omgwtfbbq

Spent the whole first portion of the day with my ass glued to a chair and Common App on my monitor. Woot.

Well Scott rescued me just in time and we went out to grab some barbecue over at this place:

nom nom nom.

Ordered a Southern Combo with ribs, brisket, pulled pork, mac & cheese, and some pretty good cornbread. Pork was good, ribs were decent, and I'm never going to eat their brisket again. It's like leather. Overall, a decent barbecue joint, decently low priced, and local.


Then we picked up these two crazy kids and went on a froyo adventure.


Ahhh Yogurt Island. Fill me with your sweet chocolate-cookie dough-reese's-mochi goodness.


and the requisite pictures of people eating...


what a hottie.


What are we looking at..?


Definitely looking forward to New Years Eve with some cool kids. See you then.

winter break.

All of the days of winter break are melding together, almost as if the entire vacation is one awesome, extended day of good food and good company. It's kinda nice this way. On that note, these are in no particular order. These things just sorta happened during the past couple of days. My perception of time is dead.

Went to Santa Monica with Jamie, Margaret, and Curstina. It's been a while since we all hung out, now that Marge is off to college and the rest of us aren't in the same science classes. We headed out to The Counter, the burger joint of kings.

Counter Burger. 2/3 lbs beef, Gruyere cheese, grilled onion, jalapeno, banana peppers, fried egg, grilled pineapple, and some other goodies. The patty was nice and rare; I mourned for it as it bled all over my plate.


And here are Jamie and Margaret with their minuscule burgers. Just kidding. These girls could outeat me on a bad day.


an unflattering picture of Curstina, because I'm an asshole and don't have a picture of her with her burger.


We left, fat and happy, and drove to the cliffs overlooking Santa Monica beach and strolled in the lovely California weather. Per usual, I took sunburst shots.


Here's a nice group shot (notice I'm not in it)


I dislike it when people avoid my camera. I retaliate with unflattering shots.


Some well-placed punctuation would do wonders for this sign.


On another separate occasion, I enjoyed a lovely breakfast of pancakes and pineapple with my sister and her interesting friends. Just another day in the life, I suppose.



Oh yes, and it was my nephew's (or some relative's) first birthday! What a bundle of cuteness.



and to top it all off, a touch of artsy fartsy.


that is all.

Twas a wonderful day.

Christmas has once again come and gone, but oh what a funderful one it was. Time spent with loved ones, good food, lurking, Pixar marathons, and all of the other things that constitute a good holiday.

I had one of those hankerings to go out and take pictures...man, it's definitely fall. Or winter. Or whatever. Well, the colors are pretty regardless.

See? The leaves are changing colors...



and the sky's been ridiculously pretty these past few days... just like the Venetian in Vegas by my reckoning.


Christmas dinner was amazing, as food usually is with the fambam and company. Prime rib, creamed corn, my own mashed pertaters, and some wurst with sauerkraut. Yum.


But the highlight of the night was Newton's 3 pound bar of chocolate.



Here's the chocolate with a playing card for comparison...


Oh, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is possibly the most thought-provoking movie I've seen in some time. Watch it. Now. I didn't really like Brad Pitt at first, but this movie along with Burn After Reading have changed my view of him significantly.

And that, my dear friends, is the story of my holiday. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

:]

I feel oh so special.

I get this awesome cardigan for Christmas, which is great in itself. I look at the tag to check it's size, and to my surprise, I find this:


Totally smiling right now, inside and out :]

Thanks, love.

Gingerbread and presents

Soo first full day of winter break was spent with the wonderful people in my life, making graham cracker/gingerbread houses and being stupid overall.

Sabby, DK, and Alex came over in the morning. As we watched Star Wars Episode III to kick off the holiday season (o_O), Sabrina determined that frosting and marshmallows are a lovely combination of sugar and preservatives.


We built our graham cracker houses with sour straws, jujubes, and zours to our hearts' content. Yum. Observe our little village and all that accompany it.


So after that bit of fun was over, I headed over to Mikie's for our annual gift exchange and celebration of stupidity and lack of common sense. Spent the night with these three cool kids.


Santa made us run around the house to find clues to our presents.

Saaya: "Be the hook."


After enjoying some lovely pasta, we played Pictionary. I swear, Brian and I let the girls win XP


and other random fun stuff happened. More games, awesome gifts. Good food, good company, good day.

Finally?!

It's Winter Break!!! About time, too. I could go for a good two weeks of sleeping in, eating and just being unproductive in general.

Well the Bio test ended up not being a complete failure, as the test turned into a quiz and we spent the rest of the period working on Christmas Carol-related activities...


Then we had our secret santa gift exchange...the highlight of it all being Tree's Clone Trooper Helmet. Freaking epic.


My oh-so-lovely not-so-secret santa got me a dark green cardigan with a bit of love sewn into it. I shall wear it and enjoy its awesomeness :] Of course, as I'm currently wearing it, I have no pictures of it.

Let's see...some other random stuff happened, then we went back to Sayo's! Taking pictures of the bunny is a pain in the ass. It's cameraphobic but damn cute.


Awww...makes your heart just melt, don't it?


And best of all, we started off our holiday season with the ultimate feel-good movie. Amelie :D Hadn't seen it in years...


Well, I don't like writing about the other details of the day if I didn't out pictures to accompany the text. To sum up, we ate for the Christmas parties, ate some more, went to Sayo's, went to Vince's for dinner, and did stuff. Yeah. Oh! and filled up on apple martini chocolates. Yum.

Merry Christmas from Clone Troopers everywhere.

closer...

Thursday before Winter Break. This week just keeps getting better and better.

So on the way to school, I look at my car's thermometer and am greeted with the coldest that I've seen California in quite some time.

I would personally enjoy it a few degrees colder, but oh well. I'll take what I can get. It is bundling weather, after all.

My secret santa surprised me again during bio with quite possibly the awesomest gift evaaaar. Here's a hint...


Tis an awkward llama!

Totally flabbergasted. I lava my secret santa. Mr. Llama has since taken residence at my ASB desk. He fits in well with the other knickknacks that I've collected this year.

We had our holiday party in ASB with Jeff's sister's amazing cooking. Seriously...who eats prime rib at school? We do. Yeah, we're awesome XD


I received quite possibly the most appropriate shirt of all time. Front:


Back:

Haha. It's what I do..?

Oh, and I got slightly distracted by Christmas Light bokeh again and took this picture with Sarah's help.


OH OH OH! Janelle made these nifty little candy-filled cans with our names and pictures on them (which just happened to be mine for the most part. My contribution to the ASB Christmas stuff). Janelle totally creeped the creeper.


Well other than the fact that there's a Bio test that I should be studying for right now, and I just woke up from a nap that started in the middle of studying, it's been a great day. Let's keep it up, yeah?