soooo, yes. tonight was… awesome.

drove down the grueling hour and a half it took to get through traffic down to hollywood, where i finally got to la brea and santa monica, parked outside the carl’s jr. across from the street of the address 7100 santa monica blvd. and made my way over to the small crowd of people huddling in their little groups, talking amongst themselves.

i, of course, knew nobody there yet, but when nicole and meagan got there, i did. so all was good.

after waiting about 2 hours [[maybe an hour and a half…]] a bunch of screaming and running commences to a yellow car parked about 50 feet from the corner, where everyone was crowding around, begging pete, or “vlad” for the special treats we had been promised.

being the black sheep that i am, i went around to the other side of the car [[the driver’s side]] where he was unloading more boxes, and he looked up, and there i was, patiently awaiting my own little box. =]

so he smiles, and hands me a package, and i say thank you, and try to make my way around to the other side of the car. but not before depositing a tube, a little carousel, if you will, of sprinkles. haha yes, i’m just that big of a dork. =p

so after a while of begging fangirls receiving their parcels, the big guns came out.

the lovely Breesays got herself the LAST PAIR EVER of the limited edition b-day clandestine SUPRAS…

yeah. we’re all jealous, bree. just know that.

and two other lucky girls got boxes that were filled with little plastic doughnuts, as pictured originally on freshonlybakery.com, but they were marked with letters. random letters. but the notes inside the boxes only proved that the letters weren’t random, but part of a complex anagram, that our large group stressed over for about… i dunno, maybe 20 minutes? half an hour? i’m not sure.

but after that time, we discovered that an important letter had been overlooked in one of the boxes, and about 2 minutes after we had that doughnut, the case was cracked! the problem solved!!

www vlad the baker rip com

was what it spelled out.

so, we had someone go to www.vladthebakerrip.com on their web-capable phone, and… well, go to the site, and you can read it for yourself.

=D

so, all in all, it was a great night.

especially when as pete was trying to leave, i told him if he wanted sprinkles, i’d left some in his driver’s seat. yeah, half-naked, cold, wigged and faux-spectacled pete hugged me when i told him. then of course, as he was walking around to the driver’s seat, all the other girls demanded that they get hugs too.

mwahahaha. i was first though. XD

haha sorry… it just made skipping out on my rehearsal tonight ALL the more worth it…

that and watching him start to sit down into the car, then realize he was sitting on a thing of sprinkles, step back out of the car, and proceed to jump up and down in pretty much a gleeful manner, and he opened up the top and ate a whole bunch of the sprinkles, smiling and giddy all the while.

yeah. one of the better times of my life.

may seem sad to you that that little thing could mean so much to me, but yeah. fuck you. it does. =]

needless to say, i only received a t-shirt, but you know what? i am SO happy with it, and it’ll be one of my treasures for the rest of my life. it’s number 41 of 75 in the world, and it’s my 41 of 75. not sure if i’m actually gonna wear it though. i might just tack it up on my wall or something.

who knows. i’ll see when the time comes.

and on the off-chance that this ever reaches his eyes…

thanks pete”vlad”. you’ve turned yet another marathon frown into a glowing grin. i hope we meet again soon, and i hope you liked the sprinkles! =D

Danya<3

I took this from Yahoo! News...

Bernie Mac blended style, authority and a touch of self-aware bluster to make audiences laugh as well as connect with him. For Mac, who died Saturday at age 50, it was a winning mix, delivering him from a poor childhood to stardom as a standup comedian, in films including the casino heist caper "Ocean's Eleven" and his acclaimed sitcom "The Bernie Mac Show."

Though his comedy drew on tough experiences as a black man, he had mainstream appeal — befitting inspiration he found in a wide range of humorists: Harpo Marx as well as Moms Mabley; squeaky-clean Red Skelton, but also the raw Redd Foxx.

Mac died Saturday morning from complications due to pneumonia in a Chicago area hospital, his publicist, Danica Smith, said in a statement from Los Angeles. She said no other details were available.

"The world just got a little less funny," said "Oceans" co-star George Clooney.

Don Cheadle, another member of the "Oceans" gang, concurred: "This is a very sad day for many of us who knew and loved Bernie. He brought so much joy to so many. He will be missed, but heaven just got funnier."

Mac suffered from sarcoidosis, an inflammatory lung disease that produces tiny lumps of cells in the body's organs, but had said the condition went into remission in 2005. He recently was hospitalized and treated for pneumonia, which his publicist said was not related to the disease.

Recently, Mac's brand of comedy caught him flack when he was heckled during a surprise appearance at a July fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidate and fellow Chicagoan Barack Obama.

Toward the end of a 10-minute standup routine, Mac joked about menopause, sexual infidelity and promiscuity, and used occasional crude language. Obama took the stage about 15 minutes later, implored Mac to "clean up your act next time," then let him off the hook, adding: "By the way, I'm just messing with you, man."

Even so, Obama's campaign later issued a rebuke, saying the senator "doesn't condone these statements and believes what was said was inappropriate."

But despite controversy or difficulties, in his words, Mac was always a performer.

"Wherever I am, I have to play," he said in 2002. "I have to put on a good show."

Mac worked his way to Hollywood success from an impoverished upbringing on Chicago's South Side. He began doing standup as a child, telling jokes for spare change on subways, and his film career started with a small role as a club doorman in the Damon Wayans comedy "Mo' Money" in 1992. In 1996, he appeared in the Spike Lee drama "Get on the Bus."

He was one of "The Original Kings of Comedy" in the 2000 documentary of that title that brought a new generation of black standup comedy stars to a wider audience.

"The majority of his core fan base will remember that when they paid their money to see Bernie Mac ... he gave them their money's worth," Steve Harvey, one of his co-stars in "Original Kings," told CNN on Saturday.

Mac went on to star in the hugely popular "Ocean's Eleven" franchise with Brad Pitt and George Clooney, playing a gaming-table dealer who was in on the heist. Carl Reiner, who also appeared in the "Ocean's" films, said Saturday he was "in utter shock" because he thought Mac's health was improving.

"He was just so alive," Reiner said. "I can't believe he's gone."

Mac and Ashton Kutcher topped the box office in 2005's "Guess Who," a comedy remake of the classic Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn drama "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" Mac played the dad who's shocked that his daughter is marrying a white man.

Mac also had starring roles in "Bad Santa," "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" and "Transformers."

But his career and comic identity were forged in television.

In the late 1990s, he had a recurring role in "Moesha," the UPN network comedy starring pop star Brandy. The critical and popular acclaim came after he landed his own Fox television series "The Bernie Mac Show," about a child-averse couple who suddenly are saddled with three children.

Mac mined laughs from the universal frustrations of parenting, often breaking the "fourth wall" to address the camera throughout the series that aired from 2001 to 2006. "C'mon, America," implored Mac, in character as the put-upon dad. "When I say I wanna kill those kids, YOU know what I mean."

The series won a Peabody Award in 2002, and Mac was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Emmy. In real life, he was "the king of his household" — very much like his character on that series, his daughter, Je'niece Childress, told The Associated Press on Saturday.

"But television handcuffs you, man," he said in a 2001 Associated Press interview before the show had premiered. "Now everyone telling me what I CAN'T do, what I CAN say, what I SHOULD do, and asking, `Are blacks gonna be mad at you? Are whites gonna accept you?'"

He also was nominated for a Grammy award for best comedy album in 2001 along with his "The Original Kings of Comedy" co-stars Harvey, D.L. Hughley and Cedric The Entertainer.

Chicago music producer Carolyn Albritton said she was Bernie Mac's first manager, having met him in 1991 at Chicago's Cotton Club where she hosted an open-mike night. He was an immediate hit, Albritton said Saturday, and he asked her to help guide his career.

"From very early on I thought he was destined for success," Albritton said. "He never lost track of where he came from, and he'd often use real life experiences, his family, his friends, in his routine. After he made it, he stayed a very humble man. His family was the most important thing in the world to him."

In 2007, Mac told David Letterman on CBS' "Late Show" that he planned to retire soon.

"I'm going to still do my producing, my films, but I want to enjoy my life a little bit," Mac told Letterman. "I missed a lot of things, you know. I was a street performer for two years. I went into clubs in 1977."

Mac was born Bernard Jeffrey McCullough on Oct. 5, 1957, in Chicago. He grew up on the city's South Side, living with his mother and grandparents. His grandfather was the deacon of a Baptist church.

In his 2004 memoir, "Maybe You Never Cry Again," Mac wrote about having a poor childhood — eating bologna for dinner — and a strict, no-nonsense upbringing.

"I came from a place where there wasn't a lot of joy," Mac told the AP in 2001. "I decided to try to make other people laugh when there wasn't a lot of things to laugh about."

Mac's mother died of cancer when he was 16. In his book, Mac said she was a support for him and told him he would surprise everyone when he grew up.

"Woman believed in me," he wrote. "She believed in me long before I believed."

Mac's death Saturday coincided with the annual Bud Billiken Parade in Chicago, a major event in the predominantly black South Side that the comedian had previously attended.

"It's truly the passing of one of our favorite sons," said Paula Robinson, president of the Black Metropolis National Heritage Area. "He was extremely innovative in putting his life experiences in comedic form and doing it without vulgarity.

"He was an ambassador of Chicago's black community, and the national black community at large."