Ash the Mighty

So I’m at work. Which means that I’m really REALLY bored. So I did something that I haven’t done in a really long time and Googled myself. Turns out that AshRhodes.com comes up first when you run a search for ash rhodes (even without quotes!). My success is not so great when I run a search for “daniel rhodes,” which really shouldn’t be that surprising. “Daniel Rhodes” is the psuedonym for a horror author, and as I recall there is also a musician, a bodyboarder, and a ceramicist who all share my name and are a lot more famous than I am. I was aware of all this, but what I WASN’T aware of, is that one of us has died. The good news: the dead Daniel Rhodes made it big enough that The New York Times ran the story. The bad news: he’s still freakin dead.

So yeah. Apparently I’m dead. I expect flowers from all of you now.

Bummer.

Snoogins,
~Ash.

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Let’s talk about Vegas, shall we?

So I had to work Friday night. It sucked all around. It was a REALLY bad night money-wise and I was not happy. But I headed home asap and of course could not sleep (which is pretty normal for me the night before a trip). We got up and the airport was its normal awful self. The flight was more-or-less uneventful and I didn’t freak out too much — which is ALWAYS welcome, especially to those who I am travelling with.

We hit Vegas and immediately made our way to Caesar’s where we managed to get into our rooms despite it being only about 9:30 am. We then discovered that not even Margaritaville was open for lunch that early so started losing money at some crappy fake-Irish bar/casino across the street.

You know what? This is gonna take forever. Let me just break down the highlights: Vegas ROCKS. I saw all sorts of beautiful sights in those casinos. Their attention to detail is nothing short of amazing. That first day we walked a lot and ducked into places like Bellagio, MGM-Grand, NYNY, etc. We then managed to meet up with Carrie and Ruth who were in town because Ruth is shipping out soon to Italy where she’ll be stationed for who-knows-how-long. To be perfectly honest, they made the trip. They allowed me to get all drunk and stupid, and they allowed my parents to let me get drunk and stupid because it’s all a lot more OK when you’re accompanied by two beautiful women. The highlight of Saturday came at the end when the two girls and I went down to Freemont Street and BOTH of them won pretty big on nickle slots. Ruth won a total of about $180 and Carrie won $40 or so, both on a Monopoly themed slot.

The next day the girls had to leave for home, so it was just Mom, Dad, and me. We walked some more and went to Wynn, where I actually decided to play the same Monopoly-themed game the girls did. I sat down, fed the machine a 20, and promptly got to play the video-monopoly part. And play I did. For a while. A LONG while. I didn’t even occur to me that I was doing particularly well until a woman started staring at me.

So turns out I ended up winning a bit. Like $450. On a nickle slot machine. It was awesome.

Over the rest of the day I actually hit it semi-big twice more. Once for $250 and a final one for $50. In all I pulled about $750, not counting the many times that I came out even or a few bucks ahead. It was, in short, a VERY lucky time for me in that ol’ City of Sin.

That’s about it as far as adventure goes. We went and saw a VERY abbreviated (and thus very disappointing) performance of Phantom of the Opera. The casting was great and the effects were wonderful, but a 3 hour play simply CANNOT be performed in 1:45. It just can’t.

So, to see all the pics, you just need to go to wsfits.com/vegas06.html to see the whole grand adventure in picture form.  Not really of course, because unlike Ruth, I didn’t bring my nice camera, so was stuck with my uber-crappy old cybershot which just isn’t as much fun!  Nonetheless, there are a few nice snaps so enjoy.

Take care everyone.  It’s now just after midnight on what is now Christmas Day.  It’s not really my thing, but I still feel like I should be in bed by now!

Hasta,

~Ash.

I’m back from Vegas, and I will write much much more about the trip later, but I’m short on time (Holiday shopping MUST be done today!) and I just wanted to share a little bit of TMI for all of you.

Consider yourselves warned. The first real Transformers trailer is out and it looks so bloody cool that I want to have sex with the TRAILER (YouTube here), much less the movie! Yes, it is that insanely hot. And I’m that insanely insane. Vegas’ll do that to you.

Optimus Prime, you’re my hero.

~Ash.

Wish me luck, everyone who does such things! I’m waaaaaayyyyy too aware of my gambling skills (or lackthereof) to think that I’m gonna come back a millionaire or something, but I still wouldn’t mind returning with more than I left with (especially after the car maintenance bill I just had)!

Hope you’re all fantastic and I’ll catch up with you when I’m back in town.

(and a day early: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!).
~Ash.

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My birthday is coming up this Sunday. Yes yes, I will be getting one year closer to the dreaded 30 (but atleast I’m not there yet, *ahem* Chris *ahem*).  This in itself is not really news, as everyone has at least one birthday a year!

What IS exciting is that all my friends more or less suck.  Spenceis going out of town this weekend, as is Bowman.  Even A_____ will beunavailable for the lion’s share of the weekend for various things. Seeing as how everyone will be ditching me on the occassion of mybirthday, my parents decided that they would give me one hell of anearly birthday present so . . .

We’re goin to VEGAS!!!

I’ve only ever been once, and that was when I was 17 and was thereto watch my friends Spam and Mandy get married.  We were in the town ofLas Vegas for less than 5 hours and I was obviously way too young to doanything fun!  Seeing as how that virtually amounts to a lack ofnecessary education, we all got online yesterday and booked flights andhotel reservations at Caesar’s Palace (really, you know me.  Would Istay anywhere other than there or Excalibur?!?) and further ALSO gottickets to go see The Phantom of the Opera!

Now this would all be MUCH more fun if I could bring along a friendor two and not go with my parents, but really they’re a LOT of fun(they’re paying, aren’t they?) and I’m certain a fun time will be hadby all.  Plus I can always sneak out at night to go find the strippers. . .
And in other news, I just got an email from one Miss Claire McFallasking when would be best for her and her beau, Dr. Chris Bowles, tocome down to Arizona and visit!  I had been thinking that they weren’tgoing to make it, but this is a most welcome surprise!  So yay.

I’ve blathered enough.  I’ve got to go do a photoshoot for a youngman named Erik who will be appearing as Mercutio in SSC’s production of“Romeo and Juliet” so I really must at least get my camera out and getit all warmed up!  Hope everyone is doing well and PLEASE leave acomment and let me know what I absolutely cannot miss in the City ofSin!
~Ash.

So I meant to write this post earlier this week, but I’ve been genuinely busy ALL week and so haven’t managed to find the time (apparently the folks at GD have figured out that when someone tries to access a page called “wp-login.php” that it’s for non-work related stuff, so I’ve not been able to post from work as I thought I would be able to).

So on Tuesday I got a text from A______.  She told me that she had had a blonde moment and sent a package for me to her parents’ house, and could I PLEASE go pick it up?  I figured this meant I was getting all sorts of Faire goodies, so of course I made the effort to drop by on my way home from work that night.  I knock on the door and her sisters answer.  I’m pretty good friends with the both of them, so we chat for a bit, and they say “Oh!  That package, yeah it’s in my room.  Come on.”  So I follow them back and open the door . . .

. . . and there is a young blonde woman sitting at the computer with her back to me.  She’s wearing a pink shirt JUST like A_____’s and I just stared, because I knew — KNEW –  that it just couldn’t be her.  She was at the LA faire and couldn’t possibly be home . . .

. . . but I was wrong.  She was totally home early.  She had planned months ago to surprise me, and surprise me she did!

So that was a lovely surprise, which is saying something because most people know that I REALLY don’t much like surprises.  Mostly because I don’t know how to react and generally just blush really badly . . . which I have been reminded multiple times since Tuesday is exactly what I did.  But still.  It’s nice having a girlfriend back in the same town you live in.  The whole long distance thing really doesn’t much work for me and so it’s a great thing that it’s over, even just a little bit early!

In other news, I had a FANTASTIC two weeks at work.  Thanks to two very well sized lap sales I finished in the top bonus tier, so my bonus check next Wednesday will be of a fantastic size.  Further, my team has won at least second place (we should have won first but were robbed in a few ways) in a shopping spree contest.  Alas I will not be allowed to participate as I was disqualified for missing several days due to illness (which blows), but at least they all will have lots of fun!

I also am thrilled that I am in the advance stages of attaining a new character/costume for the Arizona Renaissance Festival.  I’m going to be the Court Astrologer.  I don’t know yet if he’ll just be bombastic and irritating or just completely inept, but either way much fun will be had.  The fabric and patterns have all been obtained (and not very cheaply) for the costume and are currently being assembled by the ever-talented Smashley, and will probably be completely finished by the new year.  All I need now are some accessories (a book on a chain, a hat, some mystical crap) and a new pair of shoes/boots (my old ones are truly torturous) and I’ll be all set!

And that’s about all I know.  I’m still loving WSFITS though I’ve discovered that the theme I’ve chosen DEFINITELY works best at a certain screen size (1024 x 768) but it’s still good times.

Hope you’re all well and I’ll talk to you soon!
Slainte.
~Ash.

So I got it into my head to import every single entry, even dating back to the days when my blog was on SIKEnterprises.com, into my new blog. Well, I did it. All. Tonight.

I did not however upload those to LJ like everything else however. I mean I STARTED to, but then Holly pointed out that it was messing with everyone’s friends’ pages over there and I decided that was a tad . . . embarassing. So now let’s see if my disabling that hack resulted in it not working at all!

So, the long and short of it all is that you now have a more-or-less complete look into my mind from now way back to January of 2004. I would NOT suggest going back that far, as I was a bit whiney at the time. It was ugly. But anyway, should you want to read anything older than a couple of weeks, just hit the “Archives” tab up top and enjoy yourselves!

Take care everyone. I’m off to bed. I DO have to work tomorrow, afterall. More’s the pity . . .

~A.

P.S. 7 days until A_____ gets back. I think it’s safe to say that I’m pretty fricken excited! Nervous, but excited.

P.P.S. Today is my Dad’s Birthday. As of today, he’s 6 decades old. Wish him a happy birthday or else you suck.

P.P.P.S. Holly, there already is RSS functionality. You just subscribe from the page by clicking on the orange RSS logo. Just FYI . . .

Hey everybody! This is being created in my new WSFITS blog. If I got this hack right, it should also be appearing whole on LiveJournal. Please don’t leave comments there as I might not get them. If you MUST comment, just follow the link and say somethin’ on my actual page!

Thanks everyone and I hope you’re having a great Sunday. I know I am! Just got back from Ruth’s Chris where we celebrated my Dad’s 60th birthday! It’s unreal! I can’t believe how young he looks and acts all things considering. He DID raise Amy and me after all, so that’s bound to make just about anyone old before their time!

Take care everyone.
Snoogins,
~Ash.

I’m writing my first post in my new WordPress Blog. My goal really is to make it so that I will no longer need to make use of my LiveJournal. Yes, this will mean that my friends will no longer be able to find me via their friends’ list, but at least it means that my styles are growing and changing . . . so there!

A note about the new name:

You see, I’ve always been a great big fan of history. Duh. Well, there is a movie coming out in a few months called 300 starring “Phantom” star Gerard Butler. It is the story of the 300 Spartan soldiers who held the pass of Thermopylae against as many as 200,000 Persians. Very famously, it was supposedly remarked to one of the Spartan soldiers that the Persian arrows will “block out the sun” to which he replied “So much the better, we shall fight in the shade.” (source).

I find this kind of mindset truly remarkable, and so as I am wont to do these days, I immediately went and registered a domain name to reflect it (I DO work for a domain registrar after all). What better title for a journal, anyway?

So that’s about me. I’m up MUCH later than I had planned on being, so I should really head get so shut eye. I was up very late last night watching the rest of season one of “How I Met Your Mother” (awwwww. It’s SO sweet . . . and I’d be a LOT more upset about Marshall/Lily if Smash hadn’t already told me they’ve already gotten back together . . . wow, I really am a girl).

One of the bonuses of this system is the ability to leave comments. So leave comments. Let me know if this is a good thing or not.
Later,
~Ash.