Strange Saturday Night

"Oh my God!" Steve said as he grabbed my arm in shock. We'd just entered a fancy home in the Hollywood Hills, ready for a party with the other aerial tricksters I'd performed with at the showcase. "This is Herb Ritts' old house!"

What?
Yeah, in the list of many odd events Steve and I experience, it turns out that one of the trainers owns this house with her boyfriend. Insane. Steve's an architecture freak, and a photography freak, and an art freak, so he instantly recognized the home.
Of course, we didn't want to be rude and start asking about how the trainer got the place-- besides, we kind of needed to act cool, like this sort of thing happened to us every day-- but it was super neat. Steve took lots of pics.

We ate a marvelous potluck dinner with homemade turkey patties, delicious organic salads, tarts made with puff pastry, homemade French fries with garlic aioli, and wine... LOTS of wine. Steve and I brought four different kinds of cupcakes to test out possible wedding cake options. The red velvet won hands down, with the chocolate mousse cupcakes coming a close second. I think we'll be popping by the cake shop this week to lock in our order.

The evening continued with a viewing of the showcase, taking time to learn what we did right, wrong, and how to grow from the performance. After, we all went down to swim in the pool under the stars.

That's when drunken circus tricks began-- no photos, sorry. But let me say that I had more women stand on my shoulder than ever before in my life.

We were stunned when 1:30am rolled around, so we all headed home. It was such a wonderful, fun night and we were exhausted. As we drove home Steve and I realized it was also one of those, "Only in LA could we go to a potluck pool party at Herb Ritts' old house with a bunch of aerial arts students."

I mean, really! Where else could you hear something like that?

Steve's Latest Gig -- The Little Mermaid III: Ariel's Beginning

A while back Steve did some freelance work for the latest Disney DVD, The Little Mermaid III: Ariel's Beginning. We went to the movie's premiere at The Arclight in Hollywood last night, followed by a lovely party. We even met Ariel!
I know some people shy away from these direct-to-DVD sequels, but this movie is very entertaining. The villain, in particular, is hilariously evil and her name is Marina Del Rey (voiced by Sally Field). No joke. Bob Mackie designed her costumes for the film and the music numbers she performs with Benjamin, her sidekick, are camptastic! You should view this DVD with your best friends (and a cocktail) and have a great laugh.

Speaking of music, our friend (and single dude) Steve Gizicki worked on the music for this film. He's standing above with Steve, displaying cleanup drawings from the film that were given as gifts to the crew.
My Steve did character design, some prop design (all of which are clearly seen in the movie). Steve also drew all the publicity art-- including the DVD cover/poster (pictured here). There's also a "save the environment" campaign that he did the art for. I'll post that here when I find it.

Steve's Birthday Surprise

So what did I end up getting Steve for his birthday???
Cher. Or to be more precise, tickets to Cher's concert at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. We're staying in August for two nights in the new tower and will see her on a Sunday night. Believe it or not, in our uber gayness we've never seen Cher so this is our first time. It's supposed to be a big spectacle and we can't wait!


Here's where we're sitting.

The hookup came through our friend Sagiv, who's also one of the tissue trainers in my aerial class. He performs in Cher's show.

If we get a backstage tour and/or picture moment with the diva, we will not be posting it here on the blog. We'll be saving it for the Christmas card.

Speaking of trapeze and whatnot, trained today for the first time in three weeks. Have more about that and the wedding plans for later.

Comic-Con 2008 Saturday & Sunday

You know Comic-Con is slammin' when Eric Estrada has a long line for signing autographs.

But besides Eric there were lots of celebs around. We did hit the Battlestar Galactica panel on Saturday. It was really kind of bittersweet because it's all coming to an end and everyone knew it. But no, we got no clues for the final cylon.

We also saw Joss Whedon and Eliza Dushku talk about Dollhouse, which looks amazing. I need to meet Joss. We have mutual friends (so I understand) and I'm told our writing styles are similar. So my goal for the next couple weeks is my book rewrite and networking.
We also met many fans supporting Galactica leaders for president. Here are two cool dude and their shirts, posing with Steve and I in our "Roslin for President" shirts.On Sunday we saw friend Aliki Theofilopoulos who is a story writer on the amazing Disney cartoon Phineas and Ferb. Here she is with show creators Dan Povenmire (also the voice of the evil Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz) and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh. The voice actors were also there, entertaining a packed audience.
We also saw slutty Disney Princesses. Because really, it's not a party until you run into a group of really hot women dressed as slutty Disney Princesses.

All in all, a really good show.

Comic-Con 2008 Friday & Steve's Birthday

It almost started out to be a bad day.

When we arrived, we said hi to our friend Annamarie and then went inside the Exhibit Hall. When we hit the SciFi booth, one of the staff saw Steve's Battlestar Galactica Starbuck tattoo.

"That's not a temporary tattoo," he said, stunned. We agreed. That's when we found out they were giving out slightly smaller temporary tattoos of the one he has. Insane!

The staff was actually quite excited by Steve's tattoo, and they gave us a couple of the temporary ones for comparison. Perhaps I'll try one out to see if I should get the matching tattoo.
We walked around and saw lots of hot models who were out promoting the event. These girls were promoting Triple Cobra. I have no idea what it is, but I loved them and they loved us.
FYI, Thor in this picture is actually a woman.
This family was awesome!Wonder Woman's costume here was knitted. In this moment she's being interviewed for The Tonight Show.These kids had incredible costumes that looked exactly like the original Adam West series. Pretty cool.This is my 17-year-old niece, Brianne. She's a cosplayer and this is some anime costume. We took her to lunch at Hooters. Then we hung out a bit and sent her on her way.
FYI - Batman and Wonder Woman were hot.
More tomorrow...

Thursday Night of Comic-Con 2008

We showed up at our hotel after a very easy drive... and this was our hotel key card.
It's already an amazing convention.

Steve's Birthday & Comic-Con Weekend

Busy day of work before heading out to San Diego this evening. If you see us wandering about, say hey.

Longtime friend, Karen, suggested some restaurants for Steve's birthday on Friday night and one of them seems perfect. I also got Steve's gifts on time so he'll actually have a great surprise (I hope). More on that later.

We'll try to take pics throughout the weekend and post them here. That usually works for one day and then we get too busy/distracted. But check in, you never known.

Be safe this weekend.

A Golden Moment of Silence, please...

Estelle Getty is gone.

I can't even express how her performance on Golden Girls helped shape what I believed a character could say and do on network television. She was amazing, she will be missed.

"Thank you for being a friend..."