YouTube - Finally Tonight, Jesus...
You can make anything appear!
Monday, March 09, 2009
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Angry Hedgwig and my Inch
Twitter is a weird little application but Shirley has been getting into leaving offensive messages online. Apparently you can measure your girth of Twitter messages using Twick Size.
Mine only rates as an angry inch. I'm re-thinking that gym membership now!
Mine only rates as an angry inch. I'm re-thinking that gym membership now!
Friday, January 09, 2009
Swimmin with the fishes! And the intelligent fishy-type mammals.
I'm heading on holidays soon. I wanna go here. Since I was a kid, I've always wanted to swim with dolphins - even if they are vicious creatures (and according to The Simpsons, they are!).
Friday, December 12, 2008
Must-bang Sally
I didn't realise the Salvation Army was such a cult. Harold Bishop on Neighbours made it seem innocuous and gormless. Not to mention old-fashioned. But it seems that's not the case. Besides marching up and down streets banging tambourines and singing for Jesus, it seems that this little group of do-gooders sign their souls over to earthly masters too.This disturbing story reveals how "officers" in the Sally Army sign contracts swearing that, should their current spouses ever die, they would only marry a fellow Sally Army Officer. That's not just weird. It's morbid.
Besides disturbing me a bit (okay a lot!), this also arouses my curiosity. It begs the question (although they'd probably say it "fundraises the question"), what is that particular rule for? Any rational mind can see that the primary purpose of priestly celibacy is to keep property in Church hands. Do the Sally Army own property? Because of their appeals, I'm guessing they have a lot of second hand stuff but do they have anything that they wanna keep?
Of course, it could be Scientology-style secrecy. They might not want the words of "Onward Christian Soldiers" to fall into the wrong hands.
Or maybe it's a minor point in their overall crazy, half-lived lives:"We're like an army. But we fight for God. With tubas. And bonnets."
Maybe it's all that inter-breeding that makes 'em crazy!
Friday, November 28, 2008
Chips are down for Racist Harvey Norman
Sofa* so not-so-good. Furniture retailer Harvey Norman wishes it hadn't entered into the Irish market. Since entering the market, sales haven't sat* well with chairman Gerry Harvey and with the downturn in the economy things are going from bad to worse. Bitching about trading difficulties in Ireland, Harvey had this to say: "Just imagine you opened in Ireland; you’d want to go and cut your throat. The potato famine, someone said, the return of the potato famine in Ireland!".What a stool*!
For a start, he should have blamed the nasty design or bad quality of his product. Just because his more tacky countrymen buy his gear in bulk doesn't mean we will. Doesn't he know, we're practically European over here!
What really bugs me is his choice of language. Doesn't he realise how many millions died in the so-called "potato" famine? Couching* his business troubles in this kind of language is an insult to the Irish people. Can you imagine if he went to Israel and used Holocaust references?
I'd suggest a famine-era response, namely a Boycott, but I think our superior taste has already pre-empted that.
Get out of town, Harvey Norman. Your spuds are roasted!
* See what I did there? !
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Apocalypse Now or Never?
The End is Nigh! Or so we've been told for millennia. Of course, it hasn't happened yet so that makes a mockery of the word "nigh". Nigh, it seems, isn't so nigh. Or perhaps the real mockery should be at the expense of those who expected "the end" to come sooner. Many religions feature doomsday prophesies - some even with specific dates (with the Seventh day Adventists being particularly hilarious). None, obviously, has been correct thus far. Yet, in spite a rash of failed prophesies, humanity still anticipates some kind of "big finish" to our time on earth. What is it about the human condition that makes us contemplate our collective demise?And it isn't just the crackpot religious people. You just have to turn on the TV to see how fixated everyone seems to be with all this. From Survivors, a drama set in a post-apocalyptic UK, to Dead Set, a zombie series set on the set for Big Brother, the telly keeps telling us that something truly awful is just around the corner.
Beyond the realms of a faith-driven Armageddon and science fiction, it seems that the natural world is conspiring against us too. If you've been watching the documentary Catastrophe on the origins of life on Earth, you'll know that a sudden disaster isn't all that unlikely a proposition. Nor is a slow, painful one either.
Of course, the difference between religious and non-religious people is that one group genuinely believes that this would be The End of The World.
Here's a short Irish comedy on the same theme.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Help or a Hinderance
Last December, I had my wallet stolen at a club*.
Today, I got a package from An Post containing the same self wallet**.
Is this their idea of a joke?***
*It was in Bukkake: a club where, sadly, I know or am acquainted with the majority of people around me. Or at least vice versa. In other words, someone who knows me stole my wallet.
**The wallet arrived sans cash. Clearly the perpetrator cleaned out my wallet and put it in the post box. How helpful! At least that way, I get my sentimental photos and ID cards back.
***Assuming they posted the wallet into a post box immediately, the idea it took An Post almost a year to open the wallet, check with my bank/college/DVD rental store for my address and mail it onwards is not just frightening. It's incompetent.
Today, I got a package from An Post containing the same self wallet**.
Is this their idea of a joke?***
*It was in Bukkake: a club where, sadly, I know or am acquainted with the majority of people around me. Or at least vice versa. In other words, someone who knows me stole my wallet.
**The wallet arrived sans cash. Clearly the perpetrator cleaned out my wallet and put it in the post box. How helpful! At least that way, I get my sentimental photos and ID cards back.
***Assuming they posted the wallet into a post box immediately, the idea it took An Post almost a year to open the wallet, check with my bank/college/DVD rental store for my address and mail it onwards is not just frightening. It's incompetent.
The Un-bear-able Lightness of Being
That's Debby. She's a Polar Bear. And after the one in The Golden Compass or the one on top of a Fox's Glacier Mint, she is one of the most famous Polar Bears in the world. Debby is famous because she is considered to be the oldest Polar Bear in the world. I say "considered" because we can't know if that's true*. We haven't met all of them. And they don't register their births. But we do know that she is the oldest Polar Bear in captivity. At least she was until she died this week.Debby had a degrading kidney condition (Don't we all?) and was a "guest" at the Assiniboine Zoo in Winnipeg, Canada for many years. She was forty-one years old when they "euthanized" her. I'm hoping that was a lot longer in Polar Bear years. Not just for personal (age-related) reasons. You see, I've actually met Debby.
I lived in Winnipeg for a couple of years in the early Nineties and during my stay there I paid a visit to their rather large zoo. I was visiting because Ling Ling and Wong Wong** the Chinese Pandas were on a state visit but I did make it over to see the Polar Bears. And unlike our pee-stained yellow Polar Bears, the Canadian ones are actually white**. This is possibly because they are from up the road (and not from the Phoenix Park).
Either way, I hope you had a happy life Debby. You were way more interesting than the Pandas. And you'll make a nicer rug.
*And only religious people are that certain of anything.
**not actual names or colours.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Answering nature's call
Scientists are losing their shit over sightings of a rare Whale Shark having a dump. It seems that these sharks tend to do their "business" in much deeper water - presumably because human scientists are such voyeuristic freaks. The scientists even collected the poo to take it home with them, claiming that studying the animal's poo will help them understand it better. Hmmm.... That's the same logic I used when I brought some of Twink's excrement home from RTE.Staying with the voyeuristic: George Takei (who played Sulu on Star Trek) is appearing on I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here and he's fallen foul of the show's rules on where you can answer nature's call.
The actor (who is gay and therefore clearly unable to follow any rules whatsoever) was caught on nightvision cameras going for a wee within the habitation zone for the campers. Apparently that's a no-no as it attracts rats and then snakes and then aliens from outside the space federation.
Dirty skanky Sulu. What would Dr. Spock say?
Monday, October 27, 2008
Monday, October 06, 2008
Dive Bomb
I'm not a very sensible boy. It took ten years of thinking about getting a pension before I started one. And since I started it, I haven't thought about it that much. (Although I am pretty sure it's worth less now than it was a year ago. Damn recession!)
What winds me up about the pension scam* is the way pension-providers use more fear-based advertising than the average Republican election campaign. One ad that really bugs me is the one where the female diver is preparing to dive into an empty swimming pool. Filmed in moody black & white, the girl is clearly in (metaphoric) danger until the pool fills up (thanks to an Irish Life pension) and she can land the finish (or whatever you do in a dive)*.
In the current economic climate, I think a remake of the ad is on the cards. Actually, I'll do it myself. I'll need a diver with a death-wish or any of our legion of drugged up competitive swimmers. I think I'll film it in glorious technicolor. The swimmer will mount the ladder (or whatever you do with a ladder) and begin her dive into a water-filled pool. Sadly (due to global warming and sub-prime mortgages) the pool will no longer have any water in it when she lands. The End.
*What you put in may not bear any resemblance to what you get out (unless you understand fractions). Terms and Conditions Apply. Divers may or may not be harmed depending on the levels of drugs in their system. Water is not guaranteed to be pure H2O.
What winds me up about the pension scam* is the way pension-providers use more fear-based advertising than the average Republican election campaign. One ad that really bugs me is the one where the female diver is preparing to dive into an empty swimming pool. Filmed in moody black & white, the girl is clearly in (metaphoric) danger until the pool fills up (thanks to an Irish Life pension) and she can land the finish (or whatever you do in a dive)*.
In the current economic climate, I think a remake of the ad is on the cards. Actually, I'll do it myself. I'll need a diver with a death-wish or any of our legion of drugged up competitive swimmers. I think I'll film it in glorious technicolor. The swimmer will mount the ladder (or whatever you do with a ladder) and begin her dive into a water-filled pool. Sadly (due to global warming and sub-prime mortgages) the pool will no longer have any water in it when she lands. The End.
*What you put in may not bear any resemblance to what you get out (unless you understand fractions). Terms and Conditions Apply. Divers may or may not be harmed depending on the levels of drugs in their system. Water is not guaranteed to be pure H2O.
Declan Buckley, Mossad and God are now friends
Oy! Oy! Oy! One of the things that annoys me about religion is the concept of "religious moderates". They're the people who believe (*ahem) that it is entirely feasible to believe in only parts of their faith. (I'm assuming they are those parts that they think make sense or suit their cause).
We all know the type; they don't go to church at the weekends (or ever!) yet they still want the white wedding. Or there's the person who thinks gays should be discriminated against because of something in Leviticus (all the while ignoring the same warnings about shrimp, haircuts and sharing the company of menstruating women - who wrote that shit?!).
It all demonstrates a very shaky belief in any kind of God - particularly the very vengeful God from The Bible, Talmud or Koran. If you genuinely think the God person is real, surely you won't wanna piss her off by being a crap servant, eh?
Recently, I was most disturbed to hear that a good friend of mine regularly prays "when he needs something" (despite not really believing and the absolute lack of any response to previous prayers). It reminded me of that exam I failed as a kid because I spent the time praying I'd pass rather than actually studying!
The reality is that religion serves people well when they want to be selfish. Or impose their political views on others. Or if they are scared (of death, foreigners, women or their desire to sleep with their soccer-coach).
As a wish-granting factory, religion is way down on the list behind Jim'll Fix It or The National Lottery. As a god, God sucks. Either that or he's on lunch for the last 2000 years.
In my opinion, Technology is the new god. It's far more omni-present. When it works, it works in mysterious ways... And it's certainly all-seeing and all knowing.
Take the tale of the Israeli girl who got out of Military service "on religious grounds". The Secret Service snooped around her facebook profile and found that she had been partying on the Sabbath and generally sinning. Bad girl! (More to the point; is anyone else slightly turned on by the fact that hot Mossad operatives could be scoping about our facebook profiles?)
Poor girl has now been forced to sign up for her full military service. I wonder whether she blames an angry, jealous God... or her stupid privacy settings on facebook?
We all know the type; they don't go to church at the weekends (or ever!) yet they still want the white wedding. Or there's the person who thinks gays should be discriminated against because of something in Leviticus (all the while ignoring the same warnings about shrimp, haircuts and sharing the company of menstruating women - who wrote that shit?!).
It all demonstrates a very shaky belief in any kind of God - particularly the very vengeful God from The Bible, Talmud or Koran. If you genuinely think the God person is real, surely you won't wanna piss her off by being a crap servant, eh?
Recently, I was most disturbed to hear that a good friend of mine regularly prays "when he needs something" (despite not really believing and the absolute lack of any response to previous prayers). It reminded me of that exam I failed as a kid because I spent the time praying I'd pass rather than actually studying!
The reality is that religion serves people well when they want to be selfish. Or impose their political views on others. Or if they are scared (of death, foreigners, women or their desire to sleep with their soccer-coach).
As a wish-granting factory, religion is way down on the list behind Jim'll Fix It or The National Lottery. As a god, God sucks. Either that or he's on lunch for the last 2000 years.
In my opinion, Technology is the new god. It's far more omni-present. When it works, it works in mysterious ways... And it's certainly all-seeing and all knowing.
Take the tale of the Israeli girl who got out of Military service "on religious grounds". The Secret Service snooped around her facebook profile and found that she had been partying on the Sabbath and generally sinning. Bad girl! (More to the point; is anyone else slightly turned on by the fact that hot Mossad operatives could be scoping about our facebook profiles?)
Poor girl has now been forced to sign up for her full military service. I wonder whether she blames an angry, jealous God... or her stupid privacy settings on facebook?
Saturday, October 04, 2008
Cunning Stunts: Ya Gotta Get A Gimmick
Sarah Palin's homespun hockey mom bullshit is making me wanna hockey up something serious. The winking, the hokey turn-off phrase and barefaced (stare down the lens) lies are frightening. She's one scary mama.One thing that struck me was the intro to the debate as they met for the first time. She tried to disarm Joe Biden by asking (live on mic and, in my opinion, for the Legally Blonde effect), "can I call ya Joe?".
As a gentleman, with more important issues on his mind, Joe says, "Of course!". I watched the entire debate (slack-jawed, admittedly) but I didn't hear her call him Joe once. She called him Senator Biden quite a lot.
The more I see of this lady, she reminds me of school debaters and the silly stunts they used to pull to disguise the fact they had a good speaking voice but nothing to say. Scary thing is those debaters often won.
What a cunning stunt!
Friday, October 03, 2008
Child Abuse
I accidentally* watched Esther vs The PC Brigade on ITV1 tonight. Esther (Rantzen rather than Madonna in her Kaballah costume) used to be about sticking it to gas and electricity companies but now she's all about the kids. And she's calling us on our seeming lack of interest.
For her show, Esther brought two child actors to a busy shopping centre and got them to "act lost". She was then horrified when practically nobody stopped to ask the kids if they were okay. Horrified Esther? Thanks to Dakota Fanning, most normal people hate child actors so couldn't care less if those kids were abducted.
But the real issue was that some men admitted that they wanted to help but didn't. Mainly because they didn't want to open themselves to charges of child abduction/molestation/kiddie rape/kidnapping a child from a supermarket and drugging it and then driving it to an abandoned industrial estate etc... Clearly those men are in a dark, dark place. And I suppose that is the point.
In a classic case of overthinking the situation, modern men are circumventing their natural inclination to care for kids and they're stepping back - just in case the world misinterprets their actions. As a gay man, I've often experienced this. At the end of the day, it's a trade off between what's best for the child and what's best for you (or your reputation). I happen to think that the kid comes first.
Besides, I don't care much for my reputation anyway.
*I don't normally watch ITV. I used to work for ITV so I know it's TV made by "mavericks" for "mavericks"... and I use the term in the sense Sarah Palin uses it.
For her show, Esther brought two child actors to a busy shopping centre and got them to "act lost". She was then horrified when practically nobody stopped to ask the kids if they were okay. Horrified Esther? Thanks to Dakota Fanning, most normal people hate child actors so couldn't care less if those kids were abducted.
But the real issue was that some men admitted that they wanted to help but didn't. Mainly because they didn't want to open themselves to charges of child abduction/molestation/kiddie rape/kidnapping a child from a supermarket and drugging it and then driving it to an abandoned industrial estate etc... Clearly those men are in a dark, dark place. And I suppose that is the point.
In a classic case of overthinking the situation, modern men are circumventing their natural inclination to care for kids and they're stepping back - just in case the world misinterprets their actions. As a gay man, I've often experienced this. At the end of the day, it's a trade off between what's best for the child and what's best for you (or your reputation). I happen to think that the kid comes first.
Besides, I don't care much for my reputation anyway.
*I don't normally watch ITV. I used to work for ITV so I know it's TV made by "mavericks" for "mavericks"... and I use the term in the sense Sarah Palin uses it.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
In the Nick of Time
Went to Will Saint-Leger's Art Raid show last night... What a laugh! The show (which Will's done for the Fringe Festival but I never got to see before) is essentially like a gallery launch except you get to nick pieces of art off the walls as the launch descends into anarchy.
Will met us at the door with a couple of cold beers (and assured us there was loads more. Cheers Will!). We then walked around checking out the artworks. Lots of great stuff. Some shite! Usual gallery experience. The difference to a normal gallery viewing was that each of us was sizing up the pieces and planning which one we wanted to rob once the alarm went off.
There was something thrilling (and maybe middle class) about waiting for our chance to nick something. I got quite giddy (and nostalgic for teenage trips to the sweet shop with the half-blind shop assistant). I actually robbed something before the alarm went off. You can take the kid out of Blanch....!
When the alarm finally sounded, it was bedlam. Some artwork was trashed in the chaos. I got about three cool pieces but there was lots there that I loved. It just got a bit push and shove! Next time I'm packing a blade...
Here's last year's show on youtube
Will met us at the door with a couple of cold beers (and assured us there was loads more. Cheers Will!). We then walked around checking out the artworks. Lots of great stuff. Some shite! Usual gallery experience. The difference to a normal gallery viewing was that each of us was sizing up the pieces and planning which one we wanted to rob once the alarm went off.
There was something thrilling (and maybe middle class) about waiting for our chance to nick something. I got quite giddy (and nostalgic for teenage trips to the sweet shop with the half-blind shop assistant). I actually robbed something before the alarm went off. You can take the kid out of Blanch....!
When the alarm finally sounded, it was bedlam. Some artwork was trashed in the chaos. I got about three cool pieces but there was lots there that I loved. It just got a bit push and shove! Next time I'm packing a blade...
Here's last year's show on youtube
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