(picture above not taken by me)

I was in LA during the days of June 18 – 22.  The trip was all about spending time with my god-grandmother so I mostly stayed in the house with a few random visits to the local areas.   Her house has a gorgeous view of the Pacific Ocean which I spent hours looking at.

Close by the house is a trail which runs along the Palos Verdes coastline.  Whenever I have free time, I would hike down the trailers with my camera in hand to capture the mesmerizing ocean view.

At the end of the trail lies an old lighthouse with a whale museum nearby.  Observers come to watch and count the whales every year during the whale’s migratory path.  You can receive a free interesting tour from a local volunteer inside the museum.  The tour guide was explaining how they are having an over population of sea urchins and I thought to myself “wouldn’t crazyDiva like to turn them all into Uni”.

On the day I arrived to LA, my grandmother treated me to an extremely delicious apple fritter from the local bakery.  I later went back and purchased and ate 3 more in the span of a day, all by myself.

I also had a chance to drop by the local farmer’s market only opened on Sunday.  There were large varieties of fruits and vegetables, many of which had samples for.  

One of the booths was selling a Mexican fruit called “Cherimoya” that I have never seen before (you can probably purchase it in Toronto as well, but I have never came across it). 

A customer beside me describe the fruit as “a fruit from the heavens, it taste like a combination of pineapple, avocado, strawberries and all the best fruits you can think of”.  Which such high praise, I surely must try some for myself.   The verdict – it tasted exactly like coconut!

So You Think You Can Dance is starting again! I have been a fan since season 4. They completely changed up the format this year. Instead of having 20 new members, they now have 11 newbies teamed up with 11 all-stars (previous season’s best contestants). The new format is a very welcoming change! The show was starting to get stale and this breath a new life into the program.

This week is the first elimination and by far, the best dance was from Alex Wong. Created by Sonya who is quickly becoming one of my favorite choreographers, Alex and Allison danced a contemporary number to Hallelujah. The performance was so good it left the judges teary eyed.  Contempory is what Alex was trained in so I wonder how he is going to do in routines that aren’t in his element.

At the other end of the spectrum is Melinda Sullivan. She’s a tap dancer who is trained by the tap-dance legend Gregory Hines. She was dancing with Pasha to a ballroom routine but the entire dance looked sloppy. It was so bad that Nigel mentioned she would be in the bottom 3 tomorrow. Even though she had a bad dance, I still want to see what else she has to offer so I hope she can survive tomorrow’s elimination.

The most annoying contestant must be Kent. His annoying smile and facial expressions is enough to make me want to projectile vomit. I really don’t care how he dances, I hope they vote his annoying ass off the show ASAP!

All the other dances were pretty average so not much to talk about there.

As much as I hate Mia Micheals, I have to admit, the show is not the same without her.  Having her return this season brings back what makes So You Think You Can Dance a good show.  Can’t wait for next week’s performance!

From the Simpsons:

And this is one of the best parody out of all the youtube user made clips, smart lyrics and funny concept:

It first started with a FREE online game called Allods Online.  The game is basically like a free version of WoW… which kind of forces you buy their in game items once you reach the higher levels.  Still, for the $50 I put into the game, it provided me with countless hours of online fun which was totally worth it.

This is my Allods character I put hundreds of hours leveling.  I am the pimp on the bottom with my 2 gal pals standing on my muscular head.

Then I moved onto another FREE online game Atlantica Online.  This game is very unique since it’s an turn based MMORPG where you can control up to 9 characters at once.  A cool concept with is fun for a while but the grind got to me in the end.

Then it was on to Age of Conan.  The game was released a year or two ago, but it just recently came out with a new expansion pack.  This is a subscription based game with lots of pretty graphics and is the current game I am playing on a casual basis.

So enough with my updates!  I am back and will be updating more posts with lots of delicious summer desserts, recipes, and pictures

What? Another blog you say? Yes… I am about to start a pure food blog just about the baked goods but don’t worry, it’s just a side project.  Nothin Crazie will still be my main home.

So why start another blog?  Because it’s my stepping stone to my future bakery   The new food blog will be a collection of recipes that I am currently collecting, displayed in a format catered to showing off the beauty of food (ie food porn).

The main theme for the banner is to have something that was colorful and simple.  Something that represented artistry and creativity.  It boiled down to using a cheerful color theme of green, yellow, red and black with nice thick brush strokes.  The hand drawn “chef” was added to represent moi, but due to my limited drawing skills, he ended up looking nothing like me.

I opted for a vertical banner to allow more room for larger pictures, and to put more emphases on each recipe entry.  It’s also more unique since most sites features a horizontal banner instead of  a vertical one.  So enough yapping, here ’s the final design!

Water that reacts to your emotions?  Say it ain’t so!  It sounds very magical, but it is an interesting topic neverless.  While I do question some of the research presented in the documentary, I do think it’s possible to believe that water can have a “consciousness”.  Watch it yourself and tell me what you think.

I will try the water in rice experiment someday, and when I do, I will blog about the results.

As part of my New Year’s resolution to become more compassionate and not as selfish, the first act towards my goal was the donation of $25 to Canadian Red Cross to aid the Haiti earthquake victims.  Lets all try to help and donate!

To donate to the Canadian Red Cross, click here.

To donate to World Vision, click here.

One of the things I like to do in my free time is to dig up interesting documentaries to watch on youtube (especially scary ghost ones).  I found this interesting documentary (don’t worry, it’s not scary) regarding how the environment affects our genes which are then passed down to future generations.  The lesson of the story?  Take care of your genes, at least until you are finished making babies.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

So this holiday’s Boxing Day was quite eventful to say the least.  Even though the deals weren’t as good as previous years (they seem to get worst and worst each year), there were still lineups all over the place.

The original plan was to first stop by Best Buy to enter the $500 draw and to buy a large TV, then stop by HMV to pick up the $10 ipod headphones and the $20 Modern Warfare 2 video game.

After a small dispute regarding which Best Buy location would be the best, crazyC forcibly made to go to the location of his choice.

We arrived at Best Buy at 5:40, just in time to enter the $500 draw given to all the people who lines up before 5:45.

Even though it was raining, the lineup still wrapped around the entire building. I had a feeling I was going to win the $500, but I guess my feelings betrayed me since I only walked away a with losing raffle ticket. The plan was to wait in the car until the store opened, then we rush in, pick up my 58′ TV, then head towards HMV. Little did we know that Best Buy was only letting 30 people in at a time. 20 minutes after the store opened, only a quarter of the line moved so we got fed up and went to Future Shop instead.

Future Shop must have super crappy deals because it was almost EMPTY when we got there. CrazyC picked up a Sony laptop since he wanted to look like a baller, we then headed straight to HMV.

Even though we got to HMV 15 minutes before it opened, there was already a line up! Who lines up in a mall for HMV? (Apparently, we do) After getting yelled at by the security guard for taking pictures of the line up, we were ready to rush in to pick up our games and headphones.

Since crazyC was in front of me, I expected him to grab all the items for us. The entire lineup rushed towards the shelf of where all the discounted items were and crazyC just casually walked by in hopes that the game and headphones would magically appear in front of him. I guess I don’t have to say, we walked out of HMV empty handed.

Since I wasn’t able to get a TV or the game, I wanted to head to Staples in hopes of buying a netbook. Surprise, surprise! Another lineup greeted me there and in the rain for 15 minutes I waited! As least I was able to walk out with the netbook, but after opening it at home, it looked like a refurbished unit so to the return bin it goes.

The last event was to help crazyC’s parents pick out a LED TV which was for sale at Audio Video 2001.  It turns out that we missed the last unit by a few minutes so another failure there.

After all that, I would have to rate 2009’s Boxing Day to be an epic failure.  Hope next year’s will be better (with better deals)!

crazyPyxo’s rating for 2009 Boxing Day

0/10