Archive for the 'tunes' Category

‘Back in Black’ could be an acceptable wedding song

Published
by
ashley
on August 20, 2008
in friends, marques, tunes and waylon
. 2 Comments

Being than I am a 25 year old girl in a long-term relationship, with my best friends slipping rings on their fingers left and right, it is only natural that I consider what my own possible wedding will look like or contain.

I go back and forth on everything that’s important, like location and all of that, but I will say that I think this is the coolest thing in the world:

Vitamin String Quartet

Essentially, it’s a string quartet covering popular songs.  Some things are a little out there (do we really need a string quartet covering Janet Jackson?  Or Panic at the Disco?) but I really like their cover of “Neighborhood #1″ by the Arcade Fire.  Also, embarrassingly, the cover of “Somebody to Love” by Queen.  I wish they had a collection of David Bowie, though.

So if anyone is getting married soon… like YOU, Lorrie, you might want to consider downloading a few of these to play while your guests are waiting for you to show your face instead of playing silly piano songs.  Just don’t steal my Arcade Fire.

In the meantime, because I am a crazy cat lady who has plans to make her cat be her ring bearer, here’s a picture of the haughty male.  He already has his black and whites and everything:

Just for the record… our trip in numbers & lists

Published
by
ashley
on August 6, 2008
in books, family, friends, i am ridiculous, marques and tunes
. 1 Comment

So tomorrow Marques and I are going home for the first time in a really long time. We’re both excited to see our families, and do all the fun things we used to do before we moved to DC and became The Most Boring Couple Ever.

Miles from Springfield, Va. to Charleston, W.Va.: 373 miles

Approximate gallons of gas used round-trip: 25

Approximate cost of gas round-trip (assuming gas is an average $4.10): $101

Five restaurants we want to eat at while we’re home: Tudor’s Biscuit World (omg, Dottie, I love you), Rio Grande, Boston Beanery, Penn Station, Skyline Chili.

Number of these restaurants we will actually get to eat at: 2, possibly 3

Best friends I get to see: 2 - Tina and Jasmine

Number of outfits I’m bringing home: 6

Number of days I’ll be gone: 4

Number of pairs of shoes I’m bringing: 2

Hopeful number of stops at Sonic on the way home: 1 million

Actual Sonic stops: Probably not even one. Sad face.

Possible number of Sheetz stops: 1, hopefully 2

Playlist created for iPod: Named “The World Has Turned And Left Me Here”, contains 204 songs, 13.5 hours, 972.4 MB.

Most songs by one single artist in said playlist: 21, by Ryan Adams. 22 if you consider Whiskeytown to be Ryan Adams.

Number of 80’s songs: 7. Surprisingly low. Two by Billy Idol, 4 by Bowie.

Surprising number of songs from the Juno soundtrack, directly influenced by the fact that I read Diablo Cody’s “Candy Girl” book last night: 4

Number of books I’m bringing home: 6

Number of things specifically requested that I bring home: 13

Number of those aforementioned things that is food: 5

Days Waylon will be left alone: 3 and a half. Sad kitty.

us kids know

Published
by
ashley
on October 13, 2007
in life, marques and tunes
. 1 Comment

i’m watching paula deen right now and she’s got amy sedaris on making meringue. it’s weird that i feel like i KNOW amy sedaris and all of the rest of the sedarises (sedarii?) because of david sedaris’s books. even though i don’t. i wish amy sedaris would come to my house and make me cupcakes and we coud watch cheesy tv together.

paula’s got a pair of leopard skin pajamas on and it’s very weird. i don’t think anyone should wear leopard skin anything. ever.

marques and i went to columbus last weekend to see the arcade fire. they were absolutely amazing. i was concerned about the whole musical translation thing, because the arcade fire is so…. eccentric sounding. but they were awesome. and i think there was a little zombie girl in the background during “no cars go” though i’m not sure exactly what she was supposed to be. i like to think she was a little zombie girl.

we ate at the north market before the show where i had a gyro stuffed with lamb and tsatszki and big hunks of onion. it was so good, it made up for no gyros at the greek festival the weekend before. then we ate jeni’s ice cream — we had scoops of the queen city cayenne, the maker’s mark butter pecan, and the salty caramel. the salty caramel was my favorite, hands down. i love salt and caramel together — i love pressing grains of kosher salt into good quality chunks of caramel and sucking on all the goodness.

on the way home, we drove through hocking hills and looked at the leaves turning colors. we stopped in athens after getting lost and settled for lunch at the pita pit, thereby breaking my “no restaurants at home” rule.

driving home, the air was cool and you could smell fall coming. this week, it did. i’m wearing my new favorite outfit right now, an outfit that magically looks like my stomach is tucked in and it color-flattering. i’m waiting for my girl cara to come over and pick me up. we will then go purchase some pear cider or maybe sam adams octoberfest. possibly. no more girly drinks. maybe.

this is marques’s and my second autumn together. it will be our third winter. it’s very pleasant and comforting to continue to wake up beside him. the other night, i became irrationally angry at him and went to bed without our general goodnight kiss-and-snuggle. but in the morning, there he is. again. as always. it feels like we’ve been together forEVER but everyday i want to learn something new. it’s embarrassing how much i love him. almost as much as salty caramels.

heartbreak of the world #982

Published
by
ashley
on April 2, 2007
in life, television and tunes
. 0 Comments

i was watching the wonder years on some crappy cable access channel and then it went to a time-life music collection infomercial.

hosted by air supply. the co-host, angela, is like, “i can’t believe i’m sitting here with AIR SUPPLY!”

me either, angela. me either.

heartbreak of the world #54

Published
by
ashley
on March 18, 2007
in life and tunes
. 1 Comment

i am DISILLUSIONED that the lead singer of tommy tutone is now a computer programmer. 867-5309 tommy tutone. computer programmer.

this is not how i choose to think of my idols.

tommy tutone lead singer, i’m pretty sure if you call me, i can get you a job as a photographer or maybe like, music writer at my newspaper. i have no doubt that having tommy tutone as our photographer will rocket our subscriptions through the roof.

i mean, old rock stars should be like, producing up-and-coming young artists or selling their songs to burger king commercials, or starring in reality tv shows. NOT being a computer programmer.

although it would be pretty cool to have tommy tutone as your cubicle mate.

tiny update, not so much happening here in the hood

Published
by
ashley
on March 13, 2007
in friends, life, marques, tunes, waylon and work
. 4 Comments

so my job? pretty cool. today i watched 18,000 episodes of jeopardy and press your luck. also, there was this couple on the newlywed game (why isn’t that still on the air?) that had matching afros. the first day i had to make a hardware decision. picture me trying to decide between a macbook pro and a mac pro with a cinema display. POOR ME.

the commute isn’t as bad as i expected. driving along at 70 miles per hour past gigantic semis is always fun at 8:00 in the morning. i eat granola bars, drink green tea, listen to david sedaris recount his childhood stories. marques made me an excellent mix cd for my first day, full of songs by david bowie, elton john, earth wind and fire, and other artists that are very upbeat.

today, i drove home on route 60 because the sun was setting and i love route 60. while i was going over the culloden bridge, i saw this man throw his daughter in the air and catch her. it was amazing. i thought he would drop her.

i also bought waylon a harness today. i have plans to take him outside for some rolling around in the grass and chasing birds. he flipped out, though, and tried to bite the harness off of him. maybe he will realize that harness equals outside, and will grow to love his restraints.

i ate really well today. on the way to work i had a granola bar. when i got to work, i had a yogurt. for lunch i ate some baked cheetos and a turkey sandwich on wheat. i had an apple in my bag in case i got hungry, but i didn’t. and then, i got back to huntington, and stupid marques wanted to go to stewart’s hot dogs and i had two hot dogs with a cookie dough milkshake. my boyfriend loves me even when i eat poorly. he ate poorly, too, though.

i miss him during the nights. it is very weird to fall asleep without another body next to me. however, i’m pretty sure that when the weekend rolls around, we will just stay in bed together all day because we missed it so much.

valentine’s day is for lovers

Published
by
ashley
on February 14, 2007
in life, marques and tunes
. 0 Comments

i couldn’t wait to celebrate valentine’s day this year with marques, so as soon as he got home last night, i gave him his presents.  i bought him lots of truffles (including fancy harry and david truffles) and a book about meteorology (he’s thinking about going back to school to get a degree in meteorology, and i wanted to let him know that i support him 100 percent in his decision because i think he can do anything).  then we went to speedway for a huge 32 ounce cup of fountain-drink pepsi, which has been forbidden for me since december.

and i made him a mix cd.  he made me one, too, but i don’t have it yet.  i think it will be ready for me today.  here are the tracks i put on it — they’re very weird.  i’ve already used up all my indie-girl-i’m-in-love songs on all the other cds i’ve made him.

1.  “cut your hair” by pavement (i put this on here because he went without cutting his hair for a long, long time, and i loved it, and then just this past week he cut it and it makes me sad because i can’t run my fingers through it anymore.)
2.  “lullaby” by the dixie chicks (i don’t really like the dixie chicks, but lorrie was playing this song before she moved to new york, and i remembered thinking that i thought it sounded really sweet.)
3.  “they don’t know” by ben gibbard (marques has got another thing coming if he thought he was going to a ben gibbard-free valentine’s day cd this year.  this is also a really sweet song!)
4.  “oh you are the roots that sleep beneath my feet and hold the earth in place” by bright eyes
5.   “strangers in the night” by cake
6.  “be still my heart” by the postal service
7.  “sleep tonight” by stars
8.  “crazy about you” by whiskeytown
9.  “i will” by jonathan coulton
10.  “california stars” by wilco and billy bragg
11.  “when the stars go blue” by ryan adams
12.  “gotta have you” by the weepies
13.  “let it be me” by rosie thomas
14.  “i’ll be your mirror” by clem snide
15.  “melt your heart” by jenny lewis and the watson twins
16.  “your song” by elton john (i. love. elton. john.  don’t make fun of me.  i love this song!)
17.  “the luckiest” by ben folds
18.  “with every light” by the smashing pumpkins
19.  “sweet thing” by van morrison (it’s kind of our song)

so i hope you all have a very nice valentine’s day.