Roller derby is a making a big-time comeback — and the girls are getting wild! This is a full-body contact sport where the tougher you are on the rink, the louder you fall, the harder you use your elbows, the more the crowds adore you. (With rink names like Broadzilla, Eva Destruction and Myna Threat, you know these are not people to be messed with.) As writer Brian Haney puts it, “Clobbering one’s opponents is not only legal, but highly encouraged.”

I’m still waiting for derby wear to show up at my local Target. But quad skates are everywhere.

Since I know nothing about skates, I’m going to venture that the more you spend, the better you get.

That’s why my pair — when this lower back pain eases, mind you! — will be a set of Riedell Vandal Derby Quads. These pitbulls of the roller rink cost $274. The description talks about things like plates, wheels, bearings and top stops. (You can get “optional jam plugs,” while you’re at it, whatever they are.)

Reviewer Princess Rotten declares, “Put these babies on and you’ll be flyin around that rink. Perfect fit. Super smooth and derby tough!!!” Anything that gets said with three exclamations surely must be true, right?

So, until that lower back problem dissipates, I’ll spend my time thinking up a rink name for myself… Derby Di is a bit milquetoast. Di Another Day? Bomba Mama? I’ll keep working on that. In the meantime, watch that jammer. She is coming through, headin’ for you!!!

Did you ever make little claymation movies? My brother did. I remember one he made, just a tube of clay inching its way along the table, like a friend of Gumby’s. “The Worm” was shot with a new Super-8 camera my folks had given him and a production budget of about seven cents for the clay. From those humble beginnings, my brother made a career in the movie business — driving his own camera truck and doing keygrip work (and complaining about chucklehead Hollywood “types” and which stars have souls and which ones are jerks, but that’s another story).

And since I’m always pondering my next career move, here’s a cool software program I’d like to try: Claymation Studio from honestech.

The idea with Claymation Studio is that you create the images, then capture them into the software using a digital camera, webcam or DV camcorder. Then you apply small changes, add background images and music and there you have it: You could become known as the next Walt Disney.

What do you need the software for? An onionskin feature lets you view the previous frame in transparent overlay to help you create the next frame or image. A rotoscope feature lets you take one image and overlay another image to create a third image. Finally, a chroma key (that blue screen you see behind weather people on TV) lets you change the background so that it looks like your character is standing on your desktop, for example.

The program runs on Windows XP or Vista and doesn’t require any majorly intensive processing power, but the manual does suggest you defragment your hard disk before installation — a suggestion I’ve never seen in documentation before.

Who knows where it could lead? I hear Pixar is hiring animators. And as we all know, the actor who played Mater definitely has a soul. I hear he gave everybody on the shoot these really great Car crew jackets.

Now that Shakey has decided Blu-ray is the way to release his music archive, you may decide it’s time to look into updating your play equipment. Blu-ray, as you probably already know, holds more data than DVDs (five to 10 times the capacity!), offers amazing picture and sound quality and you can update their disc contents via the Internet.

Of course, I’m a hybrid kind of gal. I don’t like to have a bunch of specialized equipment around when hybrids will do the job too — especially if I’m not paying more for the multi-functionality. So let’s look at two “duo” players, electronics that play both Blu-ray and HD.

First up, the Samsung BD-UP5000. Pricing runs from about $380 to about $790. It exploits the interactive features and offers Blu-ray Disk playback at 1080p resolution. Don’t worry; it’s not limited to playing just Blu-ray or HD disks; you can also run your DVD Video and DVD-RW/-R discs too. The software lets you customize your viewing experience.  For example, if you — like I — run subtitles just to understand what those mumbling actors are saying, you can specify subtitles in a different color, you can animate them and you can fade them in and out. Is that cool or what?!

Reviewer pzprods likes the unit, although he or she detects a delay in loading movies.

LG Electronics offers the BH200, which is priced between $422 and $800. The functionality is basically the same as the Samsung, though reviewer bballcards from MO reports that load time for “Superbad Blu-Ray” is speedy compared to alternatives and that bugs reported in the initial release have been repaired in firmware updates put out by the company. Bballcards complains, however, about a short warranty (a year, the same as the Samsung model) and a high price (again, pretty comparable to the Samsung model).

Of course, upgrading from a HD player to a hybrid player almost demands that you run a high-def viewer too. Otherwise, why bother?! So, if you haven’t upgraded your TV to install one of those drive-in-theater hi-def models that take up a wall and form the centerpoint of dinner conversations with your friends for easily a full three months after purchase, not to worry! Your economic stimulus check is in the mail!

I don’t know about you, but I’d have trouble laying out a few hundred dollars for a WiFi Internet radio. Yet that’s what Sangean is asking for its WFR-20. What exactly does that get you?

According to the product description, this radio offers direct access to 6,000 Internet radio stations in 250 locations from 60 genres. (Maybe it includes my personal favorite, KVMR.org, the community radio station that broadcasts from my little town, Nevada City. If it doesn’t, the company says I can get it added with a request.)

Apparently, you can find your favorite stations and upload them to a My Stations folder on a special website. Once the stations are there, you can play them from the radio. If you don’t have a computer, it works as a stand-alone unit, but the advantage of tying it to your computer is that it can play the music you have stashed on your hard drive. All you need for either set-up is an Internet connection and a wired or wireless router.

It includes a socket for plugging in your iPod or other MP3 player and another socket for a headset.

But we’re talking truly geek in design. It looks like something your great-uncle would crouch in a kitchen chair next to and listen to the ballgame with — except because it comes with a remote control, he can flip stations without sitting up. It comes in a “high-gloss piano-black finish,” includes a “large, easy-to-read line display,” and weighs in at whopping 6.1 pounds.

Didn’t anybody tell these people that Moore’s Law mandates that technology is supposed to get smaller? Aren’t we supposed to be able to fit our devices in our pockets these days?

So what gives? Is it the audio quality that’s spectacular? Is it so bleeding-edge, I’m incapable of appreciating its inner beauty and elegance? Could it be that I don’t listen to enough music that the idea of paying more than 99 cents for a song grieves me? Dear reader, if you can explain the magic and charm of these machines, I’d appreciate an education. Add your comment below.