Willo O'Brien

Pickup Line Contest: The Winners

#6. He asked, “If you were offered the chance to have one year of perfect bliss, but you would have to forget everything at the end, would you take it?” I hemmed and hawed, asked technical questions. I finally said yes. He leaned in to whisper in my ear: “Well, you’ve already had your year of perfect bliss.” I pricked with curiosity. “You were wonderful.” He swore he made that up. I had gotten so into the mind game, it worked. He got the hookup.

– Kate

{link per nobhillbilly]

Today is a good day! First it’s absolutely BEAUTIFUL here. Seriously quite possibly the most beautiful day. Perfect sunny blue sky, sweet little breeze… not too hot… just right! However, it’d be a helluvalot better if there weren’t so much damn drilling out our window!! JEEESHK! They’re putting in a Muni light-rail system out front our offices and the drilling is here every couple weeks for mind-numbing days on end. GRR!! Frankly, I’m just thankful that’s not my job or my head would really be rattled!

Today has also been great cuz I finally talked my coworker Lizziebot into hitting Quiznos – mmmmmmm!!! We hit a mad amount of traffic due to the game today, but it was well worth it. Quiznos beats Subway and Togos any day in my book! Plus preggie Lizzie was not feelin so hot on the Quiznos deal (I’ve been begging her), so her finally bitin’ the bullet today and checkin it out only increases my luck in taking that jaunt over our recent weekly ritual of Subway.

Tonite I get to have dinner w/ an old friend I used to work with at The Learning Annex. (I was an events coordinator for years there, and that’s how I know my dear friend Elana cuz she was my boss!) I’m looking forward to seeing Sally as it’s been a good couple years now I think! Jeeeshk! :)

Sleep-wise I’m feeling a bit more caught up (definitely not as wiped out as yesterday!). Lastnight I had planned to hit the hay at 10:30, but then realized since Sally’s meeting me at my place right after work, that I’d better clean it up!! So I got to bed at 11:30 instead. That’s pretty good for me, actually.

Tomorrow I’m looking forward to getting some work done on DavePaula.com & then enjoying some frothy Happy Hour beers with my kick ass friends!! yay!!!

cat nap

I just took a short lil’ cat nap here at work. I’m exhausted. Let’s count em up – Starting from last Thursday night, here’s what time I’ve gotten to bed: 2am, 5:30am(!), 3:30am, 12:30am, 3am, 1am.

Needless to say, tonite I’ll be coming home after BAM and going STRAIGHT to bed. zzzzzzzzz

Calvin & Hobbes is the best.

No, I don’t have any gossip for you. I’m talking about the band we tried to go see lastnight, The Gossip. Unfortunately we stood in line for awhile at Bottom of the Hill, all to find out the show was sold out and all the people standing there were just waiting to see if they’d release more tickets. note to self: always pre-buy tickets! even though it’s a tuesday night, this is san francisco where tons of people go to shows all the time! It was a really young group… lots of young punk girls with their girlfriends. Hai & I decided we weren’t that die hard & went down the street to get a beer at the Conneticut Yankee.

I have met Hai a couple times, but only really got to know him & remember him from happy hour a couple weeks ago. He was very funny and our friend Stig couldn’t say enough great things about him and his girlfriend Sheri. Lastnight I got to know him a little bit better. It was fun to sit down w/ someone & chat about music, books, old friends and relationships, all over a beer & a “ty cobb salad”. I’m psyched to have another music buddy to hit live shows with, since all the rest of you couldn’t join me!! sha!

Before meeting up w/ Hai I went to the SFMMUF meeting. They went over Macromedia’s new product Contribute – and (the reason why I was there) Eric Natzke spoke at the end. He’s so AMAZING!!! Damn does his work just totally get me going. oy!

Over pizza I talked to this guy who remembered meeting me at Flash Forward ’02. I was psyched he knew where we’d met cuz I knew he looked familiar – but I was worried we’d have to go through years of our lives, where we worked and where we lived to find out how he looked familiar. But he knew and impressively even knew my name (!) so it all worked out. We had planned to exchange info at the end of the meeting, but I had to skip out early to meet Hai. I’m sure I’ll see him at the next meeting, cuz Josh Ulm is speaking!

photo site is working now!

Sorry if you’re trying to look at the photos and it’s giving you an error! Fotki (the site that hosts my photos) is obviously working on some server issues.

It gave me that error lastnight, too – but only lasted a little while… so if it’s not working for you now, check back in an hour or so!

I’ve seperated these into days & events…. but total VK photos amount to almost 180 pics. And actually I cut that in 1/2 from the total amount that I took!!

For reunion peeps, you’ll just wanna take a look at the Friday Night album, Saturday Day & Saturday Night photo albums.

The other two albums I posted along with it are of Friday day, when Drew & I tooled around town w/ Edna & her husband Barry… And the Family + Town album is a few of me & my sister, Drew’s wife and little girl! and some random Steamboat Locations.

Addition: 3 short videos of Drew’s little girl, Sydney (and her friend Madison who was over) To view them you need Quicktime 5

It was great to see all of you! Email me & say hello!

Sleeping in my own bed with my own pillow was soooo dreamy. It took me a little while to actually fall sleep, still thinking about all the little things that happened throughout the weekend… but once I did I slept like a rock. I got 8 hours, but am still very tired and can’t wait for the next 8 tonite!!!

POLL: Are any of you still on a modem? (tell me)

If you are I feel sooooooooooooo sorry for you :p I experienced modem life again briefly at my parents yesterday. We should have been on a commercial for how PAINFULLY slow it is to sit & wait for shit to download. gaaaaaawd! I thought I was going to loose it. Granted we were looking at things that take a long time to download, but even the most basic thing was just taking sooo damn long. I don’t know how you do it!

I was showing my mom & sister the animations I’ve been working on for the last year. They’re not made for modem users, in fact it’s for broadcast (TV)… so I sure hope my client in LA isn’t on a modem! They’re 3 1-minute animations for the “tween” (ages 9-13) market, that this producer is hoping to air and then sell as a 1/2 hour series. It’s taken me about a year to finish them up. I did the character design, storyboards, backgrounds and full animated the intro & 3 shorts. It’s not exactly pro, but it was really fun to do. I already feel my skills have improved… and that’s what it’s all about – you can only get better if you practice!!

I also showed my Mom & sister the mockups I did for DavePaula.com, which uses a lot of my illustration/vector drawing. I’ll be finishing up production on that site in the next couple weeks. Next up is (hopefully) a character design project for a handbag designer! yay!

Note: the above is the first time I’ve posted about this freelance work I’ve been doing… fun stuff, huh?

Drew pointed out my mom is the quintessential doting mother. She even had us meet her at her “ladies luncheon” at the Yacht Club to “show me off to her girlfriends”. She is really sweet and I suppose a lot of people wish they had mothers more like her. I’m very lucky to have such a loving family. It was great to see my little sister, too. She’s getting so big… 12 years old in September! I wish I could pal around with her more. I’m actually hoping to get to Lake Powell on the houseboat with them this year, as I didn’t get to spend more than a couple hours with them over this last busy weekend.

Off to lunch now… still silently dreaming of my comfy bed, fluffy comforter, soft pillows and fuzzy kitty….

Yo! I’m back from my weekend away – what a BLAST!!

My good friend Drew & I were amazed at how rockin’ the weekend went after all. Everyone was so truly psyched to see eachother – it was really neat! Just about everyone is married & has kids! I was one of a very small handful that hadn’t gone that road just yet. But it was so wonderful to meet everyone’s “other half” and all their cutie kiddies that look so much like their parents!

I was psyched to meet up w/ the old crew – and see some unexpected faces from soo long ago who have really turned out soo cool. We all partied pretty hard the first night, Friday night (some of us die hards didn’t hit the sheets till 5am!) and then awoke at 9am Saturday for the tour of the remodeled High School, which looks so different it’s like it’s not even ours anymore. My summary: “the new art room rocks!” and “were the ceilings always that low?” I spose we all got taller eh? :)

Saturday night there was a picnic up by Steamboat Lake – quite a drive for cold cuts, but it was fine. That was the family picnic so there were many little tikes running around.

Saturday night Moni had a party at her place – everyone was invited and we were pleasantly surprised that almost everyone came over!! Shows we all were still pretty psyched to keep the reunion going. I thought that was cool. We played horse-shoes, got crazy on the trampeline (note: new cool band name: Slippery Tramp) and then some of the last of us all got shlepped home by a generous designated driver. I was really proud of our whole crew for avoiding drinking & driving. We all realize we’re *lucky* to be alive after all our poor choices in HS! Life’s more precious now for sure.

Today after a delicious breakfast w/ my family, Drew & I headed back to Denver. I even got to run & see Drew’s wife JaNae & his lil’ girl Sydney – who is soo big now & so cute! But it made me a little late for my plane & I had to wait on standby for the next one – ug! At the time, it sent my sleep-deprived eyes over the edge & I really thought I was going to loose it thinking I couldn’t just get home! The lady probably thought I was psycho… and I honestly really just about lost it. Totally the lack of sleep talking I’m sure, but seriously – ya know when you just want to yell “WILL SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP ME NOW DAMMIT!!!!”? Security would love that one huh? hahaa

The good news was after getting myself some overpriced airport food to calm my nerves, I was able to hop on that next flight no problem. I zonked on the plane big time… and Matt was sweet enough to pick me up from the airport. Sounds like him & Kazoobie had a good weekend hanging out. I came home to my sweet fuzzy kitty, who is reaaaaally excited to see his mama!! I am soo excited to see him, too!! Such a buddy this guy is… he’s here on my desk as I type, he comes up for some lovin every 10 minutes or so.

So tonite after unpacking a bit and catching up on gobs of emails, I downloaded aaaaall the photos! There’s a ton… some really good ones, too! If any of you know me well, you know I document, document, document. So there’s photos of everyone at many stages. Quite fun! I’ll sort through them & organize it all some day this week.

There’s still so much I could tell about it all, but for now I need some sleep!! NIGHT! Zzzzz….