I'm So Damn Hyper Right Now!!

My team did something that I didn't know that we'd be able to do...

WE MADE IT TO THE SEASON CHAMPIONSHIPS AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This was no mean feat. We had lost the previous two games we played, and our practice game on Monday was ATROCIOUSLY bad. We lost by a lot of points in that scrimmage.

However, we got our collective heads out of our collective butts and put on a helluva secret mid-week not-open-to-the-public game that decisively gave us a much-needed win(Fight Crew: 38, Sirens: 24). Each team ended up with a 2-2 season, and so with the point spreads the way they were, we're in!!! We're playing against the Sirens...again. Just like last year.

To celebrate the victory, the husband and I went to Johnnie's Pastrami in Culver City and ate like pigs.

IT.

WAS.

WONDERFUL.

I'm so hyper I can't sleep. For those of you in LA or are gonna be in LA the weekend of Sat. December 8...COME TO THE GAME!!!!!! It would rock if you did!

I'm going to continue my crazy training of skating, running, and jumping on the trampoline for insane amounts of time. I guess I'll have to eat more pasta(it really makes a difference energy-wise during the game) from my fave Italian restaurant, Alejo's. Oh darn.

One of these eons I wish my parents would come see me skate before I retire my pasty white butt from this sport!

The Spectacle of the Derby Dolls

Here's a photo of Vagilante, one of the LA Derby Dolls' skaters. She has graffiti courtesy of me on her person:





















In "real life" she works for a large corporation that's known for having a squeaky-voiced mouse as its mascot. That's right, she's rotting your kids' brains! Mwahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!

One of my teamates has her own blog, and yesterday she posted a thought-provoking entry about the spectacle of the Derby Dolls. Go read it, it's cool!

Back to work!

Graffiti in a Past Life

This weekend I got a photo of some parking lot graffiti that I did in Santa Monica when the Derby Dolls were still homeless a month or so ago. We were having a practice in a beach parking lot and I drew out track dimensions with chalk. I then drew a blocker(no photo available)and a jammer to indicate where everyone's supposed to set up for scrimmaging. Below is my jammer drawing:

















The photo is off of a skater's cell phone. Probably some of the best work I've ever done.

Naptime

It's Friday on a holiday weekend and I'm already needing a nap.

Yesterday for Turkey Day the husband and I rode the bicycles to Torrance. Last time we did it the husband said it was around 40 miles round-trip. This time he's saying it's 50 miles. So I'll split the difference and say that it was 45 miles. Whatever it really was, it was much needed because I ate enough BBQ'd turkey to sink a cruise ship.

The nephew and niece in-laws were present and annoying. The nephew in particular is gonna be real trouble in a couple of years. He's 10 years old now and kept following me around, wanting me to throw him, swing him around, tickle him, or toss him in a trashcan. Yeah, for real...I tossed him in a trashcan and he liked it. I tried to wear him out, but I think I merely succeeded in cementing the fact that he's going to need extensive therapy when he gets older(can we say, "masochist"?). The niece is now 12 years old and is at an age where she'll pound the living bejeezus out of her brother but will wisely leave me alone.

On the dark ride home both the husband and I went off the bike path along the beach near Hermosa into the sand. I almost went over the handlebars, but only my pride was actually wounded. The husband was trailing far behind, so I was already back on the path and pedalling along when he went off the path and managed to land on his shoulder. Owch! This is what happens when the path is the same color as the beach and is not lit at night. We even have lights on the bikes and we still couldn't see! Durrrrrrrr!


Today we got up early and went to the LA Auto Show.

What a disappointment.

The husband wants a new car, as his old car is 12 years old and has over 100K miles on it. It's a Trans Am, which Pontiac doesn't make anymore. Unfortunately, muscle cars are so out of vogue right now it makes trying to find a new car that's even in the same cool-factor ballpark almost impossible. If we wanted an SUV, we'd have plenty of choices. If we wanted an ugly peesachit cheaply-made econobox with crapacious gas mileage we'd be golden. But noooo, we want something that can go fast, from a domestic auto maker, isn't as big as a freakin' house, gets decent mileage and doesn't cost over $35K. Good luck with that.

Well, alright, we could get a Ford Mustang. That's it.

We wandered from booth to booth...the husband figuring out that his next car will be from a Japanese auto maker while I tried to stay merely upright due to under-caffeination. Everything was just so...bland. The only car that I got excited over was at the Mercedes booth. The damn thing was built in the 1930's. Not exactly practical to have nowadays, but DAMN it was BEAUTIFULLLLLLLLLL. Convertible, suicide doors, craftsmanship...droooooooooooooool.

I almost got myself ditched when I insisted on talking with a James Mason/Ronald Coleman accent at the Jaguar booth. Phooey, I was determined to have some kind of fun.

So we came away with the knowledge that whatever the husband's next car is going to be, it's not going to knock our socks off. Bleh.


Derby crap:

Found this blog that's run by the councilman who leads the district the Derby Dolls are now in.

Tomorrow I'm driving to Chino Hills to skate in some pick-up scrimmage with a new league there. A bunch of the San Diego Derby Dolls are going, too. Should be entertaining.

Next week we're having a mid-week game that's not open to the public that'll determine who goes to our season championship game Dec. 8. Ugh. I think I'm ready for it if I eat enough carbs...oh darn, I might have to eat pasta on Monday and Tuesday.

OK, nap attack.

I'm Boring...

...when I work from home. Not much to say, since I don't talk to anyone except for the cats. They're horrible conversationalists, btw. It's the same thing every time. Feed me! Feed me! Pet me, I'm the cat! Pet me, I'm the cat! Go clean the litterbox or else I'll crap on the floor! Phooey.

Anyway, here's more roughs for the freelance I'm doing. Yeehaw!
















Definitely in need of refinement for the facial expressions.


Tomorrow the husband and I will ride our bicycles to Torrance for turkey day. I'm tempted to send him ahead by about a half hour or so. I might have to kill him otherwise if he doesn't keep up with my pace.

I'm Sick

I'm sick in the head for thinking this is freakin' hilarious. NSFW audio-wise:

SQUIRRELLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All morning I've been hearing the chattering of an angry squirrel, but didn't bother investigating it. We have angry squirrels all over the place all the time, so I didn't think much of it.

However, the husband decided to investigate, as the little critter kept waking him up. He looks out the bedroom window and sees three neighborhood cats circling near a small folded table that's propped up in one corner of our patio. On the backside of the folded table hangs the angry chattering squirrel, waiting for the cats to get bored and leave.

The cats don't leave.

The squirrel keeps angrily chattering.

The husband says, We should go save the squirrel.

Screw that, let nature take its course, I snarl.

So for another hour, the angry chattering carries on.

Our own cats don't even acknowledge the Wild Kingdom episode playing out on the patio.

Finally, I take pity on the damn squirrel. It must be exhausted from hanging on the back of the little table. So I bravely step forth into the fray of nature armed only with my wits and a camera. The neighborhood cats immediately scatter. The husband stays back, in case the squirrel charges him.

Here's the little angry prey:





















Are you ready for your close up?



















Hey! You know what would be fun? To walk up to an angry squirrel and move the table it's attached to so that photos could be taken! And then the photos can be put up on the internets!























Boo!




















It's surprisingly difficult to take pictures of angry squirrels one-handed, I'll tell yew whut.

I handed the camera to the husband and attempted to lean the table forward so that the squirrel could escape. That little booger took off so fast, it was a brownish-grey blur going across the lawn to the safety of the telephone pole at the back of the yard. The husband couldn't get a photo of the Great Escape, unfortunately.

Now we're safe, and it's quiet.

Lucky 13

Yesterday was my 13th wedding anniversary.

Yeah, I'm surprised the husband has put up with my sh!t this long, too.

We celebrated by going to our fave dim sum place in Monterey Park, then hitting the cell phone store to look at new phones. I insist that the next phone I get has a keyboard so that I can drunk text easily. My friends will hate me for that. We then came home and did nothing for the rest of the day. Yeehaw!

Here's the rough drawing I did for the card I made for the husband. The final result doesn't fit on the scanner:






















More cat women. Gotta love 'em. This one is a takeoff of the Japanese "lucky cat" story. Oh, how clever!


Here's a rough of the latest freelance:










There's still some tweaking that needs to be done, but overall I'm happy with this bunch o' drawings.

I can't believe Thanksgiving is coming up next week already. Jeez! Where has this month gone?!

Saturday Clean-Up

The Derby Dolls were being neighborly by contributing our time to cleaning up the neighborhood around our new space, which is now christened "the Doll Factory" since it used to be an ice cream factory. We spent a couple of hours fanning out and cleaning up an amazing array of trash. Afterwards, we got to eat Fillipino food at a local church(I purposely stayed outside so that I wouldn't burst into flames) and say hi to the neighbors. I rode my bicycle to and from the Doll Factory, so I felt like I accomplished quite a bit.

Here's my work crew getting all obsessive about cleaning up curbside:















We found some mind-numbing treats. A fast-food bag filled with some sort of whitish-yellowish goo. A LOT of empty mayonnaise packets. Cigarette butts for days. Empty cups, bottle caps, and broken glass.

Here's a lovely sock that was apparently used for, uh, masturbatory purposes:




















Yes, I'm wearing latex gloves.


Here's one of two used condoms we found:




















This was the fresher of the two condoms. Mmmmm, tasty!


We found a bucket of used motor oil, too:





















That...thing that I'm holding is a plastic bag that was floating in the oil. Lourdy!

But we didn't win the prize for the grossest item found. That dubious honor goes to the boyfriend of one of the skaters who found a bag full of human excrement...with a sock in it. A close second place was a cup full of urine. It was great comparing gross stuff while we were eating afterwards!

Back to work. Pin-ups progressing nicely.

Hellooooooooooo, Sailor!

Here's another take on my Puss N' Boots project. What do you think?





















In other earth-shattering news...my back is killing me.

I seemed to have tweaked it yesterday during a tv shoot that I was participating in. Wait'll I tell you the stories about what happened on the set...oh wait, I can't! I signed a confidentiality agreement that keeps me from blathering about what I worked on. It's funny, I can tell you that. And I was pleasantly surprised that a main component of the show wasn't a stuck-up @$$hole. Just you wait, in January I'll be pimping what I participated in.

Did you mark your calendars for the next two Derby Doll bouts? Sat. Nov. 17 and Sat. Dec. 8 will be our last games of the season. Wooooooo!

AND, I sold another toilet seat at Toyroom Gallery in Sacramento. Yay me!

Cute and Adorable

Halloween was fuuuuuun this year.

We stayed home as usual, but invited the Drunk Scouts over to help hand out candy to the kids. There were a lot of kids. Hundreds of the little bastards. And they were cute. A lot of small children dressed as cute little bugs(ladybugs were the favorite). The older kids were fewer in number this year and generally were more polite than in years past. I did have to demand a "trick-or-treat" from some kids...hey, if you're gonna get free candy from me, you have to say something to me!

Our neighbor with the outrageous Halloween decorations said that he had 800 kids and 2,000 adults come to his house. He set things up so that people could walk through his decorated house. A-MAZING. We didn't get as many people as he did...we figure around 500 trick-or-treaters came to our door. Insane.

The costumes were a hit...both with the kids and the parents. This was the first year where parents asked if they could take our picture! Wow! Some people said funny stuff...an eight year old boy said, "Nice guns!" to me. A woman dressed like a small child in longjohns came up to the porch and yelled, "Mommmyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!" to me. I started laughing. She laughed back, and then we both ended up laughing even harder until we were both at the point of falling over due to the double entendre she said. It was great.

Below is a photo of me and the ever-adorable Raf. I include this just because he's cute. Maybe even cuter than the trick-or-treaters we got. The photo was taken a couple of months ago by one of the storyboard artists I pushed arou--I mean, directed over the summer. Every time I talked to her, she kept telling me how. Darned. CUTE the photo was, but I never saw it. It was hilarious because she hyped the cuteness factor several times in the past couple of months. I kept reminding her to send it to me, but I didn't get it until this weekend. I'm not cute, so I think the cute quotient comes down to a manageable viewing level.

Besides, I just had dinner with Raf and a couple of other Scooby Gang artists last week and had an entertaining time making fun of each other.


















I'm back to freelancing for the jewelry company that I did pin-ups for earlier this year. Oh darn, I have to draw more hot women! And I'm reworking my Puss in Boots assignment. Life can be so difficult!

I'm trying to figure out if the Writer's Strike is going to be bad for the business or not. Right now I say not, since the execs make sooooooooooooooooo much more money than the creatives. It's ridiculous.