I haven’t posted in a while so I thought I’d share with you a photo of my girlfriend looking angry while filling her car with unleaded petrol at the Apple Service Station in Ballybrack.

While walking on the east pier with Aileen the other day we came across some 3-dimensional art that was left over from the recent festival of world cultures. Here are a couple of pics of us messing around with it.

Two years ago yesterday I attended the third Electric Picnic in Stradbally, Co Laois. It was my first ever music festival and my only one to date. After I passed through the festival security checks I arrived at the gates to the campsite. It was here that I was fitted with a trendy colourful armband for me to wear for the weekend signifying that I was a fully paid-up attendee of the event. The armband was made of some kind of cloth which was the first of its kind I’d ever seen. Normally at events like this you get an irritating plastic armband which you can’t wait to rip off you as soon as it’s no longer needed. Once I arrived back in Dublin after the festival I decided to leave the armband on for a bit as it looked pretty neat.

I guess I never really thought about how long I would keep it on for but time went on and one day I realised I had been wearing the thing for a year. I decided at this time that it was now a challenge to keep the armband on for as long as possible. Soon after the one year anniversary, however, the armband began to go downhill. The colour rapidly faded and the whole thing in general went into a state of decay. Friends and family began to moan about how unhygienic it was but they just didn’t understand. This was my trusty armband that had stuck by me for an entire seven month round-the-world trip.

I remember one particular occasion when I was in hospital having an operation. I was about to go under general anaesthetic when the nurse advised me that no loose jewellery or accessories were allowed in the operating theatre and I would have to remove my armband. I stared at her in disbelief and protested that once the armband was off, it would remain off.
“Well”, she retorted. “It will just have to come off then.”
“Over my dead body”, I thought. I argued with her for about ten minutes and when she realised that I would literally rather not have the operation than to part with my beloved armband, she compromised. I was allowed to keep it on as long as it was taped up with about six layers of masking tape.

However, I was conscious of the fact that the armband was gradually becoming more and more flimsy and so a few months ago I made the decision to cut it off on the second anniversary of the day I was shackled to it. I would like to have seen how long I could keep it on for but I fear that it might get ripped off some day when I wouldn’t notice. What an unfitting end to our journey together that would be! And so, today, the first day of September 2008, the second anniversary of Electric Picnic ’06, I am removing my best friend from my wrist. Below is a list of some of the more memorable moments we’ve shared as well as a couple of pics from the detachment ceremony. May the armband rest in peace in Electric Picnic memorabilia heaven.

Memorable moments shared with the armband
A holiday with 5 friends to Bodrum, Turkey where I took my first scuba dive and danced in drag on a stage in front of several hundred English holidaymakers

The aforementioned operation to have pilo nidal sinus removed from my lower back under general anaesthetic

Riding a horse up a dormant volcano in Banos, Ecuador

Trekking the four day Inca Trail through the cloud forests in Peru to the ancient city of Machu Picchu

Journeying three layers deep into the Cerro Rico mountainside to visit the silver ore mines, the walls of which were thick with asbestos

Exploring the tropical wetlands of Brazil known as The Pantanal

A trip to Ushuaia, Argentina – the southernmost city in the world

A visit to the weird Moai statues of Easter Island, one of the world’s most isolated inhabited islands

Diving to a depth of 18 metres to explore the underwater life of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia

Hiking along a portion of the Great Wall of China

Taking the famous Star Ferry in Hong Kong

Investigating the ancient Temples of Angkor in Cambodia

Struggling to reach the top of highest peak in Indochina – Mt Fansipan, Vietnam

Tubing down Nam Song River in Vang Vieng while enjoying a bottle of refreshing Beer Lao

Partying at the world famous Full Moon party on Haad Rin beach, Ko Phangan, Thailand

Travelling an approximate total distance of 88,975 km (55,287 miles) around the world in seven months

Being part of the great sporting moment that was the Heineken Cup Final 2008 - Munster 16, Toulouse 13

The many trips I took to London in ’07/’08 to visit my girlfriend Aileen

Cruising the River Shannon for three nights with my housemates

Countless booze-fuelled nights out on the town with a variety of very agreeable people

I got a new iPhone today. It’s great except for a couple of problems I need to sort out. This post is coming straight from the phone!!! Oh and in case you’re wondering why I have a photo of danny’s girlfriend here it’s cos it was the first photo I took with the phone!

The lads will tell you that I have been playing Donkey Kong Country non stop for the last 2 weeks trying to get 101%. In order to get 101% you have to complete all levels, all bosses and uncover all bonus levels. Finally, this morning, I achieved my goal. Check it out!!!

Last week Dunnes were selling half price pork steaks so I bought one, cut it in half and froze it. Last night I decided to cook one of the halves for my dinner. It worked out a beaut! If anyone else is interested, here’s what I did.

First you’ll need 1×300g pork steak, 6 streaky rashers, a few slices of bread, an onion, a stick of celery, an apple, some fresh thyme and 4oz butter.

First, cut two of the rashers into small pieces and fry until crispy. Set to one side.

Next, chop the celery and onion into small pieces and fry in the same pan as the rashersfor about 10 mins until they are soft.

Next, make breadcrumbs out of the bread and mix in with the fried rasher bits, the celery, the onion, the butter melted and some thyme to make stuffing

Next, cover the pork steak in a sheet of cling film and use a rolling pin (or like me, a beer bottle) and stretch out the pork steak. This will tenderize the meat as well as making it easier to stuff.

Then place the stuffing inside the steak, roll it back to its original shape and cover with the remaining rashers. It is a good idea at this point to leave the steak sitting in the fridge for a couple of hours.

Finally, heat the oven to 190 degrees and bake the steak for about an hour. Just before it is done, peel and slice the apple and cook in a tablespoon of water in the microwave until soft. Then mash with a fork and serve with the steak. I also decided to have some stir-fried broccoli with it too.

Check it out! We were all in Merrion Square last weekend at the street entertainment festival and we saw this really really tall woman! Well… technically it was only a young girl on the shoulders of a man as the second photo shows. But from where we were standing, it looked like a really tall woman! What do you think?!?

Every morning, I am woken up by my alarm at 7am. I turn over, hit the snooze button and grab an extra 15 minutes of sleep. Once my 7.15 alarm goes off, I’m out of bed and into my dressing gown. I walk downstairs and prepare my morning juice. With my juice in my hand, I head back upstairs and on the way, I turn on the pump for the shower. I spend the next twenty minutes beautifying myself with a shower and a shave and a scuab of the old fiacla. Following this, I quickly get dressed and head to the dart station. This is when I start to get annoyed.

As I approach Glenageary dart station, I am confronted by two young foreigners – one male one female - but both with the same agenda. They both want to burden me with a copy of the daily rag that they are paid to hand out. Yes I’m talking about the Herald AM and the Metro “newspapers” – the scourge of the morning. Actually, the girl who hands out the Metro is fairly cute and I enjoy smiling at her every morning but my mood quickly changes to irritation when she forms a barrier to the entrance of the station with her Herald AM counterpart. The idea is that they make it difficult to enter the station without acquiring one of these rags however I pointedly refuse to accept one – even if the cute girl smiles at me. (more…)

Last weekend I attended the Heineken Cup Final 2008 between Munster and Toulouse. In short, the experience was incredible. Following is an account of the weekend, one of most memorable of my life.

I left work at the usual time of 5pm on Friday 23rd May 2008. Except this time I had a bit more of the Friday feeling than usual. I was finally on my way to Cardiff for the European Rugby Cup Final between Munster and Toulouse. I had bought tickets way back before the season began and Munster had come a long way, fighting to come top of the pool of death and beating both Gloucester and Saracens in away quarter and semi finals respectively. Now they faced the giants of European rugby, Toulouse, in a very fitting end to their European Cup campaign.

My excitement heightened as I passed through security and noted that the vast majority of travellers that evening were dressed in red Munster jerseys sporting the familiar white Toyota text. As I approached my gate, it became clear to me that supporters were trying to get to anywhere at all in the UK that they could, regardless of distance from Cardiff. I presumed they would later worry about getting to Cardiff from Glasgow, Newcastle or Manchester or wherever they were flying to. It never ceases to amaze me how determined Munster fans are to get to a match.
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Ok ok ok… this is just bizarre. Any of you who know us will have heard us utter the phrase ‘Chechens’ now and again. Before I go any further, let me give you a brief history of how this phrase came about and what it means.

A long long time ago I was sitting in a bar (how many stories start with this sentence?!) with Ali and his mate Dave from college amongst others. I noticed that Dave would regularly say “chat to you” whenever he was saying goodbye to somebody. However he didn’t pronounce it quite that eloquently. He kind of said it so fast that is came out as “chacha”. I thought this was hilarious and I took it on myself, saying chacha to people as a farewell.

Fast forward several years to gaffbhala where the phrase ‘chacha’ was adopted by Ali, Dan and Wig too. Its use was even expanded and the word chacha began to be uttered as an exclamation. For example, if Dan were to mess up a really easy section on Guitar Hero, I might say “Oh! Chacha!”. So anyway, as with most slang, the more we said the phrase, the more it morphed into other phrases. Some of the changes it went through were Chechnya, Chechnyan Jazz, Chechnens and finally ended up at simply ‘Chechens’.

So imagine my surprised last night when I was around at Emsy and her mum’s house and I noticed an article lying on the kitchen table about Chechens! I could hardly believe my eyes! So of course I took a quick snap with my phone and here it is. For everybody to enjoy in all its glory. Whatever next?!