Happy birthday, gem! We celebrated by painting at Color Me Mine! The woman who worked there even recognized gem because we spent her last birthday there. How cool is that? She even made something based on gem’s design because she liked it so much.
Woo, painting party!
I painted this mug. I hope it looks good when it’s fired. It’s Jake. You knew that, right? I hope so.
gem used her nice camera while I took pictures with my phone.
It was a really beautiful day. We didn’t hike for very long, but it was nice to get out. The sky seemed especially blue against the greenery.
After our hike, Anela suggested tea. It was a great idea! Roasting Water was serving their drinks in cute glass bottles with corks. The tea was tasty, and I got to keep a neat bottle.
When we were finished with our tea, we headed to Boiling Crab for lunch. It’s a Super Bowl tradition. The plan is usually to eat during the Super Bowl to avoid the rush, but this year we went before the Super Bowl. It was still relatively empty. I didn’t take any photos, but it was delicious. You’ll have to trust me.
With food out of the way, I went to hang out my friend Aiya.
We also trapped this baby. Henley didn’t seem to mind.
Actually, I went to spend time with Alex, Darnell, and Henley, three of my very favorite people in the world. It was wonderful seeing them. Every day I get to spend with them is always one of my favorite days.
This weekend I saw Scott Bradlee & Postmodern Jukebox at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa. I’ve loved them since gem introduced me to them, so I was excited to see them. It was also great that this was the first show I’d seen in the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall despite having seen many shows at the Segerstrom Center. I didn’t tell gem what we were seeing, and she got surprised that they were playing Scott Bradlee & Postmodern Jukebox from the speakers outside the concert hall. I acted surprised until the usher confirmed with us that we were there for Postmodern Jukebox, and then I think she was happy.
Scott Bradless & Postmodern Jukebox performs covers of modern, popular music in various other, older styles. Die Young in a “bluegrass / country western / saloon-style” is one of my favorites.
I’m also a fan of their motown cover of Shake It Off!
We had a half hour before the show started, so we took some photos inside the hall.
It was pretty!
Here’s gem with a swirly background.
We asked someone to take our photo. Trying to hide the program behind my back just made it look worse. Whoops.
They had chalkboard speech bubbles and the OFf Center Festival backdrop for photographs. I think it was supposed to be for feedback.
gem decided to do a knock, knock joke. We ran low on time, but this is what we did!
Here they are performing! They were super entertaining! Besides great music, there were some burlesque dancers and even retro, radio advertisements. For example, we learned about the newspaper feature for finding good, conservative men – Tinder – as well as a service to experience horseless carriages with semi-professionals – Uber!
I didn’t recognize every song, but I knew many of them; there were a huge variety of styles too. The tambourine man went crazy with energy, and I totally loved him for it. In my photo, you can see man in a white shirt reaching toward the stage. He seemed totally into it, constantly reaching up at them. At one point the tambourine man invited him onto the stage and gave him a tambourine. Pretty cool!
Scott Bradlee & Postmodern Jukebox ended the night with Shake It Off!
After the show, we went back to finish our knock, knock joke.
Let’s end this post with their rendition of Call Me Maybe!
What happens in Vegas is supposed to stay in Vegas, but I’m going to talk about food anyways.
Okay, this wasn’t even actually Vegas. Before leaving Orange County, we stopped for breakfast at Xa – Sweet & Savory Cafe. It was really delicious, but what makes me especially like it is how simple and clean (not the song) the food was. There weren’t a lot of mysteries. You get what you order, unlike places to add a bunch of sauces and fat and bacon to everything.
For dinner that first night we ate at Gordon Ramsay Pub & Grill. The shepherd’s pie was hot, tasty, and filling.
We had brunch the next day at Hash House A Go Go. As usual, portions were humungous. I got a pancake.
Back in the hotel room, three of us played Spaceteam while Duncan napped. Sorry, Windows phone.
We wanted to have a buffet for dinner, but brunch was too filling. Instead, we ate at Gordon Ramsay’s BurGR. The “GR” are his initials. Get it? Okay.
Somehow we ended up a Gordon Ramsay restaurant both nights in a row. First, the drinks and appetizers were great. Those jalapeno poppers were pretty good (although I prefer my own), and the “Honey-Pig Bao Buns” were tasty as well.
Neither of those really compare to the burger. This is the Farm Burger cooked medium with duck breast bacon, English sharp cheddar, and a fried egg. Wow. As it turns out, a place named BurGR makes good burgers.
I spent five dollars in the Ghostbusters and the Plants vs. Zombies slot machines. Yay.
On the way out of town, we had lunch at SkinnyFATS. This was a neat restaurant that had the menu divided into two sections – happy and healthy. I ate something off the healthy side, Naked Chix, which consists of seared chicken breast, mango basil sauce, brown rice, and cilantro yogurt. It was only $7.50 as well, which is pretty great. I wish SkinnyFATS was in Irvine.
Last weekend gem, Anela, Daniel, and I went to play in the snow near Mountain High! Well, Anela wanted to go for a photo shoot, Daniel was photographing her, and gem and I just wanted to see snow. Neither of us had ever been in the snow, and I was pretty excited to go.
Photo credit on the above photo to Daniel Baker!
We spent a bit of time scoping out the snow and deciding where to shoot.
Pretty much everywhere had signs that said “No snow play” or the equivalent in Spanish. It was actually harder to find a English sign than a Spanish sign.
That didn’t stop us from making snowballs anyways!
Daniel taking photos.
Where’d he go? OoOOo it’s a photographer-ghost!
What’s it feel like to lie in the snow? Pretty damn cold.
Oh, and wet. I was wet for a while. gem had these sweet Tokidoki rain boots that worked to keep her feet dry from the snow. My feet were wet for the rest of the day, and my shoes were wet for a day or so after.
Here’s Anela posing, but Daniel’s will look much better of course. gem and I were basically her attendants. We took her a coat off her and fanned out her dress when it was time to shoot. It was fun!
gem kick!
When we were about to leave, it actually started snowing. Up until then, it was just raining.
I think gem was excited about this fact.
Here’s gem in the snow!
We ended the day with sushi from Sake 2 Me. Delicious!
Photo credit on this one to Daniel Baker as well. Thanks for the fun day guys!
Last night was the fifth annual Ska Luau at the House of Blues Anaheim, and it was an awesome show! I was ready to go with a new (or at least never worn to a concert) Half Past Two shirt, and despite it being 42 degrees outside, it was nice inside!
The show opened with the Magnolia Polynesian Dance Troupe. They did dances from a bunch of a different countries and had both men and women, but I didn’t record very much.
The first band to perform was Failed to Victory. I’ve seen them before, and they’re great.
I’d never heard Skadonna, but they were really fun. You might guess that they perform Madonna covers. I’ll admit, the songs that I didn’t know weren’t as cool, but I really enjoyed hearing the covers.
Los SuperSpies graced us with their debut! Not all of their songs were new to me though. Here they’re playing The World is New. If you’re a fan of Save Ferris or Starpool, you’ll probably become a fan of Los SuperSpies too!
Half Past Two is one of my favorite bands, so it was awesome that they performed as well.
Hey, look what I just found.
Sorry, that has nothing to do with the Ska Luau, but it came up as a recommended video at the end of the one I recorded. I didn’t know they covered this, and I like Vampire Weekend.
Back to the Ska Luau! Here some friends joined Half Past Two on stage.
Suburban Legends! Another one of my favorite bands! I love their awesome choreography (and music of course).
This little guy was rocking out too! Well, honestly, he was mostly napping. But his parents were enjoying the show.
There might have been a surfing contest too. Competition is fierce when a prized pineapple is on the line.
It was such a terrific show with a truly amazing line up. Spending the 30th with excellent ska and the 31st, tonight, with friends is a great way to end 2014.
And the best way to end a night of ska is carne asada fries. My diet was upset, but my taste buds were happy.
Quick Thanksgiving post! My aunt realized she almost wore the same shirt as me, so she went and changed into it so we could match!
This was the first photo my mom took. What wonderful composition!
Pete, my stepdad, also attacked me with Tommy’s (the dog) alligator. I had no idea he was doing it until he showed me the video later. It looked much better on his phone, so I think he sent it compressed and lost quality.
Welcome to Goon Holler, a new book from Parker and Christian Jacobs, came out a few days ago, and today there was a signing at Barnes & Noble in Huntington Beach. These two guys are amazing: Christian Jacobs is the frontman of The Aquabats, and Parker, his brother, is the frontman of GOGO13. They’re also responsible for The Aquabats Super Show! and Yo Gabba Gabba! (What a rad family, because their brother Tyler is one of the creators of CinemAttack!)
I forgot to add when I first posted this that I came across a really great interview with Parker Jacobs. Check it out.
Here Christian is reading the story, standing in front of the table, while Parker sits and provides voices.
Look at that turn out!
When we lined up for autographs, a kid behind us wanted to try gem’s ukulele. I think she was a little worried, and he was a little rough, but it was fine! Speaking of ukulele’s, I knew that Parker uses one in GOGO13, but I wasn’t expecting him to bring one and play it at the signing. Now that would have been cool all by itself, but in addition, there was a ukulele song with chords in the book! Super rad!
There was a family in front of us with four kids. We had a good time chatting with them. The woman was actually the singer in Los Pantalones, a band that contained a lot of people that later went on to form Save Ferris!
This is her daughter, Scarlett, who was very sweet. She looks like such a natural with gem’s ukulele. (Also, check out that awesome cats-in-space dress.
Later while we were in line, we ran into our friends Remy and Tawney who run Pizza Beat Entertainment (of It’s a Ska World). I love running into people I know from the ska scene.
Here I am with Tooba the hungry bigfoot (from the book) and two of the three Parker brothers! Parker told me that he and Christian are like peanut butter and chocolate. I asked how Tyler fit, and after thinking about it, he said that Tyler is the wrapper that holds them together.
Last weekend I went to the best kind of pizza party there is – a Teenage Mutant Pizza Party! (As you may know, Friday was pizza day / The best day of the week.) This was another event from CinemAttack!, the awesome group reinvigorating movie-watching. I would much rather go to an event like this to watch an old movie than pay an insane amount of money just to sit in a theater and watch a movie without any bonus fun added!
First I got a picture of gem with the Turtle Van. Look how excited she looks!
I was pretty excited to get my photo with it as well. Man, I’m such a child. Foot stinks!
There were fliers up outside promoting the turtles and pizza while dissing the Foot Clan! While we were getting in line, we ran into our friends Ratana and Joe. We joined them for the evening, which definitely made everything even more fun!
The first 100 pre-sale ticket-holders in line got an Uncle Krang’s Pizza box. I’m totally keeping this sweet pizza box too.
There was a surprising amount of food in there too! They gave everyone three slices of pizza. As they were handing them out, I had a chance to tell the creators of the event and CinemAttack! how much I appreciate what they were doing. They’re super nice people!
You can also see my turtle pie in there – basically a chocolate pudding pie with green food coloring. I purchased that separately but put it in the box. As we got settled in the theater for the festivities, they brought more pizza to the front. I guess there was extra. Joe grabbed some more pizza, and I ate all the pizza I wanted. Pretty sweet!
Of course, there was the movie too! It was fun 🙂
And then gem rode off into the night on her bike! Well, actually, we just drove home. There are a few more pictures in my Flickr album as well.
You must be logged in to post a comment.