Vietnamese banh mi rolling your way

Mexican taco trucks used to rule the L.A. landscape. They criss-crossed business to business, often stopping in the industrial areas. Customers pour out at break time to buy homemade tacos, breakfast burritos and other grab and go offerings. In 2009, some adventurous, business-minded Asian Americans started the Kogi truck. The Kogi truck serves up a hybrid of Korean and Mexican tacos to the masses, alerting customers where they'll be stationed through Twitter and Facebook. Ajumma's seen the mad love for Kogi's offerings firsthand. It's nuts.

Now the Vietnamese have joined the party. Nom Nom Truck motors around Los Angeles dishing up Vietnamese sandwiches, Asian tacos and Vietnamese coffee. You can even put in a request that they come to your neighborhood or event. Ajumma's only complaint is that Nom Nom's prices are twice high as I'm used to paying for banh mi, but gas isn't free these days. Add boba tea to the menu and you've got me sold!

You've always wanted to live in Long Beach

A fully-restored Edward Killingsworth home is now for sale in Long Beach, California. You might remember the 1957 property from its (drool-worthy) cover article in Dwell magazine in 2007. At that time the 2 bedroom, 1.5 bath home was worth several hundred-thousand more than today. Today the asking price for this marvelous home is at $799,000. The Opdahl Residence, as it is known, will be open for viewing on Sunday, January 31 from 1-5 PM. See the listing.

My red Blu Dot tables and sofa would look so hot in this home!

Hawaiian and Minnesotan= Same Same

Watching a video of Hawaiian surfer Keoni "Cheeseburger" Nozaki, I am reminded how Asian Hawaiians sound like fellow Minnesotans. A few years ago I spoke on the phone with a young woman interested in graduate programs at my workplace. After chatting with her a while, I said, "I can tell by your accent that you're from the Midwest." After an awkward pause she said, "I'm from Hawaii." Oops. Calling someone out for being from the Midwest isn't exactly a compliment to the average person.

Nozaki is a Hawaiian-born Nissei. He's currently competing in the Volcom Pro at Pipeline in Oahu. Good luck, Cheeseburger! Watch his "you betcha" video, here.

I'd consider stealing this baby

John Cho out for a stroll with his offspring. It seems this adorable child takes after his mom. See more photos of Cho and his son.

They go together peanut butter and chocolate

Kimchi bubble tea by Hei-Chan

Will I die today?

I was innocently eating my cereal while watching music videos, yesterday, when a Humane Society of the United States commercial came on. I held it together while heartbreaking photos of abused and neglected animals flashed past. But when a photo of a white cat appeared asking, "Will I die today?" my tears started pouring. Despite continually making me cry, the HSUS is an amazing organization that eduates people, and protects domestic pets and animals in food, science, and human "entertainment" industries. Ajumma is proud to support HSUS's efforts to end cruelty towards animals.

On a bright note, HSUS reports that Sonic fast food chain has adopted a new policy phasing in eggs from cage-free facilities only, and pork from farms where pigs are not confined to gestation crates. (Gestation cages are tiny metal cages that are so small animals cannot even turn around. It'd be like you or me living in a school locker for months). Hooray for Sonic! This is progress, folks.

What $585,000 will buy you in Chinatown

An upper level dwelling at 584 Chungking Court, in Los Angeles, popped up on Redfin four days ago. The asking price for the 1 bed, 1.5 bath unit is just just under $600,000. For that amount of money you get no heating, no AC, no laundry and perhaps more annoying than schlepping clothes to a laundromat, NO PARKING! In a perfect world this property would sell for $200,000. See the Redfin listing.

Mark Valley is flexible

Hot damn! I've finally figured out which blonde actor I passed on the waterfront in Vancouver in September. It was Mark Valley doing the splits while waiting for the cameras to roll on his new TV series. (Technically he was stretching his quads, but he was quite into it.) I glanced his way for only a second, so over the past five months I tried to convince myself it was Simon Baker from The Mentalist or Colin Ferguson from Eureka. However, neither of those chaps have the same brilliant blue eyes I remembered. Fox Network recently began running a promo for their new action series, Human Target. The moment I saw Mark Valley's face I screamed, "That's him!" to which my husband calmly replied, "You just think it's him." Mark, his flexible legs, and his ridiculously blue eyes debut in Human Target on Sunday, January 17.

Boba Terrier is da bomb

Everyone loves bounty hunters. More by Rubenacker.

Take that, Vancouver-dwelling Converse wearers

Dexter wears Vans

Pharrell rocks out in Vans worn by the Z-Boys in the '70s

Shia in a classic Vans check print

Musician Brian Fallon owns several pairs of Vans

How can "Chuck" still be on NBC, but Conan pulled?

This evening Conan O'Brien addressed a rumor that NBC intends to pull him from The Tonight Show and block him from appearing on TV for the next three years. Conan joked if NBC really wants no one to see him they should just put him on NBC. He compared it to being in the witness protection program.

Let's look out for each other.

Sweet promo for Surfrider Foundation from February 2010 issue of Dwell magazine. Of course if this were a real killer whale it would methodically drown these penguins over the course of a few hours.

Flashback: Daniel Henney for Gentra

Here's a photo I took of Daniel Henney promoting the Daewoo Gentra during a visit to Seoul in 2005. Henney exploded across Korea in 2005 after appearing in the TV comedy, My Name is Kim Sam Soon. When I spotted his cardboard cut-out next to a parked Gentra, I went nuts like I was seeing him in person.

One thing I never quite got was Gentra's tagline, "Are you gentle?" Are any Korean drivers gentle?

Size doesn't ALWAYS matter

I just got through all of the entries in Apartment Therapy's Smallest, Coolest Home Contest. Whew! My favorite place is Casey Marie's funky 565 square foot apartment. She shares the space with her man and 3 little dogs. The only thing she's missing is some plants! See all of Apartment Therapy's contest entries here.

I slept with Tiger Woods

During the height of the Tiger Woods hysteria, last month, I told my coworker that I wanted to make a t-shirt stating I had slept with Tiger Woods. We both thought it was funny. She advised that I should market that sucker fast before someone else came up with the idea. Weeks later when I had not yet done so, she asked why.

Ajumma: I thought it made light of infidelity.

Coworker (flatly): You obviously have stronger morals than I do.

Top 12 Korean dishes that won't make foreigners swear off Korean food for the rest of their lives

Great minds at the Institute of Traditional Korean Food have noodled together a list of dishes that most appeal to foreign tastes. Apparently they think foreigners just LOVE pumpkin. Ajumma would move japchae and bulgogi to the top of the list. Read more at JoongAng Daily.

Doh! hawk alert

How can a hairstyle look so high speed on Jenny Shimizu

and, in the words of Margaret Cho's mother, look so gaaaaaaay on Zac Efron? 17 Again is actually in my Netflix queue. I'm a little afraid that I'm going to see Zac Efron in all his glory and decide I love him.

And this just makes me laugh.