The Mod Muse

For those who may have missed this site. Check out TEXTS FROM LAST NIGHT a new blog where you can post your late night texts. Oh these are hilarious! My fav’s below:

Thanks WorleyGig!

Cruising the Internet for new ways to incorporate vegetables into my diet, specifically beets, I came across a post on a small blog, we will call Power Trip Girl‘s site. That’s not the name of the blog. The actual name is something cuter, meaning: not at all the type of thing I would be interested in reading anyway. But hey, I was looking for recipes! PTG’s blog post included a recipe for beet muffins and a photo of the muffin. Thinking my readers might find it interesting fat chance, I mentioned it briefly, posted a link to her blog and included her image of the muffin.

A couple days later we receive this snip little comment below:

I hope you will give beet a second chance thanks to this recipe, but please do not use my image without my permission. I work really hard on my photographs and to have my copyrighted photos republished without my permission is not fair to me as an artist. Please either take remove the photo or have it link directly to my Flickr image. Please talk to any artist before re-publishing their photographs, linking to recipes is ok.

PTG

Seriously?  Artist? Come on people! Listen. First, a picture of a beet muffin is not art. I’m sorry to tell you this but it just isn’t. You will never, ever, in our lifetime see a show debuting at the Guggenheim entitled- “Beet Study: The Muffin Series”. If you read the post below, it really wasn’t about beet muffins. Rather, an ode to a childhood memory. F*ck beets! I wasn’t talking about beets here!

I understand people who do not want their printed content copied word for word on the Internet. And if it were my photo of, oh I don’t know, let’s say, something IMPORTANT,  I might take offense if it were being used by some d-bag with far right leaning thoughts and theories. Then and only then, I might ask them to take the photo down (but probably not since I know the controversy would drive more people to my site).

And no offense to PTG but it’s not my first spin around the blogosphere.

A recent article announcing,  there are now over 2 million pro bloggers in the United States, has made once humble people, hungry with power. For years jotting down their thoughts in private, they now splay them out on the Internet for any old bugger to read. And that thought, the thought of another person caring about what you have to say, is every shy nerds wet dream.

People want to be adored. Having spent the better part of the 90’s in Seattle playing rock so I could have some of that adoration, I understand completely. You just want someone to care about what you are doing. Even if it’s sitting in your small mid western kitchen making casseroles.

But it’s time for a reality check.

Brace yourself, I’ll do it band-aid quick.

Get over yourself! You’re not special.

(more…)

When I was a kid, my mom would occasionally make canned beets for dinner. I hated them.  They looked like squishy hockey pucks floating in thick, red syrup to me. My lips purse at the thought of eating one right now. I thought I had filed beets away forever.

However whilst living in Denmark, I rediscovered the beet in a whole new way. Served raw in salads! The  sweet crunchy beet adds a new flavor to my crisp greens. :>  I’m still not a big fan of the canned or pickled variety but I am ready to give beets a second chance.

Update: Spoke to mom about beet memories, she’s never tried them in salads and is excited to give it a try. :>

Updated update: The “artist” of the beet muffin picture requested we not use her valuable photo for our sweet little post about our mom, childhood memories, etc…

Money has been tight since I was laid off last October. Like most Americans, I have been struggling to make ends meet. I happen to believe in karma, if you do good things, good things will come back to you. With so much suffering going on in the world, wondering what you can do to help others becomes an overwhelming thought process.  A while back I came across an article about Kiva, a micro-lending website. Through Kiva’s website, individuals can lend directly to unique entrepreneurs around the globe.How does Kiva work? I think they can explain it best so I pulled this off the website.

Choose an Entrepreneur, Lend, Get Repaid

1) Lenders like you browse profiles of entrepreneurs in need, and choose someone to lend to. When they lend, using PayPal or their credit cards, Kiva collects the funds and then passes them along to one of our micro-finance partners worldwide.

2) Kiva’s micro-finance partners distribute the loan funds to the selected entrepreneur. Often, our partners also provide training and other assistance to maximize the entrepreneur’s chances of success.

3) Over time, the entrepreneur repays their loan. Repayment and other updates are posted on Kiva and emailed to lenders who wish to receive them.

4) When lenders get their money back, they can re-lend to someone else in need, donate their funds to Kiva (to cover operational expenses), or withdraw their funds.

You can lend as little as $25. Basically people like me choose to loan whatever they choose to give, the money is pooled together and distributed to the individual (or group of individuals) so they can begin their business ventures and start enriching their lives.

These are the people I helped:

The group is called the Manos Juntas (Hands Together) Rumichaca Alta. There are 14  members that live in the District of Rumichaca in Peru. They applied for a loan through Kivaso they could buy supplies for agriculture (seeds, corn, barley) and animal husbandry (young guinea pigs, poultry, cattle) and raw materials for those engaged in hand crafts (clay, machinery and such).  When I went to the site and started researching entrepreneurs to lend to I saw they were just $25 away from receiving their loan. I decided I wanted to be that person who donated that last $25. It was exciting to think that the group would be receiving news the next day that their loan had come through and I had a part in making that happen! The next day I received an update, the group had been notified and the money was in the process of being distributed. I know tiems are tough for a lot of people but compared to these folks I was living in a lap of luxury. Could I have used that $25? Sure! But to me $25 is a couple subway rides or a meal out, $25 means a lot more to these Peruvians than it does to me. I encourage you to check out Kiva and read what it is about. Trust me, it feels great to know who you are helping and how much it means to them.

Today was a really nice day. The sun was shining and blue skies as far as the eye could see. I was happy to get get a phone call from my friend Dan inviting me to lunch in Chinatown. Dan (a.k.a. Gastrodomus) is a total foodie. I have enjoyed many fine and memorable meals with Dan. He makes it not just fun but a learning experience.You can see Dan here photographing our yummy Vietnamese lunch.

After lunch, Dan took me on a little tour of unknown Chinatown. OK maybe not completely unknown to most New Yorkers but I can honestly say I had never been to some of these streets. The best thing about the tour is NO TOURISTS! I had never been down the street you see here. And see the couple in the corner? They were actually being photographed for what I can only assume was a engagement photo, since there was a lot of canoodling going on for the camera.

After some walking around we decided since the weather was so great we needed to have a our first ice cream cone of the season. So Dan took me to   Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. It was super yummy and well worth the wait. I guess everyone else had the same thought we did.

Overall, a fantastic day!

Was walking home from a sunny day in Chinatown and saw this pink unicorn in atop a mound of junk. It was so odd and out of place, I had to take a picture of it. It kind of looks like a hippo. Can hippos be unicorns?