Day Twelve: Two Annual Celebrations

6/27/15, 11:23 PM PDT

Today, we have a birthday party to go to. My mom's coworker's daughter's first birthday. And it was ADORABLE.

The party I mean. I'm not calling the baby "it." But the baby was pretty
cute too.

You know, I don't normally enjoy these kind of parties too much because I don't know anyone and it normally consists of me just on my phone until my mom decides to leave, but this party was a whooooole 'nother thing.

I only like these parties for the food. And this party had bomb-ass food. I'm talking AMAZING, top-tier, free food. Don't believe me? Look at what they have.

CREPES. FREE. CREPES. LOOK AT THIS.

Oh my goodness...

Their menu is so beautiful. The picture is super overexposed, but that shouldn't take away from the beauty that is this menu.

C'est délicieux.

See the last thing on the menu? The little text at the bottom that says "Build your own?" That's the real kicker. Here, they have the entire list of things you can order.

I didn't even know you could put custard in a crépe!

And you know what? I checked every box. And this is what I got.

Holy. Shit.

Okay, I have tried crépes in a lot of different places. I've tried some at Fashion Valley, in casinos, and even in the heart of crépe country itself. And easily, this crépe has been one of the best ones I've tasted. And not just because the fact that it's free gives it +5 in taste. It's because they put SO MUCH ON IT THAT IT JUST TITILATES YOUR MOUTH.

Notice that it's a different crépe from the one above. Yeah, I got more than one.

Oh and they had free Rita's too.

But hey, it's a birthday party for a one-year old, so I think I should at the very least put a picture of the baby here.

Kinda tall and yellow for a one year old...

Afterwards, we went to Coronado for my parents' anniversary. I got some really pretty pictures, thanks to the iPhone's HDR capabilities. It looks a little unnatural, but it was either this or super overexposure, so I'll take the HDR.

Man, these government workers really went creative with their
street names, huh.

There was a guy building a HUGE sandcastle too.

Unfortunately, the little Terracotta Soldiers were stuck in China and
couldn't be here right now.

And of course, the always picturesque Hotel Del Coronado.

Complete with large Mexican child too. It's any photographer's dream.

Oh and I found this tree that was so big that the government actually had to install a post to sustain it.

Or this resourceful tree just found a walking post.
Clever ent.

We ate at a restaurant called "Sheerwater." And everything here is SO EXPENSIVE. I decided to channel my inner adventure seeker to try something new, so I ordered the Kurabota Pork Picatta even though I had no idea what 66% of those words were.

It's... Japanese? I think?

This is what it looks like. And yeah, I know I said I'd spare you the food pics, but c'mon, look at this thing.

They hid the vegetables because they knew I don't like them. Thank
you, Sheerwater head chef.

And since it was my parents' anniversary, they brought out a special little dessert for them. Cheesecake with swordfish!

I don't know how this swordfish feels about being pelvis-first inside of
a cheesecake that he'd only just met a few minutes ago.

Happy anniversary, mom and pop!

RFotD: Mama and papa Evangelista have been happily married for 20 years.

Day Eleven: A Very Bazaar Day

6/26/15, 11:20 PM PDT

So I checked the weather today. And it was nice. Lots of sun, but not too hot. As far as SoCal's concerned, it was pretty fair.

Hah. Get it? Because we're going to the fair today??

I'm sorry for the double puns. So sorry. But yes, today is my friend group's third annual summer faire trip. But we don't have Brandon this year, so in his place will be Gwendolyn. Oh and Sam's jumping in too, since she hasn't been here for over seven years.

So anyway, in the beginning of our day, we decided to do some light sightseeing. We decided to rip off our faces and paste them onto cartoon animals to see what we'd look like if we were born beautiful.

Kayla and Angela messed up the face-pasting process and accidentally brought their shoulders along for the ride.

"Oh you, mom!" -Angela
(via Christina)

I, on the other hand, face-swapped perfectly. And I was pretty content with myself until I realized that the new body I had only has one really large nipple.

And an outie belly button, but that's not as bad.
(via Christina)

We also managed to find a one-man band. Sam, Kayla, and Gwen all bought signed pictures of him for a dollar. I thought it was a pretty stupid purchase until I actually saw the picture. Now I kinda regret not getting it.

Who wouldn't want a picture of a mustachioed man
firing sparks into the sky while wishing you to be cool?

Afterwards, we went on the rides. We started off pretty tame with Crazy Mouse, but we spiced it up by setting up a little wager. The Crazy Mouse is one of the few rides that takes reaction pictures of you when you go on it, so we bet that whoever couldn't make a neutral face when the picture is taken would have to get a design chosen by everyone else painted onto their face.

Sam lost that bet. Or maybe she didn't and we just rigged it by preventing her from seeing the picture. Either way, her face vandalism painting will come later.

We rode a LOT of rides. So much so that we actually got Sam to be PHYSICALLY INCAPABLE of riding any more rides. But I think the absolute highlight was going on this guy:

It was so tall that it couldn't fit in one picture.

So I had to put it in two, with a postage stamp of Angela
in the lower right corner.

That ride is INSANE. It spins in a HUGE radius, so even though it's a ridiculous height, it's actually a REALLY smooth drop. Smooth but fast. I don't know how else to describe it. It's like... a bowling ball sliding through a really long tube covered in butter, I think that's the best comparison I have.

It probably didn't help much, so instead, take this video of Gwen and I screaming like little children on the ride.

We also won a few prizes from the game booth places. Technically, we didn't really win it since we only played the racing games where you compete against other people, and we rigged it so that we were the only ones playing. But a win is a win, and when the prize is an adorable little BMO, I'm glad I shelled out 15 dollars for it.

If you look carefully, you can almost see my wallet
killing itself in its eyes.

Angela got a little something something too, thanks to the collective efforts of the entire group, and ESPECIALLY thanks to Christina's sharpshooting skills. We won this behemoth of a dog in that water racing game where everyone got a prize for participating and every single time Christina played, she won. Because of that, we managed to swap in 25 dollars worth of stuffed animals for this guy:

She named it "Vezpoochy." And shortly after, she
performed a suplex on poor Vezpoochy.

Before we left the games/rides area to go eat more food, we were approached by a sketchy old man with a deep, gravely voice and a look in his eye that radiates psychopathy. Normally, you wouldn't listen to such people, because nine times out of ten you'll end up in a shallow grave next to the I5. But he said the magic words, the words that would immediately disable Gwen's firewalls and hit her right where she's vulnerable. He said...

"Hey, I need two people to ride Speed for free."

Speed was Gwen's favorite ride, so she effing LEGGED it. She made it to her seat and strapped herself in before he finished saying the word "free." Swear to god, she broke the sound barrier in that 100 meter sprint to the chair.

No one else was willing to ride the giant, towering thing, so I decided to hop in and ride the thing AGAIN.

Angela and Christina got some pretty great pictures of us on the ride. I especially like these three, which I think tell a story.

In the words of the wise Christina, here is the story I titled "Ephemeral in Nine Words."

"Here they come."
(via Christina)

"Now they here."
(via Christina)

"They are gone."
(via Christina)

Beautiful, isn't it? Who would have thought nine simple words would have such a profound effect on its readers? Nine words, all carefully chosen, that convey the happiness, sadness, and inevitable end to every friendship, every relationship, every single event that one will encounter in their entire life and even encompasses the entirety of one's own life. Truly a literary masterpiece.

One of the exhibits we visited was a rock display. Which yeah, sounds boring, until you actually look at some of the really creative stuff they have, especially their stone food display. They made a bunch of food-looking stuff entirely out of rocks and I LOVED IT. I'm especially impressed by the grapes.

I don't believe that these things are capable of wrath.

Take a look at it zoomed in, every single grape is made out of a rock.

This thing must have been a chore to make. Hahahah... ahhhh.

They also had the world's saddest frog for sale too.

When you realize that your entire life is worth three
bucks, you'd be pretty depressed too.

And if you recall from our banquet this year, then you'll realize that WE FOUND OUR LORD AND SAVIOR AGAIN.

HE HAS ASCENDED.

So anyway, rocks aside, remember the little bet that Sam lost about halfway up? Yeah, this is the part where we plaster her head with whatever designs the rest of us choose to put on her mug.

She went from this:

Beautiful.

To this:

Even MORE beautiful.

The face painting artist really didn't have to do much, honestly. In fact, she didn't even have paint on her. We paid her nine dollars to basically erase the thick layer of foundation on Sam's face. The pink, purple and black hairs on her head are all natural, and the blue sparkles are just really bad acne.

She doesn't like to show other people her true colors (pun not intended). I mean the first time I saw it I was actually pretty surprised. Not disgusted surprised, but happy surprised. Like when a kid opens a present and sees a box from Macy's, immediately believes that he got clothes for Christmas, but then when he actually opens the box, finds a dead puppy because his dad forgot to put air holes in it.

Yeah. I'd still date her even if she had that much hair. I mean she does already, and I've kinda grown attached to it.



The rest of the day consisted of us roaming the fair and looking at cool stuff. We went to more of the exhibits and took more pictures of ourselves.

Here we see Angela doing what her ancestors have been doing for thousands of years.

"Vezpoochy gon' taste real vezgucci when I'm done with 'em."

And we found the sign that I'm gonna hold in my children's room if I ever meet a woman unfortunate enough to be stuck with my mini-me's.

Well, when you call it "domestic abuse," of course
it's gonna sound bad...

We also found Kayla's ancestors.

Her legs are twigs. This thing is literally a twig.
ANCESTRY CONFIRMED.

We found a wild valedictorian too.

Too busy taking a Snapchat of a blooming onion to notice that our
blooming friendship is now shriveling up.

Not to be outdone, I also have a pic of something brown, circular, and delicious to post.

It's a funnel cake, you pervert.

I also found the best license plate EVER.

This thing got me at least eight likes on UCLA Social, hah.

And we rode the gondola too. The rest of the group isolated Sam and I to our own gondola because of our gross, disgusting, lovey-dovey nature, so have this selfie of us.

Thank you, SCOTUS, for making our relationship
valid at last.

I got a picture from the gondola...

But Angela took another one that just TOTALLY shit all over my picture so I'll leave it right here.

Then again, she did use a filter, which might have been the deal sealer.

To end the day, we took the obligatory group pic. As always, here's the past years we went...

Year one...

Year two...

And here's this year. Somewhere along the line, Christina and I switched and Brandon turned into a woman. All of which were better improvements prior to the last years.

Also notice how our arms have gotten progressively closer to each other.
It symbolizes our friendship.

See you later fair. Thanks for a great three years, hopefully we can get the entire group along together in the future for more annual trips.

"You're welcome, Michael." - Balboa Park tower.

RFotD: Every time I fall behind on my blog entries, a small demon comes out of my vent and slaps me with a spoon until I get a bruise. It's the worst thing, I swear to god.

Day Ten: KamiKon 2015, Day One

6/25/15, 11:28 PM PDT

Today, Angela, Kayla, and Christina came over to harass Mocha and to soil my Nintendo Wii's memory card with subpar games.

Bastards.
(via Angela)

I took a nap right before they all showed up, which meant I was kinda woozy for the first part of them being over. I don't think they noticed that I was half-awake though, even though I was talking at a few octaves lower than normal and I was reacting to everything super slowly.

So anyway, Kayla brought Call of Duty 3 for the Nintendo Wii. As you can expect from an award-winning series like Call of Duty, the graphics were superb and the action was incredibly immersive. Even though it was one of the games that was released with the Nintendo Wii, I felt it completely captured the graphical and hardware capabilities of the new console.

Nah I'm kidding, it was a total piece of crap. Take a look at their launch trailer, highlighting this nice orange-haired boy showing just how immersive the game is.

Given the fact that my sensor bar was at an awkward position and the fact that you have to point the Wii remote to aim, our experience with the third installment of the Call of Duty franchise was mostly this.

Next, we played The Sims. Well, Kayla played The Sims. We just yelled a bunch of suggestions of stuff she needs to do. We managed to make two characters.

The first was a large, African-American professional chef who is incredibly irritable, lazy, outgoing, and grouchy. This was that man:

I would trust this man with my wife life.

His name? Vezpuuccii Gucci.

Ready for goddamn action.

Of course, we couldn't leave poor Vezpuuccii all alone, so we made him a beautiful companion. Personality-wise, she was the polar opposite of him (because opposites attract), she was a park ranger, and she was known to all only by the name "-￠@$#-"

True love.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that we were playing this Sims game:

Complete with bloody volleyballs and Tom Hanks!
(via gamefaqs.com)

So the first thing that happened was that we got shipwrecked. And for some stupid, stupid reason, Vezpuuccii and the wifey got stranded on SEPARATE ISLANDS. So we had to fetch Cash Money from goddamn Airplane Island while we were stuck with a bunch of literal monkeys on Shipwreck Island.

Maybe Vezpuuccii was just that terrible a husband. Cash Money had to literally catch a plane after the shipwreck to avoid him.

We quickly got impatient. We were running out of food. We were running out of water. We were afraid we were gonna die virgins.

Luckily, we found out that we could interact with (and more importantly, name) these guys:

I'm talking about the monkeys, not the social justice warriors.
(via gamespot.com)

We named a monkey "Waifu." And we grabbed a banana, found some bushes, and we were happy.

Later, we went to eat at The Loving Hut, driven by the safe and careful Christina.

Ignore the obvious phone distraction or the fact that Christina
is currently driving a hearse.

We made it relatively safely to Loving Hut though.

I cropped out the tire tracks on Kayla's legs though. But you don't
need to worry about that.

...Except I didn't check Loving Hut's schedule. Apparently, they're closed until 5PM, which was the exact time that Christina needed to be home by.

The exact moment that all three of their disappointment meters peaked.

So we went to Islands instead. We ordered a LOT of delicious food, but again, I'll spare you the food pictures. Christina left at 4:55 or so in hopes that she would make it back home before her mom unleashed a can of Vietnamese Ass-Whoopin on her. She got home at 5:08.

So yeah, Christina's dead. It was nice knowing you.

We went to Old Navy afterwards. We found this shirt pretty interesting.

Thank you, Shia LaBeouf.

See the little running dude inside of the word "IN?" We remembered that the slogan for The X Files was "I Want to Believe" and we thought it would be HILARIOUS if the little guy in the center was an alien.

So I made it so.

I should totally sell this as a shirt.

Oh and I bought this AWESOME cutlery set. It can turn into a spoon, a fork, a knife, and even CHOPSTICKS.

And it's Australian so you know it's good.

Here it is opened, with all its parts.

It's adorable.

Aaaaand assembled (partially). You just switch out the handles for the other heads as you need to.

Totally bringing this to college. Bruins are gonna be
so jealous.

Good day, good good day.

RFotD: That cutlery set cost THREE BUCKS. BUY IT NOW IT'S AMAZING.