Augmentin' my life.

I've been sick for the last couple of weeks. I had a bit of a cough developing since the week after new years, but I didn't really do anything about it. I took the morning off work yesterday and went to the doctor. He told me I have a chest infection, gave me a prescription for some giant pills, gave me a cert for a couple days off work and took €60. 8 minutes, from start to finish.

I'm informed that the antibiotics, Augmentin, are amazing at fixing this kind of being sick, but that they kick the shit out of you while they do it. Not terribly excited for the violence, but I really do need to be able to finish a sentence without coughing up part of my insides.

Time to get back to talking about my car. When my dad went down to the garage to get the car off them (he would be towing it obviously), they hadn't put the broken gearbox back in the car, but left it on the passenger seat instead. Upon towing it up the road and taking the first corner, both the front wheels bent outwards. My dad said that they hadn't reconnected the suspension rod or something of that nature. It damaged the wings on both sides of the car. They eventually got it up the road to my house. It's outside now, looking forlorn. I'm completely gutted.

On Tuesday night, I went to see Henry Rollins do a spoken word show. He talked and joked for three hours, non stop. I believe he's my favourite person on the whole planet. His Christopher Walken impression made me laugh harder than I have for months.

Time to get out of bed.

Continuing coincidence

So I'm watching 2010, and just thought I'd check out the weekly webcomics roundup on Joystiq, and found this comic on the left. How ususual...

Every day I walk the same way home

Nothing changes, nothing improves.

My already negative outlook is on a downward spiral. It amazes me that I can find solace in comparing events in, and facets of, my life to shit I read on the internet.

Time for an example, with a quick explanatory aside!

The image on the left is single panel from the actual comic, which can be found by clicking the link. Rather than stealing the artists bandwidth, and per display advertising revenue, you should visit his site. I found it decently amusing.

Anyways, when I read this one it pissed me off, because, surprise surprise, my car is fucked. Not only that, but it's fucked enough that I don't think it's economically viable to get it repaired.

I was quoted at €1100 to get a second hand gearbox installed in the car, including labour. That doesn't include whatever it'll cost to get what I actually sent the car in for fixed. That's more than I paid for the car, and in the year that i had it, I'd probably spent that much again on getting bits and pieces of it sorted out and fixed.

This bums me out. If you know me, you know I love my little car, but I guess it's time to move on and get a new one. I might even break out of character and use it to mac on ladies.

I went to see Walk Hard last night, with Panda. He'd already seen it, but he enjoyed it so much that he wanted to go again. I'm glad, cos two nights in a row of going to the cinema and asking for "one please" would probably have caused me endless distress. It was a pretty entertaining anyways, and I'd definitely recommend it.

I wasn't sure about going to see it, but I had my iTunes on random during the day and Johnny Cash's cover of Hurt came on. That kind of convinced me. Hurray for being a goth.

While I was looking for an image of the poster, I found the picture on the left. It's unspoken subtleties like this that make Walk Hard a good comedy.

The theatrical trailer for John Rambo was also shown before the film. I'm excited for that. February 22nd can't come fast enough.

After the movie was done we bailed up to Eamonn Doran's. It's pretty much the only place where I get to hang out with some people that I like to hang out with. After last night, I won't be going back unless it's for a gig. It's not like I had a particularly terrible time, but I don't feel comfortable looking around and feeling nothing but contempt for practically everyone I can see. I'm not referring to the people I was talking to last night, because you're the reason I went in the first place.

It's just everyone else.

Big thanks to Derry for bringing me home. I couldn't have faced the Nitelink.

Imagine the faces of strangers exploding...

Time for some more hate.

Valentine's day approaches fast. I want to choke every smiling couple I see on chocolate hearts, inexpertly wrapped in red foil. Sorry if you like me and this includes you. Having spent some time thinking on it, it strikes me that I'd probably rather die alone than put myself in the firing line again. Being non-specifically bitter is a lot easier than I thought it'd be.

It's hard for me to trust anyone,
and that's what hurts the most.
I've got a heart that I can't open,
and fist that I keep closed

Moving on.

We, Another Day In Hell, played a show last Saturday with Arcada, Heathers and Soldiers Take Half. It was some of the most fun I've had yet this year. We played a new song and busted out a cover that we're probably not going to play again, no matter how much we're asked. I'm sorry if you missed it.

We also got the prospective artwork back for our CD from the amazing Simon Edge. It's looking good. It'll be getting released on Half Shell as soon as we have Blacklisted out of the way. I'm looking forward to finally having it done, considering how long it's been since we recorded the songs.

The show we were going to be playing on February 14^th has been canceled, but the all ages in Greystones on the 9^th is still going ahead. We might have another gig on the 7^th, and possibly some stuff at the start of March, before we head to the UK for the shows in Bury St. Edmonds and Colchester.

Other news. I found out today that it's going to cost me a lot more than €1,000 to get my car fixed. I don't know if it's worth it to keep it alive, when something else might go wrong. It's distressing. I love my little car. Apparantly I need something black, with racing stripes. I'm not so sure I agree.

Anyways. Blacklisted in two days. I'm trying to remain excited, but I'm just getting worried about it at this point. If this one doesn't go well, we'll have to evaluate how viable it is for us to put on these bigger shows.

---

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

• Panic

Slipped gears

Well, shit. I got into my car to drive it down the road to the garage, got to the turn coming out of my estate and the clutch went.

It's at the side of the road now, not going anywhere, waiting for the dudes from the garage to come and tow it off. I'm stuck here until they arrive, and it's been nearly an hour now, and then I have to leave to go to work. It's a good job I'm not incredibly busy right now. *sigh*

I'm definitely not looking forward to the bill for this one.

How very frustrating.

---

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

• Outbreak
  

Initial D

So yesterday, I drove to work in the car I have for the next week or so, a Subaru Vivio. Here it is...



This mean machine is fully loaded with a 658cc engine and can go 0-60 in ∞ seconds. Driving in yesterday I managed to coax it up to a bone shattering 75^km/_h, or just under 50^mp/_h. While this means no driving on the motorway for me, I'm not terribly bothered. It's very light on the clutch, and either has power steering or is so light that the wheel can be turned with no effort.

While it's definitely a step down the automotive ladder from my own car, which I love and love to drive, I'm still glad to have it available to me.

There's nothing I'd rather do less in the morning than share my air with people I don't know, for more than 2 hours, probably while being forced to stand, just so I can go to work.

On that note, I'm bringing my car down to the garage to get repaired now. I wonder how much it'll cost me...

Deathproof

So my car has been acting funny for the last month or so. My fan belt was slipping a little, and could probably have done with replacing. The oil light started flashing on the other week, but I checked the oil level, and it was fine. Last Wednesday, I started finding it hard to put the car into gear, or if I applied the clutch when braking the car would sometimes slip out of gear. This worries me, so I'm not driving it for a while, until I get it into a garage to get it serviced. This'll be this coming Wednesday.

In the interim, I've had no car.

Laura and Derry drove out to get me on Friday, for which I'm hugely grateful, even though I wasn't ready when they got here. Not being in the driving seat is very, very weird, by the way. I kept looking for mirrors that weren't there to see what was behind me.

After that, I spent hours and hours and hours on buses for the rest of the weekend. I stayed in the party house on Friday night (for which I'm also very grateful) so I had to make the trip back to Skerries from Glasnevin on Saturday afternoon. It took 2 ¹/₂ hours. I was heading out for Dee's birthday on Saturday night (happy birthday again), and the bus back in took another 90 minutes. The nitelink home was just over another hour.

On Sunday, I spent 3 ¹/₂ hours on buses in order to go watch a movie, which was well worth it.

Today was the worst, cos I had to go to work. I was up for work about 5, which sucked on its own, and got a train just before 7. Even though I went straight from train to bus to office, with very little waiting around, I still didn't get there til 9.30am. It was marginally better getting home, but I was still surrounded by people with no regard for anyone else's personal space, and I eventually got home about 9pm.

So yeah. Fuck public transport.

With this in mind, I'm more than appreciative of the lend of the car, a '95 Subaru Vivio, I got from my sister's boyfriend for the next week, while mine is getting repaired or what have you. Driving makes my life so much simpler.

Hopefully my own car will be back on the road for the trip up to Belfast for Blacklisted, Soul Control, Shipwreck and Crowd Control next Thursday. Next Thursday being the day after next Wednesday. Next Wednesday being the show that we're putting on in Eamonn Doran's. You should go to it.

• Blacklisted (US)
• Shipwreck (US)
• Soul Control (US)
• First Death
• Crowd Control

I sound like a scratched record. Back and forth, back and forth.

---

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

• Vanguard
• Guns Up! (MySpace)
  

Suck on that, Dr. Phil.

This blog is about Another Day In Hell.

We had our first proper practice in almost 2 months last night. Due to me being an idiot, and not bringing Jon's snare or cymbals with me to work yesterday morning, I had to drive back to Skerries to pick them up, then back into town. Thanks to amazing traffic, I didn't get there til 7.20, meaning that I missed out on 2 hours of the practice and because I had the drums, it pretty much meant that the others couldn't do anything either.

Once we got set up, we blasted through the set once to warm up, and then got down to writing a new song. I'm pretty pleased with the result. We'll be playing it at our next show. Lyrics are on the MySpace

On that note, we were supposed to be playing next Wednesday, but the show was canceled before it even got organised properly. However, we've been asked to play next Saturday, the 19^th, in Eamonn Dorans with Arcada, Soldiers Take Half and Heathers. Flier below. I can't say enough good things about Soldiers Take Half, and an opportunity to see them should never be missed.


Our next show after that is the 9^th of February, supporting Save Your Breath and All Or Nothing, along with Nine IX Lives, Veteran and our real tight homies in Find A Way, fronted by the ubiquitous Zach Golden.


We've also been asked to play the Demented 2^nd anniversary show, on Valentines night, which I'm totally stoked about cos MacKell is a good dude and has done so much for Dublin Bay hardcore scene. More details on this show to come later.

We should have another practice before Saturday's show, and I'm really looking forward to it. I've never been happier with how things are going.

In case you missed all those links...

• Arcada
• Soldiers Take Half
• Heathers
  
• Save Your Breath
  
• All Or Nothing
• Nine IX Lives
  
• Veteran
  
• Find A Way

I do my best work at night

I find it hard to be introspective and thoughtful when it's bright outside. The creatures of the night, what beautiful music they make. Because my moody goth powers are at their weakest right now, I'm going to make a post about love. So here goes...

I love Guitar Hero.

Last night, we converged on Lee's place to play Guitar Hero III for a couple hours. It's pretty much the only game that I'm happy to continuously play or watch without getting bored. The guitars were being passed around and there was much comedy, thanks mostly to Stephen MacKell, who can't see the difference between Rocky Balboa and Rocky And Bullwinkle. A good time seems to have been had by all. I managed to "Beat The Devil" on hard. It's a lot easier than doing it on expert, which I've been trying to do for more than a week, but is still pretty tough.

I personally think that battle mode is a load of shit and is a fundamentally broken game mode, so the only reason, besides gamerscore and achievements to put yourself through this torture is to unlock the phenomenal 3275 note monster that is Through The Fire And The Flames by Dragonforce.

It's far and away the most difficult song in the game, but is also one of the most fun to play. Last night, I had my best showing to date, managing to get 79% of the way through the 8 minutes of finger gymnastics before failing. I will destroy it soon. Then I can go back to working on getting 5 gold stars for every song in the easy campaign.

---

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

• Graf Orlock

Clean slate

So up until now I've pretty much only written my blog using MySpace, which I'll be retiring shortly. There's a whole bunch of stuff in there that's personal to me, but probably pretty vague to most of everyone else. If you think something, especially something negative, that I've written about in the past is about you, you're most likely wrong. To date and for the most part, I've done this only for my own sanity.

The title of the blog comes from a song by Panic, a band I've very much gotten into this year. I guess identifying with negative song lyrics is part and parcel of being a hardcore dude.

I'm not entirely sure what my aim is with this, other than to give me another outlet for my negativity and frustration with regards to the modern world, my feelings for it, and my place in it. I guess you could say that in this I'm my own worst enemy.

You don't have to go for my throat, I can cut it fine by myself.

All this hate aside, I'll probably be posting the general and unimportant to all but me details of my life here. That means Half Shell, Another Day In Hell, Cornered and other stuff I do for music, and everything else, which might take precedence to it when it comes to the time I'm forced to spend, but falls far behind when it comes to love felt.

I shouldn't go any further without mentioning that, in a little over two weeks, this love will take the form of 3 US bands who're gracing our shores with their intensity, along with 2 phenomenal local bands, featuring some safe dudes, who I back hard. Links to all their pages are below

Go and listen and then get the records (in some way) and hit up notpopular for the lyrics. Come to the show, sing along, stage dive, don't start fights and have fun.

• Blacklisted (US)
• Shipwreck (US)
• Soul Control (US)
• First Death
• Crowd Control

That's enough for now.

---

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

• Panic
• spatXon