things and some other things

Oh Fable 3, why are you so very fail.

2011-04-11T15:48:00.000-07:00

I haven't really enjoyed Fable 3 much at all. The only enemies in it (aside from the nonsensical and frankly disappointing boss) are hobbes, balverines, and hollow men. There are no trolls, for example- nor are there any other enemies that would prove a genuine challenge. Once you've got your magical spells (or really any other skill for that matter) maxed out, the illusion of any sort of real challenge disappears.
The vast majority of quests consist of one of the following:

- physically drag a non-player character to another location
- find any number of small, difficult to find items (for example, books)
- fetch an item from a remote area
- eliminate a mob of enemies

None of the quests prove particularly difficult, especially not once you realise you've been performing the same tasks, or a jumbled combination of them. Most of them left me feeling underwhelmed, moreso once I realised I had been repeating the same tasks multiple times. More importantly, none of the individual storylines stood out on their own, which I found particularly disapointing. I've always enjoyed the Fable series for its humour and unique dialogue, however I never overheard any particularly amusing being said amongst the non-player characters, and none of the sidequests were very humerous or emotionally engaging.

Another important feature which seemed completely overlooked had to do with the issue of good versus evil character alignment. In Fable and Fable 2, the player is asked to make a series of often difficult decisions which effect the main storyline, the cosmetic look of your character, and general interaction with non-player characters. In Fable 3, this simply fell flat. What sets Fable 3 apart from the previous games is the lack of any sort of middle ground. Allignment decisions are not at all difficult to decipher as there is little or no moral gray area. In fact, you are quite blatantly informed of which decisions are good and evil in realtime, as you make them.

Furthermore, once you have access to the royal treasury, depositing a few hundred thousand dollars from your personal coffers magically erases any evil decisions you might have made in a matter of seconds. In short, the illusion of any sort of moral quandary in the game is very neatly shattered early on. I'm not quite certain what Lionhead was trying to achieve by adding this ability. Was it supposed to serve as some sort of tongue-in-cheek social commentary? If so, it really wasn't all that surprising, nor was it particularly clever.

The main storyline was very disappointing as well, especially when compared to the one offered up in Fable 2. The 'Road to Rule' feature was quite heavily tied into the storyline as well, which I found not only problematic, but sadly predictable. It was relatively easy to see how many steps one would have to take to reach the end of the game, and caused my to think of the game much more laterally. Because of this, the game took very little time to complete. I've spent roughly seventeen hours Fable 3 so far, including all of the current downloadable content. I played Fable 2 for approximately fourty-five hours before I even got close to completing the main storyline.

On the subject of downloadable content, I've managed to stumble upon a personally amusing glitch. After downloading the 'Traitor's Keep' pack, my character has inexplicably changed genders, transitioning from female to male. Everything else is mostly the same; I still have the same amount of quests completed, the prospective balances of my vault and the royal treasury are unchanged, and I still appear to have all of the weapons I've collected. Sadly I am missing quite a few cosmetic items, however I ought to have no trouble purchasing them again.

The most amusing happenstance regarding the glitch occurs during story dialogue. Non-player characters still reffer to my character as 'My Queen' or similar variants, both audibly and in text. Because of this, I have made plans to purchase several dresses, dye them absurdly bright colours, and only listen to music by Rupaul whilst traipsing about Albion. As such, I have dubbed this the drag queen glitch.

Several reports indicate that the drag queen glitch occurs after being in multiplayer games where your connection is unexpectedly lost. Others have speculated that it's more likely to occur after you've performed an exploit for additional funds, but I find that highly unlikely, as it would presuppose that Lionhead actually had a twinge of foresight. This definitely isn't the first time one of their games has had a particularly annoying flaw.

I've never actually used aforementioned exploit, but I have been disconnected from my multiplayer party several times. If you would like to attempt to reproduce the drag queen glitch, your best bet is to connect with a friend online, making certain that one of you has an exceedingly dodgy connection. Considering the myriad reports, you are fairly likely to force the glitch eventually. Just make sure you're neither of you are attached to anything in your inventory, because chances are it will disappear.

Many players are impressed by the fact that it's now much easier to keep your character attractive in Fable 3. I have to admit that I was quite annoyed by the fact that my character looked like a steroid pumping rugby player by the end of Fable 2, but I would be more than happy to go right back to that after all the disappointment I've suffered playing Fable 3. It's a small and barely notable concession nestled between slabs of predictable drivel and failure.

In short, if you haven't yet purchased Fable 3, don't bother. If you're sincerely curious, I would suggest renting it. Better yet, just play through Fable 2 again. It's a much more satisfying and immersive experience. So far the most amusing occurance I've encountered (aforementioned drag queen glitch) was a complete accident. I've repressed most of the remaining disappointment, but overall Fable 3 was just plain disapointing.

A Useful Recipe

2010-06-28T19:13:00.001-07:00

Guys. I have invented what is likely the best possible drink ever.

Chilled Water
ingredients:
* 10 to 12 regular sized ice cubes
* tapwater
* a large pitcher
* a refrigerator
* a glass
* a colourful bendy straw (optional, but recommended.)

Instructions:

- Acquire an ice cube tray (Some people like to use the new silicon ones, but I am quite partial to ones which are made in the old fashioned way with hard plastic. {One important thing to note here is that you should not, under any circumstances, use ice from one of those fancy refrigerators with an ice cube maker. Those things are gross and for some reason always taste like charcoal and failure. Don't ask me why, I didn't make the fucking things}.) Make ice the way nature intended. In your damn freezer.

- Fill the tray with water from your tap. (If your tapwater tastes gross, I suggest using bottled water.)

- Place tray with water in your freezer.

- Wait 4 to 5 hours.

- Remove tray from freezer. At this point you will notice that your water has become a solid. If you are still looking at a sloshy tray, you are probably doing it wrong, and need to start over completely. In fact, that wasn't even you freezer, was it? Yeah, that looks like a cupboard. Those are warm. You want cold. Try again with the freezer next time.

- Get a largeish pitcher. Glass or plastic will do fine. I personally prefer glass, but this is entirely up to you, and what you have available to you. If you do not have a pitcher, I suggest you purchase one from your local housewares store, or online.

- Place your ice cubes in the pitcher.

- Fill the pitcher (with ice cubes) 5/6ths of the way with water from your tap (or bottled water, as stated above.)

- Place the ice/water mixture in your freezer. At this point I feel like I should mention that you should not remove the ice/water mixture from your pitcher. That would just be stupid and messy. (But then you're a smart kid, and you've probably worked this out on your own.)

- Close your fridge door.

- Wait 30-45 minutes.

- Remove the pitcher from your refrigerator and pour a glass of the liquid into the glass you have (hopefully) had waiting for this very purpose. What? You didn't? You haven't been following my instructions at all, have you. Go get a glass, damnit.

- Add colourful bendy straw.

- Enjoy your beverage.

Hilarious Things Which Happen When Your Editor Is An Insane Megalomaniac

2010-06-22T16:26:00.001-07:00

So I recently got dropped from a wideogame website. My editor never actually specified the voice he would like me to communicate to the public with, or gave me any guidelines on posts. Basically I was given free reign, and as such I ran with it. I only wrote two articles, which he has (as of about 10 minutes ago) pulled. Below is the communication sent between myself and him in the past few weeks. Enjoy the idiocy, humans.

post script: These have not been altered in any way, other than the removal of names/websites/specifics.

-----
from him to me:

Hello Ashley,

I've been wanting to talk to you about your writing style and how it fits into the site. After having read the articles you have put up onto the site I have noticed a trend in your writing that doesn't really fit into the image we're trying to present. Your articles and reviews are somewhat over-personalized and their content seems to focus more on you rather than the games they should be about or the people who would be reading it. While I do want your subjective opinion about the games you review and the topics you write about it needs to be a much smaller part of the way you write for the site as we are journalists and as such need to be very objective in our writing. It's important to remember that even though we are trying to establish our own internet personas to provide the site with some character we are still a professional site and we need act as such. This goes double for features such as editorials, as people who don't know you personally will have trouble identifying and caring about it. To reiterate I'm writing to let you know of the balance I hope to achieve within the writing style of the entire site. Ultimately I want you to be able to write in a professional and a personal capacity without writing in a casual capacity. If you would like for me to be more specific about this issue I can provide you with some of examples of what I'm talking about and we can have a dialogue, I thank you for your understanding and I look forward to reading your next article.

Regards,
xxxxx
Administrator/Founder xxxx blog
----
my reply:

Hi,

I'm a bit interested to know why this is only coming up now. Would I have known that you had misgivings prior to the articles going up, I would have had an easier time tailoring my articles to suit your needs before it even became an issue. Furthermore, I think it would be beneficial for everyone to know that you are looking for a certain 'voice' in the articles you post on the xxx blog, because I'm not sure if that has even been discussed.

Ashley
----
Hello Ashley,

The reason I didn't bring it up right away with you is because I wanted to see how your first review turned out and to see if maybe the concerns I expressed were only something relevant to your first article rather than your style. The reason I haven't made a huge announcement to everyone about this is because this is something that was already laid out long before you came on board and they already work within those limits. The big reason I'm talking to you about this is because the site is headed to big things in the very near future (we're getting our business license on Monday) and the site needs a solid foundation to succeed not just in a business sense but in terms the people who write for it as well. Reviews in particular need to be as professional as possible as we will have the developers, publishers, and customers reading our reviews and purchasing or interacting with us accordingly. To make myself clear we aren't pandering to companies but we need to represent their products in as professional a matter as possible. I bring this up because I want you to continue writing for us and the last thing I want is either alienate you or the people behind the games we're reviewing who may feel you haven't given them a well written review. Even though we are dealing with some of the smaller fish of the games industry at the moment we don't want to make dealing with them any harder than it already is not to mention bigger companies will judge us by how we interact with these smaller companies and provide material and advertising accordingly. If you have any questions please let me know and we'll discuss them.

Regards,
xxxxx
Administrator/Founder xxxx blog
----

Needless to say, I didn't reply to this last email. I had no clue what to say. Regardless, This was in my inbox this afternoon:

(from him)

Hello Ashley,

xxx colleague has let me know of your decision to leave the site after last week’s discussion of our new rules as a business and I wanted to double check with you before I took any action. It definitely pains me to see you leave our company but I also completely understand why you’re doing it. I’m sorry our organization could not offer to you the writing environment you desired. I wish you well with future endeavours and I will make sure you have full rights to the work you have created with our site so you can use it in other places. Please make sure you keep or a make a copy of your articles and once I have confirmation from you that you have them in your possession I will remove from the site so as not to obstruct those article’s view counts when you post them in other places. As for the press release you have written for us, I will leave that up to you as to whether you would prefer to have that returned or if we can still use it for the launch of the new site. Of course almost all of the above is moot if you’re choosing to stay but I felt it was best to lay all the cards on table here. Anyways if you could get back to me with your decision as whether you’re staying with us or resigning and if so what you would like me to do with press release I would be very grateful.

Regards and I hope you’re well,
xxxxx
----
And my inevitable icy reply:

Dear Mr. xxxxx,

I kindly thank you for your continued interest in my writing. I will inform you, however, that as you have as yet to draft a formal contract whereby the authors of this site (myself included) sign over their rights for their intellectual property (articles, podcasts, webcasts, et al,), you have very little say over what any of your contributors do with of their material. That is to say, I would be, at this point, completely within my rights to propagate my material anywhere I wish. It would behoove you to know that this is actually true of all of your contributors. Furthermore, as your current business license applies only to the city of xxxxx, a contract signed by myself (assuming I had done so, which I have not) would be immediately void as I am operating outside of your contract's boundaries.

As such, you are welcome to do whatever you wish with the content I have provided, however bear in mind that this doesn't actually change anything. If you would like to take down my articles, please do so. Further, if you would like to use my press release, feel free to do that as well. To be quite honest, I no longer care.

Warmest regards and good luck in your professional business venture,
Ashley
----

And here is his reply, which I did not feel the need to reply to for what I hope are entirely obvious reasons:

Hello Ashley,

I am fully aware that you and all of my current contributors have full rights over their content until a contract has been drafted and then signed by them (a step I will be taking in the not too distant future I assure you). The only reason I wanted to make sure that you had your content along with reassurances that I would remove it from the site was so that when the site does go live and the aforementioned contract is drafted and signed that you know that we have done right by you in a legal capacity. I’m sorry you misunderstood me.

I hope you do share your material with whatever sites will have it and that you succeed in a writing space more applicable to your needs. As I have previously stated I will be removing your content however it is to prevent any future legal issues rather than a lack of quality, I still believe that despite the fact that your content did not line up with our site’s philosophies it was still of a very high quality.

Regards and good luck,

xxxxx

Urban Space Squirrels (and why it is not worth the dollar you were thinking of shelling out for it)

2010-06-22T16:22:00.000-07:00

At first glance, this seems like a very well put together game. The controls are pretty simple to use (once you figure out what you’re doing, anyway,) and the graphics are kitchy and sleek. The music is slightly repetitive, but to be perfectly honest it’s quite decent and not at all grating, which is a thing that (sadly) ruins a lot of puzzle/platformer games for me. Also it’s a cute concept. I mean, you’re a squirrel jumping around and blowing things up in order to get from point a to point b. Thats freakin’ adorable. Unfortunately the execution of the actual game play leaves quite a bit to be desired.

The main game mechanic in general is one of the most frustrating things about it. You absolutely have to put down a bomb in order to make the vast majority of your jumps. The puzzles range between mind-numbingly easy to absurdly difficult, with little or no scaling in between. With your primary controls being located on the trigger buttons and left analog stick, it’s extremely simple to screw everything up with minimal effort.

When I went to close the game and go back to the dashboard, a message popped up about how leaving the game would make a small baby squirrel cry. Come on, game. I played you. I stuck around for a good 20 minutes before I got fed up, even. I gave you a freaking chance, and now you’re trying to guilt me into playing more by saying I will make a baby squirrel cry.

No game, I will not buy into your guilt trip. In fact, I defy you. I actually paid for and downloaded another game about farting because I didn’t want to play you past the three levels I sat through. And then there’s another thing, you can’t be both urban and from space. Are you spatially urban? Are you urbanly spaced? I am seriously fucked if I know. In fact I’m not even sure ‘urbanly’ is a word. But that’s not the point game. The point is, I trusted you, and you let me down.

I am basically really jealous that Matt got another game to review and I ended up with a game about a blue squirrel in space. Which initially sounds really rad, but then it isn’t. As such, I will give ‘Urban Space Squirrels’ two out of five stars. As I said, the graphics and music were quite impressive, expecially for an indie effort, but the game play just doesn’t stand up.

Why i Drink When I Play (awful) Games

2010-06-22T16:20:00.000-07:00

(A Sub-Narrative by Ashley Farmer)

Disclaimer: Your family, friends, and/or physician would not appreciate you imbibing this much alcohol. Ever. Lest your liver turn into diamonds. Ashley has been training for ages, and should be regarded as some kind of shining golden (or as it might happen, diamond) goddess of drinking. Read the following with caution.

Guys. Honestly. Do any of you NOT drink when you’re playing games? Specifically really bad ones. I mean really bad ones. I once played ‘Coraline’ for the PS2 on a dare, and needed approximately 7 beers, 750ml of cheap sake, two bottles of wine, and one bottle of exceedingly fancy gin. Over the space of two days. I would tell you about the mixers, but honestly that would take too long. What I am trying to say is this: if you play bad games on purpose and don’t drink, you are probably doing it wrong.

Back to the point- when it turns out I have made a bad purchase, or that I have just been dared by some bastard to finish a terrible game, booze always takes the edge off. Did I care that I was collecting fucking buttons for ages so I could skip parts of ‘Coraline’ (Yeah dudes, they built in a game mechanic that lets you skip things if you’ve got enough scratch. Seriously.)? No. Because I was blitzed out of my mind on g&t’s.

Ever had the friend who insists you play That One (it doesn’t matter which) first person shooter that you hate every Friday night that you can’t seem to get a date? Being a bit of a hermit, I certainly have. Now I make it a point for people to tell me a few days ahead of time so I can acquire such as a box of wine and chill it properly so that I don’t care that I’m being screeched at by 12 year olds. Yes. I have play dates to get drunk and play bad games. Go ahead and judge, but at least I won’t remember it in the morning.

Basically what I am saying is this: drinking and games are truly a classic combination. It only gets better if you’re occupied with something you really hate and can’t tear yourself away from the train wreck of whatever it is you’re playing. Think about it.

my dreambrain likes puns or something

2009-04-01T07:53:00.000-07:00

I was hanging out with Tony Stark (yes, Iron Man) one night when I was hi with a very sudden attack of anemia. Mr. Stark was carrying me up from his pool area when we met a small group of guerrilla paparazzi coming down to meet us. They had leaves and bits of twig fastened to their hats and outfits, and were grinning at us as they snapped pictures. Of course Mr. Stark was furious, so he very gently put me down, and proceeded to throw the guys into the pool behind us. Upon hitting the water, they turned into ducks. Tony picked me back up and we went back to his house proper, where he put me down on a trendy couch and got me some iron pills and a glass of water. When I was feeling a bit better, he made us both some rare steaks and asparagus tips, and we watched some cartoons on a big projector screen.

At about 2am real time, I woke up very pleased and then fell immediately back asleep. The important thing to remember was that I was having trouble with iron defficiency while hanging out with Iron Man. The second dream is harder to explain, but I shall try my best.

I was in england hanging out with some relatives and friends. Since they most have pubs and not a whole lot of cocktail bars in the UK, we had gotten several bottles of different liquors, mixers, etc, and I was playing bartender. I turned to the freezer to get some more ice for a martini and one of my friends stopped me, and said 'Watch out for grandad.' I was like "Wtf are you on about?' and turned to the freezer. I was just about to open it when a skeleton torso, arms and a head popped out and went the silent movie equiv. of 'BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA!' Of course I dropped the drink I was carrying and screamed. The skeleton looked pleased and went back into the icebox. All I remember after this bit was at some point a narrator took over and began explaining as thus:

'....In 1885, the families servants began the custom of burying their dead in garbage heaps as the graveyards were overflowing. Not everyone agreed with this however. One woman was so distraught over losing her husband that she moved his place of burial a full 14 times before finally dying of chollera at 76. The body's final resting place was in the woman's icebox. Reportedly, she liked to remove the skeletal frame of her husband in order to have morning tea with her...'

At this point my alarm went off.

a conversation

2009-01-06T21:33:00.001-08:00

Dave: ...I asked the goon doctors!
Me: ...The goon doctors.
Dave: Yes, there are doctors who use something awful and the internet. Real, professional doctors.
Me: *after a beat* I dunno, honey, I am honestly worried.
Dave: What? They're real doctors!
Me: But.... I'm worried. To quote a final fantasy 8 heroine: 'Im scared! I'm really really scared!'
Dave: To quote a final fantasy 8 heroine 'Trains trains trains trains, trains trains trains trains!'

2008-11-25T07:55:00.000-08:00

I was just called less socially conservative than a girl who likes to wear corsets with kimono, and bites people. I'm a little worried about that.

music is awesome

2008-11-24T13:16:00.000-08:00

return to sender day

2008-10-19T11:03:00.000-07:00

So I turned on Viva Pinata 2 a few days ago and very suddenly got a ton of crates returned to me.

Long story short, I had tried to transfer some things over to Dave and for some reason they never actually GOT to him. I had basically already given up hope of ever seeing my money or pinata again.

But hey, they came back!

One of them had over a million chocolate coins in it.

It was a good day.

oh. my. god.

2008-10-07T21:19:00.003-07:00

So I have Rock Band 2, and like. Wow.

'Eye of the Tiger.'

That is a fun song to sing.

Like its fun the most funs.

things

2008-09-24T08:12:00.001-07:00

morning routine:

* stumble to kitchen
* make a latte
* put latte on dressing room counter (my apartment complex used to be a fancy suite hotel, whee)
* stumble to bathroom
* shower
* dry off with weird green bamboo fiber towel
* blow dry hair in dressing room while scanning forums and email
* sip at coffee
* put on a dress
* say goodbye to Young Maser David
* leave apartment
* light up green cigarette
* walk to work

360 save data makes me cry so many tears

2008-09-18T20:21:00.000-07:00

So I have an xbox 360.

I also have a copy of Viva Pinata 2: Trouble in Paradise.

I also have a removable memory unit, which I made the mistake of making save data on.

When I made a garden, In the aforemantioned game, and saved it on the aforementioned memory unit. Unfortunately, the game is sort of buggy (not a huge shocker: in the first the first game, I had INVISIBLE CAT CREATURES which I found endlessly amusing).

Most recently, when when I tried to fire one of my migrant Security Guards (yes, you can hire those in this game, for the 99.97% of people that do not play this game) he decided (for some reason) to hang around, and was basically taking up space. I could not select him to pay and/or fire him, So I decided to ignore him. At some point he just because a DECORATION.

I dug a pond around him and planted flowers, thinking (at the time) that it would be extremely funny when I invited people to the garden for multiplayer sessions.

Eventually I realised that I had things I needed to achieve, and having random fixtures (i.e, dudes) in the garden was keeping me from actually getting anything done. In fact, he actually kept me from romancing pinatas a few times. (This is a bad thing.)

I have three different garden saves (which chronicle all of the money I have made, and pinatas I have collected) on the hard drive, so I got a bright idea that deleting the save data on the memory unit and starting a new game in the same place would fix my problem.

I logged out of the game and went to the 'system' tab and deleted the data on my memory unit (VERY clever, I thought). Unfortunately after I deleted the save data, the VP:TIP save data was no longer accessible in the main menu. I went out of the game, into the dashboard and decided to check that the data on the hard drive hadn't mysteriously dissappeared.

As I expected, there was nothing on the memory unit, but the same three saves were still on the hard drive. Calling shennannigans and spouting curse words, I rebooted the 360 in hopes that it would understand the error of its ways.

It didn't.

At this point I was very nearly in tears. (And just admitting that makes me feel like a retard, but please read on.)

Losing save data on 360s is sort of a running theme with me- it happened once when my first hard drive died (losing me 120+ hours of gameplay on Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, and several hours (lots more 120,) on the first Viva Pinata. It happened again when I moved in with my boyfriend, and tried to free up some space on my hard drive. Similar amounts of data were lost. (which now that I think of it was probably a whole lot more.)

After a call to Microsoft Xbox support (I made Dave call because I was too frustrated to form actual sentences,) it became blatantly obvious that I was never going to get my save data back, even though it is still there. Taunting me.

I cannot believe I keep putting up with this abuse.

I must be a masochist.

2008-02-27T08:08:00.000-08:00

I haven't said anything here for a while. I asure you folks I am not dead. I am just insanely busy with work, etc.

2008-01-18T09:57:00.001-08:00

Elliot and I are moving forward on this whole damn Cannon Bear thing! The first blogpost was put up a few weeks ago, mostly shut everyone up.

He's coming, guys. Just be patient, ya?

2008-01-10T21:37:00.000-08:00

I am basically convinced that most people who use public transport as a means of conveyance are incapable of performing simple tasks. Like brushing their teeth. In fact, right now I am seated next to a lady whose breath smells like a bag of asses.

And I really hope she sees me writing this, because then maybe she will see the light. And ask me for a piece of gum.

2008-01-07T07:29:00.000-08:00

- I am home from Portland
- I start at Linden today in approx. 2 hours
- I got approx. 1.52 hours of sleep last night
- I need. Some fucking. Rest.
- Or possibly coffee.

2007-12-21T12:07:00.000-08:00

Today is an amazing day. My niece was born, and also I am picking up none other than mister Tony Stark from the airport.

TODAY WILL LIVE IN INFAMY IN THE NAME OF SCIENCE!

2007-12-20T15:22:00.000-08:00

I left a message on a customer's answering machine which said 'Hi [name omitted]. This is Ashley from the apple store at Stoneridge. I have good news- through the use of high-level necromancy and fantastic magic power, we were actually able to divine your files from your old laptop. If you would like to come pick up your laptop and your new mac we would be ever so thrilled, thank you and have a nice night.'

I feel good about that.

2007-12-20T06:43:00.000-08:00

Today is the historic last day of my tenure at Apple.

Damn. Yeah.

(Now would be the appropriate time to high-five me.)

2007-12-18T06:49:00.000-08:00

- I sent my offer letter back yesterday (!!!)
- I dyed my hair last night
- It is damn cold in this room
- I can hear it raining outside
- When people listen to music that you made in front of you, it is sort of nervewracking and awesome all at the same time
- THREE DAYS

2007-12-15T08:59:00.000-08:00

Don't you just hate it when things are going really great, and the people around you are so miserable that they just feel compelled to try to get you down, and take all of the wind out of your sails?

Cos I don't hate it, perse, in fact I feel sort of sorry for those people, but it isn't fun.

2007-12-12T18:29:00.000-08:00

How in the world can it be SO VERY WRONG to want something SO VERY RIGHT.

All girls want hot robot sex. Just ask that dude Popbot. He gets TONS of play.

2007-12-12T10:55:00.000-08:00

My last official day at Apple will be the 20th of December.

I got a job at Linden Lab, and I start on the 7th. I am extremely excited about this.

Also I have a highly anticipated visitor coming the 21st, which makes the timing of my last day at Apple very convenient.

I love it when things fall into place.

2007-12-03T07:36:00.000-08:00

- I have recently had bits of a bad weekend which was made better by help from some friends
- I am trying REALLY hard to get my sleep schedule back in order
- Benedryl-induced sleep is probably the best sleep
-NO MORE SUBJECT LINES

2007-12-02T15:25:00.000-08:00

Looking at vintage Victorian clothing is like the best kind of torture.

This dress is my size. This is obscene.

2007-12-01T09:43:00.000-08:00

- I am sipping a latte which is nowhere near strong enough
- I am waiting for ALL of the data to compile
- I feel like I need to exercise more
- Really random ass people called me all day long yesterday
- I only really wanted to talk to two of these people
- These people know exactly who they are
- Listing to Mirah is making me more tired
- I have an interview with a really hilarious place on Thursday
- I am terribly excited about that
- The files on this machine are saved to the most ridiculously labyrinthine places
- I find this silly and unsporting
- I dont like putting subject titles on these anymore
- I am going to be in a comic
- I am writing for a comic
- My main aspiration in life is to be a space geisha from the victorian era
- I think smart dudes are obscenely hot
- I want to go to Portland to study music with Laura Veirs
- I just spoke to a very confused man over the phone
- It is the day to answer the phone in foreign languages
- This is distressing coworkers
- That is fun

this happened

2007-11-29T02:02:00.000-08:00

So this weekend, I am waiting for a bus on the corner of Fillmore and Lombard. I am listening to Bach on my ipod, and looking straight ahead, waiting for the number 22 bus to arrive so I can ride it out to the Hayes valley.

It would be fair to note at this point that I am wearing an olive green miniskirt, some large black calflength boots, a black peacoat, and a creme scarf.

So this hobo shuffles up to the left of me, and I continue staring forward, and calmly bring my left fist up to my right, and start systematically popping my knuckles. I do the same then to my right hand, and the hobo quietly, and without comment, fucks off.

A man who was seated on a bench behind me starts to laugh, but I continue looking forward, content with my inherent badassery.

2007-11-24T06:58:00.000-08:00

Nothing is worse than a smartass kid six years your junior smiling smugly at you and saying things like 'Well that's what happens when you do that sort of thing,' like they actually believe that they know better than you do.

Now, I am 24, I am not trying to say I am the at the peak of life experiences (in fact quite the contrary,), but what was that all the fuck about? Really?

WHY

2007-11-09T01:10:00.000-08:00

Hi insomnia.

(I missed you too, baby.)

thanks, brad

2007-11-08T18:23:00.000-08:00

No really, Thank you Brad Neely, for summing up pretty much every fucking thing.

aaaaaaah, sleep

2007-11-06T06:30:00.000-08:00

You know when one day you don't get nearly enough sleep, and then the next day you know you didn't maybe get all you actually needed, but it was sufficient enough to keep you alive, and so you wake up feeling ridiculously rested and sort of feeling in an oddly positive mood?

Well maybe you don't, but I do, so there we are then.

For those of you who don't know, Sunday night I had a bit of an insomnia fit, and when the alarm finally went off at 6:30 and I peeled myself out of bed, I sort of did this awesome swooning technique and fell RIGHT BACK in bed. Yes people. I had the vapours. Or something.

Mostly I was just really sleepy, but I felt dizzy and feverish, and evidently not sleeping is worse for me than the some of the worst hangovers I have ever had. Long story short, I had a glass of water, and once 8:00am rolled around I was effectively passed out, and Kingland called my work like he was my mom calling my teacher to cover for my seven year old delinquent ass.

So basically I slept most of the day yesterday, and I slept all right last night, and now I am taking a SHOWER because I have yet to have a crazy fainting spell today. (Here's to that not HAPPENING.)

random facts of the day

2007-11-02T08:13:00.000-07:00

- I am eating animal crackers for breakfast
- every morning I go to Starbucks and get a grande triple latte
- I am currently drinking said latte
- my safari homepage is icanhascheezburger.com
- I only really blog in order to make it easier for people to stalk me online
- last night I had the better part of two bottles of wine
- I am not hungover
- it is entirely possible I am drinking too much
- I am wearing a red vs blue shirt and jeans with far too many fashionable holes
- I intend to mend some of these holes with garishly coloured thread on my lunch hour
- I have an irrational fear of zombies
- my current desktop wallpaper for work features Molly Hayes from the Runaways throwing a car
- my favourite pair of shoes is green
- I changed my work login screen so that it says 'THIS IS SPARTA' whenever I log on

2007-07-10T13:27:00.000-07:00

I want to write a note and stick it up in my workspace. It is going to say 'Going up front? prepare to be reprimanded for a completely trite and arbitrary reason. Oh, and have a nice day.'

This seems like a good idea to me.

grrr

2007-06-22T03:26:00.001-07:00

It is three in the morning and I am at work. This is bullshit.

I hope I don't have to come in tomorrow.

I want a shower and a beer.

GRARGH

graaaaaaaah!

2007-06-12T06:51:00.000-07:00

I don't have a cold anymore, so why the fuck am I still coughing?

STOP COUGHING, LUNGS AND THROAT. SERIOUSLY. I AM GETTING EXTREMELY SICK OF THIS BULLSHIT.

i have no idea what's going on with that, guys

2007-05-24T08:36:00.000-07:00

I am pretty certain I don't have a cold, and this is only because when I have a cold (every fucking time,) one of my nostrils closes up entirely. This has not occurred.

What did occur was a ridiculous sneezing fit in my bathroom after showering this morning, followed by a sort of unreasonable amount of yellowish mucus surging forth from my sinuses. It was actually sort of impressive.

ashley will not be poor forever i guess!

2007-04-30T11:11:00.000-07:00

When I went in to the emergency room, the lady at the desk said I might qualify for charity care, so they they could pay a portion of my bill. I got the forms and filled them out, and got them in as quickly as I could.

I got the bill last week, and have sort of been ignoring it since then, as it was $5,782.60. I was planning on calling them to see if I could make payments instead of just sending them the lump sum, and they have stupid hours (9:00am to 4:00pm), so between my work schedule and having people over for APE, I was having a really hard time getting to talk to someone when their offices were open.

I'm not working until four today, so I called this morning, and gave the lady my account number. She said "That's weird, you have a zero balance. Can you hold for a second?" and I said sure, and so a second later she came back on and explained that my application for charity care was approved, and that they basically wrote off the whole balance. I was floored, and had her repeat that a few times, just so I could be certain I had gotten that right. By the time I hung up the lady was sort of belly-laughing. At this point I was dancing around my apartment. I even went in and jumped on my bed for a few minutes. I called Kingland and told him. He was absolutely ecstatic as well.

HURRAY, GUYS!

I'm doing the lord's work

2007-04-17T11:26:00.000-07:00

There are mormons. Right now. Knocking on the door of my apartment.

One of them just said 'Miss, do you just have a moment to speak with us?'

I am hiding, but goddamnit they know I am here because they can see into my kitchen window.

I just yelled 'Take your bicycle helmet and GO!'

One of them said something about me being beyond help and they went back downstairs.

They are watching me in my window now. What the hell people. I am going to try flipping them off.

...They are aghast. I think it worked. And there they go, off on their bikes.

ASHLEY WINS!

(I seriously cannot believe that just happened, guys.)

rice boy is AWESOME

2007-04-17T11:09:00.000-07:00

I have sort of an insane crush on The One Elecrtonic. This is irrational as T.O.E is a robot.

Oh god what is wrong with me.

(Read Rice Boy. I command you.)

run on, sentances. run on.

2007-04-15T11:50:00.000-07:00

The show last night was like OMGWTFAWESOME and then afterward we went and played guitar hero and then we went and got chicken nuggets at Wendy's and then I slept in the car on the way to San Francisco on the bass amp which is uncomfortable and today I slept in until eleven thirty and now we are going to go get food I guess.

spartaaaaaaaa!

2007-04-08T13:31:00.000-07:00

Okay, GUYS.

Oblivion. Elder Scrolls. I have picked it back up after leaving it alone for quite some time. Because I am off work for a few days (due to that awesome infection I picked up, in my kidneys,), Kingland buyed me the Shivering Isles expension. (He buyed it. For me.)

I have yet to play it yet, beyond going to the main gate (I had a mission that I had to finish from the assassin's guild real quick, and now we are going to dye some eggs and make them look like tiny little egg cars [priorities, guys],), but GODDAMN. Seriously guys, just the alchemy ingredients by the gate are fucking unreal. I can't wait to crack it open and wear the prettiest dresses.

...And also play some of the game proper.

(Guys I don't just play it for the pretty dresses guys I swear.)

dreams

2007-03-30T08:57:00.000-07:00

I was torn from sleep by my alarm clock today, but I honestly didn't mind this time.

I was having a dream where I was in a bar by myself for some reason (maybe waiting for someone?) when this guy that looked somewhat familiar came in and cat across from me and started staring. He was tall and sort of fat, but mostly unremarkable. I ignored it for a minute or so (I have blue hair, people stare sometimes,) but eventually I got fed up and said something to the effect of 'Can I help you with something?'

And he answered 'As a matter of fact you can.' He had one of those atrocious semisouthern hick accents that automatically sends e into a killing rage. 'I have this 'pod, and I can't get songs on it. I was thinkin' you could-'

I cut him off, protesting that I was not only not in uniform, but was off duty, and had no intention of helping him. He walked over to me angrily and started yelling 'what do you expect me to do,' etc, and I suggested maybe helping himself by calling tech support or checking the website.

Then my alarm went off. Thanks, alarm!

tour march the first, part one

2007-03-25T17:03:00.000-07:00

It is 7:10 in the morning, and while I am quite tired, I have managed to find some magnetic legos that we lost some four nights previous, and also the switch on the router that makes the internets work. I am just amazing, people. The reason I am awake at 7:11 (it's later now) instead of nice and warm in my bed has to do with some goblins or some such playing silly fuckers (8:10 =/ 6:47) and doing things to my alarm clock. Regardless, I writing this in my kitchen, from one of the comfy bowl chairs. It is red, and covered with a grey blanket. To my left is probably the most delicious cup of coffee I have ever goddamn had-- the foam on top of it is so thick that I was actually having difficulty getting to the coffee bit (It was an issue, I overcame it.).

The previous four days stand in my mind as being a lot of different things, which can be described by many different adjectives. The first one that jumps to mind is 'surreal.' I had a great time overall, and would do it again in a heartbeat. Regardless, I feel like I have sort of led up into the tour blog proper for far too long, and ought to just shut up and get down to business.

Day One:

I woke up a bit hung over from a pre-tour celebratory binge-drinking soiree, but sucked it up. I had my hair to dye, and also my apartment to clean. I had mostly finished cleaning the kitchen and living room by the time Kingland woke up. We finished everything by about noon, lunched on leftover pizza and ginger ale, and watched the rest of Snakes on a Plane (we had started it the night previous, but had passed out before it was anywhere near finished.). By this point my hangover was basically gone.

Jon and Shawn arrived at around two. Jon claims that they (we?) are a 'dangerous youth gang.' I laced up my boots and we left the apartment. Jon gave custody of the merch bag to Kingland, and we piled in to our respective vehicles for the drive to Modesto. Kingland and I listened to a lot of the Long Winters. When we arrived in Modesto, we stopped at a gas station. Kingland and I had filled up a few days previous, so it didn't take too terribly much to fill the tank. For some reason, when the car was full, the gas nozzle popped out of the car. It was almost as if the car had had enough of all of that semi-coital nonsense, and was saying 'Uugh, just get OUT of me.'

Jon gave us some cherry blow-pops, and I skipped back to the car. We drove on back roads through Modesto. The cherry trees were in full bloom, and the blossoms littered the ground in between the rows of trees. We went to P. Wexford's pub for lunch. They were cleaning the tables with some crazy sort of chemical. The smell made me quite nauseous, and I actually ended up having to retire to the restroom to throw up.

It was only about five o' clock by this point, and sound check wasn't until six, so we went to the Queen Bean for some coffee. We sat outside (it was cold) and played a card game of Shawn's devising with some Batman the Animated Series cards (Jon's,) from 1997. We left for the Fat Cat at a quarter of, and drove to the Fat Cat.

Kingland and I had a bit of a time finding parking, but eventually we did, and walked over to the venue. We all walked around to the back, as we had been instructed. The door was locked. My only assumption about this is that they aren't used to bands actually showing up either on time, or at all, for sound checks.

Sound check was pretty fun, actually. It took sort of a while to get the levels right, but eventually we did. After that everyone retired to the merch table to fold and draw on the sleeves for our live compilation CD's. (They are made of multicoloured construction paper and awesome.) Shawn bought everyone vodka-based drinks, and eventually we played (arguably) our best show to date to a very enthusiastic crowd.

Afterward I went back to the merch table for a while and helped Kingland. (Sort of.) For the rest of the night I flitted back and forth between the green room and the merch table, and had a near-altercation from a crazy girl with flaming red hair and enough piercings to alarm any children under the age of four. Other than that, I had a great deal of fun. Sometime in between flitting back and forth, I was asked to sing harmony for the first song in Brother Lunch's set. (I feel like this went relatively well, but admittedly I haven't seen the video of it as yet.)

At some point we cleared out and headed to Bob's house for the BEST SLEEPOVER EVER. I can't really remember what was discussed, other than it must have been hilarious. We laughed an awful lot, and eventually passed out.

The next morning, we woke to Shawn's phone buzzing on the table. It was his friend J.D, wondering if we still had breakfast plans. We all managed to get ready in the space of about thirty minutes, and piled into the Mazda. We were headed to a brunch joint that we had passed by the day previous, called 'Scrambl'z Kountry Kitchen.' One important feature of this place was that, on the sign, it said in smaller type, '...a fun place to eat.' With the ellipses and everything. It ended up being the sort of family restaurant which has lots of stuff on the walls, in the manner of most 50's themed diners. (It was sort of fucking awesome.) We are all very much of the opinion that they ought to change their slogan to '...we don't fuck around.' The food was plentiful and delicious, and our server was excellent.

After breakfast we took a side trip to Target, for some towels. (Apparently Bob only had one towel to speak of.) I got a fluffy pink towel, Kingland got a black one, Jon got a blue one, and Shawn got a sort of salmony orange one. When we got back to Bob's we all showered and played some Smash Brothers. After a while Jon started getting antsy and we got back out on the road. (Which is where part two comes in.)

dora, dora, dora

2007-03-12T19:50:00.000-07:00

Let it be understood that I HATE Dora the Explorer.

If I have to hear the theme song for that damn show one more time I am going to start punching babies.

tour march the first, part two

2007-03-10T10:56:00.000-08:00

Day two: Fresno

We enter the town in the afternoon. None of us were expecting a
bustling metropolis, but hell, this place had a downtown, and who the
fuck hasn't at least heard of Fresno? Nothing at all was happening.
There was a surplus of parking, and a few people lazily wandering the
streets. Club Fred (the venue) is painted bright green, with a tacky
rock motif, making it look like the jolly green giant threw up all
over it. The club is situated on a block on which (we assume) the
shopkeepers are either completely hilarious guys or have no
imagination at all. (Shop names included 'Drug Fair', 'Food King,'
and 'ok car wash,' the latter of which was my personal favourite.)

It was relatively warm outside, and Jon was parched, so we went into
the Food King store to procure him liquids. Along with the usual fare
of junk food and soda, there are cheap knockoff collectible samurai
swords, and also the sort of 'gift knives' that actually have 'gift
knife' written on the side of the box stacked in cabinets behind the
cashwrap.

Jon pays for his drink and we go for a walk around the block. We pass
a group of teens (and one obese thirtysomething) who are sitting on a
curb, smoking. One of the girls says she likes my hair. I say thank
you.

At some point we realise that, even though we were more or less
indistinguishable from every other hipster collective in town, people
are staring at us like they know we aren't from there. We began
constructing doomsday theories that the townies are all either zombies
or vampires or zombievampires, and they knew that we were fresh meat.
As Shawn said we were 'totally gonna get eated.'

The day passes with little incident (actually we spend the majority of it in a Starbucks, marinating) and eventually we retire to a pizza joint to eat something before the show. The place is lined with prints of paintings depicting two distressingly stereotypical Italian cooks. The man at the bar gives us a bit of a hassle about buying a pitcher of beer, demanding to see all of our I.D's. After we eat, we return to the venue, and go inside. We are nearly immediately asked for identification as soon as we enter, which is only a notable fact as we were honestly the only ones that were approached the entire evening.

We lounge around the venue for a few hours and eventually play our set. We seem to be generally well-received. After the set Shawn and I headed outside and talked. At some point Jon joined us. Nearing the end of our conversation, an old man, who was nearby and fiddling with his bike lock, looked directly at Shawn and shouted;"Shut up and listen to her!"

Shawn, Jon and I were somewhat aghast, and laughed uncomfortably. The man repeated himself several times, and eventually got on his bike and peddled away. When we went back into Club Fred, I sat at the merch table with Kingland. A young guy came up at some point and began asking about the merch. At some point he looked at Kingland and said something to the effect of "You're beautiful." I realised all too late what was going on, and piped up. "He is, isn't he?" I brandished my ring. "Coincidentally he is also my fiancee." The kid said something about "setting us both on fire," and shambled off.

At this point someone either threw down a stinkbomb or several people shit their pants at once. The smell filled the club. It was nauseating and unpleasant, to say the least. I was unenthusiastic about staying in Fresno in general, and the smell wasn't improving my mood, so I took the initiative to become extremely bitchy. Eventually we were allowed to leave, and headed off toward Luke's (from 'A Pageant's End) apartment. Luke and his roomie were terribly accomodating, and I have to admit that I slept rather well.

The next morning we all had terribly cold showers, due to a lack of hot water from the apartment complex in general. Jon proved the only exception in this, as he was somehow able to regulate the hot water. (Damn you, Jon.)

PROBLEMS

2007-02-04T09:50:00.000-08:00

My jeans were jluffing in the dryer, and I thought 'Hey! I should maybe put some pants on!' And so I grabbed some jeans out, and put them on, and promptly burned the shit out of myself on one of the metal bits.

It hurts real bad, but I will likely live.

I'M GONNA BE A BIT LATE TODAY, JON! I AM AVOIDING ALL CLOTHING NOW AS I AM AFRAID IT MIGHT TURN ON ME.

Cheers, Ash

invisible people

2007-02-03T09:00:00.001-08:00

I am pretty certain that no one lives in the apartment across the way from me, aside from that one apartment where the dudes are really young and actually leave their curtains open occasionally.

Seriously though, guys. I never see these people enter or exit their places, and also they sort of always have their blinds closed. ALWAYS. Thay must either be vampires or invisible people. I don't know.

page 68

2007-02-02T01:59:00.000-08:00

For reasons that are too numerous and ridiculous at this particular juncture to articulate, World War Z is one of the most liberating books that I have read (Okay, so more like 'am reading,' please don't say anything stupid and ruin it for me, okay?), to date.

(Seriously guys. I have bad dreams about zombies, guys. Those have stopped pretty much, guys. Guys. GUYS.)

they must be stopped

2007-01-31T10:17:00.000-08:00

This morning I left my apartment to find a note on the door from the apartment management. There is evidently too much noise eminating from apartment #14 between the hours of 10:00pm and 8:00am. A specific comment was apparently made about the 'bass.' I basically call bullshit on this, as our stereo system is honestly never turned on very loud, as we know the parameters between which it is capable of operating, and are relatively considerate people.

It generally only gets between the levels of 30 and 35 (and admitedly occasionally 40, but only before ten,), which is seriously not all that loud. Additionally, we have pretty much turned our subwoofer off, which would completely negate the complaint about our 'bass.'

Keep in mind these guys called and complained about a violin, vocal, and cello rehearsal at 3:30pm on a Saturday, and frequently pound on our wall when we have the television set to any volume at all. A particular incident of this occured on new years' eve, at six in the evening, when Brett (a friend) and Kingland were playing Gears of War on the xbox 360 at a volume of 33, which to me seems insane, but trust me when I say this shit happens all the time.

The most irritating factoid here is that these bastards really don't have anything at all to bitch about, aside from the fact that a duo of young hipsters moved in. I think this is nominaly their problem. We are honestly very quiet the rest of the time, and for that matter, aren't even home all that often, due to work and other activities.

Evidently my neighbours really want us gone. I plan on talking to the management today. This is getting to be insane.

also

2007-01-22T08:39:00.000-08:00

I cut my hair really really short, too.

my neighbours are dumbfaces

2007-01-22T08:33:00.000-08:00

Slight update:

1) We are playing a few shows in southern California! The only date confirmed as yet is March 3rd in Fullerton, but we are likely doing something the second as well.

2) There is a Portland tour in the works. I do not know when this is to occur.

3) Shawn wrote a new song (!!!), and it is maybe okay I guess (!!!). We were rehearsing it in my apartment and the neighbours complained so much and so loudly that my landlord called and told us to quiet down. (We had to go to Kingland's mom and dad's house to finish rehearsal. That was awesome, and we got to play really loud, but trekking across town mid-rehearsal was inconvenient at best.) I am not certain if this is because the new song sucks*, or if the people who live around me are idiots with no taste at all in music**, but I will let you know when I know***.

* it doesn't suck, guys.
** I am prett certain its less of the former and more of the latter.
*** I am pretty sure I already know the answer to that, actually.

damnnation

2007-01-11T09:12:00.000-08:00

So for some reason I randomly snapped awake at 8:56am and was unable to fall back asleep. I have been catching up on Achewood since then.

This seems like a pretty good way to spend my morning, until I have to go to work. I would make coffee but I am finding that actually getting up from the couch right now is pretty difficult.

This is an issue as my brain is starting to cry out for caffeine. Damnit. I'm going to have to get up at some point.

apartments

2006-12-18T01:03:00.000-08:00

I am posting from my bed in the new apartment, using stolen wireless internets.

Life would be fucking awesome, if only our neighbours didnt suck. They did the 1950's-rapping-on-the-ceiling-with-a-broom thing when we decided to jump on the bed. What the hell, people. What the hell.

pain

2006-12-12T11:56:00.000-08:00

Too much wii sports could be hazardous to your health!

I played a whole lot of (somewhat drunken) wii sports (mainly boxing) Sunday night, after rehearsal. I have done very little else which might be considdered physically taxing this weekend, aside from lugging a very small P.A from the back room of the Brainwash Cafe.

I am hurting in places that I didn't even know were functional anymore.

apartments oh man

2006-12-09T10:44:00.000-08:00

We have quite recently been looking at apartments. We found several, and the first one, with the lowest rent, was looking awesome, but at our application appointment, it turns out we make entirely TOO MUCH money to qualify (it's low income housing, you see,), so we were sort of denied.

The second and third places we had already closed their offices for the day (at three PM on a Friday,) so we went to the fourth place, and, like, wow. The apartment is adorable, has two bedrooms, one and 1/2 bathrooms, and a washer and dryer in the unit, not to mention a really large patio area, fluffy cream coloured carpets and a fucking BREAKFAST NOOK. Also the rent is entirely liveable. So we go through the application process again, and things are looking good, and we are about to sign the lease and move in Sunday, until it turns out that we are denied AGAIN because Kingland has no credit.

Basically it goes down like this: They want tennants of the apartment to make at least double the rent, and while we definately do that with our combined incomes, I am the only one with credit (squeaky clean credit, too, mind you,), but I don't make twice the rent on my own. So basically what I am saying here, guys, is we are FUCKED until we find someone to cosign.

Kingland's father is only too happy to oblige, but he is trying to refinance his house, and believes that cosigning with us on our appartment might hurt his chances. My parents are out of state and therefore are probably not eligible to cosign. This is lame, guys. Very very lame.

taffy

2006-11-19T15:25:00.000-08:00

I was reading three months of backlog from Jon's blog and I got a sudden and insatiable craving for taffy.

Thankfully I have some taffy on hand, and I can take care of that.

In other news: We seven kinds of rocked last night. Modesto is an awesome place to play.

oh jeez

2006-11-15T13:42:00.000-08:00

So it's one fourty-two, and I am at work, and I am terribly, terribly bored. (It's sort of relentlessly slow here, guys.) I am stuck behind the cash register, which I would usually be cool with, but I am here until something like seven and I am bored. BORED.

wow its been a while...

2006-11-04T12:34:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted anothing in time beyond mind, guys, but here's the rundown:

-I have been playing way too much Phantasy Star Universe

-I am still at apple

-All of my weekends belong to San Francisco

-Oh man we rock so hard

woah

2006-10-11T09:58:00.000-07:00

Not a lot of time right now, guys, but let it be stated and known to the general populus that an excellent weekend was had.

I shall try to expand upon this later.

whyyyyyy

2006-09-17T04:29:00.000-07:00

It is 4:22am. I have been awake since roughly 2:20am. I cannot sleep.

WHY WON'T YOU SHUT OFF BRAIN.

SHUT OFF DAMN YOU.

That is all.

just an update

2006-09-05T18:17:00.000-07:00

So, I have a new job now, guys. I work for Apple (retail). They're paying me lots and lots of dollars to do not a whole lot of stuff. Also my coworkers are pretty damned excellent. I can only hope they like me enough to keep me for a very very long time. That would make me happy.

I have been chatting on IRC quite a bit of late, with people from this place. Some of them are great and some of them are assholes. But go figure, I guess, as its IRC.

A friend from aforementioned IRC pointed me in the direction of PLatinum Grit, which is a comic, which is very simply great. I've already read the whole thing. Unfortunately it seems the updates are few and far between. This is seriously too bad.

That's probably it! Now I am off to be boring and play videogames.

there were dinosaurs in.

2006-08-23T12:12:00.000-07:00

I had a really weird dream, guys.

The initial dream was not so pleasant, really. It involved going to the fair/carnival/funpark with my family, and my mom not allowing me to go on the rollercoaster first, even though it was apparently my birthday. This seemed somewhat unfair to me, but then after seeing this dude and his ghostly horse grinning ethereally from a window I found out that the carnival thing was sort of inexplicably haunted, I was more concerned with getting myself the hell out of there. I did, and ended up in this really small town here people were listening to eachothers thoughts.

The really weird thing about the audio clips was that they somehow resonated enough in my brain that other people could actually hear them. And, of course, just so as to be in tune with most dream logic, this was perfectly normal. People were actually trading clips and whatnot, like baseball cards, or pokemon. Not so much mp3s. There was a very strong feel of 'oh man, I don't have that one yet,' in the air. (Weird.)

The dinosaur bit came in when I was walking around town and suddenly had an odd electronic dinosaur counting device in my hands, and suddenly behind that big tree, pow. Lots and lots of dinosaurs, which I counted with the electronic thingy. It emitted very small clicks when they'd been counted. I couldn't allow the dinosaurs to see me, though, because if they did, I was pretty certain they'd either stomp on me, or eat me. Or you know, both.

'they'll totally call me.'

2006-08-04T16:21:00.000-07:00

Here is the link I promised.

hair is always better when cool people do it FOR you

2006-07-23T13:47:00.000-07:00

A few nights ago, my friend Mike's older rockstar brother decided to bleach and then dye my hair several ridiculous shades of purple. Then Mike, his girlfriend, and aforementioned rockstar brother proceeded to eat cheese pizza and watch 'Wedding Crashers.' At the end of the night Marshall (See above link,) handed me a bottle containing extra dye, saying I ought to touch it up when it goes wonky, because, according to him, it would, inevitably.

And so today, after finding a few too many white streaks (at first they looked neat, but now they are washing back to a sort of odd grayish colour which isn't neat,) I decided to hit them up with the dye he gave me.

The streaks are already turning a truly thrilling shade of raspberry. I can't fucking wait.

(I need to have rock stars do my hair more often.)

i think we are going to go to mimi's...

2006-07-22T18:20:00.000-07:00

This sounds really distorted! Damn you speakerphone.

homigod, audioblogging

2006-07-22T13:04:00.000-07:00

You are going to make me so lazy, audioblogger!

in which ashley's parents visit and shenanigans ensue

2006-07-21T14:55:00.000-07:00

Parental visits went pretty much okay, besides a few snafu-type issues when White People from Middle America meet Hippie Chinese People from the West Coast.

More basely stated, I am not entirely certain that my parents got along with Kingland's parents, and after talking to my mom, I sort of understand why. I just got off the phone with my mom, and we talked about that very thing for approximately two hours. My mom's sentiments from just one visit are pretty much in line with what I have been thinking for the better part of a year. King and I are moving out of Crazy Chinese Hippie Territory soon anyway, so basically I am saying WHATEVER.

Regardless, here are some photos from the visit with my crazy parental units, as well as some random stuff that we took. Enjoy, Internets!

The day before my parents arrived, my 360 decided it was time to eat my Oblivion disc. As this is really the only game I play on the system (Besides, you know, like, Zuma,) I was a little upset. We have already replaced it. Hooray!

This was on BART, right after we picked my parents up. My dad has a very interesting look on his face.

Kingland was sitting across from us with mom and dad's luggage, trying to ask it out on a date. (He is such a slut.)

The second day of the visit, we took mom and dad to the city. Here they are in Japan town, across the street from me. Kingland looks like he doesn't belong, and also that he is totally thinking mean, hipstery thoughts about tourists while he sips his coffee.

I think my mom said something stupid hereabouts, and so I stuck my tongue out at her. (I am probably the most charming fuck in the entirety of the world.)

Do I really need to explain this? No. No I do not. (We did touristy things. As I have yet to do a lot of touristy things, it was pretty fun!)

We took them for a walk on the Golden Gate. It was pretty foggy! Fog makes for nifty photos.

This was later, while we were waiting for a table for dinner. (My parents are also vying for the position of Most Charming Fucks.)

Mom took this picture of me and King whilst playing with my camera. It looks to me like one of those grainy pretentious photos that belong in liner notes. Behold my upside-down jeans. BEHOLD THEM!

The second day they were here we went to Monterey. Kingland and I got the MOST taffies. We still have a lot of them. (I heart taffy.)

Here me and my mom are at Ashley and King's Place for Games. We are playing Puzzle Fighter. Mom looks worried. I have my 'Les' get serious' face on. My dad just looks confused.

We took this one outside the resteraunt where we had dinner with King's family. I have always thought it pretty hilarious that it says 'Oriental' in sparkly letters on the door of this place.

fuck onions all to hell.

2006-07-18T22:42:00.000-07:00

My mom and dad left today at approximately 3:32pm pst.

I am now drunk due to RUMS.

(RUMS are excellent, especially after movies with pirates, but I digress.)

Today was EXCELLENT. Vacations with parents were EXCELLENT, despite the loosing of videogame titles (which sucked, but they will be replaced eventually.).

We more recently walked to Carl's Jr. and got some burgers and taco salads. They were delicious.

stolen from the AR boards

2006-07-09T14:19:00.000-07:00

Purchased on 7/7/06 from Manic Panic Website:

2 x Wildfire 'Amplified' hair colour, $29.90
1 x Fuchia Shock hair colour gel, $9.50

Total: $39.40

ONE PROBLEM WITH SUBSEQUENT ORDERS.

Both of those were supposed to say 'Hot Hot Pink.' I only realised that these were actually the wrong colours after I had already ordered and subsequently paid for them (Thank you e-mail notification, and dually wonky confusing web design from the mid-nineties.).

This means one of two things: I can bite the bullet and have super crazy 'wildfire' red hair for a while, or I can send it back and wait about a million years (a million years is approx. equal to 14 days, give or take, which seems to be the norm for these dudes,) for them to send me the correct colour.

Keep in mind I already have to wait about 14 or so days for my original order to arrive, so if I do decide to send my order back, I'm not going to have dyed my hair for the better part of a month.

(Loose/loose situations are not fun, people.)

in which ashley is a lazy motherfucker

2006-07-03T12:59:00.000-07:00

After living in California for over a year, I am finally an official resident. This basically means I finally got up off my ass and got a California driver's license. I only really did this in order to stop being given hell when I try to buy liquor, which I realise is sort of a stupid, self-serving reason. But dudes. I don't drive like a fool, so I don't get pulled over for things, okay? Okay. (I can only hope that this does not result in me getting called for jury duty. Jury duty sucks.)

The picture on my license was taken when I still had pink hair. I have blue hair right now. Perhaps I should go pink again? I'm not really feelin' the blue, guys.

the past two weeks or so

2006-06-28T11:26:00.000-07:00

I haven't been online much recently due to a Self-Inflicted Vacation from the Interweb.

This is more or less what happened (mostly in chronological order,) in the interim, in full colour photograph...s. Enjoy.

I took this picture when I was in a bit of a weird mood, for a friend of mine in Australia. It turned out surprisingly okay.

I sort of randomly started playing Chrono Cross again last Thursday, much to my amusement. Pictured here is Pip. His childlike speech patters amuse the hell out of me. I also took a pic of him saying 'Fwom what I've heard, de pwace is a fiewy hell.' Unfortunately that patricular picture didn't come out.

I flipped on the television Sunday morning after retrieving some coffee, and this dude was on the first channel which materialised. He was entirely serious about everyone immediately getting their colons cleansed.

On Monday, Kingland and I went to the Alameda County Fair. It just so happened it was free admission day, which was cool because we only had to pay parking (which is sort of insane.). It was surprisingly not all that crowded.

In this picture I guess I was midstep, and was admising some plants. I managed to look nine kinds of emo. Hi kids! I feel sort of okay maybe I guess. Also my knee is totally broken. What is up with that?

We saw this extremely amusing painting done by some fourth and fifth graders of Donlon Elementary School. The man depicted in the painting is both hillarious and scary.

Here is a close up, so that you can revel in all his infinite glory.

They host a wine tasting type thing at the fair, and King and I spent some time in the Wine and Beer Garden, which is apparently housed in just this one tree. Eventually I found a relatively comfortable smattering of branches, and I only dropped my chardonnay twice.

I was trying to do a sort of sweeping view of the fair as a whole, but I somehow managed to turn the damned timer on, and so King ran down into the frame. He's doing a sort of strongman pose, which actually turned out sort of okay.

This little dude was just sort of having his own awesome adventure and running around this transformer. He was far too excellent to not photograph.

There was a building housing cases and cases of people's collections. There were lots of different things, including but not limited to piggy banks, Happy Meal Toys, random rock and roll memorobelia, and one very excellent Star Trek collection, which included an original tricorder and communicator, as well as a Klingon disruptor (from TNG). The most amusing bit was actually this small photocopied page of Trek-themed drinks, which I can transcribe into legibile type, should anyone actually want to try these. Some of them manage to sound pretty okay.

Right near the end we saw this gem. I understand that we were at a fair, yes, and that most food AT fair is subsequently skewered on a stick. But even so, I wasn't entirely certain if this was a typo, or if they were serious. I never asked, and I'm not certain that I want to know.

As some of you know, I applied for a job at Hot Topic. Long story short I didn't get it. What I DID get (Tuesday) was a letter, informing me that they had 'made the decision to persue other candidates.' It was like they were breaking up with me.

This was actually taken yesterday. I was playing Oblivion, and some bastard Highwayman decided it would be a good idea to attack my horse. Well he was wrong. Dead wrong. Especially when I stripped him down to his knickers and made him look like a cologne (or underwear) model.

oh shit.

2006-06-21T22:58:00.000-07:00

Holy crap, guys! A gigantic fucking spider just ran across my desk and tried to kill me.

(I can only assume this was his plan.) Also, he jumped. He JUMPED. He was a jumping, massive killing machine of doom. He jumped pretty far when I screamed 'There's a fucking gigantic spider right in fucking front... of... me!' And he jumped even higher when I ran away.

He jumped AT me.

So we sucked him up with the dust vac.

WHY DID WE NOT JUST KILL HIM.

Next time, I am seriously killing the motherfucker. I am pretty certain that there is going to BE a next time, because I am certain that he is going to crawl out of the vacuum and wreak his vengeance upon me.

I am living in FEAR, people.

best weekend on record

2006-06-19T10:56:00.000-07:00

This weekend I:

- saw a baby crab
- got a really odd sunburn
- had my face rocked off
- took way too many photos
- watched a lot of DS9
- drank me some beers
- read some comics
- requisitioned Shandon's sister's stuff
- ate pizza
- ate chicken wings so hot that I couldn't feel my lips
- slept in late (twice)
- witnessed hilarious mid-dream circumstances
- remembered to bring my own soap
- watched even more DS9
- shared in a collaborative process
- avoided being picked up by a creepy hispanic guy
- really wanted some toast for some reason... No wait, that's right now.

damn you, genetics!

2006-06-16T09:08:00.000-07:00

I was brushing my teeth this morning, and I gagged myself on my toothbrush. This is not that odd an occurance, as genetics have cursed me with an insanely weak gag reflex (thanks SO much for that, mom,). Generally I am just sort of like 'Uuuugh, *gag* Yuk!' And go on brushing my teeth, but for some reason this particular fight with my toothbrush led to not only multiple gags, but eventually being crouched over the toilet, dry-heaving and spitting up (delicious [not]) bile, because it is morning and I haven't even had WATER yet.

Suffice it to say that now I have had some water, because bile tends to taste like, well, bile. (Which is mostly gross.)

Nothin' like throwin' up first thing in the morning!

these people are BREEDING.

2006-06-11T13:19:00.000-07:00

Some lady picked a fight with me at about 8:00pm last night, and then basically blamed the whole thing on the fact that I have purple hair.

Me: *processing trade, going through motions of polite small talk with her kid*
Kid: *bla bla bla*
Me: Okay! So after your trade, you owe $49.56.
Kid: *starts reaching in his pocket for his money*
Lady: Wait. He just traded two games. He still owes money?
Me: Yeah. 'Grand Theft Auto' was worth $17, aaaand 'need for speed' was worth $15. That's $32 all together, and with the games he wants to buy, he still owes some money. *smile*
Kid: *goes back to handing me money*
Lady: Just... wait. *glares at me* Are you sure that's right?
Me: Um, yeah. Pretty sure. *look at kid* Are you certain you wanna trade your games, dude?
Lady: Look, you don't have to be snippy.
Me: Um, okay.
Kid: *continues to give me his money, ignoring his mom*
Me: *takes the money, gives him change/bag with games*
Lady: *doing that 'glaring at you while you refuse to look at me on purpose because you can feel me glaring at you' thing*
Me: Thanks, dude.
Kid: Thank you.
Lady: God, the girls are such little bitches here.
Me: Woah. Ha, hey, um. Next time? Maybe wait to say that until you've left already?
Lady: Hey, just because you have purple hair doesn't mean you gotta have an attitude, you fucking bitch.
Me: Uh, excuse me? Okay, I think maybe you can leave now.
Lady: *random stream of curses*
Me: Yeah, again? You can go now.
Lady: What is your store manager's name?
Me: That would be me. My name is Ashley. Hi. *wave*
Lady: No. Who is your store manager, you little bitch?
Me: *blink* I am the store manager.
Lady: *speaking slowly now like I am stupid* Then I need the number of someone above you, you stupid bitch.
Me: *straining now* There's a 1-800 number on his reciept if you would like to call my corporate office.
Lady: You'll be hearing back from me, you little bitch.
Me: *I snap and finally resort to using sarcasm* Oh, I'm sure that I will. You have a wonderful night.

I can't imagine that she'll actually call anyone, because all she can really do is say 'Well I started cursing at her, and she asked me to leave.' Which is (thankfully) 100% okay according to corporate, as that would log her in as being an Abusive Customer. If she tries to lie, I had two very flabberghasted associates there who saw the whole thing (as well as a few customers, too,), and then there's that whole 'I'm done in a week anyway,' thing, and corporate can't really do anything to me at this particular juncture.

But, guys. These people. They're making smaller people. WHY.

holy shit, guys!

2006-05-30T12:27:00.000-07:00

I was in the shower, washing my hair, and out of nowhere the spider from earlier's fucking twin brother started repelling from the ceiling (Mission Impossible-style), aimed directly at my head! I don't know if he wanted revenge, or perhaps a green card to the outside like his sibling before him, but damnit!

Thank the gods for excellent peripheral vision.

Using extreme ninja prowess, I jumped to the side, and he hit the floor of the shower. I darted past him and pulled up the drain so he would fall into it, because spiders + water = death. Despite his best efforts, he was washed down the drain.

Crisis averted.

fuck!

2006-05-30T11:19:00.000-07:00

10:46am: BIG FUCKING SPIDER in my bathtub. So big that I quick-got my digicam and took pics of it for all of y'all to see. I was gonna take a shower in there! I ain't need big fuzzy spiders in there wrecking that for me!

11:09am: I am more than a bit dissapointed with the photos, as the spider isn't reading half as gigantic and fuzzy on (digital) film as he is 'irl' as the kids say these days.

Fish live in my bathtub.
Holy giant cats, batman!

I still require a plan of action to be rid of him before my shower actually occurs. (Showering with spiders = NO.)

11:14am: I decided to go all humanitarian-like and do the 'put-a-piece-of-paper-under-him-and-my-soda-glass-from-last-night-over-him-and-put-him-outside-on-the-flowers' thing, and that fucker had the audacity to try to jump on me after I took him outside to let him go!

This is the first and last time I try to be humanitarian with those things.

(Spiders are fucking killers, man.)

on coffee

2006-05-27T11:30:00.000-07:00

We recently were gifted a really old, crappy-type coffee maker at work. This prompted me to go next door and get some really excellent coffee beans, in the flavour of swiss chocolate and toasted almond. (Which, coincidentally, is my favourite ice cream flavour, and one of the only decent items to come from Texas. DO NOT TRY TO DENY THIS FACT.)

I recently looked at the coffee maker in question, and unfortunately it needs some kinda janky french filters which I am honestly far too cheap to actually try and purchase. Instead, I will bring in and use my own coffee machine, which is far superiour, and also does not use filters. (At all.)

I have to (soon) go to the store and get some sort of creamer-type stuff which is (hopefully) liquid, and also does not need to be refrigerated, as there is (unfortunately) no mini-fridge in the back room.

VICTORY SHALL BE MINE!

(I am going to drink way too much coffee, guys.)

aw, hell.

2006-05-17T22:54:00.000-07:00

As some of you know, I am a bit of a wine snob. This is a tale reguarding such.

I went to Bevmo tonight, because I was in the mood for a nice pino. (Also I really enjoy white wine. Pino tends to be delicious!) So I went there, and there were a lot of wines on sale, as there usually are. Whenever this sort of this occurs, I usually try to find a new and interesting wine, because I really enjoy trying new things. (New things are awesome.) There was a wine, bottles by Harding Estates, that sounded particularly intriquing. It boasted hints of almonds and pears and (somehow, irevicaobly,) springtime.

I decided to try it out, mostly because it was $9.99.

It is terrible. Here I sit, trying to finish as much of it as possible in one go, because, honestly, it sucks. It is dry and flavourless and awful. I have had wines for far cheaper that taste about eleven million times better.

Wilfred Wong? More like Wilfred Wrong.

neeerrrrrrdddd

2006-05-05T16:14:00.000-07:00

I admit for being a gigantic nerd for several reasons. One of them is this, which I recently posted for a geeky-cute anime forum which for some reason I still hang around:

This is my house.
In my house are several things, most importantly three characters. The first of these is a very accomplished Team Zissou Science officer (played by my boyfriend Zatokun,), the second is my zombie-eating plant (more on zombies later,) Truffles, and the third is our acting science officer, Zap-pam-whizoo the Wondercarrot, who is currently the only one doing any work.

This scene occurs smack in the middle of a full fledged zombie invasion. The forces inside (named above) have used nearly all their resources, and have had to board up the front door, blocking it with an (unfortunately) empty bookshelf and antique television. Their remaining provisions (several cans of spam and a keg of low-quality shiraz,) are stashed away in a small box and barrel (see near table,). Their only remaining weapons are six Ginsu knives which were originally a wedding present.

Unfortunately, by this point in the tale, all the wives (read: Jadeelf) have at this point been chopped into tiny bits and tossed to the zombies as a sort of half peace offering. Her (read: my) chalk outline is the only thing left to remind the men inside of her presence. The swordfish on the wall is simply a trophy of times long past, belonging to Zatokun. He would have sooner thrown Jadeelf out to the horde (and indeed, did,) than use the preserved corpse of this mighty and proud fish. ( Men. Go figure.)

The only comfort to the boys inside are the two red cushions stolen from their couch (before they chucked it out the window into the fray,) and the last vial of anti-zombie serum, which is to be administered to the last surviving member of the team, and only in the case of an extreme emergency. The letter on the table is from Publisher's Clearing House, naming Truffles the winner of a several million dollar fortune. (He intends to send the enclosed, self-addressed and stamped envelope back to them with fifty dollars as a bribe, if ever they get out of this.)

As the zombies have -for the moment anyway, become sated with the blood of the fallen Jadeelf,Officer Zatokun and Truffles are comfortably talking about how much they hate dolphins, and when the new Apricot Nine(r) computers are due to come out. (If they had not thrown out their espresso machine just prior to the current conversation, they would likely be sipping placidly while they prattle on.)

All the while Zap-pam-whizoo remains vigilantly at his lookout post, awaiting the return of the zombie front. On his laptop he is currently running (via wireless connection which he is snaking from a now-dead neighbour,) the Myspace page of his high school sweetheart, Lizzlefazzle. He awaits their ultimate demise, and the eventual death of his laptop's battery.

bleh.

2006-05-05T15:14:00.000-07:00

Getting up really early in the morning and going really far away and using up all the gas in your car to do something that you would rather not do is stupid.

I am just SAYING, is all.

hair alchemy pt 3

2006-04-28T15:28:00.000-07:00

Holy gods, guys. The highlights needed to be done twice. TWICE. so now I only really have odd streaky things in the front. These are now being treated with the light pink dye. I can only hope the works out. Here's to hoping that it might.

hair alchemy pt 2

2006-04-28T14:40:00.000-07:00

My hair is pink again, dudes. I couldn't stand the blonde any longer.

This is good because I now feel somewhat normal again, but this is bad for two reasons:

1) People at work will likely start picking fights with me again.
2) I cannot really wear red now, because it claches with my hair.

This is my head in a weird cap thing with bleach on it.
I am bleaching streaks out because I plan to make those a lighter pink, as to mix things up a bit. We shall see how this goes.

(Await pt 3 with baited breath!)

just wow

2006-04-27T11:30:00.000-07:00

Somehow through the sheer power of will I have managed to stave off a potentially (read: extremely) nasty hangover.

I woke up feeling incredibly too wretched for words, but I had to take King to work. So I went to the bathroom and popped some Ibprofren and then I somehow managed to drive King to work without incident. When I got to the mall, I parked the car and went in for some coffee, in deference to aforementioned hangover.

There is a new girl at Gloria Jeans who is sort of stupid. Making my coffee seemed to take her for(fucking)ever, so while I was waiting I had to sort of force myself to not gag and (eventually) vomit into the nearby trash can. But I managed not to. And then I got my coffee, and I trucked back to King's work, where I gave him his coffee, and then I marched back to the car. And by the time I got back to the car, I was feeling much much better.

Screw you, hangovers! I beat you!

on a side note

2006-04-22T14:54:00.000-07:00

Guys, the Silent Hill movie was just plain disturbing.

(This does not make it un-awesome, I am just saying.)

hair alchemy pt. 2

2006-04-04T21:22:00.000-07:00

My hair isn't pink/puruple anymore, people!

In a moment of desperation/weaness (I hate hate HATE the odd transitiony time between being pink and being blonde,), I picked up a bottle of my old, blonde hair dye at Safeway. And then I came home. And then I used it. The magenta goodness was completely stripped away in seconds. (Seriously, it happened right before my eyes.)

Only a small bit remains, at the very ends of my hair. Now it almost appears as if I was trying to do some sort of strawberry blonde experiment with tip-dying. I dunno, guys. It's just really different.

i been straight branded, fools.

2006-04-02T23:06:00.000-07:00

Heidi (King's mom) handed me this orange box and said 'Happy birthday!' It had a jade bracelet in it. Evidently she went all over the place looking for a bangle which was

1) small enough for my tiny, tiny wrists
and
2) also unique enough (Because things for me, apparently, have to be interesting and unique.)

At the risk of sounding too entirely girly, I really, really like it.

I had to squeeze all of my fingers together and push the bracelet down to get it on my hand, and now it is on there FOREVER. (Which is sort of the way these jade bracelet things work, as I understand.) I bruised my hand in two different places putting the thing on. (Oddly enough I am okay with this.)

I am now apparently officially Chinese. (Or at the very least as Chinese as a white girl can be.)

Observe the prettiness!

hair alchemy

2006-04-01T14:41:00.000-08:00

I haven't dyed my hair in something like a month. (I am really only doing this to see if my hair will actually turn blonde again. Also I am very, very lazy. It ought to be noted that I refuse to bleach my hair outright, because bleach = DEATH [near automatic] FOR HAIR. And my hair is already damaged enough as it is.)

So far the only bit that's turning is the very very front, and also the ends. Which are not so much turning blonde again as a sort of sunset-y orange. Believe it or not, this could honestly be misconstrewed as something I did completely on purpose. I am not at all dissapointed by the odd transtion-y phase I am going through. At the very least not at present.

Now when my ENTIRE head turns sunset-y orange, I might not be quite as okay with the state of things as I am now.

More to come, people.

v for venereal

2006-03-28T18:49:00.000-08:00

King and I went to see V for Vendetta a few nights ago, and it was fantastic.

The only reason I even bring this up is because I found myself very slightly turned on in the very beginning of the movie. Damn you, Hugo Weaving. Damn you and your hot-as-hell alliteration.

I have the day off today.

2006-03-22T13:30:00.000-08:00

I slept until 1:30 today, but I will say that this is honestly the only perk that comes with doing what I do.

Some guy came in last night (approx. twenty minutes before close,) with a very skewed view of the difference between 'customer service' and 'making Ashley bend completely backward.' He started yelling, so we called security. And then he was still upset because we wouldn't give him what he wanted, so he waited for us outside. Apparently he's going to 'sue my company' and he'll 'have my job.' (He can fucking have it, but I don't know why he would want it.) Interesting night.

my very own birthday thing

2006-03-20T21:17:00.000-08:00

I recently had a situation occur where I really wanted something, so I did one of those 'this-is-my-birthday-present-to-myself' things and bought it.

This works out because of two things.

1) I recently got my a hefty refund cheque from les government du federal.

2) It is quite honestly my birthday pretty damned quick here.

I feel more or less validated about this also, as my previous ipod (the 512mb shuffle,) is being donated to my mom so that she has something simple and awesome to use for early-morning jogs on her treadmill.

EVERYONE GOES HOME HAPPY.

(As a sidenote, I used this to come up with the name 'Mighty Defender: iPowerzam.' for my shiny new toy. I feel pretty good about this particular choice of denomination.)

quite possibly the death of me.

2006-03-09T01:19:00.000-08:00

So I am heading to the city again this weekend. (Glee!)

I am heading to the city this weekend, and I get to make it to the Presidio on my own! (Gle- wait, huh?)

No, really now. I can't rely on Jon and Shandon to bail me out every time I get lost, so this is really probably going to be a good thing, but goddamnit, its right scary, gov'neh. Do not misunderstand: I have no ends of respect for Jon for this whole tough-love-you-can-do-it-ashley thing he's got goin' here, but I might die. Or else get horribly lost. Or something.

I am even more concerned that he's like 'Oh it's only Wednesday, you don't have to panic about it,' (insert cheeky, silently-indicated 'Yet.')

What I think Mr. Sung fails to realise is that it is clearly WEDNESDAY, (nearly, in fact, Thursday,) and that means SATURDAY is fast approaching, and I only have two days (and some change) to get this all figured out and be (mostly) self-sufficient. (This is officially a matter of pride, kids.)

I've already got about three or so print-outs for the purpose of locating things, and actually had to look up Jon's address from the D-board mailing list in order to get a vague map of the area, because I don't fully trust my memory to guide me. (Because I am an IDIOT.) You might say this is overkill, but you obviously don't understand how really, truly terrible my sense of direction is. (Oh, it's bad, all right.)

All bitching aside, I am determined to make this not all end in tears. So I will. (Hopefully. But I will have my cell phone extra-charged in case.)

really excellent pants

2006-03-06T20:12:00.000-08:00

I have just had the honour and privilege to have some really terrific shopping karma.

I found cheap pants that fit and that also make my ass look FAB. I also got a few shirts. One of them has a stylized jolly rodger on. It is blue. The others are light brown (with a bird on,) and green respectively.

(That is all.)

now that i think about it...

2006-03-06T02:34:00.000-08:00

I recently realised that the only thing that I could have done without on this recent trek to the city is this odd cropping of freaking weird bug bites on my back. They are situated just below my right shoulder blade and are annoying as all hell. (They itch. Spider bites are the only thing that I am even vaguely allergic to.) I can only assume that they were made by a starving spider who really likes the taste of my blood. And who also has a thing for biting people in upside-down triangle shapes.

Goddamnit.

(the) c.s. lewis reference

2006-03-05T23:49:00.000-08:00

I went to the city this weekend and had a really substantially fabulous time for a number of reasons. Observe and be amazed. Times are approximate and likely incorrect. Except for those I was able get off my cell phone. Those are pretty damned precise. Actually now that I think of it, they're gonna get pretty fucking vague once I don't have calls on my cell phone to cheat off of anymore. Whatever. All four of you who actually read this can just deal.

Saturday, 10:25 am: I arrive in the city, a full 40 minutes earlier than my original ETA. I call Jon, who has yet to shower. So I proceed to the fancy art market bit of the fancy farmer's market on the Embarcadero and wander around. Many interesting shiny things.

11:04 am: Jon calls as he has arrived at the market. We meet up and walk around. Shandon has charged us with finding some sort of berries, which we completely fail to do. (All non strawberry-type berries were dehydrated.) Jon gets a lamb sausage (Shandon and I both agree that these are probably 'ew.') and forgets to pay for it until we had walked to the other end of the market and he had finished it, so we go back and give the dudes their money. They are (thankfully) unoffended.

Noonish: We pick up Shandon for some spectacular pizza and walk around to see a few used bookstores. I leaf through some books on Japanese design. One of them has an entire section dedicated to porn. (Poor, poor repressed Japan.) Jon attempts to talk me into buying a used copy of 'Anansi Boys,' but I am trying to be a good girl finance-wise, so I resist his e-vil horse-whispering. After this we go into a truly excellent flower/aquarium shop, which has some really interesting fish in. (My favourites are the fat tricolour goldfish. I am either really boring or entirely too easy to please.)

2 something: Stuff happens.

4 and some change: We see Nightwatch, which is just thirty kinds of spectacular. Oddly enough, my favourite bit is the subtitles. (Really awesome subtitles, people. Just see the damned film.)

5:15 and thirty-two seconds: We drop off Gabe and Ryan. Shandon opts to go to her house as she is going to make delicious cobblers of berries which are delicious. Jon and I head back to his house and drink us some water. We start watching the first season of Red vs Blue.

seven thirty (maybe): Shawn's apartment is just twenty kinds of excellent. This is only punctuated by the fact that they are allowed roof access, and are (therefore) the kings of greater San Francisco. (At least the bits that one can see from their roof, which are honestly a lot of bits.) Shandon's cobbler receives rave reviews. (I opt out because of a stomach-ache which I suffered during a great deal of the party.) The booze and tamales (the latter especially) weren't too shabby either, though I think I freaked out some party guests with my welsh accent a bit near the end. Whoops. (For those of you who don't know, this is just sort of a thing that occurs when I am a certain level of drunk.) A good party in general.

11:32: Jon and I head out as both of us are all partied out. We go home and go to bed like old people.

Sunday, 10:30am: Jon and I get up and shower. Shandon comes over, and we head to get some awesome (cheap) dim sum, and then (at my request) coffee. Ironically, the coffee cost more than my steamed pork bun. (Oh well.)

Noon something: We go back to Jon's house to watch Red vs Blue with Shandon. She sleeps through a lot of it. Jon calls around looking for people to see Ultraviolet with us, but no one seems even vaguely interested.

2:30: We go to the Kabuki theatre in Japantown to see Ultraviolet. Shandon meets up with Nate and the two of them away. Jon and I go into the theatre. He gives me a brief but informative tutorial on how not to suck at Advance Wars. We watch the movie.

4:30ish: Rain pours down the windows of the Kabuki. We leave the theatre and get slightly soggy searching for a Washington Mutual. Then we head back to Japantown proper to get some ramen, which is delicious. Jon and I agree that Ultraviolet wasn't half as bad as rottentomatoes.com made it sound. (Anything with Mila Jovovich kicking ass is fine by me.) Jon finishes my ramen.

5:15 maybe: We go to the fancy supermarket for some fancy avocados and salsa for (fancy) hot dogs later. It is still raining. A lot.

5:30 through 9:45 or so: We get back to Jon's and watch the test of season one of Red vs Blue. Then we watch season two, and then we move on to season three. Jon makes hot dogs, I crush avocados to a fine mash, and we eat fancy designer hot dogs. We stop on episode 13 of season three, vow to finish it at a later date, and make ready for me to leave the city.

10:20: I leave the city. (Much to my chagrin.)

likely only news to me

2006-02-19T23:52:00.000-08:00

I have discovered that apparently there are several Japanese television shows on our equivalent channel 8 on Sunday nights. This is only of interest because I have become suddenly enamored with a drama about some shogunate in the Tokugawa era.

I mean, holy crap. Even if I only have a vague outline of an idea of what's going on, the costumes are at the same time awesome and hilarious. You can see the bald caps on the male actors. They scrunch up occasionally when the actors get particularly expressive, and its clearly visible, despite the 'careful' use of soft-focus.

Earlier there was some show with a quirky old gal who was cooking food for people. More recently, for some reason, there is a very obvious transvestite (Most tranvestites I've seen usually have better makeup than that. I'm just saying.) trying to get people to pronounce things (correctly) that honestly don't sound all that difficult to pronounce. I don't understand any of it, and yet I am riveted.

ehhhhh.

2006-02-15T11:31:00.000-08:00

I just types a whole bunch of stuff and then deleted it.

Some days are like that, I guess.

Perhaps I ought to get an analog journal, and then I wouldn't have to delete things.

evil valentine's bear of evil

2006-02-09T00:39:00.000-08:00

What can I say? He's evil. Evil to the extreme.

There he is now, plotting your death. Every gory disturbing milisecond of it.
(He's sitting on our TV stand right now.)

Happy whatever

2006-01-29T14:13:00.000-08:00

It's Chinese New Year! Whee!

Nothing much to say right now besides the fact that last night we went to this really excellent japanese resteraunt and had the best udon ever. (Honestly people, it was delicious.) We were also treated to cheap entertainment from the chef's tiny son, who was dismantling a figure from Full Metal Alchemist and tossing the pieces around.

Good times were had by all.

Oh yeah. We got a new car as well. Real pictures to come soon, when I have actually taken them.