The Devil

[1257]

He has eight legs, has a big black body and lives in my room. I am fucking terrified.

[1258]

Unusual Contents

[1230]

Last night I went to a gig in The Tap to help fund local monsters Crowd Control's upcoming tour. As usual, they were incredible. This band have only gotten tighter and more aggressive over the past 2 years and every new song is better than the last.

It's a shame that they haven't got more released material. Their split 7" with Mob Rules is fucking great, but it took so long to get done that it was kind of anticlimactic when I got it, because I'd had the songs for so long. They have a new split with the UKs The Hard Way in the works, however, and this has me excited.

I hope tour works out for them, even though Nottingham fell through.

Support was from Sort It Out, who were awesome, Etcha, who did nothing for me, and Loose Nut. It was Loose Nut's first show, and they were great. Jamie posted elsewhere about the raw nerve nature of the music and I can only agree. This is probably going to end up being one of my favourite local bands. I only hope it doesn't fall by the wayside when Crowd Control inevitably blow up.

Overall, this show was great, and it was good to see so many people make an effort to come out to it, despite the shitty weather.

As an aside, I went into the asian market beside the venue, and while browsing through the packs of steamed buns in the freezer, I found one whose ingredients included 'Jizz Powder'. I laughed so hard that I had to leave the shop.

[1259]

Suicidal Maniac

[2040]

Why Chris Mahon rules:



[2042]

Put the goddamned dog in the basket...

[1642]

I've talked about this before, but after having a pretty decent day, featuring a reasonable commute, success in work and a palatable lunch, I've been brought low by Facebook, suggesting that I add a friend who died 18 months ago.

I still miss you, bro.



[1653]

Vegan pizza (again)

[1032]

I'd half eaten it before I managed to compose myself enough to take a photo.

This does not do it any justice whatsoever.

Click to embiggen.

Artichokes on pizza. Hell yeah.

[1038]

Vegan pizza

[1731]

Last weekend I had my first pizza in ages.

The dough was made from scratch, in the morning, using flour, dried yeast, salt, water and olive oil and left to rise for the day.

The pizza sauce was made from half a chopped red onion a can of chopped tomatoes, some tomato puree and roughly chopped basil.

It was topped with Redwood Foods vegan mozzarella, artichoke hearts, cracked olives, sundried tomato, sliced flatcap mushroom and basil leaves.

It was beyond incredible, I had the whole thing myself, and is the best thing I've eaten in months.

I may update this later with a picture of the pizza, which I only thought to take after eating half of it.

[1742]

Wishes

[1345]

Wish the ongoing theme about me wasn't "he's just crazy"

Wish I knew safety, 

Wish nothing phased me,

Wish I felt more than just feelings of unrest,

Wish the darkness didn't cloud me,

Wish I wasn't an emotional wreck...

I listened to the latest Blacklisted record at home before work this morning, and then twice more on the drive in. I think the last song on this record is the best thing they've ever written.

[1354]

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori

[1327]

A couple months ago I watched a film called Johnny Got His Gun. It was an adaptation of an anti war novel by Dalton Trumbo, which I've not read. I'd been meaning to watch it for a long time. 

It's about a young man who fought in World War One and was hit by an exploding artillery shell. He woke up in hospital, horribly mutilated, with no arms, no legs, no face, no jaw and no senses except the sense of touch but with his mind fully intact.

The full film is on YouTube in ten parts. The first one can be found here. 

This film had a pretty profound effect on me.

[1354]

Quiet reflection

[1500]

I'm feeling it.

[1503]

I <3 2 FASH

[1632]

Whatever about helping out and providing gear for gigs, I'm going to be running the first show I've actually helped organise at the end of this month.

My Australian homie, Fingers, is coming over here from the UK for a couple of shows with his band, Fashion.  The show in Dublin is on in The Lower Deck in Portobello on Saturday the 28th of February 2009, and will also feature Crowd Control, Sheep Dip and Dead Wrong.  Door time is 8pm and it's €8 in.

Here's the flier.  Thanks to renowned cat murderer, Martin, for the hook up.

I have a couple copies of the new Fashion 7" available at the bargain price of €4.

Tonight will feature BOLT in 3D followed by Metal Karaoke in Fibber Magees.

Peace.

[1704]

Early mornings

[0650]

I brought my sister, her fiancé and their adorable kid to the airport this morning for an early flight, and headed straight to work afterwards. I arrived at 0605.

This is definitely the earliest I've been here in a long, long time.

I managed to secure myself an extra 20 minutes asleep this morning by deciding that I would have a shower when I got to work. I picked up some new varieties of Original Source, which I've raved about in an earlier entry, and I brought the Vanilla Milk and Cocoa one with me. I now smell absolutely delicious, like a really clean cake.

Time to do some work.

[0701]

The past reborns the storms

[0004]

I've been into music for a pretty long time. Well over ten years. In that time, I've collected heaps of tickets and fliers. I by no means have something from every show I've been to, but in going through it tonight, I've found a bunch of stuff that has brought a massive smile to my face.

For example...

This is the ticket from the Terror show in December 2003, where I broke my arm and spent the following four days in hospital.  

This is the ticket from the Hatebreed show in April 2007 where they played Satisfaction Is The Death Of Desire from start to finish.

This is the setlist from the final show of the Gorilla Biscuits 20 years tour in 2007

I'm in the process of doing something solid with them so I've got something more lasting.

Tonight has been one of the best in a long time.

[0032]

Three score One score and ten

[1335]

This is where I'm going to be when I turn 30.

I booked flights for Chris and me this afternoon.  I seriously can't wait.

[1337]

Sick of people - no one's real

[2138]

SUICIDE'S AN ALTERNATIVE

I was three years old when this was released.

I don't agree with all the lyrics, but this song rips.

[2158]

I go, I come back

[0243]

I wrote a long entry and hated every word in it after I was done.

I'll summarise it in three sentences.

I'm annoyed about way more things than usual.

Booja-booja ginger flavoured Stuff In A Tub is delicious but burny.

It makes me sad that Terry Pratchett has Alzheimer's Disease.

[0255]

Foxy lady

[0235]

We went to a party in Joe's house the other day. It was a great laugh. I played heaps of Rock Band, which was the first time in a couple months.  

On the way home, I saw no less than five foxes running around the streets.

I love stuff like that.

[0239]

Dead technology

[1211]

I realise how bizarre this sounds, but I've had several dreams in the last couple months about LaserDisc players. I've never owned one, and haven't seen any LaserDiscs for sale in Ireland since the late 90s. I'm reliably informed by the internet that there have been no new LaserDisc titles produced since 2000.

Anyways, about a month after I had a dream about them, I was in Nottingham and found a number of discs for sale in some second hand music store, and I felt compelled to buy them. I somehow managed to exercise restraint and left the shop empty handed, except for a double LP of War Of The Worlds.

Since then I've had at least two really vivid dreams about buying them.

Today I read that players for what is essentially a dead format are still being made, although there are only 3,000 more units being produced.

In a slightly related article, the last manufacturer of blank VHS tapes officially stopped production at the end of last year.

I wonder sometimes if the entirety of human endeavour will be lost to the future because we choose to record our history and culture on a format that no-one will be able to play.

Last night The Carrier played in Fibbers. The sound for the whole night was amazing, and the atmosphere was really great.  The three local support acts really set it off, despite Iano and Nelly both being sick. Dead Wrong handed out copies of their fantastic demo with the artwork consisting of a pair of panels from Preacher, featuring Johnny Lee Wombat. 

Cedo ou tard, chega uma hora quando tudo que vocé quer é gritar foda-se pro mundo.

The Carrier were really great. They're a terribly intense band and their live show really puts this across. I love the Boston accent. Leave the car in Harvard Park. Apparently Matt Damon in The Departed is not representative of Bostonians. Who'd have thought?

[1251]

The World Isn't Against You...

[1724]

...my dear, it just doesn't care.  

I want to be making more of my life than I am.  Nobody else is going to do it for me.

I'm going to see The Carrier play tonight.  It's bound to be a good show.  A review might come later.

[1729]

The ceiling is waiting

[0312]

I'm up late.

I ran over a screw somewhere between Parnell St and the Clery's carpark after dropping off the gear for the show tonight.  I had to stop a bunch of times to put air in the driver's side back tyre on the way home. On another day, this would have bothered me a lot more than it did.

Cornered played with The Effort, Plagues and Young Wolves tonight.  The Effort were very entertaining live, even if their songs don't really light me on fire on record. I really enjoyed Young Wolves tonight, and have felt compelled to listen to A Wilhelm Scream since I've gotten home.

One of the cymbals on Career Suicide seems to be making a strange hissing sound.  This may be in my head.

Our handsome devil of a singer is currently laid up being sick as a dog, so we played an instrumental set, including three new songs. I was pretty happy with how it went, although I would still have loved Jon to be there.

This week has not been as bad as I thought it was going to be.  That's all I'll say for now.

The Carrier is on this Wednesday in Fibbers on Parnell St. I'll post about that again tomorrow.

This doesn't make much sense. I need to rest.

[0321]

Riot stairs

[2355]

So today was long and kind of hard.

I had a reasonable amount of success in work dynamically embedding shockwave objects in webpages.  Tomorrow will be the actual test though.

I'm about two hours away from owning a Deadguy shirt.  This has me stoked.  I first heard Deadguy in 1997 or 1998 on some compilation.  I picked up Fixation On A Coworker shortly afterwards.

I later got my hands on Screaming With The Deadguy Quintet and Work Ethic, but I hold a special place in my heart for Fixation...

It's still one of my favourite records, and is going to be 14 years old this year.

I found a link to download the record here.  There's a fan MySpace page here, which has a bunch of stuff on it, including scans of the decibel magazine article on the record, from when it was inducted into their hall of fame, in the pictures section.

That's enough for now.  Die with your mask on.

[0021]

EDIT

[0221]

Sniped.  Fuck you eBay.

[0222]

Frozen corpses

[1355]

On the way to work yesterday morning, I saw 7 dead animals on the road.  This may be a new record.  It contrasted strangely with the winter wonderland feeling that the overnight frost had given the fields I was driving past.

I'm yet to hit an animal on the road, and am thankful for this.

I was driving home late a couple of months ago, and the car in front of me on the road ran over what looked like a rabbit.  The car was maybe 20 meters ahead of me and I could see the animal thrashing around in my headlights.

The driver, who was a young woman, had pulled over ahead of me and turned on her hazard warning lights.  As I drove past I could see her leaning forward in the seat with her head in her hands, covering her eyes.

I told this story to someone recently, and I didn't really think about how much it affected me until then.  

My focus is fucked right now.

[1406]

Time (mis-)spent

[0032]

So far tonight I've watched the first 7 episodes of season 5 of Entourage back to back.  I did this while sorting out my massive pile of clean laundry.

I love Entourage.

I can't wait for season 6.

[0045]

EDIT

[0406]

13 minutes left in season 5.  My brain has fallen to pieces.  All my clothes are neatly folded.

[0410]

Nothing gold can stay

[2200]

I can't remember the last time I watched The Outsiders.

I'm going to try to find it online now.

[2018]

10 years

[1424]

One thing is clear.  I can grow a better beard now than then.

[1427]