Save My Soul by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy

New thing today, heard a new song that I love - Save My Soul by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. It's not really new, but it's the first time I heard it, and I totally loved it. Something sassy, jazzy and bluesy as the last post for July. Cheers!

Tainamite

New thing today, tried the Tainamite food truck. Not bad. They ran out of a few foods we wanted to try, and the menu looked amazing. I tried the papaya shrimp salad and a Thai iced tea. It was good, but everything seemed a bit pricey to me. A few people got the garlic noodles with beef and they loved it. Overall it was good food, not great. Also I thought it was a bit pricey. Although I would definitely try it again with other menu items.

Ombre Hair Research

New thing today, I looked up Ombre hair styles for me. My sister had a brilliant idea. She wants to get ombre coloring so she doesn't have to touch it up as her hair grows out. Brilliant! So I do need a haircut and have been wanting to play with color but didn't want to spend a bunch on color and keep it up - this totally works!

Anyway I looked up some styles. These two are my favorite.

I was surprised how much I loved this short ombre style hair by Miley. I may consider a shorter haircut just from this photo. I wonder if it will work for my face? I will show the hairstylist and see what she thinks. Also - if I get short hair and ombre, as my hair grows out it should look nice.

But my favorite and the one I will probably show the stylist, is this one. It's a little longer and more like how I wear my hair - just down. The color is softer too so I like that.

Fun! :) We will see. I will take a photo if I actually get anything done. Just looking it up.

Dog Photo

New thing today, photo of the dog. Happy Monday!

Mahjong

New thing today, broke open my Mahjong set and played with the family at our house! It was rather impromptu. I've had the set for years. I play with my dad's side of the family a ton and they all know how to play. This time I was teaching my mom's side of the family how to play and we all just dove in.

I think we all had fun and the thing I love about mahjong are the tiles and the actual play of the game. To get a little philosophical I suppose, you build a wall in front of you with the tiles, and as the game plays you remove the tiles one by one and tear down the walls. It's all fun play and the tiles add an extra element to them. I laid out one of our blankets since you need to play on felt or some other similar textured cloth.

Overall a ton of fun. I was a bit nervous teaching the game, but we all ended up fine and having a good time! Yeay Mahjong!!!

Jagged Little Pill in concert at the Rockwell

New thing today, saw the performance of Jagged Little Pill at the Rockwell. This performance was dinner theater musical. Basically they had some performers sing and act out scenes based on the album Jagged Little Pill by Alanis. We were and are fans of her music so decided to check it out.

The performance was fabulous! There were 4 girls and guys singing the album and performing little scenes based on the songs all around the theater/restaurant. They were 1 foot away from us, behind us, beside us, across the room and all over the place. I really like that musical theater format.

The venue the Rockwell was also fantastic. Great drinks and food - a bit pricey and you feel weird eating during the performance, but if you come early and get something you can pick at during the show it's not bad. Drinks are yum too! I dot some iced tea thing and we got a mushroom pizza and it was good! I would happily go again to that venue and see other shows as well. I enjoyed this Jagged Little Pill performance and I highly recommend it!

20 Feet from Stardom (2013)

New thing today, watched 20 Feet from Stardom (2013). It sounded interesting and a really cool concept - looking at background singers and their careers in music. It was really sort of boring and a bit narcissistic at times. Some parts were really intriguing and interesting though. Is give it maybe 3 out of 5 stars. Worth a watch but maybe not your full attention. You can do something else and tune in when it sounds interesting to you. Interesting, at parts. I think maybe some editing and narration and more of a storyline may have helped. I donno. Just lackluster.

Eh. Resistible.

Custom Melt Veggie

New thing today, tried the Custom Melt Veggie sandwich. Really yum! Comes with garlic hummus, avocado, deliciously grilled veggies and pepper jack cheese! One of the tops and a new favorite!

Your Heart is as Black as Night by Beth Hart & Joe Bonamassa

New thing today, heard a great song that I really loved - Your Heart is as Black as Night by Beth Hart & Joe Bonamassa - from the Don't Explain album. It's very bluesy and just soulful and aching. Love it! It's incredible! A new favorite!

Jiffy Sugar Cookies

New thing today, made Jiffy Sugar Cookies. Been having a sweet tooth lately and we had some mix so decided to try it. I like how easy it is to make. The result though is blah. It's not great. It's edible and fine, bordering on good, but not great. I might make these again. I might make real sugar cookies though if it's easy.

Hipster Cocktail Party

New thing today, found a new Pandora station I am enjoying - Hipster Cocktail Party. It's under "Dinner/Cooking" category which I didn't event know we had. And then I saw this and had to try it. I really like it! It reminds me of one of my favorite Yahoo radio stations that doesn't exist anymore - Coffeehouse mix. Happy Monday.

Godzilla (2014)

New thing today, watched Godzilla (2014). AWESOME! I heard some bad and good reviews about this movie, so I wasn't sure about it. Tried it out and it was a lot of fun! I was surprised how interesting it was and the perspectives it took on telling the story of Godzilla.

No spoilers - because I encourage everyone to see this, but basically, the story is told through a few different perspectives it feels like, although it centers on a main character. It also tells a lot of the story visually. I love the way it unveils and reveals Godzilla and the monster shots. Definitely inspires awe and shows the perspective from a tiny insignificant human's view. I was surprised how interested I was in the humans. I thought it would only be a monster movie, but parts of you end up caring about the humans too. Overall it was a great collaboration and I thought a really nice story! I will probably buy this one and give it probably 4 or 5 out of 5 stars! Kudos!

Tim's Vermeer (2013)

New thing today, watched the documentary Tim's Vermeer (2013). This was highly entertaining and fascinating. It's produced and directed by Penn & Teller, and explores the theory about how Vermeer painted such realistic lifelike and light paintings. It was pretty incredible and a captivating documentary. Tim uses this technique he believes Vermeer used, and copies one of his paintings. It's really great and highly recommend this video! Go watch!

Weight Watchers White Cheddar Popcorn Crisps

New thing today, tried Weight Watchers White Cheddar Popcorn Crisps. Yum! And only 2 points!

Carolina Meat Company Truck

New thing today, tried the Carolina Meat Company truck. To be healthier, I tried their deviled eggs and smoked corn on the cob. Both really delicious! Also, those are the best deviled eggs I've ever had! So good! I highly recommend them and I would go there again. Maybe I'll actually try some meat next time.

We Will Rock You - Queen Musical

New thing today, saw We Will Rock You - a Queen Tribute Musical. We like Queen music, we loved the Rock of Ages musical and movie, so we were excited to see this show. A coworker had free tickets and couldn't go so we picked them up and went on a weeknight - Wednesday night! Look at us crazy people. 

Anyway another new first - went to the Ahmanson theater in downtown LA. New venue to us and it was neat. Felt cozy. Husband noticed how tall the theater was and I noticed our angle of watching the show was pretty steep. We liked the theater and location. 

So the show itself was sorta lame. We still liked the music and the performances of the songs were good, but the overall story and characters were pretty weak. Spoilers! 

Plot - So there's this new future world called "iPlanet" where everything is controlled by the Killer Queen and no music or original thought is allowed. There are these "Bohemian" rebels that want to bring back original rock music and experience real life concerts instead of getting everything from the online iPlanet control. There's a strong baby boomer anti-establishment, preserve rock and roll and your own identity theme. They over-do it, and it's really old and sorta lame. I mean, it just seemed to really appeal to people who loved and lived in the 60s and 70s. Tiring and blah. 

Characters - Eh. They had funny names based on music characters and songs. The main character is Galileo Figuro and the girl is Scaramoosh. The other characters in the Bohemian gang are named after other pop and rock icons. 

Music - The music was well done. It didn't seem to fit into the plot and there were weird parts where they played the music but didn't seem to fit into the plot of the story. OK - so "Another one bites the dust" - they performed it in the 2nd act at a random place. The 1st act, the Killer Queen's minions took down a Bohemian rebel base, and they did NOT sing or use that song. So bizarre? Like, really? Here was a great place to perform that and you didn't?....

Also I wasn't so familiar with some of the songs so I didn't understand how it fit into the plot or what they were singing about, so it was lame. The performers were awesome and belted it out and did great! 

Props and scenery I thought were sorta lame. Eh? Unimpressed.

Jokes - some parts were funny, and they overplayed and some old jokes, but overall just ok. I laughed out loud at some parts, but lost interest in others. Some characters did the comedy part really well. 

Overall husband and I found it rather blah. We would prefer the music on its own than to watch the musical. Although it was sorta entertaining in parts and fun in parts, I got bored and annoyed enough not to give it an overall good rating. I'd say 4 out of 10 stars. 

I would not recommend this, unless you're over 40 or 45... then maybe you'll like it... maybe, or maybe you'd have to be older, donno? I'm glad the tickets were free. 

Baby Blues BBQ

New thing today, tried Baby Blues BBQ. Yum! It's good. I got the pork braised in Guinness along with the grilled vegetables and blues on the cob (topped with cojito cheese, chipotle butter and comes with lime). Husband got tri-tip with Mac and cheese and sweet potato fries. Both our platters came with cornbread.

Overall service was fast, ambiance was nice and the place was cool. Ambiance is a bit divey which I like. I loved their business cards - it looks like a playing card and is really neat.

Husband's tri-tip was amazing. Sauces were good. My pork I felt was sort of bland but I put that apple cider vinegar and added some hot sauce and holy crap it kicked it up a notch. So yummy with that stuff. Anyway the sides overall were good. Husband and I were both disappointed with the corn bread? Eh.

Overall it was good and we would go there again :) try it!

Monster Hunter Nemesis by Larry Correia

New thing today, finished reading Monster Hunter Nemesis by Larry Correia. FABULOUS! I got it on my Barnes & Noble Nook on July 6 and I devoured the book as quickly as I could when I had free time. I probably could have finished it sooner, but I took breaks and was busy but overall

I love this series and this author. I love how Larry Correia wrote the first 2 books in the series about Owen Pitt and that storyline. Then the 3rd book Alpha diverges on a tangent to the Earl Harbinger character and a different storyline, which was upsetting and unexpected and I really didn't like this book when I was reading it, because I wanted to go back to the Owen Pitt story and characters. Although, looking back I'm glad he went this way, because he is building a whole world and exploring different characters and creating other stories. It adds more depth and layers to this world and allows a bigger story to be told. Then in the 4th book Legion he goes back to Owen Pitt and that storyline. It was rather entertaining and I enjoyed it a lot. Then this one was a divergent story about Agent Franks. This story was excellent and I was fine with the tangent and enjoyed the world building Larry Correia is doing with these characters. Love it and looking forward to future ones.

Overall this book Nemesis moved quickly. A ton of action reading. I get a little bored sometimes at all the action, so I skip through some of it so I can get to the main plot line and suspense revealing parts. This has really neat supernatural monster creatures and worlds, and the whole good guys fighting evil demon stuff. This takes a really interesting spin on the worlds and I liked it.

I think I might re-read some parts of the previous books so I can catch up. Sometimes I read through the books so quickly that I easily forget what they were about and a few months or years later, I'm completely lost and forget all about what happened. It's sort of nice, but also annoying sometimes too.  OK so read this series - starts off with Monster Hunter International - fantastic stuff!

For The Record presents Tarantino

New thing today, watched For The Record presents Tarantino - songs and scenes inspired by the films of Mr. Tarantino. This was pretty amazing awesome and I highly highly recommend it. They have a live band and singers perform songs from Tarantino films, interspersed with actual performances recreating the most memorable scenes. It's a pretty great mash-up and mix of Tarantino music and theater. A huge kudos to the cast and crew of the performance we saw! They were absolutely fantastic!

We saw our show at the DBA in Hollywood - which is this really neat venue with great ambiance, and a roomy seating area which feels cozy for the showplace. The actual action of the show takes place all over the DBA, and not just on the main stage, which made it really really cool.

All the actors did a wonderful job singing and performing their pieces. I was especially impressed by Rumor Willis who played the Beatrix Kiddo (Kill Bill) and Mia Wallace (Pulp Fiction) characters. I was a bit hesitant she wouldn't be that good since she has the name and the Hollywood parent lineage, that perhaps they only recruited her for her star power. No - she absolutely rocked it out and performed just as high a caliber as all the other cast.

Oh and the entire ENTIRE cast was absolutely fantastic. They all rocked it out completely. They looked like they were having a great time too, and it just seemed like they all had incredible talent. I hope they have fantastic careers, and I'm not a theater person, but it seems like these people are already successful, or will be successful in their careers, from what I saw in the show.

There were a few hitches in the show and in my experience. They had to play late since their drummer didn't show up and they needed a last minute replacement, so we ended up getting impromptu random performances from the cast which was really entertaining. James Byous rocked out some incredible blues numbers and three lovely ladies sang Fever a cappella which was awesome. So that wasn't so terrible, but a waitress spilled a drink all over my back, sweater and purse, so I sat in damp clothes pissed off for the last half of the show and everything smelled like alcohol, so that was super annoying and frustrating. I tried not to let it bother me in the second half of the show, but honestly it did and it sort of ruined it for me.

But all that aside, I rave for the DBA in Hollywood and this show Tarantino! I would go watch it all over again and this was a really awesome highlight to the weekend!

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

New thing today, watched Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014). We were excited about this one, since we absolutely loved the previous Apes movie. The previous one was surprisingly interesting, intriguing and exciting so we were curious to see what they would do with this one.

Sadly this movie was pretty terrible. I preferred Sharknado since at least it was free. We paid movie prices to see this and it was bad. It was too slow and overdramatic. It was a bit overbearing with the themes and overall just annoying. They needed to edit out a lot and speed things up - that would have helped a lot.

They also don't need to spell everything out. The apes sign, and we read all their sign talking. The magic of great movies is you can show dramatic moments without any words. I felt like the apes were better "actors" in the first movie because they showed so much without talking, but relying on non verbal communication. This movie takes so much of that away.

I also thought there was more variety of ape in the first movie. Here they seem to all be the same species where the first movie had various different gorillas, apes and other types it feels like.

Anyway this movie moves the whole Apes story along. They will probably make more sequels for this series. If that's the case we may just rent all future Apes movies. This one was NOT worth watching in a theater and puts a shadow on all future movies. It does make me want to rewatch the first movie though.

So anyway, we were not fans of this movie. I took my time going to the bathroom because I just didn't care about missing anything. This movie was incredibly disappointing! I would not recommend it for the theater and only maybe recommend for a DVD if you fast forward through parts. Even then. Eh...

Sharknado

New thing today, watched Sharknado. Omg this is just as cheesy awful as you imagine. It's like Lifetime SyFi. Hilarious in the budget shots and a lot of silly cheesy moments, characters and situations. It also looked like there was random flood footage from the Philippines too. Editing in of random stock footage also entertaining.

Overall the beginning and middle were a bit long, boring and tiring. It gets really good in the last 40 minutes or so. Some of the grisly deaths and attacks are pretty spectacular.

Spoiler, they decide to fight back, by flying a helicopter into the Sharknado and dropping a bomb to kill the tornado and sharks. Then it gets better. Lol.

I wasn't a fan through most of the movie, but the last bits redeemed it.

Apparently there's a Sharknado 2... Oh dear.

Tuna on Lettuce

New thing today, had tuna on lettuce. I've been having lettuce wrapped sandwiches a lot at home lately. It's been too hot, and cold lettuce sandwiches and food is awesome. So today decided to try it with tuna. Basically I had pieces of lettuce, and would put a small dollop of tuna salad. Pretty tasty and low carb. Love it!

Custom Melt - Green Bean Soup

New thing today, tried the Green Bean Soup from Custom Melt. Surprisingly very good and sweet. Who knew you could make soup out of green beans? I would order it again.

Memory Trick - Imagining - Visualization and Association

New thing today, used a new memory trick and it worked. I had to remember to do something when I was in our garage coming home today. We ran out of paper supplies in the house, and we have a bunch of extra in the garage and I always always forget to grab them when I'm there. So I decided to use an imagination memory trick. It's like, you're supposed to imagine something in the place where you're supposed to remember something - an image - something big and ridiculous. Imprint it in your brain, and then the next time you're in that place, it will trigger the image and you'll remember what you were going to do. It totally worked!!! So awesome. I think it's called visualization and association. Anyway cool new thing, I will do that more.

Death of an Acquaintance

New thing today, death of an acquaintance. I found out today that the person I took over for at our parish for our library passed away on Saturday. I will also be doing a little write-up for her in our parish bulletin. All new. Very sad and not quite sure what to write since I didn't know her that well. Will do my best. She's definitely in a better place now. She was well known and loved in the community so will try to do her justice. Makes you start to wonder, what will you leave behind and whose lives will you touch before you move on. A solemn Monday.

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013)

New thing today, watched Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013). Boooooo!!! Why?!!!! I have to watch the original Anchorman just to get the taste of that awful movie out of my brain. We got it from Netflix - what a waste :( Boooooo! I got bored, and would rather do laundry than really pay attention to that movie. Oh well.

Chef (2014)

New thing today, watched Chef (2014). This came to our local cheap theater, so we had to give it a try ASAP! We didn't really feel it was a blockbuster full price worth movie, but it's totally worth a video rental or watching it at our local cheap theater. Although, it really is a good movie, so now that I've seen it, I would say it is worth supporting and going to a major movie theater to watch it. It was really cute and I liked it. If you like watching shows like Top Chef and are sort of a foodie, you will enjoy this. There's a lot of footage of cooking and creating delicious artsy and home delicious food. There's this silly scene were he makes grilled cheese but it was so... delicious! I also got excited at the food references to a Texas BBQ place and overall the story is quite nice. You will enjoy this, and you will probably get hungry, so I recommend watching this and then having a meal afterwards, such as Custom Melt in Moorpark - mmmmmm. You will be hungry, in a good way! Go support and watch this movie.

Cubed Spam

New thing today, cooked cubed spam. It was a new format I never cooked before. I also messed up one whole batch. The tiny cubes cooked unexpectedly faster than the regular slices, so I burnt one side of all the cubes of the first batch. Some tasted burnt/charred, and some tasted extra crispy. I was overall disappointed, so I made a second batch much better - no burning. New thing. Oh Happy American Independence Day - 4th of July! We celebrated with Spam :) he he.

The Following - Pilot

New thing today, watched the pilot episode of The Following on Netflix. It's been on my queue awhile and I finally got around to watching it. It was really good. I was surprised. I heard from other people but it was kind of boring and didn't really interest them, but when my husband and I watched it, it was actually really interesting and had me hooked in the first 10 minutes. It's got a good dose criminal serial killer stuff like Dexter, and I really like the characters they're developing and where it could go. It is a fantastic pilot! I also really like Kevin Bacon in this role. I'm excited to have a new show to be into, but also a little worried it will take up so much of my free time now. Good thing it's a long weekend :) Happy Thursday!

Unknown Japanese Place

New thing today, we were traveling and I tried these dishes at an unknown Japanese place. Gyoza, Vegetables and Ikura (salmon fish roe eggs) on top of salmon. Pretty good. Random food place, new thing. 

Zumolla - Paper Monster

New thing today, made Zumolla the July Paper Monster in my calendar. Happy July all.