Ash the Mighty

First off, I’ve got to move. Turns out my land lady is not actually breaking even with my rent, so she has decided to sell the flat. Technically I’ve got until March to find a new place as that’s when she wants to put this one on the market. I have no desire to pay the extra rent and spend all the time worrying about being able to find a new flat at the right moment. I’ll just panic the whole time. So, I’ve started looking for a new place. Right now I’m leaning towards this one (link won’t work for long, check it out now!). It’s considerably cheaper than where I am now (though not as cheap as I would ideally like) but I just got back from looking at it, and I think I dig it. I’ll keep you all updated.

Second bit of news is that I’ve blown a whole wad of cash buying myself concert tickets. Along the same lines of “gotta see Europe while I’m here” compulsion is the “gotta see some groovy concerts while I’m in a place where bands actually come” vibe. As such, when I saw an advert for Henry Rollins’ often-incindiary spoken word concert coming to Glasgow in January, I hopped online and bought a couple of tickets. While on the venue’s site I explored a bit and discovered that Barenaked Ladies are gonna be in Glasgow on November 30th. Well, I couldn’t turn that down and so bought a pair of tickets to that too. Then I remembered that someone at work mentioned that Flogging Molly was coming to Edinburgh. I quickly hunted down tickets for that as well. All told I bought 8 tickets (4 for Flogging Molly. Chris already wanted to go so I grabbed a couple for him too) in the space of about 15 minutes and spent £? (not gonna tell you, as people might get mad at me for dropping bundles of cash right when I’m about to go to Rome and drop some more) on the whole enterprise.

So that’s gonna be fun in the next few weeks. But tonight will be even more fun. Because tonight will be likely the LAST afterparty in this flat. After work tonight I’m going to lead a mass exodus of Ashton Lane employees and sundry others down Byres Road to my flat where we will annoy the neighbors roughly until a) the cops are called or b) we pass out from exhaustion and/or alcohol poisoning . . . just kidding on that last bit. I’ve no problem with the cops showing . . . we know about half of them anyway. But ambulances really aren’t my thing! Speaking of this party, I really should get off of the damned computer and start cleaning this place. It’s not exactly a sty or anything, I just really would like it a bit neat before it gets boldly trashed!

That’s all that I can think of at this exact moment, but I’m sure something will come to me as soon as I upload this thing. In the mean time, stay groovy and I hope everyone is doing well!

Slainte.

“A little pelvis, a little booty. A little pelvis and booty. House party!”
~Matthew Lillard (as Emmanuel Goldstein aka “Cereal Killer”) – “Hackers”

Made a small decision. I think I’m getting stale living here right now. I’ve not gotten to travel, and I’m constantly bored with everything I do (including Uni), so about a week ago I decided to go to Prague. At the time, tickets were only about £40 return (round-trip to Americans), so all was well. I wasn’t entirely sure though, so when I went to make the reservations last night, I discovered that the price has now risen to £180. Yeah, that’s a bit out of my range. So, I got onto good ol’ RyanAir and discovered that tickets to Rome were only about £70 return. That’s close enough.

So I am now going to be out of town from November 11th to the 14th. It’s not much time, but it’s all I can really spare at the moment. I also haven’t told work yet, so they may give me a hard time, but I hope they’ll see reason eventually, especially since I’m now the only proper bouncer they have left (due to an amazing amount of dodginess, Johnny has now been fired, making me by default the Head Door Steward . . . after only two months of working there. No pay raise or anything, but what can ya do?).

Stay tuned for more news on my Roma adventure. I think it’s going to be pretty stereo-typical: The Forum, the Vatican, and as many museums as I can fit into a day. That will rather vary depending on Chris however. I’ve invited ol’ Bowlesy to come along and he’s currently trying to figure out if he can get out of teaching on Thursday and Friday. Best of luck to him. I really don’t mind going by myself, but it’ll be nice to have some company . . . especially if things go wrong!

That’s it for now. Lots of stuff has been happening around here in the past couple of weeks, but none of it has been terribly exciting or interesting. The biggest thing going on right now for me is that I’m afraid I might lose my flat. Roz, my land lady, said she wants to speak to me about something and wants to do it in person . . . which makes me VERY nervous. Here’s hopin’ I won’t be moving any time soon!

Slainte.

“May I present to you, the greatest breakthrough in travel since Sir Rodney Tricycle thought to himself, ‘I’m bored of walking. I think I’ll invent something with three wheels and a bell, and name it after myself’: the time machine.”
~Rowan Atkinson (as Lord Edmund Blackadder) – “Blackadder Back & Forth”

. . . that’s all I’m good for around here. Not really of course. I’ve just worked the past two nights and am “looking forward” (in a “looking into the future” sense rather than an “I can’t wait” sense. Just to clarify) to a full weekend of the same. I know, people do this all the time, but it’s still an adjustment when you’ve grown so fond of being a lazy bum like I have!

But happily I don’t have to get up for my usual disgustingly early Latin tomorrow. It seems that we occassionally have “Lab Days” in which we have to go and answer questions on a computer. I don’t mind this at all because it means that in such cases I can do my assignments the day before, such as today. I didn’t even do that bad despite my utter lack of a grasp of the language. So, I’m left with nothing to do tomorrow, a state which I am more than a little bit excited about. Lounging about in my PJs, here I come!

I realized last night that I tend to only report the bad days at work, which might result in a slightly skewed perspective on the whole situation. You just have to understand that it’s kinda hard to make a story interesting when all I did all night was stand in front of a door and let people in. A good story requires there to be either comedy, action, or romance (or even all three) and since I’m very obviously not funny and contrary to popular belief a bar is not the place to start a romance, I’m pretty much just left relating the bad bits! So now I have a chance to honestly say to you all that work went just fine tonight. I didn’t have to toss a single person out of Jinty’s and they even went quietly when it was time to shut. I did have to toss a group of three guys from Vodka Wodka, but they were the most understanding drunks I’ve ever seen in my life, so it was actually a pleasure dealing with them. If all nights on the Lane were like this . . . it would be a really boring job . . . but my mother probably wouldn’t worry so much either.

And I’m currently awake because afterwards I went and hung out with another Door Steward named Alex on my way home. Started watching some Bruce Lee movie until his new girlie came over and insisted we watch Total Recall. Yeah, I was amazed too. She’s the very rare girl who doesn’t like romance movies at all (which is funny coming from me because I notoriously love them) but instead goes for Sci Fi and Fantasy if given the option. I find it amusing. So that’s why I’m up at 3am.

To further the random nature of this post, I’ll also mention I went and saw L4YER CAK3, which I totally dug. I had already read the book and was kinda luke warm on it, not at all sure that it would make a good movie, but it really really did. Went and saw it with Chris who hadn’t read the book and he liked it too (and was luke warm on it based on the preview), so I guess it really did just all ’round impress. Go see it now if you’re in the UK and go see it when you can if you’re in the US! And now I will dispense with the randomness and go to bed. I hope all of you are well and that everything is groovy in your world(s). OH! And check out the new extensive photo galleries on nateandamy.com (specifically by clicking here or here). Some terrific pictures! Some horrifyingly embarrassing pictures (Ash in a beard . . . be afraid).

Slainte.

“Its just one of those days
When you don’t wanna wake up”
~Limp Bizkit – “Break Stuff”

While I admit that this isn’t the most surreal thing that could happen to a person, it still struck me as just plain odd. Again, it came from the television. There I was, watching the news and minding my own business when the adverts came on. I promptly muted it, but kept watching the pretty pictures. Up came a typical ridiculous car commercial. You know the ones, with a $30,000 SUV going up mountains with smiling children and all the other nonsense. Anyway, I suddenly saw something which caught my eye: the fricken’ car was a Hyundai Tucson. Granted, it looks just exactly like their previous SUV, the Santa Fe, but it was still just so random seeing the name of what I had adopted as my home town plastered across the screen of my telly in Glasgow, Scotland. It would be almost as weird as seeing Glasgow plastered across the local access channel in Tucson (assuming I was actually watching the local access channel).

Other stuff. Well, Latin is going OK. I still think that language study is ridiculous and a farce . . . I don’t think anyone could ever become fluent in a language by sitting in a room repeating after a teacher, but no one is asking my opinion, now are they? My faith in the British educational system was taxed once again today. I spent a total of over two hours sitting in various waiting rooms trying to get them to recognize that I have paid my tuition, and now could they please just let me matriculate PLEASE?!? But I’m OK. Really. Got it all sorted and I might get to actually get my student ID by Friday (but I’ve been instructed to not hold my breath).

I guess I could also give a little bit of a shout out to Nate and Amy. They’re trying to buy a house but are having a bit of trouble finding a place, much less a place where the guy selling it isn’t a total whackjob. I feel for you (and am disgustingly jealous, of course!)! Well, that’s pretty much that. I hope you guys enjoy the new background and everything. I’ve been told several times that the previous black was hard to read off of, so no more complaning! Hope you’re all doing disgustingly well, and I’ll see ya on the flip side!

Slainte.

“Ya drank with demons straight from Hell
They almost nearly won as well
Ya wiped the floor with victory
Then puked until you fell asleep”
~Flogging Molly – “Salty Dog”