Flash forward a couple of years, and this is how I’m crossing that particular line off of the list:

Ladies and Gentlemen, your Derby City Rollergirls!

After reading about roller derby on Pamie and Jen’s sites for years, then reading Pamie’s book about it, I figured it was time to see a live bout for myself. On Saturday night, Mr. Martini and I ventured to the Manslick Rollerdome to watch the Derby City Rollergirls vs. Northeast Ohio Rollergirls. We had a great time!

The rink was packed with people, filling up the stands and shoulder to shoulder along the rail. Mr. M and I were lucky enough to grab a rail spot after a couple of guys vacated it for a chance to sit in the “suicide seats.” (The suicide seats are at either end of the track, and are not protected by a rail, so there’s a chance you could end up with a roller girl in your lap.)

The girls played hard, and the DCRG jammers were incredible – they were fast and wily and seemed to find holes between opposing blockers like magic. Our blockers were pretty impressive, too – my new hero is Jimi Hit Trix, who would look so casual as she hipchecked an opponent, seemingly with no effort whatsoever, and that opposing blocker would just go flying off the track.

Did I mention they were fast? They were very fast.

I thought I’d be out of place in my khaki shorts and sensible sandals, but the crowd was filled with every kind of person imaginable. Gray haired ladies, kids, punks, yuppies, hipsters, you name it, they were all there supporting their team, and having a great time.

I wasn’t sure if photos were allowed, so I didn’t bring my good camera. Next time, I definitely will to get some better shots.

Derby City in red, Northeast Ohio in purple

As the bout started, Mr. Martini turned to me and said, “This is fantastic. We should do stuff like this more often!”

Agreed. It was a great time, and I’m only sorry it was the last home bout of the season. We’ll definitely go back next year.

Oh, and I almost forgot – Derby City won the bout, with a score of 139 to 41. Woo-hoo!

For more info about the DCRG, check out their website.

One thing to note: I read all of these on my iTouch, using the Kindle app. My eyes never got tired, and I have to say I didn’t miss holding an actual paper book in my hands. I just had to make sure I was near an outlet for some particularly long reading sessions.
Going in Circles by Pamela Ribon

Newly married, newly separated girl finds solace in Roller Derby. Funny, heartfelt, and written by the always awesome Pamie of Pamie.com. It made me wish I was 10 years younger so I could buy some roller skates and pads and kick some ass on a derby track.

Spooky Little Girl: A Novel by Laurie Notaro

I love seeing what different people come up with as descriptions of heaven or the great beyond, which could explain why I liked the Lost finale so much. Here, Laurie Notaro spins a tale of the afterlife and spooks and ghosts very familiar (fix something on earth so you can move on) but is still original and fun. Great characters, and now I want a dog more than ever.

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

Oh, this book. I absolutely loved it. A sweet YA novel about a girl growing up in NYC in the late 70s, with some subtle sci-fi elements. If you’ve never read “A Wrinkle In Time,” or haven’t read it for a long time, I suggest re-reading it before starting this book. I highly recommend it.

That’s what I’ve been reading, but I’m out of books. Any suggestions for my next read?

I love Mad Men for many of the same reasons. Sure, the characters are intriguing, the time-period perfect clothes and furnishings are to die for, but for me, it’s seeing the inner workings of the advertising agency. Because while things are much different today, they are often eerily similar to the way things are today.

And I’ll admit, once again I’m laughing at how they portray media buyers. Oh, Harry.

The final episode of the current season was absolutely my favorite by far. I’m so excited to see where the new partnerships (and lack thereof) take the show next year. I really, really don’t want to have to wait until next August.

In the meantime, I’ll just dress up in my Joan Holloway best and pretend I’m trading witty bon mots with Roger until I get my fix next summer. *sigh*

I saw this commercial this weekend. After I watched the whole thing, I yelled to Mr. Martini – “OH MY GOD, honey, you have to see this.”

And now I’m showing it to you. Because it just about killed me dead. And I need to spread that feeling of “Did I just see that?” to all of my friends.

Is it just me? Or are there people falling over dead all over the place now because I’ve shared that? I still don’t know what to think. How about you?

Edited to Add: Ack! I didn’t realize that the screencap for the video included both the title and the product. I did not have that warning, so the final 10 seconds came as a shock. Hopefully you still get the full “What the hell?” effect with the advanced warning. Enjoy!

When I moved this blog to WordPress about 3 years ago (which is probably something like 28 Internet years), I didn’t know any better and used the “default” version of the permalinks, which meant that all of my post permalinks were in the numbered WordPress format (http://spacesuitcase.com/?p=123).

I didn’t really think anything of it, until I noticed that newer WordPress users were using more descriptive day and name permalinks. While I didn’t really care about the advantages for search engine opimization, I really liked the more descriptive URLs since they offered date and name information in them. I tried to change my permalink settings, but at the time, it meant that any links to the older default formatted URLs would be broken. Since I had about 3 or 4 years of posts online at that point, that would be a lot of potential broken links, and that didn’t seem worth the trouble. I did make sure that when I started a new blog (like Almost Crafty), I chose the more descriptive permalink option before I even wrote my first post, to avoid the problem. And I just left the default permalinks on this blog, thinking that there was no way to ever change them.

Cut to recently (last week!) when I was writing a blog post. I noticed that it showed the preview of the post’s permalink like it always did, and was showing the default numbered link.But then next to that, it had an option (something like, “Do you want to change this?” or the like) and a link to the Permalink Settings page. Thinking I knew the answer, I went ahead and changed to the “Date and Name” option, just to see what would happen.

I checked my site, and sure enough, all of the permalinks for all of my posts had been changed to the new descriptive format. But here’s the kicker – if I input a permalink in the old default format, it automatically forwarded to the correct post with the new descriptive URL!

For real! Look! http://spacesuitcase.com/?p=123

I have no idea when this change took place or with which WordPres s upgrade. All I can tell you is that this made me SO HAPPY.  Not because I really care that much about the permalinks on my site, but because it used to bug me, and I love it when I can fix something that really, really bugs me.

Like I said, this won’t make any difference to anyone out there who doesn’t have a WordPress site, or who started using WordPress after the descriptive permalinks were an option and have been using them all along. But for those of you like me who wanted to change the permalink structure but never thought you could – look what we can do now! Woo-hoo!

[Sidenote: When I was in my mid-20s, I moved in with a roommate who had cable, but still only got about 6 channels. Despite the lack of options, I always found something to watch. Then I realized she had never programmed her TV correctly, and in fact we received over 50 channels. Once that got fixed, there was never anything on I wanted to watch. Oh, irony.]

This weekend, I did end up sitting through a few commercials, including one for a car? I think? I’m not sure what it was, and in truth I really didn’t understand the advertisement AT ALL:

Scene: Man driving along in red convertible. As he drives across a bridge, he sees a brown-haired woman, dressed in a cocktail dress and bare feet, running at top speed along the sidewalk on the bridge. They look at each other, and he drives past her. A few yards down the road, he sees another woman (she’s blond) running along the bridge, also wearing a fancy-dress with bare feet. He slows down, she hops in the car, says, “Hi,” and they drive off.

I DO NOT GET IT. Was the blond woman being chased by the brunette woman? Did the woman who got in the car know the man driving? Was the “Hi” one of familiarity, or introduction? If they didn’t know each other, why would he ignore the brunette woman and pick up the blond? Were both women running away from something? Toward something? What did the blond lady do to the brunette? Or is the brunette lady chasing (rather than running after) the blond? Who is the threat? What is the threat? And what is this commercial trying to sell?

ARGH. I hate it when a 15 second commercial makes me feel dumb. Is there some sort of simple explanation that I’m missing, or what? Has anyone else out there seen this ad, and understand the scenario? If so, would you care to enlighten me?

As I think I’ve mentioned it before, Mr. Martini really enjoys scary movies. I do not, but in all of the time we’ve been together I’ve managed to up my tolerance for horror movies, to the point that I, personally, have watched Halloween and The Exorcist and even some classic horror movies like Village of the Damned. So when he said he’d be interested in seeing My Bloody Valentine (3D!) while it was out in the theaters, I agreed to go see it with him.

I thought I was being generous – even though I did require that he be the evening’s designated driver, so I could at least have a drink before hand to chill me out. However, even with a slight beer buzz, it turns out that I am the WORST PERSON in the world to see that kind of movie with. Because while I have built up a tolerance to psychological drama, and even blood and gore, I have not built up a tolerance for PICK-AXES THAT FLY AT YOU OUT OF NOWHERE AIIIIEEE! Seriously, I had never seen a classic 80s-style slasher flick in my life, so I was not prepared for the pouncing, the weapons flying, the SURPRISE! attacks, least of all in glorious, in-your-face THREE-DEE.

Poor Mr. Martini. Three minutes into the movie, and I had my face shoved into his arm (while still wearing my 3D-glasses, I’m sure that was comfortable) and could barely watch the rest of the movie. He shook his head at me a few times, whispering “It’s only a movie!” but it did no good. I took a bathroom break in the middle, taking my time to wash and dry my hands very thoroughly, and then wash them again just in case, then got some raisinettes at the candy counter, before slowly making my way back into the theater. And even then I only missed one crazy miner rampage.

Oh well. It got me out of the house on a Saturday night, which is good. Plus, I got a pair of 3D glasses out of it. Which I will wear when I ask Mr. Martini to return this favor by going with me to see Coraline in 3D. I think he owes me that, right?

1. The prevalence of “Gold into Cash!” commercials. For real, I never saw one of these in Chicago, probably because they couldn’t afford to place them there, but STILL! I had no idea how much money could be made from the crap jewelry in my jewelry box. If I had jewelry box. Or jewelry, crap or not.

2. The local cable company advertises their DVR in the following way. “With an Insight DVR, Marge can spend more time with her grandkids, knowing that she won’t miss her favorite shows.” Cut to scenes of Marge walking down the street with a toddler, and another shot of Marge’s DVR being set to record Judge Judy. Now, maybe it’s just me, but doesn’t that imply that Marge was forgoing time with the grandkids to sit at home and watch Judge Judy? Like, maybe she should have been willing to tear herself away from the tube to spend time with her grandkids anyway, as opposed to neglecting them in favor of half hour courtroom reality television? If I were Marge, I’d be a little grumpy at the implication.

I have a strong desire now to root through my jewelry after setting the DVR to record People’s Court. Which makes me another one of advertising’s monkeys. Go figure.

Here’s what I did: I went out to dinner with Mr. Martini. I had a couple of drinks. Then I came home, fired up the DVR, and watched what could only be considered a classic film.

That’s right. I got tipsy and watched Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo.

This was an absolute BLAST. Granted, we fast-forwarded through most of the dialogue and skipped to the best parts:

Watch as the street dances become infused with Flashdance-style moves! See handcuffs being worn as accessories (not like that, like a BELT, which is even BETTER)! See Susie Coelho sporting a fedora with no top so her hair can poke through! Watch Ice-T rap about a community center called (what else?) Miracles! Be amazed as patients at a hospital are healed through the power… of DANCE! Grab your sunglasses for the final fluorescent-filled dance number, it’s a retina-burner!

SO. MUCH. FUN. I highly recommend bad 80s movies as a cure for whatever ails you. I felt fan-freaking-tastic when we got to the end. Now I need to compile a list of bad 80s films, and have them on hand for future stressful times. Do you have any suggestions?