Willo O'Brien

“Did you know that Macy’s has a Visitor’s Center on the 6th floor of the Union Square store? If you are from out of the Bay Area, you can go to the center, present them with a hotel key, or an out-of-state driver’s license, and you’ll get a visitor’s card good for 12% off any purchase! Who knew? Such a great deal!”

off my friend trina’s blog :)

After loosing a post this morning, my friend Jeff recommended I use Ecto – and I’m so glad he did!

I had tried this out before, when Eric recommended it, but I can’t remember why I didn’t like it at the time (was it this one that didn’t have a title field?) Anyway, now they’ve updated a ton and have the title field and much more – it’s awesome!!! So easy to make links – and there’s even an iTunes script! Look! (I’m actually listening to 97X streaming radio)

Now Listening to: The Mooney Suzuki – Alive & Amplified

I know, I’ve been geekin out a lot today – but I just have to show off my new cell phone to ya’all… (like I did w/ everyone saturday night at the bar since it was so brand new :) GEEK!)

It’s the LG PM-325 (click here for photos & details) and it’s super small & light! I’m not a huge fan of it’s blue-ish color, but whatever – this puppy is LIGHT YEARS ahead of my old dinosaur (that recently, when I showed it to people, I had started to have it walk on the table and raawwrrr like a big old dinosaur. haha!). This one is nice & teeny – which means I can fit it in my back pocket when I go to shows (a requirement for all my gadgets lately! I go light: small phone, small camera & my money/ID and I’m set!). I wouldn’t even take my old phone into shows after awhile cuz it was so big & bulky.. and when I would, I’d have to put it in my jacket and it would proceed to fall out ever 10 minutes. Have I told you how happy I am to have a small light phone? :)

I can finally text message now, too!! My old one was riding the short yellow bus on the whole SMS deal. I can’t tell you how stoked I am to finally have my cell phone be as up to date and technologically savvy as the rest of my toys :)!

Sadly, the bluetooth on this apparently isn’t compatible w/ mac – so I can’t do the synching, but it’s ok.. already there’s so many bells & whistles that I didn’t have before, so that’s the least of my worries. Plus, I will *finally* be done w/ my sprint contract in November – so I just may take my number and run to another company who wants to offer me a better deal with the latest & greatest tiny phone that’s out then. Either way – I’ve officially stepped out of the cell phone stone age and I am STOKED!

oooh, p.s. this has a bill tip calculator on it! it’s awesome! i can’t wait to go out to dinner!

So, as I mentioned before, I’ve got this sweet little camera on loan to try out & see if I like it before buying (which is SOO cool).

So far I love the photos from it. All of the photos in the last 3 albums (below) were all taken with this, so you can check out the quality for yourself. I’ve been putting it through quite the test since forever I’ve wanted an Elph (the S400), but that one’s a bit bigger and now all the Elph’s are going in this direction of being super small like this.

I have really enjoyed how easy it is to change the ISO and exposure/metering/flash/etc while shooting – it’s very intuitive and takes the photo very fast (no lag time). The video capability is sweet too cuz it’ll go as long as your memory card has room for, instead of limiting you to 30-60 seconds like most others do, so I think that’s pretty sweet.

Wanna buy it?

– Find the best price for the Powershot SD300 via DCResource.com

– or Amazon: Powershot SD300 (my amazon referral link)

However, note that a little bird told me a new SD is coming out very soon :) So you just may want to wait for the latest & greatest hittin the shelves in about 30-60 days. (which is what I’m going to do :)

Get your own at Neighborhoodies.com :)

I had been wanting to make magnets for a long time, and finally did. They could have turned out a little better, because I got a little sloppy after awhile, but it was fun to do while eating pizza, drinking beer and watching sex & the city at jem & tania’s last craft night :)

(note all images were cut out of magazines, next time they’ll be my illustrations)

yay! i sold my nikon 5700 & fisheye lense today! WAHOOO!!! to a really pretty girl who is new to the city – she is happy, I am happy.

yay #2: I got a new cell phone – FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

yay #3: but should be first cuz it happened first: I am testing out a new Canon Powershot Digital Elph SD300!! Trying out? YES! How lucky am I? Those credited will go unnamed so he doesn’t get a gazillion emails requesting similar generosity :) .. I will just say I am a VERY blessed person (not to mention uber technology geek – insert more geekoutness about new cell phone) to have this little puppy in my hands to “try out”. THANK YOU J.K.! xoxooxoxoxoxo

yay #4 (and then it’s off to bed): Yay to Lucia for throwing a fantastic party tonite at the Albatross, and for one of my bestest friends, Jem being the “DD” in her brand new SUPERHOTT wheels, and to meeting new cool peeps and spending time with awesome people.

Only 1 “boo”: I practically lost my voice tonite. There was a fireplace in the room we were sitting – aka sucking all the oxygen out of the room!! And therefore between that & the beer(s), my chest was like WHA? and my voice is practically gone – but hey! Nothin like a fun night to show for it. :)

More tomorrow… with photos from a new kick ass camera & everything! night!

Last week I got an email from my old friend, Kelli Beane (now Marovish), who has apparently been reading my blog for awhile now and finally decided to email/say hello after seeing my post about making cupcakes (and my reminiscing about making brownie mix w/ her & us practically eating it ALL :). I was so surprised to hear from her! And in my email back to her I told her it was all I could do to leave out the fact that it was often accompanied by us watching Beaches over & over & over and bawling our eyes out. :p hahaa There it is people! heh… I’m sure we weren’t the only girls in the world doing that in ’89.

So, since the last time we talked/saw eachother (uhh, I have no idea when… ’97 maybe?), she has gotten married and had a baby! oh my! (Kelli, I hope you don’t mind me spilling this on here :) just tell me if so & I’ll take it down). I’m really happy for her & am absolutely blown away hearing all about the life changes she’s gone through.

Kelli & I were absolutely inseparable best friends from 8th grade through our senior year, and although we had some bumpy times during those 5 years, it got REALLY bumpy after HS, to the tune of us not talking anymore. But whatever happened during those years, I say bygones… as may we all forgive and forget what we did through some of those crazy years. Plus, I don’t even know who the woman is these days – several years later – and nor her I… all we know is that we used to care about eachother very much and I think we always thought we’d be a part of all these major life changes (that she’s going through: marriage, baby) together. Funny how our lives take us down different paths than we think they will! So, it’s been very, very cool this last week to reconnect with her and learn about where her life is now, as she has had *quite* the advantage as far as keeping up on my life! :p

For a long time the bitterness I had about losing her friendship, made me not want to give credit to what we had… but honestly, our friendship was one that I think I have always subconsciously held all of my girlfriend relationships up to. We were the BEST of friends.. absolutely inseparable "Willo and Kelli/Kelli and Willo", and the memories of all the crazy times we had together are still held very dear in my heart. Everything from our first concerts, first loves, first cars, first times trying smoking, drinking and drugs (shh!). Learning how to snowboard when we were 12, taking road trips, throwing parties while her parents were out of town, playing Super Mario Bros until the wee hours of the morning… :) I often liken our friendship to that of a ‘relationship’ in terms of the intensity of our love for eachother. And how, consequently, we had our hearts broken a few times during the rollercoaster ride through our tumultuous teen years (often followed by one of us coming back crying, realizing we couldn’t be apart and then becoming best friends again). But, despite all the tough times, I will never forget how close we were for awhile and how much we shared during those incredibly tender years of figuring out who the hell we were.

I’m very glad you (finally) emailed to say hi, Kelli. Although I’m not quite sure our friendship will ever be where it once was, I’m very glad to at least be caught up with where you are in your life, see photos of your little family, and know you’re out there supporting me right back… just like we always thought we would be. xoxo

• I am loving how easy it is to change icons in iChat! I’ve been a long time user of Adium now, and rarely use iChat. But lately I’ve started to use it to connect to AIM, in order to receive files from another iChat user (as for some reason Adium isn’t so hot at receiving files), and the occasional iSight video chat w/ Haley (my 13 yr old sis) & Joe (her 11 yr old buddy, President of the Willo Fan Club, and child prodigy of the web world). :)

  The BEST part about the whole changing icons deal in iChat is that not only is it really easy to change them quickly – but that it gives you a list of your recently used icons! So if anyone was watching my icon tonite, they saw me go kinda icon happy :D Now I’ve got a good surplus to switch through!

 

• I also added "Now Playing" status to both my Adium & iChat! woohoo!! I’m considering having it update somewhere on my site too, does anyone do that already & recommend what widget I should use for this? Otherwise I’m sure I can look it up later..