Sketch Cards

Last Friday night before SPX, I went back to the hotel room cause I was feeling tired and a little under the weather, and wanted to rest up for the big impending Saturday crowds. I couldn't get to sleep, however, so I watched A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas and drew some sketch cards. Meant to put 'em on the table to sell at the show but forgot about 'em! Enjoy!

Animal Alphabet

It's here! My Animal Alphabet Sketchbook! It's 28 pages of animal drawings, suitable for all ages (Evie  has already colored two-thirds of the copy I gave her). It also has three different covers... I'm getting in one the early-90s Marvel Comics business model... so be sure to specify which one you prefer!

This was a fun book to work on, and I'm glad I finally finished it. I hope you'll dig it too!

Order Animal Alphabet here!

Quadrillion Of Diamonds

Good afternoon everyone.  I slept A LOT last night and am STILL yawning, so after I get this post typed up, I will be heading back to bed since I don't work until late tonight...  Today's post will be a lot more in the direction of Las Vegas-related as opposed to poker-related as I still continue to mull over my disappointment at not being in the desert this football season, and formulate my plans to return for either a visit or another move.  The one indisputable, undeniable fact is that I am more comfortable living in San Marcos, America than anywhere else that I have ever lived.  It is now just over 26 years since I moved here for the first time (time FLIES is no one has ever told you that).  The enrollment of the local university has jumped from 20,000 to about 35,000 students (give or take), the capacity of Bobcat Stadium has doubled, from 15,000 to 30,000, the Outlet Malls have popped up along I-35 (don't get me started), but 'Bikini Hill' is still alive and well and there is no other place that I would rather live...  I'm not saying that a long stretch of casinos (say, a Strip) wouldn't be welcome on the outskirts of town, complete with poker tables and endless football parlay cards...  Anyway, it's still hard for me to watch the football games (to this point, I have not watched a complete day of football yet, which is VERY UNUSUAL for me)...  I'm almost dreading the possibility of going 10-0 during a week of my football picks here, because right-off-the-bat, that would be a $1,600.00 winner on a 10-team, 2 buck parlay card, IN ADDITION to what I would have made for all of the other combinations of parlays I would have made with those 10 teams.  On the other hand, I'm typing up my football picks here for the world to see, and I do not want to go 0-10 each week...  6-4 last week, more picks coming this Friday...  My apartment is getting close to being straightened up enough that I can live with it, so now I'm faced with the choice of how to make more money.  Do I want to get a second job, do I want to search for a job that would completely replace the job I have now, do I want to start finding ways to make money with my writing (or do I go with Door #4)???  These are the thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head as I just stumbled upon this Yahoo! Headline RIGHT BEFORE starting this blog entry:  "Russian Asteroid Crater Has Over $1 Quadrillion Of Diamonds"...  Now, I won't pretend that I'm a diamond expert, but that sounds like a PRETTY VALUABLE CRATER!!!...  Quadrillion???  "Yes, you have the ace of diamonds, but I have the QUADRILLION of diamonds, which beats the ace..."  Now EVERYONE is going to be begging to be almost-hit by asteroids...  Of course the problem is, if the government finds out that you have it, they're going to find a way to claim it's theirs somehow, right??  This, by the way, is about as close to being a Wednesday ramble, without officially being CALLED a Wednesday ramble as I can probably produce...  I'm going to pack it in now and see if I can't get another six or seven hours of sleep.  Please use the links to the right to find grrouchie's and Josie's blogs if you want to find some of the searches that have led people to find their blogs or what's okay and not okay - pretty funny stuff.  Have a good one and I'll see you again on Friday!
      

Diamonds are a Girls Worst Enemy - Pg. 13

Whew! Funny how a little vacation break turns into an entire month!

If this is your first visit, welcome! Please, have a look around! I don't usually use this many exclamation points!

SPX Haul!

It Was Worth Losing

Good morning everyone.  I'm going to start the ramble off with sports today just because yesterday was such an interesting day in the NFL.  I'm participating (was) in this little "suicide" contest with 14 other blogger types where we each had to pick ONE team each week who was going to win their game - STRAIGHT UP, not against the spread.  Well, yesterday myself and ten other bloggers (and based on the information that I was getting at the bar yesterday, most of America) picked the Patriots over the Cardinals.  Many dreams of winning various suicide contests were CRUSHED when New England choked up their game to Arizona 20-18.  As badly as they played, they had a chance to win the game at the end with a field goal, which sailed wide left, ironically enough, much like the one that the Ravens missed at the end of last year's AFC Championship Game which sent the Patriots onto the Super Bowl.  Although I would have admittedly loved the free Steelers t-shirt or sweatshirt from Lucki Duck (DUH), I AM a Steelers fan, and seeing the Patriots and the Ravens lose yesterday while the Steelers won..., well, I must admit, I'm not THAT heartbroken...  ;)  It was worth losing...  :)  In related news, the loser of next Sunday's matchup between the Ravens and Patriots will be 1-2 to start the season...  :)  It seems that the Patriots and the USC Trojans were just a little overrated this year.  USC had trouble with Syracuse last week (who had trouble with STONY BROOK on Saturday - I never checked that final, so I don't even know if Syracuse beat Stony Brook), and then the Trojans lose to Stanford AGAIN (4th straight time) on Saturday, with Barkley quarterbacking USC, and Luck playing for the Colts, not the Cardinal (good weekend for 'Cardinal'-related teams, eh?)...  Also on a related-note, I went 6-4 on my picks this weekend, and 4-2 on the NFL ones, which seems like a minor miracle given this weekend - looks like the 'Coach' is back on track after that 4-9-1 start ...  ;)  If you happen to have a free moment today, check out the NFL standings and note how many teams are sitting at 1-1 right now - this will just ensure that the season stays interesting that much longer...  By the way, even though the renovated Bobcat Stadium "only" seats 30,000, our parking situation around town is very similar to that in Austin on gameday, where UT's Royal Memorial Stadium seats over 100,000 - you cannot park anywhere near the stadium on gameday unless you get very lucky...  As the week following the Texas Tech game proceeded, I kept hearing tales of where people parked and how far they hiked to Bobcat Stadium.  As I find myself touching on college football again, did anyone else notice that Alabama and LSU are numbers 1 and 2 in the polls again?  Wouldn't it be AWESOME if they met in the National Championship after playing each other in the regular season?  That hasn't happened since...  Oh, and back on the topic of the NFL, did anyone notice those two hits to the head on players in the fourth quarter of last night's Lions/49ers game that were not called?  I'm guessing that the NFL gets the regular officials back on the field before too long - I personally saw a lot more sketchy calls/non-calls yesterday than I did during Week 1.  Also yesterday, Yahoo! ran a story about a replacement official who was already warming-up to call the Saints/Panthers game when he was pulled from the lineup.  Someone found his facebook page, where this guy is totally outfitted in  Saints gear, a diehard New Orleans fan...  :)  On that note, I'll wish you a good day and I'll see you again on Wednesday!
                

The Unfriendly Confines

Good evening everyone.  I may still get this post entered on Friday CST...  I decided to utilize my very rare weekend night off (yes, I've been back at my current job for just over a week) to check out the newly renovated Bobcat Stadium in San Marcos, America.  Since Bobcat Stadium has been expanded, Jim Wacker Field has seen two games, and they haven't been pretty for the home team.  Last Saturday, the Red Raiders of Texas Tech came in and put it on the alma mater, 58-10.  Tonight, the Eagles of Georgetown High School tried to match the Red Raiders, but only managed a 55-7 win (I'm being sarcastic, as the Eagles could have seemingly scored as much as they wanted to). 

On a just as discouraging note, my football picks have been 4-9-1 so far (against the spread, which is how I will be calling the games here).  Courtesy of USC winning by EXACTLY 39 points in their season opener vs. Hawaii, I'll be dragging that tie along for the whole football season...  I threw out a few more 'maybe' picks than these 14, but these were my offical picks (my statisticians were working overtime to check the accuracy of my stellar record to date, thank you very much).  I will be picking ten games per week from here on out, until we reach weekends where there aren't that many available (plus the bowl season, where I'll pick EVERYTHING like last year)... 

This week's games...  This week I am going to go with the following ten bets:

Washington State/UNLV (Over 56)
BYU (- 3) over Utah
Houston/UCLA (Over 75 1/2)
UCLA (- 17) over Houston

Oakland (- 2 1/2) over Miami
Detroit/San Francisco (Under 46 1/2)
Houston (- 7) over Jacksonville
Kansas City/Buffalo (Under 45)
Minnesota/Indianapolis (Under 45 1/2)
Arizona/New England (Under 48 1/2)

Have fun with those and have a great football weekend!  See ya again on Monday...