A break for the border

2008-07-17T14:12:00.001Z

Gotcha!

:P

2007-11-07T11:25:00.000Z

I've just had a surprisingly techie conversation with a lad from one of our sister companies who came to me for advice about transferring and re-editing some old SVHS home video footage.

What was surprising was that I could actually answer his questions in a seemingly knowledgeable manner- as opposed to this time last year, when the same query would have been met with the blank,vaguely panicked stare of, say, a cat who'd been asked to drive a JCB.

One year on in Windmill; it seems as if I'm learning stuff.

Aido 'I can drive a JCB too' Potato.

2007-10-26T11:25:00.001Z

Bibble.

Has anyone else noticed the striking similarity between Bloodrayne and latter-day Durham Red? It's absurdly obvious, yet I'm only making the connection now....

Went to see 'Black Sheep' the other night, cos it looked piss funny in the trailer. It's not. It isn't awful by any means and the effects were satisfyingly nasty, but the script needed to be a lot sharper.

Also been introducing Bartley to the joys of Battlestar Galactica. And Gus. Gus hates 'the king of the world' as he thinks she's a silly bitch; but likes the blonde one.

Aido 'Do you see now why I don't update this more regularly?' Potato

2007-10-15T12:30:00.000Z

Ahhhhh....
it's one of those non-days outside. It's as if Dublin's weather just got sick of everyone bitching about its personality, and just buggered off completely. For some reason, on such days, I always feel like writing.

Here is where i normally apologise about the insanely long time it's taken me to update this motherfucker, and for failing to report all the cool shit that has happened in between- but then I remembered that I started writing this for me, not y'all. So no more apologies, bitches...

Having said that, I'm increasingly suspicious that it was perhaps not a good idea to start in the first place. I never really kept a diary due to the twin terrors of (a) someone else reading it or (b) me reading it, some time later, and balking at what an idiot i was then. And probably still am. Yet here I am, typing away in a format that basically guarantees both. What a fucking idiot!

I heard somewhere recently that some thinktank or other has concluded that by 2010 the worldwide number of bloggers will have stabilised at something like 1, 000, 000. They figure it's very popular now because it's still fairly new, but eventually those who aren't naturally inclined to write will lose interest. I dunno what to make of it. It seems to have seeped pretty pervasively into the whole web.2 thing and is entrenched in one form or another. Ask me in 2010.

But I digress...

Yeah... I dunno whats to be done about it really. I'm always of half a mind to delete all ties with myspace and fucking bebo and all that crap (and can I just say for the last time, if you are one of the people who is repeatedly pelting me with 'friend' requests, I AM NOT PHUCKING JOINING PHUCKING FACEBOOK). Who knows, maybe I can bring the good-old fashioned e-mail back.

But I'll probably stick with intermittant blogs for a while yet.

So what has been happening?

Well, I had Marybeth and Jon over which was lovely. They looked a bit scared. I think they had a nice time, but you'd have to ask them really.

Also had ol stevo over a while ago- fellow ballard boy and SHU-head extraordinare.

I went to this:

Started seeing her:

Her name is Lisa and she is funky...

And she:

...was born. Incapacitating her mother on the way out. But it was Grainne, so we'll let her off with a warning. (Only messing Grainne, I'm sure you'll be back to your old self in no time)
She's called Grace Marie Bridget Loughlin, and she's one of them cute babies.

Work's still going well, though has changed considerably since Ultan departed for pastures new. Without his side to kick, I scarcely make eye contact with more than 3 co-workers a day... I don't mind, of course, but I don't particularly want to become totally unsocialized at work either.
Ah well, there's always the dead pigeons I suppose.

And so, back to it...

Aido "I'm lonely, but I ain't that lonely yet" Potato

2007-10-04T00:20:00.001Z

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2007-08-27T17:07:00.000Z

Booya!

Holidays, it turns out, really agree with me. Two weeks of no graft and I feel like a new man. I also look like a new man, according to a variety of colleagues, and not just cos I've had a haircut.

I kicked off with five days chillin in london town with sunny b and the boyz (being ronan and tom, who paid a surprise visit, presumably because they couldn't countenance the thought of an aido-less dublin for such a stretch).

I would like to say I 'did' the whole London experience, but that would be a lie. Unless home removals and getting binned have, unbeknownst to me, superceded shopping, sightseeing and those gay beefeater teddys as tourism must-dos in the english capital. Still, I visited a number a fine drinkeries; enjoyed typically quality time with the lads and, crucially, didn't bankrupt myself in the process...

Next up was my return to Sheffield. Apprehensive as I was, this turned out to be a reet treet (as they say oop north). Old sex city has had a most agreeable facelift since I abandoned it; though like an familiar proz with a new make-up job, still felt the same where it counts. Twas lovely seeing MB, Jon, Andre, Winky, The King, all the Clements and everyone else again. Maybe next time I visit the ladies Clea and Amy won't flee the place...

The business of my return was to be Godfather for Ben and Liz's delightful new nipper, Dan the Man. He's a wee dote. I look forward to corrupting him. Pictures as soon as I get em.

From Old Sheffo to Edinburgh, Andrea, film fest and more freaks than Tod Browning would know what to do with. I love festival time up there and have decided it's gonna be a standing order for years to come. Again, one doesn't need a pile of money to make it fun (though I imagine it would help immeasurably)- just some decent weather (which I had) and a healthy interest in bright lights and colours.

Quick rundown of some of the films I ate:
WAZ; Se7en-esque serialkiller fare. Decent enough- elevated above it's genre by a typically excellent performance from Stellan Skaarsgard and an untypically excellent one from Selma Blair. Interestingly enough, it was set in New York, but filmed in Belfast.

RIZA; Tedious, Joyless nonsense from Turkey. The kind of crap we were force-fed in uni, which no right-thinking casual cinemagoer will ever so much as hear of. Lucky bastards.

ONCE; Dublin-set lighthearted romantic musical. Sweet and enjoyable enough despite near-constant intrusion of sub-David-Gray whine-a-thons penned by the star (a busker on grafton st.)

EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION; Another slab of depression, this time made slightly more palatable by the fact that it was (a) thematically contemporary and (b) not shite. It concerned the abduction of a Middle-Eastern uni professor of the streets of london, and his subsequent extradition to an unnamed african country for "interrogation". While not actually based on a true story, it is, apparantly, a fairly common practice for the CIA, aided and abetted by the UK government. Sobering stuff.

MANUFACTURING DISSENT; A 2-hour character-assassination of Michael Moore by a couple of lefty canadians. Most of their points were as fatuous and overblown as anything Moore has done, but like Moore, they also have just about enough real facts to make it worth watching. Not half as entertaining as the Q&A which followed, which saw some rabid lefty american ex-pat make a barrage of ill-thought-out accusations against the film-makers, to the point where the audience were attacking her, leaving the bemused canadians (and q&a host) staring on agape, completely forgotten about.

THIS FILTHY WORLD; A film of John Waters discussing his life, films and anything else that pops into his head, before an audience in some american university. Needless to say, this was extremely good- basically it's a stand-up routiene. My only frustration was that I couldn't get tickets to the premiere, where the man himself was hosting an extended q&a afterwards. That would have been bitchin'.

Which brings me to what was both the high-point and low-point of the week. I'd been looking forward to seeing I'M A CYBORG, BUT THAT'S OKAY, the new film by Park Chan Wook (genius behind Oldboy, Lady Vengeance and one of my own personal heroes). Sadly, they'd sold out well before my arrival in Edinburgh, and my efforts to get last-minute cancellation tickets at the box-office having met with frustration, I took to the adjoining bar to drown my sorrows.... when who should I see wandering around looking at pictures on the wall but PARK CHAN FUCKING WOOK HIMSELF (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

After creaming my jeans, I tried to sidle up to him, only to be told by a staff member that, despite the absence of tape, barriers or demarkation of any sort, it was in fact a VIP area and I was not allowed in. Probably for the best since I'd have no clue what to say to him and I'm not even sure he speaks english, since the other heads in the VIP weren't talking to him either. Still. Not often I get to be within sandwich-throwing distance of a true-blue idol. Made me feel all funny it did.

Then I went home. This too was delightful, especially since everyone seems to be in fine fettle. Grainne looks about ready to pop, and Olivia is gradually betraying her condition too.

Today was me first day back at work. It seems the people here have a newfound respect for me, having spent the last 2 weeks doing my job. I doubt there has ever been a better time to ask for a payrise.

Until again.

Aido "I also saw Rush Hour 3, but I don't want to talk about it" Potato

2007-07-30T09:13:00.000Z

Well hello there ya cheeky monkey.

Another delightful weekend out of the way. This one involved a VIP area in a supremely poncey bar; a whitey of epic proportions; the arrival, in our humble abode, of another great avalanche of shit; a very good curry; some Play-Doh; a couple who'd locked themselves out; the mangling of a mates good looks; a humbling experience and my 2nd annual visit to Croke park:

Hurling's great. It's really fast, brutal, and terrific to watch at high levels. The people who play it are also mental- which adds to the appeal immensely. It's as close an approximation of quidditch as we've got. Sadly the Deise only drew with Cork, so they'll be playing again next week to see who gets into the semis, but it was, as Wallace may or may not have once said, a grand day out.

Twas also the Birthday of one Mr. R. Lynch- who I'm glad to say, doesn't appear to be wising up any time soon... And we were honoured with the company of (nouvelle-derelicte) Sunny B again. Always a pleasure, bav.

Realised with no small amount of glee that it won't be long before the return of Pedo and inga; my two favourite travelling headcases. This weekend also saw the return of La Madsen from her round the world trip, and no doubt she will be descending on Dublin any day now. Also am expecting a visit from film geek extraordinaire, Hallam head and all round good-egg, stevo.

Suddenly, the summer seems to be happening....

Aido 'Any suggestions for a new title for this blog?' Potato

2007-07-25T12:59:00.001Z

Blogging's fun.
I'm gonna try and do more.

Reactions so far today to the fact that I'm wearing mo's violently yellow hoodie:

1x I like your hoodie.
2x Why are you wearing that?
2x What's that stain?

Aido 'Provocateur' Potato

2007-07-25T09:35:00.000Z

This guy's a cool bastard. He's called buck 65 and I went to hear him sing his little ditties in a smelly underground dungeon last night. It rocked. Thanks as well to insane dreadhead Paul from way back in the day for bringing him to my attention... your enthusiasm has travelled, my friend. If you see him about say hi.

Today I'm wearing yellow.

No, I'm not sure about it either.

Aido 'rockin it awkwardly' potato

2007-07-22T14:19:00.000Z

And now I've got the potter madness...

Forgoing food, sleep, blinking, company and (to quote Lynch) "one very good party", in the greedy single-minded pursuit of HAVING TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. It's like crack. I love how this latest one is paced- really quiet, THEN REALLY FUCKING EXCITING, then it calms down again, THEN IT ALL GOES FUCKING TITS UP!!!!

Bliss. I'm about halfway through now. I'm probably gonna kill myself when it's done.

Aido "Advera Kedavera" Potato

2007-07-21T17:47:00.000Z

So I'm up to chapter 4 of the new potter. First impressions were slight disappointment at the smaller size than we've become accustomed to, but- happliy, unremitting pleasure of finally being able to read it. Already some theories I shared with others, and they with me, have been given more credence. And there's already been one true blue lump-in-the-throat moment.

Also saw the film there last week. Most accomplished so far I reckon. And much better than the hash they made of the last one. Hermione, though, still puts my teeth on edge.

But enough of that.

Had a most pleasurable weekend there last week when I went up for Olivia's surprise party, though headed to bed well before it all got too messy. Then headed en masse to Ballycastle again. Good old-fashioned family fun.

Also went to see George Clinton a few weeks ago in the company of Herr Loughlin et chums. Usually the sight of a pensionable male wearing a nappy on stage fills me with a sense of embarrased pity, but this time was different. 4+ hours of 30-odd musicians kicking 8 shades of phunk out of each other was, it turns out, what my life had been missing. That and a kebab. And I got one of those on the way home.

Last night, with rather clunking inevitability, I got hammered with a pleasing blend of mates, work buddies and family (well, Brenda, at least). Covered a lot more ground that I've become used to as well, visiting at least 2 watering holes, then hitting the floor in 2 clubs. All rounded off with a sound drenching on the long hard road back to rathmines at 4. Sigh. I have no words for the weather this summer. I'll try a sound:

mmmmwwwwwoooooohhhhhsssss MARRRRRRRRRRG!

...

No, I don't think that covers it either. Oh well.

Aido 'don't surf' Potato

2007-05-31T10:49:00.000Z

I don't usually remember my dreams, but last night's was a doozy. It was a teaser trailer for a new muppets film.

It started with the swedish chef walking through a field on his own, singing to himself. He looks up to see a rank of muppets charging at him on horseback, lances a-tilt. He turns to run off, only to find another rank charging him from the other side.

Dear Mr Henson, make my dream come true.

Aido 'Mna-mna' Potato

2007-05-30T13:36:00.000Z

So I've just finished watching the last series of 'Peep Show'.
As you know I'm a big fan of the show, but couldn't shake the feeling that it's time to stop. Ok, it's still funny, but the moments of genius are getting fewer and further between. Maybe it's just cos the formula has been explored so much now that it feels cliche rather than fresh, maybe it's just cos I'm sick of the sight and sound of Mitchell and Webb (Christ, have you seen those ads? focking awful, wha?). Either way, you've had a good innings, lads, for a Brit-sit-com, and you can console yourselves with the fact that you never really 'went shit', but no more please...

Aido "Just a mini-rant" Potato

2007-05-23T12:25:00.000Z

**********COMMENCING BI-ANNUAL REPORT FROM AIDOLAND*********************

Urg.... Memo to self, curry supanoodles are worse than bacon pasta n sauce... surely this makes them the worst food mankind has yet produced.

Greetings to you all, dear readers. You join me on a most auspicious day, for today I have made the fearful, yet inevitable transition from pedestrian to cyclist. Yes, for the first time I took on the morning traffic on it's own turf, armed with nothing more than a flimsy metal structure twixt my legs and a variety of offensive hand gestures. That I made it in to write this is a success in my book, so lets not talk of the carnage, lawsuits and psychological trauma I left in my wake from Rathmines to the city centre, eh? Doff of the cap to Bartley who provided the vehicle, and, in case I don't get to say this at a later date, if I do somehow wrap myself around the chassis of a bus on my travels, it is in no way your fault....

In arguably more noteworthy news, one more sister has joined the ranks of the matrimonial bliss-heads (and about time too Oliv), while yet another has been duffed (as in "up the"; not beaten) by hubby Joe (presumably, though we'll need to wait to the tests come back before we can be sure). Congrats all the way round and back again.

The social wheel in Dublin town continues to turn; no sooner has the lovely Gilmartin, McInerney and Farrell returned to the fold, than we lose resident loophead and roustabout Peter to the booming drugs capital of Berlin, ostensibly to "write his thesis". (har)

This weekend just gone, in a most agreeable turn of fortune, I found myself up to my arsehole in Priscillas. As those who know, know, they had been until this point mere internet-figments who replied to my occasional half-baked attempts at e-stalking through myspace. I was delighted to find that not only were they real flesh-and-leather people, but that they were (perplexingly) happy to spend a good deal of their weekend accompanying myself and various friends on the escalating sequence of disappointments that is the Dublin 'scene'. If you are reading this, apologies and thanks in equal measure, girls, and likewise to those good souls who accompanied me on my pilgrimage to The Voodoo Lounge to watch em play, particularly Ultan, who refers to the place as 'the belly of the beast', and Biggy- sober stalwart that he is. Truly you are the most open-minded soul in Dublin.

We were not the only ones partying till we puked this weekend however. Sunny B has been keeping the Nordie end up in London town, and in typical Bavalia fashion, this resulted in an eviction for him and his housemates. I empathise with your anguish, Bav's. I don't suppose this means you will take up residence in Church Lane towers once more? I could sterilize mo's room since he isn't in it, and we could forge a return to the halcyon days...

Shit, lunchtime is nearly over and I haven't had a fag yet. Where's me poppers?....

Aido "Space Librarian" Potato

2007-02-26T00:30:00.000Z

Lousy welsh bastards...

This years lenten vows were a particularly shambolic affair. At first I toyed with the old smoking chestnut, but given the laughable volume of past efforts, quickly discarded it. Then there was drinking. This held a lot more appeal insofar as I am almost becoming bored of it anyway, and it would help sort out a lot of money problems (ie- I might, occasionally, have some) but with a stagdo (coming to that in a bit) and a wedding coming up it seemed like a potholed sacrifice at best. That and the fact that after a scant 2 1/2 days off, I went and got moronically twisted at work on friday. It was their idea, I hasten to add. Apparantly they all like a booze-up after work on the odd friday. Apologies to all concerned, and I promise next time I insist we all go crazydancin', I'll be sober enough to actually get there without flaking out.

So yeah, that (mis)adventure was quickly followed by an irrelevant SIX FUCKING HOUR JOURNEY to Ballybofey to get pissed up with the last of the current crop of goons to be marrying my sisters and his mates. Twas brillig. And as we all know, what happens in Ballybofey, stays in Ballybofey... (cackle)

I have just this last hour made it back to fair dub with my last remaining braincells and am waiting for my arse to stop vibrating so i can go to sleep.

Oh yeah, I was spunking on about lent, wasn't I?

Well, the compromise I've hit upon is no midweek drinking, and to do some drawing everyday. This second one has decended into a minor farce as well, since fridays effort involved doodling something unintelligible on my own jeans, just before passing out on my bed. While I was still wearing them. Possibly usung my own bodily fluids.

Nitey nite.

Aido 'annyong' potato

2007-01-17T09:24:00.000Z

So sorry for leavin you all swingin in the wind, I know it's been aeons since I updated this piece o shit. Truth is I been trying to write a review of 2006, and would you believe it's turning out to bw quite long-winded.

A brief update then- since last we met I have taken up residence alongside the esteemed mr. courtney in Windmill Lane productions where everyone is cool and good-looking and regards me with warmth rather than pity. I give it 4 more months, tops. (It also puts paid to mine and Ronan's deal, made sometime last year, to go travelling the world if, by Christmas, we were still in jobs we hated and hadn't gotten anyone pregnant.)

I have also moved back into the Church Lane pleasuredome with mo and the rest of the lads, outsourcing Paddy to the Donnybrook branch. The only downside to this arrangement is that since I left the collective has lost a key member in the form of one Sunil Bavalia who has gone to seek even more of his fortune in London town. Bastard. Wish ya all the best just the same.

Christmas was an unusually chilled out affair this year, given that Mum & Dad's firstborn had planned her nuptials to Lord Joe of the house of Loughlin for the 29th. This too was fairly chilled (for a McKenna wedding) and I believe the happy couple are now scouting for charlie up in the trees somewhere in Vietnam. Why Vietnam I have no idea, but there you go.

The house's activities over the festive period was largely centred around a certain Ms FiFaFoley, bless her little drooling chops, whom has taken up residence in Derryclooney acres until march. Delightful though her company is, it does fill one with dread at the thought of 2,3 or 4 of the little parcels of vomit-inducing cuteness that the future no doubt contains. I may just hide from them until they are old enough to conduct a proper conversation. (Or at least wipe themselves.)

Hope that's enough excitement to keep y'all entertained for another 6 months, I'm gonna get back to work on the novel.

Aido 'Todays blog was brought to you by the letters k, y & J, & the number 9' Potato

2006-11-02T21:33:00.000Z

...to live and die in PAI...

Hello children.
Despite recent miseries (including but not limited to getting sacked by the poisonous whelps at PAI, having a disgustingly diseased eye, breaking a tooth on some mediocre fish and failing to dress up for halloween) life continues apace in aidoworld.

I'm back at UCD again where everyone knows your name and are always glad you came, which is lovely cos I only have to walk 15 mins to work each day rather than having to face the myriad horrors of public transport when I'm at my most vulnerable (ie first thing in the morning and after work). The only minor concern is that I may well not have the money to eat and maintain my lifestyle as bon viveur extraordinaire, but hey! I figured I needed to shed a few pounds anyway...

Had a truly splendiferous weekend in the woods of Newtonmountkennedy courtesy of mr. Ultan (the man) Courtney. Having watched The Evil Dead enough times to be tuned in to the attendant perils of such holidays, we filled the car with enough firearms to set the peace process back a good 20 years or so. Noting the lack of suspicious-looking human-flesh-bound manuscripts upon arrival we satisfied ourselves with chasing one another around the premises with said weapons and generally acting our shoe-sizes (rather than our ages).

My own birthday passed with a satisfying lack of ceremony, opting instead for a night in with a few chums and an assload of Arrested Development which I purchased with some vouchers I'd forgotten I had.

Helicopters are my new favorite objects. John took me up on his maiden voyage in a 4-seater chopper, during which we not only took in most of the McKenna empire, but most of the west of Northern Ireland in little over an hour. Tis the only way to travel, and I hereby demand one of my own for christmas.

Recent additions to the disturbingly long list of people buggering off outta Ireland include Ladys Madsen and Farrell, and Lords Bavalia and Murtagh. This tradition of going away is getting more than a little tedious now and must be stopped. I ask you; aside from sun, sexual promiscuity, reasonable living expenses, career opportunities, exciting cultural attractions, desirable native cuisine, functional infrastructure and enjoyable outdoor activities; what could you find in any country that isn't already present in Ireland in spades?

Aido "Fuck this, I'm off to Japan" Potato

2006-10-07T17:21:00.000Z

Ok bitches, lissen up...
Here's the ChrisCringle list for 2006

Olivia is buying for Andrea
Sinead>Brenda
Chris>Olivia
Andrea>Chris
Brenda B>Sinead
Aido>Grainne (Lucky you)
Edel>Aido (Lucky me)
Grainne>Edel

Happy now? Same rules as usual, £50 (or €74.244) per prezzie, no buying for people you aren't down for, and NO FUCKING WESTLIFE-THEMED PRESENTS FOR ENDA, GOT IT?

Aido 'Not-so-secret-santa' Potato

2006-09-19T21:43:00.000Z

I love this time of year. You go out for an evening stroll and come home in the pitch black… if at all.

Greetings cats and kittens. It’s festive season on planet aido, so it’s all been shits and giggles punctuated with brief hyper-stressed spells in work to clear the backlog that accumulates in my absence.
First up was Mr Mark’s stag do in galway. I had a dead good 2 day dose of boozy blokey fun, despite not arriving at 11 o’clock on the Friday night to be greeted with the news that we had nowhere to stay. Apparently the stout yeomen of the B&B weren’t informed that it was a stag do they were booking, and were none to pleased when they found out. After another hour or so of failed attempts to get a roof over our heads, we decided that if we drank enough, Joe’s minibus would suffice. And indeed it did. The following day, Mark sweet-talked the gorgeous Sebastian (Call me Saba) at salthill’s ibis, who said he was ‘only to happy to squeeze you all in’ in a comedy camp german voice, and then we were set. Galway’s packed full of freaks. No-one gives a shit. Anyone with a glove puppet, facepaints, facial abscess or a dirty child thinks they can make a living panhandling. I love it. Cutest bit: a very very pissed mark, coming home from a heavy Saturday night wailing: “I don’t want to be here with you fuckers, I want to be at home with me wee nedo”, and trying to exchange his credit card for a taxi ride back to Augher.
Next up was Edinburgh, where I watched films and marvelled at the substantially superior calibre of freaks on offer. This time they had a unionised, ‘I don’t fuck with you, you don’t fuck with me’ attitude. Everyone else was a trendy. Except for Dylan Moran, whom I saw perched outside a coffee shop apparently muttering deaththreats to the world at large under his breath. I suspect he would be like that anywhere though, so it’s probably no bad reflection on Edinburgh. One of my favourite freaks had to be the guy in this bizarre vegan hangout/drug-den/restaurant (have you got coke? No, we have organic sugar-free cola) where myself and Andrea were dining. He came onstage while I had still about ½ of my burrito to finish, and opened his ‘act’ by yelling at everyone to “SHAT THA FACK AP!” Anyone who didn’t comply got hounded from their seats into the street; “SHAT THA FACK AP… I AM PERFORMING HERE- YOU OUTSIDE!!!!!” etc. Then, he began yelling “BASTARD” repeatedly, by way of introducing himself. Apparently, ever since being a young lad back in Croatia, everyone he has ever met has called into question his parentage, and his response is to seek out otherwise inoffensive hippies in British centres of culture and nail them to their seat, mid-burrito, with spikes of pure fear. Unsure how to proceed, we sat there for a time, until he collapsed into the back corner of the stage, facing away from the audience (still yelling “BASTARD” of course) and we scurried out like the cowards we are. In my defence, a significant portion of the audience had the same idea.
Back on the old green sod again, and it was off to electric picnic (the best kind of picnic ever). This was sweet. There’s little to beat leaving work early on a Friday in a car full of mates, to go and sit in a field all weekend listening to music and getting arsefaced. Doff of the cap to the lady Farrell and the P-Monster and the all-in-kid and the rest for making it happen. It was the fooking shit. The bands I saw, if you are interested, were; PJ Harvey, Massive Attack, Gary Numan, SFA, DJ Shadow, Sparks, 2manyDJs, Dublin Gospel Choir (nice work, alan), Alabama3, Warlords of Pez (check them out- they’ll blow your mind, exactly like a big bag of drugs), YeahYeahYeahs and the Basement Jaxx. But to be honest, I think my most enduring memories will be just twitting around, taking in all the weird shit (as fine a selection of freaks than even Edinburgh could boast), bumping into folks and having a most agreeable collection of mates all within urinating distance of one another.
And mo, you were missed most thoroughly, as was sunny and riley and gil and tom and all there rest of the absentees.
Then it was back to the brown fields of Augher to meet me niece, Aoife, and say hi to Edel and Luke. I’ll spare you all the typical boasts of how cute and precious she is, since earlier today she sprayed me with an emulsion of her own drool and my sisters breast milk. As insults go, that’s pretty hard to top.
A few days later I was back here again to see another sister (sinead) wed. Twas a great day all round, everyone looking fabulous (even me), and everyone, finally, beholden to the dancefloor legend that is mr ultan courney. So good was it that it almost made up for the three days of solid girl-noise (that’s my false tan/where the fuck are my slimming-knickers?/tell mum to go out there and sort them bastarding flowers out… etc) I had to endure leading up to it. The upside of all these sisters getting farmed out is, there’s a gradual influx of blokes coming into the family to redress the balance/share my pain. Mark, if you are reading, welcome to the family (not that you weren’t already part of it), and I hope my sister is some compensation for now being the 2nd best dancer in town.
So that’s what I’ve been up to.
Raves o the month: A Scanner Darkly (moist) and Shadow of the Colossus (Hairy)

Aido ‘Skee-bi-di-be-bop’ Potato

Nedo and Marcis Donnelly- wed 16/9/06

2006-07-14T14:53:00.000Z

Introducing Aoife Helen Foley-Potato

Aido 'Uncle' Potato

2006-07-11T11:57:00.000Z

¡Hola mis amigos!

Lo siento- no hay Aido Potato por su sievos para slings and arrows y muchos long dark nights of the soul that has strangled the last of his tolerance for mankind as a species.

No worry- esta ¡yo! ¡STAVROS POTATO!

Guerra la pistolla y muchas chicas bonitas at el party last month, made all the more pleasurable by waking up in the morning to find that kirk had done all the tidying. Bless ‘im. Poco poco dio later, twas Sarah’s leaving do in Long’s. ¡Shin! Pero estoy in estados unitos cinque an unmitigated litany of disaster until sunny and tomas rushed to her aid and are now in Montauk (where Eternal Sunshine… was set, I believe).

En situado muy devastacion, the intolerable disappointment of Brett-fucking-Ratner’s X-men 3. ¡Estupido! Pues, no estrala mucho agony of the world cup. ¡Ptui! Llama aido will fuck you up but good panda marinaded in football 200 times a minute for the last two months. ¡Caramba!

Para para parapara- me gusto fooly cooly. No me gusta mi failing miserably to go to Oxegen, despite not even having to pay. Aiiiiieeeeee! Macarena. Panna frio por el festival, so I’m fairly glad of my laziness in this instance. No hay mucho Bloomsday, Ai! Madre de dios! Querido saw Glasthule fill to the throat with Americans with their loud shirts and grating accents, simply asking to be cast under oncoming trains.

Signatory senor Courtney con NUTSACK SUMMER SMACKDOWN 2006 (Heat#1) en St. Stephens Green. Hola muy laff and a haff, despite Mo bitching and moaning the whole day through. Donde esta? Los quinto pino muy bonito hanging out in the oak, which was fun until some son-of-a-milkmaid fucking stole my stash, man. Bastardo!

Muchas Hola para los mi hermana, Edel potato, who is on the brink of birthing the first of the next generation. No yo tengo su anti-christo. Heh! Y, Brian y Paolo recently returned from America, and Lisa, recently departed. Holiday-taking pricks.

Marinara!

Stavros ‘Poy-Podoypoy’ Potato

PS. Apologies. Everyone. Aido.

2006-07-05T10:15:00.000Z

Some days the words just won't come. I've been having a lot of them recently.

Aido 'I appear to have lost all my bandanas' Potato

2006-05-17T16:01:00.000Z

Alright- keep your fucking ovaries in, I’m back.

Life as a politic-journo is tough enough. No, not tough in the ‘breaking your hands as you break the soil, labours or our fathers and fathers fathers’ way, no, more tough in the ‘keeping your eyes open/sanity intact/will to live’ kind of way. It’s fine when I’ve got something to do- it can in fact be quite stimulating. Even when we’ve nothing to do it’s grand cos we just fuck around and have a laff. It’s the in between times- when you haven’t actually got work in front of you, but know that you should have- those are the times when you want to peel your own skin off starting at the feet. I was quite looking forward to my first press conference yesterday until I realised that everyone in the room except me had some sort of emotional investment in what was being spoken of, and as such was so irreconcilably bored that I had to restrain the urge to walk up to Micheal Martin, drop my flies and void the steaming contents my swollen bladder into his eyes just to give him something interesting to talk about.
And today I got snarked at by my boss for addressing him and my other boss as ‘fellas’ in an e-mail.
I am, however, concocting a plan to slowly- almost imperceptibly slowly- turn the magazine into a sleazy, scandal-mongering rag of a mag a lá Hush Hush or Heat. I doubt if the fellas in charge will be fans of the change, but fuckit, we might actually sell a few copies. And if we can still charge €50 a pop for it, we’re laughing.

In other news, had Andrea, Mum, Enda, Grainne, Joe, the Amymonster and the fair Mia over to check out the attractions of Dirty Dublin town, (though not all at the same time) and the city obliged by giving us some sun on each occasion. There really is nothing quite like dub in the sun is there? The people just go sort of nuts if there’s still 60% visibility after work, and attempt to reclaim the streets using only alcohol, vomit and overzealous conversation with strangers. It’s fun. Midweek drinking is monster fun, and eminently doable under summery conditions; it seems the god of hangovers gives you a get out of jail free card cos you’re Irish and you don’t get enough Vitamin D.

The social circle is taking something of a beating what with Peter disappearing off to Morrocco, Sarah taking most of the womenfolk off on some silly-assed trip around the world and Gary making noises about moving back up north. But still, there’s more than enough drinking/dancing partners around to make up a respectable social calendar. And after a prolonged bout of drinking, myself and mark have convinced Kirk that a party in the house is in no way a bad idea. For joy.

Got me comics back. There’s no way to explain in words the kind of joy this inspires without doing irreparable damage to my precious remaining reserves of cred, so I’ll just convey it through a noise instead:

BTTHHHRRRRIIIIIIIINGY- PLIP!

Well done Gareth on almost convincing me you were going to leave the house and do something- it’s either testament to your uncanny subterfuge, or my inherent gullibility. I should point out, though, that Reilly managed to convince me that the scar on the top of his head was a result of being struck by lightning as a child.

Aido “More fun than your mum” Potato

2006-04-20T10:31:00.000Z

Just a quick update to bask in the glow of my first poker winnings in what must have been one of the longest, silliest games on record. All 7 players had took turns being chip leader over the course of the night, all 7 players took turns being ratty about how slow the game was going, only to have their objections met with amiable indifference from the rest of the congregation and after about a bazillion buybacks mr bavs emerged victorious, but by gentleman’s agreement, offered myself a second place prize leaving me €10 richer than when I arrived.

Poker rules.

Aido “the milkybars are on me” Potato

2006-04-19T15:47:00.000Z

So I’ve been blinded by the glitz of D4 and hence unable to do any writing. Now I’ve been successfully subsumed into the echelons of the elite my sight is recovering but I can no longer consume plebeian nourishment and can only eat the gall bladders of Malaysian fruit lizards marinated the tears of the poor and starving.

Yes, I’ve moved to Donnybrook. Goodbye to Rathmines. Goodbye to Sunny ‘Life is my experiment’ Bavs- the beating heart of Church Street towers. Goodbye to Ronan ‘The All-in kid’ Lynch- he of the 7 minute shower and the 20 minute sleep. Goodbye to Gusto ‘Shaddap Donnie’ Evangilisti- the consummate Italian. Goodbye to Gary ‘I’m too fucked’ Toal- holding on to the vestiges of a healthy lifestyle against all the odds. And to Mo. The Saddam Hussein of domestic hygiene. Thank you all- it’s been like watching life in fast forward.

The two new lads I’m living with seem like pretty decent old sticks too. Apart from the ubiquitous problem of football- which one must become accustomed to eventually- they’re a pretty good laugh.

The new jobs going pretty well too- I have become drunk on the power of the press and discovered that, far from being scared of the authorities of the land, they should be scared of me. Haha. (Not really, but I like to tell myself as much).

Easter transpired, as is does without fail. I think next year I may revert to the passé sacrifice of chocolate since getting a chocolate egg on Easter Sunday loses much of it’s appeal when you have been eating the stuff as often as you otherwise would anyway.

What else has been going on? Not too much, as it happens. Making the switch from weekly to monthly payment is a bitch- especially when you move house concurrently- I’m been too fucking broke to do pretty much anything this last few weeks.

Maybe I’ll right some more when something interesting happens. But I doubt it.

Aido "Apex of the political food chain" Potato

Oh- and congratulations to brenda b- go here for your prize:

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d148/aidopotato/ShitEyedPeas.jpg

2006-04-03T11:19:00.000Z

¡Hola!

So- a tardy update, as per; you know how I like to keep you all waiting.
Just beginning my second week as a journo and so far- he says tenuously- so good (read: blagging it fairly successfully). I have written my first feature, spoken to my first TD, got ignored by several others and had my first few news articles shaved bald by the editor. It’s exciting stuff. Actually, it’s not. I would be hard pressed to explain convincingly to anyone the content of any of the half dozen or so articles I’ve written thus far, but the work itself is grand, and there’s a certain agreeable smugness that accompanies the knowledge that you are writing for a living. Grande kudos to Sarah for showing up on my first day, though. She’d been to England with Sunny for the weekend where she managed to fall through a gate, void her own passport by getting Sir Alex Ferguson to sign it and pass out in a disabled toilet in the airport. After a couple of hours, Sunny expressed his concern to the staff and they set off looking for her. He then took advantage of their distracted state, rock n roll legend that he is, by having a sneaky cigarillo in the terminal building.

So now that I’ve got a ‘proper’ job, I’ve started the quest for a place to stay that isn’t 1000 miles away from where I go to do it. Yesterday I looked at one place that, while nice, and handy for the Dart, was 1000 miles away from anything else- not much good to me. There was another one, just round the corner from Church Lane Towers in rathmines, which again was very nice, but is 1001 miles away from work. Dublin, for those of you who haven’t been, was designed by an insane person.

Been out to see Ladytron on Saturday. They were marvellous, though as Ultan pointed out, probably only €12 worth of fun, rather than the €20 we paid. Oh well. Peter provided further diversions by suggesting to some Italians that they inject some heroin into their eyes and/or shove it up their hole, almost getting into a to do with some pissed up randomer, pinching Clare’s bike and cycling round Christchurch on it hands free & legless, and for a finale smashing a wineglass into a million tiny shards upon arrival back at Clare’s gaff. He’s a wrong ‘un, that Peter.

Mo’s taken up cooking again. The man’s not satisfied with any meal that costs less that €100, takes at least 8 hours to prepare and requires the use of every item of kitchenware 2-3 times in it’s composition. Even then he’s usually dissatisfied with the result, though everyone else enjoys it most thoroughly. When not cooking for the human residents, he’s been doing his bit to fatten up the ant population that have moved in as well. Unprecedented revelation though it is, it turns out that not everything you read on the internet is gospel truth- so while ants do seem to be vaguely attracted to his cocktail of molasses and yeast, reports of their subsequent agonising deaths seem to have been porky pies. In the meantime, as though things weren’t bad enough, there are now splodges of what appears to be scat deployed around strategic points in the kitchen.

Had a bout of ill-advised mid-week drinking as well, to celebrate Gus’s new redundancy. Not a cause for celebration, you say? Au contraire- he’s pulled down a years salary as severance and has been giggling like a loon about it ever since. Good shits and giggles (Sample Dialogue; Clare to Mo: “Do you use talc so you don’t have to dry properly getting out of the shower?” Mo’s peerless deadpan: “No, I use talc on my feet so I don’t kill people when I stand next to them”) all round, though, as I say, inadvisable when you are left with about 4 hours sleep.

So that’s about all for now, peeps.

Aido ‘Buyback sellout’ Potato

PS WHERE ARE THE SUGGESTIONS FOR BAD SONG LYRICS, PEOPLE?

2006-03-25T18:23:00.000Z

Hey cats and kittens.

It's a grim old saturday in Dirty Dublin town, and for once I'm not spending recovering from a severly misspent night, morning and early afternoon. Finished me job at UCD this week- and a very heartwarming send off it was too. I got absurdly pissed absurdly quick, but aside from walking face-on straight into a glass door in front of a crowd of smokers, I think I managed to keep my decorum. And it was heartening to see that Brian, who was 'wearing' the drink better than me, completely forgot the rules to pool.

Had a blinding paddy's, oddly enough. It was undoubtedly one to file straight under 'w' for wasted, but in a good way. I hadn't even planned on going out- but mo can be quite persuasive, when it occurs him to be so. Anyways- everyone was out, looking slick and in fine fighting fettle, and I'm very glad indeed I hauled my narrow ass off the couch after all.

Went to see 'V for Vendetta' which, while a surprisingly good adaptation of an Alan Mooore comic, was still fairly 'wack' (as I believe the youngsters are saying these days). Firstly- the story was completely different- keeping just the odd setpiece, the general aesthetic, and a few of the characters. Secondly, the script was horrible, and it seems as if someone took at the final edit with some scissors with the express intention of excising anything that could be interpreted as 'subtle'. Pretty weak. Afterwards we had another visit to Club Odessa for a nightcap- it's a cool and exclusive as ever, and again I felt way too underdressed to drink there.

Oh yeah- I tried tinkering with this blog last weak in a bid to promote it a little more online. The net result of this is that now it is listed on a website that deals exclusively in 'daily life of a boring regular joe' blogs, and low-level celeb porn. Any port in a storm, eh?
Also, theres no immediately apparant way to set up an RSS feed here without paying for the pleasure, though I have worked around this by setting up a google mail list, so if you want to have this crapola flung at your inbox as and when it's updated, let me know and I'll add you to the list.

Anyways- once again, wordcount triumphs over content- I'll sign off.

Aido "ain't nothing sweet over here" potato.

2006-03-18T18:58:00.000Z

Lesson # 7: EVERYONE in the film industry is a feckless wanker.

So, with an air of tedious inevitability, the job went south. Here's the whole sorry saga (don't worry- there's a happy ending)- and apologies to ma sistas who've heard this already- skip straight to the next lessson.

In spite not even being able to pronounce oireachtas a few weeks ago, the good folk at Sarah's work saw fit to offer me the job. I told them thanks, guys, but I've been offered a full time post elsewhere, so I regret I'll have to decline. (the PAI job was for 2 days a week).
A few days later, Don (the bloke who interviewed me) phoned again to say that they were willing to find more work for me so they could offer me a full time post after all, if that changed anything. This put a different face on things since Nuala, who had promised to get me a contract sorted out and call me in to sign it this week- had yet to do so. I didn't feel it wise to turn down one very solid, generous job offer based on a comparitively flimsy verbal agreement elsewhere, even a job I found so very appealing . I asked if I could have a day to think, and they obliged. So i got on the phone to nuala to find out how my contract was coming along- all I wanted was another verbal reassurance that yes- I had got it, exactly as agreed.
But instead something very odd happened.
Rather than just saying 'yes' she mumbled something about being on reccy, and very busy and to call her later. So later came and I called back- same story- call at half 6. I called PAI and asked them if I could have another day to think about it, and again they obliged, and at half 6 Nuala (shock) was again too busy to say one three letter word. Eventually, she got back into the office at 7.30, I called again and all she seemed to want to talk about was how wet and miserable it was outside. 'Thats all very well' I said 'but can I please have some sort of assurance about the job you offered me?'. She starts umming and ahhing and rambling about how it would only be a few days here and there- 'but I thought there was eight weeks of shooting to do, which would be very busy and require as much help as possible?' I asked, trying not to sound too pathetic. Apparently not. When she asked me in the interview how much notice UCD required before I could leave I assumed (not unreasonably, I thought) that she meant for me to hand in my notice. Seems not- she figured I could carry on working at ucd and still pop in and out to the film company as required- which was plainly absurd. 'This is not the way you described the job to me at all' I said 'Yeah' she replied 'sorry' and then started muttering on about how busy and disorganised everything is (I wanted to scream down the phone at her FUCKING GET ME A CONTRACT AND LET ME HELP YOU THEN YOU STUPID FUCKING WOMAN! but I didn't) and the conversation finished with her asking me if I could try calling her again at lunchtime tomorrow to see if she had got anything sorted. I had guarenteed PAI that I would have their answer first thing in the morning, so that wasn't even an option, but I'm sure that even if it was she'd still not have dislodged her finger from her hole and done anything about the situation. So I called the gentlefolk at PAI and told them I'd be delighted to accept their kind offer. I start monday week.

Now I was initially furious about the whole thing, and broke my lented promise not to swear several dozen times, but after I cooled I reached the realisation that there are after all worse problems to have. The PAI job is still one that I'd have gnawed my own feet off for a month ago- it is journalism, so I'll have industry experience even if it isn't in my area of expertise, and I'll be working with sarah, who's a good laff. In fact the only real crappy part is that I'd told EVERYONE that I'd got the job, when I knew in my heart that nothing had been set in stone. Dad, I believe has told half the country that I was now a director or something, so now he has to suffer the indignity of settling for a journalist (maybe he could bump me up to editor of the irish times or something).

Life, whatever else you can say about it, isn't dull in dirty dublin town.

Anyway- I was surprised to find that I was quite sad at the prospect of leaving UCD- I was really starting to enjoy it, and I was even more surprised to find that quite a few people (many of whom I don't even know) have said they'll be sorry to see me go- which is nice to hear.

So we went to see David O'Docherty in Whelans last week at Brenda's recommendation. A very very funny man- mostly standup, with a fair deal of comedy songs a la Bill Bailey, but possibly funnier (hard as that concept is to grasp). It'd been so long since I'd seen any stand up live, and it was nice to find that a totally unknown quantity could turn out to be so good. Keep an eye out for him, folks, he's coming up.

The best (and only) suggestions for the 'best Gareth's in history' poll I hosted here a few weeks ago came from Jonno who votes for Gareth Hunt and Gareth 'Gaz' Top. Still, the contest was fixed, and the winner is obviously Gareth Finney of Fast Lady and The Carter Brothers fame.

New poll: Worst song lyrics in history.

Anyhoo- time to cook.

Aido 'I enjoy the mystique of a good orange woman' Potato.

2006-03-11T16:30:00.000Z

Lesson # 1: Nice things happen occasionally.

So I was sitting with Mum, Dad and Mark trying to suppress my nausea as we watched Parky making his weekly effort to kill someone with sheer sycophancy (this week it was Blair and Spacey- an odd sight watching Bush's butt monkey sharing anecdotes with a man who left the country because bush was in charge) when Olivia arrives home with a DVD. No case or anything, just a disc. 'Have you seen this?' she says- it was Serenity, one of my top three films of last year and only released on DVD the day before. She found it just lying on the street in Aughanacloy just as she was coming out of work. After a few cartwheels we sat down to watch it and yup, it's every bit as good as I remember. The disc worked perfectly and it was the full version, not the vanilla rental copy I was expecting. It was as if it had just fallen out of the sky just to cheer me up or something.

Lesson # 2: Repression is under-rated.

Despite what I've just described, I still managed to get back to Dublin feeling miserable for reasons which I'll not go into here, but on monday morning I made a pact with myself. It was the beginning of an important week. I had a couple of interviews to do and there was no way anyone was gonna employ some sadsack crusty with zero sense of self worth, so I told myself I was just going to have to block out everything that was getting me down by whatever means necessary and deal with it another time.
And guess what? It worked!
One of the interviews was for a Public Affairs newsletter that Sarah writes for, they were looking for someone to work two days a week writing articles for them. As you are all well aware, I know exactly dick about public affairs, I figured it's journalism, and thus worth a shot. So I spent most of the week trying to cram a couple of decades worth of political minutiae into my addled brain.

Lesson # 3: Sometimes it pays to be a jerk.

The other job, and the one I was creaming my jeans over was for a production company who were looking for a props runner. Ultan had put me onto it cos he works there, but as they wanted someone with a few films under their belt already, I didn't rate my chances that high. still, submitted a CV and managed to bag myself an invite to come down and chat with the props manager. Then disaster struck. I had been asked to call Nuala (cos thats her name) in the evening at 7.30 to arrange a time to meet, which I did, on the dot, and the phone just went dead. No answer phone, no engaged tone- she just blatantly hung up. So there I was thinking I'd somehow blown the best chance I have had at getting work in my industry of choice, and feeling very unsure whether to continue harrassing her. The following morning I decided to send her a text saying 'Um.. called last night, must have been a bad time. If you still want to talk call me anytime on this number, if not, best of luck with the project'. Which of course I regretted almost instantly, as it left me waiting on her to call me. She still hadn't called the next day, and so by lunch time I'd pretty much decided that I had nothing left to lose (except some more pride) by calling her again. 'Oh, Aidan we'd love to see you' was the song this time. She made no explaination for the hanging up, and I didn't ask, I just got a time a place and a name and left it at that.

Lesson # 4: Sometimes it pays not to be a jerk.

So I went out to the studio after work and had a lovely informal chat with Nuala about this and that- nothing like a real interview, more like a lengthy session of bitching about the state of the film industry. I made a concerted effort to be charm personified, and made a special effort with the hair and everything. Bonded with her dog, Zero (like the one from Nightmare before christmas- a reference she was pleased I picked up on) a gorgeous big border collie that follows her around on set everywhere. By the end of it she seemed satisfied and said 'right, I'll get a contract together and call you next week'. So thats that- in the bag. It's a big period film based on the early life of Jane Austen, and once we start filming at the end of the month I will be touring about some picturesque old mansions around the south coast with a real live film crew, shunting props back and forth, decorating sets, making pot noodles and performing analingus on the director and calling it work. Bonus!
I had the interview for the PA job the following day, and while not as spectacularly successful as the previous one, it at least wasn't as embarassingly bad as I had pictured it in my mind. I think I just overpowered the poor man with the force of enthusiasm, cos at the start of the interview he was slumped back, casting an uninspired eye over my cv- the picture of bored disinterest, and by the end he was chatting away about all sorts. In the end, he asked me to submit a couple of pieces of work so he could see how I wrote. I'm gonna do this anyway, even though I won't be able to take the job, cos I don't want to go burning any bridges now that I've got some.

Lesson # 5: It's not what you know, it's who you know.

Like duh!
Just thought I'd mention this in case anyone didn't already know. My employment/interview history in dublin runs as follows:
ADEO- (Thanks to Ronan)
UCD- (Thanks to Lizanne)
Prop runner- (Thanks to Ultan)
PAI- (Thanks to Sarah)
While my own efforts through the traditional channels has garnered me nothing but sore feet and a thirst for the blood of editors and pub landlords alike.

Lesson # 6: The human body needs sleep.

And mine does now, more than usual- been a party hardy marty this weekend thus far and need to crash as I can barely keep my eyes open. Plus, this is a very boring post, just thought I'd get the news out there now, wax lyrical about it later.

Stavros "Water hurts my brain" Potato

2006-02-18T19:22:00.000Z

Cities rise...empires fall...continents drift...glaciers grow and recede...and aidan updates his blog.

Howaryeh! (Been practicing my dub)
Should apologise here and now for the spelling; mo's laptop has a sticky 'n' key and it doesn't always work.

So life continues apace. I'm still holed up in rathmines like a demoralised dictator in his bunker, cos I'm still not rich enough to afford even the meanest of hovels in this city to call my own. Been applying for more jobs than I can keep track off, both the shitty pump-jockey types and the pie in the sky dream variety, but they are united in their lack of interest in what I got to offer. Worse, I've found my bitterness to be leaking into my writing, which isn't necessarily bad for certain articles; everyone likes a bit of blood and thunder in their journalism, but isn't as welcome on job applications. When I first got here they were all like:

My dear, dear sir/madam,
Forgive me for having the impertinence of stirring you from your weighty and exciting daily business with my unworthy words, but I was wondering, perchance, if you would have some post in your enterprises where my wretched vessel could be of some small service to you...

Though gradually they have become more along the lines of:

Listen up fuckhole,
I've seen you. I seen the people you employ. I don't know much, but I know how to recognise a shower of no-account, hacky, scarcely sapient turd-burglers when I see them. Meanwhile there's someone who at least knows which end of a pencil to write with, and which to pick his arse with, starving to death because he can't get work in your city. And just before I do, believe me when I say I'm going to follow you home and do it on your wife's car, just so I can die with the satisfaction of showing her what a shitheel she married. I look forward to hearing from you soon...

Bitterness and e-mail is a dangerous cocktail.
In other news, I saw what I'm reliably informed is the first picture of my first nephew or niece, though at first I thought I was looking at a blurry satellite photograph of the Philippines. For those of you hadn't heard, Edel's pregnant. Suggestions for names can be posted here; Edel suggested Jesus (cos it's a miracle), even though she and Luke had both promised me their first born son would be named Axel, thus fulfilling a personal ambition I've harboured since a young age; to be related by blood to Axel Foley.

TV has pretty much been eradicated from my life, which is one of the few things I’m happy about these days. I make half an effort to go out to Brenda’s once a week to keep up with ‘My Name is Earl’ (and, of course, to see Brenda). I successfully resisted the temptation to watch the second series of Lost, which began on RTE just about the time series 1 ended on C4. Too much effort to be arsed, and once you fall behind, you’re screwed. The new series of Desperate Housewives has also been running for a while here, but again, just don’t see the point anymore. I have, however, got some tickets to go see the new Podge and Rodge show being filmed over in Donnybrook in a few weeks, which promises to be a laff.

Work is OK. I think Catherine (my boss) is trying to tell me something, though. On Thursday morning she removed me from the helpdesk and showed me to a table with a few thousand letters and envelopes. Other people may have taken this as an insult, but fuck it, after dealing with fucking Med graduates and their God complexes for a few weeks, I welcomed some good old fashioned monotony. They also, rather thoughtfully, provided me with Reese Witherspoon to keep me company while I did the work. She works up in the registrar’s office, and I can only surmise that she has proved herself as singularly incompetent up there as I have down on the front lines. She also insists her name is Susanne, but her lies don’t fool me.

And finally, the award for ‘Least pleasant thing to happen to me for at least a month’ goes to me crashing Grainne’s car into a ditch two weeks ago. I’d like to thank God, Puffy and whatever witch doctor placed this curse on me in the first place; I’m going to find you, motherfucker, and when I do I’m going to make you my bitch.

Aido ‘I’m thinking of changing my name to “Stavros”, whatd’ya think?’ Potato.

2006-01-24T21:38:00.000Z

Pah!
Hey all. So the inevitable slide into hedonism has begun in earnest. I've started smoking again, yes yes, boo hiss, I know, but living in a house with four other smokers meant I had two choices: continue bumming smokes off them when my pallid will broke, or take up the habit again. Since I'm already bumming room and board, I felt that smokes would be a(nother) liberty. Anyways, the theory went that I would smoke like a fucker for a weekend, remind myself why I quit in the first place and quit on monday. There was an obvious flaw in this plan, I'll let you guys figure it for yourselves.
Next on my list was gambling, although this is dangerous too. See, we have a good laff here at mo towers round the poker table, and in theory it only costs 5euro to get a chair. Playing against (comparatively) rich boys though, means that they can keep buying back when they get knocked out until eventually they hit some cards and clean me out. This, I need hardly tell you, has nothing at all to do with the fact that I am a crummy gambler who couldn't calculate a single odd, never mind hundreds simultaneously (I'm looking at you, Biggar). Still, several years of watching late night poker has at least acquainted me with the lingo and it's nice to get to use it from time to time. (o my god! he's sitting on a pair of cowboys!)
Drugs, I've thankfully bypassed, though I had an amusing brush with vice when Sunny (housemate#2) discovered to his horror that the flat his parents rent out in temple bar (which he is supposed to be 'looking after') was, in fact, being used as a brothel. (Gary: A brothel?! And you had a key all along?!)

Heh.

It's poker night on location in an ex-brothel tomorrow. It's pretty wild in old Dublin town, I tell ya.
We actually were in temple bar the other night, as it happens, more by accident than design, and after a hilariously bad night in the hub, we spilled out onto the streets to the sound of hippies playing drums. Then the guards showed up and spoiled everyone's fun, but the hippies, ingeniously, lost those suckers by going around the corner, and carried on playing. Half an hour of drunken jumping and clapping strangers on the shoulder later, those crafty guards picked up the trail once more and put paid to the party with two van loads of their mates. I would say 'bastards' here, but as ronan rightly pointed out, it was 5 in the morning and not everyone loves pissed crusties. Strange but true.

Work in UCD is insanely demanding, a fact exacerbated by me being 'new guy' which I hate. Still, there is something nice about being back on a college campus, surrounded by loud, self absorbed tossers and tossettes. Takes me right back. I wish they'd stop coming to me with their problems, though. As if I give two jerks of a dead dog’s dick whether they need evidence that they've passed their silly-assed Hdip.

Better go now, there's a really good ad for 'Stealth' on.

Aido 'Big Slick' Potato.

*********EXTRA***********
Aido potato's potato of the month: The wexford pink.

2006-01-16T03:00:00.000Z

THE WEEK I LEARNED OF RONAN’S PAIN.

Hi folks. Well, I’ve a week of data entry, and that, I’m pleased to say, is enough. I’m getting out and taking the tattered remains of my soul with me.
One week.
Ronan’s been here A YEAR AND A HALF. RONAN. WHO AS ANYONE WILL TELL YOU HAS THE MAKINGS OF A CRIMINAL MASTERMIND. So, I’m taking him with me. He’s handing his notice in on Monday.
Nice enough folks, though. Or at least the seem nice when I say hi to them in the morning and bye in the evening, and maybe one or two ‘you wanna brew?’s in between. It’s in a posh end of D4 called Donnybrook, which is nice, and supposedly half an hour’s walk from Rathmines, where I’m stopping. I say supposedly because I can find my way pretty easy in the morning, but each evening I end up getting lost somewhere between two well defined points and walk around narrowing concentric circles for an extra hour or so. I haven’t decided if this is because in the evenings it’s dark, or because I’m still recovering from the all the soul destroying.

I start a new job at UCD, furnishing freshers with their new cards, on Tuesday. Temporary again, of course, I’m king of the road these days…

Aside from all that shit, I’ve done a few reviews; I’ve got to the stage where I can post them to folks I know, but haven’t brought myself to send them to anyone who might give me a job. The pub jobs CV distribution has been disappointing though. After some early interest, not one of the bastards have gotten back to me yet.
Went to warm Paddy’s new house there last night, which is a kickass condo thingy on the northside. He shares it with a dead nice lass called Nicky from Tipp. She shares his love of 24, George RR Martin and all things cool. I’m sure they’ll make a charming (plationic housematey) couple. The party itself was I proper good laff- it’s nice to put faces to all these names I’ve heard. They is good people. Mo, who had been drinking before he got there- got on a bus, then lost, then picked up randomly by paddy who was coming from collecting ronan, arrived, chuckled a bit, then about 2 or so said ‘I want to go home’. ‘Okay', I said, 'let me finish me wine’ and I’d scarcely got my glass to my lips before he’d curled up in a little ball like a drool-encrusted hedgehog and went to sleep, prompting Nicky to go ‘Awwww…. Do you want a bed Mo?’ to which he nodded and went off to bed downstairs. He had the right idea. I sat around till 7am when the only place I could find that wasn’t made of cement was sitting upright next to Biggar where I bedded down for the night.
Despite this I didn’t feel as shit as I should’ve today. Thank Christ either I’ve found a level of debauchery I feel I can manage, or my body chemistry has finally readjusted.

Fucking missed the last Lost.
Fucking saw ‘My Name is Earl’. Kick fucking A. How long before a certain Mr. Smith jumps in there for a guest writer/director, eh?

Before I go I'm gonna give a quick shout out to Paula '2 times' Stewart. Buh!

Aido ‘To Donnybrook… And Beyond’ Potato.

2006-01-08T13:16:00.000Z

New year greetings to all you little greasegullets.
So I'm in dublin's fair city now, and have been since Tuesday. After a really epically bad christmas and NY, I came down to seek fame and fortune. From Mo's couch. Mo's place is amazing; huge, wood-y, with an a-mazing kitchen, lovely big rooms and lovely personable housmates. I'm constantly fighting the urge to tidy it up, but that aside, it's cool. And they play poker here, so I may discover an exciting new addiction. Brenda's been looking after me too, she's got a backlog of meat dad has sent down to her that she needs my help getting through. Job-wise, I've been handing CVs out to pubs, and I'm getting round to writing some articles for local mags, rags and newspapers. In the meantime, I'm going to do 3 weeks data entry at ronan's place which, he assures me, will sap my soul, but probably not as quickly as the bitter tang of poverty in dublin.
Anyways, thats the state of play at the moment. I'd love to thank everyone individually here who helped me remain sane during the last few months, but time doesn't permit, so I'll make do with saying a big, general thank you and recounting a few choice quotes from the last month:
"Ah, Aidan, I hear you've abandoned your life" -Ronan
"That's shit. Get your chin up, chest out- think of Jordan" -Edel
"Think of the kids!" -Shirley
"I don't know if it's true, but it's the kind of advice I'd like someone to give me" -Mo
"You go and dance the arse of yourself- but you'll undoubtedly end up dead" -Podge

Saw 'Brokeback Mountain' last night. Which was, it has to be said, marvellous. Both lead roles were perhaps just a shade 'off' in different ways, but still great, emotionally resonant performances in a gorgeous gorgeous film. Two dicks up.
Speaking of films and review, congrats to Jonno, who, through the sheer force of perseverance, has secured work for none other than Total Film. Bastard.

Been playing 'Resident Evil 4' which as anyone ITK knows, is-or at least is very close to- the shit. Not scary, but jumpy as hell, and really fun. As a precautionary measure to ensure I don't make a total fuck-up here in dub, I've left the PS2 up north, though I am looking forward to getting it back and putting that bitch to sleep.

Aido 'Fortune favours the fuckers' Potato

2005-12-14T16:52:00.000Z

Hi all
Writing this in the closing half hour of my tenure as an employee of Sheffield City Council. I'm very sad. Been drinking my way through most of this last month, and tonight after the doors close we'll be resuming the drinking right here in good old Broomhill Library- which promises to be a different experience.

Been a funny old week.

Went on a big graphic novel buying trip from work last week since I had been put in charge of purchasing for this collection but only got the call to actually go and do it when I handed my notice in. So there we were (David and I) stood in a tiny little comic shop in a crummy part of town with £14K budget to spend as we saw fit. Heaven, you say? And you'd be almost right, except I'd been jotting down the volumes we needed to complete our existing collections- of which there are a lot- and stopped after I got as far as 'C' since it was clear to me we weren't going to be able to work like this. Sure enough, the estimate came back at 7.5 k (this is for less than an 8th of the total comics needed mind) so some jiggery pokery was required. Still, I would have been happy to do it if I hadn't been resigning, as it is, I've dumped the whole kin'n'kaboodle onto the steadfast David- who just sort of stares at me saucer-eyed while I try to explain the very complicated mess that I and the bibliographic department of the library have concocted around the Graphic Novel collection.

Then some fucker from the BBC phones- get this- wanting to make a documentary about kids and videogames. A google search brought our videogame club to his attention and presto- he contacts me wanting to put him in touch with some of the kids from the group. Where the fuck were you a year and a half ago, matey? So he e-mails me with his contact details and I write back to ask him if he needs another contributer/researcher/consultant/bumboy to help with the making of the show. That was last week now and he has yet to reply. I think I may haved scared him off with my talk of homosexual favours (I think I read somewhere that that is how you get into the media).

Then, to cap it all off, it seems my leaving the running of the videogames club in the (arguably) capable hands of the staff of Hillsborough library has prompted a scene akin to the gunfight at the OK corral. Except with women librarians rather than greasy gringos. Basically the staff have no intention of carrying it on, the management are pulling rank and telling them they have to, and consulting my crystal ball, I see the club surviving my departure for Oooooh... a month? Maybe less? This annoys the shit outta me since it was pretty much the only lasting thing I was leaving behind to show for three years working here and now it seems that ain't gonna last anyway.

Bollocks to it all. I'm looking down the barrel of unemployment, starvation, alcoholism, possible suicide (joking) and rebirth as a gazelle. The gazelle bit I'm looking forward to. The rest of it can go and shite.
I think I'll stop now before this gets any bitterer (is that a word?) and leave you with some links to some other shit I wrote that isn't quite so vitriol-flavoured.
Aido 'Take me out and shoot me now' Potato.

www.animeworld.com/readerreviews/ghostintheshelltv.html

www.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/review/R95015.html

www.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/review/R95016.html

2005-11-30T15:05:00.000Z

Hi.
Just so you know why I'm very quiet, I finished with Gill a couple of weeks ago. Life's a bit shit and confused at the moment. Handed my notice in at work and am moving back to Ireland in a few weeks.
It's not really the time or place to discuss such things, but as soon as I can get back to talking about the frivolous things in life, normal service will be resumed.
Thanks for tuning in.

2005-11-05T19:57:00.000Z

So I watched Star Wars Episode 3 yesterday, and got bored before the first line of dialogue was spoken. I spent the next few minutes thinking up words that can be made from “Sith” (I got “This” and “Is” then couldn’t think of anymore). So for the edification of anyone fortunate enough not to have seen it here is:

THE FINAL, UNABRIDGED, LOCKED, ACTUAL SHOOTING SCRIPT!!!!!!!

Ext. Space.

Some STUFF is happening. It all looks real cool. Some of the ships look vaguely reminiscent of the superior ships everyone remembers from the original trilogy. Within these ships people are TALKING. (Memo- write dialogue later.) But the key thing to remember is that IT ALL LOOKS REALLY COOL AND MOVES VERY FAST, SO EVEN IF IT DON’T LOOK COOL, NO-ONE WILL NOTICE. Some more stuff happens then:

Int. Space station.
After more STUFF happens. Darth…. I mean, Anakin kills Christopher Lee at McDiarmuids behest- this is called foreshadowing and I read about it in a book in the 70’s. Afterwards MORE STUFF HAPPENS.

(Note to self re: Script. Have someone say ‘I have a bad feeling about this’. That’s a killer line, and I don’t think I’ve used it before.)

Int. Council.
DARTH… I mean Anakin is PISSED ABOUT SOMETHING. No-one pays attention since Darth… I mean Anakin is always PISSED. This makes him even more PISSED. It all looks really nice, though and STUFF is happening outside.

Int. Room.
Darth… I mean Anakin is in a room telling Natalie Portman about how he’s so PISSED all the time. Portman probably winds up CRYING. (Memo: Write some dialogue for here too- something about love maybe)

Int. Space station.
McDiarmuid is trying very hard to tell Darth… I mean Anakin, that he is actually evil. Darth… I mean Anakin is too PISSED TO EVEN REALISE SOMEONE IS TALKING TO HIM, MUCH LESS THAT THEY ARE TELLING HIM INTIMATE DETAILS OF THE DARK SIDE. We should be watching the STUFF that is happening behind them. (Memo: Write dialogue, but nothing so cryptic that folks who are enjoying all the STUFF IN THE BACKGROUND will not see where it’s all leading.)

Int. Council.
McGregor: Damn, was Darth… I mean Anakin ever PISSED today. He slapped me round like a little bitch and I just took it. Maybe I am just a little bitch.

Jackson: Yeah, I sensed that too. Cos I’m a Jedi, you see.

Yoda: Sense this too, I did. Jedi also am I.

McGregor. Should we, y’know… DO something?

Jackson: Aw hell no.

Yoda. Best to wait, it probably is.

(Embarassing silence. Nice STUFF happens in the background.)

Jackson: WOOKIEES!!!!

McGregor: Did someone just say wookiees?

Jackson: You’ dang skippy.

Ext. Some place.
Whew! After all the INTENSE DIALOGUE we cut to some place where STUFF IS HAPPENING!!!!! WITH WOOKIEES!!!!! (Memo Keep dialogue to a minimum, as it will distract fanboys from jerking their gherkins at this point in the movie).
Some ROBOT WITH A COUGH shows up and uses TONS AND TONS OF LIGHTSABRES. Then dies.

Int. Room.
Darth… I mean Anakin is BITCHING AND MOANING to Portman once more. Once more Portman winds up crying. (Memo: This bit may need some dialogue too.)

Int. Nice room.
McDiarmuid sits on a chair looking SMUG. Jackson appears. (Dialogue) Then some REALLY COOL STUFF HAPPENS AND MCDIARMUID LOOKS LIKE PALPATINE AT THE END!!!!!!! Darth… I mean, Anakin interrupts proceedings, looking PISSED.

Anakin: Stop that!

McDiarmuid: No, join me, I hereby make you some tempting but ill-defined promises regarding your future.

Anakin: Good enough for me, have at you Jackson.

JACKSON gets DEADED.

McDiarmuid: Excellent. I shall call you podo, and you godo.

Anakin: Who are you talking to?

McDiarmuid: I mean, I shall call you DARTH VADAR (Memo: Talk nice to that hack Williams, see if he can summon up something frikkin epic for this bit- as it will save on the DIALOGUE).

Anakin: Wow. I only thought I was pissed before.

McDiarmuid: Go now. Kill some folks. You are evil.

Anakin: K.

Int. Room.
Portman is CRYING because Anakin was PISSED ABOUT SOMETHING. McGregor shows up then buggers off.

(Aw yeah- just thought of an awesome line- Yoda should say ‘Not if anything to do with it, I have’ that would rock. I’m using that bad boy in the trailer.)

Int. Big Room.
After some stuff happens, Yoda has a fight and says ‘Not if anything to do with it, I have’ (Yeah, boy!!!)

Ext. Some place.
After lots of STUFF happens, Anakin is wandering around aimlessly, looking PISSED. Portman shows up and begins to cry. Then Anakin fights McGregor. It looks COOL. McGregor cuts Anakin to shit, despite earlier being his LITTLE BITCH.

McGregor: Who’s the bitch now, eh? Anyhoo, best be off, got ends to tie up, y’know.

Int. Room.
Some stuff happens. Not sure yet how cool it should look. Darth Vader shows up. Everyone feels watching the film has been worth their while after all.

Portman DIES.

Some guy: Oh yeah… someone wipe that droids mind will ya?
Some other guy: K.

The END.

2005-11-04T10:00:00.000Z

High there everybody.

Been radio silent for a bit, I’m afraid. I was back in Ireland last week to bury my godfather, Peter Donnelly. I’ll not go into it, cos it’s not the time or place, but suffice to say I was very saddened by his sudden departure and was pretty much in awe of the way the rest of the family handled it. I can only hope to have as impressive a turn out at my last party.

What else has been going on then? Not a lot, as it goes. Been to town yesterday to try and change bank, and y’know when folk say that banks want your custom and will do anything to get it? Not true. Not if you’re me anyway. Again, I’ll not go into details as I doubt even the most anal-retent aido-watcher could find anything edifying in the minutiae, but it surprised me nonetheless, and for the time being at least, I still bank with Evil inc. (Natwest).

Films, books, games etc… (The meat)
FINALLY finished Silent Hill 2, Gareth will be pleased to hear. I put my fear to one side and plugged through the last act of the game in one sitting, and boy was it a doozy. This game, I swear, is the best answer I can give to anyone questioning videogames’ emotional worth. I didn’t actually cry at the end- as I was still in a kind of numb shock, but I wasn’t far off. And like the very best movies and books, while the plot played itself out in the end, the story remains elusive, indefinite and very much open to interpretation. It’s kind of like a David Lynch movie in that you get glimpses of what’s going on, but it will take several more viewings (or in this case, playthroughs) before I could confidently say ‘This is what happened’.
Read ‘Squee’. Graphic novel by Jhonen Vasquez, who is a shamelessly self-conscious goth, but he’s got a sense of humour to go with it so it’s okay. His pictures are kind of cute, in a psychopathic way, and the stories, such as they are, are wafer-thin. Enjoyable, but hardly required reading.
Oh, yeah, Gill’s folks got me ‘Batman in the Forties’ for my birthday, which I started last night. It’s a compilation of comics from Batman’s first decade. Until now I’d thought that Frank Miller had been the first to take Batman to ‘the dark place’ in Dark Knight Returns, but to be honest, Kane’s original makes Miller’s look like a pant-wetting sissy. In his debut ‘Crisis at the chemical plant’, he punches the villain into an acid bath at the denouement, while the would-be victim says ‘He’ll die for sure’. Batman replies ‘A fitting end for the likes of him’(!). So much for the sanctity of human life eh?

Speaking of superheroes behaving like tossers, check out http://www.superdickery.com/dick/1.html
And laugh yourself silly.

Aido ‘hoot your trap off’ Potato

2005-10-21T11:33:00.000Z

The fucking world is out to get me, I swear...

Having got off our a-holes and arranged a meeting with some supposed small-business advisor in not one but 2 banks- we have yet to receive a satisfactory meeting with either. In the case of Natwest (my bank) I can't say I was surprised, the six years I have spent banking with them has been a long litany of botchjobs, red tape and frustration. After discovering that all I wanted from them (initially, at least) was a chat about setting up a small business, and not a discussion about how much more debt I'm willing to get plunged into, they all but hung up, muttering something about 'calling you next week' (which they didn't). Jonno's bank, Lloyds, sounded like a better prospect, as they actively advertise the fact that they are the choice for new businesses, and arranged a meeting with us right away. So, having made out a list of no-too-stoopid-sounding questions, we arrived punctually yesterday, only to find ourselves waiting for 20 mins, before being told by some bloody woman 'I can't answer any questions. I can't give you any advice. I can, however, do the paperwork for you when you want to borrow money. Ican also give you a CD rom that tells you all you need to know about getting you business plan together'. So, somewhat disheartened, we said we'd take a CD-rom and be on our way. So (after another 20min wait) we left, and repaired to the boozer to wallow in our misery some more. When we got there we had a look at the 'business pack' as they called it, which consisted on nothing more than the leaflets on small business' that we had already picked up and read while waiting for the 'advisor' to show up, and a big blank space where the CD rom should be... After more misery had been wallowed in, and under duress from the wives to get out of the pub and get the tea on, we left, wondering if there was much of a market for skinny-assed white boys on the prostitution circuit of north sheffield. Probably not, knowing our luck.
Birthday came and went, as they have a habit of doing. Marybeth and Jonno had gotten me a ticket to go out and see an Elvis tribute band in the Boardwalk, but, predictably enough, the gig had been cancelled due to the guitarist's ill health (THE GUITARIST!!!!- You can't spit in this town without hitting someone who can play elvis songs on the gee-tar). Still, we had a good night, and it gave myself and Gill the oppertunity to see how we fared in a boozer without fags. After the initial confusing as to what non-smokers do with their hands, we fared very well indeed, I thought. We've been clean 2 weeks now, and while I don't feel any real health benifits, I do feel my smugness quotinent growing back, which makes me happy.

Aido 'I may become a guru' Potato.

2005-10-11T09:27:00.000Z

So I'm back here in Blighty after a flying visit back to the auld green sod. Interesting visit it was too, as those who know, know. The computer situation is slowly reaching a solution (I hope) as Brenda's laptop is winging it's way to us courtesy of Marybeth and Jonno, and the desktop is in a shop being looked at by a cheerful, benevolent man with a beard. He's full of suggestions as to what we could do to make it run better, but we're still considering our options.

Anyways, I'll finish this post later as I need to get back on the clock now, just a quick hiya to all mah homies who made my visit back home such a pleasure. And to Gareth for all the tech support. Oh- been to see Serenity, and all I can say is : 'Nooooooooo!'
(Excellent film though, unsurprisingly enough.)

2005-09-23T14:43:00.000Z

Ahoy hoy!

Hope you are all acceptably well and feeling the joys of autumn around your nethers. I'm in surprisingly good health if you don't count some random knobbly bits on me groin and a worryingly insistant itch. I also went to a dentist for the first time in six years or so yesterday. It was a strange experience. I've never been frightened of going, I just couldn't get a booking anywhewre for love nor money, in the end Gill had to use her insiders knowledge to get me an appointment. Needless to say, the layers of sediment that had been building up had to be removed by a rather fair young dentist wielding what felt like an anglegrinder, which had been passed to her by her barely hominoid milkfed gimp (thanks, Black Books). I had thought it traditional that it's the dental nurses who were the fresh young hotties, not the dentists themselves, but I guess I've been out of the game a long time. Anyways, once the proceedure was underway I couldn't see anything through the veil of tears and flying plaque debris...

The car is dead, by the way. It left me in the lurch (or more accurately, lurched me near to death) once too many, and then was condemned to death by Gill's dad, who could see that it had been on fire at some point in the past, and the fact that it had passed it's MOT was little short of a miracle. It barely made it to the junkyard. The man who cheerfully sold me two dusty, septugenarian headrests (on which, in all likelyhood, some poor bastard had expired) for £10 the previous week, relieved me of the car, headrests and all, with no offer of recompense at all. I couldn't shake the feeling that the onus would be on me to ask for payment, but I hadn't been in the situation before, I didn't know what to do, I felt vaguely threatened by his barely hominoid milkfed gimp who was lumbering around tearing whole panels of old cars using his toes, and the near-deafening hum from the powercables overhead, along with the nearby graveyard all combined into some sort of Lynchian nighmare scenario where I was more likely to feature in a crimewatch reconstruction than receive payment for the rustbucket. Ah well, not so easy come, easy go.

Kult Film Korner.
Times running out, so just two kwik shouts out to 'Wisconsin Death Trip' which was like a tourist board film made by particularly depressed goths with access to a century's worth of film archives- well worth a look, and 'A dirty shame' which is recommended to all John Waters fans, and everyone else can suck on my love truncheon.

Aido 'Let's go sexin' Potato.

2005-09-09T15:36:00.000Z

Okay, first up, sorry for leaving y'all swinging like a spare schlong for a while. It's been an interesting couple of weeks.

Spent the weekend after my last post in Scarborough, after getting a lift of John. Gill's family were staying in a really cool 4-story house overlooking the harbour and we got a great weekend weather-wise. For entertainment we mostly walked a lot, but also took a boat to go and look at some seals, which were very cute but singularly nonplussed by our presence and refused to bounce even one ball of their noses- so poor show. We also went to 'Terror Towers'. For those who've been to the Dracula experience in Whitby, you know what it's like, for the rest of you, it's kind of like a ghost train except you walk it rather than ride it- alone. I must say, it's significantly better than 'Dracula', though still endearingly cheap and tacky. Still, it was scary enough to put the shits up Gill, who insisted we leave half way through when a voice over the PA warned children and people of a nervous disposition that the next scare was a big un and to use the emergency exit. However, the emergency exit still had a few scares and Gill wouldn't go out through it on her own. Ho hum.
So I returned to steel city alone for another working week, and again, frittered my time on pointless activities (sniffing pidgeons, avoiding direct eyecontact with the cats, stalking greengrocers, telly, playstation and beating off) before John delivered the car on wednesday. Now don't get me wrong, I wasn't expecting a lamborghini, in fact I knew the car was a bit of a banger. I had, however, been assured that it was 'a good little runner' and perfectly reliable despite it's age. I have since discovered this to be untrue on almost every count. As soon as I got it home, I took it out for what was to be a quick, experimental cruise around Hillsborough. Yet as soon as I pulled onto the dual carriageway, 2 minutes from mi casa, she just died on her ass. Um....
So I got her rolled into the bus lane and sat there thinking up my next move. As I hadn't got her taxed yet, I couldn't call for a tow. Presently, I got her re-started, but thanks to Hillsborough's enigmatic traffic system I was chugging about for the guts of half an hour before I got her home. 'Don't worry about it' says John to me 'She's just been stationary for too long, once you've thrashed some of the grit out of the carburreter she'll run fine'. Again, lies. I did take it as far as Clayton West to collect Gill from John & Ali's place, and thanks to Gill's Dad giving me good directions, that was almost trouble-free. But things have been sour since then. I had just about gotten used to the car dying out every time I slow down; in fact I was becoming a master of the seamless hill/uphill start, when some fucking guy at work says the trouble is the tick-over tuning is off, and re-tuning is a very simple proceedure. He showed me where it was and we fiddled with it,and lo she was idling just dandy. Until I went to take her home. Now, rather than dying out when she doesn't get enough gas, she was no longer responding to the accellerator at all- just growling randomly whenever I changed gears. Eventually she died again (I should point out that she always does this at the most awkward junctions) and took a good 20mins to decide to re-start. So yesterday I re-fiddled with her and suddenly she was running like a smelly, elderly dream. I took Gillo for her first driving lesson, and went to the junkyard to pick out some nice headrests. All in all, I was feeling rather smug. Until this morning when she stopped dead, facing up a steep-assed hill, in the middle of all the bastard morning traffic Sheffield six could throw at me. I'm not looking forward to the journey home one bit.

Finally, I've been adding to my ever-growing arrangement of fantasy jobs. Before the holiday I was considering a vocational training course. Plumbing most likely. Then, while in Scarborough, it occurred to me that I'd never seen a comic shop in Scarborough, Whiltby, Hornsea or anywhere else on the yorkshire coast. This in itself isn't very intrigueing, but these places are awash with skaters, goths and other subculture types who make up comic shop bread & butter clientelle. So since then, I've been thinking with glee about the possibilities of opening my own little dungeon. What do folk think? Should I go for it? Anyone want to invest?

Aido 'Cross my palm with crosses' Potato.

2005-08-26T15:49:00.000Z

Ah-hahahahaaaa…rabbish!

Coughing chunks of my putrid black lungs up at the moment, and consequently feeling a lil worse for wear.
Had a quiet week (aside from all the coughing) alone since Gillo has gone away, though I’ve not used the time as well as I might’ve. I did get one page of the comic done on Wednesday night, but on thursday disaster struck: Hyper Street Fighter 2- anniversary edition arrived in the post. There goes my day off. The car situation has been jinxed with circumstantial difficulties that, for once, don’t have their root cause in my own laziness and/or incompetence. The upshot of this is that I won’t be driving to Scarborough today, and instead will be getting a lift with John (Gill’s brother in law). While this is kind of a relief as I was not looking forward to the baptism by fire that is the A45 to Scarborough, I had managed to psyche myself up for it, so it’s a bit of an anti-climax. Still, plenty of time to have a ghastly fatal accident next week when (hopefully) I will get the car.

To all you fans back home eagerly awaiting my next visit- good news. The wait will not be long. I’ve booked the 3rd-7th oct off work. I’ve yet to book flights, but they will be on that week. And I’m flying to Dublin this time to avoid the risk of not getting down there like last time. The reason I’m telling you all this now is that I will be very very displeased if everyone else has decided to finally take that base-jumping holiday on the Christmas islands during the very week I’m home. Consider yourselves duly warned.

Finally, an obituary. We hereby commit to the earth Aido’s ability to drink. I’ve suspected it was unwell for some time now, but last Friday confirmed for me that it has shuffled off it’s coil and won’t be shuffling back. 3 drinks is as much as I can stomach now, and I feel the hangover begin before I feel even slightly tipsy. In case you were wondering, there is no fun to be had in this, so I’m drawing a line under it. Now I’m considering what exciting new vice I should develop in its stead.
Suggestions are more than welcome, as are free samples of products.

Aido ‘LizardInAManSuit’ Potato

2005-08-20T10:46:00.000Z

Accept no substitutes, ladies and gentlemen, it’s the…

Official rules of the ‘24’ drinking game.
One drink must be consumed upon each instance of the following:

1. Every time someone at CTU changes job title/gets fired. 2 drinks if they get replaced by someone else from CTU.
2. Each time someone kills/maims someone else after explicitly saying they won’t. In the event of Jack doing this, a joint/cigarette must be smoked.*
3. Each time a perimeter is set up by CTU.
4. Each time a CTU perimeter is breached by the terrorists.
5. Whenever something explodes.
6. Each time someone says ‘Within the Hour’.
7. Each time someone says ‘Let me do my job’/’I’m just doing my job’/’I’m just doing what needs to be done’.
8. Every time an old face returns (Uncredited, not in the first episode.)
9. Every time CTU discover that the plot they are trying to foil is, in fact, just a cover-up for a larger plot.
10. Each time Jack ‘Goes Rogue’.

N.B. this game was designed to be played while watching a DVD marathon of the series, not the week-by week instalments.
*Reason being, at the end of each day, you too can sound just like Jack Bauer.

So I’ve watched Day 4 last week. It rocks faces. 2nd only to the first day, this is the best.
Bagged Northern Exposure series 2 and Alias season 3. It’s a good TV season for me.

Gillo’s off to Scarborough with the parentals today. She’s finished work and is having some downtime before going back to uni. I’m getting the car this week (hopefully) so I’ll be fit to go and spend the bank holiday weekend with them. I’m bricking it about the car, though.
Anyhoo, better get back to work.
Aido ‘A lil’ dab’ll do ya’ Potato.
P.S. Cheers for da solidarity, Gareth. Aren’t the public a shower of towels?

2005-08-10T15:29:00.000Z

Jesus tittyf****** Christ.

Ok, before I go any further, allow me to explain that yes, I realise I have what could well be one of the cushier jobs in the world and I have absolutely no room to talk about stress or crap working conditions..... but;

Yesterday we had this awful bloody harridan in with her two noisy assed kids. I should explain that in the library where I work the childrens library is upstairs, while the adults library is downstairs, though the childrens videos are still kept behind the adult counter. Anyways, this 'woman' comes to the counter (where I wasn't working, thankfully, I was lurking in the stacks eavesdropping) with some videos only to be told that she would need an adults library ticket to take them out on. 'But they're kids films' she cried, 'yes' said monica, 'but they still need to be issued onto an adults ticket. Mum then turns to her squawking brats and says 'Mummy's sorry but this lady says we aren't allowed these' at which both children (aged about 3 and 2) start screaming the fucking house down. Rather than just take he books and fuck off, this woman tries to REASON with them, thus: 'I know, but it isn't mummy's fault, it's this lady's rules'.
What monica would have said to this I never found out, cos apparantly the woman in the queue behind supermum rolled her eyes or heaved a sigh at this point, sending supermum into a tantrum of self-righteousness; 'What does this have to do with you, this is none of your business', (eye-rolling woman) 'Your children are making it everyone's business; and it's not her (monicas) rules, it's the library' (supermum, shouting) 'God, you're so rude, you awful awful woman' (eye-roller) 'Actually, you're the one being rude' . At this point, supermum had had enough and stormed out yelling 'come on boys, lets get out of this GOD FORSAKEN BUILDING' and as soon as she was outside the door she begins yelling and screaming at the top of her voice. Try and develop this image, if you will; a whole family crying outside a library because they didn't get their own way, it's as good a metaphor for what is wrong with the people of broomhill as I can think of. Later, she returns with some ID to get and adult card and pick up the videos her hellspawn wanted. While I was making her card out she says, conversationally 'I'm not coming back here' to which I tactfully reply 'yes you are, these videos need to be returned next week', 'I'll get someone else to do it- I can't stand the people in this library'. I didn't reply, though I agreed whole-heartedly with her, but I guess she took my silence to indicate I took offence cos she added 'not you personally, the people who come in here'. Again, couldn't agree more.

Today hasn't thrown up anyone like that, but I've been in the kids library today where it has just been bedlam; it's the summer holidays you see. Now normally I don't mind working in kids since it's pretty quiet during the day and I get to kick back and surf the net mostly, but its now 5pm and this is the first time I've had a chance to sit down and catch up on me blog.

Some days I wish a pox would besiege the crooksmoor valley and take all the Jeremys and Millicents and little Tarquins and bethanys with it. I'd laugh out loud until I soiled myself.

Aido 'Hakuna Matata' Potato

2005-08-02T12:44:00.000Z

Hi there.

I've just been watching a film called 'Code 46' (or something) which is a sci-fi thriller thingy set in the near future. Please indulge me as I summarise the events, as it didn't make much sense to me while I was watching it.

Tim Robbins (who I have a lot of trouble taking seriously since Team America) is some kind of fraud investigator in the near future. He has been sent to shanghai to investigate a case of identity fraud at some kind of passport company, whereby someone who was not meant to go to dehli was mistakenly allowed to go there. Timothey has the benifit of an 'empathy virus' whereby, if he can convince someone to give him any little titbit of personal information, he can read their minds. This allows him to access all sorts of places he shouldn't go and generally exploit people's ill-gotten trust. Soon his investigations lead him to Samantha Morton, an employee of the aforementioned company, whom he takes a shine to and has some sex with. Some time passes. Then, he can no longer find Morton, and returns to the company to look for her. Using his empathy virus, he discovers she has been taken to some secret lab for an abortion since she violated a Code 46 (boning, knowingly or unknowingly, a clone with 25% or higher genetic match). Despite his empathy virus not working on the lab employees, he finds out that he and Morton share a 50% gentic match, and she is his mother's genetic twin. Gutted. He then gets to interview morton again, only to discover she doesn't remember him, the company she worked for, nor the person for whom she falsified a passport (who has turned up deaded). The lab (rather unrealistically, under the circumstances) allow Tim to take Morton away again where they have some more sex, in a desert this time. The following morning Morton phones the futurecops and reports that there has been another Code 46 violation and that they should get out here pronto. They get in a car and drive around the desert some more, making big bunny eyes at each other, before the future cops show up and blow the car off the road.
Tim wakes up in Seattle with his wife and pesky kid, with no memory of what happened in Shanghai and Morton apparently stays in the desert looking aggreived and wistful.
Now I'm not saying it's a bad film; it's kind of got a Blade Runner esque feel, and the performances are very good, but the story was just... stupid. Why would an investigator from Seattle be assigned to case in Shanghai, for example? They never explained the nature of this virus, but I assume it is something that can be administered to anyone, surely they could've found someone a bit closer to hand. Why would Timmy, when in full possession of the facts, then go and risk everything again just for another poke at someone who could be his mother? Why would Morton, who was all over timmy like a fairtrade burka, go and get the future cops involved after their second bout of rumpo?
Answers on the back of an aging albatross to the usual address.
Aido 'un poco poco' Potato.

2005-07-27T13:38:00.000Z

Loggerhythems- there's a funny word.

Howdy doody one and all. Hope you are all hale and whole.

So we've been back for nearly 2 weeks now and we're more or less back to our old selves. Gillo spend 2 straight days last week consuming the new Harry Potter brick, after which I got me hands on it (If anyone out there has read it, I got 1 word for ya- grrrrowwwwmmmmbahhhhhachhh... I think that more or less sum,s things up) and very enjoyable it was too.

Well done Gareth for finishing a project- make sure you send me the pictures from the papers- I'm having trouble imagining you in a suit, meeting the dignitaries of Dromore (opium farmers, weed dealers farmers and bovine pimps).

I'll have been in the library service for 3 years this september, a fact that makes me quiver with disappointment, so I plan to hunt down something better if it kills me.

Shit! Works just got real busy, I'd best go.
Laterz
Aido

2005-07-20T15:53:00.000Z

¡Hola!
So I’m back in blighty after a tulmutous two weeks back home.
The first week was fun, noisy and very very busy- with a near constant stream of people (aussies mainly) trooping in and out of the house. It was great to see everyone again, but it was nearly too busy to spend much time talking to anyone. Edel seemed in particularly good form; not even remotely stressed at the prospect of getting hitched at the end of the week. I didn’t see much of Luke (he was conspicuously keeping a low profile while everyone else was running around getting shit sorted- just right in my book) And the day of the wedding itself went off largely without a hitch. Everyone looked splendid, especially myself if I may say (natty threads courtesy of Mssr Mark Donnelly) and Ma and Pa were positively glowing. Sadly, it was on the wedding day that it all started to go a bit wrong for me. I couldn’t finish my dinner cos I was feeling a bit mbleh, but I put that down to the heat of Kelly’s inn, and was ok again after some fresh air, but decided not to rock the boat by adding drink to the equation. The next day I felt rank- like I’d been chainsmoking woodbines in my sleep- which I put down to overindulging in the cancer sticks at the wedding, and swore off them. The following morning I felt as bad again, this time I blamed Enda, as he can be a bit heavy handed with the deodorant of a morning- and promptly threw all his sprays out and bought him a roll on. The next morning I felt truly crummy and was shit out of people to blame. Someone pointed out that perhaps I was suffering from hay fever. I’d never had it before, but the symptoms seemed to tally and since it was hotter than I could ever remember it being before, I thought perhaps the pollen had overcome my immunities. Either way, I spent the rest of that day and all of the next feeling like I’d been run over by a particularly dusty bus and mum got me sorted out with a doctors appointment. This didn’t help since by the time I got to see him I had been quaffing antibiotics, antihistamines, solphadines and anything else vaguely pharmaceutical that I could lay my sweaty hands on, and was improving nicely. He concurred that it sounded like, and in all likelihood was hayfever, but then, as the immediate family and their other halves set off for a weekend in ballycastle, I noted that other people seemed to be catching whatever it was I had. By the time we left Gill, Luke, Sinead, Andrea and Brenda had been struck down- Gills still not at work, and I had to book another day’s holiday on Tuesday cos Monday just fucked me up.
Ballycastle was great though. I hadn’t been there since way back when, and there wasn’t much to do. This time though, I didn’t want to do much cos we’d gone to have, y’know, some time with the familials, just to settle down after the exertions of the wedding and all. We had a party for Olivia, Dad and Joe on Saturday night, and me and Gillo had to leave first thing Sunday morning.

So that was that. Once again, you guys, I’m very very sorry for not getting to meet up with y’all in Dublin or Omagh- laziness and circumstances conspired against me once again, but next time I will remedy this by flying to Dublin before going back up north; just make sure you are still around then, whenever it may be.

In other news, Twinkle has gained .05 of a KG in our absence and has developed a wheezy snore. Gill’s had her to the vet who assures us that it’s nothing to worry about, though if the vets in Hillsborough are on a par with the doctors, she could well have the black death and we’d be none the wiser.

Until next we meet,

Aido ‘Fried’ Potato

2005-07-05T15:06:00.000Z

Welcome one and welcome all. This is coming to you live from home base. Myself and Gill arrived back in Derryclooney yesterday for what promises to be the celebration of the century as Edel and Luke prepare for their connubials.
The house was in a typical state of mayhem when we got here; we travelled from the airport with Luke’s best man Ken who claims to have never met so many people in one day before. He’s hoping to upstage Edels performance at his wedding a few years ago when she had to be tastefully removed by Luke before 10 o clock. Bless.
So the familial units all seem to have been functioning more or less to satisfaction in my absence- dad has ostensibly retired now, but in truth he’s sold off all the milking herd and bought in twice as many calves to keep himself busy. Mums says she sees about as much of him now as she did before he retired. Ho hum.
Aside from all this not that much has been happening. I’ve been conserving cash and energy for the wedding, so my already comatose social life has been pronounced officially dead (for the time being at least) but hey if any of my homeboys are reading this I do hope you will be around for a few jars at some point over the next few weeks- you know it makes sense.
Big Brother continues to shock and depress in equal measure. I had thought last week that the housemates had finally got with the program and seen through Maxwell’s cheeky chappie exterior to the bigoted pork-faced pot-bellied shit factory underneath, but since the deserved expulsion of Saskia (giant haystack’s sister) the women of the house have been lining up to throw themselves at him in the sluttiest ways imaginable. The charitable part of me wants to believe that this is as part of a protracted fuck you to saskia, but the real evidence shows that these women are one part vitriol (the part that deals with other women or sexually unavailable men) and five parts preening, oversexed, vanity. (The part that deals with Maxwell and Anthony [closeted disco gerbil]). My favorite bit was when Craig, driven temporarily insane with jealousy, attempted to literally scare all the women away from Anthony, before weeping for eight straight hours. As such the rollicking fun of watching everyone taking potshots at their ‘crew’ last week, has given way once more to the lingering desire to see the house and everyone in it napalmed for the good of the gene pool. Except Science. No-one but me seems to like Science; how anyone could have watched that bit last week where he beat Maxwell at staring before launching into his “You’re just a weak man” monologue, then, after Maxwell’s retarded comeback, stating ‘what are you gonna do about it, you flubber?’ without punching the air in glee has been grievously miseducated.

So that’s that.

Aido ‘Jackie O-O-Oh my god’ potato.

2005-06-21T14:52:00.000Z

NANANANANANANANANANANA….. BATMAN!!!!!!

Hello everybody out there in cyberland. Hope you are enjoying the summer and are avoiding the sun like the low-velocity deathray it is. I know I have.
If, like me, you detest listening to the opinions of others on a topic that you yourself haven’t had time to develop your own on, then avoid the review of Batman Begins below in the asterisks.

**************************************************************************SPOILERS

So Batman Begins very well indeedy. They are happy to hint at what is to come rather than get stuck right into it for the first hour or so, getting closer to the heart of Bruce Wayne than any of the previous films knew how to. For me this is the best element of the film. Inevitably, however, the third act brings with it the typical comic-book movie villain’s plan to hold the country/planet/city to ransom using a big deathray of some kind like the one described above (I’m deliberately being non-specific for those who haven’t seen it yet) and this element is no better or worse than, say, the Joker’s parade in Burton’s Batman. This is the weakest element of the film; they clearly wanted something spectacular and overblown (like Spiderman) to justify their no doubt gargantuan budget and old-fashioned noir-tinged detective mysteries (like the better Batman comics) just wasnae gonna cut it. So much for the plot.
The action is a bit of a letdown too. Frankly, I had been expecting this since I saw it was a 12a, and to be fair it doesn’t sidestep the issue of violence like the ‘other’ franchise; Bats is violent and people get really hurt; but the impact of the violence is TOTALLY FUCKING LOST in the editing. It’s as if they choreographed and filmed some really elaborate fights and proceeded to remove five second chunks from every six seconds of footage. Go figure. (The first swordfight between Wayne and Al Ghul is a doozy though; probably because it’s a swordfight where no blood is drawn). So much for the action.
The real strength of the film, however, is in the cast and the script, and I’m relieved to say, places it head and shoulders above any Batman film and any comicbook film with the possible exceptions of Spiderman 2 and Superman 2. If there is a problem in this area it’s that there are so many character to be introduced, and so many superb actors to play them that none of them really get a chance to shine. I was overjoyed at the casting of Jonathan Crane and Jim Gordon- both of whom where adequate with inadequate screen time, but the real revelation for me at least was with Alfred (again, I’ll not name names in case you ain’t heard who’s playing who yet) who consistently pilfered scenes from the main man. While it over-reaches in terms of plot twists the script is tight and witty when it needs to be.
The ‘look’ of the film is nice. Gotham’s faithful without being slavishly adherent to the source material and doesn’t look as gay as it did in the other films. The ‘Scare-o-vision’ bits when we see things through the eyes of people under the influence of Scarecrows fear toxin are particularly memorable, but there was a slight over-reliance on CG for my tastes (though nothing like as much as Spiderman/Hellboy/Pantastic Four) but yeah, in general, they got the visuals right (again, particularly in the earlier scenes).
So, overall I’m very glad I avoided seeing anything of this before seeing it in the cinema, and I came out whooping and cheering to myself, but it suffers in the same way the first Spiderman and X-men did; taking what should be a simplistic origin story and trying to cram too much in. A very noble effort and more than enough to get me all wet thinking about the sequels. Well done Mr Nolan.

Onto other news now, lets see. Counting down the days to going home. The city is so sweaty and clammy at the minute I’m relishing some country air. Myself and Jonathan have struck a deal of sorts whereby we give each other deadlines (me for the artwork on the comic and he for pages in his novel) and if we meet them, then the drinks are on the other guy when we meet up. My current deadline is 3 pages inked and mounted for Thursday week. Those of you who are thinking this sounds simple enough should take into consideration that I have been working on and off (mostly off) on this comic for the guts of four years and to date I have produced 7 finished pages, so if this deadline-giving idea has any legs, we may even see a finished comic before we both shuffle off our mortal coils.

Still hooked on Devil May Cry 3. I’ve finished it twice now, but, elitist that I am, I’m going back through all the levels seeking those elusive S-ranks. I’ve made the mistake of getting au fait with the folks on the message boards at gamefaqs.com , all of whom, it seems, don’t consider a game worth playing if you’re not going to dedicate your life to it to the exclusion of all others. I’m not quite as bad as these people yet; but watch this space.

No, not that one, this one.

Until next time, Aido ‘Nude for Good’ Potato.

2005-06-13T17:08:00.000Z

Hello.
I’m getting fed up with the library service.
A few of you will know that I set up a videogamers club in Hillsborough library before I left there, but have been carrying on with it since I left for Broomhill. The understanding was that Broomhill would spare me as often as they could (meetings are on a Monday evening which are traditionally dead) so long as Hillsborough would provide the cover in the event of Broomhill being shorthanded. To date Hillsborough have provided cover exactly no times, which results in me frequently having to call all the kids in the group and postpone the meeting. Every time I do this is costs me a few members and I am pissed off with it. I would cheerfully round the people responsible and slap them about like a ginger piñata if only anyone would accept responsibility for it. Everyone is eager to see this club succeed (I think) and have been pleased with the results to date, but not one of them is willing to actually physically help me achieve that, and so I am peeved.

Anyways.

Still haven’t been to see Star Wars of Sin City, though I will in the not too distant future, but right now I am creaming my jeans about the new Batman. I have been actively avoiding seeing any of it (save the odd screenshot), and history dictates that I am building to an inevitable disappointment, but I just can’t help being excited. I may even go on opening night.

Been watching ‘The Slayers’ anime TV series, which is really daft and simplistic, but not altogether bad; I haven’t watched enough of it to know for sure whether it’s a keeper or not.

Big Brother continues to plumb the depths. This week mardy lard-bomb les (or fat les and she’s unaffectionately known in our house) was evicted to a cacophony of jeering. I honestly don’t think she understood what was going on and would wager good money that if you asked her she would say “all the men thought I was gaaaageous and the women were just jealous. Jealous of what, exactly? Your udders? Perhaps your strangely absent eyebrows? Your Buoyancy? Or the fact that Craig was your only friend in the house? I should point out that Craig is to entertainment what cream eggs are to a successful diet. Seemingly inoffensive at first, but before you realise what’s afoot, the whole enterprise banjaxed. Charlie Brooker described listening to his voice like lying in your own coffin, listening to the sound of rain seeping in through the cracks; to which I can only add my envy that I didn’t make the comparison first.

Can’t wait for our holiday. Really looking forward to the wedding, just hoping that we can squeeze in all the things I’d like to do since I haven’t been home since Enda’s birthday last October.

PS. What are people making of the new Doctor Who? I’ll share my thoughts on the next post.
Aido p-noid potato

2005-06-01T11:11:00.000Z

Greetings, fellow wanderers of the night.
Its that time again when the standards of entertainment are systematically lowered in a bid to keep the underclasses from rioting because 'Coronation Street' is too bloody hard to follow. Yes, it's big brother time again and yes, I have been watching it and yes I feel dirty and cheap but I can't seem to stop myself. I'm trying to offset my guilt by drawing while it is on, but this, I'm sure you'll agree, is but a drop in the ocean of shame. The only people I like this time are Science- because he's called science, and Mary who is an irish wiccan dwarf. Most of the others should be given an agent orange shampoo and placed in a deep deep hole with broken hypodermics on the floor and something that clicks. Televised, of course.
I have finished Devil May Cry 3 after 2 weeks of sustained arse-kicking. God I love that game. Everything else seems tedious and bereft of style after playing it. I love Dante's cheesy quips, I love that you have to play through entire levels to get your teeth kicked in 40-50 times before you can even hope to defeat the boss. I love that guitar. I'll stop talking about Devil May Cry now...

Went to see Seed of Chucky on Sunday. It's superbly trashy. Probably not as good per se as Bride of... but easily as funny, and hey it's got John Waters having his face melted with sulphuric acid- thats worth the entry fee alone. Glen/Glenda (the seed in question) just looks fucking weird though- not strangely psychotic/lovable like Chucky and Tiffany, just fucking weird. Jennifer Tilly is a goddess and Hannah (S-club) Sperritt crops up in a surprisingly large role for someone who's other film was 'Agent Cody Banks 2: Operation London' with little Frankie Munitz. Very Badass.

We spent our bank holiday shopping for a new lamp for the front room. This was because the existing light, while serviceable, was a little glary and gave us headaches. I'm in love with our new lamp though. It's very swish- looks a little like a treble-clef with pointy icicles going up. The bulbs are only 10w but they give out a shed load of light. Especially when you take the icicles off. Thats enough for today I think. I'm off to think about my lamp some more.
Aido 'The pandas are laughing at us' Potato.

ps. Cheers for the cosplay link gareth. You only defend Milton because thats who you aspire to be.

2005-05-18T11:00:00.000Z

How are you all doin?
Summer seems to be upon us again and I’m getting used to waking up with the sun in my face and looking at the unnerving sight of british people in sunglasses smiling and shit.
Got a kickass new watch yesterday from Grainne and Joe from when they were in aussieland that I can’t stop looking at admiringly. Andrea has finished her masters, Chris is facing her last few exams and Brenda, bless her, is sweating her way towards her final exhibition at the end of this month. Brenda, if you are reading this, I wish I could make it over to give you a hand, but I’m sure you’ll do a grand job anyways. Keep it up.

Watched ‘Office Space’ at the weekend. Maybe I was late to the party or something, but while I thought it was good- it was pretty far from great. Ron Livingstone is cool and should get more work, Jennifer Canisten should bugger off; she brought nothing to the party except a recognisable face and was clearly just there to attract ‘friends’ fans who would otherwise never have heard of this film. Vapid whore. Oh yeah, and that guy in it ‘Milton’, who I believe was the character from the original comic strip on which the film was based, he was shit and annoying and had about six scenes in the film where he did EXACTLY THE SAME THING. Not good. The only redeeming feature of these scenes was that he shared them with Gary Cole. I could happily watch Gary Cole picking bits of sand from his bodily crevices, and he was probably the best thing in this show. (Oh yeah, Mike McShanes Cameo was great).

Our mate from uni, Steveo, has taken his show on the road, I believe he’s in San Fran at the minute, so if you is reading this, ‘High there’.

I’ve found a new hobby to do at work when there is a lull on the counter; checking out other peoples fancy dress/Halloween/cosplay outfits. Some of them are amazing. The Americans a good at it, but even they lose out to the sheer commitment of the Japanese; they go nuts for it; it’s just a shame they are all dressed up as obscure videogame/anime/manga characters. But the outfits are just incredible. There’s this lass who dresses up as Dante from Devil May Cry and she looks magnificent; even bleached her own hair white. That’s commitment.

Anyway- I’d better get back on the clock. Laterz.Aido ‘Better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it’ potato.

2005-05-09T17:26:00.000Z

Greetings one and all (in the unlikely event of more than one person reading this).

So Blair got in again. I (as you may or may not know) was working as a poll clerk on the day, so turned what could’ve been a wholly unprofitable day off into a nice little earner. Actually it was more of an uninspiring, long slow earner, but you get the idea. The BNP got more votes in the constituency I was working in than any other in the country, apparently, which makes one reappraise one’s neighbours, to say the least.

Onto lighter news now, myself and Jonno finally put Viewtiful Joe to sleep one evening when Gillo and Marybeth were out getting sloshed, which I found intensely satisfying, and I’ve played through a little bit of it again as Dante from Devil May Cry. I’m now torn as to what my next purchase should be, because both Viewtiful Joe 2 and Devil May Cry 3 have been released and I couldn’t justify buying them both. (Not right away anyways).
Watched ‘Bad Education’ by Almodovar this weekend, which is probably the gayest film I’ve ever seen, but very very good nonetheless. Went to see Hitch-hikers guide to the galaxy last week, which was a marvellous adap, even if much of the humour has aged considerably. We’ve also enjoyed another CSI binge, courtesy of Gillo’s mum who tapes them for us since we don’t have channel 5. God I love that show. I could happily live the rest of my life without seeing any other police procedural. I love how it’s so dumbed down a newborn American idiot baby could successfully follow the plot, but it’s so razzle dazzle you don’t even care. I wouldn’t use the spin-offs to wipe my arse on though.

Until next time.Aido ‘Kiss goodbye to those bum-plums, chums’ potato.

2005-04-29T15:10:00.000Z

Time moves strangely in San Andreas.
Technically, an hour passes every minute, yet when I'm playing it hours (in real time) seem to flow by like minutes. I must confess it's got me bad. I recently discovered the 'territory' system and have spent most of my intervening waking hours expanding my little vitual empire, happy as a pedo in a primary school. This in itself is neither here nor there, but I done so well over lent, writing-wise, and I have barely done a tap since then.
I have however signed up to be a poll clerk on election day. Good news is it pays over £100 for the days work (on top of the £40 you get for training) and it occurs on my day off, so I'll get extra flexi to use at work, bad news is the working day starts at 6.30 am (and I have to be there by then- so I'm looking at getting up sometime around 5) and finishes at 10pm, no lunch hour, no breaks, no refreshments provided. Oh, and I may not have my own vote counted. So there.

Films, books, games etc...

Watched Rodger Dodger last week. Very good it is too, though it had a couple of false endings which always pisses me off. The basic conceit is that Rodger is a womanising, misogynistic egotist who lives in BigCitysville, USA and he is visited by his 16 year old nephew from back home in Bumfuck, Montana and they spend a night harassing various ladies. Rodger sees this as preparing nephew for life in the big bad world, but it rapidly becomes clear that the lovely ladies prefer nice little nephew to aging sexist uncle (duh).
Also watched Bangkok Haunted, a collection of three stories about ghostly going on's told by each of three women in a bus station or somewhere. Each story is pretty unremarkable, but what I love about eastern cinema is that even when the story is dull, or old, or silly or whatever, they always show a better fundamental understanding of the film-making craft than their western counterparts. When you go to see a shit american movie, that's exactly what you get. Watching a shit asian movie is like drinking bad milk- you only realise it's no good after you've finished it. Weird huh?
Finished the Artemis Fowl trilogy of books. First one: Excellent. Second: Let down. Third: Return to form. What really pisses me off though is that theArtemis of the first book- a really nasty piece of work- doesn't make an appearance for the rest of the trilogy; he goes and develops a conscience, which I abhor in my protagonists.

2005-04-15T11:00:00.000Z

Hello little people. (and Gareth)
Sheffield can seem like it's own little country for those who spend to long in the same area. I travelled to Millhouses yesterday to see Ben and Liz and their new sprog, Sam (cute, sleepy- it's a BABY- I'll give a more detailed report when he can talk). I'm not saying that the Hillsborough is better than any number of other places in the town, but we do seem to breed a better class of chav. Millhouses, of course, is really rather posh, but the poorer folks seem to be encroaching all the time, and these chavs have more in common with the city-centre variety (the kind who would set fire to your dog, rape your car and wee in your ear without even offering the cheerful grin of camaraderie you get from the Hillsborough kind). I heard some of them discussing the impending general election on the bus.

Burburry Cap: Can I vote?
Peroxide ponytail: Yuh. Din't you vote last year?
Burberry Cap: No. I never got an invite.
Peroxide ponytail: That's awful. This'll be my first time. Is it free?
Mum: Yeah.
PP: Who should I vote for?
Mum. Labour.
BC: One of them's on about not making people pay tuition fees. Is that labour?
Mum: Yuh.
BC: That's who I'll vote for then.

I'm starting to worry.

2005-04-09T10:18:00.000Z

What's up dawgs? (Sorry, I've been playing quite a lot of GTA: San Andreas)
Hope you are all well. I'm not too bad, spring is upon us with a vengeance and there is real live sun outside (though it was snowing yesterday.)
Watched Napoleon Dynamite last night, which I will recommend heartilly to all and sundry- but not hype to high heaven. Just trust me and watch it if you can. Also worth a mention is Firefly- a series by Buffy creator Joss Whedon which looks, sounds plays and just is fantastic, so of course Fox axed it after 14 episodes that were only screened in America. There's a film of it coming out later this year, so I wanted to be in the know (ITK) before it hit these shores, so I bagged the DVDs of ebay and am loving every minute of it. He's clearly taken his cues from Cowboy Bebop rather than Star Trek, which, I need hardly tell you, can only be a good thing.
Finished watching Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex, and have submitted a proper full review of it to my fave Anime site (www.animeworld.com), so hopefully it'll be published soon.

And before you all think that I've just turned into a listless couch potato (you'd be at least 89% right) we went out to the Corporation last week for some shits & giggles, which was exactly what we got. Jonno was giggling his guts up into the bog for most of the following day, however, but myself, Gillo and Marybeth were nursing very mild hangovers and I didn't even say 'I swear I'll never drink again' the following day, which is a new experience for me.

Work is just dull dull dull. I am happy enough to stay here and work away, since there are many worse jobs out there, or worse still- unemployment, but it's just become so 9 to 5, you know? And the money is good for the work we do, but it's pretty far from enough to pay for me to get my debts in order and on to new things.

As I've said, I've been throwing myself into GTA: SA- but at least I was good enough to finish GTA: Vice City first (with help from Gillo), and it's pretty fucking sweet. I'll not list off all the things I love about it, but I do find it exceedingly hard to simply walk or run or drive from one end of a street to the other without going 'Ohhh- what's that?' and finding myself in some scrape or other. Scratch what I said last time about it- it poops on the old GTA's. Though the 'Theme' for this one isn't quite as appealing as the last one- it's all gangsta's and ho's and shit, which is fine to an extent, but not as amusing as Vice City's 80's Miami cheese.

Until next time then,
Keep it slippy.

Aido 'Busta' Potato.

2005-04-01T12:38:00.000Z

Gah! and Buh!
So I haven't forgotton my blog, these stupid PCs just keep crashing everytime I go to publish it, and I never leave myself enough time to rewrite it.
Happy Eastermas one and all. I've been to Sunny Scarborough (but not the sunny part of scarborough) for the bank holiday weekend, where there was sand, water and other things associated with any self-respecting coastal region. Fun was had.
Since then my life has been little more than the steady consumption of chocolate and videogames (both of which I spent lent avoiding). I have been playing Silent Hill 2, at Gareth's recommedation, but despite that, it's rather good. Ok, the movement/combat controls are a bit eccentric, but the scares are there and that's what matters. Has anyone else found that games have a better capacity to scare one than films do, once you reach a certain age? Something to do with feeling directly under threat yourself I suppose- but all I know is I nearly filled them when that guy with the huge weird hammerhead pounced on me on the roof of the hospital and dropped my ass two stories into the special care ward.
Also got GTA: San Andreas, which I've sampled, but not really started yet. It looks nice, but it's hard to shake the feeling that when you've played one GTA game, you've effectively played them all.
Still haven't heard from that mammyrammer in Leeds who wanted me to fix his stoopid script. Fuck him: I finished my own this lent, and it's way better than his (and it's finished), all I need to do is rewrite it, coerce some studio into making it and voila! Instant superstardom. Next up: thundercats.
Gillo got me some kickass prezzies in Scarb; two of those original, deluxe giant turtles. We were in this really cool little underground market where this raving geek has a little cupboard-sized shop where he offloads all his toys and merch. I would have cheerfully bought the lot if I could justify the expense, but Gill insisted on getting them for me when she saw me drooling at them.

Anyhoo, better get back on the clock, I'll not leave it so long next time.

This blog is dedicated to the memory of Suzie McKenna. Noisy, smelly, hairy and sadly missed.

Aido Mutato.

2005-03-11T13:39:00.000Z

High there.
So I've been meaning to write about what else I got up to last weekend, aside from watching kickass korean movies- it was Gill's birthday after all, and we didn't just spend all our time in front of the telly.
We went out to see Lemon Jelly in the Octagon, which was a mighty gig- despite the usual shortcomings of the sheffield audience (ie. pay £15 to go see a band then spend the evening shuffling to+from the bar looking mightily unimpressed and taking pains to avoid doing anything that may compromise their cool- like dancing). We had a great night though.
Then on Sunday we went for a chinese buffet in town: after spending ages trying to navigate inner sheffields arcane road system (thank God I wasn't driving, I would have suffered some kind of breakdown and abandoned the car in the middle of pinstone street and walked home crying; I can't believe Gill wants us to get a car.) The food was great- but it doesn't bear thinking too closely about the parade of diseased chavs who troop up and down breathing over the food all day.
Jonathan has returned my playstation to me- citing his inability to do anything except try and crack the last level of 'Viewtiful Joe' during his waking hours as the reason. Welcome to my world. His mother also pointed out that it's cheating at lent if the source of temptation is removed. She never told me what she had gone off though...
That's all for now,
Slan.
Aido.

2005-03-05T13:19:00.000Z

Good news everyone! Quality cinema is alive and well and living in Korea.
An unlikely sequence of events on thursday saw me wandering into HMV (Unlikely event no. 1) to get Gill her last Birthday present. After ploughing through millions of sales items (slurry) I came to the world cinema bit, which is traditionally under-represented, way fucking overpriced and several years out of date. Huge Man Vagina (or whatever it stands for) had gotten their acts together since I was in there last though, and their selection was pretty good (still overpriced, but hey) and I remembered that 'A Tale of Two sisters' had come out on DVD and got that for the dragon. I then saw 'Oldboy', which I missed in the cinema, and bought on the strength of the trailer alone (unlikely event no 2).

****WARNING!***** Those who distain hype and overzealous gushing, may wish to not read the next paragraph, esp. those of you who have yet to see either of the above movies.

Oldboy is as stylish, memorable and robust a piece of cinema as I can remember ever having seen. It is violent, certainly, but not that bloody. Some of the scenes of torture are very graphic, and detailed, but there seems to have been a conscious decision to keep the blood to a minimum. This works remarkably well, and all the violence has a very unique 'look' to it. I loved the film while I was watching it, but when we watched the extras we realised that everything in it was thought out thoroughly and they had about 5 good reasons to do everything, even lighting. Masterful stuff.
I had already seen 'Tale of two sisters' in the cinema, so I know I kicks ass, but as anyone who has seen it will attest, watching it the second time around promices to be a whole new experience.

So my question is this: When did Korea become the new cinematic superpower? I swear I'd never even seen a Korean film 5 years ago, now they are strutting around blowing the tits of every other moviemaking hotspot around- including Hong Kong and arguably Japan. Why wasn't I notified?
Have to get back to work now. Heed my word.
Aido 'evergreen' potato

2005-03-02T13:45:00.000Z

Come with me on a journey through time and space, to the land of the mighty boosh...

We're not really going on a journey, I just thought I'd open with something that sounded vaguely mythical, and I'm very happy that that BBC has seen fit to repeat 'the mighty boosh' on sunday nights now, especially since the one that was on on sunday was one I'd missed the first time around. Have you noticed how BBC only seems to get one decent sitcom every twelve years or so- (Seinfeld, Boosh, Arrested Development) but bury them in really weird timeslots? And if they repeat them, the timeslot is even weirder? Channel 4 get more good shows, and have a bit more nous about promoting them/finding suitable timeslots, but only ever seem to find the time to repeat Friends, or early episodes of Cheers. It's hard to know which of these practices is preferable, but the day when terrestrial TV becomes too nerve-shreddingly incompetent to put up with draws ever nearer. I watched a show the other day about this village in the south of wales where the government have switched off the analogue signal already, and dished out free digiboxes to everyone- sometimes multiple boxes for each household- or in the case of a local hotel, 96 boxes! Now I'm quite cheap, you all know that, and while there is a promise, in the non-specific future, of a free anything, there's no way I'm paying for it. However, blair has categorically said that there is no promise of free digiboxes for the UK in general. He has however, said that the analogue signal will be switched off by 2010. (I believe it was originally 2005, then 2007) To do this without issuing free digiboxes to people without would be unlawful. My opinion? I think he knows if he ever wants standardised digital TV nationwide- shelling out for boxes is unavoidable; however, if he keeps procrastinating, more people will lose patience and buy their own, thereby saving him a few pounds. I hope my impotent rage at the inanities of terrestrial TV doesn't overwhelm my natural tight-fistedness, though, as I quite like the idea of Blair paying for me to watch dutch lesbian wrestling and korean mole humping.
Speaking of humping moles, we finished watching Our Friends in the North. In my last post I was commending it for it's performances and script and yadda yadda, this was before we reached the latter episodes where all the leads grow old and bitter and by the time we got halfway through 1994 I was silently screaming 'just kill yourselves, you miserable bloody bastards, you know you want to!'. I'm all for 'serious' TV, but why does that always translate into 'the televised depths of human misery'? Actually, I'm not opposed to the depths of human misery either, but prefer it in quick, 'You've been framed/Battle Royale' style format as opposed to this turgid 20-hour directionless bumf. But that’s just me. Best show of the last 20 years.
Also watched 'Public Access', Brian Singers directorial debut that, as you might expect, is noir-ish, low-rent, engaging and sparse. I really liked it, but was amazed by how very scared Gill was when it had finished. It's not a horror, it's a little violent in places but nothing too graphic. I think it was the performance of the lead guy that did it- he was very cold and measured, and you really couldn't tell what was going on with him- even at then end you have no clue what his motivations were, but it struck me as odd that she was pretty terrified by it all.
On to 'Catch me if you can' which, for obvious reasons, I had dubbed 'Miss me if you can' until now. It wasn't fantastic by any stretch, but considering I usually feel ill at the thought of either Tod Honks or Leonardo Sproutface, and even I quite enjoyed it, should say something. I think it had more to do with the real-life Abagnale's voice, which was ever present (not as a VO or anything, just in the perception of events and such like) than the performances. And that Spielberg, it's been a long time since I credited him with anything other than mindless artistic whoredom/rampant emotional button-pushing, but you can't deny he knows how to drive a story along- he works better with something fast and zippy and simple like this, rather than something (snooze)worthy like Schindler's fist.
Oh yeah, if you haven't seen it already (and Paddy probably has) watch 'Walking Tall' with The rock and Johnny Knoxville. You won't be sorry. He's good. His town has gone bad. He has a big stick. That's the bulk of the dramatic content out of the way- there's also a fabulous scene where he represents himself in court. Yes, it's that good. My only regret is I missed it in the cinema.
It's not all good, though. I've taken to watching films in the back office when I'm at my work, the problem is the library has a limited supply of 'good' films all of which I've watched by now, so I've had to move on to the not so good ones. I watched Catwoman on monday, which was not as hilariously bad as I had been led to believe, but must've subliminally lowered my expectations of cinematic endeavour to some extent because The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which I watched on Tuesday, was almost credible by comparison. It goes without saying it is a hopeless piss-stain on the memory of the graphic novel, but at least it had the decency to have impressive special effects. Connery wants euthanised though.
Aido 'What's wrong with Brewster?' Potato

2005-02-22T13:46:00.000Z

Dia Duit.
Hope everyone is well and keeping things well bum. I'm good, though is lent is taking it's toll. Jonathan has relieved me of my PS2 because I couldn't stand it staring at me every evening like I didn't love it any more. Yesterday I had to train a bunch of aging female librarian how to set up and run their own videogames club like we have in Hillsborough, which was quite painful since I wasn't allowing myself to touch any controllers, but it went reasonably well, and they all left a little more enthusiastic about the idea than when they came, which is about as good as I could have hoped for.
The writing is going pretty well. I Wrote about 25 pages this weekend, which equalled all the work I'd done on the project previously, and I hope to do something similar this thurs.
Been watching 'Our Friends in the North', since I discovered we have it on video in the library. It's good innit? I'm not particularly a fan of grim, gritty socio-political epics, but this has got better than average writing and a whole shitload of kickass performances. I guess I didn't realise when it was on telly how much it benifitted the careers of all concerned, but it seems that everyone on screen has become, if not a household name, then at least a very familiar face.
Also finally watched Cube. Thoroughly enjoyed it too. Some of the performances in it were a bit melodramtic and camp (particularly the black guy) and of course the conceit felt a little stretched in places, but as an exercise in minimalist film-making, it was really quite amazing. What I liked most about it was that despite using just one set and amateur actors it never once felt cheap or underdone, and there was a very real sense that anything at all could happen as the captives stepped from cube to cube. Now for the sequels.
And I watched Rita, Sue and Bob too..., very much against my will I might add. To be honest, there were things in that I liked; it's got a really funny, quotable script, and the influence it had on people like Shane Meadows is very evident, but those sex scenes... good god. I know styles move on and all, but really, there was no need for everyone involved to be that butt ugly.
Anyhoo,
gotta get back on the clock.
Till next time,
Aido 'couch' potato.

2005-02-16T13:52:00.001Z

Greetings one and all.
Had quite a busy weekend this week. Been to manchester for Gaz&Bridget's wedding reception, which was nice. Didn't know many there except paul and ruth, but it was in this cool little pub/disco called the brickhouse where the balconies were made of scaffolding and the bouncer dances around in a red beenie (which looked like a fez out of the corner of my eye). We stayed in Paul's and I spent most of the next day burning most of his mp3s onto disc to take home, since we have jacked in our wanadoo dialup account and are in the process of obtaining broadband.
Did anyone see Nathan Barley? It was so funny I thought I was gonna shit. Then cry, because frankly, while Chris Morris and Charlie Brooker are out there writing, there will be no need for me, you or anyone else to do the same- we'll just be cluttering the place up.
Having said that, I did get on with some writing after it had finished, and miraculously managaed to establish an almost complete scene-by-scene breakdown of what happens in this horror film I've been cooking up for nearly a year now. Very satisfying it was too, like a big steaming brainshit. I've also got something cooking with a bloke I've met through ukscreen.com, but I'm keeping shtum about this for the time being, given what happened last time.
Better get back to work.
Keep it plastic, yeah?

Aido 'self facilitating media node' potato

2005-02-16T13:52:00.000Z

2005-02-09T13:43:00.000Z

You know what really pisses me off? The fact that Blair is gonna get into power again this year. Now, you all know that I am not even remotely politically-inclined, and there is a certain whiff of hypocrisy when someone like me holds forth on shit like this which they know nothing about, but this little fucker deserves to go. More than that, he deserves to go while being tarred, feathered, dipped in two stroke and lit on fire. All the while being flayed and raped by diseased asylum seekers wearing strap-ons. Anything good thats happened since he's been in no. 10 has either been a marginal improvement on an existing service, or simply not his idea. Most of the awful things he's done have similarly not been his idea, buthave been championed by him against any and all arguements to the contrary. The latest thing is this pensions scam. Basically, they're attempting to do away with the lump sum workers recieve when they retire (they claim they are reintegrating it into the ongoing pension, but as this in turn is being reduced, what this amounts to is moving this money over here, then vanishing it- hoping no-one notices) OR offer people the option of staying in work till 70(!) and in return offering them a similar package to what pensioners recieve now. What they won't tell you is the correlation between working longer and dying earlier (figures for which do exist), so any extra money you will be entitled to, they will recoup in saved pension when you shuffle off your mortal coil a few years after retiring.
Gill, as ever, described it to a nicety when she said 'they are now making us pay for our further education, pricing us out of the job market and fucking us in the ear when we reach old age' (or words to that effect).
My question is this. Is it any wonder no one can take the tories seriously anymore? Labour has become Conservative, insofar as they both seem to get fat by dicking the very people working to make the country function, which is pushing the tories further right. If I vote (and there's no guarentee I will) I will probably go for the democrats. Not because I agree with them or think that they will make a better job of running the country than those in power, or indeed because I think they'll win (they won't), but I'd never vote conservative and while blair is in charge, I'd sooner sodomise myself on a vibrating icepick than vote labour.
Power to the people.
Aido 'normal transmission should resume tomorrow' Potato.

2005-02-08T13:42:00.000Z

Hey wastrels!
I've noticed that this blogs birthday passed by without anyone (myself included) noticing. It seems I'm averaging about three posts a month, which is okay, I guess, but I think I can do more. Rather than spending all lunchtime sitting in our staff room looking at out of date womens mags, I should get into the habit of jotting a few lines down.
If you're interested in reading another blog (seriously) try ihatemyflatmate.blogspot.com, it's not that funny, but at least it has a point.
Anyhoo, enough about other shit, more about ME!
I'm pretty pissed today. I'm really tired (I'm always really tired), I'm sick of this job, that bloody woman in bolton didn't like my script, I still haven't heard from those people at the advocacy place, I can't get in touch with my man and this fucking old woman started giving me shit over the counter today. She started by disputing a fine she owed, rambling on about how she'd been in some other library where they said she wouldn't be fined for overdue videos, then asked me if I was acting dense. Such was my mood, my first instinct was to drive her fucking nosebone into her medulla oblongata, but I swallowed that, cut her idiotic muttering short and made her pay her fines. Only ten minutes after she left did I concoct the perfect riposte to her, which would have been witty, polite, cutting and with a cheeky streak of veiled insult. C'est la vie- l'esprit de escail and all that shite. I'll use it on her when she comes back in three weeks. Even if she doesn't remember, with any luck the confusion will short circuit her enfeebled elderly mind and cause it to dribble out of her nose onto the books, which I will then insist she pays for. At gunpoint if necessary.
Shit.
I have to get back to work.
Stay outta trouble, y'hear? And be nice to librarians.
Aido 'Where are the fucking tweezers? This thing is twelve inches long' Potato. >:(

2005-02-07T13:50:00.000Z

Roll up roll up!
It's almost lent again, and it's snuck up on me. I think it's wise to abandon the trusty Playstation for another year, but the smoking ban last year was only semi-successful and I'm torn as to whether it's worth the effort. Answers on a postcard to: 'See if you can better manage aidans life than he himself can' competition.
One thing I will certainly be kicking are McDonalds hamburgers. What's that you say? 'But Aidan, you haven't dined in the golden arches since 1991, and that was your first time'? Quite right, but having watched 'Super size me' this weekend, my anti fast food stance has taken on a renewed fervour. They are evil, I tells ya, and incompetently so, which is worse. I don't enjoy people being evil, you understand, but at least if there is a portion of sense and calculation behind the evil, I have something to respect. With McDonalds, it seems, everything just gets coated in sugar and fat- simply because they know the mass audience they reach like that shit and will eat it till it starts running out of their eyeballs in bloody glutenous gouts. Okay, so this didn't actually happen to Mr. Spurlock, but I suspect it would have if he had persisted in his quixotic quest.
Anyone played 'Psi-ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy'? Its my game reccommendation of the month. It came out late last year and I picked it up on eBay for a tenner a few weeks ago. Its cool, cos apart from the traditional 3rd person shooting action, you have a host of psi attacks at your disposal. Most fun to use is telekinesis, which allows you to pick up crates and fling them at baddies. Pick up baddies and throw them off buildings, into walls, into each other, into furnaces or high voltage generators. You can stand on a crate, telepathically float it around a room, plugging baddies as you go. Pick up explosive barrells, float them over enemies' heads before shooting them and god knows what else. Oh, yeah, and if you successfully sneak up on a baddie, you can pop his head a la scanners. Check it out.

2005-02-03T14:07:00.000Z

What's up all?
I'm in Hillsborough Library at the minute, ostensibly 'working' but no ones around so I'm catching up on a few things.
I went out to Firth Park yesterday for a meeting I'd been sent on by work. It's in a part of the city I've never been to before, so the bus journey was quite interesting. Somewhere between Grenoside and Firth Park was a long road of semi detached houses. All the ones on the right were occupied (or so it seemed) all the ones on the left were boarded up. With Metal. By the council. I'm talking about 30-40 houses here. What the fucks going on. Gill told me last night that there are over 100 people living rough in Sheffield, which I have to admit is lower that i might have guessed, but why the fuck is a whol streets worth of houses standing empty? You could fit 100 people in 30 houses no problem. I may even write to my MP.
Still no word from Mrs. Orr in Bolton, so I don't know if my script's sold, but I'm now a fully paid up member of ukscreen, and its cool to be able to make contact with industry bods at the touch of a button. I'm not exactly confident yet, but I feel it's a step in the right direction.
How good is 'Dragons Den'?
If you haven't seen it, do so. Its an incredibly compelling show. Basically a bunch of multi millionaires sit in an empty loft looking smug and stroking their piles of cold hard cash. Inventors ranging from genius' to dribbling lummoxes line up downstairs to take a turn at pitching their idea to the Dragons. They have to obtain at least the investment they came looking for, or they go home empty handed. What makes this show great is not only the range of inventions and business ideas, but the behaviour of the dragons themselves. Some are prone to sub-cowellesque cliches, some are strangely likeable (Like the American CAD investor who I started off detesting). Anyways, you gonna watch it.
Better get on now. Thing to do y'know.
Take care.
Aido

2005-01-26T13:06:00.000Z

Hey dawgies. first up, shouts out to gillo (who despite knowing what I've been up to, is still concerned about the lack of blog updates- bless) and paddy O who has snagged what sounds like a kick ass job in dub- make sure and rub gareth's nose in it every chance you get.
So, here at broomhill library we've been repainting so all the computers have been disconnected for a few weeks and I've all but given up trying to log on to the net at home. So I haven't had access to the tinternet. but i do now.
I've been writing again, you'll no doubt be ecstatic to hear. I've been on Ukscreen.co.uk which is a notice board for wannabee media and film workers that allows you to build your own little website or online CV and check out what jobs are on offer. A FOAF has obtained a few jobs thru this site so it seems kosher enough. Anyhoo, someone was looking for short kids scripts (that is non-lengthy scripts aimed at kids, not films about vertically challenged youngsters) which caught my eye. FAst forward a week and I've written a script and spoken to the lady who was looking for them. She sounds nice, she runs a kids film/theatre company in bolton, and she's always on the look out for new stuff. I don't even really care if I get paid, as the idea of anyone performing my shit is thrill enough for me. It felt good to have a (broad) work brief in front of me again. I've found that when you can write anything you want, it's impossible to get started.
I've also been applying for other, more earthy jobs here in sheffield- worker advocacy for disabled people and the like, but I've yet to hear back from those guys.
Did anyone else watch that 'anatomy for beginners' thats been on this week? It's that gunter von hagens bloke flaying corpses and so forth on national TV (under the pretext of education). It's certainly challenging, and I had thought myself quite jaded before I watched this. He's talking about reproduction later in the week, which is where I expect I'll draw the line. Seeing a skinned man's testicles hanging about a foot apart from strings of flesh from the mans mid abdomen almost pushed me over the edge; I have no inclination to watch the said testes dissected or pulled apart.
Desperate housewives has got me but good. I'm really a big not fan of teri hatchetface, but the show itself is quite zingy and watchable. I'm not keen on all the sex and the city comparisons, though, it's much better that that. Celeb BB turned out to be a bit of a farrago in the end, but I'm pleased Bez won. He's probably already smoked, snorted or otherwise injested his winnings by now, fair fucks to him.
So Mo's sold his soul it seems. Last I spoke to him he was a trainee-satans-chap-polisher or something, but hey, it's a job and I'm sure he'll make more money this fiscal year than I'll ever see in my life, so likewise, fair fucks. If you are reading this mo, I did try to call you back the day after you phoned, but either I've got the wrong number for you, or I have the poxiest luck when it comes to catching you at liberty to answer your phone. (Perhaps the satans cock munching is all just a cover, and you are actually a spy like sydney bristow or part of some international crimefighting squad like charlies angels- just a thought)
So thats about all for now. I may add another entry today, to make up for the prolonged absence, but I'll have to think of something interesting to write first. So it's altogether unlikely.
Aido 'the cheaper the meat, the bigger the treat' potato.

2005-01-11T15:36:00.000Z

Post-yuletide admonishments one and all!
Things are settling back in to their old routiene and I've finally found some time to update this blog.
Christmas was nice and quiet. Had dinner at Marybeth and Jonno's on Christmas day, then went thru to barnsley on boxing day. It felt kinda weird having Christmas not at home, especially talking to all the sibs on christmas morning. The familiar sounds of casual disappointment and feigned gratitude don't quite sound the same over a phone line. (yolking!)
As well as overconsuming calorifically, I've upped my trash culture intake in keeping with the season. Highlights include: The High Life DVD, which Gill tracked down for me, House of Flying Daggers, which was a little hollow once you get over all the choppy sock shit and flying daggers, and Le Femme Musketeer, groaning under the weight of Amy Smart's talent (Footballer's Wives Chardonnay). Christmas BB panto started promisingly enough, and the contestants were well chosen, but it got very dull very quickly. Not so with Celeb BB, which has proved to be much more fun than it should have been, primarily by the inclusion of Bez, but I find indulging homicidal fantasies involving John McCririck adds tremendously to the fun to be had.
I also got Gill Peep Show series 1 on DVD which is marvellous, and if you haven't seen it, get it.
Been playing 'Beyond Good and Evil', which was great until a glitch occured a few scenes from the finale which means I can't progress to the end without going back to the start. Still, I'm not a fan of 3D 3rd person roamers, and this was a significant improvement on the oceans of similar looking games.
I need to get back on the clock now, unfortunately, but tune in again sometime soon for further adventures.
Live well and regret not.
Aido 'TurkeyGulletSyndrome' Potato.

2004-12-16T15:45:00.000Z

Word to yo mutha.
So i finally figured out how to post photos, and you can see a few of them below. It would be nice if I could arrange them around the blog as I see fit, but somethings better than nothing I guess. Christmas is almost upon us and for those of you who I haven't told, I'm spending it this year in Sheffield. We're doing Christmas day with MB and Jonno, and then going to BArnsley on Boxing day for Christmas 2 with Gillo's family.
I've been quite busy lately with work and Christmas shopping etc. We went out for our work do to trippets winebar last saturday, which was a laff, though I had the headache to contend with the next day. Been to see I heart huckabees which was really rather good, though I don't really want to see it too many more times as I expect some of the contrivances would start to grate a la American Beauty.
I've been throwing myself back into my drawing with reasonable aplomb, but it seems there is some sort of india ink/drawing board/art display folder shortage in yorkshire at the moment, as I have been totally unable to track down any of these things which I kinda need.
Anyhoo- lifes been fairly boring at the minute- mostly just rushing around doing christ mas stuff, so hopefully I'll have more to write next time.
Happy Chrismukkah.
Aido de la pistolla.

2004-12-16T15:43:00.000Z

Argh!

2004-12-16T15:42:00.000Z

This guy looked kick ass.

2004-12-16T15:41:00.000Z

This guy's picture makes his outfil look more impressive than it actually was at the time.

2004-12-16T15:40:00.000Z

My lovely lady fiend

2004-12-16T15:39:00.000Z

Bwahahahah!

2004-12-16T15:29:00.000Z

Feel my wroth

2004-12-03T10:46:00.000Z

What up all?
So I've finally begun to get me finger out.
Last week we (me and Jonathan) had a bit of a wake up call in the pub with Andre, who is Jonno and marybeths coked up southern ponce friend who despite his many shortcomings is very funny and managed somehow to snag a high powered job with saachi and saachi- if you can believe such a thing. He was asking us why we haven't made more progress on our comic and I had to own that it was mostly my fault. I was also talking to jack and Phil, both of whom are moving to manchester to make their fortune in the film industry. Jack has more contacts than I would have expected, so he's got a shoe-in to a horror film thats being made in january.
Anyways, the upshot of all this is that I haven't played playstation all week, I'm packing it up until christmas, and I'm knuckling down to getting at least one issue of this fucking comic finished.
I done one page yesterday, and I figure if I can pump out about two pages a week I should have this issue done by early 2005.
I'm also watching plenty of films. Saw spidey 2. Very much an improvement on the first, looked incredible, but the maryjane/parker chemistry is just not quite there yet. And aunt may is a bit crappy. Plenty of dead good bits in it tho.
Saw battle Royale 2 yesterday also. This wasn't anything like as good as the original. Too gun-reliant and not inventive enough to recommend. I'm not dissing it either though, as a slice of action it stands up very well on its own, just suffers in comparison to the first.
I'm about six episodes into standalone complex now, and the only thing I'm sure of it that it sure ain't no cowboy bebop. It looks lovely, but aside from that it is an inferior product in almost every way. I can't quite follow whats going on, I couldn't care less about any of the characters and the technology, while it's impressive, hasn't moved on since the film. All the themes, missions and dialogue is more or less the same as it was in the manga, which begs the question 'why bother?'
Anyhow, break is over now,
see y'all later.
Aido

2004-11-22T18:37:00.000Z

Hey dawgs and dawgettes.
So me and Gill spent this entire weekend watching all of 24 series 3 (since they moved it to sky and we couldn't watch it anymore) on DVD. It was sheer bliss, I have to say, and I would happily do it every weekend if I could. I'd heard a lot of shit-talk about how bad this series was and how it was all going downhill. The people who said this, I need hardly say, were wrong, and this series can proudly stand toe to toe with the best of the first series (the second was a bit crap, truth be told) on all fronts including story, cliffhangers, preposterous twists and graphic torture. Next series I'll be heartily disappointed if Jack doesn't kneecap a blood relative and skullfuck them to death before noon, such is his psychological trajectory.
In response to big gay gareths' yammerings, I haven't seen standalone complex, but I have ordered it on ebay on the strength of his recommendation, so if it bites he'll be getting further public humiliation on this very forum. Of course Thundercats is shit. To this day you don't have any taste, why do you think that as a youngster you would? The quality lies in the mythology and the character archetypes (though not the script)- there are the bones of an incredible story there, which is why I wrote a remake- if it was as good as I used to think it was, I wouldn't have bothered with reimagining it. I'll not have you dissing Cowboy Bebop- I notice you never actually said if you'd seen it or not, so if you're pulling that shit where you read up on something on the net then convince yourself you've seen it and base your opinions thereon, think again. And what the fuck is an IMO?
Work continues unabated, though I'm more confortable here now that I know how things are done.
Better get back to it though...

2004-11-11T15:03:00.000Z

What ho!Sorry if I've been neglecting this blog of late, its been quite hard to get online since I've been working in broomhill, for a start, all the computers are shitted up, and also I tend to take my cue from the folks who already work there, and none of them spend time mucking around on the tinternet for their own amusement. They didn't at Hillsborough either, but they do spend a lot of time slacking off and dodging work, so I didn't feel so bad about it. Anyways, the library itself's fine, so are my colleagues, but the customers there are for the most part, a shower of tools. They are civil as long as you serve them as a butler might, but as soon as they learn you're not actually there to spoon feed them any and every curiosity they may harbour, the overpriviledged streak comes to the fore and they storm out of the building muttering about how they're going to stop paying their council tax or some such bullshit. There are those who believe that the internet is killing off the skill of real research, and the discovery of facts within context, rather than having them glibly defined by a two-minute google. To the good people of broomhill even this expenditure of time is too much for their fragile social schedules to bear, and if I can’t tell them, they can’t be bothered knowing. Shitheels.Onto merrier things, I really must tell you all about 'Cowboy Bebop'. Apologies if you've already seen it (I'm sure Gareth at least has heard of it), but I recently picked up a copy of the TV series (not the movie) of eBay for a tenner (Chinese imports, you see, not the exorbitant reg.2 versions) thinking that it sounded pretty good, and I had a hankering for some Anime anyways. It is simply marvellous. We finished watching the final 2-part episode last night and though I didn't actually cry, it was a near thing. Not that the ending was sad (nor am I saying it wasn't- you'll have to watch it and find out), nor even that it was over, just that it had, over its 26 episode run, totally won me over. Straight in to my top 5 TV shows ever without a doubt (see addendum). It had everything from superb music (a lot of jazz, which I would never have dreamed of listening to otherwise), some of the best animation I've seen, and fight sequences that put not just live action shows to shame, but whole swathes of anime too, to overarching lovestories and fantastic bite-size adventurettes. I'll stop now, I'm in danger of overselling it, but track it down if you can, it may take a few episodes to win you over, but it will. As Gill says: "Why are the Japanese so cool?"On the other end of the joy spectrum we have a sequel to 'My Big Fat Stupid Ugly British Bird' aka Bridget Jones' Diary (Tagline: Women... Duh!) in the offing. I only mention this because I was walking down Abbydale road yesterday only to be confronted by the poster for it in the middle of the pavement on one of those flyboards (For those who haven’t seen it yet just imagine Zellwegger's head looking suitably clueless/obnoxious and you're probably not far away from the truth) and was overjoyed to see some genius had drawn a hairy phallus in her mouth, complete with balls! I chuckled the rest of the way home. But later in the evening something clicked into place- I tried to imagine the sort of mentality of those who deface public places in such a way, and kept coming up with a picture of Gareth. Then I remembered that Gareth is never without a pen, usually a big fat black permanent one... Please feel free to take this opportunity, Gareth, to come clean and confess to why you actually spend so much time wandering the streets of Omagh on your own, pen at the ready. No one will judge, I for one will have more respect for you than I currently have.
Until again,
Aido 'I live sweat' potato.

Addendum: 9 other shows that probably are in my top 5 somewhere. (along with about 50 others)
Buffy (every season except 6)
X-files (seasons 1-3)
Twin Peaks
Spaced
Vids
Bad Girls
CSI (before Grissom went all smart-ass)
Northern Exposure (Before someone removed all the content, replacing all the actors and sets with sweating sacks of animal offal and hoped no-one would notice)
The Word (only kidding)

2004-11-05T17:11:00.000Z

Wotcha
Sorry for getting cut short the other day, pressures of new job and that. So Far its been going well, though the travelling to and from work is an unwelcome change to my routine... Ho hum.
Anyways, our film festival. We kicked off with three viewings of Shaun of the Dead, which I got for me birthday. It really is an amazing show, and I am truly inspired by Simon Pegg. He makes exactly the kind of TV show/ Films I wish I could, and he seems like a decent bloke into the bargain. I think I've mentioned before that Tim Bisley (his character in Spaced) is probably the fictional character I identify with the most.
We then watched Braindead (always a pleasure), and finished the day off with 28 Days later, which I hadn't seen before and was duly impressed by. I thought it a little meandering towards the end, where they just sort of forgot about the zombies, but overall, quality won the day. Great cast, too. Brendan Gleeson is apparently playing mad-eye moody in the next magic harry movie, and the Cillian Murphy bloke is playing scarecrow in the Batman Begins flick (no doubt his costume will pale in comparison to mine, but thats life).
Got a camcorder today, bought of someone at work who's upgraded to digi. £60 for a three year old samsung with all the trimmings. Not a bad deal, now I just need to see if it works.
Better go, the vultures are circling...

2004-11-02T15:26:00.000Z

High all. Long time no blog, for this I apologise, but its been halloween and any free time I've had has been consumed by going waaay the fuck overboard on my costume.
This year I was the scarecrow from batman (the 'No Man's Land' mythology, since you ask) and I was very pleased with the result. Gillo dressed up as Medusa and looked rather kinky, marybeth done a red riding hood (with severed wolf head in her basket) and Jonno done the ironic thing with a t-shirt reading 'My parents moved to the USA and all I got was this lousy urge to kill myself. He had a big cleaver sticking out of his belly, slashed wrists and a ropeburn round his neck.
Quick round up of other news- had a mini-zombie film festival last weekend at home, and I've started work at broomhill which, after a tearful farewell to hillsboro, is going rather well. Except I can't hang around and write my blog. I'll finish all this on thursday hipefully, You'll all just have to contain yourselves till then.
smoke my a kipper etc...

2004-10-18T09:38:00.000Z

G'day bruce.
So now I'm 24. Went out to the local to get pissed up on booze on sat nite, which was accomplished with aplomb, spent most of sunday saying 'urghhhhh!', retching into a bucket, rubbing me head and intermittantly opening prezzies. Got some good shit. 'Ramones Raw DVD' Shaun of the Dead, a sexy lady shirt and a wife beater with a picture of the virgin mary on it, and a huge marvel poster. Also got the two 'Modern Toss' books that are in print, anyone familiar with the 'Homeclubber' cartoons in the guardian guide will kno what I'm on about, everyone eles can check it out at www.moderntoss.com, is very funny indeed.
I've been a busy bugger this last while, I'm trying to tie up loose ends at Hillsbro before sallying forth to broomhill library, that's if i even go there. There's a tempting vacancy at the university for an AV assistant, with a remarkably tempting pay packet. I've also been bombarding the Belfast telegraph with my mental dribblings in the hope of snagging some bonus journo work, but frankly I'm not holding my breath.
I may start just filling this site with reviews and use that as my calling card, then again I might not, as if I tell everyone what I think of everything I watch here, I'll have nothing to talk about when I see them face to face.
Having said that, I saw Hero last week, which is very impressive, if a little emotionally hollow. The set design and action sequences are terrific though. It's a very simplistic story, which makes it a little strange that it drew so many comparisons with Crouching Tiger, it's really nothing like it at all.
That'll be all for now methinks, check out hulks blog its very funny indeed, can't remember the exact address, but if you type hulk diary into any good search engine you should find it without too much trouble.
Adios.

2004-10-05T15:21:00.000Z

Hey dawgies.
Back again from norn iron and I'm totally bushwhacked. Enda's officially a 'big boy' now, and has the mountain of aftershave to prove it. We had a great time but literally didn't stop all weekend. Usually when I come back I don't go to sleep until night, but after calfing on the couch yesterday I had to take a nap. God bless pete (gills dad) for coming to lift us at the airport as we would have had to wait in NEM airport for a further two hours for a coach (as we had planned to do) if he (or perhaps, Linda) hadn't offered to come and lift us. Oh, and Edel too for delivering us to Belfast International at 6 in the bastard morning.
Sinead and Mark had hired a Bouncy castle for Enda on saturady, which we duly inflated and enjoyed about half an hours worth of bouncing fun before the rain came along and spoiled it. I came back later and castle, generater and extention cable had all been blown halfway up the lawn and was making a concerted bid for freedom. I let it down until the rain stopped, but when I went to re-inflate later it resembled a cold jaccuzzi more than a bouncy castle, so I put it away. Ho Hum.
Edel came back on sat nite and we went out for a meal, which was really nice, and the party was on sunday. It felt a bit weird to get pissed up at a kids party, but fun was had by all, except mark and john who, like the fools they are, volunteered to dress up as clowns and were treated to the mockery, physical abuse and emotional scarring that all clowns have coming to them at the hands of the aforementioned kids. ('volunteered' is perhaps too strong a word. More accurate to say 'didn't laugh out loud in grainne's face at the proposal', serves them right)
Yesterday was spent being inactive, watching TV, sleeping (edel got us a couple of those little eyemasks you get on long haul flights which are just the ticket for sleeping during the day) and ordering curries.
Watched that 'Arrested development', new sitcom on bbc2. Shows a lot of promise, and made me feel a bit better about missing the last 3 Malcolm in the middles.
Better go now, left the running of the library in the hands of 2 standby staff, one of whom hasn't been here before.
Later all

2004-09-10T16:02:00.000Z

Greetings one and all.
Its been a busy week for a change. Lady gig on Sat, entertaining the guests on Sun, working late on Mon, stayed after work on Tue for pauls leaving do (he's going back to uni for an MA in history, fact fans) went to the Theatre (la-de-fucking-dah) on Wed with the folks from Gillo's work, which was dead good (teechers, its called, and though 18 years has taken the edge of it's satire a bit, still very enjoyable- and featured a Bad Girl (ie- from the TV show), thurs I was off but spent the evening touring around sheffield on foot looking for my man (as Lou Reed might say) and today, though I plan to calf as soon as I get in, has already been a bee-ach.
This really fat kid was on one of the computers, and this really old dude was on after him. Fat kid didn't come off straight away, and old dude tore him a new one. The stupid thing was they were standing there arguing at the top of their voices and neither noticed that all 3 other computers were free. Dicks.
Hooray! the OC is back on- jubilation all round.
Hooray! got Batman: The rise of Sin Tzu, which despite being a new game is quite reminicent of the old Streets-of-Rage beat-em-up heyday.
Hooray! also got Disgaea: Hour of darkness which is meant to very good indeedy. My collection was missing a RPG, and I've been waiting for this to get a european release for a long time because it's supposed to be one of the best. I've started playing it and its very cute and japanese, sprites can look a little cluttered sometimes, but so far, so good.
Boo! we went to a chinese buffet before the cinema to give me a chance to meet with Gills workmates. I hadn't been in their company for 10 minutes before doing something oafish: it was all their fault though. No-one explained to me that there was separate tables for starters, mains and deserts, so I just piled a plate high and sat down again, wondering why everyone else was nibbling prawn toast and bite size spring rolls.
Fuck that- it was still wicked value for munny. £7 all you can eat (in 1 1/2 hours, anyway) and the food was really good. (Though watching some of the greasy chavs who were in the queue with me gave me pause.)
Better go now,
later all.

2004-09-06T17:15:00.000Z

Howdy. Still feeling a little fragile from the 'lady gig on sat, which was ace but scuppered somewhat by sheffield's indigenous crowd of pretentious would-be musos swaying slightly and muttering during the set. The place was wicked though, this place called club zero that I'd never been to before. It looked more like a proper niteclub should look than almost anywhere else I've been. Not too overstyled, but roomy with lots of dark nooks and (wait for it) a Street Fighter 2 machine (the first I've seen since I was about 16). It was the super edition- so not the nostalgia fest I initially thought it was, but God was it satisfying to get playing it again after all these years. I would have happily stayed in front of it, but I was afforded the opportunity to 'hang out backstage with the band'- something I've never got to do before so jumped at the chance. It was a wholly disagreeable experience, I have to say. There was much more room to sit out in the main club. The room reeked (there were two adjoining toilets) and there was no windows or ventilation, so the whole time in there was spent breathing third or fourth hand cigarette smoke. The lady had a beef to pursue with the other band (chip-something, Ok I suppose, but any band that need 3 1/2 hours to soundcheck should) so they considerately emptied the rider before they had finished their set. Saw Warren for the first time in ages. He's going to Japan to teach english in nov. The teaching job didn't quite work out like he'd planned, so he's doing relief work and living on a friends couch until he goes. He was in good form and we had a good laff. Ruth had been toying with the idea of coming out, it's just as well she didn't.
I'd asked some of you guys a while ago what 'Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever' was like. I can now answer my own question and spare the rest of you the misfortune of having to watch one of the lamest ducks to waddle straight to DVD in recent memory. I could buy it on ebay for less than the cost of a rental, so I decided what the hell. It is just appalling. Not even so bad it's good, just bland, forgettable, ill-thought-out, badly executed twaddle. One or two nice explosions do not an action movie make. Lucy Liu has had her two strikes now (cypher was the other), one more and all the Charlie's Angels sequels in the world won't bring her career back. And the title's a complete misnomer as well, since Ecks (Banderas) and Sever (Liu) only have one fight then spend the rest of the movie sucking each others cock (Figuratively speaking). Speaking of strikes, it turns out Affleck (who is no stranger to them, and must have racked up about 20) the wily bastard, it dating the beautiful beautiful Jennifer Garner (Alias, Electra in Daredevil). Dick.
Anyhoo, better get back to work you guys.
See y'all later.

2004-08-25T14:49:00.000Z

Greetings and salutations.
Settling back into things nicely, thankyouverymuch. FINALLY got the videogame club off the ground, we had our first meeting on monday, and it all went pretty good. Not all the kids showed, which was just as well really as it was just a nice, manageable number who showed.
Gill from work heard me talkin about Takashi's castle (japanese gameshow on challenge tv) and very kindly filled a tape of it for me. I haven't laughed so hard in recent memory, Mo, you were right, it is indeed the best show around. I'll not bother explaining it as I will inevitably not do it justice, suffice to say though, that when the casual cruelty in the god-like takashi kitano meets the all-conquering enthusiam (gobshitery) of the great japanese public in a kind of deranged it's a knockout setup, the results must be seen to be believed. If you already have digital tv, then chances are you know what I'm on about. If not, get a friend to tape you some.
Aside from all that, not much has been afoot. Little cash and lots of good TV on DVD/Video to watch (I've still barely scratched the surface of my Seinfeld collection) make aido's life comfortable, if not very conducive to third-party interest, so I'll spare you.
I have got me hands on an awesome new game, though. Armoured core 3 its called, where you build a giant robot from thousands of different pieces, and thunder around landscapes and arenas making scrap metal out of other like minded individuals. Its fun, but the scope for customising and building the mechs from the ground up make it really engrossing too. Roll on AC4!
Ciao. Aido

2004-08-20T15:41:00.000Z

Gabba gabba hey bitches.
Well, been back in gloomy old steeltown for almost a week now, and it's been a tough recovery from uz holiday frolicks. The weekend passed in a haze from in and around the couch area, leaving me still pretty bushwhacked for work on Mon. Monday night I developed the wild shites and took tuesday off with a writhing gut. Wednesday- still not right but back to work with a slightly less explosive arse, and thursday I was off anyways. The council finally got round to paying the good geeks at playtime multimedia so I could go and lift all the hardware for this videogames club we're starting on monday coming. Gareth will be pleased to hear that I may befriend a new Gareth who is almost like him in every respect. He was the bloke I was dealing with in playtime, so having a job is already something of a departure, but he to is called gareth and shares many physical traits with the much maligned Mr. Donaghey. I'll not describe him, as I'm hoping to irk gareth so much he comes over here for a face to face Gareth-off, with me as the prize (woohoo!).
Had a kickass time at home. A weeks not long to squeeze everything in, but by the same token it's not long enough to get bored either. We didn't get to dub, or belfast or pretty much anywhere beyond Clogher, which would normally equate to a pretty poor time, but we both had fun and it was really cool to see everyone again (even if it was for a few hours on the final day of the holiday- by the way, what time did you guys get home out of Omagh at, and was Catwoman a great as I've heard it is?)
Paddy, in the unlikely event of you reading this, sorry we didn't get to see ya- next time- Niall, in the even more unlikely event etc... likewise, Ronan, (who I'm quite sure will never read this) you can sit around counting the flies on your dick or whatever the fuck it is you do all the time when I'm home.
Sayonara.

2004-07-30T09:34:00.000Z

Hi all.
It seems like ages since I wrote a post. If I have an excuse, I can't remeber what it was, so I'll just carry on as if nothing happened.
Work carries on apace. I have still to be given a start date for the broomhill job, but this Hillsborough post has been confirmed to October at least.
I'm enjoying the summer in general (watching it from indoors, at least), myself and Gill took a long weekend a couple of weeks ago and painted the flat, which looks very clean and cool (and more than a little camp) now and generally feels like a new place. Marybeth and Jonno have settled in nicely to Hawksley road, and have been using their winning ways on the neighbours more than either Gill or myself have done in the two years we've been here. Some folks just have it.
I was in beautiful Halifax last week, seeing Brenda and Andrea. Thanks to work commitments and train timetables, I was only fit to spend about 2 1/2 hours in their company, but it was fun nonetheless. Halifax is pretty, if a little desolate.
Still no word on my vouchers. Those bastards at GamesTM are clearly avoiding me too, as I have e-mailed and phoned incessantly for the last month and haven't had any response at all. Cocksmokers.
Heading for home next week, for all of you who don't know. 7th-14th, to be precise, and my family were so thrilled about this that they ALL BOOKED FUCKING TICKETS TO EDINBURGH THE MONDAY AND TUESDAY I'M HOME! Can you believe that shit? Not that I'm bothered. We'll have the place to ourselves, and with any luck, I'll have a car at my disposal.
Big Brother continues (only just) to be required viewing. I can't believe that shitheel jason is still there, and from the way Michelle has been carrying on, he'll probably not go tonight either. What does it say about the values of this degenerate country when someone who is a genuinely nasty piece of work (also sickeningly vain, aggressive, bitchy and just a total fucking tool) can win out over people who are just good looking, loud, a bit of an 'anarchist', or a little bit pushy romantically. You see, I have the right to complain about these things now, as I actually voted for the bastard to go this week.
Until next time.
Aido

2004-07-06T12:57:00.000Z

So I know I've been quiet for a while. Things have been unusually busy (for me) and I never found the time.
I bagged the job at Broomhill (nice place, many poshos and students) which was what I was angling for, I guess, but the fact that Clea (the lass who is currently doing it, and has been for the past three years) is now in an unteneble position leaves a sour taste. This is the council in action folks, if there is a difficult, long winded and stressful way of doing something, thats guarenteed to shaft the frontline staff, you can bet your kinky boots thats the road for them. Whats really pissing me off is that, by rights, I should have taken this oppertunity to get the fuck out and find something else, but of course I didn't. Not to worry. I got the job.
I've finally began writing this opus that has been gestating since the trees went green again, too. Not just the incessant note-scribbling that usually passes for 'writing' in my spare time, but actual honest to goodness creative grafting. With punctuation and everything. So far I have written 4 pages. Not an avalanche of writing, admittedly, but I done them in about half an hour last week when I last had the time to actually sit down and do it, which is a good page-to-time ratio, and also getting the first few pages written and the story underway is, in my experience, the hardest part. When I actually started work on Thundercats, the script practically wrote itself (which speaks well of its quality).
Better get back to work.

2004-06-28T18:03:00.000Z

Right then...
Had me second interview today- this one's for the Business, Science and Technology LIbrary. It went ok too, but probably not as good as me last one. I'll find out the results of this one on wednesday too.
Its high summer and its really fuchking warm in Sheffield again. No good warm either. Sweaty warm. I was going like a child molester in me interview today, which was quite embarrassing as I was all dressed up in me interview blues.
What have I been watching? Went to see magic harry a wekk ago. Best of the bunch so far, by quite a way, but still not great. At least now it has some visual flair and a sense of magic, not just a ball of rushed CG jobs and sonambulist script. Actings still pretty poor, but Thewlis is kick ass as lupin.
Saw Cypher. Jeremy Northam. Lucy Liu. Utter. Cobblers. Why does it seem that no one can make a good Sci-fi movie anymore? I'm kinda looking forward to Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, but somewhere in my cold bitter heart I know its gonna let me down. So is Chronicles of Riddick and so is Spiderman 2. In fact, I'm swearing off comic adaptations. They can all fuck off. Unless they're based on indie comics (not superhero ones) I watched 'American Splendour' a while back and it was at least as good as Ghost World, and possibly better (very similar kind of movie, though). That goes for Hellboy, Kev Smiths Green Arrow, and whatever sort of fist Aronofsky makes of Watchmen. Yes yes yes, I know Aronofsky is dead good, but if the man cannot see that Watchmen should be left well alone, then he clearly doesn't understand it.
Better split. Big shouts out to Andrea (even though you probably don't read this anymore) celebrating her Birthday on the 23rd of June.

"Always do your best. If your best ain't good enough, do nothing as you'll just fuck it all up."

2004-06-21T08:08:00.000Z

And suddenly I hate work. It all started a few weeks ago when we were told that we will have to re-apply for our own jobs (we, being anyone on a temporary contract). Except there is only one vacancy coming up in Hillsborough, and that is for childrens library assistant. There are 3 temporary contracts at Hillsborough at the mo, including the current CLA, gill. And I didn't want to go for her job. So I've applied for a few jobs, one in Broomhill community library and another in the business, science and technology library. I have one interview on thursday and another on monday and I'm royally pissed. Things between me and the staff aren't so good either. I can't go into too much detail here cos I'm still at work, but suffice to say I've found myself at loggerheads with some of the old hands here in Hillsborough and feel like I'm being ostracised like they are wont to do when someone displeases them. Fuck it. I'm not gonna be here in a few weeks, and they can do whatever the hell the want when I go.
Fill y'all in properly when I get to write a post at home.
Aido

2004-06-11T14:40:00.000Z

What ho. Sorry for being a bit quiet, but things have been well, a bit quiet. The sun is nearly killing me on a daily basis and I have spent the last week sweating profusely.
Watched Girlfight last night, it was pretty good, the story is fairly standard triumph over adversity stuff, but Michelle Rodriguez's performance elevates it to something altogether edgier. She's so my Cheetarah.
I know I said I wasn't going to watch Big Brother this year, but I'm very sorry to say it has finally overcome my defences. At this stage, it has been far and away more entertaining than any other year. I think the producers have been listening to their critics from last year (all boring assed nicey nicey saps) and have taken no chances and filled this years house with a collective of hateful shitheels. I can't fault their logic but I wish I could resist. Though it's not like anything else is on. Both The OC and Bad Girls are taking summer hols so there is very nearly dick on telly aside from BB and fucking infernal footie.
The vouchers still haven't arrived. Bastards. Oh, and Gareth, GamesTM is written for grown ups too, yet its still actually fun to read, seems to get the big news before EDGE and has a really cool retro games section in the back (EDGE also do a retro supplement, but it only comes out quarterly and costs as much as the magazine itself) finally, and most importantly, EDGE don't pay me, or anyone else for that matter £100 for writing a letter so GamesTM is clearly the better mag. And if you've anything else to say on the matter e-mail it to me so I don't have to tear you a new one in pseudo-public.
Sayonara shitheads

2004-06-03T10:36:00.000Z

HEY HO! LETS GO!
Happy days! I picked up this months GamesTM magazine (EDGE is so passe) and guess who got letter of the month. It was a rather rambling rant about how everyones obsessed about the next gen of consoles while the current ones haven't really lived up to all their early promise. Anyway, the point is they agreed with me and gave me £100 in vouchers to spend in Gamestation! How kickass is that? Anyhoo, the vouchers havn't arrived yet, but I'm already rubbin me hands with glee and thinking of all the things I want. Think I'll get an eyetoy, and Mario Bros: Superstar saga for starters...
In other news, we went out with Mean and Jonno and Marybeth on Sunday night to a quiz in town, got much more rat-arsed than I'd hoped and proceeded to make a tosser of myself back in means flat. I don't know about you, but whenever I see a balcony I am immediately compelled to flob of it. Since my common sense was already compromised this seemed like a great idea, and just below mean's balcony there was a telephone box with a burger box on top that I was aiming for. Couldn't hit it though, and most of my gozz ended up on west street or on the passing chav revellers. I'm not proud of this behaviour, but if anyone deserves black lungbutter trickling off their heads onto their shitty white clothes it's people like this, which is a small consolation.
Had a very nice barbi in Barnsley earlier on Sunday too, courtesy of Gillo's folks. Got to see Archie and Chloe. Chloe hasn't really come round to him any since he was born, and Alison told us that earlier in the week she had suggested 'chopping his head off and chucking him out', and reprimanded Jon for telling him not to play near the road. Archie, for his part, continues to be a Jackass baby. He walks pretty good now, and took chloe's pram and shoved it over the steps in Gill's folk's garden, giggling dementedly.
Also bumped into Phill (from ballard hall) getting off the train in Barnsley, and met his new bird. He's just come back from Cannes, where I'm told he saw the top of Cameron Diaz's head; oh, the glamour.

2004-05-27T13:14:00.000Z

Whats up all. The problem with getting on here seems to have gone for now, you'll all be no doubt pleased to hear.
I have to apply for my own job! Actually, it would be better if I did have to apply for my own job, but since I'm only doing two temporary part time post cut+shunted into each other, I have to apply for one of my workmate's jobs. The fucking council suck ass. I knew this staff restructure thing would come to my level eventually, but its naff the way we have all these workers fighting over not enough permanent posts when we're already under-fucking staffed. I think everyone who's currently employed should be offered a job pending a review, then they can employ extra depending on how many more people they need. Actually, I'm just belly-aching because I have to go through the whole application/interview rigmarole just to get the SAME FUCKING JOB I'M DOING NOW, not even something better.
Anyways, now that thats all out of the way I can address Gareths comment. I just assumed everyone I knew had heard, or at least been told about fast lady, paul and Gaz's band. Apparently not so. Check out

www.brainwashed.com/vvm/releases_vvm_/vvmtcd19.htm

for mp3 previews of album tracks, and

www.swainlake.co.uk/fast%20lady/lady.htm

for more Mp3s, as well as MPEGs, remixes, pictures and everything else fast lady.
I've been listening to The Streets lately. He's very good isn't he? So different yet accessible, very funny and very sad all at the same time. Dead fucking hard on Vib Ribbon, though.
LAters all

2004-05-25T15:55:00.000Z

Just a quickie today. I think there may be a problem with the blogger server at the mo. Saw steveo last Sunday and went to see 'Eternal sunshine...' which was really good. Hands down better than Adaptation and will probably age better than Being John Malkovich. Carrey and Winslet make a believeable and sympathetic couple, and every time it looks like its gonna throw up a cliche- it goes in a totally different direction. Sadly the same cannot be said for Van Helsing, which I saw this Sunday. Pap. Utter shite. I knew it would be not good, but nothing could have prepared me for the sheer vapidity of it all. I defy you to like it. Huge Assman is only good when he's being Wolverine.
More later.

2004-05-20T09:42:00.000Z

Gah! stupid new blogger... thanks to a silly new shortcut when writing posts, I lost mondays post about the weekend in manchester. Needless to say it was a typically witty and wry comment on our activities will a strong narrative thrust and an eye to satire on the world at large- ho hum, I'll just have to paraphrase.
After an initial inconvenience involving an indian reserving us the wrong tickets, and gill engaging in a bout of telephone jousting with stupid british rail, we headed for manchester at around nine on friday last. It was like going out back home again- in sheffield you couldn't really go anywhere after 10 for a good night, but the lady weren't onstage to 12 so that was cool. The place was a bit like the underground bit in the casbah (for those lucky few who have been out with me in sheff) but smaller and with an infinitely more diverse and attractive population of goths and metallers that I'm used to. Even the barstaff had nicer tats. The gig was kick ass. The lady ruled the night, but I think the crowd was a shitload better than the dribbling necrophiliacs we're used to standing shoulder to shoulder with in steel city, which helped a lot. Anyways, they were playing with a band who's name eludes me for the moment, but these guys were up in front with us while the lady did there thing, and were so impressed with what they saw that the boys were cordially invited to a stage invasion for the last song. This other band were really good- but theres no band that can't be improved with the addition of three fully grown men in purple body socks and no faces jumping up and down on their equipment. I was talking to a pissed skinhead just as the other band were coming on, he appreciated the lady's lyrical content, but objected to the costumes somewhat (s'bit fookin' poncey...). I told him it was because they're all ugly bastards underneath. He said 'ah'.
Anyhoo. Gill met up with big gay paul (as opposed to little straight paul, who we were stopping with) in the club, she used to be his fag-hag when he lived in sheffield, and he introduced her to her replacement. BG paul is a club promoter, and we went back to his flat for a little after show. His flat was the fucking shit... like new york penthouse shit, even if it was filled with boho muso homos at the time. We hung out there for a bit and then sallied forth to didsbury where we drank, smoked and played mario kart double dash until well after daybreak. The next day me and gill were totally fried, and if paul and ruth were too, then they carried it off better than we could (Ruth isn't anything like as debauched as us lot), but we headed into manc anyway and looked round some shops. Even the shops there are better! You could fit sheffields forbidden planet into Manc's FP's counter area! Maybe it's just the shock of the new, but this, I thought, is what cities should be like.
Getting back to Shef was no fun either. Warm day + train + hangover= sad monster. It was to get sadder, though because this was no ordinary saturday- no- this was Eurovision saturday, and just because we couldn't shift our carcasses the extra two miles to Marybeth and Jonno's to watch it didn't mean we couldn't 'enjoy' all the mirth, ineptness and casual prejudice in the comfort of our own flat. Actually, the only reason I'm not going to say I actually quite enjoyed it is that Gill will then have something in writing, and I'll never have the choice to not watch again.
Anyway. That was uz weekend, and if you wonder why I don't go in to such detail after a night on the piss in sheff, well... so do I, actually.
It almost goes without saying that this week has been a fairly dull one aside from all that. This videogame club thing is on the cusp of going tits up if I don't get the stuff for it soon. Lesley's back at work (phased return) which will be good, because frankly, the place is a bit of a dump without her there.
Toodles

2004-05-13T12:12:00.000Z

So, i've been tinkering with my blog, and hopefully now anyone reading this should be able to post comments on it. Please do. Rest assured if I do not like what I read it will not remain there for long.
Went to see Bill Bailey last week, can't remeber if I mentioned this already, but we had a good night. I ended up sitting beside my ex-boss and her beau, because I had bought my tickets of another workmate who couldn't go. The situation was a bit tricky cos she had interviewed Gill for a job and hadn't given it to her, and this was the first time they had seen each other since. Anyways, bailey was hilarious, though he did use a lot of his old material. All the songs were new, though including 'I'm not gonna look at titties for a year' and 'txted u on monday'. Make him king.
Good news! Marybeth and Jonathan may well be moving in to a nice house on the same street as us. It ain't finalised yet, but it's looking good, and if they do, it means we'll only have to get one taxi home from the pub in future. We're lookin to get a few more locals in, so we can campaign to change the name of the street to 'little augher' or something like that.
Take a look at P45 rateit (the p45 is an irish pop culture website) if you're bored. They've done something similar to the 100 great britons, except its irish, and you can nominate anything, not just people, and post comments on what you find there. And theres more than 100. Funny shit.
Trying to finish Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of liberty, so I can throw myself into the new games I've got, but it ain't easy. Its a cool game, very well produced and eminently playable, but it can be frustrating, and sitting still for minutes at a time is not what I like to do with my playstation.
Anyway, have to go now and pick up some train tickets, we're going to manchester tomorrow to see the lady play. Gaz had got engaged- mystery of mysteries- to the lovely Bridget. This'll be the first time we'll have seen him since we found out.
Laterz

2004-05-10T17:54:00.000Z

...continued.
Went to see 'Capturing the friedmans' the other day which is a film about a pederast who may not be a pederast, his victims who may or may not be victims, and his sons, who had a videocamera on hand. I'd like to think that if ever a terrible situation was destroying my family from the inside out, I'd have a camera on hand to catch it all. Those jews think of everything. Anyways, this guy admitted to purchasing kiddieporn (since it arrived at his door in an envolope with his name on the front) but steadfastly denies buggering any of the children who came to his computor classes after school in his basement. The situation sounds dodgy, yet the way the evidence was collected, and the behaviour of those involved made it a really difficult one to call. It threw up an awful lot of questions, not only about the mind of sick pedos, but about the nature of hysteria and the way the justice system works.
Videogames now, and I got a couple of doozies offa e-bay the other day.
First up, Gitaroo-man, which is a 'beamani" game (japanese rhythey-action based shit) its extremely colourful and entertaining, yet with an absolute bitch of difficulty curve. The version I got came with the soundtrack on CD, so when I've tired of listening to the tracks for the 1000th time playing the game, I can play in to myself while I do something else. Genius, no?
Next up, Vib Ribbon. A name that should mean something to Playstationers the world over. From Japan again, this time you play a rabbit running along a chalkline on a black screen. The line loops and bumps and vibrates and changes in time to the music, and it is your job to ensure that vibri the rabbit negotiates all the obstacles successfully. The real gimmick here is when you have finished the game, you can use it with any of your own music CDs to create new levels. This game is genius, and I was thrilled to finally track it down (its ultra rare, and I've been hunting it for donkeys now) it allows you to totally re-appraise your music collection in terms of how they translate into the gameplay. eg- hip hop is surprisingly easy, since the music normally only has 1 'layer', but putting on a Mozart string symphony is a whole different story yet. I tried playing 'Yoshimi battles pink robots' by the flaming lips on it, but that, frankly was impossible.
Finally, I got 'freedom fighters' which could have been good if just alittle bit more thought had gone into the control mechanism. You play an average joe in manhatten the day those damn reds invade america (alternative history, you see, ruskis won WW2, and subsequently the cold war) and you have to recruit a team of rednecks to go and kick some commie butt. So I'm told. In truth, the simple task of gunning one of these bastards down is rendered all but impossible by the absurd camera and hilarious first person view, I've played it on and off for about a week now, and am still not far enough into it to recruit any monkey to do my bidding. I'll probably trade this piece of EA shit in the first oppertunity I get.
Toodles

2004-05-04T13:41:00.000Z

So, in lieu of any reportage on the seemingly random series of events that make up my life, I'll update you all on my recent cultural intake for a change.
Movie-wise, I went to see Kill Bill Vol 2 on sunday- Predictably enough the dragon was quick to layer it in abuse as we left the cinema, and, I must admit, I was happy enough to agree with her. Its not bad, but suffice to say anyone going in expecting the frolicks of Vol 1 to continue will leave disappointed. Bring back the Crazy 88s.
Friday night, Marybeth and Jonno came round and we watched One night at Roxbury, which, as any of you who know who Will ferrell is will know, was very very funny. Not so keen on his sidekick (Chris Katton, I think), but well worth checking out if only for the dance scenes. We also watched Psychomania, which is a really really strange, cheap 70's horror/biker movie. Any attempt on my part to describe or expain this film will be a waste of my time- if you like weird shit (I'm talking to you, Gareth) try and track it down (good luck, though), and needless to say a plentiful supply of mind-altering substances won't harm your enjoyment of it.
Next up, Spiderman-the animated series. Didn't know about this until recently, but apparantly its a new cartoon produced by sony, set in the spidey universe of their (pretty bad) movie. Don't let this put you off though, or the initially overwhelmingly flashy cg animation. The more I watched of this the more I was convinced that it works better as a cartoon than it ever will as a live action film. Plus, the humour and characters are much closer to the comics than the film too. It's on Nickolodeon, so the only reason I got to watch it was thanks to an admin fuckup at work here where we recieved a shitload of copies to hire out when it specifically says on the back that its for retail only. Its an ill wind and all that.
I'm reading the latest few editions of Ultimate X-men and The Ultimates (Capt. america, Ironman, Wasp, Hulk etc...) X-men is always getting better, Ultimates is much better than I thought it was gonna be, the crossovers are a bit duff, but none of it touches Ultimate Spiderman (mind you, I would say that).
I am also re-evaluating my idea of adapting Flashman for the screen. Those of you who don't know, the Flashman books are a series of fictional memoirs by the villain in a far inferior childrens book called 'Tom Browns Schooldays'. They cover every serious war/political intrigue between about 1850 to 1870 or 80, and they all kick ass. Flashman is a proto-bastard and the benchmark by which all future bastards will be measured, and the stories all all action swashbucklers. Anyway, I thought about adating them a while back, absently, but since then I've heard there is a big budget reworking of Tom Browns Schooldays in the works, so now might be a good time to look into it. I'll keep you all posted.
Anyway, breaktime now,
laters

2004-04-29T14:20:00.000Z

Hi all.
Sorry for the dry spell, its been a funny old week.
Had the first of our Videogames club meetings on Monday, which went ok, even though if things carry on the way they have been going, it’ll probably be our last too. The frikkin AV dept have decided not to stump up the money for the TVs we need, even though I was assured they would, and that punk who was supposed to be sorting out all the hardware we need is avoiding me. Dick. So I phoned them today, and tore one of his co-workers a new one, and he’s gonna get right on that now, but sadly they same technique is unlikely to work for those little AV bitches. I’ll probably end up having to kidnap their pets and torture them before they give in.
In other news, I went to see that there film, whats it called now, Shaun of the Dead, and tremendously good it was too. I really identify with Simon Pegg; both his character in Spaced, and as a struggling writer. It gives me faith to see that he can make a go of it even though, like me he is by and large a lazy, Playstation-addicted gobshite. Check out the film, any of you that haven’t already done so.
Those satan-worshipping whoremongers at UGC wouldn’t give me a megapass either, because I didn’t have my account no. on me, even though I had everything else. I’ll probably get one this weekend though, I’m going to see Kill Bill v2.

I realise I never filled any of you lovely people out there in cyberspace in on what became of my cyst. Basically, after 2-3 weeks of varying degrees of pain, and the bastard thing swelling up to four or five times its original size, the scab eventually gave way and fell from off my fizzog… leaving the original cyst more or less intact. I can’t say for sure whether the little blood vessel that was causing all the trouble in the first place is still there but the lump on my nose looks exactly the same as it always has. Thanks for nothing you showers of fartsuckers, may all your babies have two heads and all your turds be made of barbed wire.
Later dudes.