Joe's Garage

"Sure, you can prove anything with facts!" exclaimed the evidently sage-like taxi driver, who confidently predicted rivers of blood flowing and rains of fire if the Irish people returned a yes vote to the Lisbon treaty.  It was about this point I figured I had two options; I could politely engage him in a discourse of what the word 'fact' actually means, and the basic principles of reasoning from facts to come to valid conclusions by evaluating your sources or I could have disengaged and feigned a form of non-committal apathy; It was 3am; I chose the latter. Well to be honest, I tried both tacts in an attempt to illustrate the fallacy in the driver's thinking. When it became clear to me that the gentleman in question had no concept of critical thinking I realized that I was wasting my time. I sat back and hoped the average Irish voter had a better concept of rational analysis. 

They didn't.

Let's give a little background on this; practically every Irish political party took the rare step of uniting (with the sole exception of Sinn Fein) and supported the treaty, which had been negotiated over many years by all the EU memberstates. It would have brought in the new charter of EU rights, the most complete and impressive charter of this kind in existence. Polls taken now indicate that if the treaty was run again tomorrow that it would be returned with an over-whelming majority. So how in the hell did the no side win first time around?

However multi-faceted the answer may be, a huge part of it is that a lot of people have no concept of how to think critically. Critical thinking is defined by Parker & Moore as the "careful, deliberate determination of whether one should accept, reject, or suspend judgment about a claim and the degree of confidence with which one accepts or rejects it." It is arguably the most important thing a person can learn; for example, 97% of educational institutes surveyed in the US the ability to think critically as the primary goal of education. Unfortunately, almost all survyed believed that they were unsuccessful in conveying this to their students.

You may wonder why I (and obviously, the institutes surveyed) assign such extraordinary importance to something that may seem baroque and academic; the truth is that this is simply not the case. Critical thinking comes into every decision we make, every arguement we assess, ever particle of information we obtain. 'Good' critical thinking is in essence examining a claim made (whether in politics, business, science, medicine, religious, personal ect...) and then rather than just assuming it to be of pure veracity, subjecting it to a few little tests before one accepts or rejects it; tests like reliability of the data, bias of reporting, fallacious arguements and so on. Decisions from 'is this car dealer lying to me?' to 'can this magnetic bracelet cure cancer?' and all points inbetween.

So here's an idea; why don't we start teaching critical thinking in primary and secondary school? Just the basic principles; how to spot fallacious arguements, weak reasoning, red herrings, outright lies, misunderstandings, logical fallacies and things of that ilk? Rather than just learning facts by rote, students would be encouraged to come up with case studies and investigations. I can actually see kids liking that course, as it is quite liberating to think for yourself and to be shown some of the pitfalls and mindtraps. Then in second level, just make it part of the science courses. In just a generation or two, you'd have people coming out who would be informed, street wise and would make way better decisions on every thing from the amount of interest they pay on their loans to who they vote into power to how they raise their families. Better decisions over all benefit everyone; so why not implement this early and organically?

WARNING: THIS POST IS VERY, VERY NERDY.

The standard rule of 'youngest age of the person one can sleep with / date' is often thrown out as roughly half your age plus seven as the lower limit. So, for example, the young creepy limit for a 20 year old would be 17, where as for a 40 year old, the younger age limit is 27. Then I figured that there must be a creepy 'upper' limit; In the case of the 17 year old, the upper age limit is 20 so that neither of them breaks the creepy rule, and for a 27 year old it's 40. So I messed around and calculated the inverted function for the upper creepy level. It's 2*(Your age - 7). So I made a little graph in MATLAB...




So what's happening here? Well it's pretty simple. Your age is the number is the number on the X-axis, or the horizontal one. The Blue line is the lower limit for creepiness, and the green line is the upper one; So if you go to 30, you'll see your lower limit is 22 on the blue line and 46 on the green. Notice that the graph starts at 14; a 14 year old can only see a 14 year old and the relation entirely breaks down below this; doing the same analysis for a hypothetical ten year old results in a lower limit of 12 and an upper limit of 6.. which, is totally impossible unless you make some qualifier than under 14s can time travel, but this just makes things messy and becomes basically a pedophile's version of Timecop.

Now, what about the creepiness factor? Well, let's give the younger person an age of 'A' and the older person an age 'B'  (at the time of getting together! Remember, these factors change over time...) A's Age and B's MIN age is 1/2B 7. So the creepiness factor, CF, is the difference between them, or
If CF is zero or negative, there's no creepiness whatsoever. If CF is positive, there is a creepy factor, and higher the number, the creepier the situation. For example, Demi Moore married Kelso when she was 42 and he was 27., giving a creepy factor of 1. Oddly enough, now she's 46 and he's 32, the CF factor is -2. Anna Nicole Smith married an 89 year old when she was 26, giving it a creepy factor of 25.5, which means it's very creepy. But these factors are kind of arbitrary, and change with the times: By our modern standards, the consummation of the marriage between Muhammad and Aisha (52 and 9, respectively) gives us a CF of 24, which is oddly less than Smith. In ancient times, people married and died younger,  so the creepiness rule of half your age plus seven really only holds for modern western times though. Besides, anthropology suggests that it is not uncommon for behaviour under a formerly acceptable system to be regarded as sinful or deviant at later stages.

Back to the graph; does this mean that as you get older, there's more options? Looking at the graph, that should be the case. But, sadly,not really; For the hell of it, I had a look at some Irish census data about percentage single people (ie: not married) by age group:

Age Range	Percentage Signle
15 - 19	99.62 %
20 - 24	96.2 %
25 - 29	80.3 %
30 - 34	49.62 %
35 - 39	29.67 %
40 - 44	20.11 %
45 - 49	15.74 %

Not all bad news so. Anyway, after doing all this musing, I found out that XKCD beat me to it!


So a mixed bag really. Should one be worrying if they find themselves in the upper age bracket and single? Not at all. When all are one and one is all,  I think people should make decisions about with whom they wish to spend the rest of their life without resorting to graphs.. even if they are VERY pretty graphs...

Um Um. Sacrilicious.

One of the perks of being a DCU student is the close proximity in which we find ourselves to that great bastion of theatre and the arts that is the Helix. Indeed, many fine actors, musicians and dancers have played that theatre, from Nigel Kennedy to the Russian Ballet to Derek Acorah... hang on, Derek Acorah? Not the soft-voiced white haired 'psychic investigator' of 'Most Haunted' fame? The one and the same. The same Derek Acorah who was dismissed from the show as a fraud? The one and only. And for only €30 of your hard earned cash, you too can join Mr Acorah in the Mahony Hall this April for a night of his particular talents. 

Sound stupid? Indeed, it might be. But that won't stop it being a sold out event. Nor indeed is Acorah the first psychic to grace the stage here, and odds are he won't be the last. Acorah is just one of dozens of spiritualists who make a living out of duping the gullible, bereaved, heartbroken and vulnerable with tours, books, phone lines, websites, tarot-card services and magazine pages. That previous statement may seem a little unfair – many people read their horoscope and see it as a little bit of harmless fun, not as something that in anyway influences them in reality. Hell, there's fun in reading horoscopes solely for their genericness and lack of predictive power, and most of us can see it for that without getting too perturbed or emotionally invested. But consider the case in times when people are at their lowest, and are faced with uncertainty and difficult choices. Or times when an unexpected loss or death leaves a muddled rake of pain and unanswered questions. In times like these, even formally rational individuals can easily gravitate towards anything which promises answers, even against their better judgement. And there are numerous charlatans waiting to cash in. 

Take Sylvia Browne for example, the most prolific TV psychic in the US. Weekly appearances on the Montel Williams show made her a house-hold name, despite the fact that many of her 'hits' have been widely refuted or just plain wrong, and a critical study done of her predictions showed no more accuracy than would be expected from random guesswork; still, doesn't seem to have affected her popularity though, as sales of her books and 'personal services' atest. This may seem like a bit of silly but ultimately harmless fun from our detached perspective, but consider the plight of Gwendoyln Krewson, whose daughter Holly disappeared in 1995; Browne confidently predicted that Holly was alive and working as a stripper in Hollywood. Immediately, the hopes of the Krewson family were renewed and they started an intense search which yielded absolutely nothing. Finally, in 2006, Holly's remains were identified by Dental records from an unknown body discovered over ten years prior. Or imagine the horror that the grief-stricken parents of Ryan Katcher felt when Browne told them he had been murdered violently and dumped in an Iron mine. Katcher's body was eventually discovered in a pond much later, where he had died quite peacefully from natural causes. More horrifying still was Browne's dubious input on the case of Lynda McClelland, where she told McClelland's son-in-law David Repasky that she was alive and had been kidnapped. Clelland's murdered corpse was eventually recovered two miles away. As for the killer? None other than Mr. Repasky. When six year old Opal Jo Jennings went missing, Browne coolly stated she was alive, but had been kidnapped and forced into prostitution in a town called Kukouro in Japan. If only; Opal's remains were discovered and it was shown she had died of blunt trauma to the head no more than a few hours after her abduction. Oh, and don't bother looking up the scenic village of Kukouro next time you're in the land of the rising sun – no such place exists. There also exists some shocking video footage of Browne telling a woman in pain after surgery that she has some metal implement left inside her, and that she needs to get a full body MRI. Sound reasonable? Well, not so much when you consider that an MRI machine is essentially a huge magnet and would rip any metal fatally out of her body. On the plus side, at least that would effectively remove it. Not so good for the client all the same, and certainly it would reduce the chance of repeat business. 

The same criticism and fraud allegations levelled at Acorah and Browne are true of any of the numerous mediums charging substantial fees today. Indeed, at the low end of the scale a phone call to Irish Psychics live with cost you a mere €2.40 - €2.90 a minute. This made a profit of 2.6 Million Euro after tax profit with Realm entertainment, the parent company. Some customers faced massive bills from the service, and when director Tom Higgins was taken up on this issue by Pat Kenny, he casually dismissed it with “People who are regular users of the service feel that spending €2,500 a year is what they want to do and if they know what they are doing, then who are we to stop them!” Perhaps future psychic consultations should deal with financial management and critical thinking. Irish Tarots charge €50 - €80 an hour and sessions with famous psychics can cost multiples more. Indeed, the spiritualist market is big business. Indeed, in April 2008 over 5000 spiritualist workers protested and marched over the UK government's plan to change the laws governing the medium market and force spiritualists to use disclaimers informing their customers that service is for entertainment purposes only. Their surprise was difficult to fathom for the more cynical minded of us, given that they surely should by all rights have saw it coming. In any case, the law was quietly changed and if you were to perchance look up Mr. Acorah's show on the Helix website, you could find just such a disclaimer buried in the small text.  

Having read this far, you may wonder how seemingly sane people fall victim to these pretty obvious frauds. There are of course many techniques used to trick the unwary, the most being 'cold reading'. Mentalists and illusionists such as Derren Brown (no relation to Sylvia), James Randi and Ian Rowland use this technique in their stage shows to demonstrate how much information we unconsciously convey. Unsurprisingly, all three are stern critics of alleged psychics. Simply put, cold reading is a method of analysing the subject's responses, body language and other tells to maintain the illusion that the reader knows much more than he or she does about the subject. Typically a cold reading session begins with the reader eliciting the cooperation of the audience by making a statement to the effect that they get 'unclear visions' which  'may mean something to you' and that 'if you [the audience] help, we can discover new things.' With cooperation established, the medium proceeds to 'shotgunning'; this aptly named technique involves firing off a slew of vague statements containing very general information such as 'I see a man with the letter J, John perhaps?' until someone in the audience latches onto one shot. The medium may also employ 'Barnum / Forer' statements which as statements that seem very personal but in actual fact apply to most people, for example “You tend to come across as introverted to those you don't know well, but close friends see a very different side of you on occasion”. The psychic may also use a rainbow ruse, which is a statement which is crafted towards one personality trait while simultaneously addressing the opposite like “You are kind and compassionate, but if you feel betrayed your anger and resentment can be overpowering”. By utilizing statements such as these, the medium can steer the reactions of the subject and read them, projecting the impression they had access to some ethereal knowledge. The effect can be so convincing that it really can seem that way. Mentalist and magician Derren Brown uses this technique, and videos of this are available on Youtube and are astounding to watch. Rowland has a book on the subject. Importantly, none of these men claim to be psychic; rather, they profess that psychics do not exist and are entirely fraudulent. The opposite technique is 'Hot reading', where the medium covertly gathers information on a subject for a truly impressive demonstration. Peter Popoff and John Edwards both got caught using this little gem. 

Of course, a medium utilizing cold reading will occasionally make wholly inaccurate statements or misses. Sometimes, human psychology gives them a boost; Confirmation bias is one such fallacy – This occurs when an individual interprets information in such a way as it confirms the individual's beliefs, opinions or prejudices. Conversely, it occurs when an individual disregards information that contradicts their beliefs. For example, if I believe that a person is genuinely psychic, I tend to give undue emphasis to their 'hits' and disregard their 'misses' because it validates my prior belief. The act of selectively cherry-picking the data or coincidences that confirm one's prejudices is called subjective validation. These are logical fallacies, but appear uncomfortably often in fields as diverse as politics, business, religion, superstition and even day to day life, where they lie solidly at the root of many bad decisions. But perhaps the saddest cognitive disorder is 'true believer syndrome', where individuals continue to believe in a paranormal event even after the fact it was staged comes to light. For example, in 1988 James Randi, the infamous magician and skeptic, staged a channelling of a 2000 year old spirit called 'Carlos' on Australian news. Afterwards, many people refused to believe Carlos was fake despite the admission the character was entirely fictional. Indeed, Mr Acorah left 'Most Haunted' after he became possessed by the spirit of 'Kreed Kafer'; a man who never existed and whose very name was an anagram of 'Derek Faker' fed to him by a (perhaps disillusioned) colleague, yet still sells out no matter where he goes. Another weakness that of the human psyche is our ability to fall for flattery, and this is a variation of the Forer effect where we are way more likely to accept a statement as true if it is flattering, and for this reason psychic readings tend to be disproportionally positive and when they have negative connections, they are smothered in fawning statements.  

In summation, there are times in everyone's life when they feel a need for guidance, answers or knowledge. And of course, there are moments of extreme vulnerability associated with such moments. But as rational, informed and critical thinking students, we should think to ourselves about the choice psychic beliefs lead to; consider my own version of Pascal's wager; if someone truly is psychic and has the ability to interpret future events, this implies (if not outright states) that the universe is predetermined. If this is the case, then going to a psychic is quite useless as all that will happen is pre written in any case. Equally, not going to a psychic is just as effective as going in a state of permanent predetermination. If the future is not predetermined, it means psychic information has at maximum about as much credibility as any random guess work, and going is useless anyway as the psychics ability to influence you will be totally negated by all the other random occurrences in non predetermination. Trust me, if there was something to it you'd see a lot more psychics at racetracks and a hell of a lot less operating premium rate numbers.

My first ever LJ blog was a piece of writing specifically designed to vent my frustration at the state of music journalism, and in hindsight I admit that I may have singled out Coldplay for a considerable whack of abuse which they probably didn't deserve; in their defense, they do have some catchy songs and decent melodies, and even if Chris(t) Martin would use a serious ego-deflation (and perhaps nailing him to a cross so he could die for our sins might be the quickest way to achieve that...), that doesn't impact on the virtues of their sound, however limited those virtues may be. Despite that, some stubborn and childish pride always holds me back from complimenting them. So I was forced to eat my words a few weeks ago when Joanne made me admit that their grammy-nominated single 'Viva La Vida' was a catchy piece of pop.

But if there is a God, I suspect he's got one messed up sense of humour - Joe Satriani, one of the finest guitarists of all time, is SUEING Coldplay for ripping off his insturmental hit "If I could fly" with their single! Article here and the mash up video is priceless; My bets are Coldplay will do a Madonna and settle out of court lest they face another "My Sweet lord / Ice Ice baby" style fall from grace!
So what else? It's December 8th; this date usually sucks for me. In 1980, Lennon was shot this day... okay, so that doesn't affect me DIRECTLY but still. They shot the wrong Beatle if you ask me; A bullet for Paul would have been justice for his entire solo career. In 2002, I broke up with a girl I'd been seening for about 15 months or so on this date, on 2003 I got injured in a stage stunt, in 2004 I slipped on ice and did some damage to myself, in 2005.. well actually, 2005 was pretty cool.. in 2006, I had the misfortune to walk in on my girlfriend cheating on me and in 2007 I fell off a ladder setting up for Cinderella! In addition to which, it's like the offical culchie invasion to Dublin.

Today has gone okay so far, and there's only 3 minutes left... wish me luck...

...it's that men with moustaches just can't be trusted.

Ok, maybe Ned Flanders shouldn't be there. And maybe, just maybe, one could hypothetically argue that there were other important lessons in the 20th century too. But still, this is a pretty damn important one that they all no doubt pale in comparison with.

I guess this means Tom Selleck is pretty much evil incarnate...

I'm so damn cool I lower the temperature of the average stadium three degrees by just showing up..

You know what would make life MUCH more awesome? Not that it isn't already or anything, I'm just talking about hypothetically cranking the awesome up to 11; Life would be inexplicably amazing if every situation was punctuated with a guitar solo. Imagine that if you will - Every conceivable situation punctuated by a balls-to-the-wall guitar solo. From marriage proposals ("She said yeah?! Tubular man! *GUITAR SOLO!*) to "I can't believe all those kids died in that horrible unforeseeable nitroglycerin factory - beside - a preschool accident... *GUITAR SOLO!*" . Even unprovoked air guitar solos would be a brilliant idea. Kind of like living in a rocking musical composed entirely of thrusting and pinch harmonics.

In essence, I'm guess I'm proposing we all play more Air guitar, at all important events; Weddings, christenings, communions, ex-communications, and funerals - definitely funerals because it perks the atmosphere up a notch. When I die, play Air Guitar at my funeral. That would be a cool way to be remembered. And, if you're wondering, the coolest way to go is a fist fight on the roof of a moving train, ideally with the Indiana Jones theme playing in the background.. For some reason, I foresee the epitaph on my headstone reading "Seemed like a good idea at the time..."

End Transmission...

My weirdest pointless tangent of the week: 'Lets move to Thailand and Open a superhero themed lady-boy bar. We'll call it Ex-men!'

Oh of all the dumb luck; I managed to trap a silly little nerve below an impacted wisdom tooth, which pretty much means that I'm pretty much in agreement with Frank 'n' Furter from the Rocky Horror when he said "even smiling makes my face ache!". Indeed, shouldn't be too much of a problem when I get surgery on it in the next week or so, though there may be a brief intermission where I speak like Sylvester Stallone. Hell, if you're really lucky I mightn't speak at all! Anyway, I think the whole jaw pain may have contributed to how much I feel like a bus hit me today. I was out at a friend's 21st until late, and hopped into bed soon as I drove home, sometime around the half five mark. Woke up violently ill in a cold sweat with a fever about two hours later, and with the worst headache I've ever had; something akin to a horde of miniature Bruce Lees practicing syncronised one inch punches on every point in my brain. When I did eventually get to sleep again, I had the most vivid, upsetting and frankly awful fever dreams I've ever had. 

One of these was just plain upsetting; I was in a cinema, decorated with beautiful artwork and vintage instruments, seated by an ex-girlfriend, watching the little Mermaid in Spanish with Greek subtitles.. as you do, of course. We were sitting beside each other, but not together. Suddenly, she was holding my hand, kissing me.. and then when I asked if this was really what she wanted, she started crying, telling me that I'd ruined her life and I didn't ever deserve to be happy for all the pain I'd caused her and everyone else, and that she'd regretted ever knowing me; on that somewhat melodramatic bombshell, the other cinema goers turned around, revealing themselves to do friends and people whom I care greatly about, all expounding the same idea; that I was undeserving of their affections and all I'll ever do is let them down. Sure, in the cold light of day it sounds very stupid and childish, but I woke up absolutely heartbroken; the idea that I'd mean nothing or simply not be good enough to the very people for whom I'd do anything to see happy is pretty damn upsetting.

And yeah, I know it's stupid and I'm sorry for this blog which seems very self-pitying because I hate self pity, as it's pointless and neurotic. I guess I just want to rant a little and put into perspective how daft the whole thing is. And I suppose that I've done some things over the last few months that have been the right thing to do but not always the easy thing to do; whether it's standing by and letting someone you love make their own mistakes, or not doing / saying something you really want to do because it wouldn't be fair at the time on someone else or even just seeing someone you care about immensely being with someone who's just not good for them, it does take a toil a little. And yes, it'll pass. Still sucks though.

The whole irony of the situation is that sometimes, even when you do the right thing, you get hit by a cascade of niggling doubts, wondering whether you're good enough / smart enough / handsome enough / talented enough or whatever, and ultimately, the trick is silencing that nagging inner voice, because frankly it not helpful - if you give it any credence, you end up acting out of character, feeling nervous and wrestling with the inner dilemma of worrying you're not good enough for the people you care about . And the kicker is that sometimes worrying about whether you're good enough makes you too on edge and ergo NOT good enough. Catch 22. Gah.

Anyway, Rant over. I'm a little less feverish now but I'm still missing the Extreme gig that I was supposed to go to tonight. Kev has kindly text me, telling me how awesome Nuno is tonight. Grr. On the plus side, here's a video of Rick Miller doing Bohemian Rhapsody in 25 of the most annoying voices in Rock..

The combined forces of intense apathy, mild laziness and actually being stupidly busy for a months have stopped me updating this journal for my avid and dare I say rabid readership of about two people. I'm aware no one really reads blogs unless they themselves are bored, curious or mildly perverted / maschosadist, but hell, I'll keep writing 'em cause even when talking to myself my multiple personalities have a field day... for the record, the verbose yet occasionally composed individual portrayed herein is subtlety different to the half-baked ADD stricken moron that I am in real life, but I digress... Anyway, much has happened over the summer so I'm just going to summate the hi-lights.

The Greek Invasion Part I - Storming the birthplace of Democracy
Yiannis, my filthy buggering greek friend, has always been kind and groovy enough to extend an invitation to his beautiful homeland ever since we met in a very madcap way in 2004. I made a last minute decision to come over and spend time with him in May. What ensued was a series of crazy adventures around Athens, Thessaloniki and old Macedonia. Along the way we got drunk on a heavy metal pirate ship, explored ancient ruins Indiana Jones style, climbed Mount Olympus, broke into an state monument by accident, got a piggy back with Alexander the Great, spent a night in a magical lesbian bar and had some lovely evenings chasing some beautiful young Greek ladies. But hey, a pictures speaks a thousand words so WE NEED A MONTAGE!



Random BBQ night
Sometimes, you just gotta have a hap-hazard BBQ and weather forecast be damned. And so it was. A very groovy crowd all came together and much merriement was had. Due to Tony's kind string pulling, anyone who wanted to go the Home could get in free, so the brave and brash band of himself, Joey, Riona, Niamhy and myself motored our way to balbriggan and danced the night away. After the club evicted us, Joey, Riona and myself stayed up until the stupidly early hours having a classic deep meaningful conversation, or DMC for short. It was, to paraphrase my sibling, Epic.


Steve's 21st , Jason's 21st and The Birth of Grand Theft Audio
It's not everyday your little brother turns 21, and what better way to celebrate than to get the funk out with an 80s cover band? Specifically a 1987 cover band, as that's the year our saviour was born. Featuring Teegan's keyboard wizardry, Jason's percussive power, Kev's nimble bass and harmonies, my guitar and voice and armed with a couple of rehearsals, Grand Theft Audio came into being, partially due to the Vice City soundtrack. We played Cutting Crew, REM, Tiffany, Ozzy Osbourne, Eric Carmen, Whitesnake and Bon Jovi. In fact, we had so much fun we decided to make it a feature! We played again at Jay's 21st, adding some Queen and Starship (and, for good measure, the Feeling and Kaiser Chiefs!). Check out some videos on Jason's page here. You ain't heard the last of us yet, and in the words of the Bachmann Turner Overdrive, ya ain't seen nothing yet!

Oxegen 2008
Getting paid pretty well to go to Oxegen is a good thing, and it's even better when you have a team with you that consists of Tony, Kev, Riona, Greally and Bob! REM, Manic Street Preachers, Newton Faulkner and many other great acts.. then there was evil tents, OCD Boy, backstage bluffing, and much more - The photos were amazing, but sadly my camera murdered them savagely in a cruel twist of fate. To keep the memories alive, I stuck up some classic lines and things that happened on my bebo blog, which can be found here.

The Greek Invasion Part II - Return of the Greek
Wise men say that one good turn deserves another. I blame my constant disorientation on this quaint idiom. But after leaving Greece, I told Yiannis it was his turn to come visit. And come visit he did. So what did we do? Got merrily buzzed in the Jameson Distillery before hopping on the Viking Splash tour, got drenched at New Grange and Knowth, interferred with the mannequins and cannons at the Battle of the Boyne site, and got merrily Drunk in Dublin and Skerries.. WE NEED ANOTHER MONTAGE!


Random Adventure Day
So from Yiannis, we met Emma and all spontaneously decided to go Wind surfing in Malahide. Teegan kindly provided boards, wetsuits, sails and training. For once he was pleasantly surprised I got the hang of something quicker than him! We were all having fun so we decided to head into town and meet Bren for food, where we took phone sex to the next and literal level. Of course, Teegan insisted we don't spoil his phone's good name so we had to swirl censor his pornographic portable. Suddenly (and I don't quite recall how this happened, but drink was involved) we ended up at a pub in Lucan with a cool French dude and a gaggle of girls. There was a very hot bargirl who, after ascertaining that Emma and I were not an item, made the very ballsy move of leaving down her name and number on a piece of paper with the words 'call me'  and dropped it off with my pint. Somehow, I ended up texting her random David Bowie facts which just confused the poor thing. This may have been due to the fact I was entertaining people by playing some Bowie. Worse still, it seems I ran out of Bowie facts around 3 am and just started making them up. "Did you know that in 1979, David Bowie travelled through SPACE in a giant hat?" After that, we all got giddy and started wrestling with a stuffed tiger, and invented a new sport called competitive bed hopping. We got up the next morning, and as I looked groggily at my phone and wondered (A) who the hell was Karen and (B) why the hell had I ignored her request to 'go for a walk' and instead drag her into a dialogue about David Bowie? What a night. Karen, if you're reading this I'm sorry. It's not your fault that my sexual drive sometimes takes a backseat to my love of music trivia and doing stupid things. Did someone say MONTAGE?!



Work, smirk... London, Reading and Bath
So officially I went over to Reading for a conference. But in addition, I ended up meeting Thomas Mc and Laura "The" Whitmore for food, drink and eh... the Take that musical. And yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is THAT bad. But after a few double whiskeys it was the best show I'd ever seen. It's refreshing to know what even though she's a sucessful and beautiful MTV starlet, Laura still finds the time to pilfer glasses from restaurants. Viva le Student lifestyle! Bath was a similar story, only I took a little unplanned and expensive rail and air detour thanks to Ryan Air's nazi flight policies. Bath was Jane Austen country, and all very pretty and romanesque. My oldest friend from Saudi Arabia, Chloe, lives nearby in Bristol, so I figured I'd see if she fancied meeting up. Her family are pretty much an extention of mine, so they insisted I stay. Chloe and I were inseparable as kids, to the point we insisted on dressing the same - a little odd given we're of different genders, but it may go some way in explaining my penchant for tight t-shirts. When we lived out in Saudi, Chloe's family that this amazing table that we all used to camp under and tell ghost stories, proceeding to scare ourselves bloody well witless.  Anyway, to cut a long ramble short, they had brought the table back from the middle east and after a few drinks and a catch up, the two of us lay under it reminising. <Sentimental rubbish> Sounds boring, but was actually really sweet. </Sentimental rubbish>

Madrid Madness
Riona Flood; Drink Pusher! Ri's done well for herself with a job as the brand ambassador (if Ferreo Rocher ads have thought us anything, it's that "the ambassadors receptions are noted in society for their hosts exquisite taste!") for Jameson's Whiskey in Madrid. So naturally, suspecting her newfound position would lead to the procurement of free spirits, being a good friend, a visit was always on the cards. But when I discovered Queen and Paul Rodgers were playing Madrid and not Dublin, plans went into overdrive at short notice. Ri and her housemates Blanka and Clara was absolute stars for putting me up and showing me round. There was tapas, dancing, talking, drinking and all sorts of fun stuff. Ri even cooked a lovely meal for all of us. I wanted to help, so I stuck to the salad - given the fact that up to a few years ago I used to think that chicken could be consumed medium rare, I figured it'd be uncouth to give everyone food poisoning. Of course, a few bottles of wine and whiskey were consumed and after that, it was all off to a nightclub for hi-jinx. The next day was Queen day, and the weather was stunning. We headed down to Parque del Retiro and got ourselves a boat (where I had the option of tipping Ri out, but took the lesser evil of mere paddle splashing..), and a little Sangria. Then we taxi-ed to the concert venue; we didn't have tickets and the gig was sold out, but thanks to the magic of touts, we were soon inside, eating pizza and drinking beer. And as for the gig? It was amazing. They played '39 with a full band, and Las Parables de Amor, which they never have played before. I was such a fan boy, and Riona totally fancied Paul Rodgers, as a Riona is wont to do. After the gig, it was off to another night club, which had incredible break dancers! The next day was my last full day in Madrid, and when we woke in the afternoon, Ri took me out for brunch and we walked around, taking in all the sights. Took a cool cable car over Madrid, where we were disappointed to not see the usual exhibitisists but the sheer beauty of the park in the evening more than made up for it. To cap off a great weekend, we had dinner in a saucy little Mexican restaurant before retiring for a well earned sleep. The next morning we all bid each other fair well, and I arrived back in Dublin in time to see my mom play a stormer at the Dublin Marathon despite a damaged ankle! I feel a MONTAGE coming on!



Right, so they were the events of the summer really! So, you may well ask, what ELSE is new? Well, I've got back into writing music, some of which you can here... thought in fairness, some times it leads to accidental musical mishaps;

Teegan just discovered the cure for obesity: One climb of Everest burns 83 Million calories. Best thing is, he did that calculation in the shower - with a calculator.

Aislinn and Dave got married in Italy last week. Last night was the reception in the Harbormaster for us plebs too uncultured for the Italian job. She looked positively radiant. It's strange to think that one of my best friends is now a married lady and has decided to spend the rest of her life with one person: It's a huge thing. Love is a process, not just some abstract noun - we choose to love someone and learn to understand, encourage, support and fully trust and communicate with that someone. We have to make honest and occasionally tough decisions and that's not easy. A relationship that is equal, honest and brings out the best in both sides is something really special and Dave and Aislinn have put in the work to tune into the same wavelength. To paraphrase Antoine de Saint-Exupery, real love consists not of just gazing into each other's eyes, but rather looking together in the same direction.

I was a social butterfly and clicked with everyone for some reason; ended up giving some girls advice on what to see in Berlin, Vienna, Prague and Paris. I love travelling and will probably do it all my life. Starting to get Wanderlust again so best make some summer plans. Anyway, after the Harbormaster booted us out someone wrangled us free passes into Isaac Butts. All good so far. One problem: it was S M and goth fetish night - we looked a shade out of place amongst all the leather corsets, whips, chains and PVC but didn't stop us dancing arond merrily in our wedding garb. The visual counterpoint of Aislinn's virginial white wedding dress against the jet-black leather was inspired. Called down to a friend's apartment on the Quays and caught up with her before heading off around five in the morning. Early morning on the waterfront was surprisingly beautiful and serene so I just stood on Sean O'Casey bridge for a while and took it all in. Almost dropped my car keys in too.. that wasn't quite so serene.

Keith's birthday was Thursday night so we, Ciaran from Delorentos, Emily from Republic of loose, Sylvio from the Goods and a handful of others ended up in a quirky little Korean place on Capel St. Essentially, it was an all you can eat with Karaoke where you can bring in your own alcohol so quite a deadly night. Asian music videos are bloody disturbing mind..

So anyway, just finished two different shows - The first was Fame in the Helix and I think it's safe to say everyone is bloody exhausted but rather pleased. I'm extremely proud of everyone involved, especially Steve and John who respectively directed and produced. I've been in DCU Drama for five years (feeling real old) and this was easily the best put together production to grace any of our stages. It's weird to watch your little brother and your honorary little brother do such great things and I'm only sorry that I couldn't have been more use. I did want to be in the band for it this year again rather than do chorus, but in not being in the band for a change I got to learn some new stuff like how to dance a little. Riona, the choreographer, was absolutely fantastic and very encouraging not to mention patient. Teaching me dance is like teaching a kid with ADHD quantum mechanics  - theoretically possible, but insanely difficult. Odd thing is, I actually have started to like dancing now - worse still, since the show ended, I actively miss it! This I did not expect.  I'm keeping up the Tango thing and am enjoying just getting up and moving. Yet another blow to my ever-fading heterosexual credibility...

The other show was Forbidden, an original Elizabethan opus written and Directed by Robin Cafolla. The cast were great, and included Susan, Kevin and Riona as well as myself. There was sword fighting, incest, betrayal, madness and deception - pretty much your typical family get together really, except with less wine. I learnt three vitally important things during the run of this show. The first thing was not to insult or wind up your fellow cast members - even if they TOTALLY set themselves up for a barb. The second thing I learnt was that if you must break rule one (for example, if they TOTALLY set themselves up for a barb), you'd better be prepared to seek forgiveness and dole out chocolates. Of course, I only insult people I respect and am fond of over things that clearly don't apply to them, - taking that logic to the extreme, that pool will be constantly decreasing! Third thing I learnt is that King's cup is a fantastic drinking game (Damn you Susan!)  that induces Kev to act borderline retarded and affectionate, just the way we like him....

So that's about it. Academically starting to get a boot into the research. Reading paper after paper and finally starting to pace myself a little bit. My UV-1000 Phototherapy cabinet arrived and we stuck it in Dallan's lab. He's kind of afraid that I'm going to give him Skin cancer for the hell of it. He can rest assured that if I give him Skin cancer, it'll be due to my malignant ineptitude and not any malicious feelings on my behalf. Playing a lot of music this week; everything from flamenco to jazz to progressive to pop and been listening to a lot of weird stuff, where weird in this case means very varied. Right, this blog has gone on long enough. I'll leave you with a text I got last night from a friend as she had a night in:

"Watching eyes wide shut. Tom Cruise reminds me of you a little.. you both have that small, annoying thing going on"

Backhanded compliments. The finest type. At least I don't jump on Oprah's sofa.

POSTSCRIPT:

Chorophobia, or the fear of dancing, is worryingly prevalent among men. Even more confounding, I know an abundance of incredible musicians with rhythm and grace to beat the band*  who scarper and panic at the mere thought of getting up on the dance floor. For example, Teegan's adage on dancing is typical of many men whom I know;


Being honest, I'd say the main factor holding people back is crippling self-consciousness. We all have innate sense of time and rhythm, and let's face it, once we're alone listening to music that hits us, we all move. After a few drinks, everyone dances. Hell, put a guitar in my hand and I'll happily groove without thinking about it; And perhaps that's the trick - to NOT think about the people watching. The reason I bring this up now is that Fame rehearsals are going on in DCU, and it has really brought into focus the fact I need to learn. Dancing is something I've always admired, but figured I couldn't do - That I was the type of guy that could do more damage with a pirouette than a machete and oft got the twain mixed up. But that attitude is counterproductive as it made me avoid learning. So I resolved to learn and called Keith, who among his various talents, is a Tango instructor who has long argued I could actually dance after choreographing me in 'The cell block Tango' in 2005**. Anyway, Keith's been trying to get me to go to Tango for years and on Friday last I started with him. It was a little terrifying at first, but I eased into it and eventually learnt the step. I had to condition myself very quickly to disregard my Jiu-Jitsu training on each spin though; apparently it's considered un-tango-like to execute a hip throw mid-dance, even if your technique is flawless! I'm getting very slowly better - by next year I want to be competent enough to take a lady out dancing without being afraid of accidentally disemboweling her.

So Keith and I were out last night and decided to have a quiet drink in the Front Lounge, because people don't already question our sexuality enough and it was right across the road from Zaytoons*. As we were enjoying our pint and trying to casually scope the hot lesbian couple making out, a house debate started; the motion was that people should disclose their HIV status to their sexual partner/s. The opposition's leitmotif argument was that there is already such stigma & ignorance surrounding HIV/AIDS that having to disclose a positive HIV status would essentially amount to more discrimination; surely, they reasoned, it's fine to just use a condom and say nothing regardless?

The problem with that logic is that it fails utterly under scrutiny; if you want to combat the stigma and ignorance surrounding it, keeping silent despite its potential fatality is counter-intuitive. Furthermore, it's an extremely selfish position to take: That one's right to casual sex is greater than someone else's right to health? 'Protection' is kind of like car insurance - you're simply not always covered; condoms split, things tear. The open floor was interesting, and Keith and I contributed heavily, with the MC pointing out that we were unfortunately heterosexual! But in essence, our argument ran as follows; It is your moral and ethical responsibility to ensure both your own sexual wellbeing and that of your partner; it verges on deception to not disclose something that could ruin someone else's life or even kill them, and unless they are aware of the risks involved and can make an informed and reasoned decision, you are remiss. And that goes for every STI, not just HIV/AIDS.

No one disputes that sex can be incredible, nor would one dispute that being overtaken by unplanned lust never happens yet I still feel that what truly elevates sex from some base lumbering reproductive shuffle to something euphoric, powerful and transcendental are intimacy and trust. Without honestly, that cannot really happen and obfuscation about something that important is for all intents and purposes a form of dishonesty. Anyway, rant over.

*Zaytoons is the restaurant in town where we seem to end up an awful lot. It was the site we ended up after one of Keith's gigs where some random drunk decided that Keith looked like Val Kilmer and I looked like Tom Cruise and started screaming 'MAVERICK AND ICEMAN!" which the others found amusing and has kinda stuck.

When I see signs that say 'CAUTION CHILDREN' I find myself fighting the urge to insert the correct punctuation. Otherwise, I don't know what to caution the children about and I question whether it's my place to do so.

Weekend has been rather good thusfar. On Friday night Kev and I joined forces with Jane, Liz and Jennie and had a good night out in Fitzsimmons, complete with an entertaining in-house performer and random harmony singing with some unsuspecting busker. The girls are not only very beautiful company, they're gifted musicians and it is always a pleasure to have a session with them. Saturday night was spent in Cavan for Graham's birthday. Drove down that way with Tony, Teegan, Kev and Caro in tow. On a side note, the first time I drove to Graham's chateaux in Cavan was back in August with Teegan as my navigator; he had decided that in order to excel in this position, he'd knock back a bottle of cheap 'Arrogant Frog' wine and put on a heavy french accent. By the time we hit the N3, he had pronounced that 'directions are for losers' and jettisoned Graham's minutely detailed notes out the window, while asking me in all seriousness if there was any booze in my phone as he struggled to get the back cover off. Good times. Party was great, really laid back. Left at 5:30 AM and got run into a ditch by some idiot driving over the line at speed despite the fog, rain and darkness. Obviously he thought the dotted white line meant 'cut along here'. My right-back tyre was destroyed so that necessitated a change. Tony was bemused that I changed my attire before replacing the tyre, but the idea of oil stains on brand new cashmere sweaters was not appealing.

Anyway, I promised that I'd fire out a rant at some stage and if you're interested it's below on the topic of bullying.



Right, that's me done for the night!

From careful experimentation I can conclude that the concept of a shatterproof ruler is merely wishful thinking on behalf of the manufacturers

Sometimes in rehearsals, you get the impending sensation of doom when there's mere days to a show opening and it seems absolutely nothing is ready. So it's always a relief when the show opens and is a huge hit, and luckily the panto was like that.  I had an absolute blast playing the irreverent, fourth-wall breaching Buttons and something new was added every night. The cast and crew were absolutely fantastic, and we became a happy little dysfunctional family through the run. I think the director was pleasantly surprised that I didn't say anything too risque in my audience banter, as she was genuinely worried I'd throw something totally filthy out there and this was a fear I did nothing to dispel, because it kept everyone on their toes! There was one incident I was asked not to repeat though; In the penultimate scene, I picked up a mannequin's leg that was lying idle on the stage and proclaimed: "Oh for Goodness sake! Can't we just blame Heather Mills McCartney like everybody else?" It got a huge laugh, but the director vetoed it for fear of upsetting any Heather fans... like they exist.

Apart from the show, One Ear (Kevin's band) got a spot in the final of the Fingal battle of the bands. Unfortunately, their second guitarist / singer Greally was in Japan, so Kev asked if I'd fill in. Started learning the material three days before the show, which is not a good idea when the band are renowned for their tight vocal and guitar harmonies as it doesn't leave much room for mistakes! We did however, get everything down somewhat against the odds. The only problem is that the Battle of the bands began at 21:00, we didn't finish in Cinderella until 21:20. As luck would have it, we were the first band on so we had to breakneck down to make the 21:30 deadline the organisers had set; Kevin and I burst through the door still in costume and make-up clutching our guitar cases which elicted a friendly laugh from the bemused crowd. We didn't have time to soundcheck or work anything out, we began playing right away.. and everything that could have gone wrong did. The amp I was playing through randomly switched itself on and off at varying volumes, Kev's leads fell out and we couldn't hear a note each other was singing / playing due to the lack of monitors on the stage. However, we camped it up and had fun. The gig was full of energy and got a great response from the crowd, but from a technical stand point it was a disaster. So we were genuinely shocked when they announced that One Ear had won the battle of the bands! I reckon the costumes did it....

Right, I have plenty more little fragments to talk about but this post is getting long enough already so I'll confine them to another day. If anyone from Magic Carpet happens to read this, thanks for everything and may we sell out again on the next show! It's always a pleasure to work with really talented, no-nonsense people. Also One Ear-ites, congratulations on the win again!*

*I know, it's horrifyingly sweet, but my next blog will be a rant, I promise!

Went Christmas shopping with my (joint!) faveourite lesbian Elaine and her beautiful 7 week old daughter Seran*, who's really good at sleeping and raising one eyebrow in a Sean Connery kind of way. Anyway, we ended up reminiscing about the first show we did together, and these little gems were revisited;

Scene: Keith, Simon and I in a car between shows going to get some food

Keith: So...Elaine and Louis?
Me: Yeah man, they're actually Lesbians. Like, for real Lesbians. None of the lipstick crap.
Simon: Lesbians. Deadly. Think of the hot lesbian sex!
Keith: So.. yeah.. Lesbian sex.. how does that work? Do they like, use Props?
Me: Jesus Keith, they're fornicating, not putting on a Shakespearean drama.

'Is this a dildo I see before me?' indeed. Thou cannst climax 'til Act III! I haven't delivered mine soliloquy yet!' Of course, Keith, despite being 27 years of age appeared to be the only guy in the show who hadn't given tribadism and lesbianism in general a great deal of thought;

Scene: All the cast out for Drinks

Keith: So you know, this whole lesbian sex? Isn't that just like, glorified rubbing?
Elaine: Isn't straight sex just glorified poking?
Me: Touche.

Good times. Anyway, we got around to the 'calling out the wrong name during sex' conversation. Elaine said that she once did, but the other girl was under the covers and didn't hear it. I point out that would probably have been oral sex and thus doesn't qualify for inclusion. I once called out my own name during sex because I'm just that arrogant**.

Anyway in other news, I went a little blonde and within minutes Rob totally shooped some whoop, the bastard. Let me correct that actually; the very funny bastard:

Seeing as my MP3 player is slipping into the dark eternal night, I've resorted to reading books when I travel. This is great on buses, but not so practical when I'm cycling. Went Christmas shopping with Sinead during the week and was pulled into Hodges Figgis by its evil tractor beam so ended up getting loads, including another copy of 'American Psycho' by Bret Easton Ellis. Real psychopathy and sociopathy are truely frightening though; essentially, you're dealing with someone who is superfically charming, devious, manipulative and crucially, totally without conscience, remorse or empathy. A guy like Ted Bundy for example, the subject of this documentary.

I've been designing a theoretical model for radiation treatments in ultraviolet cabinets. So far, my prototypes look encouraging but there's still some curious bugs in the code; division by zero is always a serious mathematical faux pas. There's times when I worry about whether I have the brains to do a doctorate or not but I suppose it's like any fear; you can't let it paralyse you and the only way to find out if you can do something is to try it. I tend to think too much anyway. Have you ever thought about something so much you end up torn seven ways from Sunday and can't figure out which way is up? I can be that or totally impulsive and instinctual. There's no middle ground yet, so maybe I should look into that...

It turns out that Karen has had this wallpaper on her desktop since the night Teegan and I decided to drive down to Wicklow at 1 AM and climb the Sugarloaf mountain armed only with torches, dinner jackets, a roll out keyboard and a packet of balloons. Sure, we almost killed ourselves at one point climbing the treacherous ladder in the pitch black but sure the view from the top of a well-lit city was worth it. The only thing better than being on top of a mountain is being naked on a mountain - bonus points for keyboard nappies. Fair dues to Karen for the shoop though, and for keeping this as her desktop. A brave, brave woman...


Anyway, I ended up dressing like a pirate today which I like. Teegan has said that no matter what look I go for, I always tend towards pirate. Having one's shirt unbuttoned to the navel with the collar up, a five o'clock shadow, hair wild and wearing tight jeans helps mind. The guitar flung over one's shoulder like a six-stringed parrot is de rigueur. Respectability is over-rated.

I apologise or the stream of consciousness ramble and next time I promise I'll have more focus... but if you wanna feel festive, check out how pretty the fairy lights we microwaved a few years ago look.

I think the past tense of 'Blow-dry' should be 'Blew-drew'.

It was John's 21st last night and the party was incandescent. This is a suitable adjective given that it was ultraviolet themed so we all tanned and got malignant skin cancers at approximately the same rate. There was dancing, cigars, mingling and general merriment. Being the designated driver I stuck to the Katy French* special - coke straight up. Curiously after that crack (no pun intended), the bar staff adopted the moniker. The DJ even considered putting Cutting Crew's ' 'I just died in your arms tonight' on rotation but it was deemed a little too soon. Fair dues to John and Jason though, the place looked amazing and the crowd were great. There's nothing better than talking to someone you half know and realising they're actually way more interesting and engaging than you thought prior and for them to feel mutual. I guess we all give off an impression that can be totally at odds with who we really are and it can take a while to penetrate that veneer.

Nadia moved in with us this week and has thusfar proved to be the best house mate ever by braving the Herculean task of confronting our confused kitchen and bringing order to it. It's actually good to have the two guys - two girls balance again, even if we have to put up the sad fact that she's a chemist, and all physicists know that chemistry is synonymous with devil worship and eating your young. Hmm.. Dee -a philosophy graduate, Kev - a physics graduate doing a doctorate in semiconductor noise reduction, Nadia - a chemistry graduate doing a doctorate in some chemistry stuff I'm too elitist / stupid to engage with and me, an applied physics graduate doing a doctorate in UVR treatments for medicinal physics. We could call it 'The house of flying doctors'. I still want two white lab rats.

*Katy French was an Irish celebrity / model who died recently in what is currently believed to be a self administered cocaine overdose. The Irish media have been shockingly melodramatic and maudlin; the faux outpouring of grief is nothing short of fawning. While every death is tragic, it is a sad reflection on us that we're more interested in the death of someone of dubious celebrity status through their own irresponsibility / idiocy rather than the many tragic human stories that happen around us everyday. It seems we place a higher value on the life of this person rather than any of the other tragic deaths around the country and world and I cannot reconcile that with reality. It got a little Evita like in some publications. Oh what a circus, oh what a show....

I'm having a strained relationship with God these days... we keep vying for the same position

The SU launched a new poster campaign to encourage acceptance of different sexual orientations. They comprise of an image of a person beside some aspects of their personality and culminating with their sexual preference. I may have added my own to the rainbow of images, can you guess which? [Click on the image to compare!]

The car I almost slammed into after it abruptly stopped had a bumper sticker on it telling me to be breast aware... if I were any more breast aware, I'd be a bra.

Traveled down to Carlow last night with Teegan in the torrential rain for Roisin's 21st meal, listening to a subtle blend of Dream Theater, Aqua, Hendrix, Huey Lewis and assorted Movie themes. Gaviscon adverts have ruined 'Flashdance' for me. I managed to spill petrol on my arm and new Top man dinner jacket and spent the entire journey and most of the meal high and giddy. Some of it's a blur, though I remember everyone laughing and Graham shaking his head in the amused manner. Traveled back to Dublin late and stopped by via Jenni's 21st which was very laid back and fun. Conversation was great, and spanned sexual morality, worrying anecdotes, bad taste humour, and amusing stories regarding our respective siblings.  There was even a Delorean cake! Someone was thinking 4th dimensionally.

Also this week, there was a charity sleepover in the Hub on Wednesday; it was, in a word, awesome. I managed to knock back a medically worrying amount of Redbull & was bouncing off the walls for the entire night. Dancing was done, hotdogs eaten, multitudinous PCs relocated to lemonparty and we may have tied up a certain brickie and stole the RB football to give to the ball-less like some modern day mildy learning disabled band of Merry men. I awarded hotdogs to people whose dancing impressed me. I still cannot remember why exactly my hair had some lots of Bobbins in it, but I do know there was at least four girls involved with Shauna and Ciara somehow implicated. Curiously, when demonstrating in the labs the next day to 1st years, a few girls approached me and said they'd seen me there. I asked why they didn't say hello; apparently they did, and my response was to lift two of them at once and spin them onto the dance floor. The blanks in my memory are starting to worry me. I love my students; the girls in the class think I look like Tom Cruise & Nadia tells me they call me 'Hot physics guy'. Bless their innocence, they'll soon renounce that label. The guys call me 'answer dude', which is suprising given that I told them their graphs were more like retarded join the dots or snakes with Parkinsons.

There's a few other things but I'm going to go try and get the petrol out of my clothing and shake the memories of Teegan's dangerous driving reaction to Kenny Login's 'Danger zone!'. In the interim, enjoy Metal gear college and see exactly what happens when we discover a box in the Henry Grattan...

In this day's rant, our hero takes a stroll down memory lane and totally forgets what he was looking for....

 Just had lunch with Kevin and Teegan in omni. Our conversation was pretty typical of us; varied and manic, addressing such pressing issues like whether Louie Armstrong would beat Louie Walsh in a bar brawl, the importance of trust and emotional transparency in an intimate relationship, where exactly Kev stores the copious amount of food he ingests and why putting calgon tablets in any available water source from baptismal fonts to the core of nuclear reactors may be seriously detrimental to the environment while simultaneously solving the world's lime scale problems. After that, we drove back to DCU blaring "What a feeling" from Flashdance and Ray Parker Jr.'s "Ghostbusters theme'. The chorus of the latter coincided with us driving past a rake of Gardai outside Santry station, which certainly amused us if no one else.

I am extremely lucky to have incredible friends like these guys. Take Teegan, for example; when I got removed in 6th year for having it out with a group of religion teachers, Teegan duly informed them if they were going to suspend me, they'd better suspend him as well. He's a seriously principled guy, even if he is totally and charmingly off the wall. Teegan's the kind of guy who loves an adventure of any sort, and whose enthusiasm is so infectious and real that you end up doing silly things with him, be it hiking up a mountain in the pitch-black of 2am in a dinner jacket carrying only a roll-out keyboard and a packet of balloons, or sauntering into a tough all male country pub that sells "Stout and Hardware' wearing women's clothing plastered in eye shadow and mascara to characters who wouldn't be out of place in John B. Keane's universe (or going into such  a pub and just putting Electric 6's 'Gay Bar' on repeat) or accidentally irking a Dutch drug dealer by having him try and procure you made-up drugs. The guy is an absolute riot, and seemingly fearless. He's also trustworthy, loyal, talented and has been known to be incredibly profound on more than a few occasions. I suggest you check out his live journal, it's very open, funny, refreshingly honest and pleasantly scatterbrained; ambross.livejournal.com

Kev, on the other hand, is the closest possible human link to a cat yet discovered and if left to his own devices, he'd sleep 20 hours and day and eat for the remaining 4. Like a skinny Wookie, he's cautious, and always scans for danger. He's organised and together and when Kev is in doubt, he tends to be very careful rather than blundering in like Teegan or myself might. Despite this, he's a consummate and talented performer, in addition to being loyal as they come. He's also not immune from moments of hilarity and madness and always looks out for the people around him. Once you coax Kev out of his bubble, he can be the very soul of a party, or at least end up as bad as the rest of us.

I know that my paltry descriptions of these guys doesn't do any sort of justice to the men in question so I'll stop now, but suffice to say I am extremely lucky and entirely grateful to have such good companions. There's also people like Larry, Sinead, Rob, Ashie, John, Jason, Laura, Graham, Lee, Steve, Elaine,Keith,  Mason, Louise, Louis, Simon, Mongoose, Joe, Colm, Emma, Gillian and a handful of others I have neglected to mention whom I am honoured to call my close friends. Where exactly am I going with this spiel? I don't know precisely, so I should probably curtail myself for the sake of brevity and coherence. But I do think it's funny how things work out. In that list of names there, very few of us started off as friends. In fact, some of us started off disliking each other until we got to see the 'real' person. I find it odd to think that Kev and Teegan used to move in similar circles to me and yet we were initially unaffected and only dimly aware each other's existence. It's strange to think how different life would be had small events not accorded which lead to the strong bonds we share today (If gay marriage was legal, I'd marry Teegan and Kev. We wouldn't have sex, but we could be the most awesome hetero life buddies.). It also does enforce the point that sometimes getting to know someone can transform him or her from a mere acquaintance to a trusted confident. Makes me think anyway.

Enough of this Wonder years crap, I'm getting back to work!