I took a sunset flow paddleboard yoga class recently that was an absolute blast. The class was led by Kelly Huck of SoCal Paddle Yoga. She was great, so if you’re interested, I recommend check that site. She also took the photos in this post!
It was on a lake in Mission Viejo, which meant it was relatively calm, making for easier yoga.
It was kind of weird following pose after pose while slowly drifting apart and sometimes facing haphazardly away from most others. I kind of liked the disconnect. It made it feel like I was in my own little world.
I like headstands, so I couldn’t resist.
Crow is definitely much easier on a lake than in Newport.
Unfortunately, the class had to end. I’ll need to go again!
This weekend was fun for a couple reasons. First, there was a party for Duncan and Matt’s birthdays. We had dinner, socialized, and played some games.
This is probably the only photo worth sharing. Yep, that’s a s’more with a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup and giant marshmallow.
This weekend was also the Long Beach Sand Sculpture Music & Art Festival. It was so much fun! I probably would have had the same amount of fun even if the festival wasn’t there and we just went to the beach haha.
We had a tasty meal of Korean BBQ burritos from Seoulmate in the park before heading down to the beach. I used one of those giant, human-sized hamster balls and slammed into people. I don’t have any photos yet because they weren’t on my phone. It was fun, but it was hot. So hot. I also jammed my thumb back while inside, and it was aching all day (and more). It’s getting better though! When I got out, I was feeling dizzy from the heat and dehydration. We got some water and then went into the ocean to cool off.
There were lots of cool dogs to watch as well as the sand sculptures themselves of course. I brought my DSLR out for the first time, and Luke helped me a ton. It was a hand-me-down, and I didn’t have the manual nor did I know much about it. I might not have the skill, but at least Luke explained what most things mean. I feel much better about using it now!
We also visited a skateboard stand. Anela and gem got skateboarding lessons! They didn’t care about the guys.
Oh, and I played with hula-hoops! It was super fun actually!
I also got to playtest Joe’s new super hero board game. It’s pretty amazing. He’s really talented in a lot of different, creative ways. I’d share photos, but I wouldn’t want to leak an unreleased game. š
Spotify introduced the Discover Weekly playlist, giving users custom playlists of new music based on their usage. So far, it’s been pretty amazing for me. If you haven’t tried it yet, check Browse > Discover > Discover Weekly.
Checking my Last.fm reveals that in the last week, nine of my top ten played songs were from my Discover Weekly playlists from the last two weeks. Spotify’s algorithms seem spot on; they certainly know what I like. Discover Weekly is a single playlist that’s updated every Monday. Because I want to save them, I make a new playlist that’s a duplicate of my Discover Weekly. When the Discover Weekly is changed, I still have my duplicate.
One song it recommended was Obsessed With You by The Orion Experience. It recommended it to me two weeks ago with the introduction of Discover Weekly, and it’s now my 38th most played song ever according to Last.fm. That’s crazy. I guess I listened to it a lot. Whoops.
I’ve been looking for ways to discover new music, especially since there are some kinds of music that I enjoy but about which I don’t know much. This is a perfect way to discover new music! And in the interest of discovering new music, here’s a selection of tracks that I’ve enjoyed from my Discover Weekly playlist:
The Orion Experience – Obsessed With You
The Bird and the Bee – F-cking Boyfriend
I Fight Dragons – The Geeks Will Inherit The Earth
MisterWives – Twisted Tongue
Beautiful Small Machines – Counting Back To 1
Crayon Pop – Bar Bar Bar
Garfunkel and Oates – Gay Boyfriend
Morgan Laurence – Come On! Come On!
Dixie Flatline – Just Be Friends
Noah and the Whale – 5 Years Time
If you use Spotify and haven’t checked out your Discover Weekly playlist yet, you’re missing out every week you don’t take a look!
My favorite podcast, My Brother, My Brother, and Me, recently had a entire episode sponsored by Totino’s. That’s hilarious all by itself, but the episode was pretty great. One fan wrote to the show discussing how he prefers to pan-fry his Pizza Rolls.
“A few years ago I brought home Pizza Rolls to discover my roommate had broken the toaster oven. At the time, we didn’t have a microwave, and I didn’t want to wait for the oven to preheat. My solution was to grab a frying pan and some extra virgin olive oil and fry my Totino’s Pizza Rolls! They came out great, and now that’s the only way I prepare my Pizza Rolls. I cannot think of another podcast more suited for this anecdote.”
I’d be crazy not to try it, right? Last Friday was Pizza Day as The Aquabats would say, so it was the perfect day to try it out. Thanks to gem and Anela for helping make the video and eat delicious Pizza Rolls with me!
And the results? gem and I both preferred pan-fried Pizza Rolls. I thought they were awesome! We were in agreement that baked were next and microwaved were the worst (but still totally worth eating). Anela preferred baked over pan-fried but agreed that they were both better than microwaved. Well, two out of three isn’t bad. Thank you, Totino’s, McElroy brothers, and mystery writer to the show!
In addition to the OC Fair about which I already posted, my weekend was full of some other things too. For starters, Antonio and I went with Anela to iHookah, where she danced.
Thankfully, that’s a still photograph and not a video. In that case, let me assure you that Antonio and I are amazing dancers. Thanks to iHookah for posting photos! It was Antonio’s first time smoking hookah, and it was a good time. I really like iHookah too; they have great service, and the staff is super friendly. It’s fun to watch Anela dance too!
I also hung out at gem’s a few times. On Friday, gem, Anela, and I had dinner, watched TV, and played Super Mario 3D World with gem’s brother. Sunday night, after the OC Fair, gem, Antonio, and I took turns playing Splatoon. It reminded me of being a kid!
It’s that special time of the year where I eat terrible fried foods, watch bunnies, and look at all the cool competitions – the OC Fair! This weekend I went with gem and Antonio and had a great time!
I definitely ate some bad food, including some fried Oreos. It’s not a fair without high calorie food. It was delicious, but my stomach did seem a tad confused at the terribly unhealthy food it received.
I really enjoy looking at the collections every year.
This ticket collection by John Dettle was one of my favorites (probably because I have my own). I assume they’re all tickets of events he attended himself, but I guess I don’t know for sure.
I also love looking at the other competitions – food, place settings, photography and other visual arts, crafts, it’s all so cool. There were a lot of cool photographs and paintings, giving me a lot of cool inspiration and ideas despite not being super artistic myself. The place settings are always interesting too. This surprised me the first year I saw them; I didn’t expect to care, but I do! There were lots of neat crafts too. I especially like the scrapbooking!
This rabbit was my favorite. He was super energetic, running in circles, climbing on his box, and jumping over his box. As soon as I had the idea to record him doing it, he stopped jumping over it. I was patient, and he eventually jumped over it for me!
We played a coin tossing game, and gem won a small prize! She intends to give it to Sumo. I was hoping to win a minion so I could send a video to my cousins of Sumo chomping it, but I wasn’t good enough to win one.
I haven’t posted much about my recent cooking, so this’ll be as quick look at a few things. First up, mango-jalapeƱo salsa! This was pretty simple with mango, jalapeƱo, cilantro, red onion, lime juice, and some seasoning. Here it’s served on tilapia on a bed of mixed greens, but it goes great with chicken too as well as chips!
For lack of a better term, I was just calling this a Greek potato. Not much to this really – just a Hasselback potato with feta and honey, but it’s totally delicious.
Farm Direct had some cheap, delicious marinated pork collar butt, so I bought it a few times because it was easy to use with other things.
With onions, bell pepper, and some eggs, it was perfect.
I should go buy more actually.
I’m probably too old to share something so dumb, but I liked these anyways. These pizzas were made with Pillsbury Grands! biscuits. At first I used a whole biscuit per pizza, but I revised them to use half a biscuit per pizza. Less calories, less carbs, more tastiness.
I’m glad Anela shared the video with me from BuzzFeed Food!
I had an orange bowl and a watermelon bowl from Color Me Mine, so I recently decided to add to the collection by painting a kiwi bowl.
My photographs don’t show the outside much, but it’s brown, unsurprisingly. It’s actually bigger than my other two bowls, which I guess is kind of sad since kiwis are smaller. But I think it’s cute anyways.
San Diego Comic-Con 2015 was super awesome! It was my first time cosplaying besides wearing my Aquabats costume one day last year, and it was really fun. My favorite part of these conventions has always been looking at the cosplayers and getting photos with them; it’s interesting to participate now. I attended with gem and Antonio as usual. I cosplayed an Aquabat, Professor Monty Corndog from the Aquabats, and Fix-It Felix, Jr. from Wreck-It Ralph while gem cosplayed Sadness from Inside Out, Woody from Toy Story, and Vanellope Von Schweetz from Wreck-It Ralph. Here are some of the cosplay highlights! Thursday I wore my Aquabats costume. It made the most sense because I was going to their concert later that night. The first photo I was asked to join was this one, shot by Kenneth Yeast. They were posing near me actually! The photographer took a photo of my business card and was nice enough to e-mail me the photos. From left to right, that’s me, @freeddc, @kaitlynfreed, and @lilbelle74 from Instagram. I’ve seen them on Instagram through Aquabats tags and concerts for a while, so it was especially cool to get photos with them.
This is @hollandtayloegedney (Instagram) who won an award this year for her Elsa cosplay. She was really nice, and it was fun talking to her.
After I posed with Finn and Fionna from Adventure Time, gem worked her Snapchat magic to turn them into Aquabats!Walkers can’t stand the might of an Aquabat.
I wouldn’t want to be hit with that hammer!
*boink* Ow, my head! Edit: When I first posted this, I didn’t even realize that was Dangerous Pixie!
I also met my favorite hero, Daredevil! Edit: This is Tony Rios, @EL_LOBO209
I got in some yoga too.
And a little more. On Friday I cosplayed Professor Monty Corndog from the Aquabats.
While in line for a panel, some Aquabats lined up behind me.
Woody (gem) and I posed with some minions too!
Clay Carmine of Gears of War chainsawed me in the neck! gem performed some Snapchat witchery again.
Professor Monty Corndog of the Aquabats meets Professor Utonium of the Powerpuff Girls!
Breaking Despicable? I guess this minion found someone despicable to follow. When I asked for a picture, Jesse said “yeah, bitch.”
And here I am with the Aquabats! Professor Monty Corndog is much more obscure than just the Aquabats costume, so I knew no one would really recognize it. Luckily the Bat Commander said, “Professor Monty Corndog… is that you?” It was so worth it to get this photo with them!
My final cosplay was Fix-It Felix, Jr. from Wreck-It Ralph, which I did on Saturday and Sunday.
More Snapchat voodoo from gem. I really love this.
Here I’m fixing up this kart. Awesome Mario Kart cosplays!
I also fixed this adorable Companion Cube while posing with her and Chell.
Speaking of adorable, isn’t this Maleficent just the cutest? I think this was my favorite cosplay of the con. My heart kind of wants to explode.
I high-fived Fix-It Felicia!
Later I got in a wrestling match.
I even tried to fix the Flash right in the head!
I wasn’t in costume for these, but I saw some cool cosplays while I eating dinner too.
Feed me, Seymour! Feed me all night long! Check out that Audrey II!
I couldn’t resist a photo with the Globo-Gym Purple Cobras!
gem even did yoga with Dhalsim!
The Aquabats concert was amazing. Here they performed a cover of The Pixies’ Where Is My Mind. They also showed a video they’re going to pitch to TV execs to try to get The Aquabats! Super Show! picked up. It showed the MCBC begging a cloaked wizard to help. He reveals himself to be Jack Black, absorbs the Commander’s powers, and transforms into an Aquabat. He agrees to help and talks about how we’re all Aquabats before using his magic to transform a bunch of celebrities into Aquabats, including Weird Al Yankovic, Tony Hawk, and more. It was very cool.
They even signed my set list!
I also met this guy who isn’t wearing a costume because he’s a regular guy. It couldn’t be the Bat Commander. The Bat Commander doesn’t wear normal shirts like that. He was really nice, and he talked with me about getting more involved with the Aquabats. It probably helped that gem gave him a bunch of snacks! And speaking of gem giving snacks, she gave care packages to other people, such as Todd from Toddland. He was super cool. Technically gem got his number!
We saw Allie Brosh of Hyperbole and a Half. Her panel was moderated by Felicia Day, and it was super great. gem gave Allie some cookies and snacks, and Allie was very appreciative and nice. They hugged and took a photo together. We also saw a panel about Jhonen Vasquez, creator of Invader Zim. He was very down to Earth and discussed how scary it is that some people identify with parts of his crazy comics.
We ran the Walking Dead Experience, and I did it in my Aquabats costume. It was really fun.
We arrived in Petco Park as survivors, and someone escorted us inside, claiming it’s safe. Of course, walkers showed up, and we had to run. They’re all played by volunteers who couldn’t really hurt us, but I got into it and definitely ran hard and dodged walkers. Eventually we met a second group of survivors who weren’t as friendly. They killed our leader when they found out we didn’t have supplies. Our talks were cut short when walkers approached, and we all had to run again. At the end, they decided to cull the weak. They chose someone from our group to kill, and it ended up being Antonio. They had him kneel as they raised a club to kill him. Luckily for him, walkers arrived once more, and we ran for it. Antonio said that as the walkers arrived, someone (presumably staff) lifted him to ensure he didn’t get trampled. It was so much fun!
Let’s see… what else. We ran into Bryan Lackey, a fantastic trumpet player. I know him from Skapeche Mode and Failed to Victory. He was really friendly and stopped to chat with us for a while before taking a photo and friending us on Facebook!
We also went to an art exhibit called Super Video Game Land by Anthony Bulcao at the Mission Brewery. He paints scenes from video games and is really talented! He had two painting from Spaceship Warlock, an old adventure game I loved as a kid. I was most excited for those two. He said he wasn’t confident about including them, and that I was the only person who talked to him about them. I’m glad I did!
I also participated (badly) in a kazoo and ukulele play-along, met Rikki Simons, voice of Gir (and more) from Invader Zim, played games at the Nintendo Lounge, and sang along with gem while she played Martian Girl in a line. Such an awesome weekend!
I know they’re not going to read this, but thanks to all the people who asked for photos and appreciated my cosplay – the Aquabats group photo, the jedi, the dude with the swords, and the three or four other people who liked my Aquabats costume, and the Nintendo employee, Quailman, the little Captain America, Ariel (who was excited and wanted a photo after I asked her first), and the other 14 or so people, especially the little kids, who liked my Fix-It Felix, Jr. It made me very happy!
This weekend was full of fun! The big thing on my calendar was the Om Kalthoum Tribute Show on Sunday. Anela had told me about it a few weeks in advance, and I was really looking forward to it.
Duncan and I picked up Anela and her friend Marina from Anela’s place. It was my first time meeting Marina, and it was very nice getting to know her during the ride! She danced with Anela in the same set.
They performed a shamadon, which is an Egyptian candelabra dance. I hope I got that terminology correct! I was sure to have at least taken photos, but Anela asked me to record it, so I did that. I couldn’t get closer due to some distractions on the side (which also caused kept causing me to lose alignment sometimes), but at least I got it recorded! It was really awesome, and the dancers were quite skilled. The amount of talent my friends have is amazing.
After their set, I went to the bathroom and found the dancers in the back. Of course, I had to stop for some photos.
And I had to get one with another dancer at the end of the night too, Bethany Rose, who was also one of the organizers!
The event was held at Byblos in Los Angeles. The food was delicious, and it just kept coming too. They were also very accomodating. The show started at 8:00, but we got there at 5:40 or so because the dancers needed to be there by 6:00. I asked what time we could come back, and they ended up letting us wait inside, even opening the bar so Duncan and I could have some drinks while we waited. During dinner we met a man and his date who were very pleasant and talkative. Shortly before the show started, we met two other people as well, one of whom is actually part of the dance troupe but wasn’t dancing. It was great talking to them as well, although we didn’t get a lot of time.
Okay, but what about the Fourth of July?!
Whoops, I didn’t take a lot of photos. Kaylin and Andy hosted a party at their apartment. Here’s one photo I took – burgers, tomatoes, and bacon cooking in delicious bacon grease. When gem, Duncan, Matt, and I arrived, Mariam was already there. I don’t know her well, but we’ve talked before, and it was nice chatting with her. Collin, Niki, Joseph, and Mariana arrived later. We ate a ton of delicious foods, had some great conversation, and played Werewolf and Cards Against Humanity. gem and I also took a short break from the party in the middle to visit Anela for costume help (and to deliver some food). It was a great Fourth!
And there was also Friday.
I went ice skating in Anaheim and climbed on this bike outside.
I also played ping pong at the Anaheim Packing District. Did you know you could rent paddles and a ball for free? Awesome!
What a fantastic weekend! And now I’m off to San Diego Comic-Con for what I can only assume will be another great weekend.
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