Teddy's getting big now

Just a quick blog trying to do Nano Wrimo , current word count 41, so, that's going well, but here's an updated pic of my new doggie... :D I might try to blog here every day too , just for November.

Surface Detail

Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


One of The best Culture novels I have read, I took my time reading it because there usually is quite quite a gap between each of them. This one is based around the journey of Lededje Y'breq an Intagliated Person, marked with a family debt, a fantastic Tatooto extending to her DNA, as a war from the Unreal levels of Virtual Hell extends into Real. I really enjoyed this Book with the Huge Guns , and quirky spaceships, and great story



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Cartoon Strip

The Melancholy of Bertie Gillick by Ruacach

Presenting........

 Teddy

1. AKA : Lord Tedington of Pupsbury Manor.
2. AKA : Don't Pee There
3. AKA: Don't Chew That
4. AKA: That Also Means Don't Chew Me
5. AKA: Seriously! Where Is all the Pee Coming From

Cartoon Strip

The Adventures of Al and Bert by Ruacach

Things I have learned today...

1) Even though I haven't played Badminton in Ages.... I am still pretty
...handy at it... :D

2) Cucumbers Grow from Pretty purple flowers...

3) Freshly picked Strawberries are incredibly sweet... and delicious....

4) I had forgotten how much fun it is to play with puppies...

writing first day.....

He walked into the room, the doors had automatically opened for him which was practically a miracle in this part of the city, the interior of the building was clean and white, and almost clinically sterile. A huge contrast to the decay and wildness of the exterior, rolling his sleeve back he looked down at the Archive ,a small gray lozenge embedded into his forearm. It was hooked up to his body, his blood providing the energy for it's use. It had been a long journey avoiding the creatures, and some of the more mobile plant life surrounding the city, he'd run out of food days ago. Summoning the mental commands to activate the archive, picturing a field of sunflowers in his head until he felt that warmth in his arm that indicated the archive was booting up. His head started to blur, and the room to spin. It was drawing on the last of his reserves of sugar in his blood, he took the remaining bulb of honey-water from his belt” No going back now” he thought as he drank it,and immediately felt better. Looking down at the map that appeared on the screen he located and walked up to the greeting wall. A slab of glass as tall as himself, cold and green, he could see through it to the back wall of the room. As he stood in front of it consulting the Archive again he touched the glass saying,“ Hello I am here here to meet Mr Green regarding the takeover of Dog and Pony Corporation, I believe I have an appointment. ” This was where the gamble of his long trek would pay off, Since the fall, some of the older buildings were stuck at the moment of Collapse, mindlessly going through routines and protecting valuable stock in their vaults, sometimes with the right key phrases and passwords the could be tricked. This was the life of most archaeologists these days, a very risky profession indeed. The glass screen began to cloud over a face formed in its depths, a very pretty young blond lady, in stark contrast a male voice issued form the glass slab “Code input incorrect, you have one more attempt before annihilation.” Gun ports opened in the walls and gas started issuing from vents lower down in the walls“Shit, i never should have trusted that bastard back in the camp” looking to the archive again, he tried the second command phrase “I believe Mr Sharkey from the Ministry of Funny Walks is expecting me!” The glass wall turned Red and started flashing a 20 second countdown as the guns turned to face him. Taking his last gamble he announced loudly “ Hi I'm from Pizza Express I got a deep dish extra cheese, extra meat special, for Joe Brown on the Second floor” Kneeling on the floor exhausted now from the continued use of the Archive , he waited for his outcome. The glass glitched and turned green again, the gun turrets blending back into the wall and gas was vented from the room, the young lady appeared on screen and still in that deep male voice said “second door on the right, up the stairs, and go to Reception Desk there.” falling on his face in relief, he felt the cool floor under his cheek and, steeled himself to go upstairs.

New Plan....

So my life is very boring and routine, mainly due to the unemployment and total lack of money factor. I really need to try something different, so the plan for the next 4 weeks is as follows:

1. Write 200 words of a short story every day and post it here
2. Draw something every day, no matter how mundane, for 20 minutes.(also post it here)
   
3. Try to learn some French/German/Italian(Haven't decided yet) for 20 minutes every day.
4. And read 5 pages of basic structure of the Internet every day.

I realise these are small things but hopefully starting small will develop into a routine that I have some hope of achieving..... and now that its posted here I will have to do it even though no one I know reads , or anyone at all reads the bloody thing.......

Grey Day....

A very humid grey day has turned into a beautiful summers evening, long may it continue, and in the spirit of taking every opportunity presented by good weather in such a temperate Climate. I finally finished off the raised bed , and took some pictures whilst walking the dog down the callows….

Digging to China....

Well that's what it feels like, I spent the last couple of days trying to set up a veg patch in the half acre my brother has next to his house. My God , what a pain in the hole that has turned out to be, the first couple of days and it's torture getting nowhere , then my tummy started playing giving me hassle cos I was bending over so much and I had to stop. The next couple of day's are forecast good so I wil try to get it finished, and i have a coupke of friends helping me tomorrow so things might progress faster, hopefully, fingers crossed.... :D

From Bebo...

Just transferring some stuff I like from my bebo acccount


Favourite Quotes 167 weeks ago
Groucho Marx
"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read."

"Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot."


Douglas Adams
"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be."

"This must be Thursday," said Arthur to himself, sinking low over his beer, "I never could get the hang of Thursdays."


J. R. R. Tolkien
"Little by little, one travels far."

"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger."

Winter Winter, Go Away, Come Again... Well! Sometime In December Would Be Good

Or in other words, More Fucking Snow!!! That was quite the snowstorm we had last night, it didn't stick and there was no white blanket covering the ground, thank God! Sometimes snow can be fun, and it does look beautiful. But I have had a bellyful of cold weather for one year and am looking forward to Summer, you hear that Mister Winter take the hint , Sling Your Hook, Hit The Road Jack! and Just FUCK OFF!! your not wanted round here any more.....

Blog Done

This was actually written about 2 weeks ago but only published it today...blogger used to keep the date on the saved draft guess it doesn't do that any more....

Book Review

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
My synopsis of this series would be "Life's a bitch when your dad's Poseidon" preferably said in that ultra deep Movie Trailer Voiceover. Blurb is as Follows:

Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood. I never asked to be the son of a Greek God. I was just a normal kid, going to school, playing basketball, skateboarding. The usual. Until I accidentally vaporized my maths teacher. That's when things started really going wrong. Now I spend my time fighting with swords, battling monsters with my friends, and generally trying to stay alive. This is the one where Zeus, God of the Sky, thinks I've stolen his lightning bolt - and making Zeus angry is a very bad idea. Can Percy find the lightning bolt before a fully-fledged war of the Gods erupts?

I got hold of this whole sequence of books and devoured them, one after the other. I had stalled in my reading, and just couldn't find anything to suit but these hit the spot just nicely. They are a fun, Quick read, well Plotted, full of action and Greek mythhology, I enjoyed them immensely.

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Sfx Weekender

Going from the middle of Ireland to a small town on the southern coast of England for a SciFi Con, my weekend consisted of: Travel, travel, travel, and then 2 days of geekage and then travel, travel, travel, and finally collapse and then sleep.... But in between those two periods of exhausted sleep was some really cool shit. I finally got to meet Peter F. Hamilton, my most favouritest author in the world. As well as Richard Morgan and Justina Robson. Saw James Marsters Live on Stage.... very funny and cool, witnessed the madness that is Tom Baker, Gareth "Ianto Jones" Lloyd, constantly looking for the welsh rugby scores, who was also very funny and relaxed, and well, just had an excellent time. It more than made up for my previous convention experience... of which nothing will be mentioned, the only down side was the accommodation, (Pontins, a holiday camp very much stuck in the seventies) which was manky beyond belief but did for the night we were staying, and hopefully I'll get to repeat the whole thing next year...

Also they had a Tardis , that sadly was not bigger on the inside...*Sigh*... But rumours were going round the camp that someone had been caught shagging in it on Saturday night. I wondered what the smell was.... hmmmm!!!

Oh! And the rental car was awesome , brand new Volkswagen Passat... really quite fast, not that I broke the speed limit because that would be illegal... heh, heh, heh!...Whoosh!.... Oh Yeah!..

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ANGER.....

Anger is an interesting emotion for me, It doesn't manifest itself much in my life, or at least I don't think It does, maybe my friends and family would disagree with me. But there are some days like today for instance, when your after driving in the pissing rain with a fecking boy racer jammed to the hole of your car, blinding you with his argon super bright lights, for two miles of bendy, holey roads, and then the little bastard beeps at you as he skips by you on a bend, and all you want to do is chase him down, rip the gearstick out of the car and beat him around the head for half an hour. But you can't, so you go to your friends house because thats where you were supposed to go, and more importantly, you promised him you'd be there at half seven only to find out later that he'd gone to a friends house and turned off his phone. So you go home and Stumble on the internet to cool down before you go to bed and you come across the lovely picture to the left, this so called motivator telling you to go and dance out in a storm... all I wanted to do was track whoever wrote the quote, secretly attach a long piece of copper wire to them and hopefully watch lighteneing shoot up there hole as they danced.... Moron...how do you like them apples.

Anger What anger?

Blog (or should that be Rant) Done

Fly me to the moon...

let me swing amongst the stars... let me sway on ... something something...la la la la la la! guess what song I'm listening to at the moment? Yes you've guesssed correctly it's.......*drumroll*..... I Can't Get No Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones. Congragulations if you've guessed correctly you should problably enroll in Madame Zlatys School of Psychic Training and Trepanation (Free poodle with every trepanation done) all for the low low Price of 7 zloty's an hour, or a pig and a sixpack of coke for the whole course, and sharpen your psychic abilities. If you haven't guessed the you should probably enroll in Madame Zlatys School of Psychic Training and Trepanation (Free poodle with every trepanation done) all for the low low Price of 7 zloty's an hour, or a pig and a sixpack of coke for the whole course,and develop some psychic abilities....

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The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss


My rating: 5 of 5 stars

'I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep. My name is Kvothe. You may have heard of me' So begins the tale of Kvothe - currently known as Kote, the unassuming innkeepter - from his childhood in a troupe of traveling players, through his years spent as a near-feral orphan in a crime-riddled city, to his daringly brazen yet successful bid to enter a difficult and dangerous school of magic. In these pages you will come to know Kvothe the notorious magician, the accomplished thief, the masterful musician, the dragon-slayer, the legend-hunter, the lover, the thief and the infamous assassin.'

I really can't adequately express what a joy it is when you find that someone with so much talent as a writer gets to publish a fantasy novel. Kvothe and the world created is masterful and I look forward to the next book in the sequence.

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The Zen of Waiting...

So today was waiting at the hospital, waiting for a copy of my birth cert to get a passport, which is sad that I haven't needed one before now, waiting at the garda station to get my identity confirmed, waiting at the post office to send my passport off. Queues, forms, sending off documents, and nothing much happening. I couldn't describe my life more perfectly.

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The Zen of Travelling...

The Zen of travelling or just driving, in this case to bring my mum to the chiropractor. I hadn't any plans or great achievement to be accomplished for the day, I just drove. It took a while with lots of motorway, and interspersed with typically bendy Irish roads, meant for donkeys and horses not people in cars. It was curiously, relaxing going from A to B. I had nothing to do but wait, mainly because I forgot to bring a book. Me and my thoughts for the hour she was in there. It did help that it was a sunny day, but then it always helps when it's a sunny day during the winter.........OOHHMMM!!!

Blog done

Hamster, Hamster Burning Bright...

My friends hamster died yesterday, and he was quite upset so I went over to cheer him up.(okay you at back, yes you reading this blog, stop laughing.) But that is why I didn't blog yesterday, we were Waking his hamster, and then buried her this morning. Alas poor Arwen you were a... Fluffy... Hamster...I hope you are having a great time in the giant hamster wheel of hamster heaven, and that is definitely enough uses of the word hamster in any blog.

Arwen R.I.P.(2008-2010)

Blog Done

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday...

The title really should be prefaced "I couldn't be arsed coming up with a semi-clever title for this blog, so this will do", but it was too long.I spent most of last night playing ps3, little big planet, excellent playing that in 2 player, and that is all for today too another short one because,well, see first statement and you'll understand... now I'm off to drink tea and watch the last ep of Wallander on bbc...

Blog Done

Visitating...

It's not a word but it should be , because that's what I was doing today and it's the reason that this is going to be short. Me and my Playstation are heading away for a night of gaming, really sick of driving and the cold weather has all the roads full of potholes, but anyway, to the car-mobile and away....

(short)Blog Done

How To Annoy Your Friends...

Two words: Finger Puppet.

Talk to your friends via the finger puppet in an annoying voice, offer them relationship advice. Make your friends talk to the finger puppet, especially if they need a lift, make them beg the finger puppet for said lift. Most importantly however, only give them the lift when they've begged nicely, asking pretty please with cream and sugar on top , and given the finger puppet now named Mr. Wizard a kiss, then query there sexuality for liking the finger puppet too much. Best 5 euro I've spent in ages, thank God for the new Art & Craft shop in town today. I haven't laughed this hard in quite some time, my friends might never speak to me again.... ah fuck it! It was worth it... :D

Blog Done

Oh Dear What Can The Matter Be...

I'm totally lacking in inspiration today , possibly the most boring day ...ever. The highlight was going to lidl to do some shopping, then mopping floors and cleaning toilets.. hurray for me! Well at least the floors are clean now though... going to see some friends tomorrow, I really hope it's a better day than this one..

Blog Done(sadly)

Just Another Manic ....Wednesday...

I was rudely awoken this morning by my brother ringing the phone til I got up and opened the front door for him. Then we went and sorted out his shed to stick a oil heating tank in it, not a big deal ,but why the Fuck didn't he ring me last night , themn we could have organised it so I could have been up, ready and waiting for him, rather than bleary eyed and grumpy. On the plus side I did get to spend part of the day with a really cool dog (pictured) his name is Trigger, and feed some ponies, one of their names was also Trigger. It was bloody cold though , and I'm very happy that's there's a thaw setting in, on the down side this generally means back to the rain. Oh well, what you lose on the swings, you gain on the roundabouts or so my granny always says.

So it looks like the process at the minute for me is to squeek these little blogs in late at night just before the date changes, I think the pressure of a deadline is the only thing making me write them, but their starting to stack up nicely now, even if no-one is reading them.... :D

Blog Done

Oh Well!

Missed the deadline again. I don't think that is a bad thing though, as I have very little to say today, the job search continues with no prospect of getting anything, 2 years of this now. Madness is sure to happen soon, I hope it's a colossal breakdown, and I end up thinking I'm a Bunny Rabbit, or Napoleon, or have Multiple Personalities. A sexy madness that ends up in the newspapers, rather than getting "Oh! that fella, he just got depressed and stuff", I get, "Oh! that fella, wasn't he the one that rode a donkey down the town backwards, dressed like a Viking, telling everyone that he was the Queen of England" I think I could live with that.

The funny thing I have found about writting this blog, is that I always come in and think I'm going to write a sedate little piece about my life, and then I end up going some very strange places

.... I like this Blog, it's making me weirder.

Blog Done

Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron by Jasper Fforde


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Shades of Grey is set in a post-apocolyptic future where most the remaining humans can only see individual colours,and most are completely colourblind. The society has now become a colourtocracy, with the colourblind on the bottom of the pile, the main protagonist is a Red named Eddie Russet, and we follow his journey as he comes to east carmine and meets a revolutionary named Jane Grey and her retrouseé nose. It took me a little while to get into the swing of this book,I got a little bit bogged down in the soap opera of daily life in the colourtocracy. But the elements that I enjoy so much in Mr. Fforde writing soon come to the fore, the humour, the lack of spoons, the madness of the rules, the mystery of the "something that happened" and all the future tech lying around in the ruins soon got me hooked, I stayed up til 4am last night to finish off this book. So to sum up if you like his previous books then this one won't disappoint you.

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It was my birthday, so this fucking counts...

Yes i know it's officially the 11th now ,but I haven't gone to bed yet so this blog still counts for the 10th. More importantly yesterday was my birthday,Unfortunately no one really remembered, not an unusual occurrence, but it did leave me feeling a little depressed, but then I started gaming and I'm over that now.I've been playing little Big Planet, and I think I have re-found my gaming love , it's the platform games that i seem to enjoy the most.They also aggravate me the most as well, I tried playing Modern Warfare 2 but I am officially, complete, and total shite at that game. So anyway, Hurray for me I'm very old at 34, it won't be long before the senility and incontinence start to kick in, the latter before the former I hope.

Blog done

Freeze the "blanks"off a Brass Monkey...

I don't know where that old saying came from, but it's a popular one around here the last couple of weeks,and in case your wondering just substitute the word "Balls" for "Blanks" to get the full effect. I don't think the weather is particularly hard, it's just we're not used to it. This isn't going to be much of a blog it's just an excuse to try to post a few pictures from my phone. Well it turns out just the one picture per post is allowed by blogger so this one is down by the marina where the water is freezing over for the first time I can remember.Right well I'm off to sit by the fire for the rest of the night

Blog Done

Spreading The Chuck Love.....

I love Chuck..... It's one of my favouritest Shows in the whole world, and it's on again next Sunday ......Woohooo, on my birthday and everything. Well I say it'll be on Sunday, but really it'll be Monday before i can download it. Well maybe not download it because everyone knows that to be illegal, and therefore immoral, it leads to piracy, and although it is one of my secret burning ambitions to become a pirate, (my name would be Captain Jimbo Piratepants and the ladies would buckle at my swash..heh heh heh! but enough of my sexual fantasies) I want to be a pirate on the high seas and not the internet, so it will be Monday before my friend in America sends me the episode on a dvd, wait that's not very plausible either. Hold on, I have it! Magic fairies will put chuck on my P.C. ,now that's fucking genius. God I love them fairies, not as much as I Love Chuck though.... Sorry Fairies...

Blog Done

Sandman Slim: A Novel by Richard Kadrey


My rating: 3 of 5 stars

'James Stark spent 11 years killing monsters in Lucifer's arena for the entertainment of fallen angels, but now he's back in seedy, magic-riddled L.A., trying to avenge his girlfriend's murder and hunt down Mason Faim, the black magician responsible for getting him sent downtown. He meets with some initial success, beheading second-rate magician Kasabian (whose head becomes Stark's smart-mouthed sidekick), but he can't find Faim. Instead he encounters Homeland Security agents, a near-psychotic angel and some odd nonhuman, nonangelic beings called the kissi.'

Okay i read this fairly quickly and whilst I did enjoy it I just found that the main character Stark was just too powerful for me to fully get behind him. I never felt he was in any danger , however that is always going to be a failing in first person perspective novels. I did enjoy the dark noir los angeles setting, the quality of the writing is excellent, and i will be definitely looking for ward to reading the second installment. So to sum up ,if you like your action balls to the wall, with lots of angels, demons, and vampires then you should really enjoy Sandman Slim.

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Domo Aregato Mr Roboto...

So today the flu is practically put of my system, well apart from the getting rid of the gallons of snot that appears to be breeding in my nose, it's like the ooze in Ghostbusters 2(Guess what movie I was watching today!), I could have made a Snotman...... like the snowwman..... you know!.... except made with the..... I'll stop there I think. Yesterday was little Xmas(well it is where i live!) and officially the last day of Xmas.... Hurrah! I should have spent it taking down the decorations but that will have to be done some other time, because I can't be arsed, tomorrow will do... same goes for this blog.

Blog Done

Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
One of the reasons I have come to really love the Kurt Wallander series of detective novels and why I really enjoyed this novel, is because of the main protagonist. Kurt Wallander is definitely one of the best realised and fully Human fictional Characters I have read. Wallander probably wouldn't be able to do the Times crossword in ten minutes like Morse, or be as hard boiled as Sam Spade, but instead his more dogged approach feels more realistic. In faceless killers we follow hime across a cold grey Skanian Winter following the horrific Murders of a pair of old age pensioners. We watch as he tries to solve this crime whilst going through a divorce and with his married life falling apart.There are tremendous twists and turns and an undercurrent of racial tension simmering in the background, with a great ending, all in all a really superb first novel

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Well Fuck! And I was doing so well too...

So now you see why I don't make resolutions, I never remember to do the bloody things. It's not that I don't want to do them, it's just I get busy or distracted with other things.....SQUIRREL...God, I loved UP! what an excellent movie....what was I typing about again...... So, last night I was ripping some Dawson's Creek dvd's I got for my brother for Xmas so I can stick them on his laptop. It's not a show I watched when it first came out so I started watching them, and got so incensed at the whole Dawson and Joey situation....I was practically shouting at the screen..... just shag her already, Lob the Lad in her... give her the hot Beef injecter... Sink the pink... and I was having so much fun coming up with euphemisms I completely forgot about my little blog promise, well not a promise, but desire for change... Ah! Fuck it! I will do better tomorrow I will grab my brain by the scruff of its brainballs and shake th........SQUIRREL!!!......God I love that movie....

Blog Done

how to finagle your girlfriend....

Well that was what came up when i typed "how to" into google, well, it's sort of what came up, I may have changed one of the words , go on guess which word I dares ya, although who is going to read this is anyones guess, probably noone. Anyway today has been more or less like the other two days with the flu, although I'm feeling a lot less crappy and the fever dreams are starting to make as much sense as my dreams have ever done at night(Translation: back to the sexy dreams for me! :D)anyway now i'm tired soo....

Blog Done

Flu ... cont.

So after feeling like crap all day yesterday, and spending most of it in bed I finally emerged at 2pm today feeling better, and by "feeling better" I mean that the thought of death became less preferable than it had been the day before. Today it was mostly being tired and taking lots of paracetomol and lying on the couch most of the day, watching crap on the telly, a most productive day indeed. I did however mamage to get most of the way through Faceless Killers before i found out that they are showing that as the new wallander movie on the bbc tonight so I have that to look forward to....

Blog Done

Flu............

So one of my friends has given me the delightful gift that keeps in giving and i have the flu, everthing and i mean everthing aches! This is going to be short cos I'm taking some paracetomol and going to bed....

Blog Done

Last minute dash

So August was my first and last Post .....AUGUST , My god that is just brutal i see other people online using it as a diary, but I'm even shit at that. So I'm going to attempt to squeek this one in under the wire on the first day of the new year and hopefully keep going, not as a resolution, because they never workfor me , but just as a symbol that something has to be different this year , cos the last two years and possibly longer have been such complete and total shite that something has to change . I have definitely hit the bottom, I'm lying in the Muck staring up, hoping that to see fluffy bunnies in the rainclouds, does that make sense... Probably not.... Fuck it.......it's not 12 yet so it's in bad spelling swearing an all, Happy fucking New Year... WooHoo and all that Bollocks!!!

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