I wanted a more lemony dessert this weekend, so I baked lemon bars! I wasn’t sure they were going to have a strong enough lemon taste, but they turned out really good. Maybe they were too good, because I ate three today. Previously I made the recipe called “Best Brownies” from Allrecipes.com, so I went with “The Best Lemon Bars” from Allrecipes.com this time. I’d have to make a lot more to know for sure that they’re the best, but they were definitely delicious.
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!
I meant to post about this but never got around to it. My friend kept talking about brownies a couple weeks ago, so it made me want brownies. I decided to use a recipe called “Best Brownies” from Allrecipes.com.
Most surprising to me was how few ingredients I needed. I guess it helped that I had baked the John Dies at the End Vegan Chocolate Soy Sauce Cupcakes back in October and already had a bunch of the ingredients.
I particularly liked the hint of honey flavor in them. It’s too bad I don’t have any desserts right now. Now I feel like something lemony.
I made stir fry tonight that was pretty tasty! It had one drumstick’s worth of chicken, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, onion, mushrooms, carrots, baby corn, water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, pineapple, and Hoisin sauce. There should be enough leftover food to make more tomorrow, too!
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!
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 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.
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.
Christmas time is always great! I hadn’t really talked about it yet at all, so I’ll mention everything briefly in this post! Even though I was taking my family’s presents to my aunt’s house, I kept them under my tree. I like having a lot of wrapped gifts under the tree.
I went to two Christmas shows. The first was the Aquabats holiday show, which I talked about previously. They played with Emily’s Army and Kepi Ghouli; it was a great show.
After I posted some photos of the show on Instagram, user gogo13band liked some of my photos. The user’s description says they’re the “literal brother band” of the Aquabats. I looked into them, and it turns out that the lead singer of the Aquabats’ brother is the lead singer of a ska band called GOGO13. They played with the Vandals and Knock-Out at “The Vandals 18th Annual Christmas Formal.” It was a great show too! The Vandals played music from their album Oi to the World!
Alex and Darnell were in Brea at her parents’ house, so I came to visit too. Devin and Lorena gave me a bottle Beet that they infused themselves! It came with recipes for two mixed drinks. That photo is of a drink called The Beet Goes On, which was great!
Alex and Darnell gave me cranberry orange bread and homemade lemon curd. Wow, it was all so delicious! I put blueberries in the lemon curd a couple times, but it was so flavorful and tasty that I definitely ate a lot without anything extra!
gem gave me a Snuggie and The Geek’s Guide to Dating. While I haven’t read much of the book yet, it’s pretty interesting and funny too. gem knew I wanted a Snuggie and called a bunch of stores trying to find one. She could only find one store that had any in stock, and when she got there, she could only find a single Snuggie. She told me I could exchange it because of the print, but I definitely wanted to keep it. It’s very comfy 🙂
I spent Christmas Eve at my aunt’s house and Christmas day at my parents’. Here’s my cousin, Mitch, collecting all the gifts to him in one place so he could open them quickly.
I got all my cousins board games. I gave Apples to Apples, The Logo Board Game, and Munchkin Legends. On the subject of board games, I also bought Edward Arkham Horror. My brother got a video game from me instead – Super Mario 3D Land. I gave gem a Tokidoki x Sanrio clutch.
I also took gem to see Cirque du Soleil’s Totem. I talked about that yesterday, but it was excellent!
Edward gave me a new leather jacket! I was very surprised, and it’s pretty great. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a leather jacket.
On the subject of unexpected gifts, my brother got me a Harman/Kardon soundbar and subwoofer. I was pretty amazed. It’s connected to my TV, and I’m listening to it right now. When it put it on top of the TV stand in front of the TV, it blocked the IR receiver on the TV. I moved it to the shelf underneath, which looks a little odd but works. It’s a great sound system! Notice the bow on the present? My mom added that.
Duncan moved the bow to Sumo. He’s quite festive with it.
We tried to turn the box into a dog house, but Angel and Sumo really didn’t want to hang out in it. We’ve put their beds in it, hoping that would entice them to enter. Well, they’re not really going for it.
Anyways, that was my Christmas time! Yay!
Friday and Saturday provided a great start to my weekend. I began Friday evening with a martini with the “Beet” that was infused and given as a gift to me by my friends. I did have to buy martini glasses and some other things, but it was worth it. Duncan was going to Dave & Buster’s for drinks with some friends, so I went with them. I definitely had a good time.
Saturday afternoon, gem and I saw Totem, a touring, Grand Chapiteau Cirque du Soleil show. It’s about the evolution of humanity.
Totem was an amazing show. There’s not much of a reason to explicitly recommend seeing it, because I’d always recommend all Cirque du Soleil shows. I particularly enjoyed the ring and trapeze artists. Their strength (and balance and coordination) is just amazing.
Before the show when some of the artists were interacting with the audience, one, who I’ll call the ringmaster although I’m not sure it’s accurate, was near us. Everytime the ringmaster looked our way, gem would wave enthusiastically. When he got closer and was a few rows from us, he almost walked away, but after gem waved again, he came over to us. He got really close to her until his nose touched her nose. After a few seconds he jerked back and booped her nose, attempting to put a clown nose on her. It didn’t stay, so he tried again, slower, and then told her she a small nose. She lifted her glasses, pushed the nose on, and then lower the glasses on it. During the show, every time the ringmaster came on stage, gem would whisper, “that’s my buddy!” And that’s how gem got her clown nose!
We went to Zenko Sushi for dinner. I finally took back my rightful mayorship of the restaurant on Foursquare from “B.”
The waitress missed my glass when refilling my water, getting my shirt pretty soaked as well as my pants and phone. Everything was okay; she was very apologetic, and I really didn’t mind too much. She gave me dessert for free – deep fried green tea ice cream! It was very delicious.
I somehow doubt Sunday can live up to Friday and Saturday.
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