Roll On

So tonight my dear friend Laura and I had our first Victorian Roller Derby League experience, and I have to stay that on the whole it was pretty damn awesome. I will admit that I am one of those people who really only became aware of the sport after I saw the movie 'Whip It', which I love because one, Ellen Page is a Babe (haha get it -_-) and two, I really dig Drew Barrymore. So when Laura spotted a poster advertising a local roller derby event at the Showgrounds, she and I both jumped at the chance to see first hand if it was as intense as what we had seen on the small screen.

And boy, were we pretty impressed! We discovered pretty quickly that this was no light skate skirmish, these girls packed a serious punch (although not literally cos apparently that's against the rules and will earn you a stint in the penalty box).
My blurry iPhone photos really don't do it justice, but I'm going to post them anyway to give a rough idea and add a bit of colour.

The blue team are the Victorian Roller Derby All Stars, and the green team are the Bat City Rollergirls, from the U.S. We were of course cheering for the blue team, even though I preferred Bat City's colour choice (I have a penchant for green).
The other great thing about this sport is the fact that every single team member is represented by their own choice of pun; my personal favourites were Skate Bush (!) and Sirius Mischief (I'm not sure if this was an intentional Harry Potter reference, but I'm going to assume that it is, for my own amusement). Sadly, this was the last event for the year, but both of us are really keen to go back when the season starts up again in 2012.

Another amazing thing about roller derby, or at least this particular roller derby event, is that they also have a lot of cool stalls selling not only merchandise, but alternative hand made accessories, clothes, and skate equipment. There was also a stall that had a huge collection of animal onesies, which Laura and I squealed and fawned over for quite a while, until the very nice assistant, dressed as a turtle mind you, allowed us to try one on.

How fucking cute is she?!! Seriously. The company selling them is I Can Say I've Seen It, and they have some really cool stuff in their ebay store. I am so going to be asking for a unicorn one for Christmas.

After all the dizzying excitement, Laura and I were both starving, so we met up with Laura's boyfriend Rian in the city and went for dinner in Chinatown, at the Deng-Post Cafe. And look what they serve their duck pancakes on.

Again with the cute animal shaped things! If I could have these as every one of my plates, I would. The owner was also really friendly and attentive, and the food was great, I would highly recommend it; it's times like these I love living in Melbourne.