To highlight the importance of this – the last day (we’ll actually give you until the end of tomorrow) to reserve your seats for the 2008 Innovation Awards (presented by Lott + Barber) at a discounted price, washed up rapper and celebrity Vanilla Ice has teamed up with TCCa to parody his 1991 one-hit-wonder “Ice, Ice Baby.”

If this doesn’t get you to order your early bird tickets, I don’t know what will. Hit it, Ice.

“Yo TCP/IP, let’s kick it

All right stop, collaborate and listen
Price is at a brand new edition
Sixty dollahs, don’t hold so tightly
Cuz with it you can play at our Innovation nightly…

Price, price baby – Sixty dollahs
Price, price baby – up 15 by end of tomorrah”

Take heed from this lyrical poet: the clock is ticking and time is running out for you to save 20% on this year’s Innovation Awards.  Up until COB tomorrow, $60 will reserve your seat at this year’s premiere event, complete with entertainment, cocktails, awards program and three-course meal catered by Cha Bella.  After the 1st, the price will raise to $75.

Heading out tomorrow night?  Be sure to make a special stop at Broughton’s new, trendy Saya Lounge for some uniquely philanthropic fun!  The South Magazine is throwing yet another glamorous gathering, and this time it’s as feel-good as it is look-good.

Yes, The South and Saya are teaming up with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) to honor and celebrate “Light the Night,” a decades-old annual event to bring awareness to the leukemia and lymphoma, pay tribute and bring hope to thousands of patients and their families, and raise funds for cures.

LLS is the world’s largest voluntary health organization dedicated to funding blood cancer research, education and patient services. The mission of LLS is to cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families. Since its founding in 1949, LLS has invested more than $600 million for research specifically targeting blood cancers.

Happy hour begins at 6pm and features food prepared and catered by Zunzi’s and an $8 South Magatini, specially prepared for the evenings festivities.  After 9pm, the Magatini will still be available for latecomers at $10 a glass.  100% of donations and 50% of cocktail sales of this exciting event will be given directly to the LLS.

Allow me to set the scene. The year is 1790 (how’d you guess?). The French Revolution is underway abroad, while at home we’re just settling in to countryship and independence. Rhode Island ratifies the Constitution, being the last of the 13 original states to do so. The signing of the “Residence Act” decrees the District of Columbia as the capital district of the United States. Shortly after, also in 1790, the construction of the White House begins. Benjamin Franklin dies (at the ripe age of 84). The first State of the Union address is delivered by President George Washington (er, pictured below). The U.S. patent system is established.

Uh, yeah, we’re talking about a long a– time ago.

More locally, the election of the first mayor and first city council took place in Savannah in 1790. And – what remained for a century as the city’s only inn with a full service restaurant and lounge (once a novelty I suppose) – the 17Hundred90, was built.

Now, Churchill’s Pub claims to be the oldest running bar in Savannah (though I have yet to see facts substantiating that). And we all know that the Pirate’s House is getting up there, having opened in 1753. But 17Hundred90 gets some props from us for the fact that the place is standing, no less still serving up pints.

It’s true.  Good things do happen to ordinary people.  It goes a little something like this.

I was running around my house looking for my shoe yesterday morning.  I was my usual 15 minutes late for work.  But this morning my new foster pup, Benjamin Barker (yes, named for Sweeney Todd and fitting because he does so love to bark), had hidden my left pump.  So there I am, using expletives, spilling coffee and musing – once again – that this is no way to start a day.

Then the phone rings.  It’s Frank McIntosh, my dayjob boss’s husband.  You probably know Frank, a Savannah native.  Everyone knows Frank.  He’s terrific.  Well, he’s calling to make my day.  “Want to go flying?” he asks me.  As quick as a flash I am out of my one lone pump and into some “flying clothes.”  I pack a little lunch and head to meet Frank for our departure to Wright Army Air Field in Hinesville.

Having trouble seeing the pics? View the full size slideshow!