Cartoon...

Hilarious Audio: Scott

Crap-Tastic Animation: Me

Smokey Todd...

Stencil I created from a photo I took of Todd at Raleigh Times

This Amazing Weekend...

Friday night we all went out to celebrate Todd moving to France. I was going to Charlotte Saturday so this was the last time I was gonna get to see Todd for a while. The list of deviants included: Lilly, Dana, Scott, Mark, Andre, Todd, and myself. We started the night off at a favorite restaurant of mine and Todd’s, Five Star.
Five Star is this really cool restaurant/bar that serves some of the most amazing and pricey chinese food that you can find.

I got the crispy sesame beef... yum.

A little back story… Todd and I have the same birthday. Back on our birthday, there was a screw up and only one cake got made when there was supposed to be one for each of us. “Happy Birthday Zach” had already been written all over the cake, so cupcakes were made for Todd. “T” “O” “D” “D” was written on four different cupcakes. Todd was like, “What the fuck is this? I’m not good enough for a cake too?” Haha. Anyway, we got Todd a cake for his celebration that just says: “Fuck Cupcakes.” Hahahaha.

Todd was happy.

After getting stuffed at Five Star we all, minus Andre, headed over to The Raleigh Times and drank sangria. We just sat around and drank sangria and mingled. This was possibly the last time that this same group of people would ever all be around e ach other again. Scott works very hard and is rarely seen. Todd’s moving to France and then to Englad shortly after his return. Mark is like sasquatch, you hear tell of him and there have been sightings, but does he really exist?

Me playing with Mark’s lighter.

Some stupid lady wearing sunglasses at night… and no she's not blind.

Some of the fine artwork we saw on the walk back to the parking deck. Gangsta Elmo, with his Crystal and gold grill ready to pimp smack a hoe on the rough streets of Sesame.

Todd sends his greetings from below.

WATCH FOR PEDESTRIANS

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This is the first photo of the start of my Saturday.

Saturday Michelle and I went to Charlotte to go see my friend John. This is the opening weekend of his new club called “Charlotte’s Underground.” On our 3 hour road trip up there we stopped off at Concord Mills mall. It’s a really huge mall right outside of Charlotte. I just wanted to show Michelle because it was one of my favorite malls to visit when I used to live near Charlotte. I bought a t-shirt from Hot Topic with the Joker’s face on it from the new Batman movie, in memory of Heath Ledger. I thought it’d be nice to sport that around the queen city.

Later after passing through Charlotte, we headed to South Carolina to Johns house. We hung out there for a while and played rockband, which is incredibly fun, and then headed off to the club.
It was really cool to see my design on the front door of John’s new club.

Now, Friday night was the actual opening night of the club and they do not have their alcohol license yet, so the place was actually dead on Saturday. They had done all of their promotions for Friday night, so there was not a big turnout. However, this was more fun for me because we could all hang out and play pool and not have to worry about other people. Plus, they just put in 3 brand new pool tables.

After shooting pool and signing the “wall of signatures” we went to uptown Charlotte. Have a Nice Day Café is where we spent the rest of our night.

Below are some before and after pictures of us taking shots of Irish whiskey.

On a scale from 1-10, 10 being tanked, how drunk am I at this point...? haha.

Too much rock for one hand!


I had an amazing time in Charlotte and can't wait to go back on the 8th.


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Sunday we crawled out of bed and got some Bojangles to fix us right up. Around noon we went to see my friend Chad preach at his church. After church Michelle and I made our way back to Raleigh. Along the way, we stopped to eat at Stool Pigeons in Charlotte.



Stool Pigeons is one of our favorite places to go. We are going to try to visit every Stool Pigeons location that they have, two down so far.

After lunch, we got back on the road to head home. We saw John Edwards as he was coming back from the South Carolina primary.


When we got back in town we were pretty hungry from all the traveling, so we stopped in to Duffy's and got some buffalo chicken. I had an amazing time this weekend and got to spend it with all of my favorite people.

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To Todd: "I'll miss ya man. I hope your travels are adventurous and you learn many great things. Take many photographs along the way and document it all. Stay creative. I hope to see you again soon."

Unseen Art...

Abe's Painted Face

Random $5 bill that was in my coat pocket

Art is all around us. Sometimes you just have to be looking at something the right way or be in the right situation to be able to see it or appreciate it. I took notice at things of vibrant colors today as I sat at work in a drab colorless office.

Singled out

How did this one manage to slip in among the rest?

Sometimes you can find the most wonderful things if you just slow down to appreciate it for what it is. Today's art is brought to you by the letter "B."

Pour House...

Last night Michelle and I went to the Pour House in downtown Raleigh to see some really amazing bands. Wednesday is mug night, so we got our mugs filled up and sat back and enjoyed the show. The Influence, Sun Domingo, and Honor by August all performed very well. Even though we went to see Honor by August, Sun Domingo was the headliner. They really know how to have fun on stage, like when the guitarist played the drums along side the drummer in a big drum solo during one of the songs. We had actually seen them when we went out to the Lincoln Theatre for 80s night; they were the opening act. Anyway, it was a blast and it was made all the better to be acompanied by the one I love.

Two Month Anniversary...

Last night, Michelle and I went to Crowley's to celebrate our two month anniversary. We were sitting at Crowley’s on November 22nd, Thanksgiving night, when I first told Michelle that I loved her. I was very relieved when she told me she felt the same way and so our relationship began! It was very exciting and I have been happy ever since that moment. So, I figured what better way to celebrate our two month anniversary then to return to the place where I first proclaimed my love, haha. Anyway, we had a really nice time and tonight we will be going to see “Honor by August”, a band that we both discovered together and love, at The Pour House in downtown Raleigh. I’m really excited and cannot wait to see Michelle and go out! I'll post back tomorrow-

*Also a side note, Heath Ledger passed away yesterday. He was a great actor. He will be missed. Make sure you go check out the new Batman movie: The Dark Night, this summer in his memory. Click the image below to watch the trailer.

Click here to watch a memoriam on Current TV

This Weekend...

Friday me, Michelle, Todd, and Lilly went to see Cloverfield. The movie was absolutely amazing. It was not an entirely new idea, but a completely original take on it. I don’t like to spoil anything with movies so I’ll just say that the movie is great from start to finish. After the movie we were all really excited and absolutely freezing as we walked over to Lynnwood Grill across from the Raleigh Grande. We had never been here before and there was some live music and a buzzing atmosphere, so it seemed promising. We walked in and quickly found no seats available so we moved to the outside where they had heat lamps, which felt really good. Now, this would have been a new favorite place of mine to go had the following not happened. Todd and I walked in to the bar to order some drinks. The bar tender asked to see both of our IDs and then took Todd’s order; Todd was ordering for Lilly and himself. She came back, delivered the beers, and then took off. I was like, “damn she just skipped right past me,” as me and Todd laughed about it, but it was soon no laughing matter. I waived her down as she looked at me in confusion. I told her that those were his beers and I still need to order. She looked kinda rattled but asked what I wanted. I placed my simple order for two beers and placed the twenty in her hand. She responded “Ok, I’m gonna need to see two IDs.” I said, “Oh no, haha, these are both for me.” She said, “If you are ordering two beers then I need to see two IDs" and handed me back my money. Whoa… Hold up. Is she really denying me to have two beers at once? Ok, play it cool. “Ok, tell ya what, hang on to this twenty and I’ll go get you the ID of the person that is with me.” She agreed. I went out and explained my situation to Michelle and she lended her ID, no problem, right? Wrong… “OK here you go, two IDs” She replied, “No. I can’t accept this. This could be anyone’s ID.” I said, “Anyone’s ID? Do you think just anyone would give me their ID to buy a second beer?” She responded, “I’m not going to give you the beer. You are going to have bring the person up here or I’ll send someone outside.” This would have been ok if she had been nice to me thus far and if I did not have to wait in this incredibly long ass line every time I came back in. Angry, I snatched my twenty out of her hand and told her to just send someone outside. Here’s the best part. She comes storming outside after me, THE CUSTOMER, and proceeds to tell me not to snatch money out of her hand and blah blah blah. She’s being irate at this point, in which case I had the right to be, not her. I did NOT want to talk to her any further so I responded, “OK. Just get someone else and send them out here!” and she shot me this “Go to Hell” look and responded, “Yes Sir! Mr. Bossman. Right away!” I have never been so pissed. I wanted to just leave, but she was not going to stop me from having a good time with Michelle and my friends. Since she obviously never sent anyone out to provide me with beer, me and Michelle just went inside to order some beers. I went to a guy this time but I was too late as I could over hear her telling him how she felt about me. Either way, I placed my order for 4 beers this time, fearing that I would not get another shot, plus the bar had become very packed by this time. The guy asked for both of our IDs and then had to escort us back outside with the 4 beers because obviously two people can’t drink 4 beers. When he saw that both Todd and Lilly had beer already, then he let us have the 4 beers all to ourselves. I gave him the twenty and they sent someone else out to give me my change. NEEDLESS to say, I will never return to a place that is so hard to get a damn beer. MAN! Haha. I didn’t even want to talk about it anymore, but felt like I had to at least blog it, lol.

Saturday was a very wet and cold rainy day. Michelle and I slept in a little and then went to Duffy’s for lunch later that day. After lunch we went back to play Guitar Hero III and Call of Duty 4, both of which are bad ass. We just took it easy and played games all day. Later that day it started to snow! We were excited and decided to go to Gandolfo’s Deli for lunch. However, Gandolfo’s was closed so we went to CiCi’s Pizza. I love that place! : ) We stuffed our faces with all the wonderful treats that CiCi’s had to offer, haha. After that it was starting to really come down outside, so we headed back home. On the way home we stopped to take some pictures.

Sunday, Michelle and I went to this fancy Chinese restaurant called P.F. Chang’s. The food was sooo good there, and it was Michelle’s first time. We ordered Chang’s Spicy Chicken, because I know she loves anything spicy. She ordered a Royal Poolside, or something like that haha, and I ordered a Nutty Uncle. I can’t remember what was in either drink, but they were both very yummy! Later on, we went to Sam Ash to pick up some strings for Michelle’s electric guitar and we played with some of the guitars as well. Guitar stores are so much fun to go into and play around in. Later on that evening after church, we went back to her place and I strung up her guitar for her. Once it was all done and tuned, it was time for me to head out. This weekend was another great one!

This coming week and weekend will also be amazing. Wednesday, Michelle and I are going to see a band called Honor by August, playing at the Pour House, for our 2 month anniversary, which is actually Tuesday. Saturday, we are going to Charlotte to see my friend John. He just opened up a new club called Charlotte’s Underground. I can’t wait to hit the road this weekend and see friends and family with Michelle by my side.

Stay tuned for the week ahead!

1/18/08...

The day has finally come to see Cloverfield. A movie surrounded in mystery that has had me in anticipation since I laid eyes on the trailer last year. The movie is so bad ass that the trailer didn't even give a name for it, only a date... 1/18/08. This date has been burned into my memory since that time. I really hope this movie doesn't let me down. Todd and I just sat mesmerized as the date 1/18/08 appeared on the screen, leaving us helpless and with nowhere to look to for support. What was this trailer we just saw? How can we find out more about it? Luckily, there is much more information about it now and a slightly longer trailer for it. So I'm going to see it tonight, and I'll post back about it on Monday with my weekend recap.