Justin Achilli

Out for holiday travels. Until I return, please to enjoy this:

The wee beastie.

Fixin’ to head out to the bar.

Glasses of Dom and Chef Stephen Leed’s duck confit sloppy joe, edamame, potato dressing, poppadums, the best crab cakes in Atlanta and a bourbon brownie sundae.

Mugging for the camera while the party promoters graciously took our picture.

Brandy schmoozing Allen, one of the bar’s owners.

Kingsize crooned some Elvis, Neil Diamond and Marvin Gaye. That dude in the red shirt is "Big Mike" and he’s… um… big. I think that dude in the foreground’s name is Stewart. He’s going to Australia, New Zealand and Tonga. Must be nice.

Me, Brandy and John. John’s a friend from way back who just happened to turn up as the manager of my favorite bar.

Grand busts a funky move while Tianyi schemes how to put her own moves on the man.

David and friend. David’s going to the South Pacific, too. If I buy a place locally, it’ll probably be from him.

Michelle, Blair, someone I don’t know but who looks good with Blair, and Violetta. Michelle and Blair are "power siblings." Heh.

Some of the other party guests.

Josh and Brandy. Moments after this photo was taken, various spinning dance moves occurred.

Heather and DJ Dr. Katz. Katz is the other owner of the bar.

Parts of it are coming back, but until they do, here’s some of the photographic evidence. I’ll have a play-by-play soon, but look at this as a sort of warm-up. These are the photos of the party proper, which took place at the Highlander. Many of these involve our Secret Santa gift exchange.

Mike seriously wears shirts like this. In fact, this very shirt was a Secret Santa gift.

Double Dragon, as portrayed by Evil Brad (left) and Brian.

If you ever think to yourself, "I wonder if I look drunk?" the answer is yes.

If you ever think to yourself, "I wonder if I look drunk?" the answer is still yes.

ATTACK OF GIANT CAULIFLOWER HAT

I was Charles’ Secret Santa. I got him some soap (because he’s Irish), a potato (because he’s Irish) and some condoms (because he’s Charles).

Someone’s Secret Santa gave them Elvis Costello.

When Santa is six-feet-plus, weighs 215 and knows a hellish amount of Kung Fu, do not agitate him. And why isn’t that hippie Conrad trying to stop the violence?

Somehow, Chris convinced Terminator Santa to part with his jacket, only to find that Laura was in there already.

Okay, so you might not be drunk, but you can still look it.

Raphael wanted a Hummer, some Froot Loops and a million hits of E for Christmas. That’s the Hummer in his hand, the Froot Loops are still in the box and he had to get the other 999,990 E’s for himself.

Any gift that keeps you from inhaling poisons or having your face melted off by gas qualifies as a "gift that keeps on giving."

It’s a tradition for Santa and the gift recipient to have a shot of Jaegermeister when Santa delivers the gift. Of course, this means Santa ends up doing about 45 shots in as many minutes, so don’t be surprised when he has to vomit into he sleeve to keep it from spraying everywhere.

Diane has other dogs besides Chaney, too.

Words fail me.

As soon as I can put together in my mind what went on last night, I’ll post it.

I do remember that at one point, two separate fights had broken out and I was somehow involved in both of them. One of them culminated in me lying in the center of Ponce de Leon Street.

Um… yeah. Like I said, there’ll be more when I can recall it.

Georgia is hilarious.

Yesterday, the entire northern part of the state quivered in fear of the impending onslaught of winter weather. Schools closed. Businesses shut down. Churches canceled services. Grocery stores had a rush on stuff like toilet paper, fish sticks and bottled water. Why? Because winter was coming, man! What brought this on?

Well, it was cold.

I’m serious. The temperature dropped to about 28, so everything shut down. No snow. No real rain to speak of. Hell, I walked home at three this morning and nothing was even frozen then. And yet, the entire city ground to a fearful halt.

Despite Atlanta’s precarious position in the clutches of Cold Miser, Electro Retro Halo went well last night — I figured it might be a bit light with the hoary rime of (imaginary) frost locking the city in its death-grip, but we turned out maybe 200 people, which isn’t bad for an opening night. Crowd reaction was really good, too. I saw heads bobbing all night long, a few people dancing in the spaces between tables (Halo’s a lounge and not really a dance club, so any time people are shaking they asses, you’re doing well). We even had some space to play relatively oblique stuff like Celebrate the Nun and Moskwa TV without alienating anyone. I finished my set by going from New Order to the Cure to Army of Lovers to Madonna ("Die Another Day"), and Eric took us home with "Set Adrift on Memory Bliss" by PM Dawn. I met some folks who were really into the whole thing — just what we wanted, really — because it was "nostalgic" music for them in a lounge environment, without all the hassle and expectation of a nightclub. In short, I’m really happy with how things turned out, and I expect to see it growing based on some word of mouth.

The Umbra meeting was a bitch, however, and I caught myself nodding off due to sleep dep. Good thing it was only one meeting. Good stuff came out of it, though, and I had some worthwhile input, so I wasn’t dead weight.

Anyway, there’s no real content here. Just a sort of state-of-the-Justin address. Until I come up with something worth saying or seeing (office party next Monday should provide some quality schitt), laff at this crap:

1) What do you get when you combine Marilyn Manson with Linkin Park — and let the special-ed class of media designers handle the Flash? This. Terrible.

2) I have no idea.

Fixin’ to head off to work — Electro Retro Halo starts tonight.

Giddy as a schoolgirl, of course, because this is my favorite bar, and I really like playing music. I’ve been screwing around with some music authorship software lately, but let’s just say I’ll stick with queueing up other people’s music.

I’m headed home for Christmas this year, back to lovely Texas. While I enjoy going home every now and then, I get frustrated when the trip is either too long or two short. We’re there for six days this year, which is just about too short — but I was there for 10 days last year, which is too long. See, while I’m there, I’m on vacation, but all of the old crew still goes to work. The upshot is that I spend several hours a day watching Law & Order reruns on A&E. There are worse fates, to be sure — I might get the satellite stuck on VH1′s Lynyrd Skynyrd Behind the Music — but it seems sort of wasteful to take a vacation and spend so much of it watching TV. Like the last time I was over there. I ended up watching The Wedding Singer. And I didn’t hate it. I must have been coming down with something.

We’ll see what happens tonight. If I’m not too beat, I’ll recap when I get in from the evening, but I make no promises — I have a meeting to discuss the various Umbras tomorrow starting at 9 AM, and since I’m getting in tonight around 3:30, we’ll have to see.

Should have some good updates this month. Monday’s the office Christmas party, which should make for some interesting pictures, and I’ve been invited to a Dom Perignon party before the holidays, so photos may reveal me in a suit.

Enough rambling. Off to work.

It’s getting close to Christmastime, and I’ll be submitting the same Christmas list to Santa that I submit every year. I have to keep doing it because he never brings me what I asked for. One day, I guess, if I’m a good little boy, I’ll get everything on my list. Heck, it’s not like it’s a lot — I have only three things on the list.

Christmas Item Number One: Gin
Purpose: To fire me up to lofty new heights of excitement, and to steel my resolve when the bad times come.
Why It’s a Great Gift: Gin is the worst alcohol ever. Have you ever seen a dude drunk on whisky? He’s all mellow and smiling. Maybe he’s maudlin and drowning his sorrows. Either way, that’s not a gin drunk. Dudes who are drunk on gin are as mean as all fuck. They bite snakes. They throw punches at police. They grab whatever’s nearby and club people in the head with it. It even breaks the blood vessels in your nose ("gin blossoms"), making you physically ugly in addition to hellafied metaphorically ugly. It’s crazy shit — and it comes in a bottle.

Christmas Item Number Two: A Bible
Purpose: To bring righteousness to the heathens.
Why It’s a Great Gift: Look at that thing — that’s exactly the kind of bible I want. When I gets me my gin mean on, I want that thing in my other hand (the one not clutching the bottle). Have no doubt, there’s going to be a lot of smiting going on once the fuel takes effect. Full-tilt, mad-as-Hell, Old-Testament fury is the order of the day. It’s going to be so rad — I’m going to deliver some brutal bit of scripture right before I turn loose on some poor fools. I mean heathens. Yeah, I’m definitely going to give it to the heathens.

Christmas Item Number Three: A Pistol
Purpose: To be prepared for emergencies.
Why It’s a Great Gift: Okay, so the gin’s going to get me all wound up and the bible is going to be both the message and the medium, if you catch my drift, but sometimes a man of the Word finds himself in a situation where faith takes a back seat to a good, old-fashioned shitstorm of lead. Plus, having a pistol is sort of like having an ATM card with an infinite amount of money in the account.