Thursday – At This Velocity

My birthday is this Thursday (the 6th), but I’m not excited. I’m 21, with nothing in the near future to look forward to. I’ve been pretty much wasting away. I miss Buffalo only because my cat is there. I don’t even know what’s going on with me and Justin these days, things have sucked for way too long in that department.

Yesterday my brother Joey and I set off Works bombs around town. We did it right by this one gas station, which is next to a nursing home – they must have shit themselves, it sounded like one of the pumps blew up. I’m in my twenties, but somehow this seems okay. When we were walking back up our street we heard this teenage group of skaters being pussies (nothing exciting happens here), they thought someone got shot, so I said “It’s just Works bombs” – “Who did it?” – “Me and my brother.” – “Do it again!” – “Tomorrow.”. The best part of these bombs is the reaction, so we always stick around to hear the loud “Holy shit!”s and “What the fuck was that?!”s. I hadn’t made any of these little chemical bombs since I was 16 or 17, back when I was still dating John and we’d terrorize the neighborhood. It’s fun, you should do it! We’re going to try glass spaghetti sauce bottles next, I am thinking it will send shards of glass in every direction since it can stand more pressure than the plastic soda bottles, so we’ll do it in a field to test it first.

About 2 weeks ago I got the new DVD/CD from Thursday in the mail, it’s amazing to see and hear the history behind the band. It’s funny that even though I like mainly “heavier” bands these days, my favorite remains the very post-hardcore sound of Thursday. I love Geoff Rickly!

There’s a lot of useless shit to blog about. Shopping, drama with “friends”, changes… but I’m not up to writing about it, and you’re probably not up to reading/commenting about it. So this is the end of the post, sucka.

Anatomy of a Ghost – Streetlights, Empty Wells

My birthday was nice and low-key. I don’t drink so there was no bar involved or anything like that, just family and food. My mom was supposed to take me shopping and to the salon for my birthday, but the roads have been so bad with the snow and everything that we couldn’t drive. Hopefully we will go tomorrow. My brother gave me a new dvd burner with lightscribe, so I can label my dvds with that instead of printing out sticky labels the old fashioned way. Justin sent something through the mail I think, so I don’t know what he got me yet. My father called and said he sent me money in a card, which also hasn’t arrived yet. So my birthday will continue for another few days it looks like

I’ve decided that I need to save this blog from it’s imminent demise. I continue to blog only twice a month and don’t bother to comment back as religiously as I once did. I used to be #3 when you did a search for “Ashley” in yahoo & google. I am a good 15 spots below that now, and it’s awful. This blog has been open since 2004 and I hate how my depression has made me stop caring for it. Soooo, perhaps this will play into my New Year’s resolution!

EDIT: This is my 300th entry!

Ed Gein - A Conflict of Interest

Today I hung around online and kept warm in my PJs (yes it’s still fucking snowing, grr!). I thought the day was a total loss until I turned on the TV…

I ended up watching an Australian movie called Somersault (2004) that was on the Sundance channel. Apparently it was the first time being shown on American television. The last Aussie film I watched was Wolf Creek and I couldn’t understand what the fuck they were saying. Anyway, I liked it a lot and found it depressing to watch. It reminds me of Thirteen, but with less dialogue (and not quite as dysfunctional, haha). It didn’t really go into depth with the characters, which I thought sucked. Anyway, I have read this is a huge movie “down under”, winning all kinds of awards. Some reviews I read claimed it is “over rated”, but I thought it was good. If you’re American you have probably not heard of it, so go Netflix it!

To be totally immature and gross for a second, there was this hot lanky guy getting naked in one scene. He’s a (relatively unknown) actor named Toby Schmitz, and he’s so yummy. He has this haircut which is sort of 80’s skater (think Gleaming The Cube) meets art student. It’s a pity I can’t find any more info on him to fuel my crush

What is the world coming to? Actually, this is fucking hilarious: some asshole blew up this Jeep that was parked right around the corner from my house. It was late at night and for 5 minutes we hear this loud noise, so finally we decide to check it out. At first, I thought it was just someone’s alarm. Well my brother comes back inside and tells me that a car exploded… and the fire department is hosing it down. This is probably the coolest thing that’s happened in a one block radius of my mom’s house all winter long (besides my homemade pressure bombs, of course). So we’re all freezing outside in our pajamas, the really old people are still inside sleeping through it (about half my block), and so it’s just my family and the Puerto Ricans (the other half of my block) standing around, watching this Jeep go up in smoke. Of course I remembered to grab my camera before heading out the door, and took some photos and a couple video clips… just for memories My mom is convinced it’s a drug-related crime because the Jeep belonged to these scumbags who are known dealers.

Anyway, just a couple weeks ago this little night club on the main strip burned down (also taking one of our thirft stores with it) and it was suspected arson… and now this Jeep thing happens. People, there is a terrorist in this coal mining town omgz!!!1 No, I’m kidding, I just think the crazies are getting bored.

In slightly less exciting news, my mom and I did my birthday shopping thing back on the 9th. I made out pretty well. Now, I’m just hanging around eating some lime sherbert and watching Pulp Fiction for the 90th time, because they never rotate the fucking movies on these pay channels.

I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness - Dash

I’ve been tinkering with Wordpress as well as some of my content, which has directly led to my very late nights. I rediscovered a section on this site that listed my favorite things, and they hadn’t been updated since 2004… needless to say, I’ve changed a little since then. I updated it, but saved the original copy because it was amusing to look back at how young and “trendy” I was. Anyway, it has really gotten me into updating. I think I’d like to write some more satirical articles, because the ones I have are rather old and the thing’s I’m mocking have drastically changed in the last 2 years (such as emo). If only I had some new ideas!

I wanted to blog yesterday, and the day before that as well, I just suffer from writer’s block. It’s funny because this blog is basically just personal, day-to-day activities, emotions, opinions, etc… but I’m even blocked when it comes to writing about my daily routine. What is there to say? I ate a fluffernutter sandwich… I watched a movie… I talked on the phone… I went grocery shopping. There are so many gaps in my life, and so few adventures.

January is around the corner, and I need to fill out the fafsa form. At this point, I’m planning on moving away from Buffalo and back to PA to pursue college closer to home, by the end of summer 2008. I could go to a school in Buffalo NY, but I wanted to start at a community college and then transfer to a 4 year. The problem with this is that I’m not sure if I can commit to Buffalo for another 2 years. The only person I have up here is Justin, and our relationship has been rocky and unpredictable lately. If I were to attend a college in NY for 1 year and then Justin and I suddenly have a falling out, I have no where to go and no one to depend on and I can not simply move back home to PA because the college credits from Buffalo will not transfer to a college in Pennsylvania. It is a very tricky situation. I’ll need to discuss things in-depth with Justin, but he has been avoiding all conversations I try to initiate about “us”, a typical male tactic.

Updates: I added 13 more songs to the radio. I updated my owned movies list and added my WP plugins list to the credits page. The sidebar now shows a random movie quote and lists my top 3 albums of last week (via last.fm).

At The Drive-In - Honest To A fault

Yeah, that’s a Nietzsche quote. Fuck you

Seven more days until Christmas. For the record, I’m not excited. It’s been snowing, as is expected with the winter months. I wish I could say there’s a heat wave or something, because that might be more interesting as far as blog entries go, but there’s just been a small nor’easter this past weekend.

I was enjoying my break away from Buffalo, but now I’m finally starting to miss Justin (it only took two months) I really miss our movie nights.

I’ve completely fallen in love with At The Drive-In. Those lyrics, oh my god, I love interpreting them. I can recall the breakup of the band (2001), and how it was rather “uncool” to listen to them back then because of their slight mainstream success, but I’m not 15 anymore and can admit publicly that they’re just amazing. (I’ve never been crazy over The Mars Volta though, but Justin likes them.) Anyway, I can’t stop playing their fucking records! I’ve been in this emo mood the past two weeks, so it’s lots of Sunny Day Real Estate and The Promise Ring, ha! Certain music switches me into nostalgia mode and I can’t stop reminiscing. I fear that I’ll never let go I never get into “new” bands, and every year more of my favorites break-up. Eventually, there will be no shows left to go to. For example, I cried when The Blood Brothers broke up last month. A lot of people over on punknews.org have been saying what a bad year for music it’s been

Have any of your favorite bands broken up this year?

At The Drive-In - Picket Fence Cartel

I had to get to the mall today because it was the last day for this sale at Bath & Body Works , but it snowed like crazy so I had to take the bus. My mom won’t drive in bad weather, which is understandable. Anyway, the fucking bus was 20 minutes late both to and from the mall… which is 40 minutes spent standing out in the freezing weather. It ain’t easy being po’!

Haha, anyway – I got this crazy deal at Bath & Body Works. Last time I was in there, my mom bought me some stuff for my birthday and they gave me this coupon card which was for $10 off a purchase of $30 or more. but it gets better: They had a sale in the store where if you buy 3 items from the “signature collection” (all the classics), you get one item free. So I bought body spray, hand creme and body lotion and then got body wash for free… plus they took off the $10 from that card. So I got $42 worth of product for $21!!! I’m so happy about this, can’t you tell? So anyway, I’m finished Christmas shopping for my mother

What is this disturbing news about Jamie Lynn Spears getting knocked up? I watched E News before heading to the mall and was just… disgusted . She’s 16 years old! Not only that, she’s supposed to be this wholesome little Christian from the south. Well I guess we won’t need to worry about becoming bored with Britney now that she’s cleaning up her act – her lil’ sis is following so close behind and will likely fill Brit’s shoes in no time.

Anyway, this is no celebrity blog, but I thought that was worth mentioning. It’s a lot more shocking than Jessica Alba being pregnant. At least the girl is out of high school for Christ’s sake…

Don’t you miss when you still believed in Santa Claus? Your mom or dad would ring some bells and you’d get so excited, thinking Santa’s sleigh was parked on the roof. Or how you’d leave cookies on the table for old Saint Nick himself, with some carrots for his reindeer, and to your amazement, they’d all be gobbled up by morning. We never questioned how Santa could possibly eat all those cookies and not be full… I mean, everyone else on your block put out cookies too, right?

Something I think is funny is how all of the shows on TV showed Santa’s elves in the workshop making wooden toys, porcelain dolls, jack-in-the-boxes and such – but as kids we never saw those types of “golden age” toys. We always got barbies and race cars and video game systems packaged tightly in cardboard and plastic. These were obviously things not made by human (or elf) hands. If the things didn’t say “made in China” right on the box (a far cry from the North Pole) then they were marked with Sony or Mattel, but surely never “Santa’s Workshop”.

What about all those mall Santas? They looked different every year. Sometimes you’d see 2 or 3 right next to each other, with different beards, different suits, different heights and weights, some were black, some were white… I’m not sure how we never wondered about them. Perhaps we were told they were just “helpers”, and that the “real” Santa came only on Christmas Eve. I really can’t remember. Parents have to be awesome liars and storytellers to think this shit up. I would give anything to, once again, have that childlike belief in something magical. Oh, to not have a care in the world! I must say that I can not wait until I have a family of my own and can do these same little things, share these same traditions; it seems like so much fun.

The Jews rejoice!

Of course I had to go shopping today like everyone else in America, it’s the 26th! I hit up the mall, especially The Bon-Ton (which is essentially just Macy’s or JCPenney) and my mom and I got some nice deals. Victoria’s Secret had the bra sale going on, so I bought one and got a second at 50% off, which worked out well enough for me. I sort of have this habit of getting lazy and not wanting to hand-wash my bras and other delicates, so I just throw them in the washer (I even dry them on high – eek!) and then I complain when they don’t last, get ruined, lose their shape, etc. Anyway, I’ve vowed to be more careful with that because buying new bras all the time gets expensive and like I mention with every post: I’m still poor.

I’m glad I got my mom to come shopping, because she always uses any money she gets as gifts during the holidays for bills or for other people. So I sort of coaxed her into splurging on this beautiful $68 bathrobe and I’m happy because she so deserves it. Why are mothers like that? They’re so selfless and usually the first to sacrifice something for the welfare of everyone else.

I ordered some stuff online for Justin on the 6th (it was shipped either the 10th or 14th) but the package still hasn’t arrived. I’m getting nervous – do you think it may have gotten lost in the mail? It’s a scary thought, because I could have gotten insurance for pretty cheap but decided I didn’t need it.

Justin has been speaking of moving back to Philadelphia, which is pretty exciting. He has this obsession with his area (western NY state), but I love my area too so it’d be nice to move back eventually, within the next couple years. Of course, this is all just chatter, but for a while he was completely opposed to the idea when I’d whine about missing Philly. Hey who knows what will happen with us in the next few years. Things are looking up – but will it last?