2006 - In Review

Yeah so I got lazy. I wanted to do a best of/worst of 2006 list but I got stuck at the first one, "Best Image". So I did what I thought was the fairest, I typed "2006" into google images and sifted through the results. I was getting bored around the time I came across the above image, so ladies and gentlemen, I give you the best image of 2006!

I choose it because I think it captures the yearning of the human spirit to reach out, above and beyond the planet on both a physical and spiritual level, but mainly, because it looks a lot like "Made in Heaven".

source

Crime Line

"So what happens if you have two mobile phones, and you use the first phone to ring one garda station and the second phone to ring another garda station and you hold the two phones together to “talk” to each other?"



This has been doing the rounds but I thought I might share it on my blog for anyone who missed it. I found it via Holy Shmoly which points to the source.

Saddam Hussein 1937-2006 RIP

Saddam in happier times, with his daughter, Rana


Saddam in less happy times

I have no real views on Saddam Hussein. I think the execution, right or wrong, was far too rushed. Is Iraq any better off without him? Probably not. Saddam brought corrupt order. With him gone, its still corrupt but now in complete disorder. I know I'd rather live in a country afraid of a man living in a big gold house somewhere else, than being afraid of my neighber killing me.


Saddam looking very dashing in a smart/casual ensemble


A video tribute to Saddam... possibly tongue in cheek


A pro execution video I found on youtube while searching for the actual news footage. Please note the music in the background: its Iron Maiden's "Run to the Hills". The lyrics of which are as follows:

"White man came across the sea
He brought us pain and misery
He killed our tribes, he killed our creed
He took our game for his own need"

I just hope the person who made the video was deliberately being ironic.

Picture of the Week

This weeks picture is from the galleries of oleg dou on photo.net. I havent been to photo.net in a while and it seems that all the top rated photos are just nudes now. There's still gobshites arguing over what a photograph is also... ah well!

Anonymous said...

"You are living proof of the utter dumbing down of education. Your English is pock-marked with errors and in my time you wouldn't even have made it into the sixth form."

December 29, 2006 1:21 PM on this post

You're right :( My English is terrible. I hang my head in shame. The world is truely fucked because my English is shite! I invite the damnation of the universe because I couldnt give a fuck about proof reading comments on my shitty little blog on the edge of the internet.

And oh no! I wont ever make it to the sixth form, whatever the fuck that is! Note to other anonymous cretins: I know exactly what sixth form is, it just has no relevence to my life here in Ireland. And because of this, it therefore implies that rather than trying to inform me of anything relevent to my life you are actually speaking in rhetoric of your own life expieriances, in which case I request that you refain from any more shit spewwing soliloquies in future comments.

Your logic is apalling by the way. You infer that if ones English (on a shitty blog) is decrepit then the entire education system (I am unsure which system you refer to because of your "sixth form" bullshit... lets just say 'on the whole planet') is fucked. What if English wasn't my first language, which it isn't actually. Where does that leave your comment then? Yeah, up shit creek without a comma!

You spent 2 minutes 22 seconds on my blog, looked at 2 posts and you feel qualified to judge my English as being "pock-marked with errors". Well maybe your arse is pock-marked with errors too, but you dont hear me pointing it out. And lets get one thing striaght; this aint my English, this is your English! *cue Sinn Fein rant* 700... 800... 1000... fuck it, a million years ago your lot came over here and rammed English down our throats and now you complain its pock-marked!? Well pogue ma'fuckin'hone!

The sting in the tail is that I actually agree with you. The education system has become too soft. We need to reintroduce corporal punishment. That'll teach those little fuckers to spell incorrectly!

Fine I'm crap. Be a bit more constructive next time though... put a big red circle around my mistakes and put a big gold star on my bum anytime I do good :) Jak się masz; I like!

Picture of the Week

Another Picture of the Week that isnt exactly what I intended "picture of the week" to be (random personal pics from blogs and places) but It's Christmas'y and I need to go home soon so I give you, Santa on Synth, or to give its correct title "Switched On Santa". It comes via Failed Muso, a long suffering reader of mine :)

Merry Christmas to all reading this!

Irish Porn - "It really is, great fun!"

As many of you don't know, I'm not too big on pornography. I used to oppose it on moral grounds but now I don't give a monkies, it's just all so bloody boring. If only it related to my life a bit more... arise Irish pornography!

I bring you the intro to a recent publication I found. It's a wonderful little ditty named, "Fucked In Ireland". Don't let the name fool you though, this is an English production with the odd Irish girl thrown in (and around the place) and disappointingly with very little speaking included. It does have this wonderful intro though thats sure to warm the heart of every Dubliner.

To save face and not to let this blog slip into total Sodom and Gomorrah, I have censored the video of all the dangerous bits. Normally censorship brings nothing and only takes away but I have managed to make this censorship informative by including some relevent advertising. Enjoy!

Putting up lights

I spent the last 2 weeks helping to put up lights around the bosses house. Good stuff! I forgot how much fun digging holes and mixing cement was. Here's a picture of one of them, in fog, with dog!



And a small pic of the same light in the sun.

Sleep and Dreams and Stuff

Dreams tire me out. Even if I can't remember them, after a night full of dreams I wake up feeling like shite. I get no rest. In the past few nights I've been having the most disturbing dearms about STD's. Why, I don't know. I dont suffer from any, I never had any and don't live a lifestyle where I could contract one easily. Anyway they arent normal dreams, theyre fucking mental. Friends getting AIDS from gay prostitution and cocktail sausage worms coming out of your micky. Jesus Christ, even writing them now freaks me out, but I've had worse, oh yes much worse! Then this morning after waking up, for the first time since we broke up I felt unhappy with the thought of my ex being with someone else. Thats a fairly natural you would say but it's been nearly a year and a half since we broke up. I hope this is a good thing and not some kind of retrogressive step, Since I don't even think about her anymore. If this means I've finally just come out of denial, sweet fuck, I'm bollocks'd!

I havent had a nice dream in ages. Even one where you wake up and go "ah no, it was all just a dream". I had a nice one a few months back. I met this girl working in a shop whom I was involved with in the past. Things got going again and I was filled with emence joy when I found out that she had kept all the drawings I made for her. Then the dream involved cars that didnt drive around normally after dusk, they just kind of floated around. Not sure what that part was about but the girl part was nice :)

I still remember dreams I had from when I was around 3 or 4 years old. Very scary dreams about abandoned houses with rooms in disrepute where the walls were strangled with a mass of exposed heating pipes. Or the dream of the hut in the garden that a light would suddenly come on with a silhouette in the window of a jagged figure playing the violin. Or being too close to a rocket thats about to take off. I remember these quite vividly now, but I stopped having vived dreams about 3 years ago. Not sure why that happened. Dream imagery isn't clear anymore but the connected emotions are still fairly strong.

At least I still have an active hypnagogic pre-state to sleep most nights. Some of the most amazing images and ideas come to me before sleep, and on the rare occasion I can feel like Im flying (apart from the nights where I’m full with alcohol I mean). On two occasions recently I managed to be aware when I was about to fall asleep. I became aware of the cliff of consciousness that I had just leapt from, and then there was no more.

Picture of the Week

This weeks picture comes from the Spy's Spice blog. It's a photograph taken by blind Slovenian photographer Evgene Bavcar. Yeah, he's blind! It was hard to choose one because they all have such a beautiful dream like quality to them. I choose this one because its the one that instantly caught my eye.

Would you buy one?

The new Stage Edition of the Moog Little Phatty. Still with a stupid name but it certainly looks the part. Personally I love it!

I only came across it today on Analogue Industries so apologies if this is old news to you.

If I had the cash and "had" to buy a new keyboard I'd probably go for it, even if a proper master keyboard would be more useful to me. That awful name on it though....

Musical Toilet Roll Holder with Mercury Switch

I had a fantastic responce (3 comments) to my mystery post a few days back. Actually no, it was a good responce amount, I didnt expect anyone to commment... well maybe one person anyway.

Anonymous guessed, 'buttplug' and to be fair, that was the closest for obvious reasons. You'll get your prize in a minute, first I must describe what this thing is. If you havent guessed from the post title, its an alternative insert for your toilet roll holder that plays a tune when moved. Yes, this truely is an awful invention and I think the tune is pretty awful too. The batteries were flat, but I seem to remember its of Eurovision quality, it might even be "Congratulations". Now to open it up.


A bit of foam padding on the inside. The all-bran add in the background is an unintentional joke :)


Note the glass housing of the mercury switch


The full innards, with its little speaker


A highly enthrawling video of the mercury switch in action

Thats it, I found it all interesting because its the first mercury switch I cane across, and it had that whole "Oh they use these in bombs dont they" thing going on... well they do in the movies anyway :)

And now for your prize anonymous... here you go my dear!

4 voice FM synthesizer in a cigar box

I'm a big fan of the Make: blog and theres been a few posts about making musical thingies recently. They had a post about the above synth that someone made from a cigar box, with a set of clear build instructions here. Im tempted to give it a go but the innards are a bit expensive for something I might end up mashing it with a hammer in frustration :)



There were two recent posts on circut bending, if thats your bag. This post of a casio keyboard turntable hybrid looked very interesting! I thought it was some kind of analogue sampler, like a vinyl mellotron. No, unfortunately not, its just a few light sensors and spinning leds.



Finally there is the "$80 workstation for recording equipment" which again I got very excited about but this time because I misread the title :) Its just a table lol

Graduated Today

This piece of paper cost me four years of my life

After all the misery and bitching and wet mornings walking in and genral awfulness, I have to admit, this piece of paper does feel good :) The little red bit makes it look the business. I'm not sure where I'll hang it; I want everyone to see it; maybe I'll hang it in the toilet.


The ceremony today... and no I'm not the black guy :)

I also must admit to being upset at the fact that my father isnt around to see it. This surprised me a little as I never made a big deal out of the degree while he was alive. Perhaps its because I know he would have been there today if he was alive. Then again maybe not, he was an odd bastard at times :)

Dont anybody from the cheap seats comment, I graduated in the winter as I had my final exams deferred. I'm not one of those "scummy" pass grade repeaters :D

Make love; not war

Would the person killing all them prostitutes in England please stop it. They are providing a good service and deserve their earnings. Try killing kittens instead or something.

Mystery Item

Go on have a guess; youll get a prize if you guess right!

Bed Keyboard

I took this one night when I was feeling rather chuffed about being able play keyboards in bed. I bought the Photon X25 a while back and never really got around to talk about it in dept. I probably never will but its certainly a good unit but with some shitty problems.

Thats two musical instruments I can play in bed, three if you include me micky :)

Hoi Helolesz de Kalain

I was going through my folder of Reason files I made and I came across this one that I recorded fairly recently but forgot about it. It's an early version of a zeuhl type track inspired by two Magma albums, K.A. and M.D.K. I've recorded better versions of it since, but this one shows the roots of how it all developed. I've left it as is, warts and all (and theres a lot of warts). It's just an improvised piano track so dont expect anything other than brutal! :)

I've had to switch back to mediamax.com to host the file as myfilehut.com seems to have disappeared. I think mediamax have gotten their act together now and there shouldnt be any download problems. If there are let me know.

I only noticed when making the above image that "Gamma" is an anagram for "Magma", isnt that fucking amazing? lol Oh the title of the post is roughly Kobaian for "One drop of passion", its about as poetic as I'll ever get with the few words that have been translated. The original filename for the piece was "stuff.rns" but its now renamed as offering.

Offering.mp3

Prominent Teeth Are Sexy

This is a video of Kim Segal on an episode of Judge Judy. Who's Kim Segal you ask? Well I havent a clue but she is nice; I like! :) Just a hint of overbite, like myself. And junk in the trunk at the end? Wonderful wonderful! Highly savage! I'll give her a 9 Jackson Pollocks out of 10!

Oh nearly forgot, the music in the background is by "Curved Air", its a track called "Maire Antoinette".


[UPDATE 02.04.09] Sorryz... google removed the vid... obviously too sexy for the internets :D

Grainne Ni Seoige

Forgive the lack of audio in this video, I have to yet to physically patch the audio from the tv card to the sound card. I have a few more "silent movies" I'll be putting up but after that things will be sorted.

Anyway, what do you think of Grainne Ni Seoige? First off, that talk show she has with the cork boyo is more dire than "The Afternoon Show"! Grainne Ni Seoige is brutal. She couldnt act as host even to a bout of chlamydia. She asks a question and waits for a reply, offering at most, a stream of "yeah"s as feedback.

Of course, its not her interview technique we are examining here. So how does she rate, face wise. Well, she's a bit like a piece of fine art: a good paint job on top, but underneat is a fairly ordinary canvas.

Grainne Ni Seoige, I give you 7 Jackson Pollocks out of 10: You make an effort.

Picture of the Week

This is what a sunset on Mars looks like. Not too sure if it's been colourised or not. I got the pic from A Welsh View, a regular haunt of mine. It's updated daily with interesting goodies from the net.

Make sure you click it for the full sized photograph; very impressive :)

Speed Limit Signs

If you are planning to visit Ireland in the future and hope to do a spot of driving its worth remembering that we switched from miles per hour to kilometers per hour a few years back. So take note American and British drivers!

What you will come across on the roads (other than carnage) are signs like the one above, "km/h" will probably be included under the digits also. Now to the foreigner this will look like an unusual speed limit sign. It appears to have 4 interesting shapes surrounding the main circle. Well I can tell you that these were included deliberately to reinforce the visual impact of the signage. Studies in Sweden have shown a 47% increase in the awarness of a number when displayed in this manner. Our government decided the benefits outweighed the extra cost of the signs, so on the night all the signs with the mph limits were being replaced with the kph limits, they used these images on the larger signs before villages and towns.

Don't let anyone tell you that they just fucked up and got the wrong sized patches for the existing signs and rather than go back and get proper sized ones to cover all of the old limits, they just kept going, slapping up the patches willy-nilly, saying "fuck it sure, we're Irish!". Oh no, these are scientific, these signs are! There's no real scientific evedense for this, but it is, scientific fact!

*Note to anonymous commenters: I am being facetious... if that words too big for you; I'm joking!

Yes, deffinately yes!

Click to enlarge... oh my heehee :)

RTE Madman again like Stone

When yerman walked onto the Late Late Shows set to verbally assault its host, Pat Kenny, a few people made jokes comparing it to the Michael Stone incident at Stormont last month, where Stone was apprehended in the main revolving door of the building. In a bizare twist, the "Late Late show madman" recently again made the news for crashing his micra into a revolving door at RTE.

At 3.30am on a workday morning, lying in bed unable to sleep, all this makes perfect sense and is very weird indeed! :)

Picture of the Week

This is for the picture of the week I missed last week. It's especially for Roberto who thinks that Golfs are overweight outdated pieces of german tat. You forgot to mention that they are also Hitler cars!

via

Picture of the Week

Golf GTI with extra bits!

via

Written out of history

Have you ever been written out of someones life completely? I mean to the extent where it seems that you never existed? This has happened to me a few times and yet again quite recently. It always goes along the lines like from a failed relationship "It's not you, its me... I'm sorry".

I'm a very honest person and I take everyones word on face value. I've been told some right whoppers in the past and swallowed them hook, line and banana! When shit happens, like this time, it fuels my paranoia. I'm getting to the stage where I'll believe what you tell me but are certain youre lying too. It's a catch 22 really: I totally know youre not washing your hair but fuck it, believing you is easier to swallow. Whats the alternative? Fly off the handle and have a shouting match where you end up self harming and eating 5 servings of chocolate-prozac cake or, just shrug it off and have a shallow relationship with someone.

Whats wrong with me? Why do people get to a stage where they think I'm the best person in the world and then suddenly disappear. In the tens of people I met on the internet I don't speak to any of them anymore. In the few friendships I've made in the real world I feel on tender hooks at times.

Someone help me out here; I feel repugnant; I'm loosing faith in friendships.