Monday Musings - A day in Bowral

I had a lovely girls day in Bowral over the weekend with my cousin, Melanie (left) and my sister-in-law Kate (right). We kicked the morning off with a coffee and cake at the Elephant Boy Cafe - my favourite... It has a great ambience, old books lining the walls and a lovely, hard-working hostess with quirky glasses, braids and great calves :-) She is there every time I go and is always BUSY!

We pottered around the shops and spent quite some time in Seed and another favourite, My Place. Seed is divided into two sides, childrens clothing and lovely stuff for Mum (pictured). They had sensational props, old hat boxes, hat blocks and a massive glass jar full to the brim with letter press letters! I wanted to tuck that under my arm and bring it home! All in all it was a lovely day out.

I unfortunately blew my back tyre on the way home in the middle of nowhere on the highway :-( I have been a paying member of NRMA for 7 years and the one time I need them I get told it will be 2 hrs minimum wait - sorry. I couldn't even lift the spare tyre out of the boot - I sat on the back of the car and cried! That lasted all of 5 minutes, pulled myself together, prayed for some divine intervention and no later than 5 minutes a tow truck heading in the opposite direction crossed the split highway and came to my rescue - changing my tyre in all of 5 minutes. *sigh* Thank you God! I was extremely grateful (as was Gordon) and got home in one piece. A great ending, for a great day.

A light has gone out ....

On Friday we learnt our lovely friend Susannah went home to heaven at the tender age of 30 after enduring 3 tough rounds with Cancer. Susannah and my husband Gordon grew up together in North Qld as children and their families have remained wonderful friends over the years. Susannah was a beautiful, Godly, vibrant woman, devoted wife, mother of two sweet little girls, daughter, sister and friend. I want to hold my daughter & husband that much closer and longer every day - grateful for every moment we have together. Keeping Susannah's dear family in our prayers.

The Shane Battier Replicant

They did it, guys. They finally cloned a human, and as expected, something went wrong. This SCOUNDREL is running around calling himself "Shane Batch-ee-yay" to sound more dangerous, like Stephon Urquelle.

Well you're not fooling me Fake Shane Battier.

I've been watching you ever since that mustache showed up. You're shooting inefficient shots. You're not playing helpside defense. And when you challenge shooters, you're going for the ball and not putting your hand in their face. Did you think we wouldn't notice, Fake Shane Battier? Come on, son.

Next thing we know you're going to be trying to smooth out your head wrinkles. You're fooling no one Fake Shane. No one. Everybody who knows anything about facial hair knows that the mustache is the least efficient form of facial hair. It doesn't keep your face warm and it doesn't make your head seem longer, so what's the point? The real Shane Battier would never grow a mustache, YOU FAKING FAKER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Os eternos apaixonados pelo basket...

De quando em vez recebo noticias de amigos que já não vejo faz algum tempo. Adversários no campo mas amigos e solidários cá fora com uma causa comum a paixão do basquetebol.
Na semana passada recebi a visita do Zé Sá que queria aprender o "meu " scouting". Hoje foi a vez do carlos Gouveia se lembrar de mim...
Aqui fica o seu registo que me deixa obviamente feliz:

"Caro Mário
Sou, ou melhor, fui até muito recentemente um "infoexcluído". Conheço a tua adesão desde há muito às "coisas da informática" até pela tua própria formação. Desde Outubro de 2008 que passei à condição de aposentado. Fui continuando avesso a estas "modernices". Mas o tempo vai-nos alterando algumas "convicções/teimosias"! Bem, dei-me a dar uma espreitadela pelo teu site ( é assim que se diz?) e achei absolutamente justificado enviar-te as minhas sinceras felicitações não só pela qualidade do seu conteúdo como pela clara paixão que vais de forma persistente demonstrando em relação a este jogo que merece o entusiasmo de muitos de nós. Era feio espreitar, ver, gostar e não dizer nada, não achas? Bem, por hoje fico-me por estas breves notas. Numa próxima oportunidade, que espero seja em breve, entrarei em contacto contigo para trocarmos impressões sobre o que entendermos interessante fazê-lo.
Um abraço do
Carlos Gouveia

Friday Favourites on Etsy

I am a massive letterpress fan! Here are some lovely cards by satsumalynn on Etsy. Enjoy your weekend!! I am heading off to a child-free day in Bowral with my sister in law and cousin on Saturday! I can't wait to browse all the lovely stores at my own leisure. Elephant boy cafe here we come!

Sean Marks Takes a Break

OH SNAP SON. Marcus you dropped that ball, man. Go get it. I'll just hang out here. Can't believe you're just throwing the ball out of bounds for no reason. Kinda wack, bro.

I'm freaking out? How? Because I'm yelling OH SNAP? Big deal. Maybe if you didn't throw the ball out of bounds for no reason I could just relax and set some back screens. Looooooove setting back screens.

OH SNAP. I'm gonna go set some back screens after you get that ball.

Mike Woodson is the Tipping Point

Y'all probably already know that Mike "Carl Winslow" Woodson of the Atlanta Hawksers shaved his eyebrows off to convince his team that he was crazy so that they would win in order to not upset their clearly insane coach. BUT did you know that Mr. Mike Woodson started a trend amongst the more style-conscious NBAers?

That is a true fact.

I found the pictures.

Charlie Villanueva was the first to try it, even before Mike Woodson did it. But people were kind of weirded out by Charlie's devotion to this look. He might have taken it too far.

Trying to show solidarity to both Charlie (both have bad contracts) and Mike Woodson (both of their cities can't believe their team still employs them), Jared Jeffries went eyebrowless. It's actually an improvement.

When all these guys started shaving their eyebrows off, Brad Miller took notice. Since he likes co-opting Black style, he adopted the shaved eyebrows look as well.

Then Troy Murphy attended the Symposium for Big White Guys Who Shoot Threes and saw Brad Miller and he was like, "nice, bro." He went home and shaved off his eyebrows because he thought that's what the whole group was doing. Whoops.

Then Troy Murphy came back to Indiana with no brows, and Earl Watson realized that his massive caterpillars needed some trimming so why not just get rid of them totally. Typical Earl Watson, always kinda messing things up just a little.

Since Brad did it, I had to do it. It's for art, guys. I might also look in to chest hair/giant hands removal. If you know anybody that specializes in that very specific area, holler at me.

As you can see, Mike Woodson is the classic "maven" from Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, a book about random capitalization. It was his daring to bring style to the court that made it okay for all of us to shave our eyebrows.

Shave yours off tonight, take a picture, and it will be posted here. Together we can shave lives.

Birthday goodness

My delicious birthday cake - nothing good in it, oh maybe the 5 eggs :-) Muddy Chocolate Cake by Donna Hay, cooked by moi. I had a lovely day, thanks for the well wishes. My daughter enjoyed blowing out the candles so much we did it twice. I finally started on my honeycomb smocked cushion cover too! It is very time consuming but hope it will be worth all the effort! I am just using a cream linen/cotton blend from my stash. I also received the most gorgeous Japanese sewing pattern from my cousin Gret. I can't wait to try it out - it's for a children's top two ways and converts to a dress. Fortunately there are a lot of blogs that help out with the translation/instructions but I think it will be a lot of guess work and possibly trying it out in a muslin first!

Grace Designs - In Etsy treasury

It's always lovely to be featured in a treasury! The lovely Vicki from LilliputLoft has featured another of my photos in her treasury entitled Child's play - I love those top 3 images especially.

Chandeliers

I could do a whole series on Chandeliers - oh I love them so. When I was 10yrs old we moved from the Snowy Mountains to Sydney on Christmas Eve to a house that was over 100 years old. My sister and I had a chandelier a little like this one in our bedroom! Sooo extravagant and glamorous for a young girl. I loved lying in bed at night staring at the chandelier pretending they were my beautiful jewells - we also had an elaborate pattern on the roof which I memorized and could trace in the air - it felt like a castle. Mum, Dad and my youngest brother still live there. Speaking of 'little brothers' - the surprise baby of the family starts as a senior in high school this week - eek. {image - Mahine on Flickr}

The "Chill Out, Juwan Howard" Chronicles, Part 7

Tracking Juwan Howard's ill-fated stint with the Portland Trailblazers...

Chill out, Juwan Howard. You're just shooting a jumpshot, relax a little. Oh my bad. Let me guess, your back is tightening up. Because you're like a thousand. I guess that makes sense, unlike your continuing Team Jordan affiliation. Although I'm sure that helps out their age discrimination diversity. Maybe call up your best buddy Lance Armstrong to see how he stays so limber.

Chill out, Juwan Howard

Happy Birthday to me :-)

My 30's are fast disappearing as I edge towards that other 'age bracket' - eek... I don't have much to tell today as I am about to disappear into a lovely day spent with my hubby and daughter - It's Australia Day here in Oz and the nation celebrates with a public holiday and fireworks among other things :-) I'll tell you all about it tomorrow. {image}

Some Things

• As of today I'm blogging the Olympics for Yahoo!'s Fourth Place Medal. I'm basically the Blog Costas of the Internet. That doesn't really mean anything, but it sounds kind of important. Nonetheless, Blog Costas says you should read my writing over there.
• Additionally, I'm still writing at Ball Don't Lie, too. Read it. (You already are.)
• What does all this mean for The Blowtorch? I don't know. You might not believe this, but these jokes I come up with come pretty quickly, so I'm hoping to continue making these jokes. Outside of during the actual Olympics (Feb 12-28 only on NBC and Yahoo!), things should still be active around here, but maybe a little slower. My fingers are just thinking out loud right now.
• I'm on Twitter again. NETWORKING.
• Remember that book I was writing? LOLers, me too. It's finished, but rather than settling for publishing it myself, I'm going to at least try to sell it. Why not, right? It's 2010. If that fall through, THEN I will settle for publishing it.
  
• That's enough inside blogsball. Here's a picture of Harry Potter at a Lakers game:
  

Monday Musings

I had to start off the week with a gorgeous image from Ali Harper. Hydrangeas are one of the few flowers that are lovely both fresh and dried. How was your weekend? We had a few social events but tried to balance them with some chillin at home. Which was very hard to do Saturday in this awful heat. One of our elderly neighbours organised a 'get-to-know your neighbour' afternoon tea yesterday. We met all sorts of weird and wonderful people :-) Reena was a real character in her late 70's who gave me a few toys for Anya to play with while telling me she didn't believe in conditioning little girls to be mothers!! Not the sort of view point I expected from someone of her generation, good on her. How well do you know your neighbours? It's nice to have somewhere to go for an impromptu cuppa or to borrow an egg or two don't you think?! Have a great week.

One Picture, Every Decade

I was checking out this picture of two floppy-haired bros shooting hoops against each other.

And I was looking at it really intense style and then I unlocked the key, which isn't how that metaphor works. But I uncovered the hidden message. I think it's a Da Vinci Code thing, because this picture recalls every era of NBA basketball, except for the 1940 which hardly count.

BREAK-DOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

• 50s - non-muscular, light skinned legs, a hallmark of the early all white NBA.
• 60s - unkempt 'power to the people' hair and ineffective headbandery recalls the Summer of Love
  
• 70s - faux-tro wine and gold Cleveland Cavaliers uniforms
• 80s - too short shorts
• 90s - a center part and five o'clock shadow, ladies
  
• 00s - pointlessly updated Los Angeles Lakers jerseys
• 10s - this picture was taken in 2010

So basically this is the perfect picture for our times. Every true NBA fan would have it tattooed on their back, with the annotations so that it makes sense.

The NBA is a melting pot. We put in European and Argentinean chocolates, melt those chocolates together, and then after they have combined to form a nice Euro-Argentine chocolate paste we spread it on wheat toast and maybe put a little honey on top of the chocolate paste and enjoy it. Maybe we have another piece or maybe we get diabetes, we can't see the future.

"Tomorrow never knows." -- Ringo Starr
"For real." -- Trey Kerby

Friday Favourites on Etsy

I definitely do not spend enough time browsing Etsy - but that is probably a good thing (for my wallet anyway)! Here is a gorgeous tea towell from Skinny laMinx aka Heather Moore. I follow her blog which is both amusing and inspiring! It's too pretty to dry dishes on don't you think! Have a brilliant weekend...

Offense, with Dahntay Jones

1. JUMPSHOT: Square up to the hoop. Get balanced. Knees shoulder width apart. Jump straight up, and land where you started. Eyes on the rim.

2. DRIVING TO THE RIM: Stay under control. Use an attack move. Prepare for help defenders. Make good decisions.

3. FINISHING AT THE RIM: Strength is the key. Concentration is crucial. Release the ball as close to the rim as possible. Play through the contact. Take the defender up with you.

4. USE YOUR OFF HAND: Strengthen your off arm. Jump off your inside foot. Practice until if feels natural.

5. HAVE FUN - Enjoy the game. Smile.

Craftig - another wonderful pool of tutorials

I discovered Craftig just before Christmas. What a great idea from Kristen Magee, a self-confessed craft junkie :-) Basically it is a big round up of links to various free tutorials. They are grouped into themes, i.e: Crochet, Eco Friendly, Bridal etc.. with the ability to subscribe to an RSS feed for individual categories - very handy!! You would all agree there are sooooooo many tutorials and free craft ideas out there but not enough hours to find them all. More info on how to register and submit ideas here. Now what to make first??? I love this ruffled shirt by Tea Rose Home.

Darius Songaila Supports Dunking

Ohhvkaay, Vadon. Make zis doonk shot. I vill give you hand wif making of doonk. Seence you are faht mahn vith faht neck, I vill helpt to leeft you off ze grounds.

Niiiiiiice ahnd easee weeth ze doonk. Joost make a tall jump and make zay doonk.

Oh wows, Vadon. You are un GIRTHY man, Vadon. I cahn barley leeft.

I keed. I keed. Of corpse Daryus cahn leeft. Strenf!

Bot vreally, you shood mah-be loose some of yore weight, Vadon. Note goot fors yours hart.

Kids Pattern

This was supposed to be Anya's birthday party outfit for last October (spotty theme) but we had a cold snap and she had to wear Jeans and a long sleeve shirt underneath! However we have gotten alot more wear out of it in the warmer weather. What crazy mother makes white linen pants for a 2 yr old!??? {Ermm, the same one who bought her a white winter jacket for this winter! ha ha..} Anyway, this pattern was a quick and easy one from Burda. You may notice I changed a few things to suit myself, i.e. no frills on bottom of pants and no elastic or gathers on the sleeves to make them puffy etc.. I think a sleeveless version in some AB fabric would look nice too.

What Is This Guy Laughing At?

Hey, I like posting up as much as anyone outside of Paul Wall, but for the life of me, I can't figure out what is so so so so so funny to Eugene Pinkoxfordshirt up there. He's just loving life. BUT WHY?

Maybe because of this:

• Just watched the 5ooth Jones episode on his iPodPhone.
• Found out about Skype.
• Kevin Jonas got married.
• Received the R. Kelly Light It Up Tour DVD in the mail and watched the part that Aziz Ansari was talking about.
• Realized that exactly half of R. Kelly's songs are about making sex and the other half are inspirational self-help songs, which is a pretty weird breakdown.
• Started reading The Blowtorch.
• Is just a jolly fat man who likes to laugh.
• Bananas.
• One of his buddies wore a sweater that looks like the calibration screen on an HD television.
• Farted.
• Just likes having a good time.
• Found out his dad had Twitter.
• Rewatched The Happening.
• Can't get "Day Man" out of his head.
• Actually choking on a delicious churro.
  

But maybe it's none of those things. If you think you know what it is, throw it in the comments/bag.

A arte de bem defender...

Tenho seguido com redobrada atenção o campeonato da NCAA (Espn America) , particularmente no que diz respeito à equipa de Kentucky (Calipari e o seu ataque DDM).
Contudo muitas outras equipas se destacam como por exemplo a nº 1 Texas que faz da defesa em meio campo a sua principal arma . Com uma defesa colectiva conseguem pressionar todas as linhas de 1º passe.
O filme e alguns “clips” ajudam a entender melhor a forma como a executam . Curiosamente não divergem muito da clássica de defesa de Duke (Mike K) com a grande vantagem de terem jogadores mais fortes atleticamente o que lhes permite pressionar sempre a bola e os jogadores.




Tudo começa com a sobremarcação aos jogadores do perímetro. Os “Longhorns” sobremarcam todos os jogadores do perímetro mesmo os que estão perto da linha de meio campo.


Nesta sequência, o defensor de Texas coloca a mão e o corpo na trajectória do atacante e não lhe permite ir buscar a bola à mão .
O atacante não perdeu a bola foi obrigado a jogar de forma diferente.






Recuperar (Recover)
O maior problema com este tipo de defesa agressiva é que fica muito vulnerável aos cortes nas costas (backdoor). Contudo os jogadores de Texas estão bem treinados são atléticos e conseguem recuperar rapidamente a posição e a bola. Sobremarcam forte e recuperam ao mesmo tempo.(deny hard, and recover )




Ajuda (Help)
Finalmente, é quase impossível ter uma defesa individual sólida se não tivermos uma atitude colectiva . Texas funciona particularmente bem quando o defesa ao portador da bola sé ultrapassado , reagindo como um bloco na tentativa de parar a bola.

Behind the scenes - photoshoot

The cutest thing was Anya bringing out one of those story book view-finders to 'take some photos' of Auntie Liz - just like Mum was! I am wishing my sister-in-law lived in Canberra not New Zealand - I much preferred taking product shots on her head than mine.

O "meu" menino na Suécia....

O meu ex-jogador Justin bailey, que tão bem jogou na nossa liga (Belenenses e F.C.Porto)não pára quieto e agora está a jogar na Suécia.

MACRO Monday - Gardenia

I took this photo in my Mum's garden - so pretty you can smell it! Oh I would love to make a gardenia that looked this good. I hope you had a lovely weekend... ours was a mix of relaxing and boring chores. I sent hubby out on a man-date Friday night (read_movies with a friend) but the funniest thing was I packed him & his mate an apricot tea cake (Donna Hay - mmmm) with strict instructions to eat them in the car not in public ;-) They were off to see Avatar which I hear is good but not really my style. I might watch it on DVD one day... Anyway.... here is to a great week for all!

Back In the Day

Despite my parents' warnings my sister insisted on wearing her red shirt to my fourth birthday party. Other than the trampling, it was pretty fun.

Top 100 crafting tutorials on The Long Thread

These blog posts are like GOLD don't you think? Ellen from The Long Thread has posted her top 100 crafting tutorial finds for 2009 which include her own clever creations. You will never run out of things to make and inspiration from other fellow crafters. My cousin Gretel from A little red ribbon made the list too with her linen drawstring gift bag under bags, pouches and purses! Enjoy perusing the list!