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november rain & other thoughts.

xenia — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 21:48:09 +0000

we attended the thanksgiving celebration dinner at my 4 year old’s school last night and it was nice but interesting. more on that later…the school provided the turkey and ham and there was a sign-up list for parents to bring a dish: i made paula deen’s pumpkin gooey butter cake. i got the recipe a few years ago from a girl i used to know but didn’t make it until last year for a thanksgiving potluck at work. it’s fairly easy to make, super yummy and was an immediate hit. but because it’s so rich, definitely something you only make for a special occasion. 2 things before you make it: 1) when making the “cake” part of the recipe, instead of just 1 egg, use 2. it makes the “crust” a little more cakey and not hard. 2) don’t use a whole 16 oz. box of powdered sugar. i use about 10-12 oz. depending on your sweet tooth. even with 12 oz. you’ll be bouncing off the walls.

i’ve debated cutting down the butter because the whole recipe calls for 4 sticks of butter. 2 for the cake part and 2 for the filling. i personally think that you can probably cut down to 1 for the filling. i might experiment with this next week, stay tuned.

anyways, because so many parents brought dessert dishes and the dessert table was small – mine wasn’t going to be put out until after the other pumpkin desserts were gone :sad face: props to whoever made the cheesy white rice casserole with jalapenos and other stuff. it was so freakin’ good.

there were a couple interesting points to the night. i make observations, i like to people watch. it comes with always taking pictures. and sometimes i judge. part of this observation might come from my own experience when i was young and dumb but most of the younger parents had attitude and the older, more educated parents were social and classy. why are the youth like this? it doesn’t take much to smile and be nice to eachother, what are we teaching our kids? there was a mother there (she wouldn’t win any awards for being miss physical fitness) who i’m guessing in her 20s that wore short shorts and a SO CAL jacket. it was 50 degrees out and you are hooching it up at your child’s thanksgiving celebration, wow. and one of the other parents was watching his 2 year old wreak havoc and she grabbed a foil container which happened to be full of filipino dessert eggrolls called “turon” and they fell on the ground. i literally watched him in slow motion yell, “NO” and extend his arm out to grab her but it was too late. why did it have to be the turon? WHY?! :shakes fist: and as we were leaving, 2 girls (one in a 187 INC. hoodie) pushing strollers with their little girls in ‘em lighting cigarettes up and talking a lot of bullshit. what is wrong with parents? you hear me? YOU ARE PARENTS, quit acting like kids.

after the realization that we pay good $$$ out of our own pockets for our son’s school and these ridiculous parents get it for FREE, i got mad. how is any of this right? good people are always paying. this is why our system is so wrong. it costs about $36,000 PER YEAR to house an inmate in the california prison system and i don’t even get nowhere near that kinda money for college. there are 33 prisons in california and not even that many state colleges or universities – do you see what’s wrong with this picture?! we reward the bad seeds. WHY?!

after we left, we stopped by red circle boutique better known as target because i wanted another pair of black leggings – usually $6 but i think the cashier was distracted and he forgot to ring it in, THANKS! target has such cute holiday stuff!!! i gotta give it to them for their stocking stuffer shelves. we got duke a toy story lego army man and army truck for $3.99 – it’s in a plastic bag instead of box. as we were coming outside, it started to rain (2nd time it’s happened when we were leaving this particular target) and the first time my husband took off one of his shirts and gave it to me to cover my head awwww!!! and last night he gave me his hat. if that isn’t love, i don’t know what is. cherish what you have people. and if you don’t have the right thing, free yourself.

designer con 2010

xenia — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 22:56:47 +0000

this saturday from 10am-5pm at pasadena convention center!

$5 admission gets you in to see some art, buy exclusive toys and find cheap stuff!!! i have attended vinyl toy network but not under the new name, “designer con” but i’ve heard excellent things and it seems that they continue to grow every year. if you can’t wait for SDCC, get your fix this saturday!

damn, time flies!

xenia — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 10:19:35 +0000

missed you! so it’s the last week of october. made it through the beginning of the semester and survived midterms. it seems harder this time around, probably because work wasn’t so crazy last semester. my life has consisted of the family life, school and work. i’m not complaining though! as this week starts, there will only be 12 actual days left of school – 6 weeks x 2 days a week. i’m between helping out on a startup for a business class, doing a powerpoint on ireland AND finishing some stuff for an art show that i’m going to be in!!!

11/5 7-10pm at BTNC, 203 N. Harbor Blvd. in Fullerton

BE THERE.

don’t say i never give you anything.

xenia — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 05:14:34 +0000

rsvp for the advance screening of “MACHETE” with the cast and filmmakers! august 25th @ 8pm at the orpheum in downtown LA

review: LB street food fest

xenia — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 17:52:30 +0000

i don’t think there was a better way to spend a saturday. the weather was beautiful and the location was smart. it was at rainbow lagoon park (across the street from shoreline village).

gates opened at 10:30am; we got there sometime after 11:30am and the line for @grlldcheesetruk was super long. we sought out @kotacotruck – more specifically cause their truck was wrapped for robert rodriguez’s new movie, “machete“ with art done by @misterctoons. machete comes out september 3rd, btw. sadly, we didn’t try any of their offerings and opted for @donchowtacos. we really wanted to try their kung pao chicken chimale (chinese tamale) but they were only offering a 3 taco sampler for $6. the tacos were kung pao chicken, chinese bbq pork and LA taco (carne asada with bacon & grilled onions) – c & i liked the flavors on all of these but our favorite is the kung pao chicken. i’m used to kung pao chicken being so heavy but this was really light. it seemed to be all white meat cuts of chicken and excellent seasoning. i could’ve gone for another kung pao taco but again, they were only offering the $6 sampler, boo!

after snacking on those we agreed to try @coolhaus. was bummed to hear they only offered a sampler as well. i guess it makes it easier for the food fest scene. each mini was $2. c got rocky road and i got red velvet. talk about teasing your mouth. the ice cream sandwiches were SO GOOD. so good that we chased the truck the next day, heh.

we set up our blanket in front of the stage and listened to the band, “blue steel” – they were actually good, they played a lot of cover songs and i won a cd for naming a sublime song. duke brought his legos and we just had a good ol’ time. c ended up getting a watermelon drink, beef brisket slider and fries from @unclelausbbq – i still can’t decide if the fries are their creation or something you can buy from a food distributor, they were decent, i’m not complaining. the brisket was good. i would’ve preferred it to be a little hotter (temp-wise, this is always a complaint of mine) and the watermelon drink was pretty yummy.

the big winner for me was @thesweetstruck – they get a bunch of local favorites and sell ‘em. my fave was the peanut butter & marshmallow cakewich from cake monkey. i would’ve got another one but $4 each is a hard one to swallow for my cheap ass.

we got our tickets presale so it was $6 each, it’s going to charity so i didn’t feel bad having to shell out money. we spent about $30 total for 2 people and another $8 for parking. we parked at shoreline village rather than $10 at the long beach convention center. thanks to the organizers of this event, it was well planned and definitely someone’s “baby” – GOOD JOB and can’t wait to spend more money on one of your events!

long beach street food fest 7/24

xenia — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 02:31:05 +0000

20+ food trucks will be in one location tomorrow from 10:30am-5pm! including @COOLHAUS @ButtermilkTruck @grlldcheesetruk @KOTacoTruck @donchowtacos

$8 gets you in! ticket proceeds will benefit adopt-a-teacher program and long beach city college student scholarships!

@LBStreetFood or Long Beach Street Food Fest

rebel 8 return of the lost angels 7/24

xenia — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 02:08:55 +0000

another FREEBIE in LA if you aren’t at san diego comic con this weekend!

my husband & i attended last year’s rebel 8 event with famous stars & straps at the fast life and it was pretty sick. don’t sleep!

renegade craft fair FREE this weekend 7/24-7/25

xenia — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 02:00:01 +0000

craft, art, design and DIY spectacular will feature over 250 of today’s finest indie-craft talents from all over the nation, free workshops, entertainment + other features!

chick-fil-A 2010 customer appreciation week

xenia — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 08:07:20 +0000

i LOVE free stuff. couldn’t resist hitting up orange county’s chick-fil-A customer appreciation week which kicked off on monday, july 5th and ends on thursday, july 8th. but after 2 days, we’re officially chick-fil-A’d out.

day one was a spicy chicken sandwich. mine happened to be heart shaped ;x

day two was 3 piece chicken strips

i think tomorrow is a regular chicken sandwich and thursday is 8 piece chicken nuggets – so if you want to get your free grub on, hit up any of the orange county locations between 4-7pm: Irvine (2), Orange, Santa Ana, Tustin, La Habra, Laguna Niguel, Foothill Ranch and Yorba Linda.

the lines weren’t as crazy as i thought they’d be. my husband insists it was because people didn’t know but there was a sign on the door. the food was hot & fresh and the staff kept up with the demand. it was our first time trying chick-fil-A’s sauce and i recommend it. THANK YOU CHICK-FIL-A!!!

TOY STORY THREE.

xenia — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 18:37:08 +0000

i won on twitter again!
this time it was 4 passes to an advanced private screening of toy story 3 from LA radio station power 106.

i was ecstatic because my 4 year old kept bugging to see it and what better way than to go FREE and before everyone else? since we had to pick up the tickets at the radio station in burbank, we waited till the day of the preview so we could go just hit burbank in one trip (it’s about a 30 minute drive for us without traffic). got to power 106 and had to park in the parking structure across the building (under 20 minutes is FREE! $1 for each 20 minutes after). had to check-in with security at the front desk-he put my name and my 11 year old’s name in the computer and then had to walk us to the elevator. power 106 is on the 8th floor and the waiting area is pretty spiffy – lots of modern deco. free famous stars and straps stickers and la weekly for the taking. i checked in at the window (sorta like the ticket window at the movies), had to show my ID and sign the usual waiver saying power 106 isn’t liable, etc. got our passes and we were on our way YAY!

since it was only 4pm and the movie wasn’t till 730pm we decided to have linner somewhere. we parked at burbank town center, asked for directions to chipotle and it was just outside of the mall about a block away. outside of the mall there’s a few other outside shopping centers that had ross, wasteland, active & urban outfitters. when we turned the corner we noticed that the chipotle was in the same center as amc burbank 16! there was also a buffalo wild wings, zpizza and johnny rockets. after linner we were going to check out the shops but decided to ask AMC what happens during previews and there was already a line! started chitchatting with a “preview pro” and she mentioned that they brought toys because toys for tots was collecting and they might take people with toys first. that’s right, i had read that on the ticket! so c went to pick out some toys at ross and thank god we did! they only let people in with toys first and we ended up getting great seats and in the comfort of the air-conditioned theater on a hot, sunny southern california afternoon! power 106 street team was there and gave away toy story 3 posters, powerhouse cd’s, power 106 folders and had contests. i ended up winning a lotso tshirt for my 4 year old by screaming loud haha

the movie was GREAT. i’m a toy story fan so i’m glad i wasn’t disappointed! we watched it in 3D and 3D sure has come a long way… i’m almost positive that if you have the cash you have to see it in 3D, no question. i really enjoyed the kawaiiesque peas in a pod in the movie and there was a brief totoro sighting in the movie. makes me wonder if pixar is doing a shoutout to japan or what the deal is. if you are interested in easter eggs, check out this toy story 3 easter egg guide.

my husband & our boys were also able to preview despicable me because duke’s preschool gave out passes and they loved it too. they also watched it in 3D.

if you can catch private screenings, do it. i think it’s the BEST FREE thing ever. there’s lots of sites (wild about movies) that offer free passes and twitter is another great way to score some.