We went whale watching off the coast of Newport Beach yesterday, thanks to a 50% off LivingSocial deal I bought a while ago. Spotted two blue whales up close(!), a pod of dolphins, and a sea lion. I’d post pictures of the whales, except I’m not very quick with a camera, so all you see is a long sliver of blue-gray in the middle of the ocean. This is probably why National Geographic and TMZ aren’t exactly banging down my door asking me to work for them.

“Souvenir,” 3 x 08

Just saw this episode the other night (my TiVo is basically one big backlog of “Mad Men,” “How I Met Your Mother,” and “The Daily Show” reruns). Yeah, glamorous and First Worldy as her problems may seem, Betty is just a sad, pretty, petulant, caged bird.

I don’t care what you Five Guys East Coasters* or Father’s Office yuppies think makes a good burger (arugula and a soft roll make a great beef sandwich, but not a good burger, F.O.), In-N-Out long ago endeared itself to me with its Animal Sauce and fresh veggies.

No real reason for this reminder, just that I’ve been trying a lot of other burgers lately, and still, nothing compares to the awesomeness you can get for $1.85.

I know where my loyalties lie. 

* But you guys do put bacon and mushrooms on a burger, which I cannot argue with. Also, it’s totally charming that you serve your fries in a cup and offer free peanuts in a box by the door. I like that.

The morning of her flight back to Chicago, I made my mom banana pancakes (and blueberry pancakes! and chocolate chip pancakes!). This was already a week ago, but I’m still pissed at myself for singeing the pancakes a little. Or maybe I just miss her.

Edited to add: Oh. I’m pretty sure I used a salmonella egg to make the batter. OK, not so pissed about overcooking the pancakes anymore. Probably best that I did.

GPOYW: Softcore Hair, Hardcore Glasses Edition

Went in for my biennial eye exam and picked up some sweet new frames. Finally, finally(!), glasses that don’t slip n’ slide down my low-bridged Asian nose or obstruct my entire face. This is the first time I’ve found glasses that I like wearing and don’t make me look like a total doof (and I’ve been wearing glasses since I was about 9, so there’s been a lot of doofiness). I’m pretty in love with them, actually. Who knew clear rims would be my color?

You know what’s a real crock? Restaurant oysters. While I love pretty presentation on the half shell with a side of can’t-buy-it-at-Ralph’s mignonette sauce*,  $3-4 an oyster is ridiculous, considering you can get super fresh oysters at a farmer’s market for only $0.83 a pop.

Key words: Carlsbad Aquafarms Luna oysters. They’re local, sustainably farmed, and tasty as hell. I don’t even need to add any horseradish, cocktail sauce or squeezed lemon - and I love my condiments. Plus, they’re 12 for $10. Seriously. The only caveat? You need to shuck them yourself, which is not as hard as it looks (or so my boyfriend tells me).

Ugh, I love Lunas so much it’s disgusting. Try the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market or Hollywood Farmer’s Market for awesome oystas.

*According to the Carlsbad folks, mignonette sauce isn’t canned and sold in stores because shallots don’t preserve well (or something). The point is, you can only get it freshly made in a restaurant.

So many of life’s little triumphs can be commemorated with manju, and there ain’t no manju like the manju from Fugetsu-do Confectionery in Little Tokyo. Colorful little sticky rice cakes stuffed with red bean, white bean, or chestnut paste — I’ve been enamored of them ever since I tried my first one a few years ago during a work trip to San Francisco. Any 8-pack I order always includes a red bean-filled uguisu [top row, third from the left], plus some new flavors I tried this weekend, like the cherry leaf-wrapped one, the fruity-looking ones (things that look like other things!), and the dainty pink one on the bottom right, with its strawberry paste and chocolate topping. Instant dessert buffet in a box.

I wouldn’t normally have been downtown on a non-Reading To Kids Saturday, but a fledgling USC student advocacy group had invited me to conduct a workshop on “effective blogging and online writing,” an apparent sign that everyone knows I spend way too much time on the internet. An editor from Hyphen mag had referred them over, and I gladly obliged, flattered that someone thought I knew anything about anything, and moderately terrified at the thought of public speaking.

Truth is, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to give them any useful information they didn’t already know. I mean, who doesn’t know the different between Wordpress.com and WordPress.org? Who doesn’t know that you shouldn’t spam users with back-to-back-to-back Twitter updates? Who doesn’t know that most advocacy blogs are really, really boring? I didn’t think I’d be able to fill an entire hour talking about blogging (unless it involved numerous LOLcats and maybe a Stuff White People Like detour).

As it turns out, I can fill an entire hour and a half talking about blogging, yammering into overtime about commenter culture and citizen journalism and crafting a snappy blogger bio. I am a big ol’ windbag, it turns out, who loves discussing hashtags and why mainstream sites like Jez and Angry Asian Man are more effective forms of issues blogging than most official advocacy groups’ blogs.

The group didn’t boo me away from the projector, and I didn’t break out into hives, so I consider Saturday’s workshop a moderate success. Also, I got to unabashedly make several “I Can Has Cheezburger” references in relation to advocacy blogging (within context!), which always makes me happy. Hence, the manju.

Those who can’t do, teach.