Willo O'Brien

Oh, nothin much. I went to the doctor today. Ya, after lying in bed coughing my arse off lastnight and waking up feeling stuffy and coughing STILL – it’s been TEN DAYS!!!!!!! I decided I must have something really really bad. But of course, it’s just a damn cold. And the stupid doctors appointment + prescriptions cost me a pretty penny. I hate being sick. I hate medicine… I hate having to spend money unless it’s for something fun & new… like a new jacket! or a concert! or a trip to a far off land! or *something*… anything but just being told I have a bad cold… arg. Well, I knew that!

Anyway – I’m bitching about it – but such is life right? This is where my favorite motto kicks in and makes me feel better: Shit Happens. It’s so true. And this too, shall pass.

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My friend Karima came over for lunch today – and that was fuN! Except I wasn’t really feeling myself, and I was dressed kinda frumpy with no makeup on… but she was understanding. I made us my specialty, really yummy sandwiches!! And lucky Karima got mayo & yummy melted cheddar cheese on hers (I can’t because of my cold, I’m anti-flem and therefore anti-dairy for awhile) AND she got to have a tasty beer, too. I was jealous :) BUT I was happy she could enjoy these treats at my home… she loved meeting Kazoo and we sat out on the deck in the beautiful sunshine and ate our lunch and talked about life and business, etc.

Hey, by the way that Yoga Journal ad I am in is on the newstands now… it’s the one with the green cover. I don’t have one yet, so I don’t know what page it’s on… but thought I’d mention it. Funnily enough, Karima has a photo in there, too! Hers is an underwater photo on page 40. Neat that we’re both in the same magazine! :p

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Tonite we’re hittin a show at Bottom of the Hill, The Husbands (rockin chic band) are opening up for Dead Moon, who are apparently pretty rockin live, although I don’t have any of their stuff. I’m excited to see The Husbands, but you know me – I wish I was 100% to really party :) Ah well… I suppose I can take it easy this weekend. Anything to get rid fo this god forsaken cold. blah!

Tomorrow I might go see my bro in Santa Cruz. Once again it wouldn’t be the fun party time we usually have together (yes, I know – I can have fun w/o partying!) but it’ll be good to see him & his galleries again, as they’ve gotten a lot of new products. We’ll see how I feel.

Ok, good talkin to ya… later.

As I mentioned, I had tacos & margaritas at my place Friday night. And right before we all took off, the camera came out to document us trying Orbit’s BUBBLEMINT gum for the first time!

Graham (from Rogue Wave) had mentioned this in his Friday 5 last week – and I thought I had read it wrong… but being a fan, of their Cinnamon gum I happened to be at the store buying some later that day – and saw that it wasn’t a typo, it really is called “Bubblemint”! So I had to try it.

Well Jem, Eric & Rick were just as curious – so we busted it out. Wow! It is like minty bubblegum! Thanks Graham! :p

There’s some silly photos of us trying it out (as well as a few photos from the show that night and even some from Rick & I toolin’ around Russian Hill the next morning)

So all bubbleminted up, we headed off to the show! It was our first time at this new venue, so that was exciting… but unfortunately it took forever to find parking and when we did it was like 7 blocks away. arg… get a lot! This place used to be a dance club of sorts (The Justice League), but they totally redid the stage & bar and now it’s a great new music venue for San Francisco, called The Independent.

I thought the sound was spot on… Not too loud & all the levels were totally perfect, IMO. They’re so psyched to have brand new state of the art speakers & lights – it all looks & sounds great. The best part was they didn’t oversell it and we could actually move around – awesome!

On the Speakers were FABULOUS!! I was soo psyched to see them play again, but so bummed they didn’t have their EP there for me to pick up. Apparently they’re getting it re-released on Universal. I love them & am looking forward to seeing them again – opening for Sleepy Jackson on Friday 3/11. I think these guys are gonna be big – Ian’s voice is awesome and they play such a rockin, tight set!!

Stratford 4 was good, but not my new favorite band to see live by any means. They sound just like their CD, and it was cool to see them live – but at the time I wasn’t drawn into it and instead found myself just wanting to hang out & chat instead of stare and dance and totally get into every minute of it like I do with a lot of other bands!

The Stills were GREAT as well – they had a much more rockin set than I expected and they sounded awesome the whole way through. Everyone in the audience was so psyched up on em – and there was this great feeling in the air of everyone being so psyched to see others just as psyched as they were about them… aawww GROUP HUG! hahhaaa

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Saturday morning, after sleeping in we tooled around Russian Hill & I took some photos in some cutie shop. Everytime I’m in a store like that it just slays me that I need to be working on my products to put them in stores too!! And yes… I’m workin on it :)

Some good news is that somehow now my site has been successfully pinging to weblogs & blogrolling now! huzzah!

ARRRGG!!! I not only get TONS of spam in my inbox DAILY… but I have gotten spammed on IM and now I just got text messaged spam on my cell phone!! And I don’t even USE text messaging!

The most aggravating though is that I’m getting spam from myself! I even saw one this morning that was from “The Willotoons.com team” aaarrrgg!!!

If you’ve arrived on my site wondering who this Willotoons is that’s sending you spam – I can ASSURE you, it’s NOT ME!!!

Do these stupid ass spammers really think we’re going to buy their products? As if on the 394th viagra email I’m just going to decide I wanna try it! Wouldn’t their marketing be MUCH more effective to know they were marketing to their target audience? In this case, it’d help if I had a penis!

Spammers should die slow and painful deaths. So much time is wasted each day on deleting or sorting through their lame ass subject headers… it’s enough to drive me to drinK!!

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Yes, my mail server uses “RazorSpam” and so I have “spam” folder and a “Add-spammer” folder I drag the spam that gets through, etc… But still a LOT gets through. It’s so aggravating.

For those using Outlook with the preview pane… I recommend turning the Preview pane off. When you open an email from a spammer, if that email is HTML it will send a report back to the Evil Spam Empire saying that you’ve read the email (i.e. you’re a sucker they should target with more spam). So what you should do is turn off your preview pane and then, if you’re unsure about a certain email, right click on it & select properties… and then you can view message source. If it’s a legit email, you’ll be able to read the text in there – if it’s not, you’ll see a bunch of garble, or the text will undoubtedly be spam. You can then safely delete or report that spammer without opening their email.

hola… FYI I’ve updated the list of upcoming shows/events on the left as well as the calendar. woohoo!

Tonite Matt & I had dinner at Emmy’s. A place we discovered together years back and we’ve gone to a million times since, as we just lived together up the street.

I looooove Emmy’s. They make a spaghetti & meatballs that is sooo good!! I almost ate my whole plate, which if you’ve ever gone you’ll know is a feat to accomplish! And I musta been hungry, cuz I’m not even that full!

Unfortunately I’m still coughing up a storm – maybe I have pnemonia? or mono? Nah, really it’s just called being sick, and then partying 1/2 way through so I just stay sick if not get sicker. blah!! Today I even got a major earache for awhile and though I’d for sure have to go to the doctor tomorrow if this damn thing has become an ear infection(!)… but luckily after about 5 hours of hurting either I’ve gotten used to the pain, or it’s actually going away. phew! Stupid cold.

Anyway, it was great to see Matt and catch up. For some reason after coming home I found myself all motivated and energized… which is why I’m blogging now… because it kinda surprised me that that’s how I’d feel… so I wanted to write it down. Somehow getting out of the house, seeing him and having a plate of yummy spaghetti has really changed my mood! I mean, it is great cuz we’re talking really well and it feels pretty normal and healthy to me, which is good.

And I think catching up with him just makes me realize how much I love my life now. I mean, I don’t mean that in a mean way about what I had with him at all, because we had a very nice life together… but to have that glimpse of where I was and to look around and see where I am now… I am just so happy. See? Everything is meant to be!!

So, I’m gonna go start some laundry & then hopefully get my arse in bed early enough to read a little bit more of my book!

Last Friday I had to go out to the SNBC office because I’d left my camera there at last week’s BAM meeting. Their office is just blocks away from the beach, so I took a short haitus there and enjoyed listening to the waves crash. It also happened to be the day of the Mavericks, so the waves were pretty rough.

crackers & honey scarf at the beach!

my red shoes. posted for paris who apparently has had random dreams with me in them, and I’m always wearing red shoes :)

I’ve posted my photos from Saturday night… and if you missed it before, here’s a link to Jane’s. As you can see we were pretty psyched to have all the “Six Girls” in one place. This is the core group of girls that has been doing full moon girls night outs for the last several months.

Also, DJ Jenny has a few of Rick & I and some of his crew later that night – those are here & here.

Wanna see something that’s stokin my week so far? This weekend we had a little home improvement session and Tool Time Rick turned around my refrigerator door. woohoo!!

It’s been so funny to get used to it. On Monday between making breakfast and making lunch I tried to open it the wrong way about 5 different times… each time hearing the synapse in my brain go “hey! it’s stuck!” and then realize “oh ya, wrong side!”

But now I think I’ve got it down – and it’s soo exciting and fun to go into my fridge now!! :) Heh… It’s the little things.

I couldn’t bring myself to blog today… well, that and I had other work and bills and emails I needed to catch up on, since I didn’t do anything this weekend.

Well, I take that back – I did a TON of stuff… just not any of that!

Instead, I spent the weekend like a “normal” person. See the last couple months I’ve tried to make myself work on the weekends (and rightfully so cuz I was swamped there for awhile!) but to have a weekend where I don’t work feels pretty luxurious.

Friday night I had a couple people over for some delicious tacos (if I do say so myself :) & margaritas before the Stills show. It all came out great and was so fun to have friends in my home! We hit the show and had a great time (review later), slept in late on Saturday (dreamy!) had breakfast in a french bistro, and even did did some window shopping and strolling around the cutie Russian Hill shops. By the time I came home, I really only had about an hour before I had to start getting ready to go out again!

Jee, Kat, Jonas & I all headed over to the East Bay and hit Ashley & Kevin’s Housewarming Party (See Jane’s photos for now – my pics will be posted soon)… then came back to the city & went out some more… slept in some more on sunday (big time)… and then even stopped by another party (!), and finished up the weekend with chinese takeout and snuggling up to a a good movie. mmm!!

Now how could this Monday possibly match all that fun and relaxation?

It just can’t. *sigh*

So, I’m sure I’ll be back in the swing of things tomorrow… but today I just wanted to let a little bit more of my great weekend sink in…