On Friday night, I met up with friends at The 3rd Stop after work. They had a large selection of beers on tap, but I dig my local brews, so I stuck with a Craftsman. I had the Biere de Blanco this time. The food options were not Bronwen-friendly, but more on that later. The people I was with enjoyed their meals, which were pretty standard pub fare options.

Saturday morning, I was moving pretty early. We headed out to Flore Vegan in Silverlake for breakfast. I had blueberry pancakes with tempeh bacon. Lemonade was not available at 10am, because the restaurant had run out of lemons. (Okay? Maybe take lemonade off the blackboard then?) The pancakes were fine, but the tempeh bacon was actually quite awful. It was cold and just plain didn’t hold together. I’m really not a fan of breakfast food, but my boyfriend is, so I wanted to give Flore a shot. Lunch was being served simultaneously, and some of the wraps and sandwiches coming out of the kitchen looked fantastic. Next time, I’ll lunch while he breaks.

I recently started eating exclusively vegan foods. I am increasingly intolerant of lactose in my old age. I have traditionally enjoyed a cast-iron stomach; it used to take a hell of a lot to upset my digestion, but this is simply no longer the case. Additionally, I hate eggs, and I don’t like most forms of meat. I find fish, seafood, and cow (at times) tasty, but that’s about it. More recently, meat started giving me similar problems to the dairy. Meat doesn’t really make me feel that much better than dairy does lately. I did a tiny little experiment of cutting out dairy during a 5-day work week, and, dude, it felt fantastic. So, I went more whole hog, very suddenly. It’s really not difficult. I’m cooking, and it turns out I’m pretty good at it. I feel so much better throughout my day, and the health effects that I was hoping to see have already started rather dramatically.

Anyway. I watched some men’s semifinal action. Went to see 3:10 to Yuma. I enjoyed it. The ending was a little sweet, but hey. I tend to forget Russell Crowe exists, but he’s crazy good, right? Despite his talent, Ben Foster nearly stole the movie as far as I was concerned.

We met up with my friend for dinner at Pure Luck after the movie. Pure Luck exists in this very interesting block of Heliotrope where the hardcore cyclists of Los Angeles congregate. Pure Luck serves vegan food & local beer on tap. It may be my favorite restaurant of all time. I split the spring rolls and then had an avocado tostada, washed down with a Craftsman Heavenly Hefe. So good. Afterwards, we walked right across Heliotrope to Scoops, where I had a dish of black sesame & ginger. Scoops serves multiple vegan flavors every day alongside the crazy inventive dairy flavors.

Sunday, I slept! I watched the women’s final, followed by the men’s final. I caught up on comic books. I was treated to dinner at Real Food Daily, which was a very nice treat indeed. We split a hummus plate for an appetizer, and then I ate a good 3/4ths of the supreme burrito. I had some organic pilsner to drink, and I totally forget what it was, but it was tasty enough. I’d try something harder next time. We split a piece of peach/apple pie for dessert. holler.

After dinner, we headed out to the Hollywood Bowl to see Underworld. I was vaguely familiar with Underworld, but I’d never gone out of my way to listen to them. Me and dance music aren’t exactly tight. But they gave a nice performance, and I had a swanky nice seat that I did not pay for, so all was well. I was out past bedtime on a school night though, so I’m a little sleepyheaded today.

On Friday, I got my hair cut off after work. But first, on my way to the salon, I had street parked up a hill in Silverlake. I made a misstep coming down the hill, my right ankle buckled, and I fell hard on my left knee. It hurt, but whatever. I get down the hill and realize my knee is wet. Lift the jeans, and, sure enough, it’s Vietnam down there. I enter the salon and — rather smoothly, I do say — said, “Hi, I’m Bronwen. I have an appointment with Jamie at 7:00. Do you have a first aid kit?” The nice desk boy returns with a band-aid. No, that won’t quite do. Some gauze and tape is located; I mop up as best I can. I’m still gushing though, so I’m holding the gauze to my knee being all, “No, really, please cut all my hair off. Seriously.” I was really kind of looking like a crazed pirate at this point, so Jamie believed me.

She cut off a foot of hair — which she was going to donate for me — and now I have a messy, chin length, very layered shag with bangs thing going on. It’s crazy delightful and very versatile. I am enjoying it very much.

Because I am me and I don’t care about propriety so very much, I am wearing a skirt with my huge scar showing to work today. (It may surprise you to learn that August in Los Angeles is hot.) The knee bandages that I bought don’t work so well, so I just have a liquid bandage sprayed on top for protection. I have been employing different reasons for the scar when people have asked how I acquired it: skateboarding accident, eaten by a lawn mower, the proverbial “you should see the other guy,” and my favorite (suggested by my boyfriend), “I had an altercation with Lindsay Lohan.”

So, that’s the haircut. Saturday morning, I went to see The Bourne Ultimatum. Of course, it kicked some ass.

Saturday afternoon was a cooking class at Hipcooks. My friend Shannon had given me a gift certificate to one of their classes for my birthday, and it’s taken me this long to get in to a class I wanted to take. I signed up for “Tarts for Tarts.” The savory tarts were all very eggy, so I wasn’t really into them, but the sweet tarts were fantastic. I would recommend Hipcooks, however, to people with more cooking experience than I have. I felt pretty remedial and embarrassed.

Saturday night was a big birthday party for lots of friends at Seven Grand. Many people showed up, and it was quite fun.

Sunday morning was epic. It’s my new go-to anecdote, so I am totally not wasting it here. The happenings were real, and they were spectacular.

Sunday night, I joined my boyfriend and his parents for dinner at the Village Idiot. His parents are friends with the parents of the chef there, so we were all dining together and chatting. I totally reverse what I wrote about this place earlier. Why’s that? The food was fucking ace. I didn’t eat there when I was there before, but, man, was this meal good. With a Craftsman beer accompanying, it was really a very perfect evening.

I had a half day at work yesterday. My boyfriend and I both had some things to take care of, but we met up for an early dinner/late lunch Vietnamese bite. Him: “It’s, like, light outside. What do you want to do?” Me: “Let’s go to Disneyland.” So we did. Left L.A. around 7:00pm and got down to Anaheim shortly after 8:00.

We had gone last year on a Saturday, which had been a) crowded, b) hot, c) sort of not totally worth the total effort put into the trip, and d) not especially pleasant. That trip was my first time at any vaguely magical kingdom, and his first trip there since he had been a teenager going with parents.

Last night, we had barely any wait times, and we got to do all the things we didn’t do last year. The Pirates of the Caribbean ride had been under construction last year, so we hit that (really fun), as well as the Haunted Mansion (which I adore), the Indiana Jones thing (kind of bumpy, plus I think my current hip bruises were earned on this ride), etc.

All in all, it was so much fun and exactly what I needed right now. Work’s been go, go, go for the past few weeks, and between after work schmoozing/events, birthday parties, reminding friends that I exist through drinks, I’ve been kind of a wreck. So, Disneyland was a kickass start to this long weekend.

. . . Or, as I’m calling it, the vacation before the vacation. I leave for Europe on Thursday night.

I went out to Twiistup last night in Santa Monica. Twiistup was organized by Mike Macadaan, and the goal for last night seemed to be merging conference with a bar/club/whatever energy.

The venue, Zanzibar, was pretty small for the amount of people who were there when I arrived around 8:45pm. The Twiistup site said 300 people were expected, and I have no frame of reference for how many showed up other than that I was way freaking hot [and trampled] until I found the air conditioning duct and lingered under it. Also, because I am me, I don’t particularly enjoy a bar where your credit card purchase minimum is $15. I’m just saying.

The first set of demos were almost impossible to hear and marred by some tech problems. I can’t even remember which companies’ demos this set was. It was pretty evident that people hadn’t tested their PowerPoint presentations with the screens ahead of time; those presentations were widescreen, and I’m pretty sure that the screen was not even 4:3, but more like a nice, square 4:4, totally cutting off vital text & images. That’s 1:1 in lowest terms, btw.

heathervescent (who actually hooked me up with a free pass to get in last night — Thanks again, Heather!) presented in (I think) the second set of demos. She managed to shush the room quiet enough I could hear about her client, ooVoo. Seriously, that bar was loud.

The two projects I learned about that interest me most are goodreads and Mint.

goodreads is a social networking site centered around book reviews. That’s a keeper. I signed up, please feel free to befriend me, but I haven’t played around with it at all yet.

Mint is being pitched as an alternative to Quicken — faster, more intuitive, and really designed to figure out where your money goes. Have we met? I’m, like, the poster child for needing this product. I may as well not have a therapist at all considering I treat ye olde Urban Outfitters like it’s solely responsible for my well-being.

I won a mint mojito off Noah Kagan, who was there to demo Mint, because I’m a big boozer (it’s a short long story), and I spoke to him about the product for a few minutes. They’re not really sure who their demo is yet, but I think almost all of my friends in the thrust of twenties’ dues-paying could find value in it. Y’know, if the thing works. I’ve signed up for the demo, so we shall see.

I took off after maybe a little less than two hours. As I said, the place was hot. Also, I was dead sleepy what with the previous night. I think Macadaan’s got something with Twiistup, so hopefully the kinks will be worked out for the next one. Small, overcrowded, hot venue is one thing. Not having a single smooth PowerPoint presentation and microphone malfunctions during a tech summit is sort of . . . another.