Ash the Mighty

I took my baby – er, camera – out to the site yesterday and spent a lot of time irritating people by shoving it in their faces. Luckily most Rennies are actors at heart so are never happier than when they’re getting their pictures taken. You can check out the results here.The weekend went pretty well . . . except. Except the crowds (over 18,000 on Saturday alone). Except the heat (patrons AND participants were dropping like flies!). Except the fact that the plantar fasciitis flared up really bad and by the end of the day on Sunday I had to go buy myself a cane. I’m still using it to hobble around the house. It would be funny if it wasn’t so pitif- . . . wait a second. It’s still pretty funny! But despite my injury I didn’t go home early and boy am I glad I didn’t! As usual I placed myself at the end of the day near the exit and harrassed people as they were leaving. While there I ran into an old highschool friend of mine name Chris and her fiancee, Danielle! Just walked right up to me and knew me. It was freaky. Then, right as they were leaving, JoJo the Monkey Girl made herself known and paused only long enough to yell at me for cutting off my hair (she last saw me something like 5 years ago) before running out the front gates. It was still awesome to see both of them though!

That’s about all I know at the moment. Spence came out and hung with us on Sunday which was awesome, and Carrie made it out again for the whole weekend (and we were, as usual, attached at the hip and spent the whole time complaining that the entire cast is different now). On the whole this past weekend was hard, but hey! At least there’s only one weekend left and you know how sad that’s gonna make me then!

Hope everyone else had a nice one and I’m sure I’ll speak to you all soon!

~DTAR

I’ve been told by very reliable sources that the world loses some of its vibrancy when I don’t post frequently. Also, birds don’t sing as sweetly and babies cry more often. This has been scientifically proven and so don’t bother questioning it. Just accept. You’ll feel better.You may notice I have not posted about St. Patty’s Day. This is for many reasons. One is because I’m waiting for the bruises/bites from the mosh pit to fade a bit before I try to dig too deep into my memory. Also because I was pissed as a fart and probably remember everything wrong. But I DO know that I had a great time talking with the family (Brother Spencer and Cousin Adam) as well as the hippies who came along too (Rennie Tim and Rennie Dea). A good time was had and neither Adam nor I hurt the people we got in fights with too badly.

I’m also happy to report that I went on a date last week that didn’t actually suck! WOO HOO! Granted it was with a girl who’s moving away for at least a year come summer (oh, you thought it would actually be simple, didn’t you?! Silly reader), but at least we had a great time and very probably will do so again. Yay.

Alright, I’ve done my duty to the world. You’re welcome. This coming week has me busy what seems like 24/7 which always sucks, but what can you really do?

Take care, y’all.
~DTAR.

I’m vaguely tempted to rant and rave about how much I hate the Irish because of the stupid holiday that they are responsible for. However, I really, really don’t hate the Irish at all, and the holiday probably isn’t their fault. In my experience, the world is just going to jump all over any chance to literally soak themselves in alcohol, be they Irish or Japanese. At least in Scotland they don’t try to foist green beer on anyone.

Seriously though, Thursday was miserable. 12.5 hours at work, during which time I got to sit down once for about 10 minutes. You know all those stories I used to tell about the bad things that happen at work? Well pretty much all of them happened again two days ago. At least I didn’t get knifed on the way home. That said, it still had its moments. Most of those moments were at the end of the night when I got to, with great pleasure, heave each and every patron out on their respective arses, but still! In all seriousness, having my boss come up to me and go on and on about how many compliments she had on her staff really did make the whole night worthwhile. The fact that no one got too badly hurt was just an added bonus (the worst casualty was glass-collector Chris cutting himself pretty badly on a broken glass. It was funny watching the med student getting bandaged up by the student teacher [Joanne]).

I was actually very honoured two weeks ago when Jinty asked me to bring my camera to work on Thursday. She said she wanted the fun and games to be captured. I did as I was told and emptied out a pocket in my parka and kept my SLR close at hand. The results can be seen here. Notice, if you will, the appropriately green background!

I know I complain a lot, and in my defense this day deserved it. But I also had a lot of fun with the rest of the staff and a lot of the patrons. I hope they had a good time too, depite the fact that they constantly had me trying to get them to behave! I’ve gotta say that I’m glad I won’t be around for next year!

Slainte.

“There’s some takes delight in the carriages a rolling,
Some takes delight in the hurley or the bowlin’.
But I takes delight in the juice of the barley,
And courting pretty fair maids in the morning bright and early.”
~The Dubliners with The Pogues – “Whiskey in the Jar”

Not five minutes ago my Mom startled the hell out of me.Apparently she has actual insight into my character.

This isn’t surprising per se, but the subject was. She said that I need to stop going after women who are in need of “fixing.” This statement rendered me totally and utterly speechless. I finally just said “Damn. I forget sometimes how well you know me.”

And the fucked up bit is that she’s right. 100%. That’s totally what I do. And it’s totally what I need to stop doing.

Now I just need to find someone that isn’t broken in the first place.

Weird how Mom’s can sometimes surprise you like that.

~DTAR

I thought I lived in the bloody desert! On Saturday we well and truly shattered our almost-five-month drought. I was of course out at the Festival by 9am and was shivering and drenched to the bone by 9:03. I think we made a decent effort. We kept the gates open for all of two hours, until noon, before summarily declaring the day a waste of gun powder. This is only the second or third time in the history of the Festival that Jeffrey, the boss, closed the doors on his little gold mine.That didn’t stop us though. We still had the Morris Ale on Saturday night and a good time was had by all. I split my time between laughing at the Morris dancers trying to do their little dances while utterly pished (we did have much more drinking time since the show closed early, after all) and playing poker with a variety of random people that I almost didn’t recognize the next day thanks to the dimness of the tent and the blurred nature of my vision at the time (which in one case would have been a true pity!).

Sunday dawned dry and (comparatively) warm. The reason why I was so damned cold that morning was quickly made obvious (this photo is from the end of a sunny day. All the brown bits were covered with white yesterday morning), but it again did not stop us. We opened up the show, and though I don’t know what the final attendance count was, I’m certain that it was many times the 576 that we had come on Saturday. The day was made all the better by the fact that Carrie did indeed show up and was fantastic as arm candy, making me the object of jealousy from the other guys around for once!

Yay for hobbies.

Oh, and I finally realized a way to phrase the feelings that at least some ex-Rennies get when there’s a festival on and you’re not a part of it. It’s a lot like some sort of family function where everyone has been invited except for you. You know there’s fun being had but you can’t join in. Other RenRats care to comment on the analogy?

~DTAR.

This weekend I’m going to be sleeping out at the site because the Morris dancers are having a great big party, the theme of which is literally alcohol. Granted the alcohol is ale, but I’ve been given permission to bring my own vodka so it’s all good.Of further interest is the fact that I am no longer working only on Saturday this weekend because the Carrie Bowman is taking time out of her ever so busy schedule and is coming out to work as a guest participant at the Royal Court. This means that we will not, in fact, work in the slightest (a good thing, since I will undoubtedly be hung over), but instead will wander around and spawn all sorts of rumours because that’s all that Rennies do. They gossip, and then they do things worthy of gossip. Hey, when you live in a tent there’s only so much to keep one occupied.

In other news, my little metallic project from the MAC is almost done and pictures will be posted online soon. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, that’s not surprising. I’m a secretive little monkey and enjoy making others guess as to my nefarious dealings.

I’m now killing time because I’m bored. If you’re still reading this I feel sorry for you and highly suggest you get a hobby on the double!

Take care.
~DTAR.

I know I know, I’ve got to stop posting. It’s becoming a disgusting habit. Like picking your butt. Or voting Republican.But I still had to share this link: http://www.dailysixer.com/simpsonsintro.shtml wherein you can see The Simpsons opening theme re-inacted by real British people (as evidenced by the registration plates and the poncy looking police guy rather than Chief Wiggum.

Again, made me giggle for at least 2 minutes. That’s a long time for sourpusses like me!

~DTAR.

Arizona has had the driest winter ever recorded. We had about two drops a week ago but before that we had gone something like 150 days without rain. Now I am happy to report that I am revelling in the totally unique smell of rain in the desert. It probably has something to do with the ubiquitous dust in the air, but there’s a smell that accompanies Arizona rain storms that you just don’t get anywhere else. I’m totally loving it.Now I’d share more but the hippy needs to go dance in the rain.

~DTAR.

I am never running on a treadmill in public again. This will happen to me and then I’ll have to kill myself.

But damned if I can stop watching/laughing.

~DTAR.

Man, I just keep being forced to eat my own words. Next thing you know I’m going to actually turn into a conservative pro-war Republican or something.

First I gave nothing but crap to those who post on LiveJournal, and now here I am using it as the engine that powers my personal website. Then I scoffed at the dorks who spend all day long playing MMPRPGs and what do I do but get (very briefly) addicted to World of Warcrack. Now I find myself once again looking for a steaming piece of humble pie as I confess that I’ve built a profile on MySpace.

It’s pretty cool, just in that unlike LJ, I’ve been actually able to find more than a handful of people who I know. Actually, I’m mostly using it as a voyeuristic tool to see what I can see about all sorts of friends (and in one case, ex-girlfriend) who have become absent from my life. After looking about and observing, I’ve come to a few conclusions.

1) I really am the only person I went to highschool with who isn’t married and/or child-laden (which is surprisingly depressing).
2) Some people turned into just as big a dorks as their previous years suggested they might (I’m thinking specifically of one guy . . . who’s photo made me laugh for at least five minutes).
3) Ashley turned hot after college. And bisexual. Damn. What a shame.

So, to sum up, I should stop making fun of people in general because I am almost certainly going to become one of them at some point. I should be happy that despite still maintaining a certain level of goofiness, I at least don’t have a picture of myself holding a skull-topped staff of some sort. I should definitely not have burned all my bridges with Ashley because seeing her naked again would have been nice. And finally, I am never going to find a girl my age who doesn’t have a kid and/or husband. Vaguely frightening.

And that, as they say, is that.

~DTAR.