Target Ottoman

I love this storage ottoman from Target. It's a Thomas Paul print! I'm hesitant to order it because who knows what the quality is like, but it's 10% off with free shipping and you can return to the store, so it's pretty much risk-free. It also comes in brown, orange, yellow and green.

Daiso

We finally took a trip to Daiso Japan in Union City last weekend, and it did not disappoint. It's a pretty big store with just about everything you can think of and most everything is $1.50. They've got housewares, office supplies, garden stuff, craft supplies, holiday decorations, drugstore-type stuff, candy, etc., etc., etc. We scored some pretty great stocking stuffers, along with a few things for ourselves like handkerchiefs, a wall hanging, a card game that we don't know how to play because all the instructions are in Japanese and I got a nylon sack to carry my leather purses in when it rains. I would say that it is definitely worth a trip, even if you don't buy anything.

Christmas Wish List

There are a lot of things that I would love to get for Christmas. Most of which I would never get in a million years, but for the heck of it, here is my ultimate wish list in no particular order:

Anthro Corrigan Chair, $1,998

I have been in love with the chair for a good few months now. It's amazing. Too bad it's two grand.

Anthro Astrid Chair, $1,298

Same here.

Anthro Crowned Crane Duvet, $348

The photo really doesn't do it justice, and I go insane over it every time I see it in the store.

Roost Carved Wood Deer Head, $649

I have wanted one of these for about two years now. I think they are so cool.

LeSportsac Erika in Pixel Rose Print, $68

I am kind of obsessed with LeSportsacs, and I love this new print.

Elizabeth & James Randi Suete Button Flats, $235

Love, love, love. I would wear these with everything.

Ugg Lo Pro Boots with Drawstring, $140

A nice alternative to regular Uggs. Would still like to see them in person though.

Loeffler Randall Matilde Flat Boot in Chocolate Anaconda Embossed Leather, $775

I waited and waited and waited for a sale on the Black Matilde boots last year, and finally got them. I love them. Then I waited and waited for another sale on the Cuoio color and love them even more. I have worn them so many times. I don't know if I could pull off the embossed leather, but I think these rock.

J.Crew Toscana Shearling Earmuffs, $98

These are adorable, big enough to fully cover your ears and look incredibly warm.

Anthro Laced Dots Sweater by Karen Nicol, $128

Love this sweater - so cute, but they are sold out of my size online.

Marc by Marc Jacobs Ikat Check Blouse, $228

Love the colors, sleeves and the ruffle detail.

Joie Steffie B Embroidered Top, $188

I am a little afraid of anything this sheer, but I think I have some things that I could wear under it. I think it would be so cute under just about any sweater.

Dolce Vita Hope Dress, $176

This dress seems like it could be a staple item.

International Orange Spa Membership, $299 per month

I would die if I could get two massages, a facial, and 30% off products every month. Omfg!

MasterPieces Puzzle Roll Up, $14

I really love doing puzzles, but hate having them sit on the table while they're in progress. I think I would do more puzzles if we had this.

Disneyland Holiday Trip Review

We just got back from spending a few days at Disneyland for Thanksgiving and there is a lot to discuss!

In terms of food, we tried a couple of new places. The first was Storytellers Cafe in the Grand Californian. We tried their buffet which was pretty good, I'd give it an 8 out of 10. Extra points go to the fact that it is an actual restaurant. Normally we're not picky but since we were celebrating a birthday it was nice to have a sit-down meal. The restaurant is nice and the food was good, but I would have liked it to be hotter. I tried the Caesar Salad, Mac & Cheese, Chicken nuggets (supposed to be for kids), Tortellini and Flatbread Pizza. There was also NY Steak, regular salad, scalloped potatoes, cooked carrots and a custom pizza station that I did not see until after we were done and I was bummed. They had some good looking desserts, but nothing that's as good as what you can get in the park so I skipped, though I tasted the bread pudding which was good. The salad and flatbread were the best and what I went back for seconds for. It was really not cheap, but I'd go there again on a special occasion. I heard a woman at the table next to us complain that it wasn't 'grown up food', but that didn't bother me. Probably because I like kids' food.

We also tried the all-elusive Studio Catering cart at DCA. For cripes sake, we have seen this sandwich cart open once before in the past year and it was finally open on Thursday. I love sandwiches, and I have been wanting to try this place for a long time. It's in the Hollywood Backlot which explains why it is never open, but still. It was definitely NOT worth the wait. The sandwiches were premade, which I suspected, but what I had did not taste good. We ordered the turkey club which didn't have any bacon on it btw, so it was pretty much a turkey sandwich. It was so refrigerated that it didn't taste like anything and the cole slaw it came with was not good. I will stick with the nachos at White Water Snacks - SO good. On a side note, we also had the Holiday Gingerbread Cookie and Snowman Shortbread Cookie - both kicked ass. Also, we recently discovered the Cinnamon Crisp at the Mint Julep Bar in New Orleans Square, and it is sooo good! And, we stopped by the tortilla factory for the complementary birthday bag of tortillas, which has been downsized to three instead of like 10. Lame! At least it was a flour tortilla day.

Something we were looking forward to was seeing the Thanksgiving Day Parade. We saw it on our trip last year and it was an awesome. And by awesome I mean 10 people walking and waving and a float with Mickey and the presidential pardoned turkey in a clear box. I think the president of the Turkey Council was there or something too. The best part about this was on Wednesday when we asked a cast member working the Holiday Parade if he knew when the parade would be on Thursday:

Us: "Do you know what time the Thanksgiving parade is tomorrow?"

CM: "Um, we don't have one."

Us: "You had one last year, with the presidential pardoned turkey."

CM: "Um, we have a Holiday parade."

We had this same conversation with three other cast members. Then we checked the web later and, of course, it showed that the parade was at 10 am. Whatever! It did not disappoint.

We rode the Matterhorn and they were doing the self-seating thing they sometimes do just on that ride. I have never understood why they do this. Guests place themselves in the rows so of course everyone is riding by themselves and there are hella empty cars going out while two cast members are standing around watching butterflies. It makes the line go way slower and doesn't make any sense to me.

They now have these hand sanitizing stations all over the place. Apparently washing your hands is too much to ask of people. Oh well, I know it is better than nothing but it is weird seeing people use them and I think hand sanitizer smells really bad.

My favorite Christmas ride is the Haunted Mansion. We rode that about 10 times.

Also, we had to upgrade our Deluxe Annual Passes to Premium to be able to get in on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. You can also pay $30 a day instead of upgrading, but for two people we figured it would be better to just upgrade. Anyway, apparently they raised the cost of the passes since we last renewed ours, which was annoying. But the worst part was that, since we renewed early we saved $20 on each pass, so when we upgraded to Premium, they made us pay the extra $20 each that we saved up front. I think that is such a ripoff. Who cares what we paid? I think we should have been charged whatever the difference is between the Deluxe and Premium pass is now. It doesn't seem right to charge someone the difference between what they paid and what the pass is now worth. And the fact that they charge you the $20 you saved for renewing up front is totally whack. Holy crap, could they nickel and dime you any more? It's like, were you going to send me a bill for the price difference when you raised the price of the passes? No! I was pissed about that.

We also had quite a few celeb sightings on Friday. We saw Giuliana from E! with her husband Bill the Apprentice, Greg Kinnear and Sean Astin. In the past we have seen Jay Mohr, Dax, Maria Shriver and Adam Sandler there too.

We may go again on New Years Eve - if so, more reviews to come!

James Franco on General Hospital

I do NOT like soaps, but I think James Franco is really funny and cool so I am very intrigued by this. I heard about it a while ago, and after seeing a promo for it the other day, I may just have to record an episode to see what it's all about.

Snuggie for Dogs

I don't really know what to say about this except that it is awesome. And by awesome I mean completely insane. I suggest watching the video on their website.

Christmas

I sure do love Christmastime! I know it's a little early for most people to think about, but I don't like anything about Thanksgiving except the long weekend, so it's easy for me to just ignore that and start thinking about Christmas. Some of the things I find most exciting:

• Decorations - Crate and Barrel and Anthropologie have the best I've seen so far this year:

• Christmas Movies - Some of the best, in my opinion: Home Alone, Elf, Christmas Vacation, Love Actually, A Charlie Brown Christmas, A Christmas Story and The Santa Clause.
• Holiday Beverages - I really love the Caramel Apple Cider at Starbucks. A little too much. The red cups are also a bonus of course.

• Disneyland - I really like their Christmas decor and the snow on Main Street, even though it is totally cheesy.
• Christmas Music - Most Christmas music is pretty bad I admit, but I'd say one of the coolest Christmas albums I've heard lately is Sufjan Stevens' Songs for Christmas. I really like this album and there are a lot of songs on it.

Wingstop

I really love chicken strips. Or tenders, whatever you want to call them. I first heard about Wingstop when they put one in at the shopping center by the airport. It sounded really gross and I really hate chicken wings because I don't like the bones or touching my food. But a while ago, I heard from a pretty reliable source that it is actually good and they have boneless chicken strips! Well, I finally tried it and let me tell you, it was good! I had the boneless strips with the mild sauce and their seasoned fries and cole slaw. I really shouldn't be eating that kind of stuff right now but oh well! The chicken and the fries were great, I was really impressed. So were their sauces. There was nothing special about the cole slaw, but it was pretty complementary to the rest of the food. The seasoning on the fries was really good, I think they use a little bit of sugar which I really liked, but I don't think everyone would like that. I believe you can ask for the fries without seasoning, though. And they were fresh-cut fries which I love.

It's not exactly the classiest place (at least the location I went to on San Pablo in Oakland), so I would never dine-in there. Note the pic below. I took my food home with me and it traveled well.

And for the -1 people that read my other blog, I am probably going to be posting those photos on this blog from now on since I'm having trouble keeping up with it. I have a few pretty sweet signs that I want to get pics of, so hopefully I will be able to post those soon!

Disneyland Trip Highlights & Reviews

We went to Disneyland for the Halloween weekend and it was a lot of fun. Unfortunately we were so exhausted from being so busy lately that we had to take four hour naps in the middle of the two days we were there. But the park was open until midnight so it wasn't a really big deal.

Now to review the new Halloween Time additions. They have a new Halloween fireworks show that sucked. The best part is the first two minutes when it's Nightmare Before Christmas themed, but the rest was so lame. The music in the fireworks shows and parades is always so bad, I don't know who's in charge of that department but they need to do something about that.

Also, they themed Space Mountain as "Ghost Galaxy" for Halloween. Wow, it was so awful I can't even describe how shitty it was. They projected these shitty looking ghosts in the dark that I think were supposed to be scary or some shit. It's right up there with when they did Rockin' Space Mountain which was basically Space Mountain with the lights on and some crappy song playing. I swear the ghosts looked like they were from the Mummy ride at Universal Studios.

In terms of other new things, they have a new restaurant in DCA that serves (I guess) Asian food. I think it's about time since they had that huge Chinese restaurant over at the Cannery Row area that just never opened. It's where the Mexican place used to be, and the Mexican place moved over to where the empty Chinese place used to be. Whatever. Anyway, they only serve rice bowls where you basically choose your meat (chicken, beef, tofu) and then your sauce (teriyaki, coconut curry, orange, spicy Korean). I tired a bite of the teriyaki and coconut curry and neither was very good. The sauce was oily and not very flavorful.

Fantasmic also has a new dragon which is a big deal since the last time we saw it they didn't even have a dragon. Wtf?! It was so disappointing when the witch goes up on the platform and...doesn't change into anything. Annoying! And, btw, the dragon was totally on all their posters and stuff for their summer advertising campaign. Anyway, the new dragon is kind of cool, it's really big and it's actually the full dragon's body, which is different than before. But, I don't think I like it as much because it's really robotic looking. It didn't really seem to fit to me. But it breathes fire which is of course the best and most important part.

Also, the Disney Gallery has moved to it's permanent (I think) location on Main Street where the bank used to be. I like that location a lot better than when it was above Pirates of the Caribbean because it's a lot easier to move around in there and it's actually open all the time. I think we had the most notable experience of the trip there. We bought a giclee print of one of Shag's Haunted Mansion paintings called Ghoulish Delights. I really like his Haunted Mansion stuff, it's as good as when he did the Tiki Room stuff, if not better. Anyway, they had two different giclee prints available, and we had a hard time deciding but eventually went with Ghoulish Delights (the red one below). Do you think we made the right decision? It comes with a really cool frame and I can't wait to get it in the mail later this week. Anyway, it was cool because we had a 20% off coupon from renewing our Annual Passes and a shitload of Disney Rewards points that we get from our Disney Visa, so we didn't have to pay any of our own cash for it. But, what I really wanted to mention is how completely inept the staff at the Disney Gallery is. I mean, really some of the lamest people I've ever seen and some of the worst service I've ever received. I think we spent at least 30 minutes just in the checkout process and the employees there clearly had no idea of what the hell was going on.

So, not the best review of Halloween Time but we still had a great time. We're going back later this month for Thanksgiving weekend, that will be fun.

Haagen-Dazs

...Frozen Yogurt and five ice cream are SO yummy! The best froyo flavors we've tried are the Dulce de Leche, Vanilla Rasperry and Vanilla Honey & Granola. We also recently tried the five Brown Sugar flavor and it was really great. They're not super-low calorie, but they're really not bad considering how good they are. Totally worth it!