Susan Hated Literature

Disappeared again for a few days there didn’t I? tut, tut, my bad. But just be glad I’m here at all. Cause you know… Nope, can’t come up with an ending for that sentence at all.

Anyways, remember back two years ago I made such a huge fuss about Munster and the Heineken Cup final. You’d be forgiven for thinking that I’d given up on supporting them at all, so little have I written about this season, or indeed last season. But that isn’t the case. The real problem is that since Sky nabbed the rights it is harder to watch the matches. And those highlights packages just aren’t the same.

I did head to the pub for a few, but then you’re in a pub and not really inclined to be blogging. Something to do with alcohol no doubt.

But this weekend is Heineken Cup Final weekend. Munster V Toulouse. And of course Munster are going to win. And of course we’re all supporting them. And of course Gift Grub have done a song for the occasion:

In other random exciting news I’ve just gotten The Wire season 4 in the post. Yay! Now, I need some device to stop time so I can manage to watch it all this weekend and still have time to do other stuff.

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Via Damien:

Also a bit of a telly round up: Prison Break is back^[1] on RTE 2. Course I’ve been watching Heroes on SciFiUk at that particular time so haven’t been watching it. But thanks to the joys of d’internet I got to watch it last night. I wasn’t overly impressed^[2]

Hopefully I’ll be more entertained when Rome makes its come back on Wednesday. And Sunday^[3] Which might be awkward as I’m heading up to Sligo this weekend. Don’t wanna be on the train when Lamb and Chicken are back on the screen.

Over the weekend there was a feast of GAA action but there was too much going on. I watched the Limerick v Tipp hurling match on Sat. evening. I was cheering for Limerick, on account of that is where de mudder is from, but I didn’t think they win. And they didn’t. They did however draw. Again. So it’ll be a third replay.

On the face of it Limerick have simply trailed Tipp like a particularly enthusiastic puppy: every time Tipp have tried to shoo them away, Limerick have scampered happily back to their heel. Will Tipp finally rid themselves of the troublesome mutt, or will Limerick eventually bite them on the bum?

On Sunday we had a dilemma to face. Watch the Dublin V Meath replay in the football or switch over and enjoy the Cork V Waterford hurling? A peak audience of 792,000 watched both matches, with 342,000 watching the hurling and 285,000 watching the football, according to the Irish Times^[4] but I’d guess that most people did what I ended up doing. Flicking between the two and missing out on most of the action. Luckily we had The Sunday Game later on for all the bits we missed. And the Sligo match. Which we won, by two points, which means that for the first time since 2002 Sligo will be in a Connacht final.

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Can you believe that June is here already?

Do you believe that over half of the searches^[1] that come to this blog^[2] are Irish rugby related.

Did you know that most of those were quite specific in what they were looking for, and that was Paul O’Connell and his “fear of god” speech. Oh and the Gift Grub version^[3]

Ah Giftius^[4] Grubbius^[5] how great^[6] you^[7] are^[8]

Today you had The Thrills, the real ones, talking to Jay. It was great.

Am I over using the word great? Will I devalue it if I continue to use it? Will this post make any sense? These are all questions.

But where are all the answers? Damn, that was another question.

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I didn’t watch the rugby documentary^[1] last night. I was watching Medium and the Heroes. And can I just say one little thing to scifi uk? Your ads are the worst, and I will never ever buy the new Tomb Raider game, nor the previous one you advertised, Sparta, or whatever. And why? Because you try and deafen me. Just be glad I’m not in the army or there’d be suing^[2] going on^[3] .

Medium is a strange mix of telly. In one way it seems kinda relaxed about stuff^[4] but on the other hand it seems a bit on the right, politically. You know, with being pro-death penalty and whatnot. But then again, who am I to say you can’t agree with drinking and cussing and be fairly liberal while wanting to kill peoples. It’s all good^[5] .

Heroes, as I said before^[6] I do like and enjoy. But I don’t really like any of the characters, so I’m a little meh. But it is entertaining and stuff happens^[7] and it has Christopher Eccleston^[8] in it, even if his character does have a silly name^[9] But he is good and grumpy so I likes him. But not a huge amount. And I don’t like cop guy. He’s annoying. I do like Nathan, even if he can be a selfish bastard at times, but he isn’t quite selfish enough to have the “love to hate him” thing going on, and he isn’t “heart of gold” enough to love him. Peter is improving. I didn’t like his do-gooder-ness,^[10] but know that he is developing a bit of a backbone its all good. Nikki/Jessica, meh, could do more. The kid is alright, the father a bit of a nothing character so far. Hiro I’m not sure of yet. Claire I do like, and her ebil father.

Almost forgot, the girl, Sara, on last night’s episode^[11] of Medium also showed up in an episode of The Inside^[12] where she played an evil murdering child. So even though she played a victim here I so didn’t trust her. Evil child.

Anyways, back to the rugby, I have it recorded, but I’m probably going to buy the dvd as it looks more than entertaining, and in a way, better because it recorded the failure to achieve the Grand Slam. I did catch a few seconds and watching the faces of the players as they watched the final few minutes of the France game… excellent telly. And speaking of excellence, did anyone else catch this morning’s Gift Grub^[13] ? A day in the life of Paul O’Connell. Genius.

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Story bud? Or should that be buds? Who knows. Should one^[1] write to one person or to many? Sorta^[2] like the you or ye issue I suppose. I’ll solve it and say y’all. So, to recap these first few nonsensical lines, any news y’all?

I’ve been in really good form these past few days. Not that I have wild mood swings, or that I’ve been in a bad mood before that. I don’t really do ups and downs, to paraphrase Lisa Simpson, I know neither highs nor lows

And if I’m honest I should be in a bad mood cause the saga of the laptop has gotten worse. Now Pavlov won’t even recognise audio cds, which was a frackin issue seeing as I’d just bought a new album and wanted to mp3 it all and listen on my way to work this morning. Instead, I had to bring it back into work and try three different computers here. One wouldn’t read the cd, one wouldn’t read the mp3 player and the third was just fine^[3] So I’ve just finished transferring songs over and will get to listen at lunch, or maybe on my way home this evening.

But the hassle. The hassle

Not enough to dent my good mood though. Even the sight of three billion coffee cups and numerous scattered newspapers all over the library this morning didn’t make me want to issue a red alert and crack down on eating and drinking in the library. Nope, I just laughed along with Gift Grub and binned it all.

Which reminds me, Gift Grub you were a lazy bastard today weren’t you? First of all to still be going on about the rugby match. Who on earth would still be smiling everytime they see the buses with the Munster lads on the side^[4] But then to use the internet as the source on your inspiration^[5] Tut tut tut. Cause first of all they told the nation about google’s bias, which I was first alerted to via In Fact, Ah, go to google and search for Leinster Supporters Club: Now read that first line. hee

And then there was the fact that Jay did the Choose Leinster thingy thats been doing the email rounds.

Ah well, it was still funny. Jay has to be one of their best characters, and him constantly telling yer man from The Thrills^[6] to Shuddup, jus’ shuddup was great.

Hmm, I’ve gone off-topic, not that I was ever really on a topic in the first place, but I wasn’t actually intended to bore you all with yet more rugby there’ll be plenty of time for that come May 20th.

As well as the soundtrack to Merry Christmas I also got my first vol. of [tag]Bill Willingham[/tag]Fables which quite^[7] a few^[8] people^[9] have been saying is really great. I didn’t get a chance to read much as I was error checking registrys and enabling and disabling, uninstalling and reinstalling drives^[10] and oher such things in a futile attempt to get Pavlov back in working order. But what little I read seems really great. Course the second vol has been delayed in Amazon-land for some reason. So I won’t rush the first one.

And thank the gods^[11] for Firefox’s tab saver extension. Cause the pc just crashed, and I’d've had to come up with all this all over again if I’d been using IE.

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This week (4-17th March) is Seachtain na Gaeilge 2006, ach lasmuigh de Gift Grub’s Na bac leis na Buzzcock I haven’t seen any mention of it, not an ad on the telly or even ar an radió. However, there are events being held both here in Ireland, and internationally.

It’ll be interesting to see if the big brother-type show gets any interest. Personally the presence of Gavin Lambe-Murphy’d be enough to persuade me not to watch. Never did like his column in whatever newspaper it was/is. Dialann of an IT boy just isn’t my cupán tae.

In other news, nuair a bhí mé at the kino recently there was a trailer for Romance & Cigarettes, starring James Gandolfini, which looked very uninteresting and gruama epecially for a kinda comedy, which it seemed to be. But then, de satharn chonaic mé cláir Jonathan Ross, and he had a little bit about it. Turns out it is a musical. How did I miss that in the trailer? Of course, that’d be cause there was no ceol in the trailer, ar chor ar bith. I think the one I saw was an edited version of the one you can see here. Agus, tar éis Jonathan Ross, maybe I will go see it. Then again, maybe not.

Táim cinnte go rinne mé a lán botún san post sin, ach, is cuma liom. Thug mé iarracht ar rud. Agus, is leor sin.

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EDIT: Doh! Have only just realised now why the Jervis Centre was closed as I walked by it after leaving NM to catch her Luas. And Dossing Times has a good entry on the progress of the riots.

Went to see I, Keano in the Olympia today. Was very enjoyable.

Back in 2002 a civil war erupted in Ireland. On one side those who believed Roy Keane was right to insist on perfection. On the other, those who though Mick McCarthy and the team should stick together. Out of the drama came I, Keano a comedy musical play by men responsible for Gift Grub^[1] and Father Ted. The writers; Arthur Matthews, Mario Rosenstock and Michael Nugent have transplanted the action back to Ancient Rome, with General Macarticus as he prepares his team for upcoming battle. Among the soldiers are Quinnus^[2] and of course, the greatest warrior of them all, Keano. This run is, I think, its third in the Olympia, and today was the last showing before it heads off to the UK^[3]

It was really good. Myself and NM were laughing the whole way through. The actor^[4] playing Keano was fantastic, barely contained rage simmering all the time. And his scenes with the “great hair-dryer god” Fergie were fantastic. He did almost break character and piss himself laughing at one stage, but that just made it better.

I’m not sure if some of the jokes will work outside Ireland. Quinnus’ wife Surfia gets her name from the Surf adverts she has made. Still, I’m sure that most will work fine.

If you get the chance I’d say go along.

And then I got home to find out that I’d missed the riots. Yes, riots. There was supposed to have been a Love Ulster parade down O’Connell St. today. They are a loyalist/unionist group^[5] who want to promote unionism blah blah NI politics. Anyways, certain individuals decided to cause a bit of trouble. Republicans^[6] thought they’d stop the parade and, according to RTE, began attacking the gardaí, photgraphers and journalists. Poor old Charlie Bird was even hospitalised^[7]

Businesses along the route were forced to shut as gardaí and members of the Garda Riot Squad forced the protesters down O’Connell Street.

Further skirmishes broke out at O’Connell Bridge, Aston Quay, Fleet Street and Temple Bar.

The most serious violence was in the Nassau Street area. Three cars were burnt out, windscreens were smashed and businesses had their windows broken

Glad I didn’t pop along for a gawk amn’t I?
But if one good thing comes from this, hopefully it’ll help persuade people that Sinn Féin and their supporters aren’t really interested in peace and democracy. The Community at Large has a collection of links in this post

Oh, and congrats to Scotland who defeated England in the rugby. Now no one can win the Grand Slam, but the Six Nations is now wide open. Hopefully it’ll be a good match tomorrow and we’ll defeat Wales.

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