Seriously though…
Could somebody please tell me a good joke?
I’m running out of party tricks.
Cheesy celebrity picture
Here’s a photo I just found that I’d forgotten about. For all o’ you non-Celeb freaks, this is Delta Goodrum, my young ‘fla, and Brian McFadden, taken a year or two ago.
When they entered the ward, you wouldn’t believe the fuss that nobody made. It was inspiring. Ah, they were a lovely pair o’ girls though, really. What I love about this photo is the look on the young lad’s face. If that’d been me in the photo, I think I’d have the exact same expression on my hale and pace. I reckon he’s inherited my sarkiness.
Taoism versus Blogging
Bear with me for a minute.
Blogging is a form of expressing the mind, right? Taoists would argue that point. They might tell you that you are trying to express your inner experience with a medium that is far too limited to mirror the exact emotions and complex spirit of our mind. There are simply just not enough words.
Thom Yorke of Radiohead fame put it quite simply in Street Spirit:
“This machine will, will not communicate These thoughts and the strain I am under…”
To conquer this gap in understanding, Taoists invented these clever little allegories and verses named ‘Koans‘. The purpose of the Koan is to bamboozle a person into thinking far outside normal rational thought, possibly to make you forget the difficult question you just asked, or to confuse you into a state of awareness.
For instance, “Without anxious thought, doing comes from being.”
EH?!?! You might ask… well see, this means that when one’s mind is full of complicated irrelevant thought, one tends to take a long time assessing the actual situation and coming to a conclusion as to how to solve a problem. There is the risk that too many detailed steps will be taken in order to make that problem go away. If one meditates and is able to clear the mind, it is easier to find the right path, clear as day.
AHHH! You might say… well see, this is called Enlightenment. The ‘ping’ noise that a penny makes when it drops.
Or perhaps in more familiar terms, I might berate the Accidental Terrorist over being too irate with a playstation game.
“Why aren’t you enjoying the game?” I might ask.
“I’m trying to master it but it’s too fucking hard!” He would say.
“There exists a state in which you will not attempt to master the game, and the game will not attempt to master you.”
“What is this state?!” He might ask.
“Give me the game and I will show you.”
At which point I would jump up and down repeatedly on the playstation until it is smashed to bits, and the Accidental Terrorist becomes enlightened.
See? You get the gist. I’ll leave you with one more itty bitty thought:
Two monks were arguing about a flag. One said: `The flag is moving.’The other said: `The wind is moving.’
The sixth patriach happened to be passing by. He told them: `Not the wind, not the flag; mind is moving.’
Dog tired
This blog’s been on hiatus this weekend, sacrificed for a rare peak in an otherwise quiet social-life. When it rains it pours!
First of all, Friday night was to be dedicated to my Accidental Terrorist, as I’d spent the week before housesitting for me auld pair. I was all set to spoil him with some needed attention, when I got a rather forlorn text from my friend, hinting at serious mopeage at being stuck at home with her kids on her birthday. So, I felt it my duty to arrive at her house with a chinese, a few chickie DVDs and an impressive stash of Bacardi Breezers. We got suitably inebriated and she became a very happy little duck.
Saturday night was cocktail night in the Accidental Terrorist’s best friend’s house. We left our children on the doorstep of his mother’s house with a little note attatched, and ran away. Minutes later, the five of us spent about 150 quid on alcohol and basket loads of fruit, wandering aimlessly around Tescos wondering what else would give an alcoholic smoothy a good kick… Spinach? Going a bit too far. Nuts? Drain cleaner?
Settled back in the batchelor pad, the lads made a weird concoction which involved more eating than drinking, then stuck into their pool tournaments. No bachelor pad seems to be complete without a pool table and an xbox. We girlies then began to let the creative juices flow with the dodgy juicer gizmo.
We made the following concoction:
Half bottle of Bacardi Ice, Half bottle of Bacardi breezer (pineapple flavour), 4 shots of white rum, 4 shots of vodka, Juice of 4 oranges, Juice of 1 lemon, Juice of half a lime, 4 tbsp brown sugar, 1 decent handful of ice, 1 handful of strawberries.
This, poured into a pint glass, is so delicious, it dissapears within about 2 minutes. And the added bonus was the hangovers this morning were non-existent on account of all the lovely vitamin C consumed!!
The night then progressed into silly status, dancing around the pool table to ‘The Cure’, making silly drunken gestures during the inevitable game of ‘Charades’, you know the rest I’m sure. The party was crashed by a number of complete wankers who managed to quash the happy spirits flat and start a fight within 10 minutes of their arrival, so we buggered off at that stage.
I’m just about ready for a gallon of tea and a soft couch right now. The kids can put themselves to bed.
Eco Freakishness
Brittas Bay is an amazing beach in South Wicklow, and is under the jurisdiction of Wicklow County Council. They’re cheeky enough to charge 4 euro for parking at this beach, but they don’t do a whole lot (that I can see) to maintain it. So today, a local group of volunteers including Yours Truly went to take matters into our own bin-bags.
I’ve been thinking about my granny a lot these days, and haven’t spoken to her much recently so I invited her along… I’m cut from the same cloth as this woman in many ways, and have inherited her love of nature and eco-freakishness above all.
We tackled the undulating sand-dunes on our own- my being a lager-lout means that I can sniff out potential barbeque and camping areas instinctively. We managed to fill two large sacks with various refuse (you’d be amazed at the things people bring and dump on beach-trips!) within two hours at a rambling pace. Gran used to have a dodgy hip but thankfully that’s not so much of an issue these days so we had great chats while wandering up and down between sand-dunes. When we finally got back to the meeting area in the car park, we were shattered and pretty surprised to find that the others had left without calling to let us know. “PART – TIMERS!!” we yelled at the empty parking lot, before pouring our tired bones back into the car.
I’m sitting in the bay-window of her kitchen now with a beer perched on my belly, gazing out into an atmosphere densly charged as a result of a spectacular electrical-storm. I love this weather. It makes me want to dance in the rain and incant spells or something, just to revel in the awe-inspiring power of nature. Dad’s poor doggie isn’t so impressed though. She’s been cowering behind the sofa for the last hour or so watching me pick sand out of my crevices.
Technically it’s not actually gran’s kitchen anymore, it’s my mum and dad’s… she left the house to them some years ago when she died. She’s still here though, even if I can’t see her. She’d be making toast right about now.
I think I’ll pop on the toaster now in fact, with an extra slice for gran. We deserve it after all that hard work.
Not what it's cracked up to be.
As many of you already know, Grandad is away on holidays for a spell. He wouldn’t tell me where he was going, but I know that when he’s going somewhere really interesting, he likes to keep me out of the loop, so this time I have hired a personal investigator. I received the following photograph this morning, apparently my mum and dad are in Outer Mongolia on a second honeymoon. Here they are, being serenaded. My mum always likes to join in the singing, bless her.
I was really excited when they were going away, it means I get to bring my family to Headrambles Manor to house-sit. Unfortunately, last year when I got to spend dad’s holiday in his house, I lost the run of things a little bit, so dad (as I’ve just discovered) has been hard at work ensuring that the same thing doesn’t happen again. Kudos to him, he’s really let his imagination flow. I don’t know what the big deal was, anyway… it’s not like he really liked that tree, and he never used that spare room before I burned it down. The party was well worth it, and you’d think he’d have a renewed sense of humour after a nice long holiday, but apparently not.
Anyway, when I arrived at Headrambles Manor yesterday and freed my dog for a sniff around, the first thing that happened was the landmine detonation. My dog was okay, but we now can’t go into the garden as we don’t know how many more are planted.
Then at 5am this morning when I went for my early morning pee, I discovered that he’d cleverly wired his toilet roll holder to the mains. I just couldn’t get back to sleep after that. He managed the same trick with the television remote control which is a mind-bogglingly tricky thing to do.
Another example of his evilry was to leave a note saying that he’d stocked the fridge for my arrival. He’d been planning this for weeks, obviously, as he went to the trouble of buying new products, then replacing their contents with his previously stored rotten foods. We avoided a nasty dose of salmonella from the scrambled eggs we nearly ate this morning, had the dog not passed out from the smell.
However, possibly the worst crime of all is the laptop he left me. He’s locked his own computer in the vaults as he clearly doesn’t trust me, and seems to have employed a guard to look after it, as there are wierd noises in there and we’ve already turned away the CIA over alledged dodgy activity twice. The laptop he did leave me is the family heirloom. It’s very pretty, with gold-leafing patterns around the screen, and pure ivory keys. It even has raffia around the USB ports so I don’t know exactly what period it’s from.
This laptop has a version of internet explorer on it which is great, at least I can finally avail of ye-olde broadband to look at some YouTube videos I’ve been dying to see, but unfortunately the keys seem to be screwed. It’s stuck on CAPSLOCK, and the letters have a wierd identity crisis going on. ‘A’ thinks it’s ‘U’, ‘O’ thinks it’s ‘Q’, ‘SPACEBAR’ thinks it’s ’5′, and ‘BACKSPACE’ thinks it’s %. This makes it really difficult to do searches and write posts.
So what I’m trying to say, in a very elaborate sort of way, is that if I’m very quiet over the next few days, it’s either because I’ve been blown up, electrocuted, poisoned, or just silenced by an ancient laptop.
You think I’m joking, don’t you? I’ll tell you again for the gazillionth time, I never exaggerate.
Important life lesson #2
Did you know…
…That alcoholic beverages have all 13 minerals necessary for human life? There really is truth in the saying ‘liquid lunch’.
That’s all you’re getting from me today… it is Sunday after all.
Little known fact about K8 the Gr8 #1
Random discrimination and web-building
My best friend was in a car accident last month. It involved an articulated truck. She doesn’t do things by halves, you see. She was fine, just understandably shaken.
She scared the crap out of me yet again yesterday, when she said she’d been in another fender-bender.
“I was in another car-crash this morning!”
“Jeez, are you ok? What happened?!”
“I crashed into the back of this bloke’s car. It turned out he was a Dwarf.”
“Oops.” I said.
“Yeah, I know… he got out of his car and told me he wasn’t happy.”
“Really?” I asked.
“So I said.. well then which one are you?”
Gawd bless her. Only a true friend gets away with scaring the shit out of you and making you laugh at the same time.
And now for something completely different:
Like… whatever.
I had a sad attack last weekend.
No no no, not that sort of sad, I mean pathetic sad. I was sitting across from this bloke at a game of poker, when he suddenly asked the dreaded question – “So… anything new?” I hate this question because my brain instantly swims into oblivion. I lapse into short-term memory loss, probably a result of all the spliffs I’ve had over the years. I knew I should’ve listened to Woody Harrelson’s advice.
I took a breath to tell this fellow poker dude about this blogging stuff that I do, seeing as he’s a ‘puter user and all… then stopped. I gave him the standard generic answer which goes something like: ”Ahh you know, nothing much, same old same old!” There was probably a ton of information I could have given him, jokes I’ve heard, amusing anectodes, but like I say, the neurons up there just go on strike.
The reason I reconsidered imparting my bloggy address, was that at that exact moment, I was embarrased about it. It’s a skeleton in the closet of my social life. This blog is not shocking… I don’t give out blunt personal opinions littered with the fucks and cunts that get your posts noticed. I’m not politically sharp or astute in any way. I can’t rant uncontrollably or be violently biased about current affairs. I can write about the cheesy boring dull things in a naff half-assed sort of fashion, but it just seems so futile. I scan other blogs, become immensly humbled by their popularity, and wonder what the hell I’m doing here, most of the time.
I just can’t help but wonder what it’s all about, this ongoing strife to appear cool and interesting. The immense need to be popular and loved. Who cares what people think, right?! ‘Fuck the begrudgers’ as the fella says. So why was it that at a recent family function, when my brother-in-law made some piss-take reference to the fact that he’d read my weblog, I suddenly became deeply embarrased, like I’d just been caught with reams of skid-marked toilet-paper on my shoe?
I don’t know… it might have something to do with the real-life/virtual-life dichotomy. For some reason it’s like oil and water for me. Online, I’m proud to be a blogger. Offline, it’s a coffee stain on my shirt. Something that you know people might be aware of, but still something you’d rather have covered up.
Which leads me to the new arrival on my menu to the right, here… my blog award nominations. It’s a daddy’s job to be proud of his kid, to show support whether it’s merited or not. He’s made a sweet gesture of nominating me for not one, or two- but four categories, for which I’m really grateful. He has my back. It’s nice to know that I won’t be picked last for the soccer team. My shoes are nailed to the floor… I’m not going anywhere, there’s no running away from the bloggy world yet.
I don’t like screaming “vote for me” from the rooftops, so I won’t do that. I’m just happy the buttons are there. I’m going to go and vote for myself now, then go and torture myself with my cat-o’-nine-tails for commiting one of the seven deadly sins – again. Besides, in order to glean 10 minutes for the creation of this post, I’ve had to lock my kids in the attic, and I think I hear one of them splashing around in the septic tank which is never a good thing.
Just one more thing though -
Thanks da!
