Manatee is pretty content to hang out and look out the window at home, so doing the same at the beach is a special treat. He had a pretty good perch to watch the ocean from our hotel room while we were just sitting around or out and about without him.

We couldn’t let poor Manatee just hang out in the room all weekend, of course. At low tide, we went out to explore some tide pools. He was very distracted by tasty kelp and had to stop for frequent snacks. That’s some fresh kelp!

I pointed out some little fishes and crabs swimming around in one of the larger pools. I kept a good hold to keep him from getting too excited and jumping in – that water is way too cold for manatees.

Anemones! Manatee and Baby get a good close look.

That was about it for the tide pools – I didn’t want to venture out too far, what with my iffy balance. Later, my husband and I did get to see a sea lion and some seals…on our whale-watching trip. No whales to be seen. They don’t allow manatees on whale-watching boats, for liability reasons, I suppose. There are some resident gray whales, mostly mothers and calves, that don’t make it all the way to Alaska in the summer. These resident whales stick around to feed on the kelp beds off the Oregon coast. They were just somewhere else that day.

This is how Manatee has to do his whale-watching. He had about as much luck as we did. Oh well.

What a lovely weekend at the beach with a manatee friend! Maybe we didn’t see any whales, but we had fun and napped and watched movies and saw some baby seals and I beat my sweetie at a racing game at the arcade (and he beat me soundly at Ms. Pac-Man and mini-golf, but whatever).

We made it home in time for dinner with my family for Father’s Day. Thank you dad for making us pancakes and raising the bar for macaroni and cheese and teaching us to replace our divots in the front lawn and how to tie knots and all sorts of other useful things.

Thank you Brian for taking these pictures and putting up with my pregnant moods and giving up the couch for the last few months and going to baby class during the NBA Finals, only checking the score during our break time. You’re already a great dad!

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Roll with me, nerds, as I pass judgement on rules by assigning them numerical scores.

1.1: Teams shall consist of a maximum of 20 skaters [FULL STOP]

They removed the part that says you have to have passed the minimum skills. The rule didn’t change, but the wording changed and it was really confusing for people.

3: Created two-hour internet freakout.

2.3.4 If 30 seconds or fewer remain on the period clock when a jam ends, there will not be another jam started for that period unless a timeout or Official Review is called by one of the teams (see Section 2.6.5).

Oh snap! This makes me so crazy! If you’re out of timeouts (not time outs), just call an official review to stop the clock. Just make something up. Arrrrgh. We’re codifying this in law? Atlanta did this at champs last year and I nearly tore my jet-lagged hair out.

1: Dangerous to my scalp health.

3.2.3.1 A Pivot may skate in any direction, to retrieve the Pivot helmet cover, including out of bounds if the helmet cover is itself out of bounds. They are still susceptible to Out of Play penalties.

So, you’re not going to get a skating out of bounds penalty for getting the damn hat. That’s good. Just don’t do any other illegal stuff. Easy. Capital-j Jammers can do this, too.

8: No one likes rogue helmet covers.

3.6.1 Teams must have two sets of different helmet covers available at a bout. A team’s helmet cover colors must meet the definition of high contrast beyond a reasonable doubt or the Head Referee shall request that the team use helmet covers that meet the definition.

Stop trying to be sneaky with your fancy non-high-contrast hats. You ain’t sneaky.

4: Expensive and gives teams more reason to complain.

3.7.2.1 If the Captain is not able to skate the remainder of the game due to expulsion, fouling out, injury, or emergency, the team has the option to name a new Captain.

It’s like olden times, but instead of designating a new jammer in the middle of a jam, you get a new captain in the middle of a game! Who will it be? Exciting!

6: Added intrigue.

Every instance of changing “booty” to “buttocks.”

Unacceptable. I would start a letter-writing campaign, but…I don’t feel like it.

-10: No explanation needed.

6.2.2 Any block with forceful contact landing above the shoulders. (Major penalty)

OHHH YEAH. It used to be that blocking to the head was only a major if the contact was initiated at the head. What the hell? You can just start a hit at the clavicle and slide up to the jaw? Aren’t these rules made for safety?

9: Major improvement, tiny deduction for vague language. 

6.5.10 Grabbing an opponent in order to assist oneself in blocking another skater. (Major penalty)

How about grabbing an opponent in order to assist oneself in jamming?

8: Still into it, grabbees everywhere rejoice.

6.7.4.1 The multi-player link need not be physically touching the opposing skater. The link must be in front of the direction/pathway of the opposing skater. Even if the linked skaters have body parts (shoulders, hips, etc.) that are between the link and the opposing skater, the link is still impeding the opposing skater and must be called as a multi-player block.
6.7.4.2 A multi-player block must be physically challenged before a multi-player block penalty can be assessed.

Major Penalty
6.7.8 Maintaining a multi-player block to impede or block where an opponent makes contact with the block and is impeded, including to preventwhere it prevents another skater receiving a block from an opponent for any amount of time.

Seems contradictory, right? I’ve heard it explained that it might be a multi-player block as defined, but it’s not a major penalty until it has a major impact in the game. SO. I don’t know, I’m still confused about the first part. Keep holding hands, it’s cute.

6: Gives hope that it will fix some of the lame multi-player penalties we’ve seen this year.

6.10.6.1 A skater ahead of the Engagement Zone is compelled to skate clockwise to return to the Engagement Zone if the pack is stopped or moving clockwise.

That’s good. Why wouldn’t you? Skating is more fun when you’re with other people. Don’t be a loner.

8: Making people skate = good.

6.13.35 A skater initiating contact or engaging an opponent after the fourth whistle of the jam that forces the receiving skater down or severely off balance, forward, or sideways. (Major penalty)

Kind of weird, because there’s really no “impact’ after the jam is over. Engagement is engagement, though sometimes the contact is incidental or accidental.

5 : Guess it’s fine because you can’t really get mad if someone doesn’t hit you THAT hard.

16.17 Jumping onto or into a pile of fighting skaters (i.e., “dog pile”).

No change, just glad this has stayed in the rules.

10: Good rule, would read again.

7.1.2 Major penalties expire after one minute served in the penalty box. Each major penalty is timed separately and individually.

Your two-minute penalty is actually a two-minute-and-five-seconds penalty, I suppose. And it’s probably longer than that because the second minute could have been insubordination.

5: Better hope that NSO has a quick trigger thumb.  Per comment below, they don’t actually stop and start the watch between the minutes. Just clearing up the language to make it less confusing. Obviously that totally worked!

***

Do you have a favorite or least favorite rule change or clarification?

(BTW, my Kickstarter project is HALFWAY FUNDED after three days! Holy crap! If you were waiting to see how things were going, well, wait no longer, friends.)

The post Rate the new WFTDA rules! appeared first on little anecdote.

After some research, I learned that self-published books really need two things to be successful:

• Professional cover design
• Professional copy editing

Unfortunately, I don’t have the funds to pay to do these right.

So, I started a Kickstarter to help fund the above. Basically, if you choose to give any money, you would be buying the book in advance, and guaranteeing that it would be more awesome because you did so.

The turnaround time is a little fast, because I’m coming up on another deadline. Eeep.

Modeling my old Betties top with Baby Sour.

All the money raised will go straight back into the derby community, because I’m only hiring skaters, former skaters, and volunteers. The more we raise, the more we can do, like adding illustrations and photography.

If you’d like to have a beginner’s guide to derby, please consider pitching in. If you know someone else who might, please consider passing this along.

You’ve been so supportive already, bloggity buddies. I appreciate it!

I think if this thing actually happens and gets funded, we’ll do something super fun here on the blog. Any suggestions? What do you people want? Should I even ask? I’m a little scared of what you might come up with.

The post Get a better guide to starting roller derby appeared first on little anecdote.

If you buy now for your dad, you can get a Save the Manatee t-shirt. How about that? It’s not nearly as cute as the manatee t-shirt you can get from Wicked Skatewear, but hey, that’s just simply not possible. Though, I suppose you could just buy your dad a roller manatee t-shirt. I just need to sell a few more before we adopt a manatee for the site. Won’t that be cute?

How about Phyllis? She’s the first manatee to be known to have birthed twins at Blue Spring State Park, has adopted several calves, and is now a grandmother.

Look at this group!

Photo USGS Sirenia Project via Save the Manatee Club

Can you see the family resemblance?

Next Manatee Monday, our manatee friend will be back in the spotlight, as we have some adventures planned. Stay tuned.

The post Manatee Monday: Father’s Day is coming appeared first on little anecdote.

I got to go to this bout because Chrome Molly is super nice and gave me her extra spot. Thanks Chrome! This “closed” bout had a limited number of attendees for permitting reasons, so they let people in based on their volunteer hours with the league. Pretty cool. Don’t worry, I totally volunteered while I was there by tweeting a little bit from the Rose City handle.

JK is apparently the master of the one-footed hit. Photo by Regularman

Neither London nor Rose City is particularly into the sausage (or banger, if you’re so inclined). London employed what fellow superfan Grant called a “passive-aggressive offense” – they would stop and hang back for a moment during a power jam, then send one person up to quickly break up a wall when needed.

Yes, there’s usually too much standing around in WFTDA play lately, but this game was, for the most part, hard-hitting, fast, and fun to watch.

The pack did come to a stop, sure. The action also slowed down by blockers stringing out the back of the pack to force an out-of-bounds jammer to come in behind them. Let’s face it: it’s not just boring when blockers are standing around. It’s even worse when a jammer is biding her time to come back in bounds.

On that, though: the back of the pack was called for pack destruction, and lollygaggers waving their arms 21 feet behind the pack seemed to be called for blocking out of play. London had six minutes in the box for blocking out of play, and from my imperfect memory from one live viewing, it seemed like it was often that last person in the back of the pack. Keeps the game moving. I’m into it.

Imagine the kind of hurt Rose could be putting on opponents if they could spend just 50% more time with a scorer on the floor – there were eleven minutes served in the box for Rose jammers, and six minutes for London jammers.

(BTW, you can find all these stats and more on Rinxter, which I maligned recently, but is now working just swimmingly.)

Baby Sour got a little pat while London Brawling skated under our London bridge, so he’ll probably end up being fun and a little bit proper, with his mother’s love of toast. Don’t you think?

Did you watch the game? What did you think?

The post Rose City vs. London appeared first on little anecdote.

Chasing the jammer

Potential anti-sausage techniques

Turnaround blocking/blocking facing backwards

Get your points and call it (quickly) (don’t wait)

Stop knocking your points out of bounds

Watch the clock

Sausage basics

Pegassist primer

The post Roller derby strategy appeared first on little anecdote.

Going slow is not a problem for manatees. They can’t even ride bikes. They also appreciate other people taking it easy when manatees are around.

What a lovely view! I think we can see our house from here!

I tried to make a daisy chain, but soon remembered that I was a total tomboy when I was in the prime daisy chain age (8-11?) and never really learned how to make one. Oh well.

Manatee enjoyed the daisies as an impromptu picnic lunch instead.

Thirsty work, all this hiking around – or more accurately, being carried around and modeling. Gotta wash down those delicious daisies.

What a lovely day sightseeing at the park with our favorite manatee friend! We hope you had a good weekend, too.

The post Manatee Monday: Manatee on a mountain appeared first on little anecdote.

I can’t do this without singing “tri-an-gu-lation” to the tune of “Anticipation” in my head. Maybe I was forced to listen to too much soft rock during my childhood.

1. Gotham. Yay, they played a game! And they’re going to play more! They don’t seem to have lost anyone since they won the Hydra last year, and they added Vicious van Gogo. So. I’m not foreseeing them losing to Minnesota or Windy City this weekend.
2. Bay Area Derby. Montreal stayed close until a 35-point jam in the third jam of the second half. Yet, they got 32 major penalties to 18 for Les Skids Nouveaux. I don’t know if that means they’re just that good, or if penalties are a real vulnerability.
3. Flat Track Stats for giving us these stats.  <3 u! We’re mad at Rinxter this month for having a new version that crashes.
4. Texas. Staying up near the top thanks to a solid thrashing of Rocky Mountain. Don’t mess with THAT.
5. Philly. Typical game against Gotham – stayed fairly close, then Gotham poured it on in the end. Thanks for being the guinea pigs on that one, teal buddies. They play Bay Area soon! That’s fun! Look how many exclamation points I use when actual games happen!
6. GIFS of cute baby animals, and pronouncing it with a hard “G.”
7. Windy City. Sneaky Windy City, playing more games the first weekend in June. Don’t suck and make me look bad. I have confidence in you.
8. Denver. Thank you for not being boring! You played Minnesota! But Rocky beat them by a lot more points than you did, so you temporarily stay in this slightly lower position until we figure out what your deal is.
9. Angel City. They scored 532 against Slaughter County. Slaughter County ain’t what they used to be, but allow me an appropriate emoticon. Q_Q (Did I do that right? I’m 33.)
10. Rose City. Still, and always, the most attractive.
11. VRDL. They’re so hot right now! Okay, they’re probably not a top ten/eleven team, but I’m pretty sure everyone was rooting for them at some point on their eight-games-in-eight-days USA trip.
12. London. They haven’t gotten here yet, so I’ll just let them stick around at twelve for safe keeping. Looking forward to watching you, ladies! This is going to be fun!
13. Charm. Solid. That result against Angel City looks better all the time.
14. Montreal. Super close result against Philly, but they do tend to be awesome in spurts and then not as awesome in spurts. They like to keep us guessing. Flirts.
15. Rat City. Tri-an-gu-lation. Tri-an-gu-laaaation – it’s making me wait. No; it’s breaking my brain. Rose loses to Angel City by 46, and Rat beats them by 13. Okay. Rose City beats VRDL by 181, while Rat wins by 35. Ooooohkay. Just wait for London to get here and mess everything up.
16. Knowing how divisions and rankings work now.  The only way to know is to look up the ranking and ask a nerd what it means. Who’s playing in what playoffs? When is this decided? What games count? Who the hell knows – just play some derby and have fun. That’s what we’re here for.
17. Rocky Mountain. Beat Minny by a lot of points. Here’s some power. We’ll see how they match up against Denver this weekend! (!!!)
18. Minnesota. Not a bad showing against Denver, but they haven’t won a game since Championships. Ohio could sneak up here with a win.
19. Naptown. All the teams they’ve played so far have been decent former North Central teams that aren’t Windy City. Hm. Good, but how good?
20. Some team I never think of as that good that’s going to surprise people.  Arch Rival? Ohio? Atlanta? I’ve got my Frisky eye on you.

Not included: Carly Simon, and my high school French skills.

What do you think?

The post June 2013 Frisky Power Rankings appeared first on little anecdote.

What do you get? A preview of the book, a shout out IN the book, a free copy when it comes out, and an internet high-five.
What do you have to do? Read the book and provide some basic feedback by June 21st.
What’s the book, anyway? It’s basically a beginner’s guide to roller derby, with all the advice you might get in your first few years distilled down into 100 pages or so.
Why should you do it? Because it’s an awesome book that you would want to read anyway, so why not get it first and for free?

Interested? Please comment below or email frisky.sour at gmail dot com with the subject line “Reader.” Drafts should be ready to go out late this weekend.
Thanks!

*Edit 6/3/2013: The draft has gone out! Thanks so much to everyone who agreed to be an early reader. I hope you like it a lot. If you’re a speedy reader and you think you can get through 92 pages by June 21st, I’ll be happy to send you a copy in the next week or two. Just drop a line.

The post Read my roller derby book! appeared first on little anecdote.

First of all – football.  Ideally, football should be a fast-moving game with lots of offense, hard-hitting defense, challenging throws and catches, and quick footwork from running backs (with flips and jumps when possible). Sometimes it turns into a slug fest. I hate watching teams go three-and-done over and over. The last two minutes take forever, and end up being anticlimactic with running down the clock and taking a knee.

Basketball should be free-flowing. When there are too many fouls, it slows things down and throws off the rhythm. Some teams are fun to watch because they run, pass, and get a lot of transition or fast-break buckets. Other teams like to grind in a half-court offense and try to wear down the other team, in what most fans call “ugly” play because it’s not fun to watch.

Then there’s roller derby.

Most of us have a kind of ideal roller derby we’d like to see – fast-moving, hard-hitting, with lots of skillful juking and jumping jammers. It doesn’t always end up that way. Maybe a jammer is over-matched and never gets out of the pack. Maybe there’s a 4-2 pack advantage and one jammer barely even gets touched. Maybe the action is slow, or there’s not much pack action at all.

Okay.

So, should we change the rules of soccer so games will be higher-scoring? No one likes a nil-nil tie or able-bodied men writhing around on the ground to create an advantage.

Should we change the rules of basketball to get rid of some of the fouls and speed things up a bit?

Does it seem different for sports that have been actively played for more than the last ten years?

Sports aren’t going to be what you want them to be all the time.

There are beautiful games and ugly ones. Roller derby is under a microscope because it’s so young, and because the rules are obviously malleable.

In the WFTDA, the people who play can decide what the rules are. For a while, at least, WFTDA was even actively taking feedback from fans on the new rule set. I don’t know about you, but David Stern doesn’t return my calls. Maybe he should, though. The new instant reply rule in the NBA is killing me.

If you’ve been around here for a while, you probably know that I don’t care much for long stretches of non-movement in roller derby. The sausage grosses me out. A lot of people feel the same way. But at some point, you have to wonder what the root is:

• Is there an inherent problem in the rules that needs to be “fixed”?
• Is there better solution to counteract this new strategy that will rise to the surface, without any major change of rules?
• Is this just a part of the game for flat track derby moving forward that we can eventually accept?

Remember when goating seemed like the worst possible thing in the world? Skaters didn’t know how to get out of the traps, and fans hated it. (Because of the skating really slow/standing still. Common theme.) Now goating seems like a quaint way to control pack speed, because we all spent a year learning not to get trapped, and figured out how to counteract that.

Remember when the internet was up in arms about scrum starts? Ugly, terrible things, these scrum starts. No speed, no finesse was required. Well, we still have them fairly frequently, and they break up and people get out. If they don’t, it’s actually interesting to watch those walls hold together and see how long it takes a team to go to offense.

Those things went away on their own, or our opinions changed.

Certainly rule changes can be very good: No one misses two-whistle starts, and jams where the jammer is never released.

You can only control a sport so much.

Game play will evolve on its own, with or without changes from a governing body. Teams will have different styles. Some percentage of games will be boring to watch.

How much standing still is too much? How slow is too slow?

Do you want hard hits AND fast speeds? Do fans still like seeing huge pileups of skaters? That’s not conducive to a fast pack speed.

While people are throwing ideas at the wall to “fix” the game and seeing what sticks, maybe we should take a moment to talk about what exactly needs fixing.

I like supporting the Wheels of Justice and the Rose City Rollers. They’re committed to sponsoring the future of the sport by creating free, high-quality video at their own monetary and strategic expense. They choose strategies that move the game forward, though sometimes I am frustrated that Wheels won’t play the sausage when it might win them a game. Overall, though, the games are fun to watch. If your local league isn’t, tell them.

Politely, please.

Do you think we jump too quickly to “fixing” roller derby rules, or does the rate of change seem painfully slow to you? Do we need more testing or less?

The post “Fixing” roller derby rules appeared first on little anecdote.