today i ate at osteria mozza.

i've eaten at mozza pizzeria many times, but never the neighboring osteria mozza. we went in for a late new year's eve dinner. the food is absolutely amazing. i had a squid ink and jalapeno pasta with crab and uni - it was served cold and insanely delicious. i also had their striped bass. dan had their gnocci duck ragu and the beef brasato, both also amazing and melt-in-your-mouth good. they even handed out bells for us to "ring" in the new year with.

today i experienced a bomb scare.

a suspicious package arrived at dreamworks' mailroom today, which is located in the same building that my office is located in. the cops and bomb squad were called in, and the building evacuated. eventually we were told we could just go home, as they wouldn't be letting us back in the building for several hours. in the end, it was neither a bomb nor a prank, and all is well, but it was definitely a first.

today i had cake monkey!

cake monkey bakery sells its goods at various places in LA, such as intelligentsia, silverlake wine and umami burger. i've seen it many times before, but after dinnering at umami tonight, i finally had one of their red velvet cakewiches (red velvet cake sandwich coated in chocolate). so good!

today i ate lunch with just a knife.

for some reason, i grabbed a plastic knife instead of a fork from the lunch line today. i didn't realize this until i was too far (and too lazy) to go grab a fork, so i just dealt with it. and i managed to eat everything by either balancing it or stabbing it. however, it did make me think that perhaps i should just start carrying chopsticks with me everywhere..

today i went on the simpsons ride.

we went to Universal Studios today. it was my first time inside the park in years, so obviously my first time going on the new simpsons ride, which is a revamp of the old back to the future ride. i think i preferred the old ride to the new one.. then again, i've never been a fan of the simpsons.

today i got a mani-pedi.

cat and i had a "girl's day" today.. really it was more of an afternoon. we started off getting manicures and pedicures in santa monica. i've gotten a manicure before, but never a pedicure (i'm not exactly comfortable with people touching my feet..) but it was quite the pampering experience. and my feet are so clean, smooth and de-calloused now! perhaps that's too much information..

today i saw the imaginarium of dr. parnassus.

it's a cool, funky, wacky movie with strange visuals and not everything is explained or made clear by the end. i enjoyed it though, even if i was a bit perplexed about some things in the end.

today i made a christmas goose!

mike and i hosted christmas eve dinner at our apartment in west LA. my parents, dan and gerhard attended. it was a great dinner! and the centerpiece of the dinner was the goose. originally, i was going to do a goose from scratch, but we found out that suzanne goin's tavern was selling a stuffed and trussed oven-ready goose! so, we got that instead - i still had to do all the roasting and brining though! it came out absolutely deeeelicious.. so much better than turkey in my opinion!

today i got my nook!

i ordered the barnes & noble's nook back in early november and didn't get it until today - but it's just in time for christmas!. it's my very first e-reader and so far i'm really digging it. the first book i purchased was tokyo vice (which i've mentioned before) and am really enjoying the whole reading experience on it. it's nice too that it has both wireless and 3G access, and each book i've downloaded took under 2 minutes over the 3G network. pretty awesome.

today i learned "steampunk".

the word steampunk can refer to many things, mainly a subgenre of fiction that "denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used—usually the 19th century, and often Victorian era England—but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy." however, i learned of the term with regards to fashion and design, which is related in the sense that it would fit into that world. it involves incorporating lots of vintage things into high fashion or futuristic pieces, a sort of retro-futurism. i especially like the prominent use of interesting metallic objects like skeleton keys and the gears inside old-fashioned watches and clocks. it's worth a google image search if you ask me.