folks, it's been brought to my attention that i'm a blog nazi.

while my last real comment on the site may have been a bit harsh, i was extremely tired of reading the closed-minded, my way or the highway vegetarian/meatitarian debate on a page that's supposed to be all fun-happy let's make fun of famous people. my feelings are now very hurt; the only way to go on is to either drink some drano or make cartoon sound effects.

25 points to you if i see you've left some sound effects, too!

it's been really nice, after all the visiting with people, going out and doing things over the past couple of weeks, to just stay home and do my own thing for a couple of days. yesterday i busted ass all day on the website and got a lot of stuff figured out. today i went to the gym, finished one of a pair of socks i'm knitting for someone to throw away, spent a good long chunk of time redrawing the background for this painting i've been wanting to start for a while - i finally got to start actually painting it and i think it's comin along kinda cool... not done in any sense of the word yet. the hooker's leg is gonna be wearing fishnet stockings which i'd like to sew on there, it'd be kinda cool i think...

also, if you ever want to make me bawl like a little baby you'll make me listen to maya angelou speak. she was the guest speaker at trav's scad graduation, and she made me cry buckets when she talked about the song "when the saints go marching in". it's something about her voice, maybe it's that it's so soothing and grandmotherly... today she was on oprah and she was talking about stories behind the recipes in her new book, and i had to bust out the kleenex. maybe i just really like red rice, i dunno...

okay 100 points to you for your explanation of a dream i had last night, which i don't remember anything about except this:

i grew four extra toes on each foot. i think they weren't there for the entire dream, but by the end an extra one was starting to grow out the end of each of the four smaller toes on each foot and i was completely freaking out because shit, where am i going to buy shoes for that?!?!

did i tell you guys i found the oprah tape and it's allegedly being mailed to me this weekend? exciting! jenn and i discussed the points thing, because he obviously didn't know about it, and here's what i decided. if he took me up on the ten bucks i offered on my craigslist ad, he didn't need the points because i was giving him money for his tape. but if he didn't take the money and did it just completely out of the goodness of his heart i would feel completely wrong about not giving him anything in return and would've totally put him at the top of the points totals with 4000... that being said if a stranger buys my artwork in the future they're gonna get points for it, so you should buy some too, because i really don't want joe shmoe from podunktown, USA to win the painting at the end of the year, you know what i'm sayin?

the store's not done yet, and there's still more to put in there, so if you want a big fattie selection you should wait for another couple of weeks.

why did this post go from being an explanation of the oprah points to a big stoopid commercial? you should now go listen to reel big fish's classic hit single, "sell out".

p.s., if you're in the cypress area today you should pick up a copy of the orange county register, as my rant to the editor made it into the weekly regional insert!

or you can go see it immortalized on the internet. you know, whatever.

i am so glad it's friday, and a three day weekend to boot. 25 points to you for disclosing your weekend plans in the comments! 50 more points on top of that if they involve going somewhere and doing something with a celebrity!

i made the mistake of throwing ye olde junior senior cd into the stereo on the way to work this morning and now i wanna go see the show at the fair all over again. they're probably gonna play new junior senior songs, dammit!

okay the oprah points offer is back on! you can't get a tape of that particular episode, it's transcript only... and i don't really need to read "here's where the chipmunks run around with the kiddies".

so if someone out there can get me a tape of the tuesday may 24 episode, i won't give you 2000 points, i'll give you 4000!

that's 4000 points, people. i'm about to post an ad on craigslist to see if anything turns up that way. man i hope someone has it.

also, i finally saw the season 1 finale for the oc. like a year later. am i dumb if it made me more than a little weepy?

no wait i take it back i just went to the oprah site and a tape's only 7 bucks or something like that, so never mind. unless you happened to tape it and can get it to me for free. then i'll reconsider and give you the 2000 points. but if no one says they can by the end of the day that's null and void cuz i'm placing an order tonight the end!

okay kids, are you ready for the biggest points giveaway yet?

2000 points to you if you can get ahold of the oprah that aired on tuesday may 24 and mail it to me. no one gave michelle the air date of the show she did the taping for, and she didn't find out til yesterday, which was a day too late. garrrh.

what irritates me is i emailed the oprah website and asked about it a couple of weeks ago and never heard back from them.

so hopefully one of you yokels can help! thanks!

man, i can't wait to go home and put on my pajamas and just chill out on the internet tonight. this weekend was awesomely insane.

friday night michelle and i went and saw cypress high's winter band show extravaganza spectacular thingamajig. our sister brittanie was an amazingly good snack bar salesgirl and not only enticed us both into getting chips and sodas, but also gave us the proper $1 total and the correct change for the $1 we each gave her. she didn't perform friday, but she'll be in the band's last show of the year this thursday, so hopefully michelle and i can make it to that, too.

i can't wait to develop the buttload of pictures i've taken in the last two weeks, because danielle's costume for the drumline show was purchased at your local salvation army for like 3 bucks total and was to die for, including vertical striped bellbottom pants, platform shoes, and a huge afro wig. the wig, i think (i hope) was new. or at least had been lysol'd or something. but man that shit was funny. the drumline show was one of the coolest i've ever seen. the rest of the show was pretty cool, i loved the jazz band's cover of "spinning wheel", accompanied by michelle's lamentations that pets.com and their hilarious puppet dog commercials ever went under...

saturday morning i went with michelle and her family to sea world - it blew my mind how much that place has changed since i last went (probably back in high school or so, so over 10 years). it's just blown up. hailey was completely jazzed about getting a disposable camera to document the event, and it was so neat to watch how hard she concentrated before taking pictures.

what cracked me up the most about sea world was the shamu show. number one, they called every single killer whale in the show shamu, regardless of the fact that they all looked distinctly different. even when more than one killer whale was performing stunts. which just made it ridiculous. but even better than that, this whale was doing a trick where he was supposed to swim around while the trainer talked about how these whales are superskilled killers when it comes to catching dinner. and then at the end of the blurb the whale jumps up in the air to show off his teeth and when he does they play this soundbyte of a lion roaring. it's supposed to make him look more fierce, but it really just makes the whole thing silly. also, i bet a bunch of kids went home telling their parents "HEY LOOK, I'M A KILLER WHALE! ROOOOOOAR!!!" and then years from now they'll get laughed out of school for turning in a report about the majestic roar of the killer whale.

after sea world we went back to michelle and joe's place to open birthday presents and eat cake with jacob - he loved the darth vader helmet i got for him, but doesn't like putting things on his head so he won't wear it. but he really likes to have other people wear it. maybe he'll warm up to it?

sunday morning josh and i drove out to his parents place in redlands for birthday shenanigans for his brother and cousins, and good times were had all around. i ate three pieces of cake. THREE PIECES!!! i freaking love cake! the party was good time chatting and laughs and beer and holy crap it was hot in redlands this weekend. probably up near 100, if not hotter.

also, apparently there's been a bear running around the land near the house, and josh and i were more than a little disappointed that we didn't see him. i don't wanna run into this 800 pound thing up close you understand, but it'd be cool to see a bear in its natural habitat, you know what i mean?

yesterday we hung out in redlands with josh's mom - cleaned up a bit from the party, sweated our butts off in the heat, had some tasty olive garden for lunch. went to costco and bought a can of air to clean up my dusty computer, and then we all went to see the new will ferrell flick, kicking and screaming. if i were you, i'd skip it. and if someone wants you to go, you should warn them that the only way you'll walk into that theater is kicking and screaming. it wasn't a bad movie, understand, but it was helluv slow, and the only good parts were where will ferrell and mike ditka were yelling at each other, and when will ferrell was making an ass of himself. watched some antiques roadshow until it was time to go home, ate some mac and cheese a'la josh, watched some harvey birdman, went to sleep way too late.

was this enough of a detailed recounting of the weekend? why the hell do i always do that? what a weirdo. 'kay bye.

in review of the many many many awesome shows coming to the orange county fair this summer, i had to pass on junior senior and go with the vandals.

the reason is this - one of the best most fun concerts i ever went to was that junior senior show in wisconsin, and i think it was because jenn and i were so freaking excited about going, and that they were in a tiny venue and it was just a big fat dance party... it was awesome. but i don't know many people here who are into junior senior at all, which is fine, but i'd rather go to a show like theirs with people who will go insane with glee over junior senior songs. plus it's a sit down in your seats sort of thing, which isn't conducive to crazyass dancing. and really, i can't afford to go to both.

so i'll keep an eye on their site and wait for a cheapo show from them in the future, which i'm sure will happen because they've got that new cd coming out soon. supposedly. they keep saying that but i haven't seen it happen.

but! THE VANDALS AND FLOGGING MOLLY! i'm so freaking excited. fair admission's included with the ticket, so i'm voting on a four-ten week that week, spend the day at the fair, maybe get to hang with the sibs who are also going to the show, then go to the show and throw things at them in their swanky front row seats. jerks!

it figures that the weekend my mom's out of town all my bros and sisters and i are busy so we can't get together...

and that's the extent of my internettings this morning - have a great weekend!

here's the response to the letter i sent this morning:

Steph,

I'm sorry to hear you were disappointed with our coverage of Battle of the
Bands. Just so you know more about how it was put together, Guy Adams shot
the photos and I later talked to the organizer of the event to get
information for the text. My understanding from that conversation was that
the Black Dots were a Kennedy band and got a lot of applause from the
audience that included many Kennedy students. Perhaps we were both
mistaken. I'm sorry that we did not include a photo of them, too. We did
not intend to leave them out.

Would you be interested in having your e-mail printed as a letter to the
editor in a future issue?

-Candice Shih
City Editor

*******************

so i think next week or the week after or someday in the near future, the letter from this morning'll be in the westside weekly supplement of the oc register, which means more good press for blackdotsblackdotsblackdotspatentpendingpatentpendingpatentpending.

i read my sister's blog today, and here's a lovely gem of a slightly miffed letter i wrote to the newspaper afterwards:


I was more than a bit upset about your piece on the battle of the bands last weekend for the following reasons.

Number one: The Black Dots should have been listed as a Cypress High School favorite, not Kennedy. And if I remember correctly, they were EVERYONE's favorite band, not just high schoolers. This was the only band that successfully raised a ruckus; everyone was involved in the show, everyone was clapping and hootin' and hollerin'. The Black Dots got a mosh pit going with a simple "everyone get up!" The rest of the bands in the contest failed their attempts at audience participation because they were completely boring.

Number two: When we were at the show and saw the Register photographer milling around, I was trying to remember if he'd been there when the Black Dots were actually on stage and I don't think he was. Which would probably explain why the worst band there, the Prolifics, who were terrible and got themselves disqualified, got TWO pictures in the paper and the Black Dots, who won SECOND PLACE, got zero. Not even a picture of them with their trophy. Way to snub 'em.

This may seem completely trivial for me to be writing this letter. But I think it's important to let you know that these guys were very excited about the Register being there, and that they won 2nd and got their pic taken by the Register photographer... Why couldn't one of the prolifics photos be removed, and one of the good bands pics put in instead?

I know it's probably too late to fix this, seeing as the article was already printed and the paper already went out. Just wanted you to know how disappointed the Black Dots and their many fans were by the article.

Thank you for your time,

steph lehman

*******************************

25 points to you if you also send an email to orange county register at WestsideWeekly@ocregister.com, cc'ing me in said email...

at lunch, lindsay was talking about this guy and his much younger girlfriend and how they're always making out. and how she saw her pull up at work one day, and she was driving a red convertible, and that she had on a supertight short short shorty short red dress to match.

and out of nowhere i heard myself saying "yeah, i like to match my car, too, that's why when i'm getting dressed in the morning i go through the dirty laundry for something to wear."

and that's my cue to exit! i'll be here all week! don't forget to tip your waitress! thank you goodnight!

this may be completely retarded, but this morning the wish to have an electric guitar and know how to play it came back full force as i was listening to flogging molly's "the dirty glass" and making a complete ass of myself on the freeway.

also, i am so glad it's thursday. this weekend's gonna be chock full o' fun or your money back! sea world for jacob's birthday on saturday, and then off to redlands for josh's family's birthday shenanigans on sunday and monday! ka-pow!

also, yesterday while driving home i decided that if i ever got a sex change and joined the mob, my mobster name would be felonious monk, cuz it sounds all educated and crime-ridden at the same time. i'd be the one that kept his cool and always said quotes from famous smart guys and i'd educate my fellow mobsters on the finer points of jazz music and such.

but then this morning i went and checked to see if it's already been done and apparently i'm not so original after all.

25 points to you for telling me in the comments what your mobster name would be! one per customer, so make it a good one!

so for my nephew's 3rd birthday this weekend, i wanted to get him this.

a couple people at work had gotten one for their kids, who subsequently went completely insane over it because it's so flippin' cool. i figured, since jacob's totally obsessed with darth vader right now, it'd be perfect.

so i get to work yesterday and diana asks if i'd picked it up yet. i tell her i didn't, that i had until this sunday to do it. she's all "well you better hurry, cuz it was in the target ad this week and it's on sale and with the movie coming out..."

i decided to go to the big swanky target on 33rd and atlantic on my way home. while i was on the freeway, i was talking to josh on the phone and he tells me he's in huntington beach, that he can just pick it up at the target there.

but they were sold out.

and i start to freak out a little, cuz obviously since they're sold out there it means they're gonna be sold out everywhere... i'm like oh, crap, what the hell am i gonna do now i've got no other fun birthday present ideas. so by the time i got to the target i was going to, i was all stressed out. i go straight to the toy section, panic when i don't see it right away, rack my brain trying to think of where the next closest target is... and then i see it, the very last vader voice changing helmet, pushed back to the back of the bottom shelf. the box was a bit beat up but i figured man, that's totally fine. he's three he doesn't care about packaging.

so i start pushing buttons, making sure the thing works allright. i start from the right. button number one? fine. button two? a-okay. button three is a go. button four... what the hell. button four? shit, button four doesn't work. while deciding if it's in bad taste to give this thing with a broken button to my nephew, i turn the box over and start reading the back. and apparently button number four isn't even a button, it's just there because vader has four buttons on his chest box thing so they have to have it here.

insert sigh of relief here.

got in my car and headed home. i called michelle to tell her i'd been able to snag one, and she says "i dunno why you were so stressed out, i was at toys r us last night and they had like fifty of them."

insert trumpet sound here: WAH wah waaaaaaaaah.....

okay you know what? i need way more fonts on my computer. i've got like a hundred, two hundred tops and i've used em like a billion times and a lot of them aren't all that great. where do you go for free fonts on the internets? gimmie links in the comments and get 25 points!

don't gimmie fontalicious, though, cuz they're broke down or something and i have a bunch of their fonts anyways.

okay so this totally isn't because we're going out, but josh has 230 points now.

thirty because he told me where the torso pic came from.

and two hundred because (and i think you'll agree with me here) no one thought he would ever post an actual entry in his blog ever again. and today he didn't just do a second entry, he did a third as well.

so there's that! jenn can suck it!

let's hear it for the black dots, who took second place in the 4th annual la palma battle of the bands last night!

it was awesome to see so many people show up for their first real gig, and very cool to see a girl had bootlegged parts of my flier onto a tshirt. when michelle and i got there, things were a little up in the air - no one knew when they were going on, sound checks that were supposed to happen just didn't happen, they were told amps would be provided and then when they showed up amps were not there... this last one really sucks, cuz they had to scramble home for their practice amps, and everyone else had fifty foot tall amps and crap. thankfully, el brando showed up and was able to run home and contribute his amp for the cause.

the first band that played, prism (you should now make the patented steph laserbeam noise, because i think that's what you hear when a prism splits white light into a million colors a'la a pink floyd record cover), won the last two years in a row - this year they were judging instead... we heard 'em again later on that night, and i don't actually remember hearing them during this first set because of all of the backstage fun that was going on. finally danielle ushered us out to the lawn, where we watched the first competing band, straight to rage. they were a group of 8th graders that only did ac/dc and iron maiden covers. musically they were good but they didn't play anything orginal and that loses points in my book. they had pretty good presence on stage, i think, and they handled it pretty good when the guitarist's strap got disconnected and the singer had to help him out with it while still singing. sure, for a little while it looked like he was singing into the guys butt, but they made it work.

black dots came on next, and the awesome thing is that just about everyone in the audience was there for black dots fun - everyone just went apeshit with the chanting, and cheering and yelling and shenanigans when they appeared on stage. they played the laundry song (i think it's called?) for their mic check song. for their actual set, they did "chump sandwich", a ballad, and a rockin' fun cover of the white stripes' "we're going to be friends". after that came "the barnyard song (cow goes moo)" and an amazing metal cover of the classic "if you're happy and you know it clap your hands". seriously, i've not seen that many bands that are genuinely fun to watch on stage. i'm not just saying that cuz danielle's my sister. their antics are right up their with the vandals; their energy is contagious. they were the only band that was able to get the crowd to clap, they got people to bust out lighters for the ballad, they got a mosh pit going. sure the pit was broken up very quickly by park officials (by that i mean a soccermom in a la palma community center polo shirt with a whistle), but no other band got this kind of reaction from the crowd, and they were all trying to.

next came the wachovia/wazowski/wachowski/whatever volta, a rock trio comprised of a pair of twin guys and their friend. among other tunes, they played a creed song; while they were good musically their vocals were really bad. and they looked way too old for this competition. no offense, but i hope they feel like chumps that they won against high schoolers and eigth graders.

last to play was the prophylactics - no wait, it was the prolifics. they sucked royal rapping ass and do not deserve any more mention here. they got a bit upset with me just before their last song, because they were talking to the crowd, trying to get them going, and they say "just pretend we're your favorite band ever" and i yelled "BLACK DOTS!!!" yeah they were dum.

one other awesome thing about the show is that for the first time in a year all five of us california siblings were in the same place at the same time. wish justin could've joined us to make it 6, that's a nice round number. but it was amazing to just hang out with everyone. it was also very cool that the stickers got such a warm reception; i think i might call kinkos and find out how much it'd cost to get real ones made up that are weatherproof and all that for applying to cars and whatnot.

so that was battle of the bands in a nutshell - cheers to the black dots, and go buy and orange county register today cuz they'll probably have their picture in there!

whaddaya think? does the points thing get the seal of approval?

battle of the bands tonight at 6! 7861 walker st, la palma! be there or be square!

also, i just checked on google and stephlehman.com is now the number 1 place to go for crotchcake on the internet! 50 points to brian for his most recent use of the word, which i believe pushed us up to the pole position!

huh huh... huh huh... i said pole position.

okay kids, this weekend some new things are gonna go into effect on this here blog, and i can't divulge what they'll be until it goes live because come on, who doesn't like surprises? it'll be fun, i swear.

to start, take a look at this pic. the moment i saw this on conversations of famous people, i knew what my next painting series would be.

learned some new techniques from the group project at work last week, and this next series will be some 12" x 12" or so size squares, with a fun hard edge cartoony sort of background and a sorta graphic representation of a horrible headshots of celebrities.

i want stuff like that tara reid pic, stuff like james brown's mug shot. if you find one (it needs to be a head shot! none of that far away full body crap!) and put the link for it in your comments so we can all see em, you'll get fifty points. you get fifty points for each pic, and all pics must be linked before 12am monday morning to get counted.

the points will matter soon, kiddos.

no! that wasn't what the second thing yesterday was supposed to be! i just remembered that i was going to ask if anyone heard moe say "thanks homer, you really did me a solid" on the simpsons this last sunday. (the one where homer was predicting the end of the world.) and it totally cracked me up, i'm just laughing my ass off, cuz until mark introduced me to the phrase "can you do me a solid" a couple of weeks ago i had never heard it before. and now here was an example of it being used in a sentence by someone other than mark, which proves it's not just something he made up!

allegedly the phrase means "can you do me a favor", not "can you make me a piece of poo".

allegedly.

our crack team of researchers are still on it. and by it, i of course mean the john.

i'm a little slow, i just remembered what the other thing from yesterday was supposed to be:

the life aquatic's out on video now, and if you haven't seen it, you should. i saw it again last night at michelle's house and it's just really, really awesome the end!

sarah just showed up with about twenty rolls of vintage 90210 wrapping paper, brand new in thier wrappers to give to everyone else in the art department.

leandra brought donuts for the art department today.

i'm so glad i didn't call out sick.

someone tell me how the oprah winfrey show works - is it live or taped?

apparently they're gonna do a taping thursday where they have some disney characters, prolly talking about the 50th at disneyland and crap... you should watch the show that day if it's live, because chip will be my sister michelle! damn baby she's gonna be a star!

if it's not live then stay tuned for what day it actually will be on the air...

two things that i was going to post about last night:

1. if you google the word crotchcake, out of the 5,710 results my site is number 2. let's work to make stephlehman.com number one in the crotchcake department! go team!

2. i don't remember what the second thing was, but i'm sure it was terribly important. details at 11.

man it was so one of those days at work.

you know the ones. the entire day draaaaaaaaaags and everything you have to work on is in complete disarray, and takes you entirely too long to do, and you keep looking at the clock and it's not getting any closer to three fifteen and then your head explodes.

and then it's over and you get to go home and chill and cook some dinner. cheers to trying a new chicken recipe, and cross your fingers that it's not gross!

hmmmmm.... how to make the archive links prettier... if i could see what mark's alleged archive dropdown menu looks like maybe i'd switch over to that... i just don't want another scrollbar when there's more archive links than space allows.

is there a way to make more space between the two columns of dates? any other thoughts would be mucho appreciated.

so finally, after 7 months of slacking off and getting back on the wagon, slacking off and getting back on the wagon, this here website's done and good to go! the old flash site's been taken down and will never be spoken of again, the rest of the unfinished sections of the gallery were finished just a couple of minutes ago, and now i'm settin' to work figuring out an archives page for this blog!

all that's left after the archives is settin' up the shop section and then a couple of top secret funny hidden additions that i'll tell you about when they're underway... unless you know about em already... i am so sneaky it hurts deep inside.

so i got home over an hour ago, and i was chattin' online with my sister danielle about next weekend's battle of the bands, and i started messing around with one of her band's photos from their myspace website and it kind of turned into a crazy flier project. you should go to the show, it'll be a good time. unless you're out of state, in which case you can suck it!

if i were to pick my favoritest trend to ever hit the streets, it would be this:

when something odd or downright stoopid happens on the news, everyone makes awesomely crazy shit to sell on ebay commemorating it. lemme present the latest, the jennifer wilbanks toast.

let's put it in perspective, people.

this piece of bread is selling for more than my car was ever worth, even brand new.

but while $14,000 may seem pretty steep, but keep in mind shipping's a steal at just $3.85!

when you use blogger on the mac, you don't get some of the snazzy features that blogger on the pc has, namely when you wanna link something you have to type in the link code yourself instead of clicking a button. since i never remember the code, when i post from work and wanna link something i have to go find another post i did that had a link and cut and paste that and so on and so on. such a hassle. you'd think i'd have taken the time to learn the code by now. soooooo lazy.

so anyhow, you know how every now and then i bring up those ralph macchio posters i've seen on freeway overpasses and on the sides of buildings, etc, etc? i went looking for a picture someone may have taken of them and lo and behold i found a website that looks like it's run by the dudes who did it. i like that there's a whole website devoted to it. by it, i of course mean the macchio.

i have something very important to say; listen up!

i don't know when this happened but it was before i moved to the lbc... if you buy an old defunct donut shop in long beach, and it has an awesome huge donut on top of it, and then you do not make that building into a spanky new donut shop, you are completely lame and deserve to be beat up.

a coffee shop's close, but not close enough jerks! a check-cashing joint or a dry cleaner may as well have moved in!

unicorns for everyone!!! yay!!!

i've been painting more and more lately, and it's really growing on me... tomorrow is the art dept art show at work, and everyone who hasn't done a self portrait since the last show gets to do one. i did myself as a pirate, complete with an eye patch and striped shirt, and a parrot on my shoulder who's got two peg legs and an eye patch.

how he actually stays on my shoulder during our adventures is beyond me. but i'll get someone with a digi camera to take a pic of it when it's hung tomorrow and then that and the i heart unicorns bit'll be up here. soon, i swear. soon.

also, why does everything come up on wednesdays? it's like everyone knows i'm supposed to babysit that night and plans things that i shouldn't miss accordingly, making me look like a big fat slacker aunt who never babysits to my neice and nephew...

so i finished that unicorn series, and scanned em in - hopefully tonight i'll have a chance to upload em, cuz they're quite amusing cha cha cha!

and spray paint fumes are nasty, dude. i'm gonna keel over the end!

oh my my, what a week. i miss savannah already.

tuesday when josh and i got into town, we had dinner at vinnie van go go's with jenn and put the bill on lyndsay lohan's tab - that girl is so sweet to foot the bill for our shenanigans, you know? (p.s. it's been so long since i been on here i can't type for shit anymore! hooray!) anyways, after that drove to chateau de jenn and john and hung out watching tv and crackin' wise. DANNY LARUSSO WILL FIGHT!!!

wednesday we slept in while people with jobs went to work, and then josh and i went to lunch at juarez - food was good, service was weird... went upstairs to pay, and there was a table full of people that worked there that were just chillin', staring at us waiting to pay. finally fifteen minutes later one of them came over to take our money. walked down to river street, and saw lyndsay lohan's limo! it was really weird going to the brass crab because it wasn't the brass crab anymore and everything was different - i mean a ton has changed around town in the last 6 years, but i have to admit i was really hoping good ol' faye would still be working there. i'm wiping a tear from my eye. i just ate a hot hot pepperoncini. and i'm a liar. so we wandered up and down river street, saw the savannah version of the pleasure cruise go cruisin' by, took many pictures of random strangers and their asses for a future coffee table book asses of savannah (patent pending patent pending patent pending)...

that night after jenn got outta work we all drove down to the crab shack, where the elite meet to eat bear feet in their bare feet cuz it's a fuckin' treat... we mostly went because the billboards all tout the fact that they have 78 live gators! so we hung out with the gators for a while, then had a massive seafood dinner where josh showed his brute strength by turning green, busting out of his clothes and then busting his crab cracker thing, i believe you americans call them nutcrackers. crawdads are delicious, by the way. after dinner, we made haste for the gift shop, where we bought some gator treats - if you've never fed the gators, you really should.... you get this bamboo pole with a string and a bobby pin on the end, you throw the gator treat on and hold it over the side. when we were in the shop buying the stuff, there was a cat sitting on the counter; josh almost expected them to hand over the cat when we asked for something to feed to the gators... later on, went for tasty overpriced ice cream, where lyndsay lohan was nice enough to pay for us.

thursday was the laziest day ever, almost - got up late and drove down to the mall for lunch... wandered around the mall and then got tired. cuz going to the mall, it's hard work. went back to jenn's house and took a nap. after work, jenn found fanny on the side of the road and followed her home! dinner at mellow mushroom and then on the bar downstairs next door to the jinx, where i was schooled in the art of shuffleboard - i think the best part of that was fanny and jenn's full contact shuffleboard, where they'd stand at each end of the thing and just fling pucks at each other. also, josh shoulda been a curler. the jinx was good times funny shit, too. peoplewatching is the best, and iggy pop's silver vest rools my world!

friday jenn fanny josh and i hightailed it to tybee island's beach and we just laid out all lazy-like for a few hours... went back to the house, cleaned up all swanky like and headed over to casey house, where scad was having their alumni reception. it was amazing, that's all i can say. like being back in school, you know, causin' all kinds of trouble... our group (jenn, fanny, josh, me, brian s., mel, their friend from orlando, trav, duane, laura) tried the stay downstairs and mingle thing for a while, but then we discovered the second floor balcony and that's where we stayed for the rest of the party. no, check that, we did go back downstairs a few times for more wine and chocoballs and puffy cheese pastry things. then it was back upstairs. it was probably a good thing we were upstairs... if we'd had the same shenanigans going on in the midst of the gathering we'd have been asked to leave for sure. there was a guest book for alumni to sign, and i was astounded that scad's been the school for such greats as lyndsay lohan, haley joel osment, abe vigoda, ava gabor and ashton kutcher, among other noted hollywood stars... a glass went over the side and that was so exciting i crapped my pants as i hid under the table... lulu hosher made an appearance and then a disappearance, fanny made obscene gestures at a man through the balcony door and he came and joined us for a while... i can't even say everything that happened at this party except that we freakin' closed it down - around 930 or so someone came upstairs and basically told us the party had ended, they had guests staying there and we should go. shore nuff, as we left i didn't see any other guests.

so we walked on over to mcdonoughs for some goodtimes karoke fun, where we wow'd the crowd with our vocal virtuosity and dance moves. brian's "maniac" was the best, i think, in the dramatic reading category... insanity, people, it was insanity. other hits performed by the scad alum dance troupe included maggie may, hey ya, the gambler, supersonic, and shit i was drunk so i don't remember what else went on. lots of dancing, lots of jenn and trav goin' to check up on fanny, lots of water being drunk to sober up for the ride home.

the next morning was the sidewalk arts festival - we all drove out to the clubhouse where brian, mel, orlando friend who's name i can't remember, trav, duane, and laura were staying so we could all partake in their free continental breakfast wowee wow wow, and it was ever so free and ever so tasty. and seriously, we're lucky that just about every place we went this weekend had some kind of private area for us to retire to for our meals and other get togethers because i don't even know if rambunctious is the word for it. it was just loud crazy fun. i really do think the pro life anderson movie needs to get made - or at least the trailer. don't ever make the movie. just do the trailer and let everyone wait all their lives to see it!

then on to forsythe park for the drawing festivities. josh and i's running hippo turned out well, but the cafeteria ladies was amazing. there's no other word for it. amazing, people. a little bittersweet, as well, since we found out the night before at the reception that one of them had passed on just a few years ago.

after the squares were finished and the buttwipes were used to clean up hands, we made a beeline for the free lunches. see, it's comedy, because scad's mascot is the bee, and we were hungry, and we were making a line for the food, like a bee... forget it. anyhow, you gotta love free lunch. and we did. we all lounged around on the grass for a while, laughing at the kapuera kids playing ninja a few feet away, and finally decided to meander around to look at the other kids' squares and kill time for the 2 more hours before judging was over... so we're making our way down that main walkway in the center of the park, counted at least one square using the cracked sidewalk motif (on that note, i also didn't see any squares that incorporated moss, which is also completely overdone...), and all of a sudden the mc on the main stage says very loudly "PLEASE CLEAR THE PARK. THANK YOU GOODNIGHT!"

keep in mind it was a perfectly beautiful sunny day. but as soon as this was said, POW!!! the sky went black, thunder roared, gale-force winds were blowing buckets and buckets and buckets of rain sideways. complete chaos broke out, a bigass branch fell on someone's head (they weren't hurt at all, which made the incident funny and not scary), people were running every which way and screaming bloody murder... no wait that was just us making asses of ourselves... as we ran down one sidewalk we saw a little kid crying as she ran to the car with her mom and i thought to myself "what the heck, why's she crying it's just rain?" but then i stopped screaming "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!" and thought "oh. oh yeah."

so we all went back to our lodging and cleaned up, and then jenn fanny josh and i went to walgreens to procure birthday goodies for duane. small accident in the car on the way outta there, but not too terribly bad, and we were on our way soon after.

i hate to say this, it's completely terrible and cold, but the best part of that birthday party was the brownie. i love y'all, you know it, but nothing compares to that brownie. and if we had karaoke'd that night instead i woulda done the sinaed o'conner song to it. man it was good. went to semolina for dinner after that... the food was kinda meh but more lovely madcap mayhem was to be had.

seriously, if there was a phrase to describe the weekend it'd be lovely madcap mayhem.

after dinner, back to downtown for dancing and peoplewatching at the bar bar... things started winding down around 1230 or so, and we all went outside to go home for the night and it just made me really sad because it was just an amazingly fun weekend that i never wanted to end. it was so great to see so many people that have meant so much to me in one place in one crazy partytime, you know? i just wanted to thank everyone who was there for making it such a hugely fun weekend, possibly my favoritest vacation ever. i sure wish we all lived closer together. the end.