Lucky 13 - PCaRH's 13th Blogaversary

Yes...it's true

It's the thirteenth year of existence for this blog here...

It's the Dirty Dozen! 12th Blogaversary for PCaRH!

Can you believe it...

This blog is now in it's twelfth year...

Turn it up to 11 for PCaRH's blogaversary!

A decade plus one...

(purple Bingo number from flckr user Leo Reynolds)

It's the11th Blogaversary of Pink Candles at Ridgemont High...

10 Year Blogaversary!

It's been this long folks...

(formed by Belly Flops Jelly Belly jelly beans, aka "the ugly mutants no one wants so they sell them separately under a different name")

A damn decade, or as Paul Spericki would have said...

Number 9...Number 9...

Can it really be....

the 9th Blogaversary of PCaRH?

8 years

Well now...

Today marks the passage of PCaRH's 8th year of existence...

The Magnificent Seven

It's that time of the year again...

(image courtesy of offwestend.com)

No, not March Madness but the 7 Year Blogaversary to PCaRH!

Seven years is a lot in blog years, eh, but still I keep doing it because of the connections (old and new) I've made through my blog...

6 Year Blogaversary!

I'll keep this short and sweet:

It's the 6th year Blogaversary of "Pink Candles at Ridgemont High"!

Has it really been that long?

I would have to say "yes"...

Lasting longer than Kim Kardashian's marriage to that basketball dude(72 days) but shorter than the Magicicada life cycle (17 years)...

It's been quite a trip over these six years chronicling some ups and downs within in my life, as well as the numerous restaurant outings with Bert and TC, our quirky travel adventures, sharing recipes, and meeting super nice folks/fellow bloggersthrough the blog (you know who you all are!). My food tastes have changed over the years and I'm much more open to trying different things and exploring new places thanks to my avid reading of their blogs and many others.

A heartfelt thanks for reading and also sharing your food adventures, recipes, and slices of your life with me through your blogs, my foodblogger friends, as well as any others who chance upon this blog. My writing may not be Shakespeare nor my photographs Bon Appetit "magazine quality", but it's, hey, it's me. If ya don't like it, don't read it, eh?
(The flamey flames match my "6")

But seriously, thanks for reading!

6 Years of my little obsession hobby and hopefully more years to come! Remember, I don't do Facebook or Twitter, so this is it for me! Cheers!

5 Year Blogaversary!

WUT?

Can you believe it?

Pink Candles at Ridgemont High is 5! 

Crank that $#@%  up to 11 my friends!

It's ironic that after five years, I'm the only one left of my friends who originally encouraged me to join blogger. I'm such a hermetic social dinosaur. I refuse to do Facebook and I never did MySpace, Friendster or LinkedIn, and I'm definitely not on Twitter. Me using only 140 characters to express myself? Uh, not happening.

I never imagined I'd meet so many cool folks online as well as in person, such as Kirk from Mmm-Yoso, Michael from Foodopolis, and Captain Jack (our first meeting at Chin's, Ba Ren 1 and Ba Ren 2). They were the among the first to comment on my posts (and appreciate my odd sense of humor and writing style) ; a few years later I was happy to finally meet up with them over excellent Chinese food.

In addition, I've had the pleasure of meeting awesome chicks like The Food Ho of The Pork Porn Pages (Sab e Lee and Halo Halo and Ba Ren), The Diligent Diletante (Sab e Lee with Michael), Jenny from Foray into Food (check out my 40th bday Chococat cupcakes and my Tokidoki inspired cake for my 41st), and Darlene from My Burning Kitchen (Cool Jerk Book Signing at M-Theory). I've tried different recipes and received advice from several food bloggers out there  (too many to name) and hope to meet more of you in the near future (Dennis from A Radiused Corner and Mary from Foodies: A SoCal Food Blog, I'm talking to you!).

It's also been a blast meeting foodbloggers from out of San Diego such as Wandering Chopsticks in Alhambra (Yazmin Malaysia and Kang Kang Food Court, as well as Vanille and the San Gabriel Superstore), Joelen from Joelen's Culinary Adventures (Dinner at Joelen's), and most recently C from Life on Manitoulin, an island in Canada (Manitoulin posts here). It was so much fun travelling and meeting them in person and experiencing their generous hospitality during our visits.

I may have mentioned it before, but I'll mention it again. It was Kirk's post on Ben's 1615 that opened my eyes to the world of foodblogging. I'd never read a foodblog or any kind of blog until then.  I was searching the web about this new Filipino fusion restaurant in National City and Kirk's post was the first link I clicked. Even though he wasn't impressed with the place, I was immediately intrigued as I browsed his site which had tons of other links, lots of cool food photos, and stayed up all night trying to read his back posts, I was thinking, "Man, this is what I already do!" (which was take pictures of my food and talk about it). Ask Bert, I've been doing this for years and here were loads of people who blog about food online!

After a few months of hesitation, I took the plunge, joined the Dark Side, and started up Pink Candles at Ridgemont High. If you're looking for picture perfect photos or refined and genteel language, or rhapsodic exhortations about elitist pleasures and shit, please look elsewhere. Why? Because I'm a tech-tard, enjoy cussing like the bastard child of Ozzy Osbourne and  Al Pacino from Scarface,and don't have unlimited amounts of money.

Anyhow, it's amazing that people even read this thing. I mean, seriously. In the beginning, it was just my friends and Bert. Now they're over blogger and are all into Facebook.  I recently clicked on the "Stats" button and found that people from foreign countries also read this. I think it's because they click on "next blog" at the top and somehow randomly come across mine. Who knows the hell knows! I've never received a comment from a country other than the U.S. and Canada, but who the fk (okay, I had to throw in one of my beloved f-bombs) is reading me in Latvia, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Hungary, Brazil, Australia, the Netherlands, Poland, Iran, the UK, and even the Philippines? Who are these people???

I'll just STFU right now and say to all of my readers in San Diego and beyond, "Thanks for reading my blog!"

Four Year Blogaversary!!!

Woo hoo!!! It's the 4 Year Blogaversary of

Pink Candles at Ridgemont High!!!

(image from Nils! Flickr photostream - what the fuck,
did he take this picture while watching "Fantastic Four" in the movie theatres?)

Has it really been 4 years?

Apparently it has...

Here are my previous blogaversary posts...all in one convenient package!

I have such a long queue of posts waiting to go up, but very little time...

Other good news (for me that is), I'm finally on Spring Break! Which means, I can sleep in and go check out other places to eat instead of being cooped up in my office!

Cheers faithful readers! All five of you! Ha ha, okay, all eight of you!

3rd Year Blogaversary

(image courtesy of jonesprimavera's photostream on Flicker, found during a Yahoo image search)

It's been three years since I've started this blog! Happy Blogaversary to Pink Candles at Ridgemonth High. The name, if you can't figure it out, is a combination of my three favorite movies, "Fast Times at Ridgemonth High", "Sixteen Candles" and "Pretty in Pink". The moniker was thought up by Lotus since I couldn't think of anything three years ago. If you haven't figured out, my name is what Grandpa Fred calls his drunk "Chinaman" Long Duk Dong from the John Hughes' teensploitation classic, "Sixteen Candles"...."Whew! Canine Cologne!" . If you didn't know this reference already, you're either too old (over 50) or living in a cave or under a rock.

Anyways, what started out as a way to post my ramblings on music, food, and whatever is still pretty much the same. I didn't start adding photos until the summer of '06. I didn't start foodblogging until a few months after I started. I remember looking up Ben's 1615, a fusion Filipino place in National City. The blog that had the review was Kirk's MMM-Yoso blog. After reading his posts and looking at his links, I was hooked. I thought, "Hey, I could do that". I've been taking pics of my food even before I knew about food blogging. It's the obsessive compulsive streak in me to document my food. Anyhow, the food blog seems to make it seem almost normal.

A lot has happened to me over the past three years as well, especially last year. It's been about oneyear since I felt the lump in my left breast and got it checked. Unfortunately since it was cancerous, I had to go through a lot of shit like the mastectomy and chemo, but the good thing though is, it's all gone! My mammogram on my right breast came back all clear! Since last fall, my hair has been growing back and people think I just have a cool haircut instead of looking like Sinead O'Connor. I've been back at work for the past two months and it's like I never left. I don't stress out as much as I used to and I am just more "chill" than ever, which is saying a lot, since I'm very Type A. Now, I'm Type B-!

Enough of that! I have two more weeks until Spring Break. Then, we're off to Portland, Oregon!

2 Year Blogaversary

Wow, it's the 2 Year Blogaversary of Pink Candles at Ridgemont High! Two years of online blathering on various topics like food, recipes, things that I like and what bugs me and whatever else...

I'm finally on Spring Break but it's already halfway over. Had a fun time at the zoo with Lotous, her beautiful baby S, my daughter and Elphie. No swinging zebra penises today! Ha ha. We're going to do the Wild Animal Park on Friday.

More posts to come when more time permits.

1 Year!

1 Year Blogaversary of

Pink Candles at Ridgemont High