On Saturday night I had the pleasure of heading down to Woodbridge, CT to watch the Connecticut Roller Girls take on the Boston Massacre in a double header. Boston is very highly ranked by the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA), so it was expected that CT would need some serious umph to tip the score to their side. But if the Greeks could push back the mighty Persian Empire at the Battle of Salamis, then perhaps so too could the Connecticut girls hold back the crushing tide of Boston at the CT Sports Center.

The First Bout!

The first bout put the Boston B Party up against the Yankee Brutals. There were a few new faces on the track; let’s look at the teams.

The Boston B Party.

The Boston B Party skaters are the B team for Boston. They have a seemingly inexhaustible number of players, including captains Mona Mour and Killary Clinton both of whom have skated (and skated very well) as substitutes with Connecticut before. As the players were introduced, DJ E-Bomb pumped out the team’s theme song: You Gotta Fight for Your Right to Party.

Mona Mour #2/14
Killary Clinton #2008
Varga Bomber #B-17
Britknee Breaker #10-4
Bully Mia #2000 flushes
TaKillya N. Lime #42
Dreadnought #40k
Lil’ Paine #451Ëš
Xena Paradox (sum of 1/(2^n) where n = 1 -> infinity)
Jennasaurus Wrecks #R04R
Hayley Contagious #104ËšF
Lil’ Orphan Fannie #888
Trish Squish #18
Miss Mary Smack #3.2.1.
Ivanna Shankabitch #27

The Yankee Brutals

This was the first bout for Connecticut’s B team the Yankee Brutals. Though small in number, they put everything out there on the track. Lead by co-captains Flora Goodthyme and Paula G. Imnaughty, both of whom have shown notable versatility on the track, the skaters came rolling out in pink outfits to the sweet tunes of bagpipes as played by Connecticut’s Major N’ Fraction.

Flora Goodthyme #1-900
Paula G. Imnaughty #NC-17
Babe Vigoda #56
Guns N’ Bruises #2012
Murphy’s Outlaw #15
Rinko Starr #64
and visiting skaters from the Long Island Roller Rebels
Amaretto Sourpuss #214
Tailgunner Flo #152
Violet Knockout #4
Chest Blockwell #7

The bout began with an aggressive start for the ladies of Boston. Cheered on by their mascot (skater Anna Wrecks Ya wearing a huge tea bag costume) Lil’ Paine got the ball rolling with a fast grandslam against Paula G. Boston held on to their momentum despite losing a few key opportunities for lead jamming status, pulling in a whopping 39 points after the first five jams. CT did what it could to resist. Chest Blockwell was, unsurprisingly, blocking very well and aided Murphy’s Outlaw and Flora Goodthyme in narrowing the score a little bit in the first few minutes of the bout. There hard work was kept in check though by the remarkably consistent skating of Boston jammers Lil’ Paine, Killery Clinton, Haley Contagious and Mona Mour.

While the halftime score of 100 to 24 may have suggested otherwise, Connecticut certainly was not without life. Special kudos to Amaretto who showed great aggression and also Rinko who got a beautiful lead in the 12th jam off of an assist by Violet Knockout.

The second half proceeded much like the first. Interestingly, the teams were closely matched in regards to who was getting lead jammer status. Over the course of the bout, Boston only had 4 extra leading opportunities. It seemed the shortcoming of the girls in pink was not necessarily speed off the starting block as much as a difficulty in stopping their opponents once their wheels hit the track. I counted 12 grand slams (some had multiple laps in the same jam) for the Boston girls in the first half alone.

In particular, it was fun to watch Lil’ Paine and Killary jam. Their maneuverability was awesome! Both seemed to skate through the Connecticut pack with little resistance. At one point, I thought Killary had found a weakness in the inside edge of Connecticut’s defense, as she seemed to repeatedly skirt her way through around the corner, but then CT closed this inside gap and Killary found a new opportunity on the outside edge! It was an impressive example of mobility on skates. Also noteworthy, CT’s Rinko Starr secured another beautiful lead jammer status off of a great whip in the second half. Unfortunately, I didn’t note the number of the skater who performed the whip, but it was critical for Rinko’s advancement.

The bout ended with a Boston victory of 166 to 38.

Statistics from the first bout!

Lead Scorers:

Boston B
Lil’ Paine 65 points in 15 jams (10 lead)
Killary Clinton 51 points in 13 jams (6 lead)
Haley Contagious 28 points in 4 jams (2 lead)

Yankee Brutals
Amaretto Sourpuss 21 points in 10 jams (5 lead)
Murphy’s Outlaw 8 points in 6 jams (3 lead)
Flora Goodthyme 4 points in 8 jams (4 lead)

MVPs!
Boston: Lil’ Paine
Yankee Brutals: Flora Goodthyme

The Second Bout!

The main event matched up CT’s Stepford Sabotage against the #5 in the Region, Boston Massacre. The girls warmed up in the intermission and then got down to business. Let’s look at the teams.

Boston came out in strong force with 14 women listed in the roster:

Anna Wrecks’ Ya #101
Pina Collidah #77
Mrs. Dash #360Ëš
Harlot Fevah #99
Harley Quinn #9669
Lois Carmen Dominator #011 (awesome name!)
Etta Maims #B-52
Maude Forbid #7:1
Pussy Venom #28
Maura Buse #34B (also, awesome name!)
Shellby Shattered # -0
Claire D. Way #1984
Kitty Twister #138 Captain
Krushpuppy #(843) Captain

These women looked forceful, but could Connecticut push back? CT’s Stepford Sabotage was coming in with slightly fewer skaters.

Black Cherry #C-4
Chelsea Grin #777
C. Mya Rage #86′d
Doomcake #13
Ether Bunny #222
Milla LowLife #40oz.
Miz ConSepJen #7
Parker Poison #3
Revengela #1-2-3-4
Violet Riot #911
Luciana Pullverotti #110r
Pearl Jammer #GO Captain

The bout started with Pearl Jammer and Claire D. Way skating up to the starting line as jammers. It looked like both teams were putting their best jammer up first. Both Pearl and Claire started off with speed, but Claire’s pack support was a bit superior and she snagged a quick 4 points. Krushpuppy and Maura Buse continued Boston’s fast and furious drive with 8 more points and 4 more points respectively for the beantown girls. Things were looking dire for the hometown. Hope was lifted briefly for the girls in green when Black Cherry snagged lead jammer status in the third jam. The crowd cheered loudly as Cherry blew kisses to her fans, but to the crowd’s dismay the status was revoked when it was determined that the ref had awarded her lead jammer status erroneously.

As the officials figured out what went awry, DJ E-bomb kept the crowd amused with hilarious music. A few of the girls in the pack got their groove on, dancing to DJ E-Bomb’s tracks. Chelsea Grin’s dance moves in particular caught the attention of a Boston fan next to me, who said aloud: “I love 777.”

When the action resumed, Boston continued their relentless drive. Boston skater Lois Carmen Dominator (LCD) was doing a beautiful job blocking the Connecticut jammers. On numerous occasions she single handedly kept the CT jammer at bay. This freed up three Boston blockers and allowed them to focus on clearing a way for their jammer to pull points. By the end of the ninth jam, Boston was leading 71 to 0.

Finally, Pearl caught a break. Skating against Maura Buse, Pearl hit the track hard. As she skated through the pack two of the Boston blockers were sent to the penalty box. Pearl took advantage of the situation and earned the first 9 points for her team. Doom and Parker did a great job supporting Pearl’s drive, but it certainly wasn’t enough to slow the Boston Massacre. At the end of the first half, Pearl’s points were the only points scored for CT. It was 112 to 9.

The second half started off a bit better for CT. Chelsea grabbed lead jammer status and a single point in the third jam, and Black Cherry followed with 4 more. But… that was the end of Connecticut’s luck. Shortly thereafter Boston laid down the law and kept the Sabotage scoreless from there out. The Boston defense was just extraordinary. They were so skilled at slowing the CT skaters and yet still playing defense for their own team. It’s this dual role that makes roller derby particularly exciting for me. To switch from an offense to defense strategy on a dime must be extremely difficult.

Claire concluded the bout against black cherry, pulling 10 points right at the end. The underdogs just didn’t have it for this match up, but there will always be next time. Final score? 230 to 14.

Statistics for the second bout!!

Lead Scorers:

Boston Massacre:
Claire D. Way 101 points in 12 jams (10 lead) < - Wow.
Krushpuppy 52 points in 5 jams (4 lead)
Mrs. Dash 28 points in 5 jams (4 lead)

Stepford Sabotage:
Pearl Jammer 9 points in 10 jams (2 lead)
Black Cherry 4 points in 4 jams (1 lead)
Chelsea Grin 1 point in 2 jams (1 lead)

MVPs!

Boston: Anna Wrecks' Ya
Connecticut: Chelsea Grin

Great job to all the players. It was an aggressive game and great to see CT challenged on such an intense level. In other exciting news, WFTDA announced the rankings for the regionals in North Carolina in September. CTRG got in at a #10 ranking!! Great job girls! Boston got in at #5.

If you’d like more information on Connecticut’s or Boston’s leagues check out their websites here:

CTRollerderby.com

BostonDerbyDames.com

Attention all women: This just in, you are very attractive.

I apologize for the lack of updates. Work is really crazy this week. Yesterday I put in a 16 hour day, and today might rival it – though if we’re lucky we’ll be out at a reasonable hour tonight. The hours, though crazy, have been way fun. We’re doing some extremely helpful tests this week which could boost our product offering dramatically. The testing requires some pretty hardcore equipment and extensive data acquisition. Each test run consists of a few hours of prep work and then 5 minutes of pure action.

I think this is one of my favorite parts of engineering, the point where you can confirm your radical ideas with huge equipment, complicated rig-ups, and tons of excel programs.

Three cheers for Science!

Impressive indeed.

from Alicia

Wow.

From Sander.

Goodmorning!

This weekend was an extremely productive one. It started with a raucous night of festive foodstuffs and the movie Slumdog Millionaire at Viv’s place. The food was, as always, over-the-top delicious. We made two treats.

First, chocolate chip cookies that easily outperformed any cookies I’ve experienced before. These were seasoned with sea salt. The saltiness was such an enjoyable complement to the sweet high brow chocolate Viv chose for the cookie. I say that we ‘made’ them, but really, Viv made them and I helped bake them. Viv had made the batter a few days earlier as these cookies require a setting time. We tried 24 hour cookies and 48 hour cookies. Viv prefers the 24 hour variety, I preferred the 48 hour type. Overall, waay way tasty though. That is certain.

The second treat were jalapeno cheese orbs. That’s not really their official name, but regardless, they were heavenly. We made a corn bread batter, added jalapenos, and then, as they cooked in a handy half-sphere baking tin, stuffed them with sharp cheddar cheese – gah, just typing about them is making my mouth water. They were AMAZING.

Friday was a success.

Saturday and Sunday saw some major housework. Special thanks to Shamus for all his help. Pictures and horror stories pending.

Saturday night I hit up roller derby. Connecticut had a bout against Boston. Boston is a very strongly rated team and they didn’t hold back in their onslaught. Stay tuned, the recap will probably post sometime mid-week.

Finally, I did give the cycling a shot this weekend. Kevin helped me fix up my bicycle and we took it for a short ride plagued with hills. It was a good workout, very invigorating for the amount of time spent on the road. My quads definitely enjoyed it. I’m going to try and work it into a cross training schedule. I’ll continue to report back. Thanks to everyone’s words of support in the previous post, it was helpful and got me trying something I wouldn’t have otherwise.

A la reddit.

Alicia e-mailed me a hilarious musical… experience (?)… that my sisters and I put together a few years ago using my guitar and a weird little ‘learn the solar system’ toy that my folks got for me as an ironic Christmas present. I think I may have posted about it when we first completed it, but I can’t find the link – so here’s a refresh.

zolarzyztem.mp3

It’s weird and fun.

Interestingly, Jupiter actually has 63 moons, not 16. Also, I love the desperate scream of ‘Saturn!’ in the midst of the Saturn harmony.

Fruit Sticky Notes.

Yesterday White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle pitched a perfect game. A perfect game is one where no one reaches base – not on hits, walks, hit batters, anything. (“No-hitters” are much more common in that they allow for walks.) Perfect games have only happened 19 times in major league baseball history.

Even for those who don’t appreciate baseball, I recommend checking out this video montage of all 27 outs of yesterday’s Chicago White Sox game. Especially noteworthy is the ABSURD catch by Wise in the ninth at 4:25. He leaps up and snags a ball as its about to sail out of the park, and then drops it on the way down, only to catch it with his bare hand and keep it high for the officials. Amazing!

Side note: It really really annoys me that the announcer says “he gone!” whenever a player is struck out. Ugh.

Short and telling.

I really want to get back into running. After the marathon a few years back, I pretty much quit cold turkey. There were a few days here and there where I’d go out for a run, but overall, they were few and far between. The main motivation for this desire is as a cross-training technique to improve my horse stance endurance and because I know that I can run – or at least jog. Biking would be far better for my knees, but I can never generate any motivation for cycling.

The real challenge with running is finding the time to run. My favorite time is in the morning, but it’s also obviously the hardest time of the day to actually get up and do it. Sleep always seems to find a way to convince me to stay in bed for just a few more precious minutes. Sadly, I don’t think any other time is realistic. After work? forget it. I could do late night, but then I’d get myself all worked up before bed.

I guess I’ll keep setting my alarm clock to go off early, and hope that one of these days I get up and start the routine.

Awesome!

From Sander

Apparently Anthony, Ryan’s Aussy friend who left that strange telephone message, e-mailed my website link over to a friend of his who works within the Australian government. The friend responded that my website was banned. My website is banned by the Australian government.

Ha!

In other news, last night Shaun L. and I completed season one of Battlestar Gallactica. HOLY CRAP!! If you haven’t watched this series you must. INSAANE. This notice is especially for the Parents D. For Mom D, there’s plenty of character development and a strong plot. For Dad D there’s plenty of gun fights and robots! You guys will love it!

During my 30 month participation within RPI’s weekend MBA program (WEMBA), I kept a word document on my laptop’s desktop and would write down anything that I thought would be useful to me in the future. The goal was to develop a short list of simple and efficacious points that, if reviewed regularly, could add some umph to my strengths as a worker and leader. I didn’t want anything too in depth, just a cheat sheet that I could look at to keep my business direction steady and my personality in check.

As with much business study, the items on the list are very much common sense – but to be reminded of these items regularly is very important.

Here is my list.

1. Brand is Bankable
2. It is far more important to provide a value to your customer than to sell a product
3. Arrogance is the cause of a lot of failures
4. Two avenues for service improvement: Provide a service with less waste, provide a service with greater value
5. When proving a point, it undermines your legitimacy to not mention the strongest counter arguments*
6. New products require flexibility
7. No finger pointing
8. Common root problem: Flawed sense of reality
9. You must work towards a perfect balance of optimism and realism, especially in leadership
10. Follow the lessons of Earnest Schackelton’s leadership** (if you don’t know E. Schackelton, watch all 11 of these. You will not regret it)
11. Charge by the value of what you deliver

*This is also a great tip for trying to argue your way out of being a cylon in the Battlestar Gallactica boardgame.
**

Shackleton’s brilliance:
-Never lose sight of the ultimate goal, and focus energy on short term objectives
-Set a personal example with visible, memorable symbols and behaviors
-Instill optimism and self-confidence, but stay grounded in reality
-Reinforce the team message constantly
-Be willing to take the big risk when necessary
-Never give up, there’s always another move
-Minimize status differences and insist on courtesy and mutual respect
-Find something to celebrate and something to laugh about

This morning I am enjoying a marzipan croissant and a cup of coffee. Simple things have never before provided such pleasure.

I need to dramatically increase my marzipan consumption. It is such a flavorful treat, yet I partake so rarely.

Does anyone know anyone totally awesome who lives in Detroit?

Ryan receives a phone message from his weird Australian friend.

Enjoy!

jraaaaa.mp3

Ever since American McGee’s Alice game, I’ve always thought Alice in Wonderland was pretty awesome, especially warped or modified Alice based art. Ryan L. wins bonus points by finding this.

Nice.

This weekend saw some tennis, some board games, and some kung fu – but the real fun was a Sunday afternoon trip out to Lamentation Mountain. It turns out that there’s a beautiful part of Meriden that I hadn’t visited before. There’s a park and a ton of trails in addition to a little remote climbing crag. The cliff is nothing that’s overwhelmingly amazing, – maybe 20-25 climbs, at 50 or so feet tall – but I think it has potential. The climbs are comfortably despite their simplicity and tendency to be overgrown with greenery.

Since this was our first trip there, Jesse, Joel, and I had to hike the bottom of the crag to find out the best spot for our rope. It was a bit of a harrowing trip down a gully of leaves and loose rock, but the immediate base of the cliff face was pretty clean. There were a few other really steep cliffs at the park, but I think a few of them might be quarries, or extremely hard to get to. We climbed a 5.8 while there. It was enjoyable, though I think it’d be wise to heed the advice of the book and only consider this location in the early spring or late fall when there’s less heavy foliage. Overall though, a successful trip!

From BoingBoing

found first by Andrew.

If only it were not low-fat.

This weekend, after a raucous game of tennis with Shaun L. I felt like I had a rock in my shoe. I pulled my shoe off and turned it upside down.

A half inch ‘O’ ring fell out. (o-ring pictures.)

It was really strange.

DinoSevere!

Tornadosaurus!

Thunderdactyl!

Hurricanotops!

Gale Forceryx!

Velocerometric Pressure!

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Brontotsunami!

Snow-isaurus!!

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Baseball sized Hail-Allosaurus!