The Two-Toned Spotted Brown Cow

I decided I needed to get the last project finished today since I head back to work on Monday.  Instead of trying to sweep it under the rug and "pretend" it wasn't there, I sucked it up and rolled up my sleeves to complete what I'd started.

The "before" picture can be found here, and here's the piece today, sanded and unstained.  To me, it has promise for a junky piece of furniture - especially when it's down to bare wood.

And here it is stained....

I'm SO NOT digging the two-tone brown blotchy cow look to this, considering the amount of work put into it.  Fred thinks it'll look better once the polyurethane's on, but I'm not convinced.  It's the most uneven stain application I've ever seen.  I'm about ready to hang a cow bell on it and expecting the thing to start mooing at me as the application looks like spotted cow hide.