Merry Christmas!

Watch out for the Blarg Monster! She eats Santa!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Mr. Turkey says Happy Thanksgiving!

And maybe don't eat me? I'm actually going for the Tofurky this year. Wish me luck? I've been lazy previous years and ordered from Whole Foods but this year I was even lazier and never made it to the ordering stage. TJ's for Tofurky it was! So now I've got my Tofurky in the fridge, plans for at least adding some seasoning, and... I dunno, I guess that's it? There's lots of other food happening in this house.

I'm going to go have some coffee now. I need it.

Bad Art: Israel Edition

A full fledged Israel post is in the works but in the mean time, I give you this. Bad Art from Israel. It was Saturday afternoon in Jerusalem and being Shabbat there wasn't a whole lot for us to do beyond hanging out in the park. Which was actually very, very nice. Some people wandered, some people played frisbee, others napped. I drew unicorns? And a weird bunny guy? Or tried to at least? Yeah, that happened...

Stuck In A Tree

You may remember that a while back I began taking requests for whatever. Really, whatever. I was bored and asked my Facebook friends for ideas of what to do. From time to time I've posted the results on this blog (all that bad art? you bet!) but I haven't actually had access to a scanner for the last few weeks. Until I discovered the one in our office yesterday. Yes! The bad art is back!

This particular request came from a fabulous former co-worker while we were all out at the Reno Farewell Party. I was telling the story of how in my senior year of college I got myself stuck in a tree. The next day she put in the request for a visual representation. Who am I to say no to that?

Without further ado, I here now present to you... me. In a tree.

  

 

 

... THE END.

I Can't Wait For A Scanner

Warning, I'm very rambly tonight. In that I ramble a lot. Rambly isn't really a word guys, I just made that up. In case you were wondering.

 

I can do only so much with the camera on my cell phone. My scanning abilities will be returning shortly though! We are all very excited for this, no? And yes, that's supposed to be me. There is more that goes along with that! Like, a whole story about how I got stuck in a tree! See why I need a scanner???

 

It's the Thinking Mud Puppy. Did anyone else know that mud puppies are stupidly adorable? I mean, my thinking man kind of moved away from adorable. But check this guy out:  

Cute right?

Then there's the unstoppable partners Cobra and Shark. Great White Shark to be exact.

 

 

I have to admit that these guys were super fun to sketch. I mean come on, the guy has a cobra for a necktie. The guy is a Great White Shark! With an Indian Cobra tie (the only cobra long enough for the Windsor knot, apparently).

I have odd friends with bizarre ideas. I love it.

Hey! Other stuff!

My friend Lauren talked about cool t-shirts over here.

If you're in LA you should check out Little Radio and the stuff that they do. I went out to their September Camp on Sunday in downtown and it was pretty great. Good music, tasty food and beverages, a pool... I believe it was the last of the Summer Camp events but they're around doing other stuff. Totally worth the time and $10.

Spotted this guy on the street walking up to the Little Radio thing.

It's a Green Pussy Monster? Um. Okay, I may have just wanted an excuse to call something a Pussy Monster on my blog. It also kind of looks like a weird cactus thing but that might just be me.

Moving on in the rambly...

Am I the only one who thought the True Blood season finale on Sunday was a little bit of a let down? Not that it was terrible... but... I just feel like it could have been so much more. I think that Maryanne storyline was dragged out way too much. There just wasn't enough there to be interesting for as long as they tried to keep it interesting.

I hate to end this on a sad note and unless you're living under a rock you've probably all ready heard, but Patrick Swayze died today of cancer at 57. It's not a huge shock as he had been sick for quite sometime but it's sad nonetheless. I still have a huge crush on Dirty Dancing Patrick. I probably always will.

Good man, Patrick. Good man.

The Cake that was Baked

Oh man, guys, the cake is good. I feel like I've been on sugar overload for the last three days. I am extremely pleased with the results. First off, the frosting is amazing. It's a perfect blend of tang from the cream cheese, sweetness from the absurd amount of sugar, and vanilla from, well, the vanilla. I adore it.

The vanilla bean experience was a fantastic one. I'm even in the process of making my own vanilla extract from the leftover bean. Should I be as excited as I am about this? I think so.

The cake itself is great. I was super paranoid about the baking time since our oven isn't the most consistent and made sure to check it at precisely 25 minutes. To my surprise, it was actually ready right then so I pulled it out. Somehow I managed to not dry it out at all! It's moist and wonderful. Personally I would almost like it to be more chocolately but I am kind of a chocolate freak. I've had no complaints from anyone else.

No complaints except from L who was a bit dismayed by the amount of sugar and butter and cream cheese involved. Not that she's wrong in that, this is not a healthy dessert.

I almost never eat sweets like this so I honestly really don't care. Since I generally try to go vegan in my baking so J can partake, a lot of what I do tends to be more on the healthier side (not that vegan is necessarily inherently healthy, I've still made some very unhealthy vegan treats. The healthy is just more likely in what I usually make). I'm perfectly happy to indulge every now and again.

I'm bringing some of the cake in to work tomorrow. We'll see what my coworkers think!

If you're curious to try this yourself, visit grammar monkey on her blog Do Not Feed the Editor. Actually, you should go visit her even if you don't want to bake the cake. She's awesome and entertaining and most definitely worth the visit.

While I was baking I did a mini "photo shoot" of the process. The pictures are up on Flickr for your viewing pleasure

Also for your viewing pleasure, more bad art! I'm sadly going to be slower on the uploading of my sketches since I don't have easy access to a scanner at the moment. For Jeremiah's sketch I actually took a picture with my phone and uploaded that. Not ideal, but whatever works!

Enjoy this for now! I've got another few coming and always feel free to add to the requests.

Jeremiah the Possum. 

He who lives outside my window.

Bad Art, Cont.

I need to make one thing abundantly clear. I cannot draw. I really can't. My sketches are beyond silly. Their quality however is thankfully not the point. The point is that it's something I'm having fun with.

The bad art has continued.

For some reason, the requests I've been getting have mostly involved sea creatures. Although J has now requested a sketch of our local favorite, Jeremiah. That damn devil eyed varmit... So as soon as I'm done with the Chupacabra meets Narwhal, I'll be giving the possum a go. Who knows what will happen after that.

For now, here are my latest two. A happy Narwhal and a Monkfish.





Now if you're following me on Twitter you've all ready seen these guys (and if you're not, why not???) Just for you folks who have all ready experienced the wonder of the happy Narwhal, I'm also giving you some failed sketches. I know, if my successful ones are this bad, how awful are the failed ones? Pretty terrible!



Follow me on that tweeting thing! www.twitter.com/theladysrevenge

Now that I have a small handful of these silly sketches, I'm considering taking this another step. Since I'm not an artist and have no real aspirations to become one, I'd like to do something that relates a little more to what it is I am trying to do. Writing. I can't make any promises on this, since I am still neck deep in a screenplay that needs lots of work, but I do have a writing project in mind for this bad art. I'll keep you posted and hopefully even have a start on it soon.

Sometimes I Do Things: Bad Art and Baked Eggs

Believe it or not, unemployment can occasionally be boring. Shocking to hear, right? I fill my time with a lot of things: my writing, cooking, reading. The internet can be a huge time suck. However sometimes, that all is not enough. Or sometimes I just need a little additional inspiration.

The other day the boredom got the best of me. So I reached out to my dear friends and asked for suggestions. I've gotten a couple of interesting ones.

Unfortunately the one involving a trip to Portland isn't quite possible for the girl who has hardly worked this year. Drawing a Mermaid Punk Band though? That I can handle.



Even more exciting than my bad art, is my baking. My friend Liz suggested I bake but left the What up to me. After some thought I decided to go savory with some baked eggs. You can bet I am happy I went with that decision.

Combining ideas from Tastes Like Home and 101 Cookbooks (I love this site), I made this incredibly satisfying lunch.



Baked Eggs

3 Eggs (or 2 or however many you want, I was hungry)
Butter
1/2 Tomato
1/2 Onion
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1 clove Garlic
paprika
cumin
red pepper flakes
pinch salt

Preheat oven to 375.

Heat Oil in a skillet. Add Onion, garlic, paprika, cumin, red pepper, salt (and any other seasoning you want). Saute a few minutes until the onion is soft but don't brown the garlic. Add the tomato. Saute another few minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.

Line a small oven safe dish with butter (or whatever buttery spread you prefer). Crack one egg and add to the dish. Add the onion and tomato mix. Add the next egg or two. Place in oven and bake for 15-20 minutes.

I decided to top my eggs with salsa and it was delicious. If I had planned ahead a little more I think I actually would have made some salsa from scratch. The tomatoes from the Farmer's Market were that good. I also had a couple of pieces of toast and a side of blueberries.

I think next time I'd go closer to the 15 minute end rather than the 20 minutes. Or possibly try the oven at 350. Either way, this oven I'm using runs a little hot and I generally like my eggs just slightly less done than they were. I think next time I'll also leave off the salt. The cumin and paprika were more than enough and the red pepper adds a nice kick.

I seriously need to make this all the time. It's so amazingly good. I also really want to try a few of the variations suggested on 101 cookbooks.

Sunday Brunch anyone?



***

I've also received a few other suggestions I plan on exploring over the next couple of weeks. Or however long it is I end up being unemployed for. Next week there will be cake baking. There may also be some knitting. And more bad art. Definitely some more bad art.

Feel free to suggest anything else I should try! I'm open to almost all things new.