Ash the Mighty

Fun and Games with TV

Or “I watch too much television”

- Bold all of the following TV shows which you’ve ever seen 3 or more episodes of in your lifetime.
- Italicize a show if you’re positive you’ve seen every episode of it.
- If you want, add up to 3 additional shows (keep the list in alphabetical order).

Hi ho, hi ho.

So after almost three full weeks of being off work, I’m finally headed back in. It would be nice to know what exactly was wrong with me, but the doc himself isn’t entirely certain so I’ll just have to adopt the same confident tone that he had and rattle off a suitably long series of medical words. Hey, if it works for doctors, lawyers, politicians, and archaeologists then it can work for me!

I AM pretty nervous about going in though. I’m a bit terrified of hitting the floor and then, well, hitting the floor. That I won’t be able to make it through a full ten hours of talking non-stop. Because lets face it, I’ve reached the point where I can (usually) carry on a normal conversation, but how many conversations do YOU have that last that long? And sure, there are pauses while on the phone, but you’d all be VERY surprised at how those don’t seem to add up to much when all you really want to do is have a moment to cough up a lung!

Who knows where this journey is going to end up that I’ve started myself down. Maybe if I can survive until after July then I can try and get my old job back. That would be pretty sweet! I just can’t exactly say “Hey, can I be a sup? Yeah, I’ll be gone for 12 days over the next two months, but that won’t be a problem will it? Oh, it will? Well tough, let me be a sup anyway.”

Babbling. Gotta get ready. Meh.

~Ash.

File this under “Huh”

Note to self: even when you work for the Interwebz, with some people you really DO just have to call them. Email just doesn’t work.

Good to know.

~Ash.

An observation on Indy

So my Blooka (aka, TiVo) goes back to live TV if I leave it alone too long, and it did that about 45 minutes ago when I “ran” into my den to respond to an email “really quick” and has been playing the Sci-Fi Channel’s production of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

I have a really quick thought on Indiana Jones: He owes me several thousand dollars.

It was because of him and his adventures and his way with women and his bull whip and his damned fedora that I accepted my offer to the archaeology programme at the University of Glasgow rather than sticking to my guns and saying “No, you bumbling half-wits! I applied for History, you lost my application TWICE, now get it right and let me in the programme I want THIS FUCKING YEAR!!!” (thus of course incurring even MORE student loan debt than I would have had in the first place).

Instead I said “Well, Indiana Jones seems to have a good time. Archaeology must be pretty cool. When’s my first whip class?”

Well it’s not cool, my friends. I can assure you it most definitely is not.

And there isn’t even a whip class!

~Ash.

P.S. Upon reflection, the bit about the whip class sounds dirty. Just, you know, saying.

Meh.

I have never felt more like I was a mouse stuck in a wheel then I did today at work. NOT NOT NOT because of anything they did. Not at all. But because of circumstances beyond all control.

I went in today to do my normal shift and it became pretty blatantly obvious after the first three or four calls that I was just NOT well yet. I was steadily putting customers on mute more and more for lung-deep coughs. Eventually my sup told me to face facts that I couldn’t get it done, so instead I worked on another project. It was a little thing that was REALLY interesting and which I REALLY can’t talk about, but suffice to say it was challenging and mentally stimulating and I loved it . . . and it took about 2, 2.5 hours. Out of a 10 hour shift. So I did it again. And again after that.

All of this is because I’m out of sick time and can’t afford to get written up for leaving early/missing more time (which will null my chances for movement within the company). In short, they were awesome and took great care of me today, but at the same time, I have NO IDEA what to do because I’m STILL not well and am still probably not going to be able to take calls tomorrow! At Mom’s suggestion I’ll be going in armed with my inhaler and throat lozenges (she refuses to acknowledge that the cough does not originate in my throat) and I’m gonna see what I can do, and who knows. Maybe the Goddess of tiny Coughs will bless me, instead of her much more . . . endowed . . . older sister.

Here’s hopin’.

~Ash.

Dude.

So apparently if you have a .edu email address, you can get a copy of Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 for about 91% off. That means a $680 program for about $60. I linked to it from this LifeHacker entry. Offer is apparently good through next week. I’m still downloading the VERY slow 500 Mb file (why is this taking so bloody long, BTW?!?), but it seems to be fully legit.

And no, I don’t have a .edu address. But there are apparently upsides to knowing people who are professional students!

I’ve said too much already.

~Ash.

Stumble and Pandora . . .

Everyone who I work with is gonna make fun of me, but I had never once used either of these two services until last night.

Wow is all I’ve gotta say.

Stumble Upon is basically a plug in for FireFox which was designed to make sure that you never get any work done ever again. It is, for lack of better explanation on my part, an incredibly smart random-page-puller-upper. You check a bunch of boxes of things you’re interested in the first time you connect and after that it learns more and more about you based on what you bookmark and shows you things you like more and more. It eats your brain.

Pandora just makes sure you’re going to be playing your favourite music while you’re not doing any work ever again. You put in your fav bands/songs/genre and it creates a music station based on your preferences. Thus far I’ve discovered at least a half dozen songs by my favourite artists that I had no idea I was missing.

Let’s just say that it’s a good thing that GD has neither speakers nor a very forgiving browsing policy.

~A.

A lot and nothing, but primarily a chest cough.

So when I was a kid, so yes like two decades ago, I remember absolutely insisting that I had asthma. My little sister had just gotten diagnosed with a minor case and Mom figured that I was just looking for attention (which was probably a fair assumption). Nonetheless, both she and my pediatrician said that I did not, but as time went on, things would happen where I KNEW they were wrong. I would push myself too hard and could feel it deep in my chest. A wheeze would develop that would develop into a cough that would take weeks to months to fully get rid of. Upon reflection, I’m not sure I was ever actually given an inhaler by a doctor. I’m pretty sure Kristan from Faire just gave me one of her old Ventolin inhalers which after, you know, 10 years or so, I’ve managed to lose.

Well on Sunday I pushed myself to hard exercising and “Shattered my health” (what I used to call pushing too hard). I went to work through the cough on Monday but by Monday night was feeling it and on Tuesday could barely speak. This morning a doctor would finally see me. He confirmed that I did have some very long condition (with the words “respiratory” and “distress” and “syndrome” in it) and gave me a prescription for an inhaler and TWO kinds of broad-spectrum antibiotics for the upper-respiratory infection and/or bronchial infection that I managed to pick up between Sunday and now.

So THAT’S fun times.

And during these days off while I should have been spending almost all time in bed, I’ve actually been spending it (silently . . . well, without speaking. Definitely couldn’t call “hacking up a lung” silent) STILL doing tech support, but this time for SSC! I’ve transitioned their mail system away from readyhost (booo) over to gmail (yaaay) and actually as a result ALSO had to switch their hosting away from readyhost as well (booo) and put them on a hosting account that I have with successful hosting (yaaaay. You were expecting GD? I would, but the site uses both php and asp and GD doesn’t offer that). So the end result is that I’ve spent a lot of times setting up all sorts of copies of Outlook for various people. Oh, and switching out a harddrive of a TiVo Series 2. Lots easier than I thought it would be!

So you see, a lot and yet still nothing at all except the chest cough. I’ve got another application in at work and am awaiting to hear if I got an interview. I hope they’re not getting put off that I’ve a) applied for three things in the space of about 5 weeks or b) been out sick a lot. That’s why we have sick days and all, but it’s still nerve wracking!

Well, I’m falling asleep, and small wonder considering the time! Hope everyone is well!

~A.

Photography and Plays

A few people asked what plays I ended up acting in for the Marathon, so below I created a list. I also have decided to make shakespearemarathon.com semi-public. What does semi-public mean? Check out the site. If you can figure it out, good for you. If you can’t, congrats. You’re officially semi-retarded. Go buy a helmet.

Also, on my last day off from this madness I spent pretty much the whole day taking headshot photos for a couple of young ladies who will be auditioning for SSC’s upcoming season. Now they’re both very brave for two reasons. One, it’s TOUGH auditioning for ANYTHING. It takes a lot of guts to put yourself out there and I’m very proud of them both! But also, they had me take their pictures! I don’t think I flatter myself too much when I say I’m OK with certain subjects. I have moments of magic with buildings, nature, and “guerrilla candids” (ie; random people in crowds, catching humans in motion, etc), but actual posed portraits have NEVER been my thing. Just can’t do ‘em.

That said, please check out what I managed with Jorden’s and Alanta’s headshots. Not too bad if I do say so myself. Helped of course by the fact that both young women are incredibly beautiful, patient, and very experienced at having their picture taken (Jorden’s auntie is a photographer and Alanta was a beauty queen in her youth), but I was still amazed!

And thus I leave you. Enjoy!

PLAYS:
“Much Ado About Nothing” — Messenger/Verges/Friar Francis
“Two Gentlemen of Verona” — Proteus**
“A Comedy of Errors” — Egeon/Dromio of Syracuse
“Hamlet” — Marcellus/Norwegian Captain
“Othello” — Clown/Messenger
“Henry VIII” — Henry VIII**
“Taming of the Shrew” — Lucentio/Huntsman I
“Love’s Labour’s Lost” — Dull/A Forester
“Coriolanus” — Brutus
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” — Demetrius**
“Antony and Cleopatra” — Silius/Proculeius/Watch I

** = HOLY CRAP CAN YOU BELIEVE I GOT TO PLAY THOSE PARTS?!?!?! Sorry. Still excited about it all.

Cheers!
~Ash.