I know, I’m late on posting an entry about my birthday. Happy Belated Birthday to myself! Lol. I turned 25 on January 7th. It’s a weird & scary feeling. I know I’m not old, but heading there seems to feel faster. This year’s birthday was bittersweet. Bitter: I’m away from home, home [grew up in Michigan, just moved to Florida in November], so I’m away from friends and family. Sweet: I still have other real special people here in Florida with me to spend it with.

Things I got for the somewhat big day:
Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch.  I was shocked! I always wanted my own.

I tested out for the past two days. Love it! It’s real easy to control and navigate on the screen. The touch part of the tablet is pretty cool. For MACbooks, you can’t double tap on the control pad to open a link. With the Bamboo, you can while it’s plugged it. It’s good to use when I’m lazy to unplug or need a quick reference.
My first drawing I made with it: click to enlarge.

I’m excited to use this tablet with my vector/vexel work.

Another gift I receive wasn’t necessary, but really appreciated!! Got the new Google/HTC phone, Nexus One. I love it! People call it the iPhone killer. I don’t think it’s a killer. I personally think the iPhone is still better, because of the App store, music, and zoom methods. But I do think this phone comes very close; it has other things to make up for it. I talk all about it from an average person’s point of view, so I’m not true on the specs. I just know and played with it enough to love it. Nexus One.

I had to go to school in the morning until daytime. I was running late. When I walked in, the whole class said HBirthday. =) People were shocked that I was turning 25, saying I look 20. ^^ One girl got me a cupcake with candles. A few girls sang for me during lunch break. I’ve only been in school for like two weeks. That was very, very sweet of her and the others to sing.

After school, went to see some more special people. Got some shirts from Urban Outfitters, Hoops & Yoyo birthday card [they make the best cards!], an ice cream cake and some awesome singing. ^^

Straight to the thighs. Ate at The Cheesecake Factory. Yummy. I had a Kobe Burger. Love this burger. Their description: American Kobe Beef with Sauteed Mushrooms and Onions on a Toasted Brioche Bun. Served with French Fries or Green Salad. My picture is of my food is messy. I had to cut it in quarters. I ordered mine medium-rare. I love burgers. For dessert, Dulce de Leche Caramel Cheesecake. Uber yummy. (I had alot of sweets this day…lol)
Mmm…I could go for another Kobe burger right now. Even though is 4:30 am right now! :P

To top the night off, I got so many birthday greetings on Facebook and Mixpod. :) Cherries on the top. Thanks to the birthday notifier.

It was a wonderful day. Bittersweet.
I didn’t need anything. I truly am not a materialistic person. Gifts are real great and I’m very appreciative. But the true gifts are the people who celebrated it with me…the people who took the time out of their day to quickly say, type up, call, or text me “Happy Birthday”. Thank you everyone. Words cannot express. Blessed.

Much Love.

A long time ago my cousin introduced me to Honey Walnut Shrimp at a Chinese restaurant [Golden Harvest, Warren, MI]. We were at an authentic Chinese restaurant so I don’t know if this is an Americianized dish, but damn it was good. It’s battered fried shrimp with sweet walnuts and sweet creamy white sauce. I didn’t know where else to get this dish besides that restaurant. Now that I moved to Florida, I can’t find it anywhere. Maybe I didn’t look hard enough. Well, my friend sent me a link to a video of an Asian women  making this dish. Turned out that she has her own channel on Youtube. I was really excited! So I decided to make this dish today.

Check out her videos: Lila’s Youtube Channel, AsianCookingmadeEasy

Honey Walnut Shrimp» click here for her video for this recipe. If not, here’s Lila’s recipe.

INGREDIENTS & STEPS: make sure you do the walnuts and sauce before the shrimp.

Sugar-coated walnuts: since I was just making this for myself, I used half of these measurements
1 cup halved walnuts
1 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp sugar

In a small saucepan, melt the butter on medium heat. Add walnuts and coat with the butter. Jack the heat up and stir constanting for like a minute. Lower the heat back to medium and add the sugar. Keep stirring until most of the sugar dissolved and coated the nuts. Set aside.

Sweet Creamy Sauce: I can eat alot of shrimp so I used full measurements here
3 Tbsp Mayonnaise [Hellmans]
1 Tbsp Honey
2 Tbsp Sweetened Condensed Milk
1/2 Tbsp lemon juice [I just squeezed half of a lemon]

Mix ingredients very well in a small bowl. Set aside.

Batter for Shrimp:
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 cup water
2-3 cups Peanut oil [I didn't have it, so I used Canola oil]
1 lb of cleaned, deshelled, de-veined, de-tailed shrimp [I got a bag of 16-20 per pound. I used ten shrimps instead of a whole pound since they were pretty big]

Mix together flour, salt, sugar, and water.
Line a big bowl/plate with paper towels to lay the shrimp in.
In a big pan, heat oil for frying. Medium-high to high heat. [In the video she used a wok. Mine was dirty and I was lazy to clean it. So I used a medium saucepan with about a cup and a half of oil.]
Put shrimp in batter and completely coat them.
When frying the shrimp, I found it easier to use a fork to stab & pick the shrimp up, letting excess batter drop off, and I slowly drop the shrimp in the oil, using my chopsticks to slide it off the fork. Don’t crowd the pan, shrimp will stick together.
Since I was using a smaller pan, I fried three to four at a time.
Shrimp takes like a minute or two to cook. Batter should be golden brown, shrimp pink.
Transfer cooked shrimp to lined bowl. Remove paper towel from underneath the shrimp. Add sauce & walnuts overtop while shrimp is still warm/hot. Toss together.
Best served with cooked rice. ^_^

I love shrimp. I ate like ten pieces with rice! I’m such a fatass. Lol.

Thank Lila for this recipe! =)

EDIT »
So I’ve been using the Nexus One for the past 3 days now. I don’t like the camera as much anymore. My old phone, Nokia N79 takes awesome pictures. I was used to being spoiled by N79′s 5 megapixel digital camera with Carl Zeiss optics..dual LED flash. The Nexus1 camera is decent. I take a lot of pictures of myself with makeup & my nails for tutorials. The focus, lighting (flash), and color is all wrong. It’s decent, but doesn’t compare to my Nokia. Guess that’s why I loved Nokia camera phones so much. I even liked my N79 camera better than the Canon Powershot SD 630.
I don’t think you can play video games on it, someone asked. I haven’t tried. Google it maybe. Lol.
My MMS isn’t working.  I can receive, but not send. Maybe it’s my network?
Enough of that. I still love the phone. ^^
_______________________

I’ve been wanting a new phone for a while. I know I know. If you know me, I always have a new phone. I get tired of one after a year. But…I was done with my Nokia N79 and I didn’t want to get a Blackberry…done with those too. For sure I wanted a touch screen phone. And I think the best one out there is the iPhone. Then I saw the Google phone…Nexus One. My eyes went big. I decided to get it for my birthday because it’s different. Since I’m a blogger, all I cared about was if the camera, functions, and internet were great & smooth running. So we ordered it on the 6th and it came in today. I’m already with Tmobile so it was real easy to upgrade to this phone. You can only purchased it through Google.

Next to the iPhone 3Gs

Unboxing:

I made this video playlist at myflashfetish.com

Here are a few pictures with the camera. Pretty nice one.
[Click to enlarge]

MINI Review»
I’m not a total nerd so there’s no specifics in the mini review. Lol. I’m pretty much an average joe…
The camera is great. There’s plenty of different settings like using 5MP to 1 MP, black and white, sepia, aqua, posterized, negative mode, etc. I haven’t used the video camera yet, but I’m sure its good.
Everything functions pretty fast and smooth. I love how I can drag the status bar down to check text messages, emails, other notifications, and other applications that are open.
The animated backgrounds are sweet; it interacts with your touch.
A cute case came with it. Google needs to make accessories with this phone, like a screen protector.
The internet browser is great. 3G connection. To me it’s like the iPhone.
Plenty of choices for ringtones and notification tones (I’m big on that too).
The trackball is cool for when I don’t want to dirty my screen. The trackball functions like a Bberry.
The keyboard is pretty much like an iPhone too.
All contacts are synced up with my Gmail/Google Account. If you don’t have one, then you gotta get one. It’s pretty cool to me. Once you’re synced, any phone number/email you save on Gmail is automatically synced with your phone without a usb plug.

Of course, Apple kicks Droid’s ass when it comes to Apps and Music, but I’m not disappointed whatsoever.
The music player is great. The phone came with some free songs from Amanda Blank, Mos Def, etc. Music can be purchased on the phone through Amazon.com. I’m guessing Amazon with be like an iTunes Store for Droids. I think the sound quality and functioning is pretty great. I don’t use mp3 players on phone anyways because I don’t like to drain the batteries. This is why I have an iTouch.
I’m sure there’s going to be more Apps for Droids. I got some of the same apps Apple has like Fandango, Facebook, and free backgrounds. I installed the WordPress app, which I was really geeked about. If you’re a WordPresser, the app pretty much looks like “Quick Press” on your dashboard. Simple and easy.

Bottom note: I think I’m in love. ^_^

Other cool features I thought for this phone:
Videos: one two three four five

My sleeping schedule is out of wack again. I love sleep, but I’m a horrible sleeper until I can actually fall asleep. I stupidly have only been getting only two hours of sleep every night. Not good when I have to cut hair on my mannequin with fairly sharp shears almost everyday at school. I learned how to do a layered cut on long hair today. I swear, if we were just doing book work, I think I would have passed out on the tables. Lol. Being around 12 other girls helps too. Chit chat all the time. I bring up my sleeping ish again because it’s one of my biggest things I want to work on.
So let me get to it.

NEW YEARS RESOLUTION»

01. To be better at time management/prioritizing/stop procrastinating.

02. To eat & cook healthier. I love food so much. I eat pretty much what I want, when I want. But I know it’s all going to catch up with me as I get older.

03. Take my vitamins. I have them. I just forget all the time to take them. I take Women One-a-Day, fish oils, and biotin.

04. I want to get toned. I love my curves. I just want to get rid of jiggle. I’m sure this one is on everyone’s list, whether you’re skinny or not. I won’t be joining a gym though. I could just workout at home.

05. To clean & organize more. I’m not a messy person, but I clutter my living space a bit much.

06. To make my blog more interesting.

07. Be more in touch with my creative side. Nail designs, graphic design, makeup, etc.

A friend posted a link to this on her Facebook. I find it very disturbing.
http://www.thatvideosite.com/video/school_dances_sure_have_changed

Don’t the parents know that they’re teaching their kids sexual moves?? Moves like this are mainly for women on hiphop videos. I admit, I did some “freak” dancing when I was young, but it was way more innocent than this, and I was in junior/high school! These kids look like they’re in in the first grade! The parents in the video even help the kids dance! I don’t understand their language, but it seems like they think its cute or funny. Bet they won’t when they’re girl gets pregnant or they’re boy impregnates a girl when they’re like 14.
Dancing like this isn’t cool; it’s trashy.
Sick.