Positive Boredom

Why did you do this to me?

2009-07-06T00:12:00.000+01:00

You used to speak in such a determined, buoyant tone. You used to be so uplifting.
With your hopeful words in your beautiful voice, you kept me going through all the difficult times.

Why did you have to change? The new words of inspiration which you utter seem forced and lacking. Refusing to even repeat the great ones from the past, you appear to be a broken man.

So tell me, Gary Barlow, why on earth did you release such a terrible album?
...and why, why in the name of Christ, did you decide to not let supermarkets play the older songs any more?

Maybe Opening My Mouth Will Make It End

2009-07-05T18:23:00.002+01:00

This is an atrociously long set of tennis, going on and on forever... it's gonna end with someone quitting due to injury(blisters on the soles of their feet making it impossible to continue) and that's gonna lead to a long campaign of adverts about the importance of good sports socks.

END!!

Alcohol(y) Trinity

2009-07-02T00:15:00.004+01:00

Thursdays are brilliant round here. Well, they're actually absolute hell for me but for the general populace around here, it's a great day, like a giant party... it's welfare day, y'see.

One thing which generally occurs when you're doing nothing long term is that you fall into a ridiculously strict schedule. So every Thursday, I get to see the exact same things happen as every week before that.

The best example of this is the old bachelors. This does not mean every old bachelor, rather a special trio. They all look the same, combed hair, in a suit and all that, would be counted as very well dressed were it not for the fact that they gave up on the idea of ever changing clothes around the same time as they gave up on meeting a woman. Each one begins their journey into the town at about 6am in the morning, I walk by two of them on the way into the shop. Gradually, they'll work their way into the post office to be there for opening time and collect their pensions. At ten, they all appear at the door of the supermarket, being this close makes each one instantly distance themselves from the rest, one of them going to the checkout, another to the off-license, the third stands still.
The third fella is a strong believer in the old fashioned style of supermarket where the shopkeeper handed everything to you. The smell off of them works as a siren for attracting whoever is in charge to serve him.

All three buy the exact same thing;

2 pints of Monaghan milk(rather than a considerably cheaper litre),
loaf of Pat the Baker bread,
package of McVities Digestives
...and
2 Fyffes bananas.

They refuse to ever specify the brands, but if you get the wrong ones, each of them will go completely bonkers.
"What's that? I wanted bloody Digestives!"
"Which brand though?"
"Digestives! F*cking Digestives!"
"There's no such brand, sir"
*Also have to save some Fyffes stickers at all times under the weighing machine just in case they pop in and there's another brand.

Anyways after finishing at the shop, they'll each wander off to a different pub. There's three in the town so it's okay, last year there was another fella alive and it always resulted into a bit of a battle, like a weird, super slow and ridiculously complex version of musical chairs... the one who didn't get a pub had to go home.
Once in the pubs, they'll get absolutely pissed, drinking away as much of the pension as the barmen will allow them too.

I'm usually on my lunch break when they finally get thrown out of their respective pubs. -For my lunch, which is at most 15 minutes long, I just rush away from the shop so no one can bother me and eat about 5 of those super energy bar things that look like giant blocks of feces with bits of poorly digested porridge- My old regular resting point was on a bench at one corner of a T-junction. On another side there's checkout and at the 3rd side there's off license... checkout always stares drunkenly over at off license and off license stared over at me... took me some time to realise he was actually looking over at old fashioned, who was standing creepily close behind me.
Started having my teeny break at slightly differing times each week to see what the next step was in their little game.
Here it is, in dodgy image form:

The different coloured lines mark different periods where they lights let them cross the road. The numbers represent each one of them.
The short lines the same colour as the numbers represent where they came from.
The blue line marks the start of the road crossing situation. Number 3 moves across to number 1's side, which immediately sets number one on his journey to get away from 3. Next up is the gray line, where number 2 goes directly to the pub which 3 was in. This leaves 1 capable of going across, at the next red light, to 2's former pub.

I'm not quite sure why they work so hard to avoid each other, they all live terribly lonely lives, at the very least, they could have some drinking buddies that way... but something completely stupid must've happened about a million years ago which made them all fall out, now they've forgotten what it was and are incapable of making up.

Bit of a waste of time considering in a few hours they've poured their whole pension into their stomach in alcohol form, and are singing songs together outside the shop, together, as if they were my best friends... their one hour or so of companionship each week.

I still think these miserable gits aren't worthy of a full pension, but always leaves me smiling anyway... much better than wasting their pensions gradually over the week, to lead to seven miserable drunken walks home.

Amazing title, eh? No? Okay.

An Actual Post With Words And Lies And Substance And Whatnot

2009-06-29T07:57:00.003+01:00

On a curriculum vitae I filled out during the college year for some job applications, I had some trouble trying to come up with things to put on my "achievements" section. Unfortunately, achievements are one thing I'm kinda lacking in, even for my age. In my desperation to come up with ones, I included the slightly jokey, 100% serious entry of "Sober every Sunday morning shift Oct 07-Aug 08".

While something makes me think all my potential employers went "...but what about the other 6 days?" they should've been acknowledging how big of an achievement that is. EVERYONE is pissed outta their skulls, everyone, that is, except me.
Work starts at 9am, but most people aren't in til half. Every last one of them comes in, zombielike, with a terrible mixture of sweat and alcohol... the girls looking lovely with last nights makeup smeared all over their faces.

They're generally not at hangover point just yet, moreso sleepy drunk. So there's no bad moods or landmines walking about just yet. They are all terribly useless though, even incapable of communication.
That is to say, incapable of proper communication, they do, however, make sure to learn off the following conversation.
"How was last night?"
"Oh I got absolutely hammered last night, must've drank X pints/glasses of Y"
Doesn't work too well with the customers though.
"Excuse me, is there anyway operating the checkout?"
"Oh I got absolutely hammered last night, must've drank X pints/glasses of Y"
"That's all well and good, but are you supposed to be operating the till?"
"How was last night?"
"What're you on about? Get someone to serve me!"
"Eh, um, how was last n-"
"You said that!"
"Oh I got absolutely hammered last night, must've drank X pints/glasses of Y"
"Jesus Christ, I'm leaving, getting out now, saying it because you cannot see it... what with being blind from drink(and to make it visible to readers)"

Yep, overall, the majority of them aren't very useful. Not sure if the shop is accommodating this fact or not, but work on Sundays is always easy, peasy, lemon, squeezey... which is just as well because I've to do quite a lot of the work. Also has to be completed within a strict time limit because around 11am, the staff begin to get a bit cranky, be it from dehydration, exhaustion or, most commonly, the realisation it was an extremely crappy, rather pricey night out in one of Longford's esteemed nightclubs where there's always the scarily high likelihood that anyone you meet may be related to you... they're generally super mad on mornings after that happens.

So I was thinking about putting it down like this in CVs from now on

Achievements:
Sober For Every Sunday Morning Shift: Being the only sober person working on Sunday mornings, I had a large number of responsibilities to undertake. With no help, asides from the slight assistance of several drunken employees who followed me as if I was the Pied Piper of hungover Longfordinians, I had to complete these tasks alone.

The Nerve

2009-06-24T01:41:00.003+01:00

MyUndesiredName (01:39:06): i've a cousin called Tony

MyUndesiredName (01:39:19): been in his house hundreds of times

MyUndesiredName (01:39:22): never seen him

MyUndesiredName (01:39:27): not even in a photo

MyUndesiredName (01:39:37): i reckon my aunt invented him

MyUndesiredName (01:39:48): in her mind, not her womb or whatever

(This is a cop out as the post I actually had for here seems legally risky, potential GBH and all)
I see it somehow didn't post on the scheduled date, what on earth's that about?

Drafting

2009-06-22T05:39:00.001+01:00

Customer: Excuse me, excuse me!
Me: Yeah?
Customer: I was just going in to buy this *waves offer leaflet*, but I can't see it on sale in here.
Me: Ohhh, that's because the company's currently only producing 100% extra free packages.
Customer: Sure... why'd they advertise this 2-for-1 offer then?
Me: Must've been short notice or something.
Customer: I can't use this offer? Typical of you to be fleecing us for all we're worth in the recession.
Me: You're getting the same as 2-for-1 anyway, 100% extra free!
Customer: ...no, I want 2 for the price of 1. That's 2 packages.
Me: but they'd be each half the size.
Customer: Why?
Me: because they wouldn't have the 100% extra free.
Customer: What on earth are you on about?
Me: 100% extra free, is the same as a full pack-
Customer: *sigh, walks off*

5 Min Later
Customer: I was just talking to the manager and they say that the voucher will work.
Me: Hmph, must have the same barcode as the originals. Normally they give a different one, sorry bout that.
Customer: No need to make up excuses, just don't be so certain of yourself when you're wrong. Lord knows, with this recession, the last thing we need is people causing us to spend more money.
Me: That's exactly what we do need though.
Customer: Little brat, I wasn't even rude.
Me: No, no, you weren't, I know that. It's just that the biggest problem with the economy, every economy, is a lack of faith, people aren't spending money which results in less money going through the economy which is needed to cause economic growth.
Customer: You're probably having everything bought for you by mammy and daddy, telling us all to spend as much as possible, we'd starve. Sure what would you know?
Me: Asides from basic economic theory, not a lot.
Customer: I was nice, just wanted to warn you about your error. You won't be seeing me round here again.
Me: I'm sorry.
Customer: So you admit to being wrong?
Me: No, I'm right.
Customer: About what?
Me: I dunno.
Customer: You used to be a lot more tolerant, this is no fun. *leaves*

New Blog

2009-06-19T19:24:00.003+01:00

I've started a new, more personal blog. With any luck, it'll stop me putting whinging rants here by allowing me to do more detailed ones elsewhere. It's private so you'll have to ask me for an invite via email. Once I don't know you, I've no problem granting you access.

This ones not dying just yet by any means, although I can't imagine daily/good posts to be returning any time soon.

Hopefully some of you have a high level of tolerance and'll ask for an invite outta politeness, thanks.

Words and Stuff

2009-06-17T05:51:00.000+01:00

Follow the decline of Jordan's page 3 career she had to find some new way of staying in the papers. So she married some random person she met on television and had annual babies to keep her place in all those magazines.
After Kerry Katona's divorce thing all died down, she decided to alternate between stories of how great a mother she is and stories about how she's addicted to drugs(culminating with her turning up pissed on This Morning) to keep her place in the magazines.

Then suddenly, one day they both lost their jobs as media whores when MAx Clifford got the whole Jade Goody dying thing which took up all the space for Jordan, Kerry Katona and the Loose Women women.
After that died down, Jordan and her husband both agreed to split up to generate a bit of media buzz, meanwhile Kerry Katona had to engage some sort of tax fraud(?).

So I was thinking will we ever get to a day where the two of them will have to take a page outta, international media-whore, Lindsay Lohan's book and become "lesbians", marrying each other. The magazine cover was all too easy to imagine; looking remarkably similar to the artwork of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,

the crazy colouring scheme would be the exact same at their tacky wedding clothing scheme,
all the other people in the photo being their former husbands and children(although this potentially means Peter Andre would be where someone like Gandhi would've been),
where the young Beatles models were, they'd be mannequins of them from a decade ago(tits out, of course)

The only difference would be that none of the Beatles were pregnant on the cover.

In fact, the only reason this image mightn't happen is that it'd have to be a landscape image... although I'm sure John Ryan could be convinced that the world needs more magazines suited for landscape photos.

Bad News

2009-06-15T05:21:00.000+01:00

Manager: We've been thinking about your general performance here since you started, you've been hardworking, willing to do anything and incredibly well organised towards everything. So we are going to give you an junior assistant managerial position for the holidays.
Me: ...what does that mean?
Manager: Basically it means you'll be mainly doing stuff related to order, accounts and a good deal of work at the checkout too. You'll get a small payrise and an awful lot more paid working hours. Time and a half for overtime too.
Me: Did you say work at the checkout?
Manager: Yes, you'll be sitting and all, a lot less laboursome and exhausting than your usual work.
Me: Oh well, I guess, hmm, FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!

PS. I've absolutely no idea when I'm gonna actually type up a post again. I've had ideas and such, but no motivation whatsoever to actually type them up. You may be getting excerpts from the worst play in history if I don't start soon, which kinda is worth looking forward to.

Forgive Me For Being Ignorant...

2009-06-14T00:09:00.002+01:00

...but is this not the single most unintentionally laughable scene from a film, ever. Can't believe I bought this.

Finished?

2009-06-12T11:13:00.000+01:00

Mid-30s Man: Excuse Me, do you happen to sell single roses?
Me: Single tin or single chocolate?
Man: What?
Me: Cadbury's Roses
Man: No, a single real(!) rose.
Me: In a fight with the missus, eh?
Man: Obviously! Think you're incredibly witty eh? Stating the bleeding obvious.

Cocks

2009-06-11T03:29:00.001+01:00

It's not all terrible living in Longford, I suppose. Occasionally little things can make it almost worthwhile. Today, for example I was walking home, which is a forty minute walk. I was walking along home and met some hostility from pretty much every house.

The first house I walked by had a chained dog barking viciously at me.
The second house I walked by had a chained dog barking viciously at me.
The third house I walked by had a chained dog barking viciously at me.
The fourth house I walked by had a chained dog barking viciously at me.
The fifth house I walked by had a chained dog barking viciously at me.
The sixth house I walked by had a chained dog barking viciously at me.
The seventh house I walked by had a chained dog barking viciously at me.
The eight house I walked by had a vicious cock crowing at me.
The ninth house I walked by had a chained dog barking viciously at me.
The tenth house I walked by had a chained dog barking viciously at me.
The eleventh house I walked by had a chained dog barking viciously at me.
The twelfth house I walked by had a chained dog barking viciously at me.
The thirteenth house was ours.
I walked on to the fourteenth outta curiously and found a chained dog barking viciously at me, then I went home.

Hopefully the strange one there passed you by without much surprise, that's what I was trying to aim for anyways cos that's how I responded. The fact I didn't even find it odd is one of the nice things about this place.

Charlie Brown

2009-06-09T08:27:00.000+01:00

For some reason, I tend to collect wrappers. Not all of them, just ones that have an old package design on them right after a new one is brought in... for some reason I feel sorry for the design. Anyways that's damn near irrelevant.

I was eating cereal a few days ago and noticed the ingredients said that the nutty bits were 5% of the total ingredients, that's 18.75 grammes per package. So I ran up to my room, found an old KP peanuts package, ate 4 packages of the cereal(removing the nuts), put the nuts into the 60 gramme packet and then ate them.

Moral of story: I should focus my mind on something more productive.

Socks

2009-06-08T02:48:00.000+01:00

I've just discovered something which has shaken my world. Apparently socks aren't made specifically for the left or right foot. Two days ago someone told me this, I didn't believe them so I emailed the makers of all my clothes.

Dear Primark,
I would like to know if your socks are manufactured specifically for the right/left foot.
Thanks for helping,
Me

The next morning I received this reply

Mr. Me,
Our socks are manufactured to suit both feet. While we can understand that they might fit better if they were manufactured for the left or right foot, but not both, it is not financially valid to do so and we believe that the vast majority of our customers would not find the minor additional comfort to be worth the higher price. This is the standard industry practice.
We hope this reply has been to your satisfaction,
Ramona ************************************ov

Every morning for as long as I can remember, I've found myself a pair of socks and put them onto, what I believed to be, the correct feet... except for some mornings where I just wore yesterday's through the night to avoid the difficulty of figuring out which was for which foot. I've potentially wasted days of my life putting my socks on... yet I never doubted this notion that was created in my own mind.
Lord knows what other fundamental things in this world I'm 100% wrong about.

My Buddy's Hoody

2009-06-03T18:00:00.001+01:00

Many years ago, a boy began trekking up and down the main street of Longford. I can remember it as if it was yesterday, the fact he was walking over and back over the same area wasn't what brought him to my attention, what brought him to my attention was the ex ex ex ex ex ex ex ex L[(X^8)L or XXXXXXXXL, which I presume is never printed to avoid damaging people's esteem?] Linkin Park hoody he was wearing. It was ridiculous, this fella was tiny and yet he decided to put on a piece of clothing that would be too big for a small vehicle.

Since then, he's stood out to me every time I've been there. I was never really around the town much asides from in the summer so I got to see him gradually grow along with me each summer. The advancement each year was much the same, he'd gain an extra 50% in weight compared to the previous year. By the summer before my final year, the hoody was beginning to be a bit of a tight fit.

When I started working in the shop, I noticed him in the shop one day. It was as odd as rashers in the off-license to be honest, he wasn't on the main street, didn't have his annual weight increase and was wearing AN ENTER SHAKIRI HOODY! This sudden change to my world was a bit of a blow to the system to be honest, after all the knock downs from messing up the CAO(college application form thing) and the like, I needed som stability.
Luckily the next day I got myself a solution. Instead of the regular 50% weight increase, he got himself an other half... in pretty much every way, half his height, half his width, half his weight and half his beard(she's disturbingly added half his clothing level since). She also had the Linkin Park hoody on her. Together, they walked up and down the Main Street for the whole year.

Anyways I didn't see them around there for the last year cos of college and all but the reason I'm writing this is because I just spotted them in the town. Neither had the hoodie on, however, they had a pram(or pushchair, whatever they're called), in it there was a bottle of Buckfast covered with the same Linkin Park hoody.

...there was a baby in the pushchair too.

(This whole thing's becoming an awful bloody hassle, in pretty much every way. I'm online for like an hour a day and have to make fierce efforts to try and put up posts. Then the posts are awful, terribly lifeless, awful, forced, awful, stilted beings(they probably all are, but I like to think the ones that are okay show enthusiasm of some sort) cos I'm not re-adapting to Longford at all at all.
I dunno. I think I'll try and get two decent posts a week and put spammy crap into the weekend or something... or just read.
...I dunno.)

I Love This

2009-06-02T02:55:00.000+01:00

The two of my brothers were viciously fighting there on the Bank Holiday. They were beating the shizzle outta each other throughout this.

Mam: We're gonna have the keep the two of you apart all summer, yous've always been bickering with each other.
Dad: Now, now, stop that.
Older Br: F*ck off!
Mam: What're you fighting about now?
Younger Br: I said Sister Act was crap and he went mental on me.
Everyone else: What?
Older Br: That's not what happened, he threw a plate at me!
(at this point I lunge into the fight, punching my older brother with each word)
Me: You f*cking prick! Why didn't you just play along with him there? That had the potential to be the funniest thing that's ever happened in this house, more funny than the time (censored) was made temporarily bald from their hair being pulled out. You ruined perfection!
(at this point Mam joins the fight)
Mam: That wasn't funny, we were in the hospital for ages.
(Finally Dad joins in)
Dad: Yous forgot to buy the whores of tea bags

Gotta love a ridiculously hot summer day... all altered truth too.

Another Studying Post

2009-05-29T02:46:00.001+01:00

So I'm sitting here, trying to study in this godforesaken library... well I'm currently typing this but I was trying to study. *sniff* Anyways I've a flu so it's annoying enough, but, Jesus, everyone's twice as annoying here than usual.*sniff*

There's one fella over there who I'm fixated on. He's annoying me more than anyone I've ever seen. *cough* He keeps looking around at everyone, I'm unsure if he's actually looked at any of those books at all, why's he even here if he can't study? What on earth are all those twitchy movements about, it's like an Ian Curtis dance move for rearranging notes.
Now he's started banging on the keyboard like crazy, there's no way he can be doing college work, that speed and violence in typing can only be putting out absolute gibberish. Study has to require thought, there's none there.*cough* Jesus, how can the keyboard survive that, there's an echo! *sneeze**sniff*

Hmph, people are giving me looks for sneezing. Yet no one seems to mind about him. I can't help the sneezing, not my fault that there's a flu going around, that prick over there is doing all sorts of crap and getting away with it. *sniff* *sniff* *wipe nose with arm*

He's just after wiping his nose too!
Wait, he's looking at me.
He's me.
...lord I'm an annoying prick.

Look at that girl over there, she shouldn't be allowed study here. As bad as I am, her crossed eyes looking at everyone are a million times worse, how can I possibly study...

sorry

A Deserved Fairwell

2009-05-28T03:41:00.003+01:00

Several years ago, at the peak of the celtic tiger, a lot of shops and other public places decided to try something out. They added a toilet brush and holder into each cubicle.

There's two reasons I can see for why they done that:
1.
To make it more convenient on the cleaner, not having to bring the one brush around with them the whole time.
That's very considerate in my opinion, not the sort of thing that'd even cross a person's mind, but there you are. I know it could be possible that this was just to make the cleaners do their work faster... but it honestly wouldn't speed the job up much, even a manager would be aware of that(!). It is possible, however unlikely it may seem, that the managers thought to themselves "isn't it a bit degrading to make the cleaner have to carry a sh!t brush around with them?"

2.
Same as above, but with the added hope that people would sometimes think of cleaning the messes they leave.
This is my kind of idealism, not some sort of crazy revolutionary stance on saving Africa or nonsense like that.
In my ideal world, the owners would place a toilet scrubber in each public toilet cubicle. Check!(til recently anyway)
In my ideal world, the scuttery users would occasionally decide to clean up their messes to some degree. That's not what they do though, is it? No it is not, what they do is absolutely nothing but spray it everywhere... they're not the only problem, everyone else decides to piss all over the brush. Then, the one person who decides to use the brush, might not even be their mess, winds up picking up years of dried in piddle.

Recently I've noticed them disappearing rapidly, so this post is probably the only farewell which the cubicle toilet brush is gonna get.
Farewell unused toilet brush, you never had a chance.

Why Is Being Casual So Difficult?

2009-05-27T03:33:00.001+01:00

I'm terrible at meeting people. Terrible, terrible, terrible.

There was a time when I was good, really good. My daddy thought me how to do the perfect handshake, tight with the fingers, loose with the thumb... a good firm handshake, but not crowding the other person's hand out. Everyone I met used to praise it.
The first day of primary school was the first time I met anyone that wasn't a relative and was my age. No one greeted with the handshake so I gave them all one and trained them how to give each other one. Everyone was so impressed with my handshake that they all followed suit and proceeded to do it over and over during the first day(along with stealing stuff).

For the next 8 years, I didn't meet anyone new... so when I came along to secondary school, I used the exact same method of greeting everyone. I was a bit nervous about meeting new people, but decided to tackle it head on by greeting everyone I met.
...it did not go well. Most people tended to look at me oddly and one teacher made a big deal outta it. Everyone else seemed to be very casual about it. "Hey," "Hi," and "Well?" were all the rage. I had to settle with the people who said "yo" and "wassup" for the first few weeks as friends.

Every since that I've been terrible. No one likes a good handshake anymore, even in job interviews, they don't seem to like it for the lower down jobs.
The handshake is too serious, over dramatic and formal, so I've been trying to achieve "the casual hello". I'm gradually coming to the conclusion that it's impossible, for me at least.

An introduction is a big thing, how can it be small?! Every single person you meet could wind up being a major part of your life, if it's accepted that a drunken f*ck can determine your wife, why can't hello be held in the same regard ...and the polar opposite is that it's the one point where two lives intersect. It's also the point where each person you meet has their highest potential, if I were allowed kill everyone upon discovery, I'd love everyone.

So I tried to do happy casual. It just wound up being enthusiastic. Enthusiasm is so heavily out of character(even upon meeting) that it left an uneasy feeling over the rest of every conversation. This was not helped by being unable to switch into normality,
So I was talking in a real giddy manner to show enthusiasm,
had a big grin on my face like the evil ghost fella on Twin Peaks to make the giddy manner seem natural,
big fake laughs at everything so I didn't have a giant stiff grin on my face,
making useless jokes every sentence to make the laughs seem like they had a place,
constantly dragging conversation to the same few topics I had jokes for,
et cetera

...needless to say this worked the worst yet. People were genuinely avoiding me seconds after meeting me. Since then I've just ditched greetings entirely, when I try one, it winds up being done in slow motion cos I've somehow got this idea that casual=slow. Due to so many shattering experiences, most my greetings are muttered so quietly that they're completely unnoticeable... of course this leads with the occasional roar in slow motion with super slow wave greeting to ensure I avoid the mutter, which is done to be certain that I don't come across as scarily over enthusiastic, that was to avoid the handshake and the handshake was to avoid me doing nothing.

...in short, someone tell me how to say hello.

Decadent Boredom

2009-05-26T03:02:00.001+01:00

After my last supper in Galway and several hours drinking plus hours of torturous whipping(metaphorically by means of a hangover) instead of sleep, I set off on my journey out of Galway.

Firstly I had to walk to the train. I managed to squash everything into three bags, which sounds small but that's only because one of the bags was a giant backpack camping bag thing. So it was a pretty heavy load, to make it that little bit worse, a One Foot In The Grave boxset lodged into a place in the backpack where it was digging at full force into the top part of my chest. I was basically walking with a portable crucifix on my back-
...although wasn't the crucifix portable too? Cos Jesus had to carry it and all? If a torture device is torture to carry, surely carrying it qualifies as another function for it?
-The journey was difficult,

The bag on my left hand was initially much heavier than the one on my right, stumbled out into the middle of the rood with it and fell over the kerb on the far side.
After balancing the bags out, I tripped and fell over the strap of the right bag.
Trying to avoid the right bag, I tripped and fell over the strap on the left bag.

At this point, a friend of mine spotted me falling over and rushed over to help. He carried the two bags from my hands for the rest of the journey. While most the weight and most the pain was coming from the back, removing the other two made the journey possible.

So I finally made my way into Eyre Square. Sweating and panting and dying, I had to work my way through crowds of American tourists.

"In America, we have Taxis to do stuff like that"

"See, that son there's got a great Irish spirit, look at the determination carrying those bags... utterly pointless, but determined about it"

"I bet that student has to walk cos he spent all his money on beer"

After stopping to rest and talking to them, I arranged for them all to mockingly shout "All hail ****, King of the Youths" as I worked my way through them until entering the train station to accept my inevitable faith of being stuck in Longford.

Land of the Imported Dead

2009-05-25T02:47:00.003+01:00

So like I said, my exams finished there recently. On the same day pretty much every section of the college finished their exams too. Most people went home in the weekend... I spent it on a drunken frenzy cos my lease didn't expire til a week later.

On the monday after the exams, I woke up and wandered outdoors sober for the first time since the exams. Everywhere was deserted. No one was around the college, no one was around the apartment block. If it wasn't for one duck who's a bit violent towards me, everywhere would be in dead silence.

So I ventured further and further until I gradually got to Eyre Square. There, in droves, was the entire cast of Grumpy Old Men(without Matthau and Lemmon obviously). As soon as I noticed them, they spotted me too. My pale, young and pale face with a backpack stood out for a mile in the middle of all their bronzed rubber faces. One of them said "An Irish University Student!". Suddenly, they all started charging at me with disposable cameras and stories of their ancestors who were related to me cos they had bad teeth like mine.

I retreated back to the apartment and boarded the windows up.

Unfinished... apparently, could've swore I had an ending.

Moving Makes Me Too Busy For Boredom(Plus Gift)

2009-05-22T03:16:00.003+01:00

I actually have a half finished post for today, but I'm moving in a few hours so I can't be bothered finishing it. Friday's are always dead round here anyway I suppose.

Also, I've something like ten days left on a rapidshare premium account... they're pretty great but I can't use it anymore. So if anyone's interested, email me. If more than one person is, you can share it.

Dragon Fruit

2009-05-21T03:36:00.000+01:00

From the second I seen one for sale, I wanted it. First cause it was called Dragon Fruit. Dragon... wow.
Secondly, it looks like some sort of medicine from a Pokémon game, anything that looks like it's gonna increase my HP(which means Hit Points, which means health) can't be bad... imagine if it increased my MP(magic points) from 0!

So I splashed out, spent a good €5 or so on one fruit.

Look what I got. Ever since I was very young, I've had a rule to not eat anything that looks like a firelighter so, after months of dreaming what one would be like, I threw it out.

...I wonder if that's why they're called Dragon Fruit? Cos they look like firelighters and dragons can breathe fire and, no doesn't work.

Instinct and other crap...

2009-05-20T05:07:00.002+01:00

Thanks is powerful, I've said it before, I'll say it again... I'll say it again right now, thanks is powerful. When I'm after doing some sort of godawful f*ck of a service and the person doesn't say thanks, I have a tendency to hunt down and murder whoever it was. When they say thanks, I usually don't kill them. By that standard, every thanks is worth 1 person's life.
So it worries me greatly to see Tesco have set out to kill it.

When those self service checkouts were introduced a lot of people complained about them. "Replacing people with computers, they'll be taking all the jobs soon enough" they used to say. I disagreed, all they were gonna do was add a little game to the end part of shopping... plus they wouldn't be as pig ignorant to me as the people were.

So after a few weeks of people complaining about them, everyone just stopped caring and life went on.
A large portion of why people stopped caring probably had to do with the general public's response to their implementation. Rather than protesting their introduction by not using them, they completely abandoned the human checkouts. Their fear of looking incompetent combined with a flat out incompetence with computers resulted in each machine requiring one employee to help each person use the machines and another person to cover the techy bits... inadvertedly doubling the required staff.

The problem I have is how the machine says "Thank you for shopping at Tesco" at the end of every transaction. Despite the overwhelming power of thanks, it is generally effortless... it's almost always instinct based. "Here's your hat" "[While receiving hat]Oh thanks", instinct.
So when a computer voice says thanks while your busy packing bags, collecting change, putting your basket down and taking out the receipt and you hear "Thank you for shopping at Tesco", you instantly reply "You're Welcome" or whatever. Suddenly you realise you've just said thanks aloud to a machine and every customer(because they all go to the machine now) has witnessed it.
This tiny little moment of shame makes you immediately conscious of uttering the, once instinctive, words of gratitude for the rest of time.

If Tesco keep this up, everyone will become more and more weary of them as you get caught out every time at the over hectic self service checkout until they eventually die.

(I'm after getting very mixed up here with the use of the second and third person, I hope it's still coherent... this whole daily posting there is a bit rusty for me)

Untitled Boredom

2009-05-19T03:23:00.001+01:00

It was a real f*cking windy day and I was walking along this bridge(which stretches out a good deal to each side of the water there cos there's a fairly steep fall). I was mid-way across with wind blowing like crazy cos there's nothing to shield it off from any direction and I hadn't zipped up my jacket so it was flying around like crazy on me.
So I started trying to zip it up. At which point, the velcro on my sleeves locked with the velcro on the outside zip extra sealing bit of the jacket. This formed two kite like gliding things on each side of me which the wind gladly helped gather as much air into as possible, enough to lift me off the ground a teeny weeny bit on the middle of a bridge over pretty deep water at a steep fall. In that split second these were my honest thoughts in chronological order.

Whoop f*ck, I'm in the air.
Bloody typical, a childhood of velcro shoes that wouldn't stick and this does.
I'M GONNA F*CKING DIE!!!!!! GRAB HOLD OF SOMETHING!!!!!
Actually this'd be a fantastic way to die, be like Mr Bean's death or something
Lord I hope someone's recording this, I'd give up the blog anonymity to put a video of this up..
Oh wait, I landed back on the ground when I was thinking #1.

Numbers 4 and 5 worry me a bit, to be honest.