have my one claim to fame in life advance to the next stage (for those of you who missed my epic 150th post, I went to primary school with Catherine and Pippa Middleton), and yes, I'm still certain that my invitation must have gotten lost in the post. Anyway, then yesterday was taken up with the lovely KC's hen's day - the afternoon was taken up with cocktails, cupcakes and crafting, and the evening was spent screaming our lungs out in support of our colleague FeMaelstrom at her début roller derby bout. 

Anyway, enough of my excuses, on with the books! 

Day 13 - Your favourite writer

Technically speaking, it's Terry Pratchett. The man is a freaking genius and never fails to make me laugh hysterically. But I covered Terry Pratchett and my favourite Discworld book back on Days 3 and 4. Second on the list would be Bill Bryson, but I covered him on Day 2, and I'm trying to avoid repeating myself. So I'm going with an author that I've loved since I was 10.

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Charles Dickens. When I was 10 (and, incidentally, at school with the Middletons), I spent a lot of my time in the school library. Enough time that I was given an "Assistant Librarian" badge, because I'd help reshelve the books. Anyway, for some reason I decided that what I really needed to read was a Dickens omnibus. Because A Tale of Two Cities is TOTALLY appropriate for a ten year old! 

Yes, Dickens can be dark and twisty, and occasionally dull. But he can also be hilarious when he wants. And he created characters that stick in your memory, characters that people can still relate to 150 years later. He's part of the reason that I became mildly obsessed with nineteenth century history as a kid. And because of that obsession, I've spent the past two years curating exhibits about nineteenth century history. All courtesy of Dickens!

K xx

Day 01 - The best book you read last year

Day 02 - A book you've read more than 3 times

Day 03 - Your favourite series

Day 04 - Your favourite book of your favourite series

Day 05 - A book that makes you happy

Day 06 - A book that makes you sad

Day 07 - Most underrated book

Day 08 - Most overrated book

Day 09 - A book you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving

Day 10 - Favourite classic book

Day 11 - A book you hated

Day 12 - A book you used to love but don't any more

Day 13 - Your favourite writer

Day 14 - Favourite book of your favourite writer

Day 15 - Favourite male character

Day 16 - Favourite female character

Day 17 - Favourite quote from your favourite book

Day 18 - A book that disappointed you

Day 19 - Favourite book turned into a movie

Day 20 - Favourite romance book

Day 21 - Favourite book from your childhood

Day 22 - Favourite book you own

Day 23 - A book you wanted to read for a long time but still haven't

Day 24 - A book you wish more people would've read

Day 25 - A character you can relate to the most

Day 26 - A book that changed your opinion about something

Day 27 - The most surprising plot twist or ending

Day 28 - Favourite title

Day 29 - A book everyone hated but you liked

Day 30 - Your favourite book of all time

Excitement plus!

So you know how the past couple of weeks I've been all "This week was a suckfest" and "Wah, poor me" and "Pity party, table for one"? Yeah. I'm sick of that shit. Because I realised today I have a whole lot of stuff coming up in the next couple of months that's exciting, and I should just ignore all the crap that's going on at work, and focus on the good stuff instead.

So what's the good stuff? Well, there's:

• The Canberra Multicultural Festival next weekend. I'm pretty much not going to eat for the whole of next week so I can stuff myself with delicious food
• The fact that Grey's Anatomy is FINALLY back in about a minute. Woohoo!!
• The fact that Farmer Wants a Wife starts back next Wednesday. I'm frighteningly excited about it
• The fact that I'm not a teacher. Mum told me a story today about how she and another teacher had to look after the preschoolers during naptime, and one of the kids peed her pants. The other teacher picked up the kid's sleeping bag, and a river of pee poured out of it onto the other teacher's feet. Eeeeeeeeeeeeuw...
• My work buddy I's roller derby debut at the end of the month. GO FEMAELSTROM!!
• Em's hen's weekend.
• Install. Finally, after almost two years of me working on this project (and that's WAY less time than some people have been working on it!), we're starting to install the gallery, which makes the whole thing seem real. Plus, the nerd factor with the registration and conservation staff? Way higher than curatorial. They actually understand my Firefly/Pride and Prejudice and Zombies/Star Wars references!!
• Em and Matt's wedding in March
• The fact that when my niece, Little Miss A, started Prep on Monday morning, the only thing she was concerned about was the fact that she had to wear socks. He he he. Hilarity!
• My little cooking challenge, which is proceeding nicely.
• Being back at the gym four hours a week.

I think that's probably enough to be getting on with. Oh, and did I mention the Multicultural Festival? I did? Well, I'm mentioning it again. It's totally the highlight of living in Canberra, even if it does seem to always fall on the hottest day of the year!!

K xx

The dregs of 2010

So, 2010 is over. As much as I spent the last month or so of it desperately wanting it to end, it didn't really treat me THAT badly. I spent the year hanging out with my BFF, Sara. I went to Tassie and the Northern Territory. I discovered roller derby and Ashes to Ashes, bought an SLR, and moved house AGAIN. And I baked. A lot... And I spent the last week of 2010 running around like a crazy person catching up with what seemed like half of Melbourne...

Unlike my last housemate, D was around for Christmas, and felt the need to decorate accordingly:

On the subject of Christmas, here's what I got my younger brother:

He's 25, incidentally. It turned out he already had Lego Harry Potter for Wii, so he's changed it for Donkey Kong for Wii - a much more mature choice... ;) Course, Sara and I promptly took over the Wii and played Lego Harry Potter for the better part of six hours every day we were there, so I expect he's taking my being back in Canberra as a positive thing, because it means he can actually access his Wii again...

Oh, and the night before I left for Melbourne, my housemate gave me my Christmas present:

Well, HELLO, Jake Gyllenhaal!! D officially knows me too well... :D

Our flight to Melbourne left at 8.45pm, which meant there was a pretty amazing sunset over the wing of the plane:

Christmas was the usual family nonsense, except with the added disadvantage of my poor puppy being not very well - he had to have a tooth removed on the 23rd, and then turned out to be allergic to the antibiotics he was on, and was generally pretty miserable.

Aaaaaaanyway, the bit after Christmas was FAR more enjoyable. I went to Richmond Hill Cafe for breakfast with my best friend from kindergarten, Char. I highly recommend the cheesy toast. GodDAMN, that stuff was good... I had a mini-Peru reunion with Jamie and Matt, accompanied by cider. Mmmmm, delicious cider...

I caught up with my BFF, Kat, who I've not seen since Thailand over a year ago. There were burritos, Thai food (although I'm pretty sure the pad thai in Phuket didn't feature potatoes or pumpkin...), cider, and large quantities of chocolate, along with a hefty quantity of ugly clothes mocking in the sales. But mostly, there was chocolate. We started out at Koko Black in the Block Arcade:

That's their incredible chocolate mousse on the left, and the summer special blood orange iced chocolate on the right. Sooooooooooooooooooooooooo good...

I, on the other hand, had their summer special strawberry iced chocolate.

It was pretty damned good, although nowhere near as good as last year's special raspberry iced chocolate. That was the bomb... *sigh* And then I *may* have bought a crapload of chocolates to take home. After Koko Black, there was a stop off at Haigh's in Royal Arcade for some chocolate freckles. I'm not a big fan of Haigh's - I'm really not sure why - but their freckles are awesome. Like an Easter egg dipped in hundreds and thousands. Mmmmmmmmmm...
In addition to a great day filled with rather more food than was necessary, Kat presented me with this apron:

 
She made it herself, as evidenced by the tag:

 
In return, being a talentless hack deprived of her baking pans, presented her with both the book and the DVD of Pride and Prejudice - the BBC version, obviously. I would NEVER force anyone to sit through the Keira Knightley/Matthew McFugly version. It's craptacular.
 
But that's beside the point. I also went on a lens buying expedition with Jamie's assistance, and came home several hundred dollars poorer, but carrying this:

 
It's pretty damned awesome, even though I haven't been able to try it out to the best of its ability yet. It's a 55mm - 300mm lens. Which basically means it can go from this:

 
To this without moving an inch:

 
I can't wait to test it out properly... Although I suspect I'm going to need to invest in a tripod before long. Hurrah - another trip to the camera shop!!! :D
 
I also got to catch up with Chelle, which featured chocolate chip muffins, and the better part of a year's worth of gossip. Although we STILL didn't get to do our "we're FINALLY able to consume alcohol at the same time" celebration *sigh*. Chelle - it'll happen eventually. I'll make sure of it... ;)
 
New Year's Eve, being 41 degrees, was spent hiding from the heat, playing Harry Potter and watching (and some degree of mocking - as much as I love it, it is pretty freaking ridiculous...) season 3 of True Blood. A much better alternative to going out in public, as far as I'm concerned!
 
And there we have it. I flew back to the 'berra this afternoon, and I really have to say, I hate it a little bit more every time I do... Course, it wasn't helped by the fact that I had a taxi driver who considered himself too good to help me with my luggage... Now there's just tomorrow to go, and then it's back to work *sigh*
 
Oh well. At least it's a short week, and I can get some baking done at the weekend, and christen both my shiny new apron, and my shiny new camera lens. Awesome sauce...
 
Hope everyone's Christmas and New Year was good!
 
K xx

Roller derby - an interstate showdown

Last weekend, I went to another derby bout. But this time, it wasn't just the Canberra Roller Derby League teams skating against each other. It was the best of the Canberra teams, skating as the Canberra Vice City Rollers, up against the best of the Sydney teams, skating as the Sydney Assassins. So basically, it was the best bout that you're ever likely to see in Canberra.

It was out at the arena at the AIS, so they were able to sell a lot more tickets than when it's down in Tuggeranong. I think the final crowd was over 3,000, which is a record for roller derby in the ACT. The atmosphere in the stadium was electric, and most people were there to support the Canberra girls.

Yes, the Canberra Roller Derby League logo is a set of brass knuckles...

The title for the bout was "Lord of the Rink: The Two Towers" - Telstra Tower in Canberra versus AMP Tower in Sydney. So, in keeping with the theme, the Vice City Rollers entered in capes with one of them carrying a staff and yelling "YOU...SHALL NOT...PASS!!!!!!". Awesome... Sadly, my photos of that bit didn't turn out so well, but here they are ditching the capes for their individual introductions.

Before every bout, the referees do a gear check to make sure everything's above board:

And then they were off in the first jam of the night! I'm not about to try and explain the rules of roller derby (and it's only partially because I don't entirely understand them myself), but I will say that half the stuff that goes on in Whip It! (which, if you haven't seen it, is totally awesome and should be watched as soon as possible) will get you sent to the sin bin - no punches to the face, for starters! If you REALLY want to know the rules, you can read this...

So here's the first jammer for the VCRs, Short Stop, lining up against Winnie Bruise for the Assassins.

Canberra got away to an early lead. Here's VCR captain Bambi von Smash'er as jammer (with the star on her helmet) making her way through the pack...

Aaaaaand here's the ref indicating that she's got lead jammer status! Bambi's an amazing skater - and she's only 4' 11"!!

Here's Short Stop lining up as jammer against Great Bolz o' Fire:

And here's Dee Natured (wearing the green leg warmer thingies) preparing to block the Assassins' jammer:

And Roulette Rouge (who, incidentally, was an intern at work earlier this year) coming around the side to take out the Assassins' jammer:

The VCRs continued to kick some Sydney arse, and by half time, here's how the scores stood:

Sydney put up a fight early in the second half, and the scores became a little more even. But the VCRs kept on doing what they do - here's Dr Hell (who, incidentally, is an actual doctor, and was called upon in the Grand Final bout to deal with a fairly spectacularly broken leg - tibia AND fibula, requiring surgery and pins to fix...) bringing the VCR pack together to block Winnie Bruise jamming for the Assassins:

And here's Roulette Rouge skating up the inside as jammer for the VCRs:

And here's a successful block by the Dutch Ass on Great Bolz o' Fire:

And finally, here's Short Stop darting through the middle of the pack. She really is amazing! A couple of the girls in the Canberra League apparently used to be speed skaters, and I'm willing to bet she's one of them:

The final score, as you can see, was a resounding and well deserved victory for the Vice City Rollers! The Assassins put up a good fight, but in the end, the Canberra girls were just too good for them.

Sadly, that's the end of roller derby for the year. But in February, one of the girls from work will be making her bout debut as Femaelstrom, which is very exciting - it'll add some extra thrill to the bouts next year when she's skating!

At least there's Whip It! to get me through the off season........ ;)

K xx

PS. For the record, I would totally sign up to be a derby girl, if only I weren't so terrified of falling down and hurting myself... The downside to not having roller skates as a child, I think!!

Holidays!!

Yesterday was a total suckfest. Today was the Canberra Roller Derby League grand final double header of awesome. Tomorrow? I'm off to Sydney. Monday? Flying to Alice Springs. I'll be back in a week. Expect photos of The Rock. And King's Canyon. (And me rambling about Harry Potter. It better be freaking awesome....................)

K xx

Roller derby!

On Saturday night, I trekked down to Tuggeranong. And you KNOW that if I was going all the way down there to Bogan Land, it was for something pretty damned special. And it was - roller derby. All I have to say is one thing: derby girls are FREAKING INSANE!!! In a good way, obviously. But insane nonetheless. Let's start with the fact that derby includes lots of falling down. If it were me, I'd fall down twice, and then go off to sulk and nurse my bruises. These girls fall on their arses time and time again over the course of two hours. As you can see from the signage on the way into the stadium:

It's a disturbingly complicated sport - there's a billion hand signals from the referees, and every time I thought I had the scoring system worked out, a score would come up that was completely contradictory to what I thought it would be. But that didn't take any of the fun out of it.

In the end, the Brindabelters put up an epic fight, but were pipped at the post by the Black and Blue Belles.

I'm already looking forward to the bout between the Surley Griffins and the Red Bellied Black Hearts in a month or so. Although I'll be taking a cushion (bleachers = not comfortable for two and a half hours), and planning ahead in regards to dinner - a Lean Cuisine (because I had no food in the house and couldn't be bothered cooking) at 10pm really didn't cut it!!

Oh, and next time? I'll be taking the SLR. Because while the point and shoot was way easier to carry, it produced some epically sucky photos... *sigh* Sports mode = FAIL...

K xx