As I sit here watching Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations on t.v. and awaiting my yummy curry chicken to be done, I realized that I should share with everyone this great recipe I discovered because it really is the best that I have eaten thus far. It’d also be a good idea for me to have another copy , in case I ever lost mine. :p

I would advise you to measure out all the ingredients for each step beforehand, instead of doing it on the fly. Just makes things easier and less stressful while cooking. I also divided the ingredient list into different parts to make it easier to see what is needed for each step.

The Best Indian Curry Chicken Recipe

1/4 cup and 2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 large onion chopped (I like mine finely chopped)

6 cloves of garlic (minced)
1/3 cup curry powder
2 and 1/4 tsp cinnamon powder
2 tsp paprika
2 bay leaves
1 and 1/4 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp sugar
salt to taste

4 to 6 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, cut into bite size pieces (depends how much chicken you’d like in it)
2 tablespoon tomato paste
2 cups plain yogurt
1 and 1/2 cup coconut milk

2 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper (you can use less, but I like mine a bit spicy)

1. Heat the oil in a pan over a medium heat and then add the onion, stirring until it is light brown.
2. Stir in the garlic, curry powder, cinnamon powder, paprika, bay leaves, ground ginger, sugar, and salt. Continue stirring the ingredients for 2 minutes.
3. Add the chicken pieces, tomato paste, yogurt, and coconut milk. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and cover, simmering for 25 minutes. Stir occasionally.
4. Remove the bay leaves, and then add the lemon juice and cayenne pepper. Continue to simmer for another 5 minutes.

Makes about 8 servings. I eat mine atop a bowl of regular white rice (but you can use brown, jasmine, basmati rice, etc.) with plenty of salt and pepper. Enjoy!

I also wanted to post about the changes I made to the art and photo galleries. I replaced the static thumbnails with a more streamlined flash gallery (hope it works correctly for everyone). I also hid the comments by default on those pages so that there is more focus on the art itself. You can, of course, still view the existing comments on those pages or add a new comment by simply clicking on the small link at the bottom of the page; it easily shows/hides the comments at will without having to reload the entire page or anything.

Hope you like the recipe and the new gallery system!

Until next time,

xoxo

Please be aware that if you’re browsing the site and stumble upon anything weird it’s probably the result of me making a few small changes to the layout and adding some new features. I just wanted to make note of some of the things I’ve changed so that anyone can take a look if they are interested in seeing what I’ve been tweaking…

• On the ‘Home’ page: now the page fully displays only the latest news entry, changed the position of the Latest Images to the top of the page, added links to the 5 latest news posts, changed the order of some of the elements in the sidebar.
• In the ‘About Me’ section: changed the layout from one long page to two-columns for easier reading, added a new picture, and posted more inspiring quotes with the Quotes Collection plugin.
• Added an ‘Archives’ page for easier browsing of older entries.
• Made a favicon for use with tabbed browsing, bookmarks, etc.
• New header and simplified background.
• Changed the styling of the comments and added support for Gravatars.

I’m also thinking of changing the art and photo galleries from the static thumbnails to a flash gallery format, but I haven’t decided yet! Let me know what you think of the changes I made so far or if you have any other suggestions. I’m pretty happy with what I’ve changed… for the moment anyways. :p

Until next time,
xoxo

This is just a quick post. Nothing much to write, but I wanted to post something to promote Drawing Day, which is only a few days away (June 07, 2008)! You might be asking “What is Drawing Day exactly?” Well:

“One day a year, the world stops to remember that joy we had when we first picked up a pencil and created our first piece of art - that’s what Drawing Day is all about. The goal for Drawing Day is simple - to create enough drawings to make some noise worldwide for the sake of art. 2008 is the first year of this initiative. Our goal is definitely a long-shot, but we’re aiming for 1 million drawings worldwide. We have no precise measure to know if we reach this goal. If we come close we will all definitely know. Even if we reach 10% of our goal in the first year of this initiative, it will be a great achievement but we will continue aiming for the magic million…”

I really think this is a great idea and I’ll def be participating! I hope anyone who visits my site and is interested in art (even if you think you suck at drawing) will join in also and spread the word. If you click on the banner above there’s links to more info and other promo material you can use on your blog, journals, videos, etc. to help get as many people as we can involved. Drawing Day will only become a success if we make it that way! Once you’re finished making your drawings submit them anywhere you can such as DeviantART, RateMyDrawings, Amateur Illustrator, YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, or MySpace.

I also wanted to post this nifty fortune I got the other day. I should probably be playing these numbers in the lotto or something.

Until next time,
xoxo

I just wanted to write a quick update about the end of my 2nd year in college, woo! Things went by very fast the last few weeks and since I procrastinate so much I was kinda worried a bit that I wouldn’t get everything done that I needed to, but somehow I finished it all. Now I’m just hoping that I did well on all my final exams *crosses fingers*.

The Sophomore Show evaluations were supposed to be ready at the beginning of last week, but they weren’t so I couldn’t get mine until Friday after I moved out. Moving kind of sucked because I didn’t get a chance to pack or move anything before Friday like I had wanted to since I was busy getting last minute things done for my classes. So, when my parents came to help me move, we had to pack up my whole room in about 3 hours. Looking at all the stuff I had to pack as it now sits in boxes on my floor at home, I really don’t know why I have so much stuff. For example: I can barely shut my closet door now, but yet I never have anything to wear, lol. Some major cleaning/purging is in order I think.

Anyways, the evaluations were pretty good (I “passed” haha) and I basically agree with everything the professors had to say. The major criticisms were that many pieces appeared kind of flat or static despite my ability to render things, I should try to be more expressive/less obvious in my subject matter, and that I need to “push” things further and develop my personal voice more. I’ve known most of the weaknesses they pointed out, which is why I’ve been really frustrated with my work lately. However, for me, it’s been more of just things I’ve felt and have been struggling with rather than coherent thoughts I could write down in a little evaluation, so seeing feedback like that has been helpful. It’s given me some outside points of views about my art rather that just family and friends. I hope that I can take what they’ve said and use it to make some positive changes to my work so that I stop feeling so stuck with my ideas.

The picture I posted above is an update to my last entry where I wrote about winning a prize at a local festival. I guess I won first place for the college student division, so I got a nifty blue ribbon and 75 bucks.

Until next time,
xoxo

Also at the Gallery Talk on Wednesday, Arthur announced that there was an annual scholarship given to a female with at least a 3.0 GPA and financial need. I was kind of hoping it would be me since I could really use it but, alas, I wasn’t chosen. I was apparently lucky enough to win something else, though. There’s an Art in the Park thing around my parent’s house every year. After my old art teacher framed some of my stuff for the Sophomore Show, my mom also brought in a few of my older artworks to be framed. Mary knew about the festival so she asked my mom if she could enter in my Invisible Man picture because she thought I had a good chance of winning. My mom agreed so it was entered. The festival is today and tomorrow and a few hours ago Mary called to tell my mom that I had won one of the categories. I really have no clue what category it was or what the prize is, but I’m hoping I can go there for at least a little bit tomorrow.

Only one week of actual school left and then 2 days for my finals. So much to do!
I updated the art section with 2 new pics and also posted a bunch of sketches and drawings from class that I’ve done recently. Hope you enjoy.

Until next time,
xoxo

Winter Term is just about at its end. I decided to switch out of the Film Internship after one day because I’m lame. I guess the main reason is because I felt kind of out of place being there and more in the way than helpful to anyone. I was going to try and stay with it, but the next day was the last opportunity to switch to another class. Now I’ve been taking Sociology of Gender Roles. That class has been going pretty well, I think I have a high B so far. I decided that I’m going to be taking the final exam to hopefully raise that to an A (it’s worth a shot lol).

I have a long weekend coming up and then Spring Semester starts Wednesday. I really wish I could somehow fly to Boston tomorrow night to go see The Birthday Massacre concert. That’d be awesome, but obviously not gonna happen.

I’d like to start adding more content to this site, too. Putting things like tutorials and other resources would be cool, I’m just unsure what exactly to add. I did replace the standard smilies for some custom ones (not made by me) which are pretty cute. It would be great if I could make some stickers for the site so we’ll see what the future holds.

Until next time,
xoxo

• Painting of a chained girl, making her own prison.
• Maybe actually finishing an old tattoo design I never did…
• A quite open-ended painting/picture dealing possibly with betrayal.
• Plus anything else I feel like working on for myself. I was thinking of perhaps going back and actually painting some of my old photomanipulations, we’ll see about that…

I will most likely be doing those on Winter break, after exams. That time just seems to make the most sense since I’ll be very busy in January doing something completely different (and hopefully awesome). I’m going to be doing an internship and helping work on an actual film that’s being made in January. I forget the name of the film, as well as the director, and I have no clue what it’s about (wow I’m informative, huh?), but part of it is being filmed on my campus with the rest taking place in various areas around the county. Supposedly the actors are relatively popular and recognizable, though I doubt I’ll be able to reveal too much about the film in general for fear of being sued or something. Not completely sure what I’ll be doing on the film, but most likely it’ll be something artsy like set design or wardrobe stuff or various other tasks we’ll all inevitably rotate through. I really hope it’s a cool experience since it seems to be and that my lack of film production knowledge doesn’t mess with me enjoying myself.

I think that’s it in terms of what’s been going on, nothing too eventful happening in the next three weeks except me scrambling to get end of semester things sorted out. Wish me luck…

I actually uploaded my second painting from my art class, which I’m pretty happy with. Kind of different than what I usually do. The assignment was combining drawing with painting, so that is my result. This past week was also my first time drawing a live model..nude! Mwahaha, ’twas interesting I suppose. I might post that too once I finish it more. I’m looking forward to my Sophomore show at the end of this year, though I don’t know anything about it, it still seems like it will be fun. My first show! Aww!

In other news: got a lame ass parking ticket, the book Women’s Lives is very boring but Women Across Cultures is pretty awesome, went to a Native American concert/storytelling thing, fell in love with India Ink, drank many Slurpees, and bought some new art supplies which made me happy

Time to go do French worksheets and read about Japan. Woo.

The opening band theSTART went on about an hour later. They were really good too, just wish the lead singer’s mic was up a bit more.

After that it was TBM. So much better than when we saw them at the Czar in Tampa. Kinda bummed I can’t remember the setlist at all barely, and our attempts to snag one after the show were blatantly crushed by the loser photographer guy who walked right up on stage afterwards and grabbed the last one, proclaiming “What? You want this setlist? Sorry, this setlist is mine.” lol blah. They played lots of new songs though, most of which I tried capturing with the vid option on my digital camera. They came out so-so.

Hung around after the show cause we wanted to take pictures with the band and hopefully have them sign something. Didn’t have anything to sign though lol so I ended up buying one of the nifty posters they were selling for $12.00 (wow expensive). By the time we went up to see em, Chibi was the only one still hanging around so I got her to sign my poster and took my picture with her (WOOO!!). Then we had to go outside where everyone else got their picture with her too and she chatted with us for a few minutes. Hehe.

Dennis wanted a picture with Rhim though too, so we went to the lame after-party across the street for a bit cause the band said they might stop by there afterwards. Stayed there awhile, there was barely anyone there, few people at the bar, a few on the dancefloor dancing by themselves, lol. But no TBM while we were there. Tried going across the street to get back into the Theater to see if the band was there but the guys in the front at the bar said no re-entry.

So we generally waited around a bit more with no luck on finding Rhim/other bandmates and ended up heading home around midnight. Got a little bit lost in Tampa dropping them off and then Dennis and I drove back home, very sleepily.

The End. For TBM pictures click here or goto my photos page!

I was really confused, though, because I was able to get the MySQL things working somehow (in spite of having absolutely no knowledge about database stuff), but I could not figure out how to get my PHP shoutbox to work properly and actually let people post in it. Sigh. But it’s all better now, and the page looks just how I intended hehe.

I’m going to have to integrate the main page into the rest of the site so that everything is more unified, but only after I tweak it a bit further and get everything exactly right. So, yeah, expect some visual experimentation of this page in the next few days. Maybe if I motivate myself, I’ll also work on some unfinished art projects that are making me feel bad for not having finished them sooner. We’ll see.