#31 - COMPLETE

I know this is a little lame - only six weeks in and already utilizing one of my swap options.  To be fair, this particular item on the list was thought about early on...  unfortunately never when I had my notebook nearby to jot it down.  So while this did not make the cut for the official list, I assure you that it was thought about early on.

Heartless Heathers in neon yellow shirts

So what did I do?  I went to my first roller derby bout last night - and it was super fun!  It was a pretty big affair - four Portland teams versus four Seattle teams.  The first match was already a couple minutes underway by the time we took our seats, so we missed hearing the introduction and rules.  It was a little hard to figure out the scoring, but it was great watching the Heartless Heathers (from Portland) take down the Sockit Wenches.

Portland's Guns N Rollers & High Rollers took down Seattle's Derby Liberation Front & Throttle Rockets respectively.  The night ended on a loss with our Break Neck Betties unable to overtake Grave Danger.  Once I understood the rules, it was awesome to watch the jammers as they raked up point after point.  Some of the standouts for me were Slay Miserables, Feliz Brutality, and Napoleon Blownapart.

I totally want to be a Heartless Heather for Halloween next year.  I have never been able to think of a totally awesome homemade costume, but I think a roller derby chick would make a great costume.  And if I can assemble a proper costume, then I'd have everything I need to try out next year.  My friend, Hannah, joined me at the match and we both think it would be fun to try out next year.  So now I have something else to look forward to.

Now to vent a little frustration about my progress on item #15.  Wikipedia's list of the top selling albums of all time has changed since I started this project!  I did not think the list would change so easily - seems like something that should be pretty well set in stone at this point.  It wouldn't be a problem if I had bothered to make a copy of the list when I first saw it, but alas, I did not.  When I checked it a few days ago, it showed 32 albums having sold 30 million units - today the list is down to 31.  Why is it fluctuating?  The two biggest changes now are the addition of Santa's Supernatural at the bottom of the list (which I will skip) and the change in order of Nirvana's Nevermind and Pink Floyd's The Wall.  Odd.

The 28th best-selling album of all time is full of energy that has been fun to listen to when writing about roller derby - Metallica's self-titled album (aka The Black Album).  I'm pretty sure I purchased this album when I was working at Tower Records - it was a lot of fun having a music discount back then.  The band actually played in the parking lot at that Tower location back in '96.  I remember having a few friends who ditched school to go check it out.  That was before I got into them though.  The only other Metallica story I have is that "Enter Sandman" was played at every single high school dance.