Professionalism

I'm not ready to blog about anything.

I got an ironing board, iron, skillet, and ice cube trays today. Pumped on domestication. Siked on camping this weekend.

FULLY STOKED ON THANKSGIVING DINNER.

Hope things start working out on the professional side.

the thing about motocross...

I mean it's definitely balls out and insane because of the amount of air they get, but I feel like these dudes never get super hurt. They wear a complete safety suit at all times, and if something doesn't feel right on a trick they just bail out and fall maybe 20 feet onto dirt. I'm not saying you can't get fucked up or that it's like landing on a fluffy pillow, but look at moto crashes compared to BMX and Skateboard crashes. THAT shit fucks you up. Dirt bikes just take speed and once you're in the air you just twist around and shit until you start coming down then you get back in a riding position. When you are in the air for upwards of 5 seconds there is plenty of time to think things through. Hauling ass to approach a rail or stairset and only having about a half second of hang time to decide if you should commit or bail takes a WAY bigger dick. Especially since most of these people aren't wearing helmets, let alone full body protection. I don't know about you, but I'd rather fall onto some dirt and watch my motorcycle fly safely into the horizon than face plant on a rail with my 20" bicycle in tow because my ankle is wrapped up in the chain.

big ups

the weird thing about the economy

Trust me, I know it sucks. I'm unemployed right now. Ask me how many places I've applied in the past month. I don't even know the answer because it's so high. Heres what puzzles me though..

All the headlines I see say things like "S&P 500 at TEN YEAR LOW" or "Wall St. Sinks to lows not seen since 2003".

If motherfuckers were this bad off in 97 and pulled back out of it, I REALLY don't think thats anything to sweat over. That was barely over a decade ago and even with George W. in power for the past 8 years we've only sunk back to those levels? come on now. get real.

If you said "Wall St. at lows not seen since 1939" well then NOW I'm shitting my pants.

Bottom Line....A picture of some gooney, spiky haired, Armani suit wearing, yuppie broker looking distraught because his Delta Airlines stock dipped another 5 points makes me think everyone in NYC is a snooty little drama queen with nothing better to do but bitch about numbers on a piece of paper.

You assholes are the ones who created this mess in the first place and now we're giving you billions of dollars to (HOPEFULLY) fix it.

I'm just saying, there are much worse things going on in the world than reliving the mid-to-late Nineties.

For all you coffee heads...

I don't know if you guys have tried Cafe Bustelo espresso ground coffee, but it's pretty damn good. I first laid eyes on the rather plain yellow+red can back in Richmond at Kuba Kuba. I don't remember ever trying it there, but since moving to CA and living on a budget, Beth and I have been buying it on a regular basis to sooth our caffeine addictions and it is quite good. I can't see myself living the rest of my life with a cup of it in my hand, but for right now I'm happy enough.

the past two days of my blog

have been way too political. I support everything I said, but the last thing I want to read on somebody's blog is (more or less) irrelevant political opinions, so I should probably stop posting my own here.


cheers

ashton

Hm

Obama seems to be catching some flak for his staff picks because a lot of them were part of the Clinton administration. Apparently some people were expecting his "change" policy to mean comprising his White House of 100% brand new faces overnight. While not a political scientist, I feel like even I know better than to expect/want something like that to happen.

For starters, lets remember that Clinton's years were marked a terrific success, and even amidst his scandal he was still ranked the most approved president of the past 70 years by the American public. Secondly, as pointed out by news sources, the last Democrat president before Clinton was Jimmy Carter, and most of his staffers are either passed on or retired from politics.

Also, most of the Clinton people that Obama has tapped will be doing different jobs than what they did 8 years ago. Obviously the world has changed TREMENDOUSLY since then and I feel like they will definitely have different, more current goals and agendas.

In the end, we're just going to have to wait and see what kind of a job Obama does, but I am still 100% on his band wagon and I don't give a shit what some ass hole like Ayman al-Zawahiri has to say about it.

Funny head lines...

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/11/18/endeavour.spacewalk/index.html

I posted a HILARRRRRRRIOUS myspace bulletin questioning why this astronaut was so disliked by others and so publicly ridiculed.

actually i was probably the only person who thought it was funny....

welcome to my life

Rosemary

The poor man's pickle...


I whipped up a sandwich today with a generous amount of this herb and I could've been fooled into thinking there was actually a pickle hiding between that bread.

fuckin a brother

ps

Hows this for a doozie


Say Johnny McRepublican has the power to go forward in time and finds out his unborn child will be a raging homosexual. Does he encourage his wife to get an abortion or does he come to accept that gays are people too...


YOU DECIDE!
(thats the power of being pro choice, my friends..)

Gloomy day

for no good reason my mood was just kind of down today. I went for a run and ate a pretty balanced diet of cereal, salad, and grilled cheese. I sent out a few emails and resumes, but only managed to apply in person at one place. I went in a few others, but none of them were hiring. I should have kept up my trek but I decided to wait until tomorrow so I could get myself in a better state of mind.

The whole Church/State thing with abortion and gay rights is getting so much coverage right now I almost want to say "stop! I'm fed up!" but I know that this is exactly what I("we") can NOT do. Right now is an incredibly important time in history because the majority of the country is satisfied in our new president elect and we have proven to ourselves that the U.S. Government is NOT immune to change and forward thinking. We have finally been shown the true power of democracy and that as long as we stand up together we CAN make things happen and turn this country/world around!

I am lucky in one respect because I don't have any friends or close relatives who are anti gay marriage, but at the same time this is unfortunate because it means I don't have the ability to help convince anyone I care about to understand what they are doing by supporting such an incredibly bogus law. It blows my mind that the people who accused Obama of being a Marxist for using the phrase "spread the wealth" have imposed laws that mirror that of Communism themselves (homosexual relations are not productive for the society as a whole). It also blows my mind that African American voters came out SO heavily opposed to gay rights. They are the most recently oppressed group of people in American history, why would they(the majority that voted homophobicly) wish their past hardships (and even current in some areas!) on anybody else!? The word is ignorance. So over used, yet so applicable. I'm not going to speculate based on stereotypes why this happened, but it is very clear that we as a nation need to once again reevaluate our "morals" and remember that a human is a human is a human.

And while I've got your ear, I think it's terrific that Obama is consulting Mccain politically. I think he would be a fool to not have. Beyond the fact that Mccain obviously has some valuable knowledge, it just shows good sportsmanship and serves as more reason why our next President is a worthy role model. However, fuck you Sarah Palin, I still hate you and hope you never bother the lower 48 with your presence ever again.

Quick to make, Hard to fuck up

this post is about salad dressing. oil and vinegar based salad dressing, of course.

I've been cooking a lot in CA and today decided to branch out into the world of salad dressing(a place Beth goes, but I had not yet).

To start off, i googled a few recipes to get a good feeling for what to use and what to avoid. There really wasn't much I had to worry about avoiding, so i knew I had free reign to throw some curve balls.

My first salad dressing!
None of the recipes gave exact amounts of their ingredients, so in the spirit of anarchy I declined to record mine too.
There was maybe a 2:1 ratio of Oil to Vinegar, but I also had about a 2:1 Vinegar to White Wine goin on.
After adding roughly a 1:1 Vinegar to Dijon Mustard, my liquid base was finalized.

Theres a solid 3, maybe 4 cloves of garlic and about an equal amount of Rosemary, Thyme, and Basil floatin around.

Of course I added some black pepper, a pinch of salt, and a strategic amount of crushed red pepper.
Can't forget that Parmesan cheese either....

My heart was yearning for some of the Peppercini water from the jar in the fridge, but I dowsed that flame of lust with a promise of next time.

After shaking and rattling the concoction about, I had to test test it and dear lord did my momma not raise a fool. My ego is soaring and I can't wait to show it off on Beth's next salad.

About damn time somebody made a decision...

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/11/16/security.pact.vote/index.html

It really bums me out

that Heath Ledger will not be in any more movies.


:/

Gay Rights March today

check out beth's blog for details and pictures, but the jist of it is that we partook in a community based activity speaking out against the recent outlaw of gay marriages in california. There were some great picket signs out there. "Protect marriage, ban divorce" "I'll allow your marriage, why won't you allow mine?" "Mormon hate, get out of our state" the list goes on.

I was really impressed with the short speeches at the end of the march, basically asking people to stay involved and keep the faith(DFTS DFTS). but also not to let hate take over your heart and be teachers to the people who supported the passing of this law instead of alienating them and providing them with a reason to continue their discrimination.


It felt good to participate in something worthwhile. I hope to get more involved in the future

last night was awesome

Last night we all met up at Ky's with the intention of pulling an all nighter which would lead to going to Shakespeare's for the Man. U. vs Arsenal game and their famous English Breakfast at 4:30am. After ordering a couple of pizzas and cracking a couple of beers(I also introduced them to Double Espresso Vodka and it was a big hit), we sat down for a friendly game of Asshole. Travis and I had to google the rules (N00BZ) and even though I'm pretty sure we stilled missed a couple, the game went smoothly and a good time was had by all. I brought over Teenagers From Uranus and I think they all enjoyed it so I'm going to try and get a copy of T.F. Marz. I met a couple more people(always cool) and got the lowdown on a secret show happening(which will be awesome).

Today,
I was supposed to have orientation at the Science Museum for my volunteer position, but it got cancelled. kind of a bummer, but the woman emailed me and said we could do one sometime soon. I'm pretty stoked on this for a bunch of reasons, but especially for the "free IMAX passes". WOOHOO!

I also have a volunteer job with a theater group on sunday afternoon. Hopefully it'll give me a chance to meet some people and maybe i can remind them that I need a day job....

BRUNCH TOMORROW WILL BE PRIME!

IT WAS TRUE!

there really was free beer(only one pint, but shit!!) and FREE HOT WINGS!! and jalapeno poppers and cheese/crackers. this is the best club in the world. the only thing that sucked was that it wasnt really a social event. everybody just got a wrist band and then stayed with their own tables. not too many people our age either, it was a lot of yuppies. fuggit!!

beth is on the way to an interview at an italian restaurant right now, then shes going to another one at a victoria's secret. she hasn't heard back from the seating company(kind of lame, they aren't very good at communication) so I don't know exactly how it's going to work out, but i think she will beat me to the punch with having a job.


Last night!
last night Beth and I met up with Justin and Rick at a bar called McMurphy's. This place is pretty awesome. They were friends with the owner and the girl bar tending (both seemed super chill and loved talking about/letting us try different beers). They have a digital jukebox which Rick and Justin have a hand in stocking with an appropriate punk/hiphop/ska collection. I found a couple of Bane, Madball, and H20 songs which tickled my fancy, but I spent my last selection on Ace of Spades by Motorhead. Come on, this IS america. Tonight is the Arsenal v Man U. game and theres a party at Ky's house for it. I'll also be introducing them to Day By Day(they'll be stoked). OH!!

one more thing!!

There is a liquor mega store here. I cant remember the name of it, but its an average 7-11 size but it is floor to ceiling liquor. theres a library ladder they use to grab bottles. wild

sorry if this was kind of a mess. my brain is right now. i really have to go to the bathroom!!!

Job Fairs are bullshit

Today we went to a Jobseekers.com "job fair". First of all, I don't know where the hell "jobseekers.com" popped up from but if I thought the website was useless and clusterfucked, I was even more surprised to see what a shit shamble their "real life job fair" was. Talk about fucked up. All it was was a bunch of booths set up by different corporations telling you what open positions they currently had. I know, that sounds legit, but the thickness of it lies in the facts that 1)the rep's weren't even taking resumes and 2) the reps had about a minute worth of schpiel they would recant and then tell you to go to their websites and apply online.

what a waste!

i'm disappointed.

at least we got a good deal on cereal when we went to the grocery store later.


and we're about to go to a "free beer club" event that i scored access to online. wonder what the catch is. i'll let you know...

Tomorrow this will all be over

But regardless of what happens, January can't come soon enough!!!

by the way

Forgetting Sarah Marshall is one of the most originally funny movies to come out in years. Its fucking gold plated comedy. Please please please rent/buy/download this movie so you can agree with me. Brilliant.

Indian food

holy shit. can you say "yes please, give me more?" i sure as fuck can. Today was my first experience with Indian food and I had the pleasure of dining on it in the Brunch setting. For 12 bucks a pop, you get all you can eat buffet/all you can drink champagne at The India Princess restaurant in Hillcrest. I'm not sure why, but there was only one other table occupied during our entire feeding session. The food was very very good and I plan on going back for other meals throughout the upcoming weeks/months/years. Not much else happened today, but I really just wanted to blog.

Saturday

Yesterday was great. I'm going to skim over the day and then go into details starting at around 9:30pm. Beth and I went to Pacific Beach and walked around a bit. Later, we met up with Mel and Casey for sushi and then went back home for a bit. Beth was volunteering at the art museum for the grand opening of a kimono exhibit until 9, and I hung out at Casey's bar with her and Mel reading People magazine and exchanging the latest on celebrity gossip (one of my strongest conversation subjects) until our friends started arriving.

-approx. 9:30 pm...

Ky winning the double whammy of a stuffed platypus/Superman bling necklace from the claw machine set a definite tone for the rest of the night. It wasn't too long after this that the fooseball table had gained a ceiling and two triangles of half full beer cups. I don't remember who made up each team, but I do remember the first game lasted well over 10,000 years because we observed the standard "10,000 year re-rack" rule. By the end of the second game, 3 permanent markets had seasoned the table with off color pictures and silly comments. By this point in the evening, we were deep in the process of inventing a soon-to-be-classic pub game involving guessing the airline names of the landing planes(the airport is right next to downtown san diego) and conducting a survey of which airline passing trannis prefer to fly.(theres a transsexual bar right down the street). We still haven't hammered all the in's and out's of this game yet, but I will keep you informed on any progress made. Around midnight, Casey closed the bar and we all headed over the the Cherry Bomb.

It was my first time at this bar and I was definitely impressed. For starters, the juke box had options ranging from Cro-mags to FEAR to Social D to Negative Approach. I was also interested to hear from multiple attendees that the bar tenders have a generous hand when it comes to liquor. The atmosphere/clientele reminded me very much of Empire, minus the smoke and plus a few pool tables. Remind me to take you there when you come out to visit, Richmonders.

As 1 am approached, it seemed everyone was getting tired so we made loose brunch plans for the morning and went our different ways.

Speaking of loose brunch plans, it's about time to water the basil plant and nail down those details so i will leave you with this!!!

HALLOWEEN!!!

Last night was awesome. Best Halloween in years. It started off with a good nap and then turned towards a whiskey-ginger and a salad. After watching an episode of Family Guy, we were out the door on the way to the famous San Diego Critical Mass. It was right about now that I realized my rear tire was flat. WTF!? So pissed!!! In a fashionably tipsy rush, I did my best to patch the hole, but gave up after the glue refused to dry quickly. I put my all my eggs in one basket and hopped on my questionably functional BMX bike. The loose chain and lack of brakes really didn’t interfere with my ride as much as you might think! I had my doubts on a couple of the big hills, but everything ran swimmingly. CM here is everything I had hoped it would be, really really fun. I’m really not good at estimating crowds, but I’d say there were a ton of riders and some really great costumes. Over an hour into the ride, we looped back up through North Park and Beth and I decided to call it quits due to full bladders and a huge decrease in ridership sneaking up from the back. Where that train officially derailed, I do not know. So anyways, we take a quick breather and, before we know it, are back on our bicycles and steering towards a house party a few blocks away. We arrive at __________(don’t remember his name but he was dressed up like a sexy referee)’s house, which was really nice, and begin shooting the Halloween shit with some friends. The next thing I know, we’re taking shots and meeting new people like it’s our fucking job. This is great! Later on, we would depart the mothership in small groups and head over to the Radio Room bar for a Ramones, Misfits, Screeching Weasel, Kiss cover show. Leroy and I would have a surprisingly mature conversation about growing up and politics while Beth and his girlfriend and Mel seemed to be having their own party closer to the actual bar. Some how I got more drunk without even having to purchase a drink, and we jammed to the SW band before deciding it was time for some chow. Beth and I headed towards Rudford’s(read: 4th street diner) while the others continued on to another party. I almost wish we had gone, but I was pretty tired and not handling my bike so well. After stuffing our faces at Rudford’s, we made it home(safely) and turned ourselves in for the night. I woke up feeling great other than this entire hamburger sitting restlessly in the depths of my stomach. I’m not sure why it refuses to digest, but I’m more worried about the fact that our internet is not working. I suppose it will be by the time you read this though, so I’ll just try to remember who all said they wanted to get sushi today.