Ingredients: Four bratwurst sausages, one lemon, one red pepper, one orange pepper, six cloves garlic (plus two for garlic bread), 1/2 cup butter or oil, two shallots, six small pods okra, 1/2 cup flour, 4 cups water, salt, pepper, fresh herbs (thyme, curry leaf, lemon balm, basil)

Cooking Time: 60 minutes.

Put oil or butter in a pan over low heat. Grate in six cloves of garlic. Slice shallots and dice peppers, and add to the pan. Add salt and pepper to taste - about 2tsp of each. Skin the sausage and make balls out of the meat about 1/2" in diameter. Slice okra and coat with about 4tsp of flour. Add okra and sausage to pan, with remaining flour. Simmer over low heat until shallots are caramelized and peppers are softened.

Prepare a bouquet garni with the fresh herbs - one good bunch of each - and put them in a pot with the 4 cups of water. Bring to a rolling boil and simmer for ten minutes. Strain off the herbs, and add 1 cup water to the pan with sausages. Cover and cook for ten minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the rest of the water in 1c intervals, every ten minutes, and reduce the sauce. When the sauce is reduced, the sausage balls should be cooked - if they're firm to the touch and not terribly red-looking, they're done.

Serve over garlic toast, with swiss cheese melted on top - or put toast, stew and cheese in oven under a full-strength broiler for about five minutes, so the cheese is caramelized.

Enjoy!

-IB out

Anyone interested in judging, donating, advertising, buttsecksing, or anything to those effects for a contest of spoken word poetry? How about abstract photography? I'm thinking about hosting one sometime... Anyone want to lend a hand?

In other news, my cat is no longer in heat.

-IB outtie!

GOD DAMMIT, `DistortedSmile TOLD ME NO ONE WOULD KNOW!

And to think - I get the tick for creating porn, of all things, when God knows I'm so staunchly anti-porn onsite... well, I gues my secret love for minge-on-minge action has finally come out :<

I'd like to thank the academy....

Taking a leaf from the book of another senior who seems to think a journal quiz about who knows said senior the best is a hugely popular and absolutely non-self-indulgent and non-promoting-asskissery idea, here's a quiz about me Winner gets a kick in the panties.

1) Which of the following jobs have I never held? Hooker, stripper, drug dealer, head of public relations, secretary, barista

2) Which dA core staffer have I drank Southern Comfort in front of IRL? $Moonbeam13

3) When I was made a senior member, I thanked a sex hedgehog. Who is the sex hedgehog? $chix0r

4) Which former GD, who is now on dA's paid staff, am I related to? $arachnid15

5) I work in two shops. One is a book store; what is the other? BONUS POINT: What's it named? An art supply and graphics design shop called Executive Secretarial Services

6) What musical group caused $Stykera and I to have a wild night of which we never speak when sober? Chumbawamba!

7) I want to have sexitiem with Amir. Who is Amir, and what position did he hold on dA's volunteer posse? BONUS POINT: What #room did I meet Amir in? `darklylit - mn@ - #lolwat

8) Which fellow senior member of deviantART has collar bones which I frequently compare to penises? `princessmorgan

9) What is the appropriate response to ? - works best

10) I was on the board of directors of a non-profit organization. Without naming the organization, can you detail what the organization's mission was? "bringing down pedo's from the netz" - @anjules

11) Get creative: What am I wearing? Point to whoever's closest to right, point to whoever makes me laugh the most. Wearing platform shoes, hip huggers, a striped yellow and green shirt, a leather belt, and my deviantART beanie

12) Which SIX current gallery moderators do I have stored in my cell phone? ^limnides, ^oilsoaked, ^StJoan, ^opioid, ^Ghouldaddy, ^Katerina423

13) Top or bottom? Bottoming from the top angle

14) What core staff of deviantART was I semi-legitimately married to for a period of sixteen hours? BONUS POINT: Which core staff performed the ceremony? $trowlandson, with the service officiated by $Heidi

15) What is my primary musical instrument? Flute, skin or non-skin

16) What HelpDesk employee bought me the hat I'm wearing? $fangedfem!

17) What HelpDesk employee professed her love for Long Island Iced Tea on New Year's Eve 2007/8 on Skype with `lazybutt and I? $hexentanz

18) Bonus question: People who give people things for knowing the most about them in self-indulgent quizzes pimped via their status as "Senior of the Year" (yet who cannot seem to garner Deviousness) deserve to have which major organs removed and dipped in nitric acid? Spleens 'n livers.

-IB oot!

<RANT>

As an artist, I've dealt with copyright issues and art theft. I've had individuals and organizations use my work - all of which is copyrighted to myself under a standard "don't fucking use my shit" clause - to promote websites and products, to create derivative works, and to print out and toss on their walls, all without any retribution to me as the artist. I've thus lost profit - money which, as an artist who works a part-time, minimum-wage job, I could REALLY fucking use. I've fought several websites over copyright issues, and I've been at least somewhat instrumental in policy changes on two websites that deal with art redistribution on a worldwide scale. My art is MINE - if you want to use it, you can pay me my prescribed fees for non-derivative use, or we can discuss a reasonable compensation if you're creating derivative interfaces, works, or advertising campaigns. Yes, I'm talking percentages, and royalties, and all those wonderful capitalist ideals that, as an artist and as the exclusive holder of the copyright on my works, I am legally entitled to - which are my RIGHT, not just some dead horse that I'm beating because I don't want public recognition.

How, then, can it be right to offer a public viewing of a copyrighted film without paying the fees associated with public viewings of said film, simply because it's at a venue that exists for the sake of art? And how can it be considered a "private noncommercial viewing" when, simultaneous to the viewing, an art show is taking place at which artists are making a profit off of pieces which are thematically related to the film being shown?

To put this in perspective: I am a photographer. I have taken a photo of a monkey eating a banana. It is an artistic photo for which I charge a set fee to use in installations, and a variable rate when used as a part of an advertising interface.

If someone uses this photo as the cover of a book about monkeys who eat bananas, without my permission, they are in violation of copyright law, and I would be entitled not only to fees related to the initial use of the work - my flat-rate stock fee - but also the royalties which, if I were approached about this harebrained scheme, I would definitely have set - which would be about 5% of all profits. Yes, that steep. But, you know what? It's my art, so too fucking bad.

Copyright law exists to protect the rights of artists, and artists should be the most able to respect that violating the clauses in a video's copyright that state it is not to be used for public viewings is in violation not only of law, but of the principal rights of the film's creative team.

Can I get an amen?

</RANT>