Willo O'Brien

once again, going for tapas proves to be an affordable and pleasant way to spend a birthday celebration.

Tonite it was Cody’s birthday. Cody taught the first Flash class I took years ago… and we quickly became friends because he was the only other person I knew who loved Flash as much as me! He almost still is (or atleast out of the friends I actually see every once and awhile… strangely I don’t hang out w/ any other Flash Developers!)

His darling girlfriend Laurence arranged it all, and it was awesome to see him completely FLOORED when he realized that this little restaurant that was practically empty (except the large mass of people congregating around the bar) was actually FULL of people he knew and all were there to celebrate his 30th!! :) yay!

We went to La Bodega in N. Beach and ate lots of yummy tapas, drank sangria & wine and out of almost 20 people we all put in maybe $18/piece – what a deal!! There was a fantastic flamenco show and most everyone got up & danced. The cake Laurence got was beautiful, and it was delightful to meet his friends and family.

I was going to go out & meet Kat & Jane for a drink tonite, but I’ve actually got to finish up a few things for a client, so I thought it best I just get home. Plus I have to rest up cuz tomorrow night is the STROKES!!! YAAAAAHOOOOOO!!!!!

If I could only post about the debauchery that went down on Saturday night I would… but since I musn’t, you all must just use your imagination. I will say that it was the MOST fun I have had in a long time. Actually, I suppose I’ve had a few of these fantastic Saturday nights here lately in my new single lifestyle… but this one was truly memorable.

Some highlights were:

1. Manifesting Hai – as I was sitting having a drink with Kat, I was telling her about my friend Hai – and right that second *Poof!* there he was!! It was too odd.. you had to be there.

2. Discovering RAZ w/ Kat

3. Meeting Rick’s friends

4. Seeing Jason who was in town just breifly, from Alaska

5. Ok, sorry… that’s all the G-rated stuff I’ve got for ya.

It’s probably best that I don’t spill any more, so that I’m not shipped off to “the Betty” (as my friend Michelle calls it). But for the record – WHAT A NIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!

I had a bunch of CD’s stolen a little while ago, and one of my favorite Heavy compilations was in there, HVY.5.SUMOSONIC. Does anyone out there have that?

It’s a total longshot that any of you do… but I thought I’d try since this was one of my favorite CDs and they’re not sold through stores. The first 2 songs by Masterminds & Apani totally got me going. If you ever saw a white girl in her car at the stoplight, singin and groovin her little heart out to some kickin new school beats, that was me.

Anyway, lemme know if you have it.

Lastnight was a blast. We started our night by meeting up w/ Michelle & Brigette in the Marina for happy hour (yes I know, “gag, marina” but my friend michelle is worth it! :)

After a few drinks there we decided to skip our original plan of hitting the opening night party at Yerba Buena and instead went straight over to Route 101 to pick up w/ Brendan & Stig on our way to the show. (however, they ended up staying there)

Rick & I arrived at The Hemlock in time to see the Stilletos open… who were just ok… great that it’s 4 chics in a band, but I wasn’t feelin it. But then the darling Lovemakers came on! Oh my gawd is this band AWESOME. They first rocked out about 7 or 8 Cure covers and I was LOVE LOVE LOVING it!!!! (I was so surprised I remembered all the words – and it took me back to some wonderful memories of listening to them in H.S.) The Hemlock is small, and we were probably in what constitutes as 2nd row, so it was all so terrifically intimate. We were all jumping and sweating and singing right along with them.

Then they broke into their own songs and totally rocked us…. and MAN are they sexy!!! Just like their site & reviews have said, they are so hot and you won’t leave their show without being drenched in sweat from dancing the entire time… not to mention being turned on as hell from watching the singing duo dance around in their skivvies in pure sexual energy bliss. mmmmm!!!!!! LOVED IT! Go see them!!

nice to know that login (all one word) is officially in the dictionary. now I don’t have to worry about spelling it wrong w/o the hyphen!

First I must once again say how lovely it is to be told how beautiful I am every morning, just minutes after waking up. Today it was actually even after I’d gone to work out, and he still looked at me like I was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Boy, if that isn’t a reason to *not* buy my own coffee machine, I don’t know what is :)

I am so in love with Kurt Halsey’s paintings. I’m sure the fact that I’m fresh out of a relationship is whats making it hit home so hard…. but overall the tenderness each of his paintings and sketches hold, is sooo touching and lovely.

This one is especially true in the case of our buddy boy. But the good news is that Matt does come back and see him. He just came over yesterday, in fact – and STOKED Kazoobie on some new kitty grass and a toy mouse that Kazoo went absolutely NUTS for. He growled at us if we tried to go near it and he carried it around and played with it all over the house for a good hour or so.

Matt is heading to the east coast soon… and then to Italy! *so lucky!* So, I helped advise him on a digital camera to buy – and he brought it over yesterday for me to check it out & show him a few things. It’s really awesome!! Read DCResource.com’s review of the Canon PowerShot A80.

Sometimes I think I hear what I want to hear.

Recently I’ve had several glaring times of realizing I’ve read something wrong. Funny enough, today’s misunderstanding is still a mystery to me… but I think I get it now. Initially my reaction was “Whats that supposed to mean?” and I got a little defensive, like their response was in effort to dismiss the conversation. However, instead of simply asking what was meant by the comment, instead I just said ok and stirred it over and over in my head.. what I said… what they said… what it meant.

Now I realize it actually wasn’t a response to dismiss the conversation or make light of the situation at all… but in fact I think it was a compliment! And here I was getting all defensive!

*sigh* but maybe my interpretation now is just how I’ve spun the conversation to make myself feel better. sorta selective hearing after the fact. hmm…

MUSIC/EVENTS LIST UPDATES: I’ve updated the events list & calendar on the left – WAHOO! More great music comin our way peeps! Note that these are (selfishly) mostly just shows that I’m personally into going to see. I try not to tout too many bands that I don’t even know… which brings me to my next update:

I’ve published my friend Rebecca’s GREAT music list she sends out to her friends.. She’s got great taste in music and has turned me on to a few great bands already! I hope she doesn’t mind I’ve posted this (I’m emailing her now, so who knows maybe you won’t see it mid-day tomorrow!)

She also put together an awesome venue info thing on how to buy tix directly from SF venues & try to escape the fees. Damn straight! You’ll see both of those becca links over there in the left hand column. If you’re local & into the music I am into – check it out!

Also I made the events archive open in a pop up window, too – way easier for me to maintain! :)

RANDOM UPDATES: I added a (info) link next to the “Stay Tooned” newsletter sign-up box. I suppose I should start a new list for those who want updates beyond my portfolio… one for music or blog updates? hmph. I’ll have to work on that – so for now, just so you know: I only send out news when something major on the site gets updated, new illustrations are added etc. It’s barely every other month or so really. :)

Feel free to give me feedback if you desire those updates to be more frequent.

BLOG TALK: Also, I know I need to seperate my love for music out… I’ve been talking about creating a music site – but honestly I don’t need a bigger project… doing this right now works just fine… although the music stuff could use it’s own page (?) hmm. Blog wise I know it’s music heavy (with some fun ‘what happened at the bar’ stories thrown in here & there). I have friends that just wanna hear (read) my juicy stories – and others that probably love the music aspect.

Oh! And I can’t forget true fans of Kazoobie who totally get *5 stars* in my book for emailing me to say they demand more posts about the fuzzy pants! Aww yaa supa star kitty w/ all your fans!!

Anyway – guess ya can’t please em all. Personally I’d love to divulge all my fun little party stories but a girls gotta have her secrets! Plus, not only do ex-boyfriends, mothers and complete strangers read this but clients might too – so it’s pretty PG rated for now (with some hard core music fanatic thrown in, of course :)

For the record – I LOVE staying up late. But alas, it’s late & my eyes are pretty tired. G’night!

Saturday night I tagged along to a birthday dinner with a friend. We started at the birthday boy’s (protecting the innocent) loft, which is located right downtown in an awesome redone building. As soon as we walked in the door we were greeted with a menu of our options from the bar. However, as we looked a little closer we found that it wasn’t as fancy as we thought, but instead geared for nothing but fun. First, the appetizers were nothing more fancy than bagel bites, and salami & cheese cubes (yum!). For drinks they had a whole list of mixed drinks, beers, shots, juice and more. I chose the Bacardi Silver that was on the menu and found it actually was the only one he had. Someone had left it at his house, so he put it on the menu. ha!

Now let me set the scene, because really this is the only reason I’m posting about this place – it was fascinating. The birthday boy is a bit of a fanatic collector, to put it lightly. Of precious coins, you ask? Stamps, maybe? (well actually I’m sure he has those too seeing as how he had mini-collections of everything under the sun!!) But what anybody will notice just stepping into his huge loft are mini-shrine collections of: Star Wars memorabilia, Don Mattingly paraphenelia, a Laura Dern wall of framed/autographed photos (among quite a few other on the same wall), Belinda Carlisle & the Go Go’s, Morrissey/Smiths and more….. and that’s just downstairs!! Upstairs we found mini-collections of 80’s buttons, trophies, animaniacs toys and the best most over the top part: The Scooby-Doo bathroom where EVERYTHING is Scooby-Doo.

Every guest got their photo taken with the i-zone camera and then set down to make a mini happy birthday card for the birthday boy. We insisted our photo be taken by the cardboard Princess Leia in the bathroom. (oh ya, the downstairs bathroom was completely decked out with Star Wars stuff).

Overall it was great and to me it showed great signs of creativity and passion – way better than a cookie cutter pottery barn house any day!! (plus I have my fare share of toys and stuffed animals too – so I certainly can’t knock it!)

The night progressed on to us all sitting down to an amazing dinner at Butterfly on the Embarcadero where the pre-fix menu for our large party left us all stuffed! Very good food though – hard to stop eating delicious food, especially when you wanna try it all! yumm! The rest of the night was hilarious… meeting this new group of people was very “entertaining” to say the least – but they were all so warm & welcoming to me, which was darling. Also, note that Butterfly makes a special “lemongrass” mojito where they use vodka instead of rum – and add lemons! Very yummy!

Sunday night I had yet another birthday dinner out – this time a surprise bday for our friend Ewa. She was surprised! We ate at Andalu, where the food (small plates) was delicious! We ordered a ton of food and between about 13 of us turned out to be only $33/each!! Take your big groups there!

Oh – and our waiter was H-O-T (you have to spell that out for the full effect) and if I weren’t a big chicken I would have given him my number for sure! His eyes were dreamy and he seemed very sweet (in a “oh my gawd you’re so hot” kinda way) :p. But enough of that…

Today I’ve been working my booooooty off and made some good progress with clients. Tomorrow night I think I’m gonna go see a friend’s band play around the corner from here.. I’ve seen her old band, but not her new one – so I’m psyched! I’ll be sure to report/tell you the details.