I voted for my birthday!!

And when it's party time, like 1999, I party by myself because I'm such a special guy - er, gal

So we drove to Phoenix this weekend to see Weezer. I gotta say, it was the best show I've ever seen a band play. Rivers Cuomo is seriously different. But that's what made the show so unique. It felt like performance art. Okay, so here's how it went down...

When the band first came out, they were wearing what looked like white, full-body, painter's uniforms. And Rivers Cuomo had what looked like pantyhose or some sort of bandage around his head, with only a small hole for part of his face in the middle. It was bizarro.

Then they unzipped those suits and came out in red Weezer tracksuits. Rivers Cuomo took off the head bandage to reveal long scraggly 70s hair and a porn moustache, straight out of the Beastie Boys' Sabotage video. He was tiny and skinny and hunched over a lot, and walked kind of like a T-Rex. Painfully nerdy but in a really endearing way.

During the show, he bounced around on a trampoline. During Hashpipe, he put on a green headband, completing the 70s fitness theme.

During El Scorcho, he mounted a bodyguard's shoulders and rode him around the audience. It was awesome.

For the encore, they brought out 35 random Weezer fans who had won the opportunity to play an instrument of their choosing at the show. So they did Island in the Sun & Beverly Hills with 35 random people of all ages playing trumpets, cellos, didgeridoo, xylophone, bongo drums, etc. It was badass.

For the second encore, a roadie set up a Weezer-themed record player on stage. He got out a vinyl Red Album and started playing Heart Songs. So there we were. A huge arena of Weezer fans sitting there listening to a Weezer record. It was odd. When the song referenced Nirvana's Nevermind, Rivers Cuomo came out, kicked over the record player and started playing Nirvana's "Sliver." You know, the one that goes, "Grandma take me home" over and over. It was amazing.

So yeah, the moral of the story is, Weezer puts on a fantasic show and I hope they go on tour again soon.

That's it. I'm buying a handgun.

The people we bought the house from had a garden gnome in the front yard. We were hoping they'd leave it when they moved, but, alas, they took it with them. My good friend Vanessa was very thoughtful and got me one as a housewarming present. I was so excited to put it outside. It was the perfect accessory for my lovely front yard. Every time I came home to the gnome, it made me smile.

Well, then some little fuc$er stole it. I see now why homeowners hate kids. I agree with the mayor that vandals should have their thumbs chopped off. Bastards.

Anyway... my birthday is in about a month, and I will gladly accept happy garden gnomes for my padlocked back yard.

The Curious Incident of the Drilldo in the Night

After my work thing last week in Tahoe, I stayed a few extra days in Reno to see my college girlfriends. I stayed with my friend Erica. About 3 days after I returned home, Erica emailed me to say thanks for the tip about getting Leslie a "drilldo" for her birthday. I didn't know what the heck she was talking about, so I just ignored it. Later, she left me a voicemail with the same message. Now I was curious. WTF was she talking about? And WTF is a drilldo?

It turns out someone had programmed a calendar alert in her iPhone so that Tuesday at 10am, while she was going about her normal work day at the insurance company, her phone would buzz reminding her it was time to buy our friend Leslie a drilldo for her birthday. Oh my gosh, that is hilarious! She said she had asked Leslie (also an iPhone user) if she had done it, and Leslie said no, so she figured it was me, since no one else with access to her phone would know how to program a calendar alert.

It started to jog my memory. I do remember messing with her phone. And I do remember wanting to put something on her to-do list. Then thinking it would be funnier if it was in the form of an alert. And if it went off in the middle of a normal work-day. But I've never ever heard of a drilldo. Why would I have put that?

The more I thought about it, the more it came back to me. I had intended to type "dildo," but the autocorrect on the phone changed it to "drill." Erica was sitting right next to me when I did it, so I just added "do" to the end of it and gave her back her phone, thinking that was ever funnier. That's not where the story ends though.

The next day, I called Leslie to tell her the funny story and she now insisted that she was the one that typed in the alert, and that I had conjured up the memory in my mind. Holy crap, was I confused. Did I or didn't I? Was it a real memory or a mental concoction? In the end, I decided that Leslie was just messing with me and that I had in fact done it and forgotten about it, then remembered later. She still swears she did it, but I really think she's just evil and taking advantage of my horrible memory. Anyway, here's your reward for reading to the end of this story.

Angry Karaoke

Last night was our annual Felguayo XXXmas party. We gave our friends their Xmas presents, which included custom-made CDs of our drunken karaoke night way back in October. I was waiting to blog about that night until I could post the audio, but it looks like that's never going to happen. So, while it's current in at least a few people's minds, here are photos of my 30th birthday: XXXth Birthday Party Pics. Make sure you see all the pages of photos. There may be 2 or 3 depending on which browser you're using. Good Times. :-)

That was Wicked

Only three days in, and I've already broken my vow to blog every day in November. Oh well, you'll just get two instead of one today. So anyway...
Saturday we went to L.A. to see the musical Wicked. It was my birthday present from Brian. The show was amazing. It was pure visual and auditory candy. I think it's my favorite musical now. Definitely see it if you get the chance.

Being the fangirl that I am, I stayed after with all the other little kids to catch the cast on their way out. I ended up meeting Eden Espinoza, who played Elphiba, and Megan Hilty, who played Glinda. Here's Eden Espinoza as Elphiba:
And here's Eden Espinoza without her green make-up, with me, the fan girl:And here's Megan Hilty as Glinda:

And here's Megan Hilty out of costume with me, the fan girl:
As you can see, I really enjoyed myself.

The rest of the trip was really fun too. We stayed at a really nice hotel downtown with a view of the Hollywood sign. And we had dinner at this trendy sushi place on Wilshire Blvd. (It actually wasn't as good as the sushi places we go to at home, which kinda impressed us about Vegas, but it was nice nonetheless.) And we met up with my old friend Negar from law school at this fun little breakfast place in Sherman Oaks (where we had a brush with Britney - see bonus blogpost above). And we went shopping on Melrose. All in all, a very nice birthday/two-year-anniversary weekend.

White Trash Party

Last Saturday, we went to Meredith's white trash birthday party. We were kinda costumed out from the night before, but we managed to muster up the spirit to dress up a little bit. We went to this dive bar where you couldn't tell who was part of the party and who wasn't. For example, the bartender was wearing one of those t-shirts with a bikini painted on it. At first, we thought it was a really good costume, but then it turned out she wears that all the time normally. Shannon put her foot in her mouth a few times that night cuz she had a really hard time telling who was in costume and who was not. Anyway, you can see photos here.

Birthday Luvin

Despite my manic-Monday birthday, I actually had a kick-ass pre-birthday weekend. I'm really such a lucky girl. One of the surprises Brian had for me was a book of photo birthday wishes from my good friends all over the country. It definitely made me grateful for the wonderful friendships I've made over the years. And it made me especially thankful for having landed such a sweet, thoughtful husband. Guy has been planning this since July! Anyway, here are just a couple of the shots.








Oh, and this one's the best because it's my old boss one week after sexual harassment training. Why I insist on protecting him from himself, I don't know.

It's Monday, I'm 30, and it sucks.

The last two days of my twenties were phenomenal. Now I'm 30, it's Monday, and it totally sucks.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALLISON!!