Christmastime in the Valley - Part Two

December 26th started off and ended with bangs (meat bang and firearms bangs).  Here is this season's "Raish Brothers Meat Bang" ingredients.  From left to right in a circle:  Bologna, ham, goose, bacon, sausage links, polish sausage, bear sausage from that same 400 pound bear, italian sausage, chicken, SPAM, and two cans of corned beef hash.

you've seen this before so basically it's a bed of fried potatoes, peppers, and onion, topped with all the meats fried up on top, then topped with eggs sunny side up and extra sharp cheddar cheese and now with the new addition of red-eye gravy (gravy made with coffee).  And of course an obligatory leaf of basil or something green so we can shoo off the naysayers who say the Meat Bang is dangerous to society.

aaaaaand we took it another step further this year and got a real gong from Chinatown to commence the Meat Bang.  I'm not knowledgeable enough to tell you what kind of noun The Meat Bang/Meat Bang is but there are at least two kinds of noun-age going on here.  We were also throwing around a slogan that could perhaps be on a shirt to the effect of "I got Meat Banged".  You can keep going further with the jokes if you want but my mom reads this blog so sadly I cannot.  If the Meat Bang and ceremony keeps escalating at this rate every year in a few years we are gonna have to have a 3 day weekend Meat Bang festival complete with fire breathers and a whole Kalua pig roasted underground.  The possibilities are almost endless.

We were nice and made the smaller portions again.

after getting meat banged we needed to burn off some calories and climb the hill and shoot some guns.  Here is my dad's newly finished man cave in the basement with his loading press and other gun peripherals.  He makes all his own bullets.  Are they called rounds?  bullets are just the lead parts which he compresses with gunpowder into a brass shell and finishes off with an explosive primer on the bottom.

copper coated lead bullets

brass casings

I don't remember it being so epic up here.  Does mowing the hay down do that much or does being 16 years older do it?

the shooting range.

are you sleeping?

how ashamed is my dad gonna be when he sees my form?  Why am I all scrunched up like that.

we always knew wendle was sadistic but here she can't help smiling

Steven looks like he should be standing next to Robert Dinero in Ronin

gun jam.  we suck, the gun jammed almost every time for us but my dad had no problem.

we shot 4 guns in total, a 22 caliber rifle, a M1 carbine rifle from WWII,  glock 9mm, and a 44 caliber Desert Eagle. 

even on the range Jen is in fashion

Christmastime in the Valley - Part One

Christmas at home in America for the second time in a row

As we were loading up the car to drive upstate I got the most wicked pants rip ever.  It's one for the ages.  Enjoy.

the goose is loose!  gotta keep that goose cold during the drive upstate

Xmas cookies

found this classic soccer game in the attic

Steven and Sophie joined us for Christmas at our parents house.  Steven is from Newcastle, UK.  My parents and we also bought crackers, a british tradition.  They pop open when you pull them and a crown and a prize are inside.

cheese board a british tradition.  we tried to pile on as much british traditions to make Steven feel right at home even if he didn't want it.

Christmas morning.  I forgot to take a photo of Sophie's stocking and how I tricked my mom into putting her name in Chinese characters in glitter on her stocking so she could feel more at home/alienated hahaha. Someone got SPAM for christmas.

Bob got Frankies 457 normal and raw unfiltered olive oil.  It's pretty good stuff.

playing rock band

Christmas goose because it's a British tradition although Steven's never had one.  We might have gone back a little too far in history to get our traditional British Christmas ideas.

every cavity of this goose was violated by me.  Sorry

meat is pretty gross.  Looks like Aliens

British stuffing.  It's sausage with bread crumbs and apples basically.

Goose is done

bird carving instructions from dad

everyone is waiting for that goose

bob waiting for the yorkshire puddings because timing is important.  forgot to take a photo of another British tradition, the Yorkshire puddings.

so Goose turns out to be a red meat animal like duck only there is less fat and it tasted a little gamier.  We probably didn't do it very well and I don't know if we are gonna do goose again.  

There are also jokes inside the crackers and whistles in some of them with numbers on them so everyone plays a certain note in a group song like jingle bells.

the second year of our new Christmas tradition, the Buche de Noel turned out great.

2014 Illustration Clean Up - Part 2

overhauled this illustration for Gene Robinson at the University of Illinois Urbana Champagne about the effects of cocaine on bees

Illos for De Morgen's DM magazine supplement in Belgium

for the Wall Street Journal about medical records theft unlocking everything

portrait of Andrew Carnegie for Smithsonian's 100 Most Significant Americans of All Time special issue.

social media bots for the New York Times

A young Nigel Buchanan reflects on how he took comfort in food after the death of his mother.  For the Radio Times in London.

2014 Illustration Clean Up - Part 1

keep forgetting to post up the illustrations I do over the year.  This one is for Radio Times in London about the ghosts of Heathrow airport

for New Orleans Magazine about the difficulties of teaching.

for General Electric (GE) in via Kult agency in Singapore.  They had artists illustrate different facts about GE's evolution series engines.

I re-did the lettering on this Paris poster

Cover for research magazine

I did my 50th illustration for golf magazine's Rules Guy column.