Everyone knows I’m a good Church-going boy. I would never condone attending such events as the Arizona Fetish Ball. Certainly not dressed up in vaguely (or, you know, entirely) sacreligeous clothing. But if someone were to attend such an event, and that someone were to have a camera, then that someone might post those pictures on a site called sikandwrong.com.
Because he would think that he’s funny.
Oh, he’s kinda funny.
~Ash.
What to say, what to say. Well, very few people get all their news Ash from this source these days, but I still need to put an update up here.
I don’t even know how to say it, but my dearest and deepest friend who hasn’t become part of my family has suffered a tragic loss, and while I might overuse this term I feel, it is appropriate. I have been bleeding for her. My dear sweet Meggan, who was due in a few days, lost her baby last week. The details are morbid and not something that need to be shared, but she is one of the strongest women I know and so is recovering bit by bit. I’m happy to say that her husband Reuben has been incredibly supportive of her during this horrific time and I only wish that I could take away her pain. That I could do anything for her.
I wish this was some sort of elaborate hoax. It’s been an utterly and completely devastating week . . . more than I would have ever thought it could have been. Instead of being able to provide any sort of help to my oldest female friend, I have found myself constructively sitting at home alone a lot. Drinking. Well, not entirely alone. I’ve had a lot of friends drop by and check up on me, especially at first. They’ve been really great. At first work was looking like they were gonna be a great big pile of douche but then they turned themselves around and ended up going waaaay above and beyond what they had to in any way, shape or form, and as such I’ve been given more time to spend with my one true friend, intoxication.
I just wanted to thank a few people specifically. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still a complete mother fucking mess and it is happily past noon so after sending this I feel fully justified in going to get a drink (I’ve been sober for two days so you can all go fuck yerselves). But nonetheless there are several people who have been amazing and I wanted to mentioned them. First off, I wanted to thank and of course give my deepest of sympathies to my Meggan. I weep. Then there’s the Powell who understood me enough to know that when I said “I’m fine,” I wasn’t fine so off to the bar we went. New friend Lynette who brought booze over and drunkenly watched bad teen movies with me at ridiculously early hours of the morning. Pete, who said his first Hail Mary in Latin in over a year as a favour for me. I know how hard that must have been for him, and I don’t know if he understands just how much I appreciate it. My folks have also been amazing in helping me realize that it’s OK to in fact mourn. I’m not so good with that sometimes. Oh, and Bowlesie, who wrote me out of the middle of nowhere, concerned about me. Because that kind of personal history bloody rocks. And finally Sarah. Just Sarah.
Sounded like a bloody Oscar’s acceptance speech. But I’m just grateful to these people, and if I don’t write it down here, where else?
~Ash.
Life just keeps coming at you. Sometimes you wish dreams come true. Even the bad ones.
Fuck.
Short and sweet.
Awesomesauce.
Just checked, and yeah. Mr. Old Testament says angels are about a million times scarier than demons.
Cause demons didn’t lay waste to any cities.
And even if they had, they wouldn’t have gone home all happy and whatnot thinking they had just done the will of God. At least demons know they’re evil.
Just saying.
~A.
P.S. Oh, and Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day. Yar.
Look, I know I talk politics when I shouldn’t. I know I’m smarmy and unapologetically liberal. Here’s a secret: I don’t like either candidate very much. But I have lived abroad and it HURT me (sometimes literally) to have to see other people hate us for the political leaders we have. And YES, by God they do most definitely hate us. Everywhere. If you think they don’t you’ve been lied to.
An American friend of mine who still lives over there posted this article from the Guardian newspaper on her blog, and after having read it I felt the need to do the same here. I should point out for full self-disclosure reasons that the Guardian is considered somewhat leftist, but not overly so. Please please please PLEASE read it. Despite how we think, act, and like to believe, we’re not alone in this world. Yeah, we’ve gotta vote our hearts and minds; but we’ve got to also realize that the world is watching. We might be the biggest bad-asses on the block, but we’re not bigger and badder than the whole effing block.
~Ash.
P.S. I just can’t help it. Apropos of nothing: A totally different friend pointed out in HER blog how tired she is of hearing people bash on the current President for his performance on what must be one of the toughest jobs on the planet. That people don’t want a President, they just want a scapegoat. She may very well be right. It is an insanely tough job and he’s had to make a lot of no-win choices, some of which I probably bag on him for unfairly. For the sake of brevity I won’t get into the reasons why I think I’m right about him . . . it’s not the time or the place. However, I personally will re-iterate that I don’t think either candidate for his replacement is right for this toughest job on the planet.
But I will tell you that despite the many problems I have with President Bush, even HE is more qualified then a self-described hockey mom who has only been drafted into this race because she’s kinda hot and likes guns. You simply can’t forget that McCain is 78 years old and is signing on for a 4 year contract here. That means there’s an excellent chance this woman WILL be president.
Pause.
Think.
President Palin.
“I Wanted to Use Public Funds to Build a Bridge that Goes Nowhere and Now I’m Flat Out Lying About It to Everyone in the World” President Palin.
“My Son is Shipping Out to Iraq AND I Want to be Vice President and I Didn’t Know There Was a Difference Between Sunni and Shiite Muslims” President Palin.
Help.
In an attempt to update how my site works like a week ago I apparently brought it down for 99% of the internet. Pretty much everywhere but my work. Whoops. I rule. So now it probably is back up. Some peoples might still get a 403 error but that should go away as their ISPs recache their DNS. My bad.
Those who have no idea WTF I just said, smile and nod. You’re better off, trust me.
So I know that not many people read my blog these days (taking it down for a week at a time doesn’t help), but I’ve gotta say that I’m . . . disappointed . . . in Senator McCain and his choices. No surprise there from someone so liberal they sometimes go Independent because their own party pisses them off so much. It’s just so transparent a move! And I’m even more disappointed by some of the women (and even some of the men) that I’ve overheard talking about it who REALLY should be able to see through it. People were afraid that Hilary Clinton would be elected just because she’s a woman and now all these neo-cons just can’t WAIT to vote for this MILF just because of her gender. When I try to engage in actual conversation about her, like her pro-life stance, her pro-handgun stance, her impressive two year history as governor, and of course point out things like the fact that she was pro-Alaskan oil drilling they really do just shrug and say “So? I want that. It’ll bring our prices down.”
. . .
. . .
! ! !
At this point I just have to walk away. Do people not understand that things take TIME?!? And MONEY?!? And that there’s NOT ENOUGH THERE TO MAKE MUCH OF A DIFFERENCE IN THE FIRST PLACE?!?! It’s like someone saying “I want corn on the cob for dinner tonight. I’m going to go plant some corn in the back yard 10 minutes before I want to eat.” Gah. I really don’t even know what more to say. It’s so completely ridiculous that it boggles my mind.
A friend of mine at work was so refreshing in his attitude. I asked if he had read anything about her and he said “nope.” And I said “Oh yeah? Why not?” And he said “Because all I want from a President is someone who is going to get me alternative fuel for my car. I don’t want someone who talks about not relying on foreign oil or anything like that. Even the Saudis are researching alternative fuel. If THEY can see that this is a necessity then we need to, too. I figure I’ll get that question answered soon enough by the two candidates and that’s the one I’ll vote for.”
It’s nice to have just one issue to care about. Kinda considering it myself.
~Ash.
I’ve been waiting a while now for someone to put an LJ app out for the iPhone (since I got and jailbroke my first one, really), and it appears that someone finally did (and praise the gods, it’s free)! Now let’s just see if the thing works worth a damn.
Later…
~Ash.
I’ve not logged on to MySpace in a loooooong time, so when I was awoken abruptly this morning and couldn’t go back to sleep, I decided to get online. I’m surprised to discover that I have just shy of 200 “friends” (most of which I DO actually know) in my friends list . . .
. . . AND 84% OF THEM ARE PREGNANT!*
So I guess my generation really did miss the memo on birth control. Either that or I’m at the age where I’m supposed to grow up, get married, and start having kids.
…
…
Nah. Sticking with the too stupid to buy condoms.
~Ash.
*The 84% refers to women’s profiles, or in the case of men’s profiles, the women in their lives.**
**84% is a totally made up proportion. Do you really think I’m gonna count them all? Silly reader. But it is a shit ton of them.
Don’t get me wrong, the new job is really quite enjoyable thus far. I dig learning new things and I feel like all the things that I’ve been blindly stumbling about trying to figure out on my own for the past two plus years are finally getting explained to me in a nice and comprehensible fashion. In fact, during training one of my classmates commented that in one day of intense Linux server training we learned more than he did in an entire semester of classes on the subject. Pretty swank!
And for the record, I can now get an entire website up and running on either a Linux or Windows based box without the use of a control panel in about 5 minutes flat. This is something that I tried doing on my own a couple of times and never quite got right. Again, pretty swank.
All that said, this new gig is not without it’s downside . . . namely third shift. More specifically third power shift. What is power shift, you ask? Well, I was on a modified power shift before. It means that you work four 10 hour days rather than five 8 hour days. On my old, modified shift this was AWESOME because it meant I worked Monday through Thursday and got Friday through Sunday off. Well, that was an extremely rare shift. As in only one in the whole company. Much more common is the Friday through Sunday shift. Like I said, and 3rd shift. So I work from 7:30pm to 6am Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday; leaving me part of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday off.
I’m sure I’ll get used to it eventually, but in the mean time, I’ve become a bit of a shutin with no sense of time whatsoever. I have basically tried to stay on the same schedule but that’s not gone entirely as planned. I’ve also watched pretty much every show that my TiVo had recorded for me AND a fair amount of Netflix Instant Queue stuff. So basically what I’m saying is that I’ve got the worst of both worlds. I not only have to work a horrible shift that puts me at odds with everyone I know, I ALSO have opposite days off from everyone in the known universe.
Wheeeeee isolation!
Slainte.
~A.
I was tagged and Mandi threatened to hit me . . . and I’m a little afraid of her, so here we go.
Four jobs I’ve had
1. Harkins Theater bitch
2. Bookstore clerk
3. Bouncer (sorry, Door Steward)
4. General purpose tech guy
Four movies I can watch over and over
1. Super Troopers
2. The Princess Bride
3. Snatch
4. Better Off Dead
Four places I’ve lived
1. Mesa, AZ
2. Denver, CO
3. Tucson, AZ
4. Glasgow, Scotland
Four TV shows I love
1. Burn Notice
2. Firefly
3. Heroes
4. South Park
Four places I’ve vacationed
1. Rome, Italy
2. Paris, France
3. San Diego, California
4. Princeville (Kaua’i), Hawai’i
Four of my favorite dishes
1. Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo
2. BBQ Pizza
3. A really great bacon cheeseburger
4. Poached Eggs
Four sites I visit daily
1. wwtdd.com
2. Woot.com
3. Engadget.com
4. Lifehacker.com
Four places I would rather be right now
1. Colorado Springs, CO
2. Kaua’i, Hawai’i
3. Glasgow, Scotland
4. Prague, Czech Republic
Four bloggers I am tagging
Skipping this part. You wanna take part? You do that!! 