Willo O'Brien

I am *so* glad Jem bought me a ticket to BFD! It was perfect, because all the bands we wanted to see were during the day on the side stages! So it wasn’t too gigantic and horrible, and instead it was a gorgeous day, full of great music!!

Click here to see more photos from BFD 2005

Oh, and my friend Brian told me his friend Justine was going to be there solo – so she met up with us and I think we’ve found ourselves a new show ho! woohoo! We’re already planning to hit the Le Tigre/Beck show coming up.

We saw Tegan & Sara, Kaiser Chiefs, The Bravery, Hot Hot Heat and Sleater-Kinney on the small side stage – and then The Lovemakers and Kasabian on the main stage. All were great, but I have to say Kaiser Chiefs really rocked it for me! I hadn’t seen them live yet & they were FANTASTIC! The lead singer jumps around all crazy and they’re all very charming. The energy was great for their show & I was dancing and singing and loving it!

HHH is one of my favorite bands, but this show wasn’t their strongest IMO. The show at GAMH a few months back was way better… but still cool to see them (because I looooove them) & now that we know their new stuff, it was good to hear that again.

It was excellent to see SK, too! We got up pretty close for that one & I enjoyed their whole set. I love their voices, and it never gets old watching Janet Weiss kick ASS on the drums. She’s awesome! There’s a great interview with them in this month’s BUST if you’re a fan!

It was wild to see the Lovemakers on the main stage, cuz they were so teeny! Usually they got all their sexiness right up in my face (that’s more like it!), but they still sounded great… and we could see & feel the sexy all the way up on the lawn. I can’t wait for their new album!!

Anyone hittin BFD tomorrow? I just remembered that I’m not going to be working a full day tomorrow. Turns out Jem bought me a ticket (which I asked her to, but then forgot so I’m glad she reminded me!). As much as I’ve become pretty anti-Shoreline (giganto-stadium-like-venue), I have to admit I’m pretty stoked to see: Kasabian, The Lovemakers, Sleater Kinney, Hot Hot Heat, The Bravery and Kaiser Chiefs. I hope it’s sunny!

Anyway – if you’re going… lemme know or ring my cell & maybe we can meet up for a $7 beer and $8 garlic fries.

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Driving me crazy: These damn dogs in my neighborhood that just bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark and it never stops!!! SHUT UP DOGS! uuugg.

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Loving like mad: This new bodywash I bought at Trader Joes: ShiKai’s Yuzu Bodywash. It smells SO DELICIOUS!!

I would have initially just told you how amazing the ‘grapefruit’ scent is… but it’s actually Yuzu! (I’m just learning from their website) Yuzu is a Japanese fruit that is similar to what you would find if you combined a grapefruit and a mandarin… yummm! I picked this out because I have sensitive skin (no Lever 2000 for me!) and since this body wash is soap free & moisturizing, it’s perfect! It’s pretty funny to get so excited about taking a shower, especially since I love my long hot showers as it is. But seriously, this has added a whole new level of fantastic to it all. :)

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Today the sun has been out, which is good… it’s been a bit rainy here. Reminding us all that summer in SF is usually quite fog laden.

I gotta go do my workout for the day. Without a workout buddy (she’s super busy this week), it’s hard for me get my ass there some days. I did finish the book I’ve been reading at the gym yesterday, though, which was cool. I love finishing books*.

I concur with Sarah‘s review that it pretty much just made me feel like I needed a dose of Ritalin. However, I can appreciate an analytical mind (right up there with people who make the effort to program all their appliances to display the correct time), and I suppose it was a fairly interesting story to get through. That said, I’m not sure I’d recommend it to anyone. A couple people told me I had to read it – but I think you’re really not missing much except a few days of feeling like you’re stuck in the body of an autistic boy. Kinda like Momento… you’re just SO glad you’re normal and don’t have to constantly go through some crazy process just to keep it all straight.

*Speaking of, Steve & Burt – I finally saw High Fidelity (the movie) again *after* reading the book. They left out the entire deal of him freaking out when he didn’t give the reporter lady his true top 5 list, and needing to call her back so many times. I couldn’t believe that! That was such a huge part! :)

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I love this guy’s style… he does these in Illustrator! Man… sometimes I just get so slayed by the talent that is out there. *sigh*

I’m delighted to finally be able to show off my latest illustration & website:

Brian and Kara Eloped!

Kara discovered my illustration work through her brother Mike, who hired me to do the wall paintings for Connor’s nursery, and contacted me a few months back to do a Custom Illustration & website for their big news.

Apparently after a lot of “So when are you two getting married?”‘s, they decided just to go for it! And instead of the big hoopla of a wedding, they’re taking an incredible two week trip through Italy. Part of which is a Backroads bike trip through Tuscany (hence the bikes :)! So fun!!

So all of their friends and family just received the postcard announcement we created (which means I can finally spill the news here… hehehe!). Here’s the back of the postcard, letting people know where they are and to visit the site for more details:

It’s been such a fun project to work on and they’re such a sweet couple – Congratulations, Brian & Kara!!

I have to say, I thoroughly enjoy cooking spinach and watching the big fluffy spinach leaves shrivel and get all small and wilty. It might be the one thing in life that makes wilty=yummy.

Being a nerd, I also take small pleasures in the internut. Like these cool things:

• Housing Maps – Google Maps + Craigslist. Genius! And, thankfully, every time I do a search to see if I can find something as sweet as my place, nothing compares. woohoo!
• Find Cheap gas w/ Google Maps!
• Delivr – Send Flickr photos as ecards! Awesome! Now if you’re like me and you got confused as to how to send just any ol photo… copy the photo location of your favorite image on flickr.

  For example, this elegant photo‘s actual location, on the flickr servers, is actually this. So when you go on Delivr & you hit one of the images that’s right there on the front page, replace it’s photo URL – so that the URL to your photo of choice is after Delivr’s string: http://www.delivr.net/popcard.php?pu=

  Send this photo as an ecard! Bonus: It works with any photo! See?

  ALERT: Please read Charles’ comment regarding Creative Commons/Copyright issues & be respectful! :)

Oh YES. Let the days of summer and BBQ’s begin. I vow to hit more BBQ’s this summer and lovely Heather kicked it off right today!

It was sooo fun to see all these peeps. It had been since Coachella! Well, I think Hez & I saw each other in between then & my trip… and of course I’ve seen Jem all the way in NYC no less! But usually I see Ted & Misty at shows every week or so, so for a month to go by is kinda crazy. Needless to say, I missed em! So it was great to see the whole crew, enjoy some limeade and seriously tasty BBQ food and catch up.

Hez, Misty & Ted. I love that Misty & Ted were so ready to put their camera faces on for me :) hehehe! LOVE you guys!

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Prior to going over there, Lyne picked me up & we hit the Summer Lovin’ Trunk Show at 12 Galaxies. Shopping in a bar. Brilliant. haha.

Ya, so there was a bunch of great local artists there with their fabulous silkscreened, sewed, hand drawn, hand made goodness. Including Jen of Nooworks, who has super cute stuff. And then I ended up falling in love with FluffyCo, and bought Hez & Misty rekord print wrist cuffs, and me a brown deer print wrist cuff and a few buttons. yay!

Hez, you gotta get your bags there! It’s perfect! They do it every month, and I can put you in contact w/ Annie & Jen who I think organize it.

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Now I’m home blogging my booty off trying to catch up on the last week! For those of you who didn’t notice, I cheated & back posted like it was last Tuesday to wrap up last weekend. Sorry I’ve been so behind! I’ve been workin’ hard, baby!

Speaking of – that’s what I gotta do now. Oh – but before I go – here’s photos from Hez’s BBQ today! Hope you all had a great weekend, too!

So Wednesday rocked… then Thursday night Lyne & I met up with Jem, Hubert and Lulu at the Tilly & the Wall/Of Montreal show at GAMH. (oh & total bonus: lyne & I chanced it to walk up & buy tix – and scored $10 tix out front! thanks, stranger!)

I LOVE Tilly & the Wall. I’ve fallen in love with that CD and I was really excited to see them live – and they did not dissapoint! Jem had seen them before and attested they were great, so I was looking forward to their lovely poppy goodness. I can’t recall if Jem had told me – but how great is it they have a live tap dancer!? Love that! It was so fun. I absolutely love harmony – and they’re all about that. Really pretty voices, beautiful lyrics and good energy. What’s not to love?

Of Montreal was the headliner, but I was prepared to leave a few songs into it so that I could get a good nights sleep. Wednesday night I had come home so fired up from the Bloc Party show that I ended up not going to sleep for a few more hours, leaving me with about 6 hours of sleep… so I was looking forward to bed-e-bye. They came on & they sounded pretty good… but after the beautiful voices of Tilly & the Wall, I felt like his voice was sounding too nasaly for me or something.. and decided I liked them better on CD. And even then I haven’t really gotten into their CD. So we stayed for a few songs & took off. There’s a few photos from that show in the Bloc Party album, starting on photo #21.

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Friday night I planned to hit Tussle and Out-Hud at BoTH. Mostly because my awesome drum teacher, Warren, is in Tussle and forever I’ve been meaning to go out & see him play/show my support. It was sold out, but luckily I scored 3 tix for Lyne, Darren & I from some guy on Craigslist.

The opener, Madeline Minx, was a bit too trashy for me somehow… so I couldn’t get into it and eventually went to the back with Darren and got to see/chat it up with Warren a bit, too. They share the same letters: a-r-r-e-n! :)

Tussle went on, and it was great to see Warren drum it up up there… but I SO need lyrics at a show. Otherwise I get really bored, really fast. I feel like “what am I doing?”. And Tussle sort of has this dub/house/trance thing I guess goin on. I dunno – I can’t get into it. I’m not someone who goes out & listens to DJ’s or goes to those clubs to hear people spin rave/techno/dub stuff. Dig the drums, and love that they had 2 sets and another guy doing percussion here & there… but I was wishing I was on some kind of a drug to keep me into it.

Pretty much same w/ Out-Hud, except they had lyrics… but it still wasn’t doin it for me. I exclaimed to BeeDub (and his pretty wife who I finally got to meet!) that I hated it. And yes, I realize hate IS a strong word. I think it was just that frustration point of the night where I was so ready to be into the music at all. And I so couldn’t get there. Arg.

Luckily Lyne was ready to go (yay!), so I said goodbye to some peeps, and went home. But this is where my night began!

My neighbors, who I’ve hung out with a few times now, and am really stoked to get to know more, were having another party. And so when I arrived they had just sent the last of the parents home & they were ready for the *real* party to begin. Aawww yaaa… just in time! :) All the roomates are so nice, and this time all their friends were so nice… and within about 10 minutes of my being there we did a shot and let the madness begin. :) There’s a few photos in this album. Emma’s the girl I’ve been workin out with lately. Pete’s her boyfriend. Nathan’s the amazing cook and Francesca’s the one with the suuuuuuper cutie kitties that I still have yet to do a photo shoot of! They’re all so nice… total partiers and I’m stoked to have them living next door! Most of you will meet them at my bday party that’s comin up.

So long story short is my Friday night got crazy. Which I emailed Warren about because the last time I went out to see him play it turned into a ridiculously crazy night – so I asked him if he has that effect on all the girls. hahaa. Long story shorter, I didn’t get home till way late and my Saturday pretty much consisted of sleeping and movies. :)

But – keepin the great ‘hang out with friends’ plan goin in full force, I invited Darren over to watch Grave of the Fireflies with me. Which (although I keep saying it was) wasn’t directed by Hiyao Miyazaki, who is a favorite of mine – but instead by Isao Takahata. However, it was a production of Studio Ghibli, Hayao Miyazaki’s animation studio. Got it!

Darren & I finished that and couldn’t help but put on my other Netflix movie: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, while we looked through his Stencil Pirates book and my Japanese Illustration book. Darren’s awesome and I am so stoked to have found such a solid guy friend (not to mention art buddy) in my life. Plus, movie nights rule! I’m so having more movie nights.

OK – so I think I’ve finally updated everything! Oh! Except for today! Jeeshk! Ok, new post for that. :)

So last Wednesday I’m at BAM… and I get a call from Jem who says they have an extra *FREE* ticket to the (sold out!) Bloc Party show at the Fillmore show & did I want it? uuuuhhhh. YA!!!

SO I had been out & about doing things for 2 different clients before going to BAM, so I had my laptop with me. But I figured I didn’t care if I had to hold it the whole time (as I was so NOT going to leave it in my car or trust it to coat check- it has my whole life on here!), it was worth it for a free ticket into this show that I had totally wanted to go to!

So I arrive, meet up with Jem, her cousin and his crew and we go in to catch the first band that her cousin and all his friends know (hence the free tix, I think), called the Ooh La’s. I wanted to love them… but I just couldn’t. Something about it reminded me of music that’s already past it’s time. And the lead vox girl, although she was super cute and admittedly her sexy boobies, that we could see the beautiful shape of so clearly through her little hippy-esque top, were doin it for me. I still couldn’t love the music like I wanted. But hey – good for them! They apparently just got signed w/o even having so much as an EP out. Which is sorta Josie & the Pussycats freaky, but whatever… I’m sure they’re stoked.

Alright, moving on though – the show just got better & better! On next: Kiss Me Deadly a Montreal band on Alien8. They were great & I want their CD!

Complete bonus was that I ran into cutie Todd (who I met @ The Walkmen & then ran into again at the Hijack the Disco show) AND Chris, who I hung out with a bit the night of Misty’s PNYE, at Coachella, and I’m delighted to say is becoming a friend I completely look forward to talking to and hanging out with. He’s a good guy. Oh… so the best part? Is that between Chris & Todd, I had two tall, sexy, music-lovin men standing by me all night. Like that doesn’t help make it a great time!?!? hahaa :)

So Bloc Party goes on and oh my god. Seriously, ask anyone who was at this show and they’ll tell you the same: INCREDIBLE!!!!

Apparently they’d played the night before at Slims, but weren’t so ‘on’. It seemed like they may have been tired or something… but not Wednesday night. It was AWESOME!!!!

You know how a show can completely be all about the energy in the audience!? And when everyone is just enjoying the shit out of the band, the band is having a great time, the crowd is freaking out – and it all turns into a spiritual experience of HOLY SHIT THIS IS THE BEST SHOW EVER!!! Ya, that was this show. KICK. ASS.

I wasn’t that close, so I only got a few shots worthy of posting: View Bloc Party Album
(also shots of Kiss Me Deadly (openers) and Tilly & the Wall/Of Montreal from Thurs)

So they end their set, crowd goes nuts, they go off stage – crowd is going wild, they of course come out for an encore… play about 3 songs, rocking us all so hard… the floor of the Fillmore is warping as people are jumping up & down screaming (I love this feeling, every time I envision us all crashing through the floor, and that’s the way I die… having the best f*in time at a show and falling through the floor because everyone was getting their rock on so. hard! hahaa). SO they end – we all cheer… lights go up & the music starts… people start funneling out and we, like most everyone we heard passing us as they were leaving, are just standing around in awe of what an incredible show we just witnessed. I mean, jesus. SO. GOOD!!!!

Oh, and it probably helped that I fell in love with the lead singer, Kele a bit. Hott damn is he hot. Not to mention his accent slays me. Although I couldn’t understand a word he said it was so thick! It was still hott. hahaa. AND the drummer!! Who I have to say looks more like he’s taking time off from a very high level science project than is a major drummer in a rock band – but oh my god is he awesome! Several times during the set he was blowing me away. And, despite his science look, he had his shirt off anyway. When I become a drummer, I’ll totally take my shirt off, too. (haha)

So we’re all standing around guffawing about how frickin incredibly mind-blowing the show was… and about 8-10 minutes goes by and all of a sudden they come back out on stage!!! “Since you all stuck around, we’re going to play you a few more songs!” AWWW FUCK YES!!!!!!! So the stragglers rush up to the stage – making it maybe 150 or so of us and they played like 3 more songs!!! Then at the end I think Kele did a stage dive – but for sure the drummer did and I got it all on video. :)

I got an email from my friend Dan the next day, telling me about how amazing it was – and I was SO STOKED that he was there, too and SO STOKED that I was able to report that I had been there – and we both emailed back & forth about how incredible it was. yay for great shows!!! Man. I get so happy just thinking about it!

Oh – and although my laptop got pushed around quite a bit (mostly by me as when it was between my legs at my feet I had to continually remind myself that knocking it back & forth between my two legs as I rocked to the beat was probably NOT good for it. haha!), not to mention my Booq bag getting its fair share of whisky spilt on it (thanks Todd! haha), it still works! phew! :)

Anyway – great seeing you boys & thanks for calling me, Jem! That show is in my top 5 of this year FOR SURE! xoxo

Lastnight, driving home from one of the most ROCKIN shows of this year (Bloc Party!!!! EPIC!!!!!!) I was blogging like mad in my head. Life. so. great. Must. blog. now!

But alas I’ve been a busy bee working away and haven’t had a chance to post yet – but it’s coming! And photos, too! I’m feeling great! xo

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UPDATE: I worked my arse off today!! I’m stoked though cuz I got SO much done! I finished an entire site – I can’t wait to show you all – it’ll be live next week! :)

I went to Tilly & the Wall tonite w/ Lyne… and saw Jem, Hubert, Lulu, and Mai!

Photos & a better update of all of this will come, but sadly I probably won’t be able to until early tomorrow night or Saturday. Tomorrow I go downtown for an afternoon meeting, which means in the morning I need to tackle all the stuff I didn’t do today cuz I was working my butt off on the one thing! :) juggle. juggle! Life is good though & I can’t wait to tell you aaaaaaaaall about it! xoxo (again)

OK, so I’m going to cheat & back post a few notes to fill ya’ll in on my week. So today it’s really Sunday 6/5, but we’re going to act like it’s Tuesday, May 31st… because this is the internet & it’s my blogg & I can do what I want! wooohoo!! :::: My weekend was massively productive. And in the last couple weeks, after getting back from my trip, I have successfully set out what I planned to do:

	Make working out a habit. I have been working out almost every day! I missed one day – but technically since I’m posting like it’s last Tuesday that day doesn’t exist yet. HA! But suffice to say I worked out 7 days in a row and I’ve been really active and it feels good. Gym/Weights/Cardio & lots of hikes up the hill behind my house. It’s been so nice here!
	Make working hard a habit (again). And boy did I! I got back into the swing of it last Friday and since I was working on a time sensitive project, I ended up working my tooty off till this last Friday (err, the Friday that doesn’t exist yet. Damn, this backdating is hard!). Anyway, it’s good stuff & I’m excited to show it off when it’s OK to do so. :)
	Make listening to yourself a habit. This means not eating all the brownie mix. :) Hand in hand with the working out to get these 10 lbs back *off*. Feeling good, centered, balanced, etc.
	Make hanging out with friends a habit. Yes! I am doing this! It’s easy for me to hermit up… so it’s been an important goal for me to create some more balance, and surround myself with my awesome, loving, supportive friends. Sunday morning Lyne & I went out to breakfast at yummy Just For You! Then, later that afternoon I called a fellow Bernal neighbor, Lulu (who also stayed here & watched Kazoobie while I was away! Thanks Lulu!), for an impromptu hike up the hill – and she was down! woohoo! So we had a nice little walk/hike and caught up. Then Monday, seeing as how I’d worked all weekend and most everyone else was enjoying a 3 day VK, (although, I’m not complaining because I had just enjoyed a ridiculously long VK, so I had my fun!) I decided I would at least stop working at 5pm and have a friend over and CHILL. So, sweet Lucia came over with her knitting stuff, and we sat out on my deck while the sun set and managed to finish off a bottle of champagne. Oh yes, we’re good at celebrating! Then we cracked open what I thought was a bottle of white (someone brought me some time ago, but I’m not much of a white wine drinker so it’s been in there awhile) – but it turned out to be a sweet white wine, which turned out to be Lucia’s favorite… so she did a great job at taking care of that for me! hehee :) I made myself margaritas & we continued to enjoy the sunset and have great talks about love and life and friendships. I love Lucia!!! As the night wore on, we obnoxiously yelled to my fun-loving neighbors, I made us a yummy dinner, and we watched Whale Rider. A movie that SO didn’t match our buzz… but it was a school night afterall, so it definitely did the trick of sobering us up. It was a much needed nice break to a wonderfully productive weekend.