Beef Stew

I made this up last night, and I may tweak it at some point, but it was DAMN good, even better the next day.

2 pounds cubed stew meat
1 can family size tomato soup
3 cups water (more or less, whatever your preferred thickness is)
2 tablespoons honey mustard
2 tablespoons crushed garlic (fresh)
6 med. or 5 large potatos (diced)
4 large carrots (cut up)
2 tblsp cilantro
2 tblsp basil
2 tblsp parsley
salt and pepper to taste

In one large pot, combine everything except the meat. bring to a boil, reduce to simmering. While doing this, brown the stew meat over a medium heat (no spices, no oil, nothing, if its good meat it will make its own liquid). You need not worry about it being completely cooked, just browned nicely. Add the stew meat to the boiling soup mix, including all the juices it produces. Cover, simmer for about an hour, or whenever its as thick as you want it and the veggies are cooked. We ate it served with biscuits, and it was damn tasty.

From Finland with Love

Jukka from Finland has emailed these two photos to me from a shop called Tattoo Heka.

The first one is a couple’s tattoo. They had tattoos that say 猴愛狗 (Monkey loves Dog) and vice versa. Assuming Dog and Monkey are their zodiac signs respectively.


http://www.tattooheka.com/kuvia/tribal74.jpg

Unfortunately nobody in the shop, including the clients and the tattooist, has realized that the character for “love” 愛 has been placed upside down.

I have seen the exact same Asian gibberish font used in tattoos twice before, and one of them was in Finland. But, it was too late for this Finnish young man.


http://www.tattooheka.com/kuvia/tribal50.jpg

Evil Angel

This person has posted two tattoos done by Melissa Mesimer of Ghetto Inks in BMEzine’s gallery (June 26th, 2006).

One is called “Evil Angel” and the other is titled “Burning Rain”.


http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A60626/high/bmepb293004.jpg

Somehow the first character 邪 of 邪惡天使 has been separated into two characters, which are 牙 (tooth) and 阝 (a partial that means looks like an “ear”).

For those who are curious about the striations below the hands in the photo, those are stretch marks. I am not sure if the photos linked above were from a female tattooer or a very large man with gynecomastia.

Jobs Rock.

So, apparently my custom tattoo designs are good enough that Inked Studios out of San Francisco came knocking at my proverbial door the other day, asking if I would like to work for them at $20 an hour. Doing that until I become proficient enough with a needle to ink my designs myself will be a nifty little endeavor.

Apparently, they had seen my DeviantArt account and liked what they saw. I love the fact that my work is getting out there, being seen, and people are liking it enough that they want to buy it, and put it on their skin. Nothing satisfies me more than seeing a good ink job, done with my art.

Te Koop - I Evol You

Jonathan from Toronto has sent in this photo of Te Koop's window.



The red character 愛 is reversed.

Ironic part of this: Te Koop (Dutch phrase means "For Sale"), located on Queen street just east of Spadina, is less than a block away from Toronto's Chinatown.

For those of you think the sign would be correct when viewed from inside of the store.

It reads "愛 I UOY".