The 3rd World Rocker

Alright everyone, here is the skinny on my show tomorrow in Oakland CA.
The Nomad Cafe on Shattuck Ave.
7:30pm – 9:30pm [that's 10:30pm - 12:30am for my East coast friends].

I will broadcast this show if everything goes well, their sound system isn’t great, so we will have to work around that problem =).
As always the broadcast will be on The Ash vLogs

I’m also using Ping.FM to do multiple posts, so lets see how well this will work out =)

Take care.
Salaam.

Happy thanksgiving everybody. I hope your turkey dinner, and family gathering goes well.
It has been a very lazy day for me, and I yet again have a week long vacation. Its good and bad at the same time.

John & I went and saw “Twilight” today, I very much enjoy this author’s take on vampires, it was pretty cool, I can’t wait for the other 2 movies to come out, should be fun =)

So I want to be productive this time with my long weekend. I’m half way through with “Blowout” the currently thriller I’m reading, so I’m trying to see if I could finish it by the end of this week, so I could get to using my eReader.
Also I have been getting the itch to program, one this I’ve wanted to practice more is PHP, luckily I brought my php book that I had during my classes at UB with me, I’m also interested at taking a stab at MySQL. Database programming could come in quite handy here, especially with me being so close to silicone valley and all.

I can feel a 3rd verse for the “You never answer” song coming along, but I’m worried that I might be forcing it. So far I’m happy with the 2 I’ve written, but I feel like its still missing something, so a third has been lingering around for a bit, we shall see. No matter the case I’m trying to get it done by Saturday, why you ask? because that’s when my show at the Nomad Cafe is, with John. I’m secretly hoping that the song would be done then, so that I could play it as my participation for the Java Mammas gang.
I know the song isn’t due until December 4th, but I won’t be there, and since I’m planning on broadcasting this Saturday’s show, I figured it would be a cool way to participate, hopefully my East Coast friends would be able to watch us.

The Saturday show starts at 8pm (11pm East Coast), but its a Saturday night, and since most of my friends would be up, and hopefully home by then, then there should be a nice chunk of crowd online =)

Alright everyone, have a safe holiday.
See you online.

Salaam.

So the week has been pretty good so far, everything at work has been nice and smooth, no problems or anything. The frustration comes from UPS. my eReader is in Oakland Limbo right now. The UPS person knocked at a different door than usual, so no one heard/answered so they left those annoying “1st attempt” stickers…now I’ve made a few calls and found out where the main “customer center” is, and its not close..grr! I found a couple of UPS Stores near my area and they said I could call UPS and have them route the package to them and I can pick it up from them..its a solution, but I’m really frustrated because I was looking forward to playing with the eReader YESTERDAY!!..SIGH.
What ever.

A few of my housemates are play-writes and they have been working on these one act plays for an upcoming show, I got to sit around the kitchen table with them yesterday as they did a reading of their rough draft, they are pretty damn good, this is going to be fun night =)

Also last night I met a new friend, her name is Rebeca, she is my house mate’s friend, the 5 of us (Carissa, Rebeca, David, John, and I) ended up hanging out until 2am with acoustic guitars playing music all night, so the night ended well.
I only hope the UPS person knocks a little harder today on the BLUE door, so that someone would get my package for me =(.

The really horrible thing is, I’m expected to receive 2 more packages with in the coming few days, I think they are from USPS though, so I don’t know how that will go, hopefully well and with LESS problems and delay.

Now for some GOOD news for your weekend:
Tomorrow is my show with Tony Mayfield. I’m going to be practicing tonight with my friend Ghislan for tomorrow’s 45 minute set. I’ve never been to this place before so I don’t know if I will be able to broadcast it or not, I will take my equipment with me just in case, so hopefully it will be broadcast friendly. I know for sure the Nov 29th show is very broadcast friendly.
So basically keep the vLog link close, also my twitter account, since its the easiest way to send a mass text telling everyone to go to The Ash vLogs…my twit is called [ashAfied].

Alright! have a great weekend everyone, take care now =)
Salaam.

Alright, here is what has happened to me in a nutshell, starting Friday until this very moment…”clears throat”

Friday night:
John, Carissa, and I go visit our friend Lauren and her room mates, the night ends with us Long boarding on Emerson street around 2am in the morning, followed by the watching of “Borat”, then hot oatmeal to top it all off.

Saturday night:
Brian, Joshel, Kyle, & I go see “Circus Finalle”, a Slavic slapstick comedy play which has the entire cast of 4 women & a whole bunch of costumes and crazy shenanigans…the show ends with Yours Truly here, laying down topless on the stage with one of the ladies juggling knifes on top of me…..yea.
Then we had Thai afterward =)

Sunday:
I bought an AWESOME futon for only $40.
So I spent most of the day watching movies, on my $40 futon

Monday (last night):
John had me watch with him this CRAZY propaganda film, which would REALLY screw with your head, its called Zeitgeist. I followed that by watching Max Payne..which was actually pretty darn good =)

Tuesday (today):
I am now at work, about to go have lunch, and later tonight is the open mic night at The Starry Plough.

So there you have it, an Ash weekend in a nutshell..I’ve bought aneReader, and I can’t WAIT to get it, it will be so freakin awesome. I already have a couple of eBooks that I will download once I get this sucker. I know a lot of “book lovers” are very much against having to “charge a book to read it”..and the whole “I love the smell of the pages” argument just doesn’t work for this Tech Head =)

Alright people, have a great week, now I go eat before I pass out or something.
Salaam.

Ok ok! my feature set went really tonight, but here is why I’m freaking out.
Tony Mayfield, son of Curtis Mayfield played with me on my set (he’s a percussionist) AND has asked me to be his opening act on November 22…*breath ash, breath*..now I’m going to TRY to sleep.

oh my god.

I haven’t forgotten, I swear I haven’t.
The thing is this, not all the places that have performances, have WiFi, and vice versa. So unlike the coolness of The Perk, and awesomeness of The Java Mammas, its surprisingly not very broadcast friendly in this area (which strikes me as REALLY odd).

Tonight:
Nomad & I are the two featured artiest for today’s open mic, the place has a great stage, awesome sound system a nice responsive crowd, but no WiFi, there for I don’t have the means to actually broadcast it to my East Coast friends =(

Good news:
On Saturday Nov.29th, Nomad & I are playing a full show at The Nomad Cafe, which has WiFi (awesome), the one thing I’m worried about is that their little sound system wasn’t working properly last time I was there, SO! I’m going to have to get creative with it. So make sure to mark your calendar (and keep in mind we are 3 hours a head of you East Coasters), that in about 2 weeks from now, your pals Nomad & Ash will be broadcasting their show for you to enjoy at the comfort of your own home..unless you want to fly out to Berkeley to come see us =)

So far those are the current shows we have, John had mentioned something about a show in December, but I don’t have any details on that. Also my good buddy Mark (who I knew from our Perk days) wants to re-start an open mic at a coffee shop he frequents in Hayward, if that ends up being the case, than I’ll make sure to have the live broadcasting in mind for those shows.

There you go, this has been your current performance review and status of your beloved traveling musical Arab & his Nomadic one band friend =)

Take care everyone, and happy veteran’s day.
Salaam.

The Java Challenge
So this month’s Java Challenge is “You Never Answer”.
Ana was cool enough to text it to me the other night. I blogged about it on my MySpace since most of the Javan’s are on there and could follow its progress easier than on here (I totally stole the idea from Heather).
Hopefully something good would come out, so far I’m not that happy with what I have “lyrically”, musically though I kind of like it a bit more.
I was glad to see that ilyRob broadcasts the open mic, wohoo!. So I got to see the “Spiral Notebook” challenge. Congrats to Rick for winning, AGAIN!! =). But my personal favorite was actually W.G.T.H.F.T. It falls right under the “hey little girl” song they play, you guys RaWk!! =) I’m actually excited to see what they do for this one, they always have this delightfully dark songs, sigh I’m so jealous. =)

My long weekend
So far nothing interesting happened yet, yesterday I bought some groceries, watched 2 movies, and had dinner. Quite the exciting life I have here =)
I got to speak with the family today, they are all doing well. Mom suggested that I go ride the buses and explore the area. That’s actually a pretty damn good idea…I completely forgot about the tours that I wanted to take! I can totally do that. I remember when I was in the DC area I found a whole bunch of tours of the area, including a Segway tour =).
I should do that then, I’ll look them up and go on a couple of tours, it’ll be a great way to see the area.

On Wednesday I’m meeting up with a few co-workers to go see a John Cage tribute concert at UCB. Its held by the Mathematical Department, that should be interesting to say the least. Also that will be my chance to meet Mr. Don Buchla, that would be awesome.

So there you have it, I don’t have much in mind for today, but I am hoping to get my Java Challenge song done during this long break that I have, not sure if Muse will go my way or not, but given that Muse & I have nothing else going on, we might collaborate a little better =)
Wish me luck, and good luck to the others reading this who are joining the challenge.

Salaam

Today has been a very wonderful day so far, I can only hope it gets better.
UCB:
-There are no scheduled experiments today, there for the lab is nice and quiet.
-The PC format went pretty smoothly.
-I got my pay check (w00t).
-I was told that Tuesday is a paid holiday, so that means (according to my schedule) I’m going to be having a 5 day weekend.
-Speaking of vacations, I was told yesterday that during the end of December they “make” everyone take a few days off, because they turn off the heat to the buildings. If that’s the case, then I might go visit my cousin in NY after all, she’s having her baby (Insha Allah) by the end of December, and the whole family is planning to go see her. I still haven’t worked out the kinks to the plan yet, but if that becomes the case, then I’ll do my best to stop by the BaltiArea and say hi. Nothing is official, so don’t hold me to it, yet =)

Personal:
-I got my pay check, hehehehe.
-Got to correspond back and forth with Lisa (she is doing well and enjoying her free time).
-I’m enjoying pumpkin pie with vanilla ice cream.
-I have a very long weekend to look forward to.
-I got to see Heather’s song for October’s challenge, which gave me the idea of trying to write something for November, then I can send it to them through Video Mail, that would be fun =)

Everything else is going great, I’m really enjoying my time here, I’m about to go surf the web and kill sometime until I have to go home. I should enjoy the free time as much as I could, God only knows how long it will be here, right?

Take care my friends
Salaam

Its been quite an interesting few days, yesterday I got my UCB ID, and found a drum circle, for Darfur, so of course I joined in, it was great. They also had tents, for people to paint on. They say that the tents will be taken to Washington DC, and will be joined with Other Tents from all over the place as a protest to encourage the US to do something about the troubles there. Then after the protest they will ship these tents to people of Darfur to use as shelter.

I love this country.

I believe last week I received a couple of emails from ilyRob, with a bunch of cool recordings from the beloved Java Mammas, so I posted them up as downloads on my ReverNation page.

At the moment I’m at work, about to go get lunch with my coworkers, I have no idea what is in store for me this sunny Thursday, but I do hope its as good as my past few days have been =)

Take care ya’ll
Salaam.