Two young travellers arrive in a small village in France, carrying nothing but the clothes on their back and a large cooking pot.  Hungry from their long journey, they ask the villagers for some food.  Unfortunately, none of the townspeople are willing to spare even a modest amount of food to the two young men…

The two men set up camp in the early evening near the center of town.  They start a small fire and fill their cooking pot with water.  Into the pot, they place two small stones.  The many people of the town walk by, staring at the young men, wondering who was foolish enough to give them food to make their soup.

Finally, one villager, a small child, asks the men what is in the pot.  One of them explains that they are boiling a couple of stones. When the boy asks why, one of them responds, “We are making stone soup!  You are welcome to have some when it’s done, if you’d like!”

The child’s mother inquires, “Stone soup?  I’ve never heard of stone soup– is it good?”

The other young man replies, “Oh it is normally fantastic, but unfortunately it is a little bland at present.”

The woman, interested in a free bowl of good soup, offers to contribute just a little cabbage to add some flavor.

Waiting by the pot for her soup, the woman sees one of her friends, an elderly lady and tells her about the soup.  The elderly lady scoffs, and says, “A soup with no meat?  How terribly unfortunate.  My husband is the butcher, I shall get us some chicken.”

Soon, more and more villagers stop by so as not to miss out on an opportunity for free soup.  Nearly every single visitor, unsatisfied by the current state of the soup, takes it upon themselves to add their own favorite ingredients.  Some carrots, a little pepper, potatoes, noodles, and so on…

Soon, there is a quite hearty stew being made in the once-empty pot.  When the entire town lines up for a bowl of stone soup, each of them thanks the two strangers.

As many of you know, I had got a tattoo a while back at a terrible place of business known as Pittsburgh Ink.  In general, the whole thing was a terrible experience–

The guy at Pittsburgh Ink, Q was his name, started the tattoos the day we walked in, but Jess and I had to come back several times just to find a time when he was open so he could finish them, and then, after all that, the end product wasn’t all that great, for either of us.

Well I recently came into a bit of money, and I had wanted to get that tattoo touched up for several months now, so I saw this as an opportunity to finally do it.  I called up Danielle, who I know works at Human Production and asked if she knew anyone who could do it.

She told me to come in, and I met with Zane, and he had the idea of doing an entire coverup of the old tattoo.  The new tattoo would be much larger and much more awesome, and feature something more relevant to my life– The Tale of the Scorpion and the Frog!

He drew it up, and I spent about 5 hours under the needle earlier today.  The experience ranged from agonizing to trancendental at times, and in the end we decided to break it into two sessions.  At the top of this post, you can see a picture of it… and you can see a slightly bigger one.

It’s not finished yet, we still need to do the blue in the waves and he said he was going to go over all the outlines again to make them bolder.  It’s not going to be finished for 3 or 4 weeks because of my Portland trip, but I’m really stoked for it and I think it turned out pretty well.

So the bottom line is that if you want to get a tattoo in Bethel Park, to the best of my knowledge you only have two options– Pittsburgh Ink and Human Production.  Pittsburgh Ink should be out of business, whereas Human Production is a high quality establishment.  And that’s Kevin Dolan’s word!

And on another note, I’d like to point your attention to a Kevin Dolan imposter on YouTube which was brought to my attention by Elena… link.  The show is an absolute disgrace to my name and should be taken off YouTube.  There are some funny parts, and I’ve always been a fan of awkward silences, but the only redeeming quality of the entire show is Eugene Chen– he should take over the show.

Scorpion had lived on the East side of the river valley for his entire life, and as he reached his second year, he asked himself what might await on the other side.  Now as we all know, scorpions are unable to swim…

Scorpion approached the bank of the river with dismay, seeing no easy way to cross the river.  He searched up and down, but the rainy season had left the river bed far too high for any exposed rock to act as a bridge.  Scorpion considered crafting a makeshift raft, but we are all too aware of scorpions’ carpentry skills.

Alas, his plight seemed all but hopeless until he happened upon a lonely frog sitting calmly by the river.  Scorpion approached carefully, so as not to frighten the frog, but scorpions are a fearful creature after all and the frog withdrew into the water.

Scorpion yelled to the frog, “Frog, I am Scorpion and I would like to cross the river, but I cannot swim!  Can I hop on your back and ride across?”

The frog responded suspiciously, “But you are a scorpion?  How am I to know that you will not just sting me?”

Scorpion thought hard about how he could prove his innocence to the frog.  Perhaps some logic would do the trick!  “My dear frog, if I were to sting you, I would be left in the middle of the river to drown, for as you know, I cannot swim!”

Scorpion’s words were enough to convince the frog, so he agreed to ferry Scorpion across the river.  The frog swam to the bank and allowed Scorpion to climb atop his back.  Scorpion’s claws dug into the frog’s back, but the frog was still one to help his fellow animal.

As the frog began swimming across the river, he considered whether this would be the start of a lifelong friendship between him and Scorpion.  He wondered if Scorpion might return the favor by scaring away the stork on the West bank, who always troubled him so.

Just as the frog’s mind was wondering, he felt a sharp pain in his back.  He quickly began to feel his limbs going numb and his swimming began to slow.  He cried out to Scorpion, “Why have you stung me Scorpion? Now we are both going to drown here in the river!”

Scorpion replied simply, “Frog, I stung you because I am a scorpion.”