Tuesday, January 25, 2005

 

January Sucks

January sucks. It's got to be the slowest month for baseball news. Maybe it's just that last season is now a fading memory, and next season is just a glimmer. Maybe it's because it rains all the time and everyone has a nasty cold and is in a bad mood.

So here we go with the Slow News Day edition of Giants Talk.

First off, congratulations to A.J. Pierzynski. He was the Skaldheim 2004 Knucklehead of the Year for various reasons, mostly having to do with crappy defense, a crappy attitude, and a crappy habit of hitting into double plays. But now, I have to retroactively upgrade his award to the Official Skaldheim 2004 Piece of Crap Special Award For Assholery Above And Beyond.

Why? Because of this, quoted from SFGate.com:

During a Giants exhibition game last spring, Pierzynski took a shot to his, shall we say, private parts. Trainer Stan Conte rushed to the scene, placed his hands on Pierzynski's shoulders in a reassuring way, and asked how it felt. "Like this," said Pierzynski, viciously delivering a knee to Conte's groin.

How A.J. didn't get shipped out of town a lot earlier is utterly beyond me now. If you watched him hit grounder after grounder, you have to wonder if Conte's were the hardest hit balls A.J. had all season....

How the mighty have fallen: Skaldheim favorite Richie Aurilia has signed a minor-league contract with the Cincinnati Reds. Only four years removed from one of the best seasons a Giants shortstop has ever had, Aurilia is now having to scrap for the crumbs off the baseball table. It seems unlikely that he'll be able to regain his old starting job, but I wish him the best of luck. (If only he played center field, he'd be guaranteed to start least 80 games for the Reds.)

In other news, Arte Moreno's secret plan to take over the world has begun to come to light. He plans to achieve world domination by claiming every city's name as his own. I salute his cleverness, and I hope that the Los Angeles, California Angels of Anaheim, San Diego and Las Vegas have a successful season. The new name has certainly already entertained me this season. (Though they're not nearly as hilarious as William Shatner and James Spader.)

This just in from Montreal. Ticket sales for the Expos are down only slightly from last year. Bud Selig was not available for comment. He was too busy helping former Expos and current Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria cozy up to Las Vegas.

Spring training better hurry up and get here. I don't know if I can take another Slow News Day.

Jefferson 3:34 PM

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Wednesday, January 19, 2005

 

"...True Meaning of Haste" update

Well, I can't quite believe a month has passed since my last post. Between the holidays, the post-holiday case of the creeping crud, and I don't know what else, I haven't posted anything in a month.

But I have been busy.

Aside from the week and a half I lost to this winter's evil cold bug, I have been quite productive on the miniatures front. I needed to paint 18 Uruk-Hai to complete the army of 50 Uruk figures for the upcoming event. I finished them a couple of days ago.

There were two Gandalf figures on the bench--one on foot, one horsed. The one on foot needs one more coat of varnish, and then it's done. The horsed model is about 75% done. Shadowfax needs some detail work, mainly.

This leaves six Riders of Rohan to paint, and that's it. The six horses have their base coats already, so I'm in good shape. I shouldn't have any trouble finishing those before DunDraCon.

I need to get one more playtest session in before then, which might be a challenge. Not so much scheduling the session, but rounding up 2 or 3 friends to play it. Teaching them how to play the game will be good practice for the convention. I am assuming there will be at least one person at the event who hasn't played before. It would be great if I had some experience teaching people beforehand!

That's about it for now. Still no digital camera, but I'll aim to borrow one before the convention.

Jefferson 3:09 PM

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