Are you in the wrong career?

Have you ever thought you were in the wrong career? Ever sat down and said "Fuck, what am I doing with my life?" and consider handing in your resignation to the boss? Ever take the time to see what you SHOULD be doing?

I do. All the time. I'm convinced I'm in the wrong industry but the problem is that what I should be doing, there aint really a market for it - or rather its taken up by one man..."Weird Al" Yankovic.

Yes. I have a knack of hearing a song a few times and then creating hilarious new words for said song. I usually test this out on my wife who is not only amused by my lyrics but also taken aback by the content. Which is usually very crude and MTV could only put on after South Park. I never write down these lyrics as I listen to the radio when in the shower, driving or doing something for which I cant be arsed to run and get paper to jot them down.

I can't give you a specific example of my now legendary side-splitting songs, but if this blog ever stops and you see a new parody artist in the charts you will know what happened. In the meantime I better keep on getting money for bills. And thinking of what I should be doing.

New All-Ireland Monopoly

Hasbro are creating a new version of Monopoly for Ireland which will include 22 counties. They are asking for people to vote on why their county should be included.

You can vote here.

If you are not from Ireland or are undecided, then vote for Donegal and make sure and leave Monaghan out of your selection....haigh!

Idea for new elections.

The elections in Ireland are nearly upon us and again Im not sure I will vote (to be honest its safe to say I wont vote as my vote is in Donegal as I never transferred it). Here is something that I would love to see happening but cant because of the shower that run the country (doesnt matter who they are).

1. Salaries to be made public. We have different levels of office and salary caps should be applied to each. Once you move up a level your salary goes up. And they should never, ever be allowed to vote for their own payrises. It should be based on performance and inflation the same as other peoples jobs.

2. Ministers caught doing anything bad, taking money they shouldnt or who have been tapped up. Sacked. And they only get the money they have put into their pension trusts and treated like you or I if we are sacked from our jobs. None of this golden handshake shite.

3. Why have one party run the country? We vote for each position in the government. For example, for Minister for Health we ask each party to nominate someone. Then we, as a country, vote for the best person based on their proposal for health based on the budget proposed before the election. And we do the same for each position and have a backup (second in the votes) there to assist. This way we have the best person in each position and if it doesnt work its our fault - we put them in. With this each party will only have a few positions to worry about.

4. We set an independant board set up to monitor each position listed above. One for health, education, etc.. This board is made up of the general public and they are they to police the politicians. This way we can see what they are doing and all work should be made public (within reason). Something similar to what Damien was suggesting.

5. Shoot anyone who doesnt like my policies. When I rule the world you will do what I say.

I hate politics & religion

As people who know me know, I hate politics. To me politics is like religion and both are the cause, and usually never the end, of all world troubles. While we may think that droughts are caused by a lack of rainfall, it most cases things could be done to assist and prevent death - but rather the powers that be in that country are spending a fortune on firearms and protecting their position. Again politics caused the trouble, not the lack of rain (well off course the lack of rain was an issue but the money spent on firearms could have bought water and helped looked for underground water supplies).

I lost religion when I was about 17 (although it was slightly dissipating before that). It disappeared down the back of the sofa and no matter how hard I looked all I could find was 20p in small coins, a few M&M's and some fluff. I wasn't bothered though. Earlier in my life I quite liked religion and looked upto the priests in our parish. They were all nice lads, good fun and played football with us (I found out when I was about 22 that one of these priests was convicted of child abuse and sent to prison. Dirty fucker Fr.Green. What makes this worse is that the Bishop knew and just moved him to another parish. That, to me, is aiding and abetting a crime and should also be punished but the clergy still have to much fuckin power in this country).

Still as I got older I slowly realised that I didn't need religion as much as it needed us. Did I really need to sit for an hour every Sunday and listen to someone telling me I'm going to hell because I fiddled with myself or had dirty thoughts? Did I fuck. There was sleep to be had and football to play. I worked Saturday evenings and played football on Sunday so I didn't have to go to mass. When I did go it was to help my parents out of the usual "Where's Stephen?" questions from neighbours and relatives. Still I made it be known I wasn't happy. To this day I really don't give a shit about religion.

I remember when I was 19 and just home from the pub having a conversation with me Grandma. She is very religious (my other was also). I have no idea how it started but I remember telling her that I thought religion was a problem and how could they tell us not to kill and then in the past they murdered those that were not of the same religion? Well? She couldn't answer and started arguing more. I made the points about the crusades and what they done. How people in Africa were treated like shite as they were not Catholics. Still, the age old Irish tradition stood firm and nothing was taken in.

See this is the problem. No one really looks at religion for what it is. I was at a confirmation last weekend and people still believe that a white bird will descend on them because the Bishop touches them. Does it? Really? For me, I went to support my niece as she was happy out on the day and my wife was the sponsor. I sat in the church hoping for it to be over fast so I could see the Donegal match. It is so old fashioned, the whole thing, and that is the trouble I have. We are told we all came from Adam and Eve and therefore we are all related, but we are told in the bible not to sleep with relations. We are told not to worship in certain ways and means and not to worship idols yet we have to go to a specific, costly place, each week and look at pricey statues or we will burn.

Maybe what doesn't bother me is that if there is a hell, I know I'm going. At this stage its just which part and how deep down that is being decided. Then again, maybe I will never murder anyone, treat my friends and relatives in a nice manner, live my life well and when I die.....come back as a snake or tiger. Who knows.

See this is the thing between politics and religion. Who the fuck knows what is going on and what is going to happen. Vote for Fine Fail. Why? Because you are less of a thieving shower of cunts compared to the other parties? Maybe they are less than you. Maybe greens are the way to go but what about Sinn Fein? What exactly will you do for me? Will you do it without authorising another payrise for yourselves? Wankers. That what gets me. And then I'm told that if I don't like the way the country is run to vote for someone else. Well, who exactly? They are all the same thieving, lying, conniving shower of bastards (and bastardettes) that I really couldn't give a shit.

Like religion, do we really know what happens in the big house? Does the Pope lie around with the biggest porn collection in the world enjoying himself? Does Bertie lie around drinking free beer, eating free food and stashing wads of cash down the arse of his pants? Do we really know? What exactly are the reasons for each party to exist? What are the reasons for religion to exist.

I'll end my rant by saying that I understand that people need religion. They need something to believe in and that's fine - but don't force it on me. Similarly, people have a chosen political party and stick by that but again, don't force it on me.

Lastly something to think about.

How many wars have been started in the name or religion or for political gain?
How many have been ended by religion or political gain without bloodshed?

Fuck all.

Joke O' The Day

Michael goes to visit his friend Tom who is on his death bed.

"Tom? Tom?"

"Yes Michael"

"Promise me" said Michael "when you get to heaven..."

"Yes *cough*"

"You will come back and tell me if they play cricket up there. I don't know if I could live without cricket. Please, please, please promise me you will do that"

"I will" says Tom

"You must...I wouldn't last up there without me cricket" said Michael

On Friday Tom passed away.

Saturday night and Michael is in bed. He has a few whiskey's in him and happily sleeping away.

"Michael....Michael"

Michael awoke and said "Yes? Who is that?"

"Its Tom here"

"Tom is dead" said Michael, looking around and making sure its not the whiskeys playing with his mind.

"I know that ya daft plether. You told me to come back and tell you about heaven."

"So?" said Michael rubbing his eyes in disbelief, "Whats it like? Have they cricket?"

"Well, I have good news and bad news to tell you" said Tom. "The good news is that it's great up here. Its beautiful. Cricket everywhere. Morning, noon, night. Cricket 24-7. Fantastic."

He continued "All the great's are here and we all play cricket together. Marvellous".

"So" said Michael, "whats the bad news?"

"Your my opening batter on Tuesday!"

Broadband

Two nights ago a lovely lady called to the house and told me that the Rushbrooke exchange was now enabled for broadband. Now you may remember the issues I was having so this was great.

One thing about this though is that we have to go back to Eircom for our calls which may or may not be great. Still after Talk Talk being a shower of wankers I suppose anyone is good (even if we were in the middle of changing to Perlico).

Here's hoping...

Things to do before I die

I was thinking about this and wondered what are the things I would like to do before I die. Here is what I came up with (in no particular order):

1) Go to a Liverpool v Man Utd match at Anfield
2) Go to a Liverpool v Everton match at Anfield
3) Do a solo sky dive
4) Learn to dive
5) Dive the great barrier reef
6) Dive around the sucken ships of Ireland
7) Climb a large mountain (I think Everest would just be a bit too much)
8) Run the Dublin marathon
9) Do a football tour of Europe stopping of and seeing a match in the following cities:
Dublin, Belfast, London, Cardiff, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Paris, Oslo, Gothenburg, Reykjavík, Helsinki, Munich, Berlin, Marseille, Barcelona, Madrid, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Brussels, Zurich, Vienna, Rome, Milan, Copenhagen, Prague, Warsaw, Budapest, Bucharest, Athens, Istanbul, Zagreb, Moscow and Kiev. I may add more to this list.
10) Go to the Arctic
11) Go to the Antartic
12) Go to the Sahara desert
13) Try and do a comedy act on stage
14) Visit the locations of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (if at all possible)
15) Write a book
16) Write and record a song

...these are just top of the head things and Im sure there are more to add.

Scott Parker

If ever there was proof that Mickey D's flucks you up then look at this...

This little lad..



Turned into this..


And don't be fooled by the ad. He may seem to reject going there but I bet his family brought him food back. There is no way his oul wan is gonna cook especially for him when she gets home just because he wanted to have a kick about.

A Team of Gary Breen's

This is class. Someone taught a class of 6 year old South Korean's the "We all dream of a team of Gary Breen's" song...

At long last..we've done it!

Yesterday was a history making day. Not only did I manage to spend 24 hours in Cahir at a party and not drink, but Donegal won their first ever football national league title.

To a lot of counties this may be trivial but when you have played in 13 finals in 15 years and won none of them, to win anything is special.

The mad thing is that Donegal have done a lot of things first in GAA that are forgotton. Im not sure of the exact year, but when Donegal played hurling in Croke Park in the 1920's they were the first team to wear numbers on their shirts in Croker (if you dont believe me ask Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh who said it on the radio).

In the 1970's during an All-Ireland Semi-Final Donegal had a penalty. The wind moved the ball from the spot and as the Donegal man replaced the ball the ref gave a free out for not asking him could he replace the ball. We lost that semi-final.

Its great to have won this title since our only other victory was the 1992 All-Ireland final. Since then we have lost every Ulster, McKenna Cup and League final we played in. This should give us great heart for the Championship First Round v Armage in late May.

Well done lads.....

Thailand

So yes, indeed. Two lovely weeks in Thailand and what a great place. Fair enough I am back two weeks at this stage but thought that I would share some knowledge on my time there.

Firstly, Bangkok is not as dirty as people make out. A fella I know on his way back to Ireland from Oz stopped off in Bangkok. He told me of going to the cinema and seeing rats running around the place. We also heard from someone else that we may see a rodent of two on the streets. To be honest, in five nights there I didn't see a thing. Not one..which is great as I am not a big fan of rodents at all. Overall I thought the city was nice and had a great buzz about it.

We spent the first three nights in Bangkok and stayed at the Amari Boulevard on the Sukhumvit Road. It was a very nice hotel and the rooms were nice but basic. Nothing to fancy. What was very nice was the Thai food served beside the swimming pool and the breakfast was really nice (it was also a bit on the expensive side even when you convert back to Euro. It was not included as part of the package we had). What was great about this hotel was the location. A skytrain station was just around the corner and this could help you get around most of the city (when it is fully completed it will be everything that the Luas in Dublin should be). Getting around Bangkok is very easy and save and I can say at no time did I feel intimidated or at threat unlike the Dublin nightlink or the London underground.

Also the Sukhumvit had some great little streets of it and some of the restaurants and pubs were excellent. There was a lovely pub on the corner of our street and it was great to watch the 'farang' with the young Thai girls and also great to spot the ladyboys. And the beer was nice. If you are interested in Ping Pong shows there is a street of the Sukhumvit where you can see this - unfortunately I read this in the Lonely Planet when we left there !!!

During the first few days we done a bit of sightseeing. We took a tour to the Grand Palace but I would recommend that you do this yourself. You can get a skytrain to the river and get a river taxi to Wat Po and the Grand Palace is beside this. The tour was nice to get some questions answered and some history but spent the total of 1hr 10mins there before being put back into the van and taken to the Gems Factory. You are shown a video of gem stones and then shown the factory before being followed around by someone waiting for you to buy something so they can get commission. We would have loved more time in the palace and especially some time to look at the Emerald Buddha and also to explore the place more and take it all it. It is such an impressive place that it deserves some attention.

The next day we went to some of the shopping areas and also took the River Taxi, Skytrain and also went to Wat Po palace which was great. Just watch out for the people inside who want to give you a tour. Maybe its your thing but I like to walk around at my own pace exploring. We ate that night in a restaurant whose concept was as good as its food - Cabbages and Condoms. Here you get a condom with your coffee rather than an after-dinner mint. The concept is excellent and well worth eating there to support this fantastic venture.

Then we headed for Koh Samui and to the town of Cheung Mon. This is a lovely little town and is very quiet and peaceful and has some very nice restaurants. It is a perfect place to go if you are looking to chill out, relax, have some good food and meet some Thai locals. If you are looking to party then it aint where you go. We stayed in the Imperial Boathouse Hotel which I cannot fault at all. Breakfast was lovely, food in the hotel was nice, staff were great, 2 swimming pools, beach access, cold beer...everything ! The hotel was just on the beach so you could stroll onto the beach at night and walk up to restaurants which were on the beach. We ate in Sala twice which had superb food. Another night we just lounged on a beach recliner, had some food, a few beers on the beach - class.

In Samui we done a tour which included some waterfalls, baby elephant show, monkey show and croc show ("Insert head, put in mouth...very beautiful creature" - you had to be there). Nice tour and a great way to spend a half-day and you get a Thai food lunch as well. Other than than went to see the Big Buddha which is big. Mainly we just chilled out and went through the three Irish stages of tanning - white, less-white and Red.

Back to Bangkok then for 2 nights and we stayed in the Royal Orchid Sheraton Hotel. Another lovely hotel and rooms which were nice but nothing special. Still, we had a river view room and the breakie was fab. We done the floating markets tour which also included the Rose Gardens. This was excellent and we booked a private tour so just us, the tour guide and the driver. The tour also brought us to a wood carving factory that is amazing and is defo worth a visit. I would recommend the tour option for this simply for the little stop off places.

We finished off that day having cocktails overlooking Bangkok at the Moon Bar at the Banyan Tree Hotel..class.

Then it was shopping for a day and off home. The MBK Center is the place to go but also check out the street markets as you can get good deals there. There are other shopping centres but the prices are not as good as you might expect. The MBK is the place for watches, clothes, mobile phones and other misc items...and its feckin huge

So overall here are some things that I would make note of if you are going to Thailand...

1. The Thai people are amazing. They are the loveliest people you could meet and a smile gets a smile - it really is infectious. Treat them with respect and that is what you get back.
2. Learn a few Thai phrases. Even learning to say "hello" and "thank you" makes the world of difference and it is really appreciated"
3. Tipping is between 80 and 100 baht generally.
4. When shopping barter in a fun way and with a smile. Do not raise your voice as this can be taken the wrong way. If you have a laugh with them they will joke back and does result in getting better prices.
5. Talk to the people. They are really nice and love to chat. We spent time in a shops and restaurants just chatting away to the owners and it was great.
5. Enjoy Thailand. I would defo go back as I think its a great country.

Anyone got tickets?

So on May 1st Liverpool play the Chavs (Chelski or CSKA London if you prefer) at Anfield in the 2nd leg of the Champions League Semi-Final. And I aim to be there.

I booked my flights last week as well as my accomodation.

The only thing missing is a ticket. So, if you have a ticket you aint using or you know where I can get one at a reasonable price (and not 500stg as is quoted on ta 'net) let me know.

Otherwise I had better get to the Albert Pub outside the stadium early enough to get a good spot.

Grand National

For all those who were wondering I won sweet FA on the Grand National last Saturday. Three feckin donkeys backed.

I had money each way on Bothar Na (refused the second to last fence), The Hedgehunter (finished in 9th I think) and Point Barrow who was the favourite and didnt make it past the first fence.

I hate horses now...

Am I now Marlon Brando?

Last Saturday, as you will recall if you have been awake during this blog, I was godfather to my new nephew Liam down in Dingle. Christenings are weird things really. I mean, how many people stand up there and actually believe what they are saying. They are saying they will help raise the child and also help raise it in a christian fashion.

Now helping raise the child is one thing but I didnt agree to the holy part at all as I dont really believe in any of it. For each part of the ceremony I mumbled and let the godmother and parents cover me. I have no interest in that. Now, I will take the child to Anfield and loan Liverpool DVD's but taking it to church? No chance.

I just wonder how many godparents do their part. I have seen my godfather about 5 times in my life. I never received a card for any birthday or xmas or any occassion. When he was home I never got anything from him so shows the interest he had in my life. My godmother only lived about 6 miles away so she was very much a part of my life.

Still, little Liam will be raised in the best ways of Shankly, Paisley et al...even if his Everton father doesnt like it.

Anonymous Comment Makers

I do wonder (welcome back to me, welcome back to me..what a lovely break in Thailand - not to be mistaken for Gerry's favourite haunt "Thigh Land") why some people who feel the need to comment on a post, do it anonymously.

Usually these comments are left there as they are unhappy with something you have said in a blog post. Really, if they were miffed surely they would let you know who they are so at least you could reply in person to them. Or else they are so small minded and can only be "big" in their own minds sending comments without people knowing who they are.

I had another this week regarding my "People who are fucker's" list. It was regarding the No.2 entry, Rosanna. Now while this is my opinion on the girl, having never met her I cannot say in all honesty if she is as much a fucker as I make out, I do understand others have their opinion. But at least be big enough to not hide when you make these statements. Here is the comment in all its glory:

"You call yourself a genius, every second word printed is "fuck",you must have a huge chip on your shoulder and quite limited vocabulary!"

See, I would like to dissect this sentence and comment made.

1. Have you ever heard of punctuation? A ',' is not the same as a '.'

2. I do indeed make reference to being a genius but this is called 'irony'. I looked it up in the dictionary for you. Click here to have a look.
See, if I was really a genius I would be holed up somewhere either working on ways to save mankind or else have a volcano hideaway seeking out ways to destroy it. I can say I would not be writing blog posts.

3. "every second word printed is "fuck"". There are 324 words in that post. The word "fuck" appears 5 times (excluding the post title). This means it appears once every 64.8 words. Need some help with math's do we?

4. I have no chip but someone who sends anonymous comments must do...

5. On the limited vocabulary part. Agreed. I do. I have never hidden this but if that is your attempt to make me angry then it aint working. Try picking a fault that I am not aware of.

6. Is this Rosanna or the Doctor's son??? Wesley? Must be terrible to be named after where you were conceived (allegedly)

Maybe what you could do is create a blog and make your own fuckers list. I would be quite honored to appear on said list if you would come out from behind your anonymous costume and reveal yourself.

Tosser.