AD.

WALKING ON THIN ICE

good times bad times

December 31, 2009 1 Comment

color my world – foto by Smith

I’m not one who devotes the last day of the year to introspection and analysis because I engage in both every day of the year. As well I don’t sit down making New Year’s resolutions to better myself because again that is a daily activity.

The year’s been too varied and complicated to briefly sum up – and again that’s not needed because I blog almost daily.

So I’ll shoot the last of my good and bad headline harvest wad. The first section is the headlines I find have good implications showing the better side of humans, while the second portion ponders how evil, selfish, mundane and stupid most of us seem to be.

~ ~ ~

GOOD LINES:

Detroit Man Turns Misfortune Into Art

Tennessee Man Buys Gas For 80 Strangers

France’s First Lady Carla Bruni Strikes Up Friendship With Homeless Man

NY Mom Gets Sight Back, Sees Daughter For First Time

Cute Animals Kissing

Beautiful, Sustainable Homes Made Of Straw

The Book Isn’t Dead Yet

California Restaurants Ban Trans Fat As Of January 1

Thirst: A Terrific Debut Short Story Collection by a Peripatetic Quadrogenarian

Senate Confirms First Openly Gay US Marshal

Boozer Busted After Calling 911 for Bar Ride

Man Unloads 58 Guns At Compton Weapons Exchange

Belligerent Ivana Trump Gets ESCORTED Off Plane

Obama Moves To Curb Federal Secrets, Reverses Decision By Bush

Christmas ‘Miracle’ Birth Has Some Claiming Divine Intervention

Rare New Year’s Eve ‘Blue Moon’ To Ring In 2010

France Permits Partying ‘Til The Break Of Dawn

Judge Rules Cities Can’t Use Federal Law To Justify Banning Medical Marijuana Dispensaries

~ ~ ~

That was the good, nice, amusing portion of our news headlines cast. Now (if you decide to hang around, and you need not because you already know how venal and inhumane humans can be), here is how most of our world was these past 10 years of greed, theft, murder, lies, backstabbing, war crimes, and power grabs (and that was just Dick Cheney’s contribution).

~ ~ ~

BAD LINES:

Polls Show That People Don’t Know What They Want But They Want It Right Now

Breast Implants And Bound Feet — What’s The Difference?

Uncle Sam Wants To See Us Naked

The Global War on Stealth Underwear

How to be a Perfect Wife, Mother, Career Woman and Super Hot Sex Babe? Buy More Stuff!

Strippers, Sluts and Army Wives

Jesus Robots, Poo Dolls, And Blandness Girl: The Craziest Japanese Toys Of All Time

LOST IT: Man Kills Dog, Streaks Through Country Club, Pours Coffee On Head

Hedge Fund Manager Tased Employees, Hired Dwarf To Pull Pranks

Right-Wing Response To Attack Scare: More Religious And Racial Profiling

‘Being Lectured By Cheney On Terrorism Is Like Being Lectured On Fidelity By Tiger Woods’

‘Help Us Raise Money To Save America, Destroy The Opposition’

Montana Tennis Courts Rebuilt With Stimulus Funds

“Only One Thing Can Make People This Stupid, And That’s Money”

Poverty Shortens Perfect Health By 8.2 Years

China Executes British Man Said To Be Mentally Ill

Who’s the Biggest Douchebag of 2009 — Sarah Palin or Tiger Woods?

What I Learned From A Yam

86-Year-Old Indian Governor Resigns After 3-Woman Sex Tape Surfaces

and this one–Is Life After Death Possible?–reminds me of a bit of doggerel I wrote back in the early 1960s:

Quantum Stereo

You ask – is there life after death?
Now holding my breath
And intending no mirth
I reply – is there life after birth?

The graveyard’s filled
The graveyard’s full
Yet still the dead are dying
This lifeless life
Makes death look dull
And you wonder why I’m whying?


turbulent times – foto by Smith

HIMALAYAN LENTIL CURRY

December 31, 2009 No Comments

Yuyu taught me how to make Himalayan Lentil Curry. I’ve made several batches since he’s left, and here’s my current rendition of it:

1 bag lentils, soaked overnight
6-8 onions, diced
1 head garlic, diced
2 ” ginger, minced
6-12 chopped tomatoes or mebbe a 15-oz can chopped tomatoes – about 6 cups of tomatoes, I’m guessing
1-2 T turmeric
2-4 T chani dal masala (this is a very hot spice mix)
2 T garam masala *
2 T mustard seeds *
2 T cumin seeds *
3 T coriander seeds
1 t cardamom seeds *
8 cloves *
2 chilies, chopped, with seeds *
1-3 C vegetable oil
1-2 sticks butter
1 can coconut milk
1-2 limes, juice of *
1/2 C goat cheese *

* Items marked with asterisk are not necessary

Roast cumin & mustard seeds in pan 1-2 minutes, until they start to turn aromatic. Roast coriander separately. Grind coriander (can smash with hammer in plastic baggie, or coffee grinder). Or you can use the coriander whole, but ground seems better for texture, especially if there is a lot of it.

The timing seems to work if I chop and cook at the same time. By the time I’m done chopping one ingredient, the mixture is ready for me to incorporate it in.

Chop up the onions. Then start heating 1-3 C oil in big heavy-bottomed pot on medium. While oil is heating, start chopping the garlic. Put seeds in oil for a few minutes. Then add onion and garlic to the oil. Add a little bit of salt (1/2 t?) Fry until onion fairly translucent and aromatic, then set to real low flame.You can spend this time dicing the ginger. Then add ginger, chiles, turmeric, chani dal masala and garam masala. Stir. Put on low heat. Start chopping tomatoes. When halfway through chopping tomatoes, add what you’ve chopped to the oil, set the flame a little higher to like a medium flame, then chop the rest, and then add the rest. Cook down about two minutes, then add lentils and cloves and enough water to cover mixture. Mix well. Bring to a boil, then let simmer on low for about an hour to an hour and a half, covered, stirring every ten minutes or so.

Near the end, add the coconut milk, lime juice, goat cheese and butter, mix in until melted and well incorporated. Smash cardamom seeds and sprinkle on. Add salt to taste. You could set it to simmer for a while until it seems ‘right’.

The end result should be a very fatty, delicious, aromatic, tomato-y stew, somewhat reminiscent of sloppy joe flavor – more dense liquid than lentil.

Serving sizes are very small, about 1/3 C. It’s a very rich food, full of delicious fat. I eat it with pita or rice. I figure there are about 25 servings per pot, at about 50 cents/serving. It’s full of antioxidants and fiber and satisfies your hunger for a good 6 hours.

Lady K

eoy report

December 30, 2009 1 Comment

ice on our car window – foto by Smith

We began 2009 living a mile up in the mountains in Oaxaca Mexico down near the Guatemala border. We end it here under the gray cold snowy skies of Cleveland Ohio. This in the trade is known as a wrong-way-play.

Here are the end of the year status reports on our three web sites.

~ ~ ~

TheCityPoetry.com – Lady K’s online zine of artists and poets:

2009 – 106,378 pages . . . or . . . 293 pages per day
2008 – 97,769 pages . . . or . . . 268 pages per day

Gained 25 pages a day for an increased readership of 9.3%

~ ~ ~

WalkingThinIce.com – Lady and Smith’s blog of travelling 31 months in 10 countries on 3 continents then returning to live in the United Corporate Mistakes of America:

2009 – 869,496 pages . . . or . . . 2,395 pages per day
2008 – 948,601 pages . . . or . . . 2,599 pages per day

Lost 204 pages a day for a decrease in readership of 7.8%

~ ~ ~

AgentOfChaos.com – Smith and friends art and poetry (at 3,500 pages, this may be the largest art & poetry site on the web):

2009 = 867,728 pages . . . or . . . 2,390 pages per day
2008 = 982,406 pages . . . or . . . 2,692 pages per day

Lost 302 daily pages for a decrease in readership of 11.2%

~ ~ ~

The three sites rack up 5,078 pages viewed per day (this does not count our MySpace pages or Lady’s Face Book page).

I noticed the traffic on Ice and Chaos both dropped drastically as soon as we returned to the U.S.A. to live.


speed of light – foto by Smith

TRUE FACE

December 29, 2009 2 Comments
I found out how to take photos of peoples’ true faces. I found Smith’s. It’s benevolent but sometimes kinda trickster. Sometimes it looks like an alien turtle:

What you do is you take a picture of someone’s forehead and eyeballs, upside-down. But like, you really have to see the face to capture it on film. Otherwise it’s just the top of a forehead and eyeballs, upside-down.

I see a very happy turtle here:

It’s interesting cuz, like, it looks like the forehead really wants to talk, only it can’t. And guess what your real nose is? Your real nose is… your third eye. Only you have a third and fourth eye, cuz there are two nostrils. At least that’s what it looks like with Smith. I made this discovery whilst massaging his temples. I started with the toes, and ended with the temples, and found his third and fourth eyeballs.

The funny thing is, I was saying to him that I really didn’t care about his forehead. That if I had to choose, I’d pick his eyes/nose/mouth hemisphere over his forehead hemisphere. And then, all of a sudden, his alternate/true face made itself appear! And so I then decided that it’s kind of hard to choose (I mean, if I had to.) It’s like the true face wouldn’t shine unless threatened.

Here’s my true face. I’m kinda a space alien hippie. I call myself ‘Kydal3’:

Welcome to my planet.

So I wondered what other peoples’ true faces look like. I found some interesting ones:

Queen Elizabeth (above) is a rather lovely, glowing alien.

I wondered what Obama would look like. It seemed best if I inverted and used the bottom half of his ‘conventional’ face as well. He seems to be holding some kind of weird alien fingers up to his eyes. And his smile seems a little bit forced when you look at it this way:

I *had* to try Cheney, too. It’s kinda scary.

I wonder if evil shows up in a face if you just rearrange it properly. But no matter what, I couldn’t make the Dalai Lama look evil. He kinda looks like a Dalai Lama-Dog:

Now, Bush might be the reincarnation of Lucifer. Look at him just kinda looking down, seeing what he can get away with:

Or he could be the Cheshire cat:

Hillary Clinton looks like she’s just, well, kinda confused or something, or a kinda soft, ooshy, sweet monster:

For something truly surreal, try Hitler:

2 face

December 28, 2009 No Comments

Thought it about time to show you our true faces. We are not of this continuum. We come from far fractals through derived equations parsed in parallel planes. Take us to your Schemer. We mean no harm. We only want your water. Since you are destroying it anyway, we figure it would be ethical to transport it back to our dimension before you ruin it. Don’t worry, we will pay — we’ll give you shiny technological beads for it.


Smith true face – foto by Lady K

Lady K true face – foto by Smith

2 phase – foto by Smith

true face Lady K – foto by Smith

true face Smith – foto by Lady K

old cold gold freedom mime

December 28, 2009 No Comments

happy daze aren’t here again – foto by Smith

More harvested headline weird schemes and nightmare dreams taken from inside this old cold gold mine of freedom mime called The Democracy of American Capitalism and Its Related Moral and Ethical Precepts in Action During Its Time of Decline.

May next year suck less than this year, as this year sucked slightly less than last year since we got the war criminal mass-murdering Cheney Bush Beast out of their illegal occupation of the White House.

~ ~ ~

So many bogus stories, so little time

Cop Pulls Gun On Snowball Fight

Santa packs heat, robs Nashville bank at gunpoint

Man Strolls Into Diner With Knife Stabbed In His Chest, Orders Coffee, Complains About Weather

New Mexico Woman Constantly Aroused After Car Accident

Why Men Fake Orgasms

Woman’s Eyes Glued Shut After Eyelash Tinting Mishap

Controversial Billboard Of Joseph And Mary In Bed: God ‘A Hard Act To Follow’

Why Aren’t There Sleazy Sex Scandals Involving Powerful Women?

10 Ways to Screw Over the Corporate Jackals Who’ve Been Screwing You

Detroit’s Unemployment Rate Is Nearly 50 PERCENT

The Human Grease Murders

Israel Admits Harvesting Palestinian Organs

Pakistani Court Orders 2 Men’s Noses, Ears Cut Off

Iran Police Gun Down Protesters, Protesters Fight Back

Paramedics Ignore Dying Pregnant Woman While On Coffee Break

Glenn Beck Named ‘Misinformer Of The Year’

Glenn Beck ‘Raised The Stupid Bar’ To ‘Nearly Inapproachable’

Sarah Palin: I’m Not the Biggest Liar Of The Year

Pregnancy Banned By Iraq Army General: Pregnant Soldiers Could Face Court-Martial

Con Man Convinced Bush Administration He Could Predict Terror Attack

Jesus Hated War — Why Do Christians Love It So Much?

Marijuana Laws Behind 12% Of All City Arrests

Grandmother Accidentally Feeds 3-Year-Old Grandson Pot Cookie

Kids’ Top Searches In 2009: Porn, Sex Top The List

Texting Drivers Six Times More Likely To Crash:

Mom Calls 911 Over Son’s Video Game Obsession

Author Calling FBI About Negative Amazon Reviewers?

Video Gamer Uses Xbox To Lure Underage Teen Into Sex

New Home For Dogs Who ATE Their Owner

China’s Last Wild Indochinese Tiger Is Killed And Eaten By A Villager

IS THAT A LIZARD IN YOUR POCKET: Smuggler Busted With 15 Reptiles On His Body

Pig’s Farts Start Huge Gas Leak Scare

Man Sought By Police For Sniffing Butts In Supermarket

Well, That Sure Sucked: Good Riddance to the Devil’s Decade

“The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.” — Thomas Jefferson


redline warning – foto by Smith

good news vs old mold

December 27, 2009 No Comments

hearth and home – foto by Smith

Almost every week I’ve been harvesting nasty horrible ugly headlines from the news and blogging them as a slice of where-we-are-as-humans feature.

Then I thought why not harvest some good positive headlines as well to show the nicer more positive side of humanity.

Well, I’ve been collecting good headlines for a month already and have found almost none. I mean, there are a lot of positive headlines out there, such as the one guy who’s made a thousand teddy bears to give away to the needy, but the headlines are so innocuous and bland that they make for boring reading. Which goes to show why the newspapers scream out doom and disaster because those headlines have punch and demand interest,

Another thing I discovered was I could get more than enough nasty, ludicrous and stupid headlines in a couple days, whereas I’ve been a month gathering these 12, and they aren’t all that great to begin with.

And I suppose not all would find positive what I find positive – like Giuliani not running for office. I find the fact that a greedy power-hungry lying son-of-a-badness politician is not going to run for office a good thing while evil heartless ethics-dead brain-blank republicans might see the same headline as depressing.

I also found the fact that Afghani soldiers are too stoned to go out and kill their fellow citizens to be a positive thing, while other could see this differently.

Anyway, here’s my slim sip of cheer at the end of this uncheerful year.

At 94, She’s the Hot New Thing in Painting

Badass Cat On Roomba Slaps Pitbull

No Holds Theory Of Life: Pain And Holiday Blues Are Money In The Bank

Rudy Giuliani To Announce He’s Not Running For Senate

Alcoholic Monkeys (video)

Afghanistan’s Hashish-Smoking Troops Struggle To Prepare For Battle

Donkeys Escape From Vail, Colorado Nativity Scene

Priest: It’s OK To Shoplift From Certain Stores

Mysterious Benefactor Buys 15 Rooms For Homeless On Christmas

Obamas Travel To Hawaii, Get Lei’d

2009: The Year The Cubicle Died

Boy Fends Off Dog Attack, Saves Siblings


future swallows – foto by Smith

CAT SNAKE

December 26, 2009 No Comments

Cat bit Steve in the kitchen. She’d initiated a petting, and then turned on him and bit him, drawing blood. He was bewildered.

“That’s her nature. She’s a snake,” I told him. “She’s a little cat-snake.”

He sat down, painfully slow, creaking into a thump on the sofa. She watched him descend then wagged her tail and crossed the room to me. I could feel just a little breeze as she passed. That’s all she needs to stimulate herself sometimes, a little breeze.

She touched me lightly with her tail as if to tap, as if to warn or entice. There’s no way I’m gonna try to touch her, I thought.

She spent all night sleeping by me, either on my chest or side or across my shoulder, her face resting on mine. She caressed my face periodically with her paws, her nails out just a little bit.

Lady

lady xmas eve

December 24, 2009 1 Comment

Lady in south nook – foto by Smith

It’s Lady K’s birthday today – she’s my Xmas Eve present from the past. This is her fifth bornday since we took up together.

Before she walked over my doormat that said GO AWAY, I was a hermit who stayed home alone in the dark muttering in his croaky cancer-riddled voice. Now I’m a healed, twice-married man who just returned from a 31-month 22-city 10-country 3-continent world walking — all thanks to her.

We’re different, she and I — different genders, different ages, different heights, different generations, different demographics, different philosophies, different inclinations — but we’re eerily similar creatively.

We’re two candles, one flame.


camera Lady on Lake Erie shore – foto by Smith

which planet?

December 22, 2009 2 Comments

coldfire – foto by Smith

Outside the fire’s flame
In this dark encroaching cold
I hold my wife, warm

This was one of 50 haiku I wrote in high mountain cold two years ago while picking Mexican coffee, yet find it’s true up here as well in Cleveland’s encroaching winter.

Every so often Lady stops and looks at me and says, “I don’t know the rules on this planet.”

Neither do I. That’s probably why we’re together.


the man in the moon – foto by Smith