Stars w/The Pains of Being Pure at Heart @ The Glass House in Pomona

Last night's show at the Glass House was so good, that I felt it was worth a mention. I had originally chosen to get tickets for this show just for The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, who are easily one of my favorite new bands in recent years. As far as openers go, they are definitely ones to watch. I don't mind seeing their headline shows either! They're really talented musicians and you can hear a big shoegaze influence while keeping their songs interesting and hook-filled. They write really amazing songs and are definitely able to play them live well.

Search Amazon.com for The Pains of Being Pure at Heart 

It has been awhile since I saw Stars live, so I had almost forgotten what an excellent show they put on. For awhile, they seemed to be really popular and that is not undeserved. I do recall seeing Metric opening for them at the Knitting Factory back in 2003, and most people probably are more familiar with Metric than Stars. Both bands are good in their own right, it just seems that Metric has managed to play more big festivals over here. Or maybe I've just seen them at more big festivals... Anyways, Stars are pretty cool. They have a sophisticated indie pop sound which is also very polished.

I hadn't heard the new album "Five Ghosts" before the show last night, but it was more because I didn't even know they had a new album.  Now that I have heard it, I definitely recommend it - only $5.99 to download and $9.99 for a physical CD. What makes a Stars show special is not just the lights and talent of the band, but also the graciousness and encouragement of them to their fans. It's always nice to hear the band members thanking the fans for their support and telling them to start a band. They also thanked the openers multiple times.

Last but not least, I must point out that the Glass House is one of the best venues in Southern California. Free parking, safe college town, plenty of shops and restaurants to hang out at before and after gigs - that's definitely a win win. Another nice thing about the venue itself is reasonably priced food, sodas, energy drinks, and water - which makes up for the fact that they don't serve alcohol (which I don't normally drink anyways). They also have a big area for merch tables, which makes it easy to buy stuff and support all those talented artists we love so much. 

Tokidoki signing

I just posted about the Simone Legno signing this weekend at the Beverly Center on the Sneak Peeq Fashion Blog, but I did not include pictures of all the special bonuses that came with the shoes! So here are some pictures of the top of the shoe box, backpack, plush Tiger keychains, and tote bag:

Scott Pilgrim, fashion blog, O'Reilly tech books, and job hunting

I know it's been over a month since my last post, but I really have been busy!  Last month, I went to San Francisco and ended up staying an extra day and half for an in-store at Amoeba by a band called TsuShiMaMiRe, I'm not sure why I didn't post anything about it... in fact the whole trip was pretty interesting since we stayed in the Marina District and walked around a lot. We even went to the Exploratorium, which has always been one of my favorite places in SF... I think I got too distracted after I got back since I had to finish a Digital Video project... I think I'll post it on my website as well as a blog about that trip...

For now, here's what's happening now. I've been contributing to a fashion blog called Sneak Peeq, these are my posts to it so far:

Soft and Sexy Wrap by Victoria's Secret
Madden Girl Sheldun Boots and Floral Petticoat Skirt by Forever 21
My Favorite Brands



I went to a Halloween party in Seal Beach, which was fun and great for my boyfriend to talk to other gamers in person. The next night, we went up to the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood for a screening of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and panel discusion moderated by Guillermo Del Toro (who was hilarious!) with Edgar Wright, Bryan Lee O'Malley, and Michael Cera. It was awesome seeing the movie with a bunch of fans and then watching/hearing the discussion about it. Here's a picture from the end of it, during which Guillermo Del Toro was making some funny remarks about how much he hates taking photos:

We were sitting pretty close to the front, so I did get a lot of good photos - more of which can be seen on my Flickr account. To continue with the Scott Pilgrim blu ray mania, we went up to Amoeba early on Tuesday morning to secure our spot in last night's signing event. Lots of waiting around, but it was pretty cool to meet a bunch of the cast and creators of the movie and get them all to sign the blu ray sleeve. Here's a picture of the signed sleeve and box:

Aubrey Plaza, Mae Whitman, Michael Cera, and Edgar Wright were kind enough to also sign the outer box for me. There were 12 people signing total, so there was very little time for chit chat and none for photos since they had to sign about 400 items total. That's like 48,000 signatures total!  I'm really glad they had this kind of event, since it shows just how dedicated the fans, creators, and actors involved are to this film.  I hope it really is a game changer in how movies are made.


I've recently been contacted by a few different recruiters about web design/development jobs, and since I did drop a couple classes - I decided I would look for part time and telecommuting jobs until I'm ready for a full time job again. I want to finish my Photoshop and Final Cut Pro classes, since I do enjoy them and I don't want to fully drop all my classes for work. There are also some Web Programming (ASP and Perl) classes I want to take at Cypress College (which are online, except for exams).  As much as I enjoy the graphical side of web design, I think the programming side is very useful and important in understanding and creating better websites.

I also recently applied for O'Reilly's Blog Review program, so that I can review their stuff while learning useful things. I applied to review this book: Building Android Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript By Jonathan Stark.  It combines stuff I already know with stuff my boyfriend wants to learn, so I figured it would be helpful if we both read it and learned to make Android apps. I am still in the process of reading it, so I'll let you know all about it when I'm done.

I actually still have a lot of reading about the Bento Box stuff I mentioned on my last post. I have pretty much everything I need to make cute looking food and the containers to put them in... the hard part is actually trying it out and making stuff!