Blood on the tracks

[2343]

Tonight, after dropping Cruise and Robbie K home, while driving through Ballsbridge on the way back into town with Chris and Iano, we saw some guy that had either been hit by, or had fallen under, a car.

He was conscious, but clearly distressed.  Some people were administering first aid.  Some of them may have been paramedics, but I can't be sure.  There was a lot of blood.

I've not really been able to get it out of my mind.  I'm pretty sure tomorrow that I'm going to hear on the news that a man died as a result of a road traffic accident in Dublin 4.

I don't really know how to feel about it.

[0027]

An introspective aside

[0026]

I'm 29 years old, and I'm not the man I would like to be. I set very high standards for myself, and I just don't live up to them.

I'm vain. I'm unmotivated. I'm jealous. I'm selfish. My pride will be the end of me.

I let myself down, far too often.

I need a new outlet or I might self destruct.

Happy Christmas.

[0030]

Sleeping sickness

[1523]

It's not a secret that I have problems sleeping at night. It has been having a cumulatively negative effect on my life, but that's not what this is about.

Last night I went to see The Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D in Cineworld. I don't have a rabid Jack Skellington fetish like so many people seem to, but I really enjoy this movie. It's only been a couple of weeks since I last watched it, but I was happy to go again.

The 3D effect was pretty good, and it certainly made the first 10 minutes or so pretty enjoyable. After that though, it all started to go downhill. I started feeling kind of dizzy and couldn't really focus. A couple of minutes after that I pretty much passed out. I have no idea what really happened, but after that I was asleep for the entire duration of the film.

I felt like shit for the rest of the night. I went home and was in bed by 11.

Then I was stuck awake until 4am.

Today has been grey around the edges.

[1541]

Read first, click later

[1322]

Today has taught me a valuable lesson.  This lesson is as follows...

When presented with a screen asking you to confirm that the information you have entered is correct, before you commit to payment, ACTUALLY confirm that the information you have entered is correct.

The value of this lesson is €20.

I hope whoever owns 0869862206 enjoys their free credit.

[1331]

Rise From Your Grave

[1958]

This morning I had to bring my sisters car, which is also the car I've been using for the past two months, down to the garage because the water pump is on the way out in it and needs to be replaced.  The mechanic is going to do the timing belt on it at the same time, because it's due to be sorted out.  The whole job is quoted at €330, which is alright I supposed, but a bit of a kick in the teeth.

The earliest that the car'll be ready will be Monday, so I was looking forward to having no car again this weekend.  That's a total lie, by the way. There's no fucking way that I was looking forward to getting buses and trains and shit. If you live far enough away from your job that commuting there via public transport takes upwards of 2 hours in the morning, and the same again going home, then a car is pretty much a must.

I've been walking past my own car every morning and evening for the past 3 months, feeling bad that it's still not back on the road, and so I was going to be working on getting stuff finished this weekend. I took some time earlier this evening and worked with my dad to get some of the preliminary work done.  As it turned out, we were still working in the freezing cold, when the sun had long set, but everything is pretty much finished.

I took her out for a drive earlier, for the first time in over three months.  I forgot what it was like to drive a car that doesn't have to be in 5^th gear when going 60^km/_h.

I'm going to organise a service for her tomorrow, and bring her to get the wheel alignment checked in the afternoon. After that, I'll be good to go. I can't wait.

Ceremony on Sunday.  Yeayeuh.

[2030]

What's the point in ten years of scars?

[0143]

Today was a troublesome day.

I've been up since very early, and now I can't sleep. I had a long and unproductive day in work, only slightly enhanced by this mornings comedic fashion accident. I try not to suffer the persistence of fools, but sometimes I find it extremely difficult. I held my breath and bit my tongue for most of the afternoon, both literally and metaphorically.

I was supposed to do some work on my car when I got in, but it was pretty late, and so I watched the Tony Robinson documentary about how the Earth was shaped by catastrophic collisions instead. It was pretty good, but even there I found something to bitch about. They had this astrophysicist on it who's job it was to shoot at the moon with a billion watt space laser. That's his fucking job. Trying to get the internet to do what I want seems to pale into insignificance beside the majesty of it.

I had some fun with Cindy playing Left 4 Dead after that, but when we finished up my evening went on kind of a downward spiral.  I said I was going to bed more than 2 ¹/₂ hours ago, but here I am. Still wide awake and thinking. I don't talk much about my personal life in the public domain, because it IS personal, but right now, I'm very conflicted.

I want to be less bitter.

I want to poison the world.

I don't know which I want more. It's not so long ago that everything was so much simpler. 

[0250]

Getting dressed in the dark.

[1204]

This morning I got up early to bring my brother in law to the airport on my way to work to save my sister and parents having to get up.  I got him there just about in time, and headed off to work.

A couple of hours later I'm sitting in a meeting about network architecture, and I look down and think to myself "Where are the buttons on my shirt gone?"

A cursory inspection revealed them to be on the inside of my shirt.  I started laughing out loud, and everyone in the meeting looked at me, so I had to explain that somehow I'd managed to put my shirt on inside out 5 hours before and only just noticed.

It's going to be a long day.

---

Shower gels that I used this morning that you should also be the one that is using them:

Original Source Lemon & Tea Tree

[1214]

Cleaning up my act.

[0257]

Tonight I went to Tesco and had a long walk through the aisles, rather than just getting hummous and tortillas and then leaving. I normally use Jason shower stuff or soaps that I get from Lush and so usually wouldn't even go near the toiletries aisle in Tesco or wherever. I was pleasantly surprised to find a bunch of Original Source shower gels that I haven't tried before.

I like Original Source because every variety is certified as being vegan, but also because they're intensely refreshing. They even say as much on the bottles. So I went crazy...

I'm going to use a different one every day. That dragon fruit and capsicum one is first on the list.

My life is supremely exciting.

[0319]

Rightwingers left exposed

[1847]

Found on The Register, but originally sourced from the Lancaster Unity Anti Fascist blog.

Apparently, the entire British Nationial Pary member list was published online today, detailing, amongst other things, the names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of all members up to September 2008.

Data security and privacy are of great concern to me and so I've got mixed feelings about this, although I can't help but smile when I think about members of the UK's Police, armed forces and other supposedly apolitical professions, whos jobs may be in jeopardy because of their political views.

There are some other interesting comments made on the LUAF blog.

I don't really know what else to write about this other than fascist cocks can go and fuck themselves.

Thank you for your time.

[1852]

Deathwish

[1540]

Deathwish Records have put out some of my favourite records of the last couple ears and I'm totally excited about some of the releases they have coming up soon.

Yesterday I listened to the Fall 2008 sampler and the Trap Them WYNU live radio set, for pretty much the whole day. I've been looking forward to the new Trap Them record for a while, and judging by the new songs on the live set, it's going to be pretty immense.

The highlights of bands I hadn't really listened to before are New Lows, Lewd Acts, The Carrier, Narrows and United Nations

Cornered are playing the Moshspace 3 year anniversary show in Eamonn Dorans this coming Friday with Forging Friendships, Find A Way, Inflatable Gods and Ciarán Parnell.  Here's the poster.

I'm really looking forward to playing at this, and you should all go.

[1553]

Ctrl-a, delete

[1706]

As content free as it was, it took me half an hour to write my last entry.

Today I skipped lunch.

Tonight I'm going to a toga party.

I've had a long week in work, but I got lots of stuff completed.

I'm the only person sitting in my office right now.

The Wire is great.

Fuck all this.  The day to day events of my life are uninteresting.  Eventually I'll have something that's worth talking about that I'm also willing to share.

[1711]

Running theme

[0312]

Where the fuck is my sleep?

[0313]

Talking about games

[1434]

I never seem to have a lot of free time these days, so I end up talking about playing games a lot more than I play them. When I do get a chance to play them, they're generally games that I can pick up, play for five or ten minutes and then go and do something else.

Last night I went home early with the intention of spending some time playing Burnout Paradise, Fallout 2, Mass Effect or any of the other myriad games I've spent money on but not played enough.  That didn't happen though, and here's why...

After briefly trying the demo for MegaMan 9, I bought the full* game off XBox Live Arcade.  Now, I loved MegaMan as a kid, and MegaMan 2 is one of my all time favourite games, but I don't remember any of them being even close to as hard as this is.

I spent HOURS playing it, and I managed to kill ONE of the eight master robots.  It made me want to smash my controller, so I played Castle Crashers instead.  What an ending.

So, in summary:

FUCK YOU, MEGAMAN 9!

[1447]

* this is open to interpretation

The nature of colour

[0041]

Anything I write that is remotely poetic feels pretentious.

Tonight on the train home, I dozed off and woke up between stations and outside was completely black, with shadows of stuff on the side of the tracks flying by the window.  It was distinctly unnerving, and not just because I wasn't sure if I'd missed my stop or not.  I couldn't even tell if we were passing under trees or over water.

This dismal illusion was shattered when we got to the next station.

When I got off the train at Skerries, however, the night sky was curiously blue.

I was thinking about how I was going to say how this made me feel when I reached my front door, realised I hadn't got my keys, couldn't get in the house, my phone was out of battery and no-one would answer the door.

Pale blue horizons and dark blue skies begin to mean less and less when you're stuck outside in the cold.

There is no lesson in this tale.

[0108]

Self restraint

[0420]

If you think I say sketchy stuff now, you should see some of the things I type into comments, blogs and forum posts that I DON'T post.

[0422]

Classnevin

[0059]

In alphabetic order, Derry, Fry, Jack and Laura are some of my favourite people in this town. Without them, the last year in Dublin, and this last weekend in particular, would have not been as fantastic as they were.

They don't get as much love as they should.

[0112]

Crayola

[0006]

I'm slowly but surely fulfilling my one resolution for this year.

I have another couple hours tomorrow. I can't wait. Pictures will eventually follow.

My homies are leaving tomorrow. This visit has gone by too quickly.

[0012]

Dressing up

[0427]

The Punk Rock Debs was on last night in Boh's bar. It was a great night. Besides the opportunity to get dressed up, which I ALWAYS love doing, it was an opportunity to talk to people that I don't see that often, and to eat vegan cupcakes.

The bands that played were great, especially Complan. It's a shame that I don't know enough of their songs, because the highlight of the set was a cover of The Badge by Poison Idea.


This is my homie Simon and me. He's a handsome devil.

[0452]

Travelling

[0356]

I had written an immensely long blog entry about my trip to Nottingham with Crowd Control, but I realised that no-one is interested in reading over long descriptions of someone elses fun through badly constructed English, so here's my second attempt.

Nottingham ruled. Tom and Sarah are legends for letting me crash there when my place to stay fell through. We had a blast eating pizza in Stone, listening to nu-metal in the Speak Easy and dancing badly in Rock City. Getting destroyed by fake blood is definitely one of the funniest things that's happened to me in ages.

The gig was great. My hightlights were definitely all of Cold Ones and Cold Snap's sets, Hordes' cover of Wolverine Blues and Crowd Control in general.

Crowd Control are hands down the best band in Ireland right now, and I can't wait to finally get that split.

Everyone who hooked any of us up with anything in Nottingham is fantastic. I had the best time.

Flying across for this show cost next to nothing, and it's the kind of thing that I should do more often.

My next post might be interesting. Don't hold your breath.

[0404]

Distance

[0218]

The gulfs between me and others seem to grow everyday. Sometimes I feel that I don't make enough of an effort to stop it from happening. Other times I feel like I couldn't care less if they end up as wide as an ocean.

I have nothing but contempt for so many people.

My observations at 2AM are pretty dark.

[0221]

I have sought like Icarus, to fly too high

[1901]

And every night, I shut my eyes so I don't have to see the light, shining so bright.

I dream about a cloudy sky.

And every night, I shut my eyes but now I've got them open wide.

You've fallen into my hand and now you're burning me.

Now you're burning me.

[1907]

Writer's block

[2233]

I have lots of things I want to say, but nothing that I want to share.

Listen to The Suicide File

[2235]

Don't Panic

[0307]

There will come a time in your life when you will ask yourself a series of questions.

Am I happy with who I am?

Am I happy with the people around me

Am I happy with what I am doing?

Am I happy with the way my life is going?

Do I have a life?

Or am I just living?

Do not let these questions restrain or trouble you.

Just point yourself in the direction of your dreams.

Find your strength in the sound and make your transition

Panic are probably better than whatever band you're listening to.

[0311]

Chasing safety

[1412]

Last night was Ruthie's birthday.  We stalled it out to Doran's and had ourselves a decent time.  It was a bit too packed for me, so I actually spent most of my night outside.  I had me a delicious subway.

Subway is not the same as takeaway.

Paul, Ruthie, Olivia and I left about 1.30 and headed out to Dun Laoghaire to go for a walk along the pier, cos it's one of our favourite things to do.  It was pretty nice out there although it was a bit chilly.  

There was a fox on the pier.  He kept running and hiding in the shadows between the lights and having sneaky glances at us.  I love urban foxes.

I dropped everyone home and started making my way back to Skerries.

Because the car I'm using, while my own is out of action, isn't exactly a mean machine, I'm not using the M1 to get home as of late.  Because of this, it was about 4.45 by the time I was on the final stretch from Lusk to Skerries.

As I was turning at Blake's Cross I noticed an unmarked Garda car with his lights flashing behind some van.  There's plenty of subtle patrols that go along that stretch of road late at night to try to catch people driving stupidly or dangerously.  

When I was about 5 or 6 kilometres from Skerries, a car pulls up behind me and follows me pretty closely.  I've already had a run in with the law on this particular stretch of road, and I'm in no mood for another, so I'm driving on the conscientious side of safety, going about 70 or 75 in an 80^km/_h zone.

In order to get into Skerries from this road, you have to drive under a railway bridge and then immediately around a roundabout.

I slowed to about 40 going under the bridge, and as soon as I get through, some idiot came driving up my lane onto the roundabout driving the wrong direction.  I had to jam on to avoid hitting him.  

The guy just continues on his merry way as if there's nothing wrong and goes under the bridge.  It's at this point that the car behind me turned on it's blue lights and sped around the roundabout after him.

Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they're not after you.

[1436]

I'm complicated

[0202]

I definitely make things worse by staying up and thinking about them.

I went to go-karting today after work.  I managed to not have a serious accident.  The track was soaking wet, so we were sliding all over the place.

After that I met up with Laura, Laura, Joe and Mags and went to see The Wackness.  I really enjoyed it.  The soundtrack was incredible.

I should have been hanging out with Jon while I was in the movies, and becuase my brain isn't really working too well I completely forgot about it.  Sorry Jon and Becca!

My band, Cornered, are playing our first proper show in about 18 months next thursday.  Everyone should come.  We're playing support for Deal With It.  That alone is going to be intense.  Here's a flier.

That's enough introspection and self abuse for one day.

[0212]

Vampirism

[1347]

I love grapefruit, especially ruby grapefruit, but I find them pretty hard to eat.  As a result, I've taken to stabbing a small hole in them, and cutting randomly around the inside before draining them of their delicious life juice, leaving them an empty husk.

I'm a true creature of the night.

[1407]

Audrey Horne

[2210]

I would give anything to have been in Billy Zane's shoes.

Thanks for the badge, Kayleigh

[2217]

Look the other way...

[1752]

All I feel like doing these days is sleep. I stopped drinking coffee (and Coke, and tea) again, in order to regain some kind of control over my sleep patterns. So far this week I've been in bed by midnight three times. Waking up is a different story entirely.

August has been a shitty month as far as weather goes, seeing as I just want to go out and skate. The only time the sun seems to be out is when I'm in the office and looking out the window. It's shining right now. I'm pretty much guaranteed that it'll have started raining by the time I get to my car.

It has been, and is going to be, a good month for shows though. Tonight I'm going to go see Career Suicide in The Lower Deck. It promises to be mental. Any videos I've seen of their shows seem pretty crazy. Also, I LOVE The Lower Deck as a venue, despite it's strange layout. I'm not terribly excited about the support bands, besides Ghundi, but you can't win them all.

I've taken the last week of August off so I can properly enjoy the three Outbreak, and the Pulling Teeth, shows.

Cornered wrote another new song over the last two weeks. It's sounding pretty good, and I'm looking forward to playing it at our next gig, which is on September 18^th supporting Deal With It at the start of their euro tour. How exciting. We should be doing a semi-decent recording of one of our new songs to put up on our page next week. I'm really happy that some stuff is finally going on with this band.

Next: Food.
Then: Human pyramids.

[1806]

XXIX

[1130]

I'm 29 years old today. When I was 21, I used to stress out about getting older, but there's no stopping it. I'm not terribly different now than I was back then, except for the wear and tear, and a nicer beard.

[1139]

Critique

[1731]

I don't like emotionally investing myself in other people. Being burned has a habit of leaving scars. For me, they show through the difficulty I have in treating the fairer sex as anything other than friends. This bothers me less than you might think. Despite my assertions to the contrary, I most definitely am a people person, and I make friends far more readily than I make enemies.

But it does bother me.

It's hard, trying to be a stoic about things, good and bad, that make me feel like I'm holding my breath, like I'm boiling on the inside.

I wish I could speak my mind all the time, and not just when I'm angry.

[1834]

DARK OMEN

[1919]

Yesterday I played the last show with Another Day In Hell, screaming hate for the work-every-day life that we're forced into.

Today I'm back in my office, doing what I always seem to be doing.

[1923]

This is how we die...

It's Another Day In Hell's last show this weekend. I'm not really looking forward to it because I had the best time being in this band and I didn't want it to end. But you know how life goes, it's like a dice roll. It's going to be emotional.

I got the CD back from the replication place a week ago. I'm glad that it arrived in time for the show, so at least there was some kind of record of us as a band.
Getting it, and the shirts, made was enough to prompt me to do something for the Half Shell webstore, so that's finally online. I've got a couple of other things planned for it later in the summer, including the Outbreak shows, late in August, that I'm promoting along with Demented and Red Ranger. More about that later. I should probably start a blog specifically for Half Shell.

CLICK TO ENTER

Every time I visit the Half Shell profile, and the songs there start playing, it surprises me how much I miss Barntown.

So yeah. This weekend is Demented Fest. There's going to be heaps of good acts playing, including Forging Friendships, First Death, Real Talk! and Ciarán Parnell. The Half Shell distro will be there, so there'll be stuff to buy. Lucky you.

My home boy, Will, is coming over from England for this. I'm really looking forward to that because he's absolutely hilarious in a moshpit.

Look Back Records will also have their distro at the show. They recently put out the new First Death EP, and it's well worth picking up. They'll also have copies of the Looking Back zine, which was put together by Iano and Wally, and is well worth a read. If you can't make it to the show, and you should really try, you can get both of these from their webstore which is linked to below in the sweet promo poster for 'Ausgang City'.

Deep breaths...

[0953]

I finally got around to doing some stuff on the Half Shell Records side of things. I updated the MySpace page and created a new webstore where you can come and give me all your beautiful money. I've put all the Half Shell releases to date in there.


Another Day In Hell's final show is less than a fortnight away. The closer it gets, the unhappier I become. I'm definitely going to be upset on the night. There are some other great bands playing over that weekend aswell. The flier's below. Everyone should go.

Our show on the 20th June with Crowd Control, Frigits and Exploding Birds was amazing. Easily one of the most fun gigs I've ever played. All the bands were great. Crowd Control are currently somewhere in Euroland being phenomenal. If you get a chance to see them, do it.


The last of the shirts that we got made up for the show went the other day. I'm really happy that so many people were interested in getting one, especially those who ordered one from outside of Ireland.



The often delayed ADiH CD went in to be duplicated the other day. It'll have all 7 of the tracks that we recorded on it and should be back in time for the final show. The cover and tray artwork is by the ever awesome Simon Erl. He's currently wandering round the states, being an incredible bum. He's seriously one of the best guys ever. Much love, bro.

Annoyingly, my XBox red ringed last night when I was trying to drive fast into stuff. I've had it since the european launch, so it's gotten a pretty good run, but I think I can still get it repaired free of charge. Here's hoping.

That's all for now.

[1009]

Agony I was taught

There's very little I can be bothered with.

How quickly we forget...

[1322]

I was browsing through some old pictures that I'd put up on my MySpace, and looking at the comments that'd been left, and I saw one from a friend that died during the year. I haven't thought about him in a while. It makes me sad that some things can be so easy to forget.

Jude, I miss you bro.

[1325]

I found my way out...

[0135]

I got called about my car just before I left work on Monday evening, and was told that it wouldn't be ready until tomorrow (which was today). Bad news. That meant that I had to get the bus from town to here again this morning. It wasn't quite as lame as yesterday, but the train from Skerries to the city was straight up terrible.

But I digress. I listened to Turn It Around on the way into town last night to try to get myself psyched for the Comeback Kid show, because I wasn't really feeling it. To my endless surprise, it totally worked. The show was unbelievable. Including the support bands, there was probably about 220 people there. The atmosphere was as good as Another Breath around this time last year, and that's saying a lot.

Ghundi from Galway opened the gig up. I picked up their CD when I was in Galway last, and thought it was pretty good, but I was (correctly) informed that it was a lot better live. The crows was still a little sparse at this time, so it wasn't too packed, but it left plenty of room for the singer to jump off the stage and run around the audience, singing.

Real Talk! were up next. I like these guys, and they get better and better with each show. They played a new song, that I was later told they fucked up (I didn't notice), as well as the songs off their demo. It's full of little anthemic gang vocals that get people pumped. Iano and I managed to shout 'Irish Gee' into the mic at the appropriate moment, which pleased me greatly. There was plenty of indian noises and a massive 'Milton!' shout out during the lead out from the last song. Good times.

The next band, Find A Way haven't played a gig in a good few months. Most of the members play in other hardworking Dublin bands, not least of all the frontman, Zach Golden, who's easily one of the most likable dudes there is. They're a pop punk band, and while this would normally put me off straight away, Zach's vocals aren't the usual american-aping nasal whine that makes me turn my ears off. The crowd got well behind them, and with good reason.

First Death very recently returned from a two week slew of shows in the UK and it's like they came back a different band. They sounded huge and showed an unbelievable amount of energy, especially from the vocalist Chris, who bounded about the place screaming wildly. I've seen First Death a whole bunch of times, and this was easily the best. My highlight was definitely Yo Drama!, from their new (currently MIA) EP 'Ausgang City', even though it was missing the Cowboys From Hell intro. The song started. The place went mental. Awesome.

Comeback Kid were nothing less than amazing. While I'm not the biggest fan, especially of their latest album, their earlier stuff has the potential to make me lose it completely. They played a decently long set, with songs from each of their records. My highlight was definitely Step Ahead, which was pretty much the only song that I wanted to hear, but wasn't sure they'd play, and it set me off. They finished up, unsurprisingly, with Wake The Dead and everyone went crazy. It was the biggest singalong I've ever seen, with what seemed like constant stage dives. Video here. A perfect end, pretty much.

This show was a testament to the state of Dublin hardcore, with great bands, massive crowd participation, everyone having a good time all without pointless fighting or jerks being the toughest guy in the pit.

Definitely one of the best nights of the whole year, only improved by Laura driving me home so I didn't have to sit on the bus.

If that didn't have me in enough of a good mood, I got a call about noon telling me that my car was ready to be collected and that is was only going to cost ²/₃ of what the full price quote was. I'm not stoked on having to pay money, but having to pay less money is always good.

* all pics taken by Jessebash

---

Bands I'm listening to that you should also be the one that's listening to:

• Trapped Under Ice
  

[0225]