#4825 – trouble every day
while i was in the shower, my ipod (shuffling 2000+ songs) played one of the songs from the “zappa plays zappa” concert last october, and one of the guys in the audience shouted that he wanted dweezil to play “trouble every day” and dweezil said something like “eventually, sir! we’ll get to it!”
guess what the next song it played was? the album version, even! not just the one they played in-concert.
day 1 bout 1 photos are now up:
#4824 – 1/8 done, 11/12 to go
photos of the first bout (atlanta rollergirls vs. windy city rollers) are edited and area bout to upload now; i’ll link to ’em in the morning. i can’t find any flickr pool for the heartland havoc… i wonder if there even is one? if not, i’m tempted to make one myself.
one thing this weekend has done for me is it’s made me want:
there’s so many shots that i would have had if my camera were able to auto-focus faster, had more auto-focus points to choose and a more responsive shutter. really, at the end of the day my camera still only is a basic SLR and not much else. at least, it wasn’t designed specifically for high-speed sports.
fightscrime was nice enough to suggest to mercy less to see if WFTDA or the sponsors could reimburse me for the batteries i bought (96 AAA batteries… and that’s just enough for 2 days! i changed some settings and went without a flash today), and mercy less said she’d look into it. if it happens, that’s awesome, and if it doesn’t, oh well since i wasn’t expecting it in the first place. but even though i’m working it like a part-time job i dropped my receipt in the trash and the hotel cleaning crew already hauled it away. wonder if i could just get $40-worth of new wheels? haha… i need something stickier, but i can’t remember what i’ve got or know what i should get.
ok, time to get some z’s.
#4823 – the competition
the final bout for the day just ended about 30 minutes ago; that last bout was very very strategic, it was impressive. i’m offloading the photos of it now to my laptop for later editing before i go out to find an ATM and the afterparty.
while i was walking towards the elevators along with everybody else, this one guy was trying to read my photographer’s badge:
guy: “so who are you taking photos for?”
me: “well, i’m with charm city, but i’m taking photos for all the leagues since charm city isn’t here.”
guy: “do you skate with the guy’s league? harm city…?”
me: “yeah!”
guy: “then i’ll see you in october! i’m with the shock exchange – abe drinkin’.” *extends hand*
me: “killer glennuine draft.” *shakes hand*
guy: “HAH, NICE!”
eta: actually, i’ll probably skip the afterparty tonight. i could go for some food but i’m not really hungry, and schlepping around to find an ATM so i can get some food at the bar (like last night’s bratwurst and “french fryes”) doesn’t seem worth it tonight. a-photo-editing i will go, then!
#4822 – too much of a good thing
i slept in longer today than i wanted. i wanted to wake up around 8 so i could get some breakfast and get to editing some of the photos from yesterday (i’ve got 3 out of the 4 matches narrowed down to some of the best photos in each bout, and i’m being a lot more picky here than i am with ccrg — if it’s not a good composition, or can’t be cropped into a good composition, and if i don’t think it’s sharp enough, then it’s not going to be included. that’s it.), but i turned off my alarms when they went off at 8 and 9 am because i didn’t get to sleep until 3 am. so, i woke up at 10:30.
apparently i have my own photography-wrangler (well, there’s a girl in charge of the photographers, at least). when i signed in at the press table and got my “photographer” badge they told me it was all-access. “all-access” apparently means “you can go anywhere but if your team isn’t bouting at that time then you should only be on the other side of the barrier along with the unwashed masses. i usually try to take my photos around the end of the first turn, but not facing down the straightaway so i don’t start blinding people with flashes when they start. this position meant i had to be on the production-side of the barrier by about 5 feet, but then the photography wrangler came over and told me that because there’s so many people on this side of the barrier that they had to limit access to 4 photographers per bout, and since the chicago tribune was there to do a bit about the windy city rollers that i had to be on the other side of the barrier. i looked around and there wasn’t anybody around me and i wasn’t in anybody’s way, but that still wasn’t good enough; i had to move to the other side of the barrier. but if there were any bouts in particular that i wanted to get on the other side to photograph then i could let her know. right, because i know which bouts will have neat things to photograph happening on the sideline ahead of time. i’m sure it’s well-meaning, but i think it’s dumb to tell folks “here’s your all-access pass!”, and then be all “ha ha, there’s no all-access for you!” i mean, as a photographer i even had to sign a waiver that within 2 weeks i’d furnish them a cd/dvd of my photos of the bouts. i don’t have a problem with that, but it almost makes me wonder if requesting photographer status makes it worth it. at least i don’t get hassled about the “no professional cameras” sign at the door when i’m wearing the badge, and it may even get me into the afterparty for free since they said last night at the afterparty that all-access passes get in free (yay not having to pay a $2 cover!).
after yesterday’s first two games everybody was like “god… it’s not over yet? it’s only half-over? for the first day??” my back was killing me at the end of the day too.
i need to get in the shower and then get downstairs — the doors open at noon to the public and the first bout is at 1.