Positive Boredom

July 7th

2008-07-07T02:41:00.000+01:00

or as it was called by the british media at the time "Our 9/11".

I was on a terrible holiday to England at that point and the one day I stepped on London soil in all my life, was this day. It was a crappy family holiday with my aunt and without my father. Funnily enough, the last time my mother was in London was 17 December 1983.

We went into London by bus, our driver made a funny joke about bus safety with something like "we've been having lots of trouble recently with people bombing buses and whatnot, don't worry, there's a 50% chance you'll be safe with me".
I would've loved to seen his face an hour or so later as we drove in to London, which was when reports started coming in about the bombs and all.

The second we arrived in London my mother and aunt had decided on where we'd go next; back to her house! but first a cup of tea. I actually had never drank a cup of tea bought in a cafe, so I didn't know that IT'S. FUCKING. ROASTING. HOT. Cos I was thirsty I threw it all down without any inspection or anything, burnt my tongue so much that it was black for the rest of the holiday.

At the same time, here in Ireland most out relatives had came to some extremely logical conclusions.

We were in London
These bombs had killed 25 people so far
London has a population in or arounds of 25 people so we must be dead
It'd be a wise time to send their condolences to my father

On returning to the bus station we found out there were no more buses leaving, at least we got a cup of tea though. So what do we do know? Go to mass? Of course!
I spend the whole of mass playing with my tongue til my family have to leave cos of all my "funny tongue behaviour" straight up at the priest. Where to now? Do Starbucks serve tea? May as well check it out! I yawned with boredom.

While walking through the crowded streets to the nearest scent of tea we gather up some more news, apparently a load of public transpot was bombed, current death total: 25.
I say something along the lines of "that's the shittest terrorist attack ever!" My older brother beats the shit out of me. I yawned with boredom.
My younger brother then says "was it done by Osama Bin Laden?" My older brother, mother and aunt beat the shit out of him saying "they'll suspect us of it, we're irish!". I yawned with boredom.

Someone who overheard us then said "Hey those people are Irish, clearly they must be the IRA! These two middle aged women and 3 boys done all the bombings"
We got killed by a mob and received the whole blame. The End!

Music Thing #1

2008-07-06T21:19:00.003+01:00

Was meant to profile some bands, but instead here's a list of some bands I like*

Abba,
Afghan Whigs,
Against Me!
Alice Cooper Band,
Aphex Twin,
Aztec Camera
Fiona Apple,
Tori Amos,
Arcade Fire,
Archers of Loaf,
Arctic Monkeys,
Ash,
Juan Atkins,
The B-52s,
The Beach Boys,
The Beastie Boys,
both the US and UK bands called the Beat,
Beat Happening,
The Beatles,
Beck,
Belle & Sebastian,
The Beta Band,
Big Star,
Blackalicious,
Björk(the Sugarcubes),
the Bongos,
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy,
David Bowie,
Brainiac,
Brand New,
Bright Eyes,
British Sea Power
Broder Daniel(Håkan Hellström),
Built to Spill,
Kate Bush
Buzzcocks,
The Byrds(and an awful lot of offshoots),
Camper Van Beethoven,
The Cars
Cat Power,
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds(the Birthday Party, Rowland S. Howard),
The Chameleons,
Cheap Trick,
Chic,
The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem,
the Clean,
Clinic,
Lloyd Cole(and the Commotions)
Elvis Costello,
Brian Eno(and a lot of his production of stuff),
Cunninlynguists,
The Cure,
Daft Punk,
Fabrizio De André,
Ewa Demarczyk,
Depeche Mode,
Deerhoof,
De Press,
Devo,
Disco Inferno,
The Dismemberment Plan,
Dizzee Rascal,
The Divine Comedy
Nick Drake,
dEUS,
Dungen,
Bob Dylan,
Echo & the Bunnymen,
Elton John,
The Embarrassment,
Eminem(Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg),
Fairport Convention(Richard Thompson),
The Fall,
Fall Out Boy,
The Fatima Mansions,
The Feelies,
Fehlfarben,
Fleetwood Mac,
Ben Folds(Five),
Jackson C. Frank,
Jay-Z
FSK,
Fugees(Lauryn Hill),
Peter Gabriel,
Serge Gainsbourg,
Gang of Four,
Marvin Gaye,
芸能山城組,
Grandmaster Flash,
Gorillaz(Blur, the Good the Bad&the Queen)
Guided By Voices,
Guns n' Roses,
Half Japanese,
Hefner,
Los Hermanos
P.J. Harvey,
The Hold Steady,
Trevor Horn(ABC, Buggles, B&S, t.A.T.u.)
Hüsker Dü,
The Immediate,
Interpol,
Iron & Wine,
Iron Maiden(Bruce Dickinson),
Joe Jackson,
Jackson 5,
The Jam,
Jane's Addiction,
Jellyfish,
Jeru the Damaja,
The Jesus and Mary Chain,
The Jesus Lizard,
Judas Priest,
JJ72,
Joy Division(New Order),
The Kinks,
KISS,
Kraftwerk,
LCD Soundsystem,
Lenny Valentino,
Larry Levan,
The Libertines(Babyshambles),
The Loft,
Long Fin Killie,
Love,
Nas,
Nick Lowe,
Madness,
Magazine,
Manic Street Preachers,
Clint Mansell(Pop Will Eat Itself)
Mansun
Margo Guryan,
Massive Attack,
Derrick May,
Curtis Mayfield,
Mclusky,
Meat Loaf(Jim Steinman),
Metallica,
mewithoutYou,
MF Doom,
Mission of Burma,
M.I.A.
Modest Mouse,
Momus,
R. Stevie Moore,
Mott The Hoople,
The Mountain Goats,
My Bloody Valentine,
My Computer,
The National,
The Notorious B.I.G.
The Nerves,
New Model Army,
The Normal,
Neutral Milk Hotel,
Neu!,
New Radicals,
Joanna Newsom,
Gary Numan,
Oingo Boingo,
The Only Ones,
Outkast,
Ozma,
Graham Parker & The Rumour,
Pavement(Stephen Malkmus),
Tom Petty,
Liz Phair,
Pink Floyd,
The Pixies(Frank Black Francis),
Los Planetas,
Elvis Presley
The Pretenders,
Primal Scream,
Prince (& The Revolution),
Public Enemy,
Public Image Limited,
Pulp(Jarvis),
Radiohead,
Red Hot Chili Peppers,
Reel Big Fish,
R.E.M.,
The Replacements,
Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers,
椎名林檎,
Rocketship,
The Rolling Stones,
Roxy Music,
Todd Rundgren,
Arthur Russell,
...Say Anything,
Ścianka,
Shellac of North America(Steve Albini),
Silver Jews,
Paul Simon(& Garfunkel),
Smashing Pumpkins,
Patti Smith,
Elliott Smith,
the Smiths(Morrissey),
The Soft Boys(Robyn Hitchcock),
(The)Sonic Youth,
The Specials(The Colourfield),
Spiritualized(Spaceman 500),
Bruce Springsteen,
Cat Stevens,
Rod Stewart(Faces),
The Stooges(Iggy Pop),
The Stone Roses,
The Stranglers,
Suede(Anderson/Butler era+Anderson era),
Suicide,
Super Furry Animals,
Supergrass,
Take That,
Talking Heads,
Talk Talk,
Television(Tom Verlaine, Richard Hell),
They Might Be Giants,
This Heat,
Throwing Muses,
Tindersticks,
Travis,
A Tribe Called Quest,
Tricky,
U2,
Nobuo Uematsu,
Ultrasound,
Undertones,
Unicorns(Islands),
Van Morrisson,
Townes Van Zandt,
Caetano Veloso,
The Velvet Underground(John Cale, Lou Reed, Nico),
Tom Waits,
Scott Walker,
Weezer(the Rentals),
Whipping Boy,
Wilco,
Wire,
Patrick Wolf,
Stevie Wonder,
Wrens,
Wu-Tang Clan(GZA/Genius, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Ol' Dirty Bastard, RZA, Gravediggaz)
X,
XTC,
Yeasayer,
Neil Young(Buffolo Springfield, CSNY, Crazy Horse)
Zwan(not put beside Smashing Pumpkins because I wanted a "Z" band... and not ZZ Top)

*may not include some bands/artists which I adore, if this occurs, please be aware that it was merely an accident.

NB 9: Weekend Spam #2

2008-07-06T02:54:00.007+01:00

“This movie is for people who can look somewhat deeper into comedy than someone punching someone else in the face or exposing themselves, which can be funny sometimes, if done right. Think about why it’s funny, and if your smart enough, you’ll laugh for hours. ”

uzacrazyfoo from The Life Aquatic’s IMDb boards
IMDb boards are the funniest thing on the internet, fact! Constant wars everywhere, the cult films are best though.

II.
Hoo-ah!

III.
Libertines Musical? I actually like the Libertines quite a lot, but this sounds like one of the most godawful ideas ever conceived. A musical with all the music done by a "white boys with guitars" group that can't play their instruments... although that's kinda harsh, the Libertines were unique!
...they had a black bassist.

IV.
I aim to copy and paste some feelies re-union news here.

Slightly dodgy homage of the Crazy Rhythms cover by the NY Times, I love it!

Negative Review:
Travis-Singles:
So Travis are the greatest "okay pop-rock" group of their era, they are absolutely amazing at being okay, 1 decade in and they're still outstandingly talented at being okay. Coldplay would be their rivals at being brilliantly okay but Coldplay try to be better so they lose out.
This is a compilation of singles off their first few albums. So it's one whole album of their best okay pop, which means it's great... in an okay way.
Rating: Okay

Marian Finucane Moment:
Going back to Robert Klein almost immediately, cos I actually forgot how amazing his second cd is. This is a joke about Watergate... so it may feel slightly out of date. It was an event of comedy gold and is hugely lacking in good available material though.

Song of the Week:
Ultrasound-Floodlit World
Undoubtedly one of the best singles from the 90s in my opinion. Gloriously over the top! Nearly Dog Man Star-esque. Also check out B-Side Kurt Russell.
Lord knows how a band with so much potential managed to mess it all up so much, they had even got past the fact that their image was just plain weird.

Linkative Weekend Spam #6

2008-07-05T02:21:00.005+01:00

Here's a comment I received on the Funeral post by The Bad Ambassador(who done a great post yesterday on his own blog).

"I attended the funeral of a man who's passion in life was amateur dramatics.

Apparently it is tradition for the deceased actor to receive his/her final standing ovation as they are being carried from the church at the end of the funeral. However, the priest said that the family had requested that this be deferred until the part of the service at the crematorium.

So, at the crematorium, as the curtains begin to close around the coffin, everybody stands and affords the deceased his final standing ovation. The curtains close fully with everybody still applauding.

Then, the curtains begin to open again. For about 2 seconds everybody is a bit confused. Then people realise he was doing the customary curtain call.

The place was in uproar. They did about 3 or 4 more curtain calls before they closed for the last time.

Talk about lifting people's spirits. It was wonderful."

Unfortunately it makes my post look like shit.

New Irish Times blog

Feelies quiet "secret" reunion show!(article by daughter of Stan Demeski, which is a brilliant insight)

Super low-quality video(but lovely) of Slipping(into Something)Part Two
Some more
Sonic Youth double header gig tonight, I would've went if I wasn't several thousand miles away.

First five minutes of the Dark Knight Here. (stolen from RP)

More Weezer Hootenannyness(+100 strangers), Say It Ain't So.
Can't wait for their european tour, whenever it'll be.

Rateyourmusic.com now has custom charts, which are brilliant... if a little messy.

Best homepage ever?(well... if remove the text, that is)

Jim Carroll's best of '08(so far).

Gardai to use fake police cars(Thanks to Jazz Biscuit)

Mulley does a wonderful slaughtering of the government's broadband promises.

Rafael Nadal was doing a blog for the last fortnight oddly enough. (stolen from RP again)

My Funeral

2008-07-04T02:44:00.000+01:00

Having reached the old age I currently am, my mortality is becoming more prominent in my psyche.
I only recently discovered that there is a set aside amount of money in most people's wills for their funeral/reception/etc. As a result I have recently started thinking about plans for my funeral.

Wanting to go out on a tasteless joke, I am going to plan every minute detail in the hope of making it as close to free as possible... and as uncomfortable.

I will get some sort of coffin, I think I shall buy it before I die so that it doesn't count, plus having a coffin and all would really impress my flatmates in college.
While near death, trick some bastards of relatives that I never seen before into promising me they'll dig the whole for me... that'll be a legally binding agreement there.
There's no need for a herse, I want to just be placed in our trailer and drove in by my closest living relative.
Just don't pay the priest anything, if he complains at all the whole parish will just think he wants even more money despite getting a whole 200euro in the collection across the last month.
Many people request a specific song to be played as they're being buried or whatever; if I were to do that I'd go with Always Look on the Bright Side of Life purely cos it's perfect for it. However I do not want music! Instead I would like a cd of hysterical crying to be played throughout... canned crying!
I never understood the point of a reception afterwards. Is the free meal meant to be the final gift the dead person gets to give to all the distant relatives they never like? Nonetheless it's a vital component so we shall head down to Supermacs. I'll have the organiser to instruct that they can order whatever they want... imagine their surprise when the people at the counter ask them for money! Again, they're not going to tell the close relatives to pay.
And finally give someone the lovely uncomfortable job of personally addressing each person at the funeral that I hate from a script I'd have prepared prior to the event.

CCTV

2008-07-03T02:20:00.001+01:00

I'm sure everyone can remember when they were younger seeing a CCTV where they have a camera up beside it to show you that it is working or whatever.
I'm also certain everyone'll remember being amazed with it and spending ages jumping in and out of the camera's view.
And I'm also positive that for most people the novelty of this wore off eventually.

Unfortunately, it never did for me. Combining my obsession of trying to beat my reflection(I jump past mirrors to see if I can see a noticeable difference between me and the shadow... which is ridiculous, but I started trying before I had realised that) along with the added quirk of the image of me appearing at a different angle(and being possible to beat easily), I never quite grew out of it.

So this week, my supermarket added some new cameras and noticed they had a spare television set upstairs... decided to use it to scare people with this old technique.
As a result I cannot do any work. Every time I see me, I drop everything and start dancing to watch myself dancing so that I can beat me in a dance off between me and myself(I've banned myself from using wobbly leg dances as the low frame rate of cctv make it far to easy for me to beat me).
The management are getting sick of it, my cries of "IF YOU WANT ME TO WORK, THEN GET ME OUT OF MY SIGHT!" are only damaging my job's security more.

CAO Deadline CLOSED!

2008-07-02T03:11:00.001+01:00

At 5:15pm yesterday, 1st July, the CAO change of mind option closed.
As I've mentioned before, I spent so much time playing around with my first 5 or so choices(courses that I was never gonna get, or indeed want, but were funny ones to say for conversations... had to remove business with chinese unfortunately cos the risk of getting enough points for it actually existed).
Between 5 and 5:15pm I must've changed it... 15 times?

Anyways along comes the CAO offers in late August and I discover I've got enough points for something along the lines of Knitting in the Aran Islands... my first choice apparently.
I look at all the verification forms and all to discover that I did infact apply for said course.

My mother nearly made me do the course for the child benefit... luckily I'm a stubborn prick and resisted. Instead I sat on my arse with a tight daily schedule.

10.30am: Dr Phil
11:15am: Jeremy Kyle
11:55am: The freakshow that is Shortland Street
12:25pm: Internet
1:25pm: Home and Away
1:55pm: Location Location Location
Rest of the Day: 75% Sleep, 20% Internet, 5% extremely absorbing daydream while on toilet

At this point, I have come to regard the year out as a priceless experience for an absolute ton of reasons, such as:

I had nothing whatsoever prepared for college, and wasn't in any rush to do anything either... basically wouldn't have got any accommodation anyways.
I wouldn't have bothered to getting a job, therefore no work experience up til about 21 years of age I reckon.
I wouldn't have bothered to getting a job, therefore no made up anecdotes to tell people about how people are bastards much to the offense of people.
Wouldn't have started this thing... which has to be benficial to me in some way?

Despite all this, I have to say the most benefitial thing for me from it all is the collosal amount of self-deprecation jokes I am able to say... This has been such a great use that a thought came to me earlier today; if doing a mistake once was hilarious, how funny would it be to do it twice!
So from 5pm til 5:15pm today I spent shuffling my CAO options around just to leave it as a sort of roulette wheel where I won't get to see the results til late August.
This is gonna be brilliant!

Also, if I sent an email to Joe Duffy about GAA fundraisers, d'you reckon he'd read it out on his show?

Some of My Fellow Employees

2008-07-01T03:00:00.001+01:00

The vast majority of my co-workers are Eastern European. I've always had trouble with removing the whole Soviet Union imagary from my mind in relation to that whole side of the continent. So that's caused some problems with my imagination whenever I think of them.

I had just read 1984 when I started working there(which only made the stereotypes far more exaggerated in my head). Incapable of learning names and viewing them all as robot-like.
I finally shook this off after many months hard work... only to make it ten times worse by reading Brave New World!

So I'll introduce you to some of my co-workers as I see them in my imagination:

Male Co-Worker:

Mid 20s
6 foot, 5 inches
Due to the tight awkward spaces of the tightly-compressed supermarket, it is impossible to have a forklift to do all the carrying and such. As a result "Male Co-Worker" has became the store's forklift substitute
In the shed 24 hours a day for use whenever needed
Unavailable for two fortnight long trips to his manufacturing place for repairs

Standard Female Co-Worker:

Mid 30s-Mid 50s
2 foot.
These are high speed shelf stacking machines, their small size means they can climb into the back of any shelf to tidy it up if they so wish
Occasionally used to repair machinery due to small size
Regularly break down and need replacement models

Other Female Co-Worker #1:

Early 20s-Mid 30s
Average height
Ridiculously(!) attractive
Much more expensive to manufacture than other models
Much harder to replace
Excellent at calculations
Incapable of doing almost anything else
Placed at Checkout

Other Female Co-Worker #2:

Varying ages
Varying heights
Minimum Human Contact
Vast knowledge of business and laws
Placed Upstairs in Office to manage paperwork

Other Female Co-Worker #3:

20 or younger
5 foot-5 foot 5 inches
Mixture between Standard Female Co-Worker and Other Female Co-Worker #1
Placed at Deli Counter as it is very suited to the balance between checkout work and shelf-stacking work which is required at the Deli Counter.
"Complete Headfuck"(thanks to Andrew)

Customer Profile: The One I Love

2008-06-30T02:50:00.003+01:00

English people are an absolute delight to help. They'll almost always try their best to do something without asking for help and when they do, they come across as genuinely thankful.

Cos the owner of the store is very old, we're forced to do lots of extra service and help like people used to do years ago before anyone heard of the concept of fusing the word "self" with the word "service".

My absolute, out and out favourites of the Brits are Cockneys and Scousers. I love them so much that they sometimes get slightly afraid of my shrieks of joy upon spotting them entering the store.

Why do I like them so much? They're completely over the top attitudes. When they ask a question, I genuinely feel like I'm finding some sort of heavenly substance for them purely from the huge deal they make out of it.
"'scuse me mate, would it be at all possible if you could help me find the milk, I can't survive without it and am incapable of finding it myself, without you I'm hopeless" They even hold their hands in prayer as they ask!
This has got to be the most seductive thing any customer can say to a "shop assistant".
...it certainly beats the "Did YOU(personally me of course) decide to hide the milk on customers?!" style questions you'd get from us anyway.

When I show them where it is, there's a plethora of gratitude "ThanksMateBrilliantThanksThanksGreatFuckingGreat! you're a life saver!". They sometimes even hold out their harms for a hug. Naturally, I jump right in and hug them to.

Neg

2008-06-29T02:24:00.003+01:00

I.
I really wanted to disagree with Total Guitar's list of The Worst Cover Versions Ever but this is just amazingly terrible... only in Vegas.

II.
Ever know the way on the huge US dvd boxsets each disc has a different picture of a character and by the point they reach disc 8 you're seeing these minor characters who's scenes have been deleted from the show? One of our seasons of Frasier got so desperate for a person to put on the final disc that they actually put Maris there!

III.
Was trying to do an anti-NME post, wasn't working out so I killed it. It was called "Can't Stand NME Now" though, which is perhaps the first pun I ever made.

IV.
Y'know, I'm not sure if I watched any television at all this week... that's kinda worrying.

Negative Review:
"Band on the Run" by Wings
So Paul was getting dissed by all the critic folk about being too poppy. So Macca says "I'll show them critics" and he makes Band on the Run! Bloody good album. Oddly the critics give it good reviews though! I don't understand that, critics are bastards, they would've been biased from the start. Maybe EMI's chequebook done it?
But anyways, the moral of the story is John Lennon was an overrated bastard.

Song of the Week:
Rockin' The Suburbs by Ben Folds.
Brilliant purely for the line "Y'all don't know what it's like, Being male, middle class and white... and cos he's still one of the best pop songwriters around.

Marian Finucane Moment:
This is from a Jerry Seinfeld bootleg of his 2002 show that I found to be far better than his "I'm Telling You For The Last Time" official release. The set deals largely with family life compared to his earlier, solely observational humour based set. All fans of Jerry Seinfeld should also check out Robert Klein.

Sabbath Day

2008-06-29T02:20:00.000+01:00

I think I'm going to ask for all Sunday's from now on off because it's the Catholic Sabbath Day.

Y'know, just to see the response my boss would give.
Even a funny look could be considered offensive to such a devout catholic as myself.

Linkative 5

2008-06-28T03:13:00.001+01:00

Sometimes it's nice to read tons of petty hate when its about a complete bastard

My Bloody Valentine Live!

Weezer(+100 other people) cover Radiohead's Creep, live in Portland from Dave Allen on Vimeo.
From Mulley

Scene from Brass Eye that wasn't on the DVDs or available anywhere til recently

via Graham

JazzBiscuit was dead for the week so it's been pretty slow

Ancient Nick Cave Letter to MTV that I only found today

Make sure to read the comments of this months big Irish post, they're gone hilariously bad... "Reviews (being inanimate) cannot fuck".

Robin Hood/Santa Claus

2008-06-27T03:56:00.000+01:00

Today I got to be the two in one! which really is the coolest superhero never-made, steals from the rich, gives to the poor children as christmas presents... giving the poor children the double whammy of some great gifts and having the wealthy ones taken down a notch.

So anyways I was out working at the bin today, throwing out all sorts of crap quietly behind the management's back to clear some room to fit in new stock. I went to the shed to find some stuff to clear out.
On returning to the bin with a snooker table to dump I found a woman rooting through the bin... on closer inspection I discovered it was a traveller woman. When she spotted me she came over and said "you don't mind if I take some of these magazines and things for my children" gesturing over at her small children in the car.

I said "well y'know management would refuse this kind of thing", just to make myself sound especially great when I added "but I've no problem with it, those bastards deserve nothing from me!".
The children roared with delight, the woman said multiple thanks... getting caught up in the moment I roared "Merry Christmas". They stopped and looked at me confused(it is June after all) before backing off and driving away in their van.
I've only just realised they may've found that odd, but I couldn't care, for the whole day I felt like some new age hiphop street Santa.

Slow Day explanation #327

2008-06-27T03:55:00.000+01:00

...As you can guess, I had a bit of a slow day again idea wise, also no time to write something good and long and nonsensical.

See the problem was that I heard that new Panic at the Disco song, "Nine in the Afternoon". I started thinking about the lyrics, then started trying to stop thinking about them and, as a result, became completely focused on them.
What sort of place do you live in that counts either 9 of the day as the afternoon?
and when he says "Your eyes are the size of the moon", does he mean both eyes combined? or just one? cos that'd be one huge difference. I mean the two eyes the size of one moon is silly, but EACH the size of a moon is ridiculous.
and that's all that circulated through my mind all day... I wish it was a song with more substantial lyrics that took my mind over.

The Recession: an Ill-Advised venture into seriousness

2008-06-26T03:06:00.002+01:00

So yesterday(meaning probably not yesterday when this gets published) Ireland had an official statement of some sort saying the country is in recession.
And much like a balding man, we apparently were in complete denial that our hair was receding until today.
Also like a balding man, we went fucking insane once our balding hair was officially confirmed by someone else. No more could we just comb our hair in some bizarre as fuck sort of twirl across the head to make ourselves believe it was all still there.

The odd thing is that absolutely tons of people seemed to think this announcement had some instant effect. As if someone went a shoved a grenade down the throat of the Celtic Tiger as opposed to the slow death from Old Age that it had several years ago.

"Oh Lord I was out on the road today and you should've noticed how empty it's gone, just yesterday it was as busy as ever and now; no one."

The people who said this either thought:

Millions of people have emigrated overnight upon the announcement.
The majority of businesses in the country laid-off all their employees overnight in fear of "The Recession".
When the ESRI announce a recession it means most businesses are to be shut down to help strengthen it.
The whole nation decided to quit their jobs to resume to the lovely comfort of the unemployment in the 80s.
Builders like building houses when it's absolutely pissing, great time to put on a roof and all.

Then another batch of people said:

"This is what we get for voting No to Lisbon"

...which is just too bizarrely random to do a list of smart-arse replies to.

Television thing

2008-06-25T11:43:00.002+01:00

Don't really wanna add in all my favourites, but will anyway.

Reply to this post.

24 – meh

30 Rock - Long overdue a proper chance from me, I think the problem is it's on tv3

American Dad - Shite

Arrested Development - Absolutely fantastic cast, probably the best ever. The show overall is great(mainly due to the cast) but has became ridiculously overrated.

Ashes to Ashes - Almost as good as Life In Mars somehow!

Back to You - I hear the scripts are terrible.

Battlestar Galactica - Long overdue a proper chance from me, will watch it in college.

Big Love - Wanna see it only cos Bill Paxtons in it.

Bionic Woman - Shite

Bones - Never watched it, dont want to either, but on the basis of Ray's description it's gotta be better than one show that I can think of(and its two spin offs).

Boston Legal - Yes, Shatner! not much else.

Brothers and Sisters - Shite, got that annoying Ally McBeal one in it too.

Californication - Mulder=good, the show has nothing else going for it though.

Chappelle's Show - I thought it was crap, the I watched it and found it to be okay.

Chuck - meh

Colbert report - not as good as the Daily Show

Criminal Minds - Shit

CSI - boring, same thing every week, ridiculous.

CSI Miami - See above, but with an annoying prick of a lead.

CSI New York - See CSI, but more depressing because Gary Senise is wasted. only another 300 songs by the Who to go.

Curb Your Enthusiasm - Funny for a while, has no lasting power, relies on shock tactics, Larry David does a terrible job acting as Jason Alexander acting as Larry David.

Daily Show - good show, Jon Stewart is a good presenter.

Damages - Not a huge fan, but very good.

Deadwood - From the bit I saw it's a western thats actually good.

Desperate Housewives - Good, then brought in Kyle Maclachlan and became great in my book, then turned crap.

Dexter - Season one is magnificent, one fo this decades best.

Dirty Sexy Money - Unsure what to think yet

Doctor Who - Veering wildly between greatness and dogshit, Ecclestone was perfect though.

Entourage - When they're all failing; It's great. When they're succeeding it's the worst thing on television.

ER - One great show per season

Everybody Hates Chris - Fun little sitcom

Extras - Am I the only person who adored it all?(except the finale)

Family Guy - Extremely inconsistent, extremely unbalanced writing jumping from joke to joke. Used to have 3 or 4 great jokes per episode, now it'll occasionally have 1.
Overrated.

Fast Show - My favourite sketch show ever.

Father of The Pride - Nothing special, should've been cancelled.

Firefly - Flawless?

Flight of the Conchords - I hate musical based comedy, I hate "subtle" Mighty Boosh style humour. This combines the two.

Freaks & Geeks - Flawless?

Friday Night Lights - It's got Gary Hobson off Early Edition! Lord I loved that show.

Garth Merenghi's Darkplace - wonderful, wish they released the plays on dvd or something.

Grey's Anatomy - fucking constant advertisements driving me insane.

Heroes - was nice and flashy, then became dogshit... wont improve.

House MD - Very good show, not much to make you come back to it but when you do it'll always impress.

I'm Alan Partridge - Flawless?

It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia- I NEED to see it.

The IT Crowd - I love it, season 2 was wonderful.

Jericho - High Hopes, then it turned out to be crap.

The Larry Sanders Show - Probably the most important sitcom of all time.

Las vegas - Same as Ray

Law and order - Don't watch it much, but it's quality.

Lead Balloon - Not Curb-esque, Curb imitator. Fuck jack dee.

Life In Mars - Best show by the BBC this decade?

Little Britain – It’s the catchphrase comedy Ricky Gervais takes the piss out of in Extras, but you can’t help but hate it. Who hasn't had it forced down their throats already?

Lost - Too many emotions and opinions to bother typing, which surely shows how great it is?

Mad Men - From a writer of the Sopranos, really great show, went relatively unnoticed

ManStrokeWoman - Shite with the annoying fella from Spaced

My Name Is Earl - okay when on television, but shows back to back on dvd is sickening

Nathan Barley - I adored it, many people found it annoying though.

Nip/Tuck - Entertaining, from the makers of Popular I think? remember how annoying its cliffhanger was?

Prison Break - 1 was great, I preferred 2! 3 was terrible.

Private Practice - AGH the fucking ads.

Pushing Daisies – From the maker of Wonderfalls and Dead Like Me, not as good as either of those but still amazing.

Reaper - Currently crap, but loads of potential.

Rescue Me - Dennis Leary, fucking Bill Hicks imitating wanker.

Rome - Meh

Scrubs - Started great, remained pretty good, JD is amazingly annoying though.

Seinfeld - great show, great cast, great everything. With the exception fo Kramer.

Shameless - First season is flawless, 2&3 are very good, dont't know after that.

Six Feet Under - The greatest US drama ever made.

Sliders - Seasons 1&2=Flawless?

Smallville - See ER.

South Park - was good, been doing the same thing for over a decade though and should be brutally murdered.

Spaced - Great show, far better than Pegg's films. The art episode is my favourite.

Spooks - meh

Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip – "The first ten minutes of this show is probably the best television I’ve ever watched. Made by Aaron Sorkin (again, from the West Wing) this was what was intended to be his big comeback project. Although it only lasted one series, it had some fine moments, but none that lived up to the promise of that legendary first episode in my opinion." I agree 100%

Lois and Clarke - reasonably enjoyable tripe.

The League Of Gentlemen - One of very few great sketch shows that I actually like.

The Office - Glorious

The US Office - Very good standard sitcom

The Sopranos - How could anyone hate it?

The Thick of It - My favourite sitcom of all time, hilarious, flawless, brilliant. Just cos Langham's a pedophile doesn't mean he wasn't brilliant in this role. Should've won huge acclaim.

Ugly Betty - same as Lottie

Undeclared - half the length and half the absolute greatness of Freaks and Geeks, so still great.

Veronica Mars - The first season is possibly the most entertaining show I ever seen.

weeds - great, need to see more though.

West Wing - brilliant show, not as obsessed with it as others, but still amazing.

Cleaning Time

2008-06-25T03:40:00.001+01:00

It is store policy to clean within one hour of opening, however our store takes exception to this rule for one reason, Paddy Jameson!
Being a farmer, having no timetable means he falls into a daily timetable purely from having no timetable.
And according to his timetable-less timetable:

He must go into our store at 9:55am,
He must buy 3 bananas, a loaf of Pat the Baker's bread and 2 pints of milk(covering 3 of the 4 corners of the shop).
He must be served at the checkout usually held by Mary(the fourth corner).
He must leave the store at exactly ten.

Now the problem with Paddy(asides from difficulty with mirrors) is that he goes to the shop DIRECTLY after farming. So he strolls through the store in his shit covered wellies, making any cleaning done beforehand pointless(as the manager doesn't come in until 10am) by leaving a trail(and smell) behind him.

As a result, whoevers cleaning has to:

Stand behind the door with cleaning equipment and all at 9:55
Jump behind him from the second he enters the store
Quietly and stealthily follow behind him cleaning the trail he leaves almost instantaneously
Keep this up until he walks out the door where the cleaner will meet the manager walking in to a clean store

Lunch Time-When entrepreneurship goes wrong!

2008-06-24T03:37:00.004+01:00

Unlike Darragh, I didn't have any valid reason for not participating in games at lunch... apart from laziness and fear of dying.

Being in a very small school, often the whole school played together in little football matches and things so I was afraid of playing against people 8 years older than me at the start and afterwards never bothered.

However on certain occasions(amidst schoolyard wars) I was drafted in to do something or another... such as this time.

If you can remember back to playing football(soccer) on a play ground, the game always seemed to shun one rule of the game; OFFSIDE!
On a team of eleven you'd have the hopelessly bad fella in goals, 5 quiet fellas defending and 5 arrogant fellas so far up the field they're standing behind the other goalie. Usually one team was always vastly superior to the other too.

So one day the crappy team had enough of the other team's more-successful goal hanging! They refused to play unless ALL the official rules were implemented. However... this required an additional 3 players, 2 linesmen and a referee.
And thus I was forced into playing as one of the linesmen, my friend was made the other linesman and this crazy(-er than me) kid was made ref cos he could run around more.
Amazingly I managed to figure out the rules pretty fast... I suppose everyone roaring at me for being an idiot all of the first week would made me more eager to learn.
Along with the implementation of proper rules, the team that used to always lose suddenly started winning... they thought this proved they were more skillful. In reality all it proved was that me and my friend were more afraid to say they were offside than the others.

The other team, confidence destroyed by the sudden drop in form, began to obsess about the lunch-time match. Yet, no matter how well they played, we were still far more afraid of the fourth and sixth class fellas than their team of people from fifth, third and the rest.

About a month in, they reached breaking point. Jim O'Flaherty from their team approached me, said he could "make things interesting" in a similar tone to Chandler's from Friends said the night before... so I knew that was a bribe. He gave me 1 pound if I could call some decisions in his team's favour.
And that is exactly what I done, winning the match had hugely calmed the previously tense younger team... all of them apart from Jim, that is.

Having bribed them into a win, he couldn't tell any of them without becoming hated so he was stuck having to bribe me one pound each day. I was having the most fun I ever had during a lunch... making a child's fortune(which was a lot smaller back then) too. Until someone from the older team decided to bribe my friend... so the people ignoring the rules became the two linesmen, we were constantly warping the rules to suit the team funding our cause... If my team lost I had to give a refund and so did he so we became fiercely competitive. On the good side of things, most the arrogant bullies and such lost all of their confidence thanks to regularly losing matches despite attempting to bribe.
Mr Ref knew everything that was happening and found it too much fun to look on than to interfere in our antics. He refused bribes to ensure our silly battle of flag waving would continue.

Some months in, the game had became virtually identical to what it was originally like except it now looked like the rules were being kept and we were making a nice little profit(there was now an awful lot of draws too, in these cases we both got to keep our money).
Then Mr Crazy Ref got sick one day and we had to get a replacement. Feeling friendly and all, we let him in on our little venture, which was a huge mistake.
He told the teachers and we were ordered to stop or risk haiving our scheme exposed to the whole school(and getting slaughtered as a result).

We accepted one final bribe that evening for the next day and devised a get ouot plan. Mr Ref was going to start giving out red cards that the two of us'd call, they'd go insane with this and hopefully throw the three of us out of the game as punishment.
He was deranged so we knew he'd be up for something like this... except he wasn't.
When we came to Mr Ref with our plan he said he'd only do it if we'd pay him every penny we had earned... and in fairness to the little bastard he kept good records(He had kept track of every bribe each of us received that we had been so foolish as to mention to him). We desperately wanted out so we paid him.

That lunch, he whistled to start the game, 1 minute in I raised my hand for a foul, pointed out that one player had ran too close to another as an "obstruction"(a phrase goal hangers liked saying to the other teams defenders). The teams dont know whats happening, fouls never existed before! Then Crazy ref raises a red card outta nowhere, after a huge fight the player walks off angrily. One minute later I raise my hand again, another red card! We kept this up til there was only 4 players left, both teams were now fairly aware of their own bribing habits and thought we were doing something in their favour until this point, they then threw us out and each privately demanded their bribe back.

Several years later, I mentioned this jokingly to some of the fellas that were playing... they bet the shit outta me.

Fuck

2008-06-23T11:31:00.005+01:00

RIP George Carlin.

One of the greatest comedians of all time, definitely one of the most consistent too.
Really is far more suited to a whole set than one clip, but this is one of my favourite clips from his Parental Advisory album.

Louis CK has done an especially good article on him

Apparently he's better known in europe as Rufus from the Bill&Ted films.

Celebrity Endorsement?

2008-06-23T03:20:00.002+01:00

Una's recent post about advertising on blogs got me thinking about marketing blogs... then what sort of celebrity I'd get to endorse a heavy marketed version of this blog if I were going to.

At the time I said:

I'd love to get some sh!tawful celebrity like Jade Goody along with someone like Stephen Hawking to endorse my blog

However upon some further consideration, I've decided upon someone who's extremely dedicated to the industry, who had a distinguished career(not necessarily related in any way to the products he endorses thoug, who has a proven track record and, most importantly, who surely is affordable; Ian Wright!
Since his football retirement he has endorsed literally everything else on the planet, so he must be pretty cheap.
I am going to start a fundraiser so that I can afford the extremely credible support of an endorser second to only George Foreman.

Negative Boredom MCMLXXXVIII - MCMLXXX

2008-06-22T03:32:00.002+01:00

Negative review:
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Everything that happens in On the Road:

They go to all of the crappest parts of america they can find
They really "dig" all the dumps, the blander the better
Sal spends the whole book ranting about how no one understands Dean and just think he's a prick... but Sal knows that Dean's so much more, he's a complete bastard!
their "last dollar" manages to fund almost all of the trip asides from the bits where...
...Sal'll be sponging off his auntie
and finally you'll be going insane that you find it so godawful when it's such a hugely hyped book.

I.
Medbh was talking about the 5 coolest scenes of people walking in film.
In her comments I composed my own list in her comments, now edited and pasted here:

Rocky running for training to fight the world champion Apollo Creed
Rocky running for training to fight the world champion Apollo Creed in the rematch
Rocky running in some other city for training to fight the world champion Clubber Lang
Rocky running for training to fight the fella in Rocky Balboa that no one remembers
Rocky running through a snow-filled field in Moscos with a horsecart on his back that has 4 Russians in it for training to fight the amateur world champion and communist Ivan Drago.
Rocky slowly walking in recovery from brain damage before tommy gunn starts beating the shit out of him

II.

MyUndesiredName (20:03:50): it's raining men

The Other Person (20:04:41): hallelujah

MyUndesiredName (20:04:46): doesn't mean any of the men are desperate enough to go for one of those fat bitches that made that song though, they were originally called "Two Tons of Fun"!!

MyUndesiredName (20:05:12): shouldn't it be "it's raining men who have extremely low confidence in themselves and very low standards"

MyUndesiredName (20:05:23): "hallelujah

MyUndesiredName (20:05:25): "

The Other Person (20:07:52): if you want to put it that way

MyUndesiredName (20:08:19): well you know how it is, if you dont be very specific with a wish it'll backfire

MyUndesiredName (20:08:28): although i bet if they wished for that wish

MyUndesiredName (20:08:38): all the men would do mass suicide

III.
The fact there's a 1 in a million chance of PiL playing EP is kinda exciting... won't happen, but that'd be great. I'm still gonna yell for Death Disco at the Sex Pistols.

IV.
Stewart Lee replied to a message I sent him, says that he definitely wants to play Galway again next year, which means I'll get to see him!

Song of The Week:

Spain's finest Indie group(which actually is an achievement just so you know)! was extremely difficult for me to find some of their albums... at the very least they deserve some form of fanbase outside Italy.

My Marian Finucane Moment:
Not necessarily side-splittenly funny, but I'm getting a point across here, Shelley Berman IS the father of modern US comedy, this airline set from the mid 50s showcases styles of joking ripped off by tons of comedians since to the point it's became a standard. Yet his name isn't mentioned half as much as many, many others.

Linkative 4

2008-06-21T03:47:00.002+01:00

My absolutely brilliant ringtone/alarm... this'll wake up anyone.

The Incredible Hulk reviewed by The Hulk Himself.

Some ridiculous environmental campaign. Stolen from Medbh

JB informed me of this idiot, one of the best internet slaughterings since that fella on that nissan site back December direction(cant find links to his posts though).

Rick links all the Rosie replies into one neat bundle, saves me effort.

Sigla Dies

From Bob:
Woman buying Teeshirt: Can I have the brown one?
Girl selling tee shirt: You do realise that is a Damien Rice Teeshirt
Woman Buying TeeShirt: Oh Fuck no, Is it really?
Girl Selling Tee Shirt: I take it you don’t want it then?
Woman Buying Tee Shirt: Oh No, I want the Leonard Cohen One

Just a random clip to remind you why Chris Rock sold out so fast

I cannot comprehend how people don't like him, he's got pretty much everything.

DarrenByrne has started a series of posts about Irish Values, it's pretty bloody long but definitely worth reading... also the only person in the world to manage to convince themselves that Heroes season 2 was watchable.

Since It's The End of the Week

2008-06-20T03:36:00.001+01:00

...a Post about the Beginning of the Week!

I previously wrote about picky customers in regards to milk, this is about a complete different brand of picky customer, the Fruit&Veg(F&V) specialist.

While plenty of people are fairly choosy about fresh produce, I'm focusing on a specific type of person here. Housewife, The older side of middle-aged, the kind who invested in a wig to save money from hairdressers(which is now five years old and less convincing than a Tinsulate cap would be), obsessed with their children... you get the idea.
Sunday morning, mass is over, time to prepare for the big Sunday meal and all, to the shop!

Now I've to cut here and point out there's never any deliveries on a Sunday, so we just have an extra large order of F&V and meat on Saturday to have a reasonable supply for the whole weekend.

Upon entering a supermarket, she rushes to the F&V section. Instantly lines up in a queue of near-identical women, each waiting for their chance to stand over the tomatoes and hunt for the holy grail(of eh... tomatoes)! Of course one problem here is if every person who stands over them proceeds to squeeze each one to bursting point, they are gonna get somewhat damaged(as well as covered in all forms of germs). I inform all of them that all the tomatoes we have are on display. As the queue gets smaller and smaller, each person who goes for their hunt gets more and more angry with the constantly declining quality of tomatoes... until it reaches near the end of the queue where people are so delighted to be finding edible tomatoes.

Unfortunately the person this story is about was in the middle. She arrived at the tray. She was not impressed.
From the corner of her eye she spotted me sweeping a flood. She decided to take out her anger on me by criticising the tomatoes aloud in that way where it's clearly aimed at one person. "Oh dear, these tomatoes are awful! Look how easily I can squeeze them!".
I can never understand why they think this is gonna have any effect on an employee, do they expect me to burst into tears that I work for a store that cant sell ripe tomatoes from the branch?
She isn't happy with my response so she moves onto the the carrots. "Lord, look at the length of these carrots, they're far too long... and all the ones below them are tiny!". At this point she actually called me over to ask me if we had "healthier looking parsnips", apparently they were all too-white.
"You wouldn't see O'Flaherty's down the road selling filth like that" she said. I pointed out she was right, I wouldn't see O'Flaherty's selling filth like that... In fact, I never seen O'Flaherty's sell anything since they closed the shop in the late 80s to keep the pub open.

Anyways I return back to my work and she continues with little "subtle" swipes, I suddenly find it very funny and am struggling to not laugh at her.
She finally finishes with the F&V section and turns around to face the minerals.
"Lord that Coca-Cola doesn't look very good!". I instantly collapse to the ground laughing.

After she leaves I look at the Coca Cola and discover that one bottle had somehow managed to stay on the shelf so long that it went past its expiry date, which is baffling... I reckon the bitch sneaked it in and put it there just to spite me.

Post 1000

2008-06-19T02:20:00.000+01:00

divided by ten
*bows*

Knowing a foreign language(or indeed our native one) fluently must be great, you can talk about anyone behind their back, in front of their back.

I'm the paranoid sort that thinks people are always talking about them... which is basically the only problem I've had with the arrival of all the Eastern Europeans in this country.

But it's still a big problem, especially considering half the people I work with have very little English. They're constantly talking in their native tongues with each other. Instead of getting used to it over time, I was getting more and more paranoid.

Then just there yesterday they made it far worse on me than it ever was previously, while speaking gibberish, I get confirmation that they definitely are talking about me.
See... when you speak a foreign language... if you use someone's name in the middle of the nonsense, THEY WILL NOTICE!
This has led me to the obvious conclusion that people only talk in other languages to laugh at me... after all what other reason would they be doing it?