WLW: Holiday Seasoning

I really don't think this past week should count. At all.

I knew this was going to happen, I knew I was going to fall off the wagon and eat a bunch of crap I shouldn't be eating. So, fuck it. This week, no weigh in! Merry Christmas, Ginger's Ass! Hope you enjoyed all that garbage food, 'cause we're going to spend the next few months working the hell outta you!

I'm actually really looking forward to being back on the wagon, since now when I don't eat properly it feels like there's a rock in my stomach. It's really very unpleasant. And makes wearing anything other than pajama pants unpleasant to wear. Hooray for looking like a slob!

Speaking of pants...

I picked up a size 10 pair of the jeans I currently wear, to act as a motivator. The size 12s are starting to sag in the ass area, which is awesome, but I think I got a ways to go in the thigh area before the 10s will fit. Said jeans will hang beside my bedroom mirror, so I will see them every time I stand there and scrutinize myself.

So, yeah. There ya go. Lets wrap with post up with some random funny image... or better yet, a video of something totally awesome that I could never eat.

Take it away, Epic Meal Time!

Okay, the use of fruit rollups in place of nori? Fucking genius.

Season's Cheatings,

Ginger.

Sugar Shock

This is something of a secondary WLW post, as it's one of those scattered thoughts I wanted to write about, but didn't really flow with Wednesday's post. So instead, I blog about it here.

During my usual scanning through the newswires earlier this week, I came across a little story about the sugar in kid's breakfast cereals. The headline really grabbed me (as headlines are supposed to, duh) as it said "Sugary cereals are like serving dessert for breakfast".

Now, for those who haven't been following my get-healthy endevours, I quit sugar back in June (I've since fallen off the wagon several times, but that's not the point here) and one of the big things I had to give up was cereal. Those aforementioned sugary cereals.

See, I love junky cereal. Fruit Loops, Lucky Charms, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Golden Grahams, the list goes on and on. And I would just eat them for breakfast – I'd eat them for before-bed snacks as well. In total I probably ate something like four or five bowls a day. And I'm not talking four or five actual serving sizes either. Like a decent size bowl filled to the brim.

Turns out I was likely eating the equivalent of a box a Twinkies a day. And I couldn't figure out why I was fat? Fuck, I am stupid some days.

Cereal doesn't have a lot of calories in respect to a lot of food, so I figured it wasn't that bad for me. It's not like I was eating four or five cheeseburgers a day. But the calorie count was all I was taking into consideration – I didn't even look at the sugar.

Sugar makes your ass get bigger!

An excess of sugar is actually what caused me to get up into the 230 range. Someone convinced me that drinking diet pop was a bad idea – aspartame is the devil and all that shit – so I figured, okay, I just drink regular pop. What I should have figured was I shouldn't drink pop at all, but no, I went with the former.

So I started with the regular pop. Not much a first, once a week maybe. But then I started drinking it as often as I drank diet pop. You know what the difference between regular pop and diet pop? About 41 grams of sugar (and something like 150 calories per can). I would drink a two litre bottle to myself in one evening. That is a seriously fucked up amount of of sugar. Between the pop and the cereal, it's no goddamn wonder I'd gotten so fat!

When I did tip the scale at 235 pounds, I made the decision to go cold turkey with my sugar addiction. I quit the cereal, and that was probably the hardest thing I did. I haven't had cereal at all in six months.

And you know what? I don't really miss it. Periodically I walk down the cereal aisle at the grocery store, just to look, but I don't feel any desire to pick out a box. It's actually astounding how much milk I went through when I used to eat cereal – now I don't even bother buying milk because I don't actually drink it. It just goes bad.

Now if I could just get around to throwing out those old half empty boxes of cereal that are sitting in my pantry...

WLW: Solstice

This time of the year is so goddamn crazy that I've barely been able to get to the track. I missed two days last week and one this week already! Yes, I went on Saturday, but once in five days is not good. At least I've still been able to do the morning workout.

But yesterday, I finally made it to the track after work even though my knee was all stiff and angry. It went by rather quickly as I spent most of my walk day dreaming about being skinny. I think I almost walked into a few people because of this.

It's actually a relief that today is the Winter Solstice and the days will gradually start getting longer. My energy levels have been down to nothing lately, all I do when I'm home is lay on the couch and cuddle with my kitties.

Stormy doesn't have a problem with this.

Wow, hello arm fat. Why did I post that?

Anyhoooo...

I was a little bad this week – after working an 11 hour day on Friday, brain fried and completely exhausted, I couldn't bring myself to go home and cook myself supper. So I went to Panago and ordered a pizza.

It was a medium, multigrain thin crust with pepperoni, black olives and extra cheese. And it was fucking delicious. As was the Italian Garlic dipping sauce.

That thin crust is the only way I can eat pizza now. Regular crust sends me into a carb coma, which is no fun at all.

I also had a little bowl of pasta for dinner at my sister's place. It was tasty, yet also slightly carb coma-inducing. Not as bad as I've had it before, but I was still pretty bagged after eating it.

But aside from that, I've been eating reasonably well. Which wasn't enough to show a significant loss this week – I was 224.9 last week... this week I'm 224.8. So the pizza and pasta likely weren't the best idea. But I am an emotional/stress eater, so shit like this tends to happen this time of year.

The fact that I'm not actually gaining anything is something to acknowledge, I think. Yay.

But you know what? I actually look pretty darn good for a bitch in the 220 range. I'll be doing my measurements next week to see how many inches I've gone down (my belly doesn't stick out anymore, so I damn well better have lost inches!) and hopefully if I just keep doing what I'm doing, Scale will start to play catch up. But we all know that Scale is a dirtbag asshole, so we'll just have to wait and see.

So Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa or whatever the hell you celebrate or don't celebrate. Just have a good week, okay?

Much love,

Ginger.

WLW: Weight, what?

I have been doing my twice-day-workout thing for two and a half weeks now. Two and a half weeks of dragging my ass out of bed well before I'm ready to be awake and doing some workout video, and then going straight to the walking track after work for an hour.

And you know what? I think it might actually be working.

Maybe? Just maybe?

Where does this sudden burst of optimism spring from, you ask? Well, let me tell you about my dance practice last week.

I think I've mentioned it before, but I hate the mirrors in the studio. One wall is covered with mirrors and they're completely warped. You look about twice as wide as you actually are, which is incredibly depressing when you're my size. I usually spend a good portion of practice judging my figure in the mirror and thinking 'holy shit, I cannot be that fat!'

Well, last week I didn't look quite so wide. In fact, I didn't look that wide at all. And my gypsy skirt was hanging differently. It was like my belly fat was no longer encompassing my whole torso, but just where my abs would be, you know, if I had them. Does that make sense?

Either way, that was the first practice I'd had in a long time where I didn't feel like a fat slob. And that made me very happy. Unfortunately, that was my last practice until sometime in January, so I can't even compare this week to last week.

And while I haven't gone down much weight-wise, I think I must be losing inches, because my size 12 jeans are starting to get loose. Not terribly loose, but a little bit loose. Which is nice to see after all that getting up early bullshit. After a month has gone by, I'm going to do my measurements and compare them to the ones I did a while back.

Oh, and to mix it up in the mornings, I've switched DVDs. I've temporarily replaced the Roller Derby Workout with The Biggest Loser workout. And I have to say, I really want to punch Bob Harper in the face every time I do the workout. No offense, Bob.

I'm sure this is not the first time he's been told that...

I'm making a serious effort with my eating – protein for breakfast, a vegetarian (for the most part) lunch and protein and veggies for dinner.

And for some reason I've started buying brown eggs instead of white eggs – I don't know why, just seemed like the thing to do.

I've also managed to limit my chocolate intake, which is amazing considering I helped make homemade chocolates on the weekend. I took most of them to a party to pass off onto my derbies and to work to pass off onto my co-workers. I'm evil like that.

And veggies, veggies, veggies! Big salad, broccoli and carrots to nibble on. Broccoli doesn't taste as good if it's not dipped in something. But eating them anyway. 'Cause veggies are good for you.

Who carries celery in their back pocket? Seriously?

So after all the lies that Scale told me last week, I wasn't looking all that forward to stepping on it this morning. But, being the weight loss masochist I am, I did anyway.

I am down from last week, sitting at 224.9. I was 226.7 last week. So I take that as a good sign. My fat poundage is fluctuating wildly, but I've decided I'm not even going to pay attention to that number.

So, yeah. In two weeks I'm going to do my measurements and see how many inches I've lost, if any. Until then, it's just me and Bob in the morning.

Inches and broccoli,

Ginger.

Say no to art?

This is absolutely brilliant.

see more Parenting Fails

My name is Ginger, and I photoshop.

WLW: Purdy's

Oh chocolate, how you mock me.

My Purdy's order arrived yesterday, in all its chocolately glory. Which was probably the worst day for it to show up, as if was right before weigh in. Couldn't have shown up tomorrow, oh no. Gotta be on Tuesday, sitting on my second desk and taunting me.

Though I will say, the pink himilayan salt peanut butter thingies are pretty fucking fantastic. And when they say "salt," they mean salt! It's practically rock salt on top.

I think I had six of those over the course of the day, plus at least four peanut butter fingers. SO I wasn't really shaping up to do that well this week.

Okay, I just went and counted.... it was more like eight pink salt things.

And one more to just even it out.

But, I have been rocking the exercise. I've been to the track almost every day, taking Sunday off, and I've been doing my morning workout DVD. So that's something.

I even did sprints with some of the derby girls... granted after a while my sprints turned into jogs, but whatevs!

...

These posts are a lot more fun to write when I'm actually losing.

I got up this morning, expecting to be down from last week at least. My belly is getting smaller, so I took that as a sign that maybe I'd finally post a significant loss.

Scale had other ideas.

I weighed myself yesterday just to see where I was, which according to Scale was 225.5 – where I've been forever. I knew that the chocolate I consumed yesterday would probably sabetoge that a little bit, but nothing super significant.

I weighed in at 227.7.

I know I did not consume enough chocolate to gain two whole pounds, and I even had soup for dinner just as a way to counterbalance the chocolate I ate. So instead of doing my morning workout, I got pissed off and went back to bed for an hour.

I didn't actually sleep, but just laid there with my eyes closed and thought. Clearly I'm doing something wrong. I know I'm not as strict with my eating as I was when I started, so it's likely time to start doing that again. Twelve days of eating right and two off at the end of that cycle. Cutting back on carbs – maybe not completely but for the most part – and loading up on the fruits and veggies.

While pretending to sleep, I came up with my lunch for the day. I would have yogurt with fruit for my protein, my totally-famous strawberry and feta salad and cucumbers as my snack. The Purdy's was staying at home so it wouldn't tempt me. Then after work, I would go to the track and then to dance practice.

That sounds good, right?

As my alarm went off for the second time this morning, I climbed out of bed with a new resolve. I was going to put my contacts in, put on a sweater dress and feel pretty. I would turn my eating around and get this weight off me! Yay!

And then, because I'm far more masochistic than I'd ever realized, I decided to step on the scale one more time before setting off and doing all the aforementioned stuff.

Apparently lying in bed and thinking is an effective weight loss tool. I was down to 226.7.

Scale, you are a lying piece of shit. I just want you to know that.

Carbs no more,

Ginger.

World Cup Weekend

I had this all written out and sounding super awesome, but then Blogger decided to be a bastard and didn't save it. Now I gotta try and remember all my witticisms...

This weekend was the first ever Blood & Thunder Roller Derby World Cup in Toronto. Teams from thirteen countries competed, including Australia, Brazil, France, England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, New Zealand, Finland, Sweden, Argentina, USA and Canada.

Whoooooooooo, CANADA!!!

The different levels of talent was astounding – there were girls who had been skating for years, and some that have only played in a handful of bouts. To have the chance to compete at an international tournament, no matter the skill level, would be an exhilerating experience.

I love that all the girls playing looked like they were having fun. Towards the end of the Canada/Finland team, all the skaters on the track before one of the last jams got together for a big group hug. That was awesome, and something you likely won't see in any other sport.

Another cool thing about this sport? We have more opportunity to meet and learn from the national team skaters. Like I said here, I got the chance to take part in a skate clinic with two Team Canada skaters – luludemon and 8mean Wheeler. Yesterday I watched luludemon score 10 points on Team USA. Last month she showed us how she can practically tap dance in her skates during an agility drill. How cool is that?!!?

I think I'm going through derby withdrawals – knowing that I don't have a game to watch today makes me sad.

But something else made me sadder. And by sadder, I mean madder.

Throughout the weekend, I reading a lot of the comments on DNN where posters were complaining about these huge points blowouts between the more experienced teams and the up-and-coming ones. 377-8, 408-7, 435-1, 499-8, 532-4 were some of the scores when teams played Canada or the USA. Some are calling it unsportsmanlike (unsportswomanlike?) to do 40-0 jams when the lead team is already up by a ridiculous amount of points. That teams like USA and Canada were being disrespectful and totally not cool for not going easy on the other less experienced teams.

I only have one thing to say to that: Fuck You.

Okay, that's a lie. I have more things to say about that.

This is roller derby, not elementary school where we have to hand out participation ribbons to everyone. Going easy on anyone in a bout is the ultimate insult to those less skilled players. They went there expecting to play the best in the world, not a team that's going to stand to one side and let them score a few mercy points.

Those teams that went against the USA earned every point they got. None of them were just given away for free, they had to work their asses off offensively and defensively to get those points. And they should be (and likely are) proud of themselves.

This whole concept of "running up the score" and "mercy rules" is a North American concept. No where else in the world would anyone ever consider going easy on another team just because they were losing. You're here to play a sport, you're here to compete. You do you're absolute best, and if that's not enough to win against a powerhouse team, well, that's just they way it is.

No one expects the Canadian Men's Hockey Team to take is easy on any other team during the Olympics – they expect a thrashing. Nor does anyone expect Spain or Brazil or Germany to take it easy on Canada during the FIFA World Cup. Soccer/Football is not a sport we're known for, but we send a team anyway and watch them get slaughtered by better teams. Brazil is not going to go easy on Canada or call a match if it's obvious they're going to win. If that were the case, they might as well just call the game in favour of Brazil before anyone walks out onto the pitch.

How I picture those posters on DNN that are

complaining about the point differential.

"Waaaaaah! You're so meeeeean for not letting us score points!!"

Derby girls are not pussies. They want to go into a competition and give it their all and know that the other team is going to do the same.

Even better were some posters claiming to know what the girls on the losing team were thinking! Despite a Scotland skater claiming she was having the time of her life after her team's loss to the USA, one poster said that despite what that girl said in the post-match interview, she really must be devastated by the loss.

I'm sorry, are you a mind reader? Or are you just projecting your own personal feeling you have about losing that were drilled into your head as a kid? Maybe that's the problem, we have a tendency to make losing out to be a much bigger deal than it is. Losing a game shouldn't be devastating, nor should it be rewarded. It's just a part of life. Win some, lose some as the saying goes. Losing should inspire kids to work harder to succeed, and even if they don't become to top team, then for fuck's sake, have fun!

Sports should be competitive, but they should also be fun. If people didn't instill this sense of WIN WIN WIN and then belittle them when they lose, maybe we wouldn't need mercy rules.

Roller Derby is fun. Like a shit-tonne of fun. I don't think I've played a bout where my team won, but you know who gave a fuck? No one, especially not me. I learned so much from those bouts and will continue to learn more the more times I play. And I can't wait to play again. And I bet the other teams at the B&T World Cup can't either.

Don't hate, roller skate!

Book Vs. Movie: 1408

Welcome to a new random feature here on Writing, Schemes and Derby Dreams. Every so often, likely when the mood strikes me, I will do a little write up comparing a book to its film version and vice versa.

First up is the 2007 film/2002 short story, 1408.

That's Samuel L. Jackson, motherfucker!

Please bear in mind that the version of the film I have is the director's cut, which has a vastly different ending than the theatrical release. Since the director's cut is the one I've seen, that is what I'll be going by here.

1408 is a film based of a Stephen King short story originally part of an audiobook called Blood and Smoke, and later put into written form for the collection Everything's Eventual. The latter is probably my favourite collection of his due to the actual scariness of the stories contained within.

The cliff's note version is such: Mike Enslin, a writer of cheap generic "10 Haunted >Enter Location Here<" type books, played by John Cusack in the movie, needs a new hook for his next piece of claptrap, and heads to New York City to stay at the Dolphin Hotel in the infamous room, 1408.

Note that the number 1, 4, 0 and 8 add up to 13. Many hotels do not acknowledge that they have a 13th floor as it's considered very bad luck. Technically speaking, they all do, they just call it the 14th floor. 1408 is on the 14th floor of the Dolphin Hotel, which is actually the 13th floor.

People have died in 1408. Many people. Over 50 according to Samuel L. Jackson in the film. Some via bizarre suicides, others of what seemed to be natural causes. No one goes into the room except for a monthly turn-down service, and anyone that is in the room for any length of time beyond that goes batshit insane if they manage not to die.

Crazy writer decides hey, this is probably a total load of bullshit, I can do what dozens of other people have failed to do!

Yeah, right.

Enslin discovers that not only is he so very very wrong, but there's a good chance he won't leave this room alive. And it goes downhill from there.

Personally, I feel the movie spent too much time focusing on Enslin's personal problems in an attempt to give his eventual madness more depth. I really didn't need to see all the stuff about his dead daughter, or his shitty relationship with his father. The room is scary enough on its own, or at least in the book it is.

I know this is just to pad the movie out, and the original story itself isn't very long. But I'd rather have seen more disembodied voices screaming "This is nine! Nine!" and "We have killed your friends!" through the telephone in the room than see Enslin relive his daughter's battle with cancer or whatever it was that killed her.

It is pretty sweet that the movie throws in the mindfuck of thinking Enslin is out of the room, that it was all just a dream, only to discover that he hadn't left the room since he entered it. That's one long hour. Even more so once the clock radio finishes it's countdown, only to start over again.

Sadly, it isn't until then that the random phone calls of people yelling numbers happens. That was by far the creepiest part of the book.

Although the phone telling Enslin that he totally has free will and is more then welcome to use the "express checkout service" is pretty fucking creepy.

Pictured: Express Checkout Service

I actually prefer the ending in the book. In it, Enslin attempts to light himself on fire, but the room, in an attempt at self preservation, spits him out into the hallway and he survives. He gives up writing and is a complete metal case for the rest of his life. In the version of the movie I have, he lights the room on fire, which screams and moans in agony, and dies. Both of them.

That actually feels more like a cop out. The lingering psychological effects of the room is what makes the whole thing so scary. Enslin dying removes that whole aspect of the story. It's not the same. He may be a victim of 1408, but unlike the previous deaths in the room, he is liberated by finally beating the room at its own game and can move on to the afterlife to be with his daughter.

Meanwhile, Book Enslin has to sleep with the lights on and can't handle having a phone in his house. He will likely have PSTD and be haunted by his experience until he dies. Movie Enslin got off easy.

I think in the end the story just works better in terms of sheer terror than the movie. How I pictured what Enslin described in my head was far scarier than how it was depicted be Cusack in the movie.

Book: 1

Movie: 0