The Nothing New

2:01AM - Monthly Music Mix - March

Hmm, I'm falling further and further behind with this, but I'm endeavouring to persevere, or something like that. In that light, I haven't managed to get the blurb written up yet, but I'll post this now anyway and get back to that in an edit, fingers crossed. Sigh, I'm a lazy lazy disorganised man. Tchah.

( this is not an lj-cut )

1 - Bjork - I Miss You
2 - Yello - Vicious Games
3 - Ladytron - Black Cat
4 - Portishead - Machine Gun
5 - Plaid - Squance
6 - Stranglers - All Roads Lead To Rome
7 - De_Vision - Not Made Of Gold
8 - Diary Of Dreams - Holier Than Thou Approach
9 - Toktok vs Soffy O - Day Of Mine (Ludicrous Idiots)
10 - Skorbut - 5 Minutes Rhythm
11 - Interpol - The Scale
12 - Forma Tadre - Lo Rez Skyline
13 - PJ Harvey - The River
14 - Goldfrapp - Human
15 - Kristin Hersh - Me And My Charms
16 - Rare Earth - I Just Want To Celebrate
17 - Ween - I Got To Put The Hammer Down
18 - Trash Palace - Your Sweet Love (featuring Alison Shaw)

---

"I have a sequin for an eye,
Pick a rose & hide my face,
This is a bandit's life, it comes and goes,
And them's the breaks.
Under a molten sky beyond the road we lie in wait.
You think they know us now, wait till the stars come out...
You see them?"

12:45AM - Monthly Music Mix for...ahem, February

Apologies for delay etc etc...this mix has in fact been up on notapattern for a matter of weeks, and I only got around to writing up the blurb very lately. So, yes, I'm a bad person, with the attention span of an ADHD goldfish, nothing new there...moving on.
Oh, and March's mix is pretty much ready to go too, so just a bit of blurb for that and it'll be up during the weekend I hope.

1 - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Bring It On
2 - Prick - Into My Arms
3 - David Bowie - Time Will Crawl
4 - The Damned - Smash It Up (Part I)
5 - Autechre - Bike
6 - Trash Palace - The Metric System (featuring Brian Molko)
7 - Einsturzende Neubauten - Heaven Is Of Honey
8 - Nicolette - No Government
9 - Massive Attack - Spying Glass
10 - Odori - Of Maples At Takao
11 - The Stranglers - Vladimir & Olga
12 - The Damned - Smash It Up (Part II)
13 - Orbital - Halcyon (7'')
14 - GD_Luxxe - Reasons
15 - Robyn - Be Mine
16 - PJ Harvey - Send His Love To Me
17 - Wolfsheim - Scars Remain...
18 - Assemblage 23 - 30KFT
19 - Kate Bush - Lily

( the waffle )

"I saw a black black stream, full of wide-eyed fish,
And a drowning man, with no eyes at all,
I felt a warm warm breeze, that melted metal and steel,
I got a bad migraine, that lasted three long years,
And the pills that I took made my fingers disappear."

1:43PM - Wanna stop it for a while now, universe? Please?

Well, the last few weeks have been a right sh*tstorm and no mistake, and that's just been *my* experience; a lot of people are having a considerably worse time than I could ever hope to comprehend from my little cocoon.
My thoughts are with them, mostly, which makes a change from my usual tight spiralling little orbit of self-pity. Just a shame that it takes stuff like that to get me to extract my head out of my ass, however short a while it might last.

Anyway, the "great leaps forward" as predicted in my last post probably won't be happening according to schedule, but that's nothing new...but I think I'm still managing a few baby steps here and there, albeit with frequent stops for metaphorical cigarette breaks and such.

I hope I still have the capacity to surprise people occasionally...but in a good way for a change. Let's see.

Anyway, to lighten the mood for a moment I am going to recommend a web-comic to you fine people - http://www.jsayers.com/thingpart/thingpart.html
I'm pretty sure I linked to it before way back but I recently re-discovered it and think everyone should read it - it's only updated every Wednesday I think, but there's a decent sized archive of previous strips to keep you (or me, at least) entertained for hours.

This one seemed apt to give you a taste:


OK, that's it from me for now. Be careful out there people, as they say in Hill Street Blues.

1:32AM - No Endon sight, till now

Well, I'm back.

I now have broadband again, so I'm pretty much back in the land of the online, at least in theory - still a couple of glitches with the connection, but overall it seems to be behaving itself.

Though I'm not entirely sure if that'll mean spending more time on LJ than I have been over the last couple of months in any case; I've been attempting to engage a bit more with the "real world", whatever that is, lately, in some cases even going so far as to enjoy the "Big Room"...with sunshine! And fresh air! And physical activity! And stuff like that.
Probably about time too, as I've been spending a huge amount of time sitting on my fat arse in recent months, and apart from giving me a fatter arse, I can't say it's done much for me.
I'm not going to shock anyone by claiming that I'm gonna run a marathon anytime soon or anything like that, but occasionally when I allow myself to, I do enjoy this weather and this time of year generally, and feel like I should be less of a slug.

Lots of vaguely serious health-related stuff to sort out, too, from my back to my teeth to my insomnia...the list goes on...see bottom of post for my excuse, and I'm sticking to it.

I *am* aware of a lot of LJ etc catching up that "needs" to be done, or at least that I've meant to get around to...no promises (just to avoid disappointment all around), but there will at least be Monthly Music Mixes for February and March up *very* soon.

Paintings have been promised to people too, and though my current space situation doesn't make it easy, my creative juices are trickling again, if not quite flowing, so patience will be rewarded (if that's how you want to see it).
Hmm, I'm also going to try to stop doing the self-deprecating thing so much as well - not going to turn into Tony Robbins or anything, but I think I need to stop beating myself up about every little fuck-up I've ever made and occasionally allow myself to feel like a vaguely worthwhile human worm-baby.

Yup, there's been some thinking going on round these parts, alright, but I haven't turned into a Zen hippy or anything - rest assured I still have enough bile and vitriol left when it's called for.

I also have a ton of non-internet-related crap to sort out, but I'm finally beginning to assemble some sort of method and structure to stuff like that too. And not a decade too soon...

Oh, and speaking of the passing of time, it's now my birthday (and Dave Gahan's for all you Depeche Mode fans out there). Happy Birthday Dave! 0_o

3:27AM - January Music Mix

Yup, I do indeed work to my own "special" schedule. Anyway, moving on...

A relatively sedate mix for January, I think, probably some sort of reaction against copious angsty mini-traumas that I like to think I was struggling with. Musical catharsis isn't always that interesting to listen to, at least for other people, I guess.

1 - Death In Vegas - Dirge
2 - Castaways - Liar Liar
3 - Dusty Springfield - Spooky
4 - Fiona Apple - Paper Bag
5 - AC Acoustics - Luke One
6 - David Holmes - Gone
7 - Spiritualized - I Didn't Mean To Hurt You
8 - Sisters Of Mercy - Floorshow
9 - Stranglers - Hanging Around
10 - Tristesse De La Lune - Time Is Moving [Remix by Panzer AG]
11 - Snog - Make The Little Flowers Grow
12 - The Amps - Empty Glasses
13 - Ulver - Hallways of Always
14 - Jeff Buckley - Last Goodbye
15 - Durutti Column - Never Known
16 - Leiahdorus - Eventually
17 - Smashing Pumpkins - Crush
18 - Tiger Lillies - Killer

( Ho hum, on with the sideshow )

"Kiss me, please kiss me,
Kiss me out of desire, babe, not consolation,
Oh, you know it makes me so angry,
because I know that in time,
I'll only make you cry,
This is our last goodbye..."

12:08AM - Poke...

Well, I'm back on LJ again, just for a moment, to see how everyone is?

Ya know, let me know, 'cos I am curious.

On a related note, apologies to whom it may concern about my (even more pronounced than usual) absence as regards communicating in any meaningful fashion; I have lots of my own crap going on right now, and trying to deal with a certain amount of sensory overload leaves me with even less energy than usual. Also, the whole dial-up situation doesn't help much as far as online stuff goes. Hmm, "Selfish Lame Excuses R Us".

However...I do appreciate it when I'm poked, even if only to give out to me for being a useless human being, so in general terms please forgive me if I appear(?) even more self-absorbed than usual.

In other (though probably related) news, why is that the more honest I try to be in my dealings with people, the more everyone seems to get hurt? Is this my problem? Or just a problem of perception? I really don't know sometimes...Grr. Argh. Sigh.

3:02AM - "And suddenly, the picture was distorted..."

...but in a good way, I hope.

No cut, 'cos you either care or you don't. And 'cos sometimes I'm just a lazy attention-seeker. ;)

So, I've been thinking lately...it's something I've been accused of doing before, admittedly, and often it hasn't done me (or anyone else) much good, but I usually can't help it - I'm the one that's stuck in here with all the voices, you people only have to hear edited highlights occasionally. ;p

Sometimes however, I have these little epiphanies, or whatever they might be, from time to time; often they come and go fleetingly, but occasionally they stick, and prompt some sort of change in my outlook or behaviour, hopefully for the better in most cases. Either way, just the act of writing it, and indeed posting it publicly, might help with the "sticking" part.
Comments or criticisms welcomed, as always.

Anyway, I was listening to Kraftwerk's "Hall Of Mirrors", as you do, and thinking about the sociological concept of the "Looking-Glass Self" - it's been a while since I studied Sociology "officially", and my brain is pretty rusty generally, but basically, as the name might suggest, it's a sensible and well-established theory that the perceptions and expectations that other people might have of you will tend to influence your behaviour, and indeed your own perceptions of yourself, often acting in such a way over time that you don't even realise that other people might even have anything to do with it.
E.g. "Oh, here's another self-pitying emo-filled angsty post from that gloomy bastard endon_neu, does he *ever* stop whingeing?". Just to pick a name off the top of my head. 0_o

Sometimes, that's just how I *am*...But. But. But...

Sometimes perhaps it's how I feel I "should" be. Maybe occasionally I even "fake it", or at least exaggerate it, out of some obscure sense of "obligation" or something. Well, you know what? Either way, I'm pretty tired of it.

As some people might be aware, I've had some pretty rocky times lately. At least, that's how *I* usually perceive it.

On the other hand, as Nina Simone would say:
"Ain't got no home, no shoes, no money, no class,
ain't got no friends, no schooling, no work, no job, and no money,
and no love...no water, no food, no nothing...
But...
I got my hair, I got my head
I got my brains, I got my ears
I got my eyes, I got my nose
I got my mouth, I got my smile

I got my tongue, I got my chin
I got my neck, I got my tits
I got my heart, I got my soul
I got my back, I got my sex

I got my arms, I got my hands
I got my fingers, got my legs
I got my feet, I got my toes
I got my liver, got my blood

Got life , I got my life"

Thank you, as always, Nina.

In some respects it's gonna take a while before I feel that lots of different aspects of my life are *anywhere* near approaching some sort of "ideal" state (or indeed, even "tolerable"), but I am sensible of the fact that millions of people have way bigger problems than mine...which is to say, that no, I might not actually stop moaning and whinging (at least "occasionally")...but I won't necessarily assume that anybody should care or listen. ;p

And in recent weeks, there have been at least one or two glimmers of light in the stygian gloom behind my "forehead-stapled hand".
I do in fact remember how to smile (as somebody recently pointed out to me, in a state of shock, apparently), and even laugh - both at myself and other things, and some things (by which I also mean some people...and I think they know who they are) do make life worth living, most of the time at least. Well, I guess I am still here. :/

So...anyway...alan_ie has a t-shirt which says "Oh crap, you're going to try to cheer me up, aren't you?", which is nice, and funny, and all that...but I remember back in the day when I used to silk-screen and bleach-stencil my own t-shirts, and I think I should make one that says:

"It's not my fucking job to be miserable for your entertainment - sorry if that disappoints you, but you can train *your own* emo-monkey-goth for that."

Or maybe something a bit snappier, but you get the gist - if anyone wants to order one (or suggest pithier wording), maybe I'll make a batch and sell some. ;P

***

"Sometimes he saw his real face,
and sometimes a stranger in his place..."

6:08PM - Emo-meow

I was watching the Monty Python "Personal Best" DVDs recently, and thought I'd share some of the "Confuse-a-cat" sketch, in which a couple call in a vet to diagnose why their cat just sits in the garden staring into space...

["Your cat is suffering from what we vets...haven't found a word for. To be blunt, your cat is in a rut. Stockbroker Syndrome, the suburban fin de siecle ennui, angst, weltschmerz, call it what you will."
- "Moping?"
"In a way, in a way...hmm, moping, must remember that one. Tell me, have you confused your cat recently?"
- "No."
"Well I think I can definitely say that your cat badly needs to be confused."

Cue divers alarums, as they say.]

And I think we can all learn something from that. I know I can; I've been doing my fair share of moping lately, but I'm getting to the point where I badly need to be confused, I think.
Cryptic? Moi? Pshaw....suffice to say that if you know why I'm mopier than usual lately, then fine, and if you don't then you probably don't need to know.

In related news - as Combichrist would say, "I'd like to thank my buddies...for twisting the knife in my back" - again, if you get the context then you know who you are. Some people around me have been very helpful and supportive in various fashions lately when I've needed it, others...not so much.

THERE WILL BE BLOOD...is a good movie, I hear. Ha, had you going for a second.

"Have you ever had the feeling that your life's down the can,
and the hand that holds the whip is not your own,
Your breakfast's going cold and your routine's getting old,
Is it me that's feeling insecure?
...You're surrounded by the bitter and the boring,
and you wonder if you're on the turn,
and again you get hurt when they're dishing the dirt,
Is it me that's feeling insecure?"

2:04AM - Crisi-tunity knocks....

A quick (well, painfully slow, in fact) post from the land of dial-up, in case people are wondering if I'm still alive (I wonder that too sometimes, but then I pinch myself and decide that the evidence points, on balance, to the affirmative).

( DOMINION 2.0 )

( other stuff )

In the obligatory other news, my "personal life" (ya know, the whole "Psychic Hotline" stuff - Love, Life, Money, Luck, Happiness, Fulfillment, yadda yadda) is possibly in more of a shambles than at any point in my life before, that I can remember at least, but, ya know, nobody's died or anything, so gonna keep reminding myself that things could be worse. Not having broadband sucks, but it's hardly life-threatening, and indeed in some ways it's nice to be mostly offline, and doing other things with my time. Granted, mostly the other things lately have involved playing "furniture Tetris" in my current living situation and trying to fit my worldly possessions in a very limited space, but it's also nice to get rid of a lot of junk that I never really needed anyway. (I guess nobody *still* wants a few hundred audio and video tapes? Didn't think so. They'll be going in the bin in the next week or two unless I hear otherwise. And the local St Vincent De Paul or Oxfam shop will be receiving a lot of dodgy old goth clothing very soon too. ;p)

Also, my cryptic comment of the day is: "Sometimes, you just have to kill the cow".

3:46PM - So long, and thanks for all the phish...

"I'm just stepping out, I may be some time...."

So, this could well be my last post for quite a while, as I'll very soon be living in the land that internet forgot.

In many ways this is a good thing, as the internet is undoubtedly Public Enemy #1 on my list of timewasting habits, and I won't have the luxury of displacement activities for very much longer I suspect.

I am fully aware that I probably "owe" some of you fine fine people various forms of communication, from responses to comments, silly LJ memes, etc, not to mention a few paintings I've promised to get to some of you...I haven't forgotten, I just find it hard to have the energy to do much about it most of the time. Isn't that a much better excuse, eh? Sigh. I will miss LiveJournal occasionally I'm sure, as it accounts for most of what passes for my "interaction" with other hu-mans these days...but that's not an entirely healthy thing at all anyway, so it's probably for the best. Possibly it's time for me to start feeding and watering my "life" again and see if anything still grows...sowing all that salt onto the scorched earth where I burned all my bridges might not have helped though.

I will (presumably) still manage to check my e-mail occasionally though, so if you actually have anything to say to me, that'd probably be the way to do it...LJ comments will be forwarded to one of my accounts as usual, but if you want the e-mail address I actually use most of the time and don't have it, feel free to ask. And I still have my phone, but I don't really expect people to suddenly start using it after the last several months (years?) of social leprosy that I've "enjoyed". Meh.
Bitter? No, I just love to complain, as the song says.

In other news...there is no other news, except that life in general is particularly crappy lately, and I suspect it'll only get worse before it gets better, but hey, at least none of you will have to listen to me moan about it anymore. ;p

So...au revoir, auf wiedersehen, etc etc...I'll leave you with this, which isn't really all that relevant, but I thought it was funny anyway:

4:27AM - December 07 Music Mix

Attn: _goodmanbrown_ et al.

I thought about not bothering to finish this mix, what with barely scraping it in by the end of January and all, but I thought I should anyway, if only for the sake of rounding off 2007 with some sense of "closure", as they say. Yeah, I know most people are already well into "2008 mode", but I'm not most people, as any psychiatrist will affirm. And besides, it's 4am, what else am I gonna do, sleep? Pshaw.

As previously mentioned, I will probably be offline for the foreseeable future pretty soon, but I *am* going to continue to compile these mixes, as I find them very rewarding in many ways...it's just not as likely that January's, and possibly February's too, will get uploaded for quite a while.

But it's a good 'un. So. Enjoy.

1 - Blixa Bargeld & Gudrun Gut - Die Sonne (Original Version)
2 - Organ - Kaavakekauhu
3 - Lykke Li - I'm Good I'm Gone
4 - Tom Vek - If You Want
5 - Belly - Trust In Me
6 - Division Day - Enjoy The Silence
7 - Interpol - The Scale
8 - Jenny Wilson - Let My Shoes Lead Me Forward
9 - Grinderman - I Don't Need You (To Set Me Free)
10 - Honeyroot - Love Will Tear Us Apart
11 - Mannequin Depressives - The Model (Kraftwerk Cover)
12 - Tom McRae - End Of The World News (Dose Me Up)
13 - The The - Slow Emotion Replay
14 - Saul Williams - List Of Demands (Reparations)
15 - Morrissey - I Just Want To See The Boy Happy
16 - Muto - Sky Kanyon
17 - Dream Disciples - Room 57
18 -The Transverse Magnet - You Can't Escape From The Things You've Done (Hollow Soul Remix)
19 - Placebo - The Crawl
20 - Sinead O'Connor - Troy

( probably the last one of these for quite a while, so read it, why don't ya? )

"The more I see, the less I know,
about all the things I thought were wrong or right, and carved in stone,
So don't ask me about war, religion or God, love, sex and death,
Because everybody knows what's going wrong with the world,
and I don't even know what's going on in myself...
Lord, I've been here for so long
I can feel it coming down on me
I'm just a slow emotion replay of somebody I used to be."

11:23PM - It's funny because it's true...

Just finished watching Anything Else (one of Woody Allen's more recent films...you know, from the "after he went crap for several years" period), and thought I'd share one of my favourite lines from it:

"I have so many problems, even if I committed suicide it wouldn't solve them all."

Despite Jason Biggs being a bit too unsympathetic as the "proxy Woody", the movie was overall surprisingly enjoyable, with a great cast and some nifty "vintage" Woody Allen dialogue.
Maybe it's since Woody himself seemed to need other people to play "him" in most of his later movies that they tend to not appeal to me as much these days, I think.

And now for The Panel, I think, as it's one of the few half-decent programmes on RTE, and Christ knows you should catch it in the wild before the species is totally extinct..

In other couch potato news, I'm looking forward to start watching Rome soon, based on several recommendations, no spoilers please. ;p

11:44PM - November Music Mix

Yeah, yeah, I know what time it is, half-past January...but the alternative was "never", so complaints on a postcard to the usual address....

Yes, I did make it back from Germany....just not much to report about it or since, I guess - I had a little break, and now I think I'm having a minor fracture. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Nah, but I'm generally ok, I think, thanks for asking...might possibly be getting another "vaguely cryptic but privately meaningful tattoo" soon, though, when I can afford it. And possibly a general radical overhaul in many areas...ooh, the suspense, eh?
But nobody cares, so we'll get on with the music, shall we?

1 - The Bravery - Unconditional
2 - Ladytron - Destroy Everything You Touch
3 - Sparklehorse - Piano Fire (featuring PJ Harvey)
4 - Kristin Hersh - Winter
5 - Ruby - Paraffin
6 - The Black Angels - Better Off Alone
7 - Morrissey - Tomorrow
8 - Ambulance - 21 Seconds
9 - Fugazi - Merchandise
10 - Rollins Band - Tearing
11 - Lynx And Ram - Our Bodies Are Real
12 - Alden Tyrell - Love Explosion
13 - The Garland Cult - Impossible
14 - DK7 - Where's The Fun (Original Mix)
15 - Dandi Wind - Baying Of The Hounds
16 - Christian Death - Believers Of The Unpure
17 - Sinead O'Connor - Just Like U Said It Would B
18 - Siouxsie Sioux & Morrissey - Interlude
19 - The Knife - You Take My Breath Away (featuring Jenny Wilson)
20 - Thomas Dolby - Screen Kiss

( Just 'cos it's over a month late doesn't mean I don't waffle about it at length )

Yikes, this mix was sooo very late...hopefully will finish off the December mix and get it up during the next week or so, but things are very hectic (and yet strangely apathetic) lately, so no promises.
I may not even have proper net access in the foreseeable future, and that prompted a few random thoughts that will get a separate post at some point soon, I expect.

---

" I will walk in the garden, feel religion within,
I will learn how to run with the big boys,
I wil learn how to sink... Or to swim.
And there's talk in the houses, people dancing in rings,
ah, when you close my eyes, babe, I can see most everything.
I can see most everything."

10:53PM - To Whom It May Concern

So, this is 2008, eh? Hmm...

I'm popping off to Germany again (Dusseldorf again, to be precise) to visit K, and hopefully manage a bit of rest and recuperation away from the hassles of Dublin.

Once I get back, on the 9th, there'll be plenty more hassles waiting, I expect, but I've made my bed and now I have to eat it, or something.
Also, from this point on, I suspect I'll be living in a largely internet-free zone, so posts will be even fewer and farther between from now on.

Anyway, hope everybody's New Year was happy and that 2008 is better all around...which in some ways won't be that difficult I expect. I have other stuff to say about last year, and plans/hopes for this one, but not right now.

And of course, I've been relatively illness-free all winter, and *now* my body decides to get a lovely chest infection, and I've been hacking and phlegmy all day...the flight will be a pleasant one for all concerned I'm sure. ;p

OK, onwards and upwards.
Endon out.

6:55PM - A Christmas Message from endon_neu

7:10PM - Bored bored bored

Found a new webcomic today, and thought I'd share - it's a bit hit or miss, but I particularly liked this one:



More here: http://www.jsayers.com/thingpart/tp_index.html

6:28PM - I wonder...

...does it say more about me, or about the world in general, that these days pretty much the only time I give more than a cursory glance to my news feeds (and in fact refresh them obsessively), is when someone I know is on a plane?

Either way, it's pretty sad, I guess.

1:55AM - "I do not think that word means what you think it means..."

So, do you feel the need to improve your vocabulary, while simultaneously doing something to alleviate the suffering of the starving people in the Third World?
Nah, me neither.
Or so I thought...but I was wrong, and so are you!

For the last few hours, I've been dipping into this very addictive site, courtesy of nodis:

http://www.freerice.com

Apparently the clickthrough advertising revenue goes to the United Nations World Food Program, so that for every word you get right, they donate 20 grains of rice to the Third World. It's also a sister site of the world poverty site, http://www.poverty.com.

It's certainly an educational (and hopefully worthwhile) way to pass the time, and even for brainboxes like myself (ha) who always thought they had a pretty large vocabulary it's pretty hard to be consistently right after you get past level 45 or so. And for the record, I did eventually get to the top level (50), after a frustrating 30 minutes or so of fluctuating between 44 and 48, but at least I have now donated around 18,000 grains of rice to the starving masses.

In other, slightly less highbrow, etymological news, below is a picture of a product currently being sold at Aldi, an inoffensive and reasonably tasty biscuity chocolate bar type thing:



I nearly fell over laughing when I saw the box - either the marketing people at Aldi are just very naive and thought it would be a "cool sounding name" for "a tasty snack for young people on the go", or else there's something more sinister going on. What next? "Smack Tarts"? "Charlie Cola"? "Spliffburgers"?

I should probably point out that H, who's German, bought a box of them for the two of us as snacks without any comment at the name, so it's possibly a very Anglo/Irish culturally-specific reference, so if there's anyone who doesn't get the reference (young people, Mormons, Germans, or Americans, perhaps), go here:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=disco+biscuit

In other "Is it a food or is it drugs?" news, people have probably already heard about the furore over Hershey's selling these recently:


Yup, that's little heat-sealed baggies containing a white powder...but that's ok, it's only a breath freshener! Honestly, officer!

When I was younger, I always thought the American FDA was a strange combination of agencies... "Food, Drugs? what have they got to do with each other?"...it makes a lot more sense now.

Sigh...sometimes, when I really think that I have finally gone irrevocably insane, it's some small comfort to realise that the rest of world has beaten me to it.

10:17PM - Gimme Shelter

I've posted about this before, but things are getting pretty desperate, so here goes again:

Does anyone know of any cheap flats available in Dublin's fair shitty? Despite being almost completely skint, and increasingly despairing of finding gainful employment anytime soon, I think I'd rather get a bank loan or something just to pay rent for the next month or two, rather than the only other course of action, which is moving back home for a while. Apart from the more obvious "shame" and "humiliation" of such a move (which, especially given my recent level of social "activity", doesn't actually bother me in the slightest), I'm pretty sure that in the circumstances, and especially around this time of year, I'd last a week or two before *somebody* died. Painfully. And messily.

What's more, I'm even willing to contemplate sharing a place at this point, which was something I thought I'd never do again...at this point I'm thinking moving in with total strangers is preferable to living with family or friends. Heh, that should probably read "family" and "friends", but whatever.

After traipsing around flat-hunting off and on over the last couple of months, and finding places that I wouldn't or couldn't live in even if I *could* afford them, I'm pretty much ready to give up on Ireland for good and buy a one-way plane ticket to wherever.

Any suggestions, apart from "Oh, why don't you just throw yourself under a bus", will be greatly appreciated (I already have the voices to tell me these sorts of things, thanks all the same).

(Remember, the key word is cheap, like a budgie.)

...it's just a shot away...

11:04PM - The Scandalous Siouxsie Sioux Shopkeeper Swindle

Most people will, I imagine, know that the Siouxsie & The Banshees song "Hong Kong Garden" was inspired by the name of a local Chinese takeaway. Nothing too strange about that, you might say, and indeed I'm pretty sure there's at least one of them in Dublin too.

However, I just noticed this evening, on a wander around the dingy backstreets of Dublin, another Chinese takeaway...and this one was called "Happy House".

Coincidence? Conspiracy? Large number of Siouxsie fans among the proprietors of Chinese fast food outlets? Who knows.

All I'm saying is that if I see some Halal shop called "Arabian Knights", I'll start to get suspicious. Or, for that matter, a butcher's shop called "Carcass".
A jeweller's called "Ornaments Of Gold"? A tobacconist's called "Nicotine Stain"?

...and some people wonder why I don't post my random thoughts more often...well, now you know.