The Revels Eviction – My Opinion August 15, 2008

 

The Revels eviction is undoubtedly the most important political event to have taken place this year, maybe even in history. And so we must treat it as such, placing what care and reverence we can into this life-altering decision. There will always be a place in our hearts for each of the Revels, whether we like them or not, but no matter which sweet gets voted out, they are all winners…except for the loser. 

 

Coffee 

One of my favourite of the Revels family. The fondant doesn’t taste strongly enough of coffee for non coffee-drinkers to complain about the taste, but there’s that unmistakable aroma which makes you feel like you might be a cowboy leaning against a fence with a cup of Maxwell House after a hard day herding cattle. Sorry where was I? Oh yeah…Coffee is nothing but deliciously mild fondanty treat whose inoffensive flavour can be enjoyed by all. 

 

 

Orange

The most delicious of all revels. Sweet and just a little bit tarty. All of the other revels are lacking in comparison to orange’s tangy goodness. Part of the excitement of Orange is not knowing if its going to be a coffee or an orange one. Toffee tries to look like them but he’s all bobbly. Coffee and orange are a double act, keep them together *If you leave me now, you take away the biggest part of me…ooooh noo baby please don’t go…*

 

Chocolate

Arguably the most useless of all Revels. Why if all the other Revels are coated in the stuff do we need one that is solid chocolate? It’s just a Minstrel with no skin. I’m not saying don’t like this flavour but to be honest if it means sacrificing coffee, the chocolate is the most expendable flavour. If you need the chocolate that badly why don’t you just gnaw it off all the other sweets put it into a big pile and eat it separately. Or buy a bag of sweets that isn’t marketed as having variously flavoured centres.   

 

Toffee

I like toffee. It takes me back to my childhood days of cruising sweetshops looking for anywhere that sells poppets. Poppets may I add now only seem to be available in bathroom vending machines. The less said about that the better. 

 

Raisin

Fruit has no place within a bag of sweets! However tasty it is, I voted for raisin, but I did so tactically knowing it was in second place behind coffee. I saw my chance to save coffee and dammit I took it. I stand by my choice and if I had the chance I’d do it all over again!

 

Malteaser

I have nothing against Malteasers in Revels. Except for a vitriolic hatred that gurgles at the back of my throat at the mere thought of them. They’re the only brand name Revel, and because of this, thinks it’s better than the other Revels. Malteasers are delicious, but If I want a bag of Malteasers I’ll go out and buy one. They never taste quite as good when they’re mixed in with the other sweets. I love Malteasers, really I do but they just taste bland when your taste buds are already over stimulated by the other flavours.  

Many is the time I bit into what I was expecting to be an orange or coffee sweetie only to hear that distinctive crunch. With only a split second to react I have no choice but to bite into what I thought was going to be a soft sugary centre. I don’t mind crunchy things, hey I love crunchy things, some of my best friends are crunchy things. But it’s the trauma of expecting one thing and getting another. Malteaser Revels are liars. Given half a chance they’d deceive you and everyone you care about. 

 

Final thought: I like Parma Violets so really should you be listening to me about this? 

 

My suggested Revel replacements: 

1. White chocolate centre covered in milk chocolate. 

2. Lemon

3. Nougat

4. BRING BACK PEANUT

Ver batum May 24, 2008

The fabulous translation of the instructions for my new bendy USB keyboard

 

The flexible keyboard cannot be used in the following conditions:

This product cannot be contacted with sharp objects           

It cannot be contacted with oil or organic impregnate like acetone and Toulon, aso

It cannot be pressed when it was rolled

Do not place heavy objects on in a long time

It cannot be pulled into the oven and putted on the fire to teast

It cannot pull out strength to twist or pull it 

And Now For Something Completely Different… May 1, 2008

 

As I said in my last post, my brain is awash in miscellaneous thoughts and my usual nerdish leanings. So for your reading pleasure/misery here’s a list of my random thoughts.

- Who would win in a fight between Born Survivor man machine Edward “Bear” Grylls and an actual Bear. Maybe not a very big bear, and not a baby bear either because that’s mean, but a short bear. 

  VS  

- Why are teddy bears, a favourite among young children, modeled on one of the most dangerous creatures in the wild? Also why are all my thoughts somehow related to bears?

- What happens between my brain and my hand that means I can come up with cool cartoon characters yet when I try and get them on to paper they all end up looking like Sloth from The Goonies. 

- If John Mc Giver had been on the A-Team crime as we know it would not exist. 

- Of all the truths I must acknowledge, that I will never be any good at web design is possibly the harshest of these. 

- The  Xbox 360 is possibly one of the greatest inventions of our time, but Grand Theft Auto IV may as well be made from the wood of the true cross for the effort it takes to get hold of one. 

 

GTA Fight April 21, 2008

We can all agree that the leading men in the Grand Theft Auto series are pretty tough. But when it comes down to it which one would win in a bare knuckle bar room style brawl that would put Willie O’Dea to shame?

The Contenders

In the blue corner…

The small but scrappy collective cast of GTA1 who for the sake of moving things along will be classed as one character. Also the only thing that really changes is their shirt colour. Their main strength is the ability to duck and dive being so small it would make any attacks by the competitors near useless. Their weakness is that from what we can tell they appear to he heads with feet attached. 

 

In the red corner…

Claude, the gruff, burly, man machine from Grand Theft Auto 3. His main strengths are that he was the first proper 3D character with actual facial features. His hobbies include include running over hookers, posing as a taxi driver and climbing up on a rooftop and throwing grenades at pedestrians.  

 

In the magenta corner

Tommy “Vice City” Vercetti, the Hawaiian shirt loving walking stereotype from the 1980s. His strengths are that he looks bad ass on a motorcycle and possesses the ability to go in and out of buildings. He was also the first character to actually think to change his clothes. His main weakness is that since he lives in a different decade to the rest of the fighters by the time we can get them all together he’ll be considerably older. Unless the fight is held in the 1980s then he can just kick their pre-teen asses. 

 

In the forest opal corner

Carl “CJ” Johnson of GTA San Andreas. His strengths include being able to work out to the point where he looks as if he can’t support the weight of his own neck. His main weakness is that his girlfriend will probably want him to go somewhere, usually the club, bar or shooting at passers-by…low maintenance girl really. He also has a penchant for BMXs ad running around the city smacking pedestrians with a rubber phallus (in case you haven’t found that weapon it’s in the cop station I’m not crazy).

 

The Main Event 

The contenders stood nervously in their respective corers of the ring waiting for the fight to start. After the bell CJ was first off the ropes but it soon became clear that he was going for his mobile to phone his girlfriend. This task was soon forgotten after Vercetti made whipping noises in his direction as he leaned against the ropes, rolled up the sleeves on his suit and stroked his muzzle. 

The GTA 1 characters were nowhere so be seen, it was only when CJ knocked Tommy Vercetti clean out they were smashed on the bottom of his shoe. 

Claude was late into the fight since it took him 20 minutes to run from his dressing room to the ring. He had to stop periodically to catch his breath and eat mysterious red and white sweets he found on the ground.    

The two faced off in the ring for a while each taking the occasional jab but the fight took a turn when CJ from all the physical activity instantaneously grew 6 inches onto his chest and fell down incapacitated.    

 

I’m getting old March 9, 2008

I’ve had my suspicions for quite some time but I can now confirm that at the tender age of
21 (going on 22 in my defence) I have well and truly entered mid life. I’ve started worrying about savings and investments and even started looking at my options with regards to the job market and apartments available to someone on my income. Although since I don’ have any form of job at the moment my options are a) cardboard box b) stick it out with the parents for another year or so.

I had this revelation where I have all my revelations, on the bus. I was coming home from Bray on the 145 last night and when we got past Cherrywood a group of girls no older than 18 got on with some fairly questionable looking bottles of “club” and a brain cell between them and all I could think was “If that was my daughter I’d be ashamed”. We all go through a crazy phase at some stage in our adolescent lives. We’ve all been in Supervalu on a Saturday night buying beer and pig hearts but at a certain point most sane people realise that this behaviour really can’t last forever, If you think it can you’re either stupidly wealthy, have emotional issues or are Charlie Sheen (who I guess is both really). But for most of us at a certain point we just have to grow up.

Maybe it’s just me. I have always liked a certain amount of stability on my life, with of course an adequate amount of spontaneity to keep things interesting. Although not too much and obviously not in aspects of life where this might upset balance or harmony (I’m a woman I’m allowed to be unreasonable)! I like that I am happy spending nights in on the couch watching DVDs with the mister and that I’m about as low maintenance as you can get. Is it wrong that I spend my Friday night playing Lego Star Wars? No! And if you think it is you obviously don’t know me…or have never played Lego Star Wars!

I like knowing that when I go home on a Friday night other people’s nights are just beginning. This might sound strange to some people but it makes me think back to the younger wilder version of me that actually played the social game and cared what people thought about her and I thank my lucky stars that I’m not her anymore. I like when people who judge my decision not to go to clubs (I don’t see the point) or get mind numbingly drunk (again…point?) tell me that I’m missing out. It makes me laugh inside, just a little. Because when 3am comes and they’re sitting in Abrakebabra sobering up, mascara running down their chin, counting pennies for a taxi wishing they hadn’t spent all their money on “After Shock” they would trade their Jimmy Choos to be in my position, sleeping like a log.

My Woodies Adventure February 1, 2008

The “I am not a Smug Twat” bag is an imitation of

the wildly popular “I am not a plastic bag”

tote bag that became a huge fashion trend in 2007

There’s nothing like a Sunday afternoon walking around Woodies looking for furniture. I didn’t find what I was looking for in there in case you were wondering but I did find something else. An alarming sub culture perpetuating the downfall of Irish society. We’ve all heard of yuppies (young urban professionals), but what I saw in Woodies that day was so horrifying and so nauseating I can barely bring myself to share it with you. Super Yuppies (since I like inventing words so much I’m going to call them Suppies)!

That’s right folks, yuppies just got yuppier. It takes a special kind of person to get out of bed on a rainy Sunday afternoon, put on a suit and black shoes or in the female suppie’s case a pair of office trousers and pointy stiletos and walk around Woodies looking for light switches.

Who did they think they were going to run into up there? Or did they think they were going to get called into work at any minute to do some emergency filing?

Why can people not relax anymore? I want to see some jeans, I demand tracksuits (within reason) and no more uncomfortable shoes because you’re not impressing anyone!

You know what really grinds my gears? January 28, 2008

I’m tired of having the same debate with people over what it means to be eclectic and to really love music. Many believe that to be truly eclectic means to love every possible genre and in my younger years I believed that this is what it meant as well.

To be truly eclectic doesn’t mean you have to enjoy listening to every single genre and be equally passionate about them all. It means that while you may enjoy listening to some or indeed most genres of music you can still appreciate the ones that you don’t enjoy as much. Like a person who doesn’t like rap acknowledging that there is artistic merit in the lyrics or timing or a person who doesn’t like classical music appreciating the skill it takes to play instruments to such a high standard.

Far too many people say that they’re eclectic but they don’t like this genre or that genre. This is like me saying I have brown hair but I actually have red hair, I just really like the idea of having brown hair. I love most genres of music rap, metal, emo, alt, trad, classical, swing, pop, punk, acoustic, industrial…the list goes on. I’ve even been known to listen to pan pipe recordings, a passion I inherited from my mother.

Two words which are, in my opinion, to blame for this confusion of the word acoustic; Rock and Indie. Nothing annoys me more than someone telling me they are a fan of either of these genres and not elaborating in the slightest. When a record label cannot classify a band they get thrown into either of those two heaps meaning that rock and indie now have so many sub divisions and categories they no longer classify as genres of music on their own.

I like indie…well correction: I like some indie. I like a lot of indie bands and I credit this particular genre for leading me on to discovering other great bands. I listened to it a lot when I was younger and it wasn’t the slutty genre it is now letting aything in and giving itself away for free. There are however some sub divisions of indie I don’t like; the emergence of the stereotypical indie solo female being top of the list.

I’m all for female artists but I feel that within the genre of Indie femininity is exploited to the point where the first thing the record labels try to sell you is the idea “look how pretty this girl is…and isn’t she magnificent she can play the guitar too and…well…she can kinda sing but this is indie and we don’t judge”. Their songs are produced in such a way that their voice solely carries the melody, so in essence you’re not really listening to an indie song, you’re listening to an indie singer the music is now a background noise, an inconvenience that means you can’t hear the pretty girl singing quite as clearly. They also try to sell flaws in their singing voice as idiosyncrasies…they’re not…they’re just flaws.

I’ve always had quite strange taste in music and it’s something I’ve always been very proud of as I come from a musical background. I’ve never felt like I needed to call myself eclectic in order to sound interesting or impressive but the people that do often feel that by looking down on those that don’t they are somehow reinforcing their own ‘eclecticness’. It is for this reason I am offering the world a new word;selectic, a selective eclectic. Someone like me who appreciates music and loves it in all its forms but doesn’t feel they must enjoy it all to really love music.

I appreciate what music it from its simplest form as notes on a page to its place in the world and how it can drive a society. Music has helped me through some of the toughest times in my life and as I’m writing this there’s a nest of birds outside singing their hearts out and there’s few things on this earth more beautiful.

Who said chivalry is dead? January 24, 2008

I did that’s who!

It took me about 20 minutes to get off the 75 earlier because I had to fight my way past literally 30 school kids from Benildus. What is it with teenage lads and their endless pursuit to take up as much space as is physically possible?

In the wild animals in self defence make themselves appear larger in order to warn off predators. I’m assuming the primal teenage mind works in similar ways as it’s usually the loudest, weakest kid who has the biggest sports bag and seems to view other passengers (me) not as people, but as an obstacle past which the bag must be dragged even if it means knocking them over on the way.

Now I’m not saying that just because I’m a girl I demand to be treated differently. What I would like is just a little bit of respect towards their fellow passengers. Out of these 30 kids, one stood by to let me get off the bus, while one of his class mates turned around and yelled to his friend at the back of the bus “Rob you’re a cock”.

What happened to peace and quiet? January 19, 2008

It’s bad enough having to put up with screeching school kids on a bus when you’re already exhausted but the past few times I’ve had to endure this nightmare they were all oddly enough talking about the same thing; how little they eat. Yes that’s right, they were competing over how they eat less than they should and whose parents were the most worried. Now it’s not as if one of them was genuinely confiding in her friend, this conversation pretty much went like this…

Girl 1: I’m starving I’ve hardly eaten today.

Girl 2: I never eat as much as I’m supposed to (shoves sweets into her mouth)

Girl 3: My parents are always loike going on about me for loike not eating enough saying I’m loike anorexic. I’m not loike anorexic loike. They’re sooo annoying

 

Now bulimia and anorexia are serious illnesses but like misuse of the term depression this kind of pointless attention seeking really pisses me off (excuse my french). They were sitting atound eating sweets talking about whose parents were the most worried about their eating habbits (?). I don’t know if they were trying to compete with each other or trying to get to their parents but this worrying trend of illnesses being in fashion is a very bad sign about the direction our society is heading.

Bottom line when people don’t eat they die! Something these girls don’t seem to have grasped as being an important concept. Fashion models have in the prime of their lives dropped dead from kidney failure literally starving themselves to death. An insider trick is to eat tissue and cotton wool to stave off hunger pains. What kind of a life is that? A roll of Charmin never exactly struck me as being haute cuisine! I don’t know what it would actually take to drive the message into the vacuous bone balloons these girls seem to have for heads but dying alone and boney with a stomach full of Kleenex isn’t a good thing.

…Oh well if Mischa Barton’s doing it…

Big Bother January 17, 2008

The first series of Big Brother was a novelty, and I’ll admit I watched it if only for the sheer morbid curiosity value. The same one you get when you drive past a car crash, you know you shouldn’t but you still look. The show somewhat lost its appeal over time (about 2 hours) yet like a fat man to a buffet, it just keeps coming back for more. Honestly is there anyone who actually enjoys watching this filth? Or is it that we’re so jaded with our own lives that we have resorted to sitting in our houses watching people…sitting in a house. Surely even a five year old can see how moronic that is. As long as it’s still making money we’re going to be subjected to it year after year. Because if there’s one thing television networks know how to do it’s beat a dead horse, repeatedly…with a very large stick…made out of frozen stupid…which ironically might be more interesting to watch than Big Brother.

The show disappears further and further down the drain with every series, dragging what little intelligence and respectability the show once had and replacing it with publicity stunts, cruelty and the most idiotic and frankly annoying people on earth. The kind who look as if they’re struggling with the physics of supporting their own heads. Seriously it’s a wonder they even made it this far in life…I thought evolution would have weeded these people out already. But Big Brother execs have taken it upon themselves to find these missing links, put them on tv so we get to watch them scratching, sleeping and shagging each other for thirteen weeks and all with the promise of a big cash prize at the end of it all for the one who manages to not collapse under the weight of their own stupidity or die of boredom. There’s a name for people who behave like this in real life…they’re called prostitutes.

As well as this nonsense there was the creation of “Celebrity” Big Brother which doesn’t even bother to use celebrities in it anymore. It’s not like they’re short of a few Z-listers knocking around outside the channel 4 studios offering to drop their trousers for a few seconds of air time. Former contestants include Chantelle Houghton who was chosen for the show on the grounds that she wasn’t a celebrity and Jade Goody, a woman who is famous for having been on Big Brother…and for her alarming level of illiteracy. Someone please explain the logic of this to me! Series 8 of Celebrity Big Brother now with 70% less celebrity features…drum roll…a guy who owns his own business and two circus performers. Dear God!

Contestants in the show have an annoying habit of not disappearing. Not bad enough that we have to endure them for what seems like the entire summer but even after the show finally ends, the last hangers on and rented friends leave the studio and the support line is closed they’re taking up column inches. They can easily be picked out of a line up in any cheap night club where a real celebrity was spotted about 9 years ago making it a “hot spot”. They’re the orange ones with the €5 miniskirts and no underwear usually following the paparazzi around like they’re hungry dogs and the camera man has meat in his pockets. Except of course for Chanelle Hayes, the one who thinks that she’s Victoria Beckhan and has made a somewhat lucrative career out of it (as if it’s actually some kind of accomplishment). Oh no but she’s different…really she promises…she really really is a real celebrity…because….because….well she once wore a dress that looked like victoria Beckhams…aaand…she has the same hollow lifeless expression in her eyes. So she wants to be taken seriously as a celevrity and has chosen to prove this by following around members of the Beckham family to the point where it’s almost illegal. That spread in Nuts magazine really did a lot to convince us she wasn’t just another mindless Big Brother hack.