Bryce.Ashland.name
Just so you know, this will be the last post on this site. From now on, please see drawingaline.com for more of my blogging. This site will be up for a few more months, but just to point you to my new site. Thanks for reading.
I got my first comment since comments have been turned off!! Like I said, I will post the comment:
Your comments about Network News shows is interesting. I haven't watched a network program in years. For that matter, I never saw Friends, 90210, Raymond, Changing Places, Survivor nor any other ABC, NBC, CBS shows since MASH left the airways. Since we got Broadband, almost all my hard news comes from FOX or CNN. For serious political commentary I read the Drudge Report. On cable I flip between CNN, Fox or my one true source of important breaking news...The Golf Channel.
Regarding Jennings, Brokaw or that guy from CBS that quit…. Walter Cronkite they weren’t. They may have wanted to be, but they never lived up to the standard set by Walter…that is why for many years he was considered the most trusted person in America.
-Bert
See, it seems that network news died a long time ago either with the absence of Walter or the institution of 24 hour cable news channels. And people haven't been watching the networks since.
CNN.com (where I get all my news) has an article about Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, and his outspoken views of the US:
Chavez: U.S. will 'bite the dust' if it invades
The U.S. government has strongly denied Chavez's claims that it is considering military action against Cuba's closest ally in the Americas.
But Chavez said late Monday that the U.S. government, which "won't stop caressing the idea of invading Cuba or invading Venezuela," should be warned of the consequences.
"If someday they get the crazy idea of coming to invade us, we'll make them bite the dust defending the freedom of our land," Chavez said to applause.
Does he read the news? I mean, where was he the past while? Did he forget that, village idiot or not, we have the most powerful military in the world? I can't speak for our retard in charge, but just because we have a huge military, doesn't me we are going to use it on him. And I know our recruitment is down and Georgie Worgie is spreading us thin, but I think he would be stoopid to invade a 14th country in the past 4 years. Hopefully he learned that we need our overwhelming numbers to be successful. Oh yeah, he was missing during his tour in Vietnam - I mean Alabama. He missed that lesson. Well, our Air Force is pretty powerful....
He spoke during the opening ceremony of a world youth festival bringing together student delegations from across the world and convened under the slogan "Against Imperialism and War."
So he is making all of these claims and saying he is going to take us down to a bunch of kids? Yeah, that's the crowd to talk to about that...
Chavez called the United States the "most savage, cruel and murderous empire that has existed in the history of the world."
In the history of the world?!?! What about Hitler and killing the Jews? Or all of the other genocides? The Armenian genocide? Cambodia? Kosovo? Rwanda? Sierra Leone? And farther back... The Romans and Chinese had HUGE empires. And the Mongolian and the Huns I don't think were slouches.
The Venezuelan leader said "socialism is the only path," and told the students the collective goal is to "save a world threatened by the voracity of U.S. imperialism."
He keeps mentioning our imperialism, and now is contrasting it to socialism? What does socialism have to do with imperialism? You can have both. Socialism isn't the solution to imperialism.
Earlier, the students waved flags, danced in traditional dress, and held signs praising socialism, Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Ernesto "Che" Guevara.
More than 300 students from the United States shouted out their disapproval of U.S. President George W. Bush, chanting "Get out Bush!" Other students chanted: "Bush, fascist -- you're a terrorist!"
Uh, yeah. Maybe I am a wuss, but I am not sure, as an American, that I would have gone to Venezuela, knowing how their president feels. I mean I agree with disapproving with Bush, but I wouldn't go to Venezuela to voice my opinion.
Some 15,000 youths from 144 countries traveled to Venezuela for the weeklong festival and conference, organizers said.
Chavez wore a red shirt like many of the students, and embraced delegation leaders as their groups marched past.
The ceremony was held in Venezuela's military headquarters in Caracas. Troops looked on while students passed carrying colored flags and shouting: "We will overcome!"
Did I mention that I wouldn't have gone to Venezuela, kid or not? Now we find out they are in the military headquarters and are surrounded by troops? And their parents signed the fieldtrip waiver?!
This year's World Festival of Students and Youth is the 16th. The first, in 1947, was held in Czechoslovakia, and during the Cold War most host countries were aligned with the Soviet bloc.
Apart from the former Soviet Union, other host countries have included Romania, Poland, Finland, Cuba, the former East Germany and North Korea.
The weeklong gathering will include musical performances, panel discussions and an "Anti-imperialist Court," which in past years has condemned the U.S. government's actions.
While tensions have grown between Chavez and Washington, the Venezuelan leader has built close ties with countries from Iran to China.
Chavez expressed his support Monday for Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, saying he expects to continue strengthening relations. Chavez said like Venezuela, Iran is a country that has been "attacked" for many years by "the hand of imperialism."
I know I am not up to date on my history, but when was the last time Venezuela or Iran were imperialized? I can't remember.
Chavez, whose country remains a major supplier of oil to the United States, also is sharply critical of the U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Well, there you go. I'm done.... a bit tired as you may have noticed.... off to bed for me.
CNN.com reported today that some guy named Lee in South Korea died after playing video games for 50 hours "straight."
Now, he didn't really play 50 hours straight. He slept for short periods and he used the facilities.
I know what they are trying to imply.... that he died from playing video games for so long. Not so!! If you read the last line.....
After he failed to return home, Lee's mother asked his former colleagues to find him. When they reached the cafe, Lee said he would finish the game and then go home, the paper reported.
He died a few minutes later, it said.
So you see, he didn't really died from playing the games. He died from stopping to go home! So word to the wise.... don't ever stop playing video games to go home because you will die!!!!
I'm trying hard to brainstorm about cool career ideas. I have only come up with a few so far. Here is what I have and why..
Navy - Exciting, adventure, travel, see world, active, gain leadership qualities, gain confidence, humanitarian, expand knowledge and education
Coast guard - same as navy but no seeing the world, less travel, less humanitarian, expanding education less likely
Large company event planner - Exciting, creative, deal with people, improve employee morale, help people have fun, somewhat active
Restaurant/Hotel Management - active, exciting, customer service,
You can kind of get an idea for what qualities I am looking for in a career. Any ideas? Please email me.... bryceashland@yahoo.com
I was driving to get dinner tonight and it reminded me of something I realized in the past..... there is just about everything near my house(within 1-2 miles). I live near Harbor and Orangethorpe in Fullerton. I thought it would be fun and interesting to challenge everyone to think of a restaurant/store or type of restaurant/store that isn't near me. Like if you said mexican food, I would say El Torito. If you said Staples, I would say Office Depot because I can get everything from Staples at Office Depot. Now, before you go, I already found a glitch. I don't have a mall within that distance. There are a few within 5-10 miles, but none within 1-2 so you can't pick stores that are only found in malls such as Victoria's Secret or Lids. But I think I could find items found in those store near my house. So let's try it out. And, Grant, you don't count. Not fair. Sorry. Maybe I will buy you lunch if you can stump me (since most people that read this and will respond are people I see often). Oh yeah, and no comments.... email me at bryceashland@yahoo.com. I will post your ideas along with my answers.
I got in the car on the way home and flipped through the radio stations programed on my stereo and landed on 97.1. It was the Tom Leykis show. He was introducing his topic for the 5-6 hour. The topic was Peter Jennings, and his death, and how it is viewed. His opinion was that since the growth of the internet, the only people that watch network news (not local news and not cable news) were the older generations. Why would people watch the network news when they had read all of the news on the internet throughout the day? Why wait through the commercials and bad hooks when you could get on the internet and have all of the news in 10 seconds? So Tom was claiming that the death of Peter Jennings was not as big a hit to the News industry as people were making it out to be. He went on an on for 20 or so minutes about this before taking calls. I believe he does this because he needs to fill the hour and knows he won't get that many calls. Anyway, this was the first time I wanted to call, but since I tend to clam up on the air, and forget my thoughts, I decided to put them here.
First, I wanted to say that I agreed with him to a certain extent. I don't watch the network news. When I do watch news on TV it is CNN or something on cable. But that is really rare. I usually get my news off of CNN.com. And by the way, cnn.com sucks at news. I would appreciate any input people have about where I can get unbiased worthwhile news about the world. CNN.com never changes it seems. I am sure there is something newsworthy going on all the time in different parts of the world, but cnn.com sure as hell doesn't cover it. Like take today for example.... this article was on the front page about how a guy left his wife at a gas station. This is CNN.com worthy?!?!? Anyway, the only people I know that watch network news are my parents generation or older. So the death of Peter Jennings does not really affect me or most people I know. Not that I am not sad that he died, because I am. It is sad when anyone dies, especially by cancer, but I only have vague memories of him on the news when I was a kid. So it is not like I am going to miss him. And for those people that do remember him more, he left the news 4 months ago. You mourned his not being on the news then. You have had time to get used to him not being there. Don't make this about him not being there for the news. Make this about what a good person he was, and how the world is losing a good person. My final point was, why, if Tom's target audience is not the generations that watch(ed) Peter, and they don't care, and the people that do or did watch him really lost him 4 months ago, why is Tom doing this as the topic of his most listened to hour (when people leave work and are driving home)? His point is that no one cares, and guess what, he was right. (Not that I don't care he died, because I do, but I don't care that he is not on the news anymore for the last 4 months)
I am 18% evil.
I try to stay away from evil deeds but succumb to temptation every once in a while. I'm not quite on my way to hell but I certainly have some explaining to do.
Are you evil? find out at Hilowitz.com
I don't know if you noticed in the first pic of the last post, but you can see RFK stadium (kinda) and the Capital building and the Washington Monument behind. It was a cool view.
So i am really only here to move on to the next round of picking a website name. Then I have to go to bed. So here it goes (winners in bold):
ifyouwillit.com vs. therearerules.com**
isthisa.com vs. nofunnystuff.com**
modestlypriced.com vs. thereareways.com
uncheckedagression.com vs. youcanimagine.net
thisagression.com vs. willnotstand.com
duringleagueplay.com vs. bunchofamateurs.com
dontsaypeep.com vs. giventhenature.com**
thisisourconcern.com vs. andthatscool.com
roundlyrejected.com vs. imstayin.com
bulkoftheseries.com vs. ohtheusual.com
drawingaline.com vs. acrossthisline.com
markitzero.com vs. beyondpacifism.com
icantcomplain.com vs. literalconnection.com
cometolight.com vs. orthecredence.com
abouttocrack.com vs. thataintlegaleither.com
calmerthanyouare.com vs. arealreactionary.com
**Decided by Quarter (coin toss)
So here is the next round:
ifyouwillit.com vs. isthisa.com*
thereareways.com vs. youcanimagine.net
thisagression.com vs. duringleagueplay.com
giventhenature.com vs. andthatscool.com
imstayin.com vs. ohthusual.com
drawingaline.com vs. beyondpacifism.com **
icantcomplain.com vs. orthecredence.com
abouttocrack.com vs. calmerthanyouare.com
*DbQ but did not like the result, so went so went with the loser
**DbQ but was leaning that way anyway... may get beyondpacifism.com in the future
So while we are at it:
ifyouwillit.com vs. thereareways.com
duringleagueplay.com vs. giventhenature.com
ohtheusual.com vs. drawingaline.com
orthecredence.com vs. calmerthanyouare.com
Easily decided. And:
ifyouwillit.com vs. giventhenature.com
drawingaline.com vs. calmerthanyouare.com
Again, easy. The Finals:
ifyouwillit.com vs. drawingaline.com
Here are my thoughts on this. I saw this coming a couple rounds ago. drawingaline.com has some insinuations about my personal life as well as what I am thinking of doing in the future careerwise (which I haven't gotten to posting yet). ifyouwillit.com just seems to be a more general, all-encompassing title. But mostly about life, not as much about politics or other things I would like to talk about but probably won't.
And the winner is: drawingaline.com!!!
I may decide in the near future to get other sites for their own uses or even just to link to this site. Because I really really like some of the names I came up with. beyondpacifism.com could end up being a political site. isthisa.com could be something else, I just think it is funny. orthecredence.com and calmerthanyouare.com are funny too just as far as the Big Lebowski goes. I don't know... all of the ones in the last few rounds... well actually all the names in this whole bracket were really good in my view and this was really hard. I just want to thank them all for coming out and giving it their best. :)
So I have a few things to say. I may not get to them all tonight. If not I apologize for getting your hopes up ; )
These are the things I want to adress:
Posting Pictures
Audioslave
This Site
The Rest of My Trip
The Future
Posting Pictures:
Did everyone have the same issues with the thumbnails on previous posts? For me, the pics were huge when I clicked on the link and I couldn't even scroll to see the whole pic. What a bummer. Let's try to fix that.
To tell you the truth, I don't think that helped. I thought you could change the size of the image the thumbnail links to, but I cannot find it. Any ideas? But I learned that I can change the size of the thumb so maybe you can just look at those.
Audioslave
I was a huge fan of their original album,
"Audioslave" (Audioslave). I think they are probably my favorite band right now. With Chris Cornell from Soundgarden fronting Rage Against the Machine, wow. Let's be honest. I didn't know much Soundgarden other than Black Hole Sun, but I loved that song, and Chris has a really great rock voice. I think it is up there with Axl or Stephen Tyler. It is very distinct. Anyway, I also didn't know much Rage and frankly didn't care to. It was a little hard and harsh for me. Couldn't really get into it. But what amazing musicians. Tom Morello can make the most unnatural sounds come out of that guitar. It is awe inspiring. Anyway, so I was a little worried that the follow up album was not going to meet my expectations and that they were going to just be a fluke. Especially since the only song I kept hearing had a similar background riff or chord progression or something to one of the songs on the first album. I think this album is a little less hard rock than the last one, but it still rocks for sure. I preferred the more melodic songs on the first album anyway. So the fact that I can kinda sing along with most of the songs on this albums is really cool for me... although I need to learn the words. But the melodies are very unique and different, yet catchy. The music rocks good, and the guitar solos are awesome. However I do have a little complaint about the guitar solos. I felt like Tom was too into making weird sounds in the solos and didn't focus on making it work with the songs. Some of the solos seem to me to be off key or something. Usually, you can be creative but you do that within the context of the key the song is in, but it sounds like he just tried to get some feedback through the pickups and wasn't paying attention. Oh well, overall the solos are really great as is each and every song. A really strong second performance. Now just to see them live!
This Site
Each post from now on I am going to whittle down the list of new names for this site. Then I will eventually have one left. I am going to start by listing my favorite 32 if I have that many and then I will set up a bracket like march madness. But I won't have to seed them because it won't matter who they go up against earlier or later because I am just looking for the one that goes undefeated, not who makes it to the top 8. So if two good ones go head to head early, one has to go, because I would have had to make the decision down the road if I had seeded them.
So here is the first round in no particular order:
ifyouwillit.com
therearerules.com
isthisa.com
nofunnystuff.com
modestlypriced.com
thereareways.com**
uncheckedagression.com
youcanimagine.net**
thisagression.com**
willnotstand.com
duringleagueplay.com
bunchofamateurs.com
dontsaypeep.com
giventhenature.com
thisisourconcern.com
andthatscool.com
roundlyrejected.com
imstayin.com
bulkoftheseries.com
ohtheusual.com
drawingaline.com**
acrossthisline.com
markitzero.com
beyondpacifism.com
icantcomplain.com**
literalconnection.com
cometolight.com
orthecredence.com
abouttocrack.com**
thataintlegaleither.com
calmerthanyouare.com**
arealreactionary.com
** I have already chosen the winner for this round
My Trip:
So I left off telling about Cleveland. I mentioned the game. It was boring. White Sox won. There were some guys in left field with their shirts off, so Bryce and Owen went to get pics with the "real fans" of the town. They took their shirts off too. And got lots of pics with the Cleveland girls too. Not afraid!
So we lost Bryce leaving the game, but we were only staying a couple blocks away so we went back there and put stuff away and then went out looking for Bryce at the local bars. We started out at The Thirsty Parrot, which is across the street from The Hairy Buffalo (it gets better) and is where we found him. He was sitting at the bar downing a brewski. So we sat there and then they were closing and had no food so they said to go to Cooperstown across the street, which is really Alice Cooper'stown, but they had no food so they sent us to The Winking Lizard (No, I'm not joking) and they sent us to Nicks Sports Corner, where we had something fried that tasted good and beer.
When we were done, we left Bryce there (he wasn't done) and went back to the room to sleep. I don't really have a first hand account of what happened, but here is the story I was told.... Bryce came back at 3:30 or 4am with some crackhead guy. They had gone to numerous hotels looking for the correct room 311. They needed the key card to get up the elevator, but forgot about it when trying to enter the room. They knocked but we did not let them in. They eventually left, and Bryce came back alone later and was let in. Needless to say, I woke up the next morning spooning Bryce. There has to be some sort of joke in there somewhere but I can't think of it right now. And, being wrapped in the comforter on the pull-out bed, he got in on the only available side and clung tight to the comforter, indirectly pulling me closer to him. Well, that was a scary thing to wake up to, and I couldn't get loose!! Anyway, we packed and left for Jersey.
We drove straight across Penn. There are a lot of trees in that state. We stopped at Arby's and tried their fried pepperoni pizza sticks which are like fried mozzarella sticks but with a hint of marinera and some pepperoni chunks inside. Very good actually. The question of the meal was, what the hell was Bronco Berry Sauce and why did they give it to us? For the jalapeno poppers? I don't know, but what the hell is a Bronco Berry? I'm not sure I want to know. Bryce tried the sauce and said it was a little too intense. We listened to
"Who Is Mike Jones?" (Mike Jones)
the whole way, and could not stop laughing. Is this guy a joke? This album has to be one of the funniest albums I have ever heard, counting all the comedy albums I have. We counted.... 10 of 15 songs start out with some sort of yelling of his name "MIKE JONES!!!!" Then he proceeds to let us know what his name is numerous (and when I say numerous I mean a lot) times on each song, as well as letting us know what his cell phone number is. (The album book also has the number (as well as a huge pic of his grandma) and it says you can get ringtones from the number (so people know who's calling? "Mike Jones!")) What a crack up. That kept us entertained for a while. We have a bet going about how many time he says his name on the album. Bryce has 0-75, I have 75-150, Owen has 150-225 and Andy has 225+. I think I am going to win personally, but we haven't counted yet.
We made it to Bryce's Gma's house in Jersey. It is really nice. We got pics of Bryce jumping onto a paddleboard in the pool. His extended family was there too for the weekend to celebrate his Gma's b-day. All very nice people. We had hot dogs for dinner.... the meat for the big meal had gone bad. We couldn't find a current train schedule to NY so we heard the general direction of the trainstation and that it was fairly close, so Owen and I decided to get a new schedule. HA! It was close by car! We found it, but it was a trek. It took us maybe two hours round trip, maybe less I don't know, but it was midnight when we got back and we were soaked to the bone with sweat, it was so hot and humid even then!!!
I am going to go to bed now, but I will start out with our train trip to NY the next day at 6:30am. Good night.
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