We were in Santa Monica recently and rented bikes on the beach (near the pier) and rode south on the boardwalk as far as it went (to Venice Beach or was it Manhattan Beach?). Then we continued south on a few side streets and did end up seeing the Venice canals. Agreed that the canals were not that interesting. The morning seemed like a better time for this because the boardwalks started to get crowded later.
We enjoyed walking around UCLA because we had never been there before.
A side note is that we were surprised to see all of the California Pizza Kitchens because they have completely gone out of business in MN.