Category Archives: Journal

Birthdays, Restaurant Week, and more

There were lots of things happening last week! Saturday the 22nd was gem’s birthday. I baked her a turtle cake, which I talked about previously. She and Edward came to my place for cake before we went out to celebrate. gem wasn’t sure what she wanted to do ahead of time, but she decided to go to Color Me Mine.

I painted a Horde (from World of Warcraft) plate to go with my Horde stein. I had actually painted the stein years ago, but it broke during the firing process and I never got around to fixing it. Luckily the people at Color Me Mine this time told me that if I brought it, they’d glue it together for me, which they did!

After painting, we wen to Gen Korean BBQ. We got there just before last call, so we were trying to order a bunch of food. The waiter was nice enough to just pick stuff for us, and he placed a big order. We were all stuffed, but we managed to get through it.

Sunday morning Collin and I went to Newport to eat at Zimzala. It was fairly empty, but that just meant that we got to hear some rocking tunes from Danny Maika and make a lot of requests.

Later that night, I went to Zenko Sushi with Anela and gem for the weekend’s second all-you-can-eat meal. We had a nice time!

By Monday I had gained 4.70 lbs since Friday. That was expected. Unfortunately, I felt a little sick, but I didn’t think much of it. Monday night Duncan treated Collin and me to Chipotle. It was fun eating with them. We brought it back to the house and watched… uh… Twitch Plays Pokemon on the living room TV.

I guess Chipotle was the last straw for my stomach. Something made me pretty sick, and I was up most of the night. I ended up calling out sick Tuesday and Wednesday. On the plus side, I lost all that weight I gained and much more! Tuesday morning I still tried to eat normally, but my stomach rejected everything. Even my mouth rejected normal foods! I chipped a tooth eating a protein bar. I should note that the protein bar isn’t crunchy in any way.

gem recommended I make soup, so I did just that. My stomach didn’t seem to hate it, so I ate it Tuesday night, all day Wednesday, and early on Thursday.

I was still incredibly bummed about Harold Ramis dying as well, so I decided to spend some of my limited waking time watching Ghostbusters. Let’s not dwell on this, because I’ll get depressed.

I was feeling a lot better although not perfect by Thursday. I finished the soup for my lunch that day. Late that night, gem came over because it was my birthday and she had a gift for me. She bought a cast iron skillet! I had been wanting one for a while, so that was pretty cool. We also decided to order pizza. It was a terrible idea since I was getting over food poisoning, but it was also my birthday and I love pizza. Luckily my stomach accepted it without complaint.

Friday I celebrated OC Restaurant Week by going to Marrakesh for Moroccan food with Collin, Duncan, and Mimi. The food was delicious, just like I remembered it. I had a tasty salad, lamb, baklava, and tea. I also had a Lebanese beer and some mixed drink called a Belly Dancer. It was tasty, but I can’t remember what was in it.

After dinner, we all headed back to our place to hang out, watch Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and have some wine. There might have been an extraordinary amount of Snapchatting as well.

On Saturday I went to The Melting Pot with gem and Edward to celebrate my birthday. I’d been there a couple years earlier for my birthday and really liked it. It didn’t let me down! First there was a tasty salad. Next there was a Wisconsin cheese trio with bread, veggies, and apples. For the main course there was a nice broth with chicken, steak, mushroom ravioli, shrimp, and lobster tail. There might have been a glass of wine and dirty martini in there too!

For dessert we had dark chocolate fondue with marshmallow cream and crumbled Oreos. We dipped Rice Krispy treats, brownies, pound cake, bananas, strawberries, cherries, and cheesecake. The cheesecake dipped in the chocolate was so amazing! Because it was my birthday, they also brought me a chocolate covered strawberry with a candle. The waiter told Edward to sing for me because he wasn’t going to do it. He mentioned something about how it’s too bad nobody had a ukulele. Unfortunately, we didn’t have gem’s ukulele with us.

So that was my week! Being sick was pretty miserable, but I had a nice birthday and enjoyed celebrating gem’s as well.

Blueberry brownies

Did I ever mention that I baked blueberry brownies a couple weeks ago? Nope, I forgot about them. I always like blueberries with my chocolate yogurt at Yogurtland, so it seemed like a natural progression. They’re ugly, but I swear they were good.

I also gave some to gem to ship along with her cookies to some friends for their birthdays. Sharing is caring.

Turtle cake for gem’s birthday

gem mentioned to me that she’d like me to bake a cake for her birthday a few weeks ago. I’m not sure if she was expecting me to really do it or not, but I’d been wanting to bake a cake so I went for it. She likes turtle cookies, so I decided to make her a turtle cake, which is chocolate with caramel and pecans. I based it off the recipe Turtle Cake II from AllRecipes.com. I took the recommendations from the comments and used 1/4 cup butter and 2/3 cup evaporated milk instead of 3/4 cup butter and 1/2 cup evaporated milk. I also used a German chocolate cake mix that included pudding rather than one without as specified for the recipe. I don’t really even know the difference, but I couldn’t find one without. However, I actually felt bad about using a mix anyways. It seems like cheating. Oh well.

Here’s a shot of the middle layer of caramel, toasted pecans, and caramel. It’s spread atop the first layer of cake. Thanks to my friend, Hal, for recommending I toast the pecans first! It smelled great as they toasted.

It looked pretty tasty to me before I even frosted it.

Nevertheless, I frosted it and added some caramel decoration to the top.

I wrote a birthday message on it, but in retrospect, I chose a bad color.

I should have chosen something with a higher contrast against the dark chocolate.

I also added a few pecans to the top to give a better indication of what’s in the cake.

Of course, it needed some star candles too!

It turned out delicious. More importantly, gem liked it too. Success!

Valentine’s Day comics

Happy Valentine’s Day! My Valentine was Alakazam Comics! Okay, it actually had nothing to do with Valentine’s Day, but I went to check if I had anything to pick up. The clerk usually asks for my name, and I just give “A-N-A-R.” One in particular always asks in a way that implies he’s trying to remember even though I never expect them to know my name. However, today he said, “it starts with an ‘A’, right?”

I said, “yeah, and it’s a long one.”

He replied, “right, it’s… A-N-A-R… G-I-R-O-U?”

I was pretty surprised honestly.

And then I was more surprised because I didn’t realize that Serenity: Leaves on the Wind had released! It’s the first Serenity comic (or any media) to depict the events after the film. Sweet.

In unrelated news, I also reorganized my bookshelves. They fit a lot more books when the books aren’t placed all haphazardly.

Besides that, I also played some games, watched some TV, and watched Smokin’ Aces. Fun day.

Off Center Festival Party on the Plaza

Last night I went to the Party on the Plaza to kick off the Off Center Festival at the Segerstrom Center. Honestly, I’m not really sure what the Off Center Festival is, but the Party on the Plaza was free. There was a live band, La Santa Cecilia, that was entertaining along with three food trucks.

I shouldn’t have, but I ate at two of the food trucks. I had a pulled pork waffle sandwich from Waff-N-Roll and found it mediocre. Luckily, I went to Dogzilla for a Loco Moco hot dog that was simply amazing. It was a hot dog with spam, nori, gravy, a fried egg, and probably a few other minor ingredients I can’t recall – very delicious!

I don’t really know what the rest of the event is, but I had a good time chatting and eating food truck foods!

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

I had MLK, Jr. Day off, so I went to Zimzala for lunch after biking, working out, and doing some chores. (Funny, before posting this I noticed that my very last post was also about Zimzala.) I chatted with Andrew and had a delicious barbecue chicken flatbread.

Afterward I headed to the beach to walk in the water and lie in the sand. I brought some books with me and got a lot further in The Complete Maus. I also reread the Tao Te Ching, which is pretty short. There was also a decent chunk of time during which I did nothing but thought and listened to the water.

By the time I was ready to leave, I was getting a little hungry again. I grabbed a taco from Sancho’s Tacos, which is an amazing taco place just one block from Zimzala.

Oh, and when I heard some weird noise above me, I saw a squirrel munching on a nut. Cute!

Lunch at Zimzala

I had lunch at Zimzala today. My friend’s the Sous-Chef there, and I had something to bring him. Lunch was delicious, and I had a good time chatting over the food. I had a burger that I ate too quickly to photograph, but I did manage to get a picture of the amazing ice cream. The desserts are always great.

Because I was right there in Huntington Beach anyways, I went for a walk down the pier. It was a very nice day, and sometimes it’s good to do some nothing and clear your mind.

The water was looking beautiful too.

Some people were walking through a design in the sand. I assume they had just finished making it, but maybe they just found it. Anyways, it was a lovely day!

Reel Big Fish Don’t Stop Skankin’ Tour

Yesterday was the Reel Big Fish concert, which I enjoyed very much. The show opened with Ryland Steen, the Reel Big Fish’s drummer, performing his solo music with an acoustic guitar. He was good, and it was a great way to start a show.

The Maxies were next, and I didn’t really care for them. Their music was unpolished, but their attitude was the worst. They discussed at length how they were better than the other bands in the show. More annoying, their songs and banter were pretty vulgar. I just wasn’t feeling it.

Mighty Mongo was a nice change. They were a fun four-piece band, and the lead singer played the keytar. THE KEYTAR! Yeah, it was pretty cool. They had great energy and were a ton of fun.

The Pietasters were fantastic. Their horn section was especially awesome. I’m definitely going to look into their music more. They had a number of solos as well, which really helped to highlight the various instruments. I love it when a band has good horns.

Of course, the Reel Big Fish were a lot of fun. Up until about halfway through their set, I was using earplugs. Actually, I’m kind of ashamed of that, but I decided to try it. When they played Sell Out, I had to take out one. Anyways, they were a lot of fun!

New Year’s Eve

New Year’s Eve was fun! It started out with a workout, a bike ride, and some ironing, but it ended with a great party! I went to Devin’s house for the evening. Alex, Darnell, Henley, Gracie, Jon, and gem were there too. Right before midnight, Mike even showed up!

We all had “Happy New Year” hats, but Aya wore hers like a visor. She wanted to be Geordi La Forge for New Year’s Eve!

gem was in heaven with the dogs! The dogs were very cute.

In fact, Tegan went a little crazy. That’s okay, because she was adorable.

Here’s Dad and Son with Gracie in the background. What a good-looking little man.

Mom and Son both got all tuckered out. So beautiful together.

Thanks for the fun year, 2013. Here’s to a great 2014.

Ska Luau IV!

Last night was the Ska Luau IV at the House of Blues! It was an awesome show, and I’ve learned about some new awesome bands.

The show began with Magnolia High School’s Polynesian Dance Troupe. I only took one photo, and it was pretty bad. Sorry! They had men and women, but they danced separately. They did dances from a variety of Polynesian cultures. Pretty interesting.

CodeName: Rocky was the first band to perform. I hadn’t heard their music previously but was very impressed. They had a great variety of instruments too. Sax? Of course. Trumpet and trombone? Yep. French horn?! Heck yeah!

Save the Swim Team described themselves as “the most screamo ska band,” and I suppose that was true. I liked the ska, but didn’t particularly like the screamo parts. However, they did mesh it pretty well, and I could understand why they’d have a lot of fans. This was actually their last show ever.

Suburban Legends was absolutely amazing. I’ve actually been listening to their music all day today now because I’m hooked. The lead singer was a lot of fun, but their guitarist was pretty charismatic too! Their brass section consisted of two trumpet players and a trombone player. The band also danced together with great choreography. I wasn’t expecting it, but it was so amazingly good.

Starpool came on the stage wearing tiki masks before starting the set and releasing the confetti that’s in the photo at the top of this post.

Besides throwing bags with chocolate penises into the crowd (some sort of joke from previous concerts I’d assume), they also threw these glowing sticks.

They played an amazing set full of a lot of songs that I loved. I sang along, danced, jumped, and was pretty tired at the end honestly.

And what concert would be complete without a band member crowd surfing in a giant ball? That was pretty cool. Starpool ended the show with their cover of Shout that I absolutely love. This might have been my favorite concert I’ve ever attended. If not, it would be the show with the Aquabats and Starpool, so I guess that’s good for Starpool anyways!

Hopefully Friday’s Reel Big Fish show at the same venue is as awesome.