red sox yankees part 3

nine brooms for the nine games in the home-stand sweep. the sox swept the yankees tonight, won nine in a row at home and ten in a row overall. oh, and jacoby ellsbury stole home. delicious.

red sox yankees part 2

well, the sox prevailed again. there was about a dozen lead changes in the game, it was the sixth longest 9 inning regular season game ever and the sox came back from a 6-0 deficit to win 16 to 11. the animated corpse of jason varitek hit a grand slam and the terrier had six rbi in the win. the sunday game starts after eight, lets hope i can make it through. go sox

red sox yankees part 1

it's no secret to anyone that jimmy likes his baseball. what jimmy really, really likes is some red sox yankees baseball. last night was the first of eighteen games that will be played between these two teams during the regular season. watching sox games in the yankees tv market is always bittersweet; i get to see my team play, but i'm also forced to listen to the y.e.s. network announcers. every time i hear michael kay speak i throw up a little bit in my mouth. last nights game featured this over-hyped - and over-fed - "athlete" pitching for the yankees: it was really the worst sort of game for about three and a half hours, the yankees getting a gifty call, joba pitching lousy but still weaseling his way out of trouble with four double plays and the red sox just looking lousy with the bats. if i had a temper i would have thrown something. then the magic happened; in the ninth inning, down by two runs with two outs and youk on base "new manny" jason bay came in to face mo rivera - arguably the games greatest closer. before i get into what happened, it is worth taking a moment to talk about "new manny". sure i loved manny back in the day but his antics, lazy baseball play and all-around doucheyness eventually meant he had to go and he was replaced with bay. this is manny in the field: and this was "new manny" last night: this is manny standing at home plate after a home run celebrating himself: and "new manny": back to last nights game - two outs, one on, down by two runs and jason bay crushed a home run off mo to tie the game. he quietly rounded the bases - so canadian - not even smiling - not because he wasn't having a good time - but because, as he later explained, "Until you win the game, it's really hard to jump up and down and get all excited about anything..." he almost looked like he felt bad for rivera. in the eleventh inning youk hit a walk-off home run against demaso marte, a pitcher not so good like mo. youk was not afraid to celebrate: with the game now over even "new manny" enjoyed the moment "...once Youk hit that ball, it was a relief and we could enjoy it a little more, winning that game makes all the difference in the world in enjoying it." and if you enjoy youk's beard you will definitely enjoy beardoftruth.com. till part 2 tomorrow...

ice cream social

this year has not been kind to my blogging output; first i was working too much to stay consistent, now i'm finding myself in a bit of a creative rut. lucky for me i had the raw material to post about a kick-ass ice cream social i had with heather and shauna two weeks back because truth-be-told i don't find anything else quite as inspiring as ice cream. we had some nice weather so we were cruising j.c. in our bocho when we came across torico's homemade ice cream parlor. they have a deal where you can sample eight single scoops of different flavors. we all took it very seriously, sampling each flavor, rinsing between bites and ranking our choices. the flavors in play were chocolate chunk, chocolate chip mint, cinnamon, coffee, dulce de leche, vanilla peanut butter, butter pecan and coconut joy.you can see shauna's final rankings next to our empty cups.all told just a wonderful experience. they advertise having sixty flavors, i think i'll keep it up until i've tried them all.

gold

sometimes i come across this sort of thing when searching for images. just super!

squirrel

this painting was hanging on the wall of my house throughout my childhood:i fancy myself the artistic type and i went to film school so one would figure i have at least decent powers of observation. for the purpose of this post most importantly i love cute furry animals so how is it that i missed out on this:it wasn't until my most recent trip home that shauna pointed that little guy out to me. i'm so disappointed in myself. it might be time to reevaluate this whole artist thing. how can i teach children to appreciate art when that super-magical squirrel was right in front of my face for all those years without me ever noticing. alas, i'm forced to lament the lost time we could have spent together.

opening day

sorry i've been so absent again. I've got some good stuff to post soon; some fun drawings from when shauna and i were stranded in the airport in carolina, a video of papi giving me a bath and some pics from an ice cream social we had with heather. for today i just wanted to acknowledge that the baseball season has begun. the sox got rained out, but the yankees newest - and fattest - pitcher got shelled so not a bad day all around. see you tomorrow.

birch tree beehive

i started a new painting today. this is it a couple of hours in.

unearthed during some research

why i think this is funny sort of speaks for itself.

finished pencil box

these are some pictures of the pencil box i made for shauna. the kitty, inside and feet of the box are prussian blue; the color on the body of the box is just a thin coat of white gesso. I covered the whole thing with a coat of shiny varnish.

finished spoons

i've finally finished the wooden spoons i was working on. the top spoon is for me, while the bottom spoon is to be sent of to isreal for the mum of a friend of my sisters. the pencil box is nearly complete as well; it just needs a coat of varnish. i'll post a picture of it tomorrow in all of its painted and shiny glory.

pencil box progress

the little pencil box i'm working on is coming along nicely. all that's left to do is gesso, compose a design, paint and varnish. hopefully i'll finish it up by tomorrow.

happy st patrick's day

i don't really know what this picture is all about - although it does seem vaguely offensive - but this is what comes up when you google irish monkey. anyway, happy paddy's day. i'll be crafting all day; i have several wood-working projects going right now so i'll be spending the day on the stoop sanding wooden spoons and cutting tiny bits for a pencil box i'm working on. these are some pics of my early progress. enjoy the day.

preview of things to come

blogjamming readership is way down since before thanksgiving when my old hand turkey post created all of that internet buzz. so, while i'm not sure who's reading this, i am pledging here and now to increase my output, and will do so over the next two weeks with arts and crafts posts, hopefully some comic book progress posts and a several part series - à la my spring training posts - on some comic book artists that i'm looking at right now or were influential in initially getting me hooked on the medium back in the day. as for why i've posted this picture of papi, just look at the guy and his doppelgänger bobblehead. as always adorable. see you monday.

a stroll through the old hood

now that i'm living in j.c. i don't get back to the old hood very often; this will no doubt change when the weather picks up and zummy puts their tables back out on the sidewalk. ah yes! sun, german beers and wieners! i happen to be on second street yesterday and passed a community garden on second street, a few blocks from the old apartment that had some new decor. i love this bit of muralling and thought i should put it up on blogjamming. spring break is starting tomorrow for both of the schools i've been working at so expect and increase in post frequency and arts and crafts output.

snow day!

to celebrate my first snow day as a teacher here are some pictures of monkeys in the snow. weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!

double-dipping

sorry, there isn't going to be a lot of blogjamming this week, i'm double-dipping jobs for the next several days. i found this book cover which is just eerie in several ways; first that looks exactly like a young me engaged in two of my all-time favorite activities: eating ice cream and sitting. secondly that looks a bit like a young shauna with the ice cream down - she has a childhood story i've heard several times about ice cream falling off of a cone while she was walking around a store (***spoiler alert***) she put it right back on the cone and continued to chow down. finally the book, double-dip feelings is for helping children work with two contrasting feelings at the same time; much like the pleasure i experience cashing multiple paychecks versus the pain of working not one but two jobs in a single day. i'll post when i can, enjoy the week.

spring training part 5

this is not a photo from a spring training game, it is however yet another photo of ted williams. this is from comiskey park in 1957:i absolutely love this picture; williams basking in the glow of god-light while waiting for the pitcher to warm up, the ball frozen in mid-air, the chesterfield ad on the scoreboard and the mist that fills the ballpark all lend a certain enchantment to the proceedings. super magical.

spring training part 4

this is an undated - and only color photo from the archive - of ted williams taking batting practice during spring training:the term triple threat is is thrown around a lot to describe performers who show a modicum of ability to sing, dance and make appearances in crappy movies. rarely do these so-called triple threats truly excel in all three disciplines - i'm looking your way madonna, you leathery bag of gristle. where is this going? was ted williams some kind of triple threat? hell yeah he was, in a non-traditional sort of way. i've established his hall of fame baseball and angling careers - and despite how threatening his fishing was to fish - his third career was perhaps the most "threatening" of all; a u.s.m.c. avaitor who served in both the second world war and korea. when williams initially went into the service during ww2 he was desribed as being too good - his reflexes and aptitude making him one of the best the military had ever seen - to send into action and was used as an instructor. When williams was recalled at age 34 to serve during the korean war he was given the option to play baseball for a service team; he refused and went into active duty flying in 38 combat missions. this is a photo of williams being sworn into the military in 1942:williams' hall of fame baseball career was twice interupted by war, missing all or part of five seasons and he is still one of the top five hitters in history. that friendo is a triple threat.

spring training part 3

this is a photo of williams working out during spring training in 1956:i can't help but think that they do things a little different in today's spring training facilities. seeing him hang there like a slab of meat is reminiscent of this other photo of ted:while most people are at least aware that williams was a hall of fame baseball player - arguably one of the top five hitters in the game - what a lot of people don't know is that he was a hall of fame angler as well. even if you knew he was a prodigious fisherman, you might not have known he was a hall-of-famer because who the hell knew there was a fishing hall of fame. that right there is a lot of fish.