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Farewell!, originally uploaded by Aubs.

I had hoped to have just oodles of time to write a long, thought-out post on this news, but alas, “oodles of time” is a pipe dream. Five minutes is more like reality.

Anyway, today is my last day here at Ask. “Didn’t you just start?”, you’re probably asking. Yep, back in May. But alas, opportunities – awesome, super-great, exciting opportunities arose – and I couldn’t refuse. On Monday, I’ll be starting as the Director of Marketing at Mashery, a company that provides for “On-Demand API Infrastructure” (Read: Helps you deploy, manage, & scale your APIs) and I honestly can’t wait. Big things lie ahead.

I’m sure I’ll be posting about this more in the coming days & weeks, but in the meantime, wanted to offer a sincere thanks and a bittersweet goodbye to Ask and the opportunity I’ve had here. Thanks, everyone, and Adios!

In case Lane’s masterful karaoke video wasn’t enough to keep you occupied, here’s more updates on what I’ve been up to the past few days.

I’ve been compared to Fergie (which I was initially flattered by only to later read that people think she looks like a bag of assholes as well as a tranny, upon which I instantly reversed my "well, she dates Josh Duhamel so that’s nice" consideration) and have been  accosted on a street corner, apparently mistaken for hookers.

Tranny.
Hooker.

Methinks I need to change my look.

Lane is Livin’ on a Prayer from Aubrey Sabala on Vimeo.

So it’s been a busy few days…ok, busy few weeks. Big changes ahead – more detail to come tomorrow – but in the meantime, I’ll leave you with an awesome lil’ video of my pal Lane singing some karaoke on his birthday. Note that I’ve opted to NOT post the video of Daisy and I performing "Heaven is a Place on Earth" and it’s only because I love you, dear readers, that I’m censoring myself. That, and the fact that I look like Daisy’s kid sister trying to emulate her masterful karaoke moves. 

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Golf Tournament, originally uploaded by Aubs.

This is what I did today.

So here’s the thing. The well has run dry. I’m all crushed out.

With nary a soul in my irreverantly proverbial ‘spank bank’, it’s time for a fill-up. I’ve clearly been a) too busy b) too grouchy c) too picky (or all of the above) in the last few days/weeks/months to find myself an acceptable crush. And now, in crunch time, I’m finding myself heading towards impending disaster if I continue on the "almost-about to-nearly there" quasi-crush path that I’m finding myself treading down. Trust me, people, this almost-crush is so unsuitable, it makes Tucker Max look like an angel. (OK, that’s maybe a bit too harsh. But just a bit.) It’s due time for me to get off Rogue Road and Cad Court and yes, Asshole Avenue as well and take the less-bumpy path of Suitable Suitor Street.

So alas, I’m on a mission for kissin’ as being crushless is a boring, boring life. Though, similar to shopping in that when you’re looking for a great dress for that upcoming wedding, you can never find it, actively seeking a crush almost entirely guarantees their absence. That’s why you buy a cute dress when you find it, knowing that some event will come up for which to wear it and why it’s a bad, BAD idea to let your crush well run dry. You should always have SOMETHING in your back pocket, a man (or four) waiting in the wings.

The End,
Love Aubrey

For work, I recently had the privilege/exasperation-filled-job of choosing a band & subsequent song for use in an upcoming commercial. The logistics of this are mind-staggering and unfortunately, we didn’t even get to use my two top recommendations, Josh Ritter and Band of Horses. This is apparently a blessing in disguise after I found out today that Band of Horses, those awesome rockers from South Carolina who graced the world with their awesome ditties including "I Go to the barn because I like the…" and "The End’s Not Near", have agreed to let Wal-Mart use the most awesomest of their songs, The Funeral, for the store’s new website.

Yes, you read that correctly.
WAL-MART. Using BAND OF HORSES.

I feel like someone just kicked me in the gut – I mean, selling out is one thing but selling out to Wal-Mart? That’s indefensible.

This past weekend I headed back to Chapel Hill, the lovely town of my beloved alma mater, Chapel Hill, for some much-deserved celebration. Instead of a full recap (you can get those from my Twitter stream, including my performance of an interpretive dance to Taylor Dayne’s "Tell it to my heart"), I figured I’d share the highlights of an awesome weekend with you. Including:

• Number of baby showers attended: 2
• Number of engagements celebrated: 1
• Number of 30th birthday parties attended: 1
• Number of resignations announced: 2
• Number of times the word "nipple" was mentioned: approx. 24…I lost count
• Number of baby items I didn’t have the slightest clue what one would use the product for: 3
• Number of times I was asked if I was married: 6
• Number of old-skool nightclubs we crashed: 1
• Number of former places of employment we frequented: 1
• Number of friend’s younger brothers that were smooched: 2 (one only on the cheek, though)
• Number of hours of sleep (total through the weekend): 10
• Number of months until we do it all over again: <2

Awesome weekend. See y’all for Homecoming!

Look! That’s me on Diggnation. What? Haven’t seen Episode 114 yet? What are you waiting for…find out how many O’Doul’s Kevin claims I drank, and what REALLY happened on Alex’s couch.  Sadly, the post-filming chugging contest hasn’t been posted, but I’m waiting with bated breath…

In my world, the land o’ the Internets, everyone knows about Digg. Kevin & Alex are recognized around town(s), hiding from the technorazzi stalking their every move…ok, perhaps that’s a stretch. But they are quite well-known, as is their show, Diggnation (and they DO get some good perks at the Apple store, so I hear.)

Yet the rest of the world, those not living in the reality that is the Web 2.0 world, isn’t yet attuned to the awesomeness that is Diggnation. I found this out firsthand when telling my college lady friends (yes, two of which are still single and still – if not moreso now than ever – hot) that I went to LA to watch/sit in on the filming of the latest episode since Ask was sponsoring it. They’re all "Digg what?" and "Kevin who?" (I won’t even go into my attempted discussions about APIs since their eyes glazed over and they started reminiscing about some less-flattering moments of mine at He’s Not back at UNC. The things we can will ourselves to forget…)

But I digress.

Diggnation. Right. Let’s just say it was a super-fun day, awesome experience, and I’m really excited for people to watch Episode 114, the newest episode. After all,  it’s about time that the rest of the world know what we do: that it’s pretty great to be geekyfantastic.

Oh, and Kevin, should you want that rematch in the beer chugging contest to redeem your honor, name the time and place (and I’ll beat you all over again).

Aah, social networking…every site these days wants to jump on the media bandwagon, and just maintaining/updating/managing my "social" life is really taxing my social life. You know, the real one without quotes. As such, unlike many of you, I don’t change my profile picture on a daily basis because really, hi, this is still me and I don’t think you can tell that my hair has grown 1/4" in the last month in my most recent photo and I seriously doubt you want to see that I’m in desperate need of a highlighting appointment. You’ll just have to take my word for it that I’ve got some dark-root action going on. Thanks for understanding.

My confusion, however, doesn’t necessarily lie with those of you who are far more eager to update your profile picture than I; it lies with those of you who feel it necessary to have your significant other in your profile picture. Because really, what that says to me is that you’re not really you without them. Nice sentiment and all, but kind of conveys that overly-clingy/needy thing that, forgive me if I’m wrong, is sort of ridiculously unattractive. Just sayin’…

My opinion may be quite unpopular here – yes, it’s nice that I can see what your man o’ the moment looks like,  but is it really necessary? – but I’m ok with that. You can get all hatin’ on me ’cause I’m all hatin’ on you and the half of a face that I get to see in your Facebook profile or IM avatar, but at least while you’re mentally calling me a single, jealous bitch of your half-photo (or throwing a sheep at me on Facebook, something I wasn’t aware you could do nor realized I was missing out on until just now) at least know that you’re throwing it at me and me alone. Because, really, I just don’t think it’s fair in this day and age to throw an imaginary cartoon sheep at someone you don’t know just because they happen to appear in your friend’s profile photo. After all, I was raised in Ohio, and while we may not know everything, we DO know proper sheep-throwing protocol.