Not sure if you know about the WilloToons Custom Shop, but there’s a lot of fun new goodies in there you probably haven’t even seen yet!

There’s even a “Kiss Me I’m Irish” discount code on there in celebration of St. Patrick’s day coming up (you can find it in the banner at the top). It’s good for 15% off all orders over $35, but hurry if you want to use it, as it expires March 12th!

http://willotoons.spreadshirt.com

Don’t see what you’re looking for? I take requests… just contact me!

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p.s. Going to SXSW? Even if you’re not, you can take advantage of the SXSW Special I just tweeted out. ;)

This year I didn’t hit as many Noisepop shows as I have in the past, but it was a fun 24 hours! Saturday night we went to Slim’s for The Lonely Forest & We Were Promised Jetpacks (both SO good!) & then Sunday: Visqueen & The Hounds Below at Bottom of the Hill.

View photo set on Flickr

View on Flickr

What a fun night. Thanks to all my awesome friends who came out & supported the show!

I participated in the Loving You gallery show back in 2008 (view photoset), and I’m looking forward to being a part of it again… so fun!

RSVP on Facebook –> facebook.com/event.php?eid=272843246721

UPDATE: Yikes, my bad! I listed the wrong address initially. This is the right one:

8-11pm @ Glamarama
417 S. Van Ness, SF
$7 admission

LOVING YOU is a gallery art party featuring love-inspired artists, designers, and performers celebrating that crazy thing called love.

While it is true that our photo booth has been known to cause makeout sessions with attractive strangers, that’s not the only reason you should come to LOVING YOU. We also have the best last-minute valentine’s shopping for you or your boo, including locally made gifts like lingerie, jewelry, hats, belt buckles, stuffed animals, mini flower vases, and even white lace MC hammer pants!

Come for the original artwork valentine you will get at the door, stay for the super cute performers, drink ’till your bold, get your tarot cards read and hey, while your at it, get your hair done! Then go home happy at midnight with someone on your arm and VOILA! it’s a wonderful start to your Valentine’s Day.

LOVING YOU features love-inspired artists and designers:

BeesandBears beesandbears.com
Breality Designs brealityrox.com
Danielle Deroberts onerary.com
Heather G. Arcega gingerbreadclothing.com
Ivana Ristic missingpieceproductions.com/ivana
Jeremy S. Eaton germsspread.com
Kristen Holden missingpieceproductions.com/holden
Liz Mamorsky lizland.com
MonTree montreedesigns.com
Native Intelligence rockitscienceSF.com
O’Lover Hats oloverhats.com
Roland Blandy rolandblandy.co.uk
Ron Goldin moonlid.com
Sea Pony
Sid Gabriel
Sugarpuss sugarpussclothing.com
Tamo Design tamodesign.com
Tidal Ware tidalwarejewelry.com
WilloToons willotoons.com

PLUS:
Glamarama Instant Makeovers glamarama.com
Magnolia Photo Booth magbooth.com
Mary Kay’s Tarot Readings marykaymitchell.com
Mobile Libations Bar mobilelibations.com
Ploom Tasting Lounge ploom.com

Special Guest Performance by Ricochet ricochet.name

MUSIC PROVIDED BY:
8-9pm Michael Musika myspace.com/michaelmusika
“Valentines Day is love linked to commerce and some sort of catholic innuendo. I sing lots of songs about whores and ghosts.”

9-10pm Model Student modelstudent.us
Performing an all-acoustic set of “Songs of Love & Lust”, a repertoire of songs spanning several continents and languages.

10-11pm DJ Benchun benchun.net
“When you’re the dj you have one job. Your job is to make everyone go home and fuck.”

I really love using Goodreads, and I just noticed they have these cool widgets to display your books. Pretty cool.

In the past I’ve blogged about the books I’ve read, and listed my most recommended books in my custom Amazon Store, but now I really only use Goodreads to manage/record/share this information.

I’ve actually liked that Goodreads has been a friends only service – meaning only friends could see what I’ve read and am reading – but the more I thought about it, I really do enjoy sharing my reading list publicly (obviously). It just made me realize how/why I have liked the privacy. A reading list can actually be quite revealing, so I can understand how some wouldn’t want to share that information.

Note: These are in Flash, so if you’re reading via an RSS feed (Facebook included), or on an iPhone, these might not display. You can, however, go view my public profile page on Goodreads.

I also realized today that I’m reading six (6!) books right now. Not very fast, mind you… I used to devour books so much faster! Maybe commuting to work on the bus more will help.

Have you read any of these… or read any other good books lately I should put on my (long) to-read list?

A continuation from things that are awesome lately, part 1 (more tech/geeky stuff)… this is my list of things that are awesome lately, in a more personal realm:

• Being honest… both with myself and others. Recently I had to get up the guts to come clean about a little crush I was having on a good friend, and the whole process made me really look at different areas of my relationship(s), where it was so easy for me to be aloof or coy, instead of being brave enough to actually say what I want. Funny, that fear thing. ;) A nice reminder to face it head on and speak your truth. Pretty silly how easy it is when it’s all said & done. And helps clear up the situation to make room for more REAL TALK. Plus, I have to say it all just reminded me to listen to that I *do* want a relationship (meaning, stop saying I don’t care or am too busy, etc), and kind of got me re-excited about meeting someone who is super awesome. Bring it on… surprise me, 2010!
• Hot showers. Many of you know my obsession with my shower, but seriously, I love it so much I WANT TO MARRY IT! Some hot showers are downright healing. Thank frickin’ jeebus for hot showers.
• Loving the refreshed feeling I’m having after my relaxing holiday staycation.
• How good I’m feeling in my body. I even had a dream about it last night. It’s nice to feel good in your own body, ya know? I definitely wasn’t feeling this way prior to my staycation. It’s all related!
• Realizing that a major KEY to my peace of mind is having a clean, organized house. Every morning I wake up to a clean house is 100x better than waking up to a messy house.
• Reconnecting with old friends on Facebook. First loves, BFFs from 10 & 20 years ago (who have 3 kids now). The internets are amazing.
• My new office, and the fact that it’s way easier for people to come visit me here vs. the old space. Before people had to do a complicated intercom system or call/text me when they were outside and I had to go down and get them… which was necessary security wise, but still, annoying. Here, the door is open during daytime hours and people can come right up!
• Growing older. I mean, not that it’s SO awesome, haha – I could do without some things that are happening! :p – but there are parts of it that are really, truly wonderful. Like, I know who I am so much better than I ever have (I would never go back to my 20’s for this reason alone). I love myself for who I am, and have less shame, guilt and embarrassment (all horrible feelings). I know how to listen to my body better than ever before. I know how to be more patient with myself when I’m sick, or feeling down. I know how to spot good friends, and who to let go, or not spend time around, because we’re simply not a healthy match. I have so many dear friends who have hit the big 4-0 lately, and they’re all so young and awesome! It’s awesome to see where they are in their lives. I love the idea that we all get to grow old together… like one big happy family. :) I get to see laugh lines appear, from all of us laughing so hard, so many late nights together… making memories we’ll never forget. I get to see gray hairs come in (and watch myself get so turned on by salt & pepper men). I love seeing friends magically find love, and experience the joys & challenges of parenthood. Life is really so amazing, and I feel incredibly fortunate to have such an loving, supportive community around me to share it with. <3

Did any of this hit home for you? What is awesome in your life lately?

Here’s a few things that are making my life awesome recently:

• Groupon – $25 for $50 worth of food (and similar awesome deals)? Um, yes please! Subscribe to this, it’s in a ton of cities and has GREAT deals.
• TCB Courier – For all of you who remember Kozmo.com or know Pink Dot in LA, you’ll be delighted to know we have something similar in SF again! Imagine you’re hosting a party, and you’re running out of wine, or you spaced buying dessert. For $6, TCB Courier will deliver whatever you want! Keep in mind it’s mostly just to the Mission/SOMA areas – see their map & funny video.
• The new Chase no-envelope ATMs are incredible (more commentary/info here, here & here). They make depositing checks so much easier, faster & less paper waste! Now if only their online banking site would catch up & be as sexy.
• Californication – I’m so into this show right now. Scored Season 3 and I’m just loving it.

And a few geeky computer things that are making my life awesome recently:

• Airfoil – After finally getting my Airport Express working again on my home stereo, I quickly realized I didn’t like being limited to only playing music out of iTunes. I wanted to stream music from Firefox – like playlists on Blip.fm or Last.fm – to my stereo. And that’s precisely what this does. So rad!
• Organized – From the makers of iStatPro, an app that they call a “Swiss Army knife for your Dashboard, including a calendar, world clocks, notes, iCal events and to do’s”  Which may beg the question, who uses the dashboard anymore? Well, I hadn’t for a long time… at least not regularly, besides occasionally checking the weather or time in another zone/country*. But recently I saw Buzz tweet about the Today app, and it made me think, “I like that, but surely someone’s made something similar for the Dashboard.” So after finding Organized, I got back into it (even setting Exposé to display it when I roll off top-right). *It also took care of me needing to use the world clocks I had set up before, because it’s a tab on Organized. Love it! This company also makes some awesome iPhone apps, under the name Bjango.
• Minutes – I often need a quick timer, whether it’s to remind myself to go re-park my car, or that I have 5 minutes till I need to call someone for a phone meeting… Minutes is so well done. I haven’t even used some of the other cool things it has, like opening a file or starting/stoping iTunes… but I love that it does those.
• Spirited Away – My friend, Gabe, reminded me of this gem. My computer can get pretty crazy, multi-tasking with windows everywhere, and that’s where Spirited Away comes in. It helps whisk away windows you’re not looking at to keep the view clean. I just don’t like how it hijacks the command+H shortcut to manually hide, which I use all the time… probably out of habit because everything was always needing to be hidden manually! Just got to get used to Spirited Away taking care of it for me.
• Aviary Firefox Add-On – I am an avid fan of Skitch, but am thrilled to have the Aviary plugin for when I need to take a screenshot of a full page, and then copy it to the clipboard – which I then usually paste into Skitch to post it there or Flickr [example]. I find this works better, and is faster than ScreenGrab!, which is what I used before for full or partial page screenshots.

Stay tooned for Part 2… which is my list of ‘things that are making my life awesome’ in a more personal realm.

If you liked this post, you might like to read my post about My Favorite Firefox Add-Ons.

Have anything you’re super geeked about lately? Let me hear it in the comments!

So worth watching… this is really, really well done! Also, be sure to hit the little arrows to watch it full screen.

Alma from Rodrigo Blaas on Vimeo.

Via Whatevs.com – Great short film. limited release online, watch it while you still can

Embeded right here on my blarg, for your listening enjoyment! :)

I’m long overdue writing out all my thoughts on the last few weeks, so I promise I’ll post more soon, but for now here’s all the photos (& a few videos) from New Years Eve. Hope yours was as fun as ours… Happy New Year, everyone!