Every Day is Election Day

First off, apologies for the dual skimpiness in blogging over the last week or so; Ciara’s up to her eyeballs studying for the exams - tomorrow week is the first big day, wish her luck! - and I’ve been trying to keep on top of a growing academic responsibility as the first of my Final Year assignments fall due.

I just wanted to share this - on the bus in this morning Ciara picked up a Herald AM and saw this inside it:

CREEPY CALLER

Going out tonight but don’t want the hassle of being asked for your number only to be bombarded with random messages and texts from drunken lunatics, Ugly Bettys and the like?

Fear not, Herald AM is at hand with our Creepy Caller number. Simply save this number into your mobile and then give it out to unwanted suitors as your own. Then revel in the freedom of a creep-free inbox the next day.

We’ll publish the oddest, funniest and most disturbing texts and calls next and every week. Watch this space.

087-9331891

Aside from the fair chance that this might be illegal (if I send them a funny text, and they print it, is that infringement of my Intellectual Property?), I challenge everyone reading to appear in the column. Send a funny text to the number, then Twitter it and include the hashtag #creepycaller (you don’t need to understand what this does, just include it in your Tweet) in your message. Here’s an example to get you started.

Anyone who makes it into the paper itself receives … well, the kudos of your fellow Blogatrons. And I might buy you a pint at PodCamp on Saturday or at the Irish Web Awards.

So keep an eye on the entries to see how everyone else is doing - and get to it!

Know that application on the Bepo (what Mam insists on calling it!) and Facebook, where you can clarify how you know your friends? Here are some of the more amusing things my friends have to say about me, and how we all became friends:

1. Ciaran (Tayto) - the best friend
Fate brought us together
The cunning, devious, the downright manipulative of them all. They tell me to check one box, the “through a friend” doesn’t do justice, so fuck it. Fate it’ll be. The credit to my debit. The Freddy Mac to my Fannie Mae.

Tayto and Brennan: the caucasian Kenan and Kel

2. Bartley Rock - the only man whose name is also an order
Fate brought us together, Lived together, Sports Team, Childhood friends
Squash. We played squash. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

3. Raymond - the Law
Through Bebo, Fate, Through a Friend
“Can we say we met through bebo? No, truly we met when you tried to beat me up at a pro-life rally with, typically, a hurley.”

4. Denis (The-Best-Friend-Of-The-Brother and now a Brennan basically!)
Family
We must be related we’re both incedibly good looking while the OTHER (supposedly) brother is….. well I don’t want to say it he might be listening…

5. Lynam (the Lámh… *shudder* ;))
We hooked up
Ah no. But not for want of trying Congress ‘06.

6. Shane (the Politicio)
Fate brought us together, School or College
The winds of fate gushed through the meadow, and there they blew the Mighty Brennan and the Fearless Holden across the forests and glens to meet at the Crossroads of Time….the rest, was history.

…

This could be a good meme, how do your friends know you?

My delayed (sorry Darragh, thanks for the tag!) contribution to the irritable cause…

1. List two things that irritate you for a reason, and list the reason, and two things that irritate you for no apparent reason whatsoever
2. Give credit to the person who tagged you
3. Link your answers to the original blog, Skillett.com
4. Tag four new people to participate

Well, the first thing that annoys me are rules… so I guess I’ll break the said above rules here and do more than two things? Rebel Rebel! What can I say, I’m a crank and I adore a good grumble (meaning it’s Monday and Cork won yesterday)!

I’ve decided not to restrict myself just to two things that I know irritate me - if it irritates me, it irritates me, and I’m taking the chance to purge!

So get yore rant protection helmets on, folks, I’m away!

1. Sinusitis
I suffer from what is known as a ‘Brennan nose’. This involves a cold at least 5 times a year which includes, but isn’t limited to, the following symptoms: Pressure and pain over the forehead, constant headaches, continual clearing of the throat, a burning runny snoz that is always blocked with a thick mucus, and earaches bordering on downright deafness. You spend your time blowing a nose that is as blocked as my writing ability in explaining the horrors of these sinus attacks.

Sure, I’ve tried all the homeopathic “cures”, and I’ve nasal sprayed with the best of them, but sure as hell every odd month I end up spluttering like a faulty auto unit willing that damn air cavity in my nose to pop for some serious relief. To boot I tend to be struck down with a lurgy of this kind at the most inappropriate times… piano exams, orals, Leaving Cert, finals… you name it. At these times I am obviously at my attractive best and my primary concern is batting away admirers one snotty minute at a time. [Oi! That should be your priority all the time! - Gav]

For this, and so many other wonderful genes, thanks Pops.

2. Token Environmentalists
Self-righteous and arrogant greens truly grind my gears. You know the muesli eating, Guardian-reading types who only eat free range… but happen to conveniently guzzle gallons of gas and take several long-haul flights a year? Such types can often be seen in Avoca Handweavers, with other middle class ‘conscience’ types - one of the more disgusting phenomena of the Celtic Tiger years. I will declare war on their Cat Kitson aprons and home-made 20yo-a-pot hummus (totally not a real food, incidentally). Ooooone day…

3. Irish Transport in general…
…but mostly a bitter shout out to the cowboys that are behind the Student Travel Card, the atrocious attendants at Irish Rail and the badly trained and cantankerous drivers at Dublin Bus. Note: You can be mugged on a train in Ireland, seek help and be told to “Get over it” when you’ve been hit over the head. Horse’s mouth.

4. Notes from roommates (just an issue from my past thankfully! I heart my new roomies!)
Dearest X,

Please stop communicating with me through notes. You know where I live (unfortunately) and if I know you (and I don’t want to) you have probably stalked me on social networking sites for months and know that I am never at home to be the one creating the mess in the kitchen, eating your cheerios or drinking your beer.

Sincerely,
Ciara

5. People who take everything and give nothing
I prefer to call them verbal spongers. You end up stuck beside them at a wedding or in the next booth in the office, and you’re expected to be a bloody conversation jukebox. They give you nothing to work with.

“See that movie last night?”
“Meh.”

“How do you know Mary?”
“Work.”

Painfully you pull conversation from them. One. Grunt. At. A. Time.

6. Unremoved labels on shoes and clothes

Well done! You got new shoes! Think you could take the label off the bottom and not just hope it’ll disintegrate off the soul of your foot? Those white labels burn my eyes as I’m walking behind you. Hate hate hate it.

7. Women’s attitude to women
A previous post of mine will suffice here. ‘Nuff said

8. Unblended foundation
Just. Look. At. The. Difference. In. Colour. Between. Your. Neck. And. Face.

Wonkaface.

9. Top Gear
I hate things I don’t understand. And they drank behind the wheel. I don’t care if it was in the Antarctic…

10. Structured memes
Obviously.

You’ve no idea how much restraint it took not to put Cork in there. I guess we owe Mulley.

Rant over and out!

Credit the person who tagged you: The first thing that strikes me about Darragh is the understanding that he has for the world. He views issues and events with a complex sensitivity and humanises stories to wonderful effect. I truly love reading his blog; it was one of the first I started to religiously follow when I came across the blogosphere. He champions new bloggers around him and challenges establishing ones. I’m proud to say he takes some time out of his day to read our rants. Thank you Darragh.

I second Gav’s tags: doooooo it!

Work is dead so I’ll be back later…

I think this is the first time either of us have actually been tagged in a meme - chalk it down, the momentous date!

Anyway, we’ve been tagged by Darragh to participate in the Getting Your Goat meme, which has the following rules:

1. List two things that irritate you for a reason, and list the reason, and two things that irritate you for no apparent reason whatsoever
2. Give credit to the person who tagged you
3. Link your answers to the original blog, Skillett.com
4. Tag four new people to participate

I guess we’ll both be doing our different entries and that Ciara will be getting hers up soon enough, but for now, it’s Getting Gav’s Goat.

So - Things that irritate me for a reason:

Misplaced Arrogance
Something that Ciara’s last post brought forefront to my mind was how much in the last year, slugging away for the Students’ Union, we were exposed to a certain few people who, despite any inner fear about their failings or adequacy at particular tasks, went out of their way to find some way of inflating themselves, mostly by actively deflating the other people around them.

I know that in an arena as vicious, vacuous - and often so spiteful - as student politics that there’s an innate need to cover up any failings but when those failings are obviously well known to those around - and when those in question known that those surrounding them would only be willing to help, then puncturing the people in their stead is just a stupid, stupid thing.

Unfortunately, at this point in time, while I don’t regret doing the year with the SU, I’m leaving with far more sour memories than fond ones. You know who you are.

The Sunday Independent
And what’s worse, I can’t help but continue to buy the fucking thing. Curse you, Aonghus Fanning, curse you and your nepostic, pretentious shambles of a publication.

Example a prime, as they’d say themselves, from last week’s issue:

Life on the Celtic Costa goes on despite the gloom at home, writes Barry Egan in Marbella”.

Oh, God love them, isn’t it lucky for them that they can get on with their lives despite all the hassle they have? Poor Barry Egan too, having to head all that way, just to file 973 measly words about how you can see Africa on a fine day. God love him, making a 5,814km round trip just to do it. One word for every 6km travelled? The craythur.

Well, you know what? Fuck off, Sindo. Of the 973 words you published in that piece, a grand total of 0 were necessary for the stable continuation of the world’s self-propulsion. And what’s more, you’ll be the first ones complaining about how the Government isn’t really committing to climate change, while you send your ginger prat journalists off on 3,600-mile tours to file sub-1,000 word pieces on fuck all.

[exhales slowly]

Now then - things that irritate me for no good reason.

The Hills on MTV
I know there’s absolutely no difference between it, and the soap operas that I won’t admit to liking, but will admit to watching anyway (on the grounds that it’s of significant social importance). But. Arrrrrrrgh. I don’t care if Lo is being a bitch to Audrina, and neither should anyone else.

The fact that although I know many things irritate me on a daily basis, that I can’t remember these causes on command
I rest my case. I swear, I spent twenty minutes trying to come up with stuff and The Hills was as good as I could do. Epic fail.

Credit to the person who tagged us:
Darragh’s blog is one of those rare nuggets of sheer honestly, without any sense of inflation or pretense, that come along far too rarely. His writing is open, honest, and bare, and his blog is well worth a subscription.

Tag four people to take part:
Alexia - Purely out of curiosity in what annoys her for no reason!
Dani - come on, Dan, get out of your blogging shell and express yourself more!
Masquerade - one of the more eloquent ranters I know!
Sinead K - I know Darragh tagged you already, but he did thirteen people, so I figure I’m allowed some overlap…