News Stories - Attempt Number 1

The EU has come to the idea that prisoners in the UK not being allowed to vote goes against their human rights. My feelings on that?

Awww boohoo is the little murderer/rapist going to cry?

I mean, come on. You did bad things and now you're complaining that you don't get the perks of when you don't do bad things? This is just me, but I feel that if you do something bad enough to be put in jail for a considerable amount of time, you don't really have many human rights. You certainly don't get to vote.

The only other news story I can find that I have anything to say about is Colonel Gadaffi. For those of you who don't know, Gadaffi is the president (dictator) of Libya which for some time now has been going through a revolution in an attempt to overthrow Gadaffi.

A recent news story, courtesy of sky news, shows that "Libyan revolutionaries in Benghazi claim to have rescued seven prisoners that had been buried alive"

That says it all really. The man with the stupid name has to go/die/be used as a guinea pig for experimental science. I mean how pleasing can it really be to run a country? So pleasing that you practically declare war on your own country just to keep power? I wonder is he aware that if he alienates everyone in Libya he will not have anyone to rule over and they will eventually get rid of him.

I feel like the stupid blond girl from Family guy that goes out with Brian for a while when I say that somebody should definitely stop him.


The news is always so depressing. And that is why people take funny pictures of animals, to make news seem less negative.
Of course this (below) is always hilarious. Mainly because I'm not sure how the zebra achieved this:

The mind! It is blown!

I Got a Problem!

Why is it that when people see somebody creepy in horror films or shows, they don't say:

He could be waiting for me out in the alley. I think I will stay in this well lit, crowded room in the safety of my friends, and leave later with a group of people. Better safe than sorry. You know, safety in numbers and all that.

Not once has that thought process been discovered in the media. The person stands up immediately and says they have to go. Guess what the do next

What do they do next, James?

Oh no, you have to guess.

Do they call a taxi and have it come to the extreme front door in a well lit street?

Nope

Do they get immediately into their car which they have cleverly parked next to the entrance?

Getting colder

....They find the nearest dark alley where they have obviously parked their car, fumble with the keys and stop every time they hear a noise. It turns out to be a cat, they laugh and turn back to their car and get killed. That's what happens isn't it?

Of course that's what happens. Apparently it would be ridiculous otherwise.

And another thing. Have any of you seen that episode of Scrubs where some girl collapses and starts hearing and seeing things as a musical?

God I hate musicals

Anyway, what bothers me about that episode the most is the fact that her problem couldn't possibly happen. No duh, right?
But I mean come on. Her doctors are clearly not speaking in rhymes and yet her brain quickly inputs rhyming words. That requires a lot of brainpower! Plus she must have intricate knowledge of medical procedures and terminology, because JD and Turk start singing about what medical problems could be discovered through looking at a stool sample because, naturally:

Everything comes down to poo, from the top of your head to the sole of your shoe

And I know your thinking:

James don't be such an ass, its a sitcom for God sake

Well shut up!

Ha! Bet you thought I'd have a wise-ass comment to throw back at you. But no. Sadly I have nothing because I know better than anyone I am a pedantic little a-hole.

Also I saw this in the supermarket and it made me giggle my 9 year old heart out

Don't ask me why.

Birthdays

Birthdays. Important to some, something to be glanced over by others. But a birthday is not something that is important to the birthday-ee but to EVERY ONE ELSE IN THE WORLD.

It's true. Now most people enjoy their birthday. Why wouldn't they? For one day you are allowed to do whatever you like (within reason), everyone is nice to you (well that depends how old you are. The word's birthday beatings spring to mind) and in my house we get to choose what we eat that night for dinner.

But these past couple of years birthdays have gotten....stranger.

As I have told you before I spent my 17th birthday with my friends in my house playing hide and seek. I regret NOTHING.
But I have never been a huge fan of my birthday. The awkward moment when you react to the present and, even when I always enjoy the present, I have to figure out a nice balance between "Yes I really like your gift" and "I think I might wet myself with happiness"

I prefer Christmas to be honest. I like giving presents, but I dislike receiving them.
I am such a Saint! Never forget that.

Recently my sister Orla came home for an interview with a university and with she brought my birthday present. My birthday is on the 18th on January and she came home on Thursday and wrapped the present in front of me. But that's not all. After successfully guessing the contents of the wrapped package, I was shocked to see the smiling faces of Kate Middleton and Prince William on a postcard taped to the front of the Gavin and Stacey box set.

The Gavin and Stacey box set, I was happy about. The postcard? I'm still not sure how I felt about that. I have nothing against the royal family but nor do I have any affiliation with them.

Whilst I was suitably conflicted, Orla produced two more postcards. One which had, in her words, "Phil and Lizzie, chillin' " and another with Prince Harry on the front which she playfully described as her future husband......yeah.....


Kricky Donnelly's  birthday also made me laugh. Not only because he tried to claim the go-karting I arranged was for him (his birthday is 2 days after mine and so he felt that, as his was the most recent, it was his birthday. Meh I won anyway so it doesn't matter) but because I was the first to say happy birthday to him.

Right, I get that this isn't an achievement. But you have to understand that this means everything to a friend of mine. Caoimhe McManus lives to be the first person to say happy person to somebody. So much so, that she waits till midnight and texts them a birthday message. We argued for a bit when I tried to tell her that she wasn't first to wish me a happy birthday, but third. It's not true, she was in fact first, but her reactions crack me up to no end.

On the night on Kricky's birthday, I texted him asking him if he wanted to mess with Caoimhe's head. Kricky, being Kricky, jumped at the chance. We planned that he would say that I said happy birthday before her.
So there I was, stewing in my own mischief....what?
And I was reading my book. I put down the book and saw it was 23:59 and I'm like:

Why the fudge not?

So I really did text him first.

Caoimhe was NOT happy. Kricky and I were.

I think this invalidates my "saint" comment earlier.

Anyway, to finish I thought I'd wish a happy birthday to you all. Doubly so Aaron "MoonBeam" Carey as it is his actually birthday tomorrow.

Because, yeno, what's a birthday without a monkey?

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...Yeah OK So I'm Just Riffing

Blogging has become a large part of my life now. And with good reason. Seeing as it is a (much) less formal take on what I would like to pursue as a future career. And because of this, I've been keeping my eyes open for anything strange, weird, wonderful or boring that I can exaggerate so far past it's point of origin, it is basically a lie.
For instance. You know that saying "Like a hot knife through butter" ?

It's crap

Seriously.

I was making toast after a hard day restraining myself from yelling at teachers and I had to get butter from the fridge. The stuff was like a brick. I HATE rock hard butter. It destroys toast. Literally. The stuff won't spread so you're left with a veritable bomb site of wheat and flour.
It's doubly annoying because by the time you've given up with elegance and just started tossing butter at the toast, you don't even enjoy eating it because it's now lukewarm.
And as everybody knows, there is a race to get everything out and ready so you can butter the toast as fast as possible so the butter melts and the toast is still hot. It's true. Everyone does it

Yes you do.

YES you do!

Don't lie to me. I know you. I can tell when you're lying....

Anyway, to counteract the rock solid butter I thought (with generous amounts of ingenuity) I should run the knife under boiling water and then butter my toast.
Since I started boiling my knives...not a damn thing changed.

Toast destroyed, butter still cold, family murdered, I'm arrested, I escape, befriend a wise-cracking owl only to be led astray into the darkness of the forest wear I'm killed by a bear on the command of the terrifying, ruthless, evil photocopier woman...WILMA!!!
Or something along those lines anyway.

Seriously though, Wilma? Scares the crap out of everyone. Teachers included. She refuses to photocopy things for people. And yet she is the photo copy woman. Interesting career path she chose.

Due to the fact that I want to be a journalist I feel I should report the news now and again.
Maybe just local news. Really local news. News about the school.

Rome trip for next year? Cancelled. What the actual bejeesus? That was maybe the only thing keeping me from a severe mental breakdown. According to my history teacher, Mrs Johnston, one of the teachers organising the trip, the board felt that "...due to the current economic climate, it is too costly to pay for the staff insurance"

I feel robbed. Well and truly this frustrates me.

I guess I'll just have to organise my own holiday with friends for next year



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And You Thought You had my Personality Pegged

By now you may or may not have realised that I am a weird dude. In my time here as a blogger (AKA points out things you already know from a source you don't want to get it from) I have talked about my dream that the Disney Channel would be brought to ruin, that I hug random strangers (not really though), showed you several odd photographs of animals (What I do with my time, Ladies and Gentlemen) and gave the proposal that Nick Clegg raising tuition fees could have possibly been brought about by bandit raccoons. Clearly I am not the most mentally.....sound person you're ever going to meet.

However recently, I discovered that even my dreams at night are abnormal.
The way for me to have the best dreams is to be really tired and sleep for around 12 or 13 hours. Or if I have the flu-MAN flu. Because I'm a MAN.

What do I mean by abnormal? Do I exhibit personalities in my dream world that are not congruent with my personality in real life?
You could say that. You could also say I dreamt I was the Incredible Hulk...as a politician....in an Armani suit.

You heard me.

But that's not all. Inside a room in my school (so the hulk debates politics in school what of it?) everything began to rumble. So running outside it turns out my friend Michael Goldring's family had got me a giant robot to smash because the Hulk likes to smash things.
What nice people right?

After smashing the robot I, for reasons unknown, began to create broomsticks upon which I could fly.
Weird as that sounds, it's a big leap for me. I'm serious. In all of my dreams, I have never been able to fly before. I was a little birdy thing before. Couldn't fly. Pterodactyl. Couldn't fly. Friggen superman couldn't even fly. If was pathetically funny because he was just sort of hopping up and down, clawing at the air.


Yeah....


The next night of dreams was a lot weirder and more sinister.
My entire year at school was at the cinema and, on by one, they began to be replaced with identical copies of themselves. After this was discovered there was panic and terror and we were trying to hide from the evil, the despicable...BEN JOHNSTON!!!!
That's right folks. My friend Ben Johnston was the leader of the impostors. Granted he himself was not Ben but an impostor, but still.
After going round...wherever the hell I was. I think it was either Queens university or West Minister Abbey. Anyway. Unimportant. And this is dragging on. The impostors where invincible!!
I tried (prepare for awkward psychosis moment) stabbing one of them with a Biro. No reaction. Worst part about this is that all the impostors are people from my year.....No I'm not going to say who I stabbed!


Straying from things that make me sound like I should be have my mental stability checked, My friend  Chris Logan had a brilliant idea. You see it was his birthday a few days ago and so he received from another friend, not a card, not a present, not a hug, but a toy from McDonald's.
More specifically, it was a three inch tall "Crimson Chin" from Fairly Odd Parents AKA the best cartoon on TV.
Chris' idea was that we should take pictures of the Chin in various poses and with different people. This is the outcome

The Crimson munChin (eh? See what I did there?)

Brushing Up on his R.E.

My Personal Favourite: The speck still seems more intimidating than the 6 foot 4 dude next to him

Brilliant idea Chris.

The Chin is forever immortalised in the minds of both of my regular readers

As usual Like the blog, tell me what you thought in the comment section and Follow me for updates on when I post a new one and I'll see you next sunday.

Scheduled Posts...What The Hell Was I Smoking?

Jeeeez I actually don't think I could have chosen a worse time to decide I should specify a time I talk crap. I mean I have English coursework (again) and economics homework. I simply don't have the time to update you on my life, the majority of which I am sure you have no interest in.

So here's what's happened....
......
......
......
......NOTHING!! Nothing of any worth has happened to me in the five days since I wrote you last. I was banking on the fact that I would see something vaguely humorous and expand upon it and greatly exaggerate it. But no. I did go to a pub quiz in Rasharkin and while it was fun, there wasn't much to write about other than the fact Aideen Brogan revealed to us that she is incapable of writing the English language.

You remember Aideen don't you? A-level geography student but had no idea where Milan was? ah Aideen. An endless source of amusement to people with my disposition.

Back at the quiz we were hopeless at answering questions. In my team was Michael Goldring, Peter Hasson, Jordan Devlin, Lauren Mc Afee, Aideen Brogan, Katherine Neeson and Ciara McKeown and we were called "I can't pronounce that" I came up with it and I'm not going to lie, I was pretty proud of it. I mean when Cathal O'Hagan, the quiz master, read it out to the people, there was silence broken seconds later by Hugh Cochrane shouting out

Can you not actually pronounce it? Or is that their name?

The joke wasn't good enough apparently to win us the prize for the best name. Winners were "Let's get quizzical".....I know right? Awful, cringe-worthy name wasn't it? It belonged to Danielle Marley, Lauren Elliot, Ben Johnston sometimes although at one point he was in my team and he just ditched us and maybe Joanne Traynor? I can't really remember who was all in their team. Their name was "let's get quizzical" after all. Why would I want to remember that?

Anyway, there you have it. I've taken time out of by busy schedule that is only busy because I'm lazy and put things off. And I've taken time out of it to talk to you. You should be honoured. Because if you're not....there's not really anything I can do about it but say shut up and log out really quickly so I can't see your comeback

Leave a comment, click the facebook "like" button and click that little Follow button next to the post....please? Pretty please? There's a prize if you do....No I'm not going to tell you what it is. Its a surprise.

Anyway. Toodles.....that's a word I'm never going to say again

Maturity? What the hell would I want with a thing like that?

So I turned 17 on Tuesday (woohoo) so to celebrate I went out with friends on Friday and went go-karting on Saturday.

Friday
Another day another Romania gig. Initially I was all for it because my friends went out the weekend before but to some crappy bar full of chavs and severe alcoholics so I didn't go. But then I was all

Meh

I mean I'd got up really early that morning, like 6 in the morning to get an English essay done that I had neglected to do for about a week. Not entirely a bad thing seeing as I actually got to listen to a large chunk of The Chris Moyles show which is always a good thing.
The gig/party/disco thing started at nine and by half 8 I had more or less decided I didn't want to go. Story over. Apparently not as about an hour and a half before hand I promised I would give a friend of mine a lift. So with a heavy heart we went. There were already a few friends of mine there and so we sat with them...turned out they weren't feeling the party vibe.

Yawns ensued.

So I got up and went to get a drink (coke before you ask about the alcoholic content). It's amazing what a little bit of sugar can do for you. I got back and realised these guys were not ready for fun.
Circulating the room for a bit, I struck gold.

PRINGLES!!
they belonged to people I know so it wasn't weird. I swear I didn't walk up to a randomer and steal their pringles......Quick look over there!

Anyway ignoring my sneaky diversion, few of my friends left 'cus they felt the night was going to suck. I can't blame them. It was slow to start.

But then Ben arrived.

Ben Johnston, a long time friend of mine, had turned up from work and it turns out, Ben is amazingly funny/creepy when he's drunk. He kissed lots of people that night lots of times....Not one of them was a female. I'm ashamed to say I was one of his victims. But don't despair for I was not alone. I have a picture of him with his lips latched onto Ryan Kennedy's face. That is coming out at every major event in his life that he will let me near.

The majority of the night was spent dancing like a mad ("mawd" to my Derry reader(s)) man. Although mad men don't generally dance well.

I am NO exception. Ben however started the sprinkler at one point and by the end of the night every body wanted to sprinkle. Ben's awesome when he's inebriated.

He wasn't the greatest/weirdest/creepiest thing on the dance floor that night though.

At one point a random dude just appeared on the dance floor air-guitaring his heart out to Sweet Child o' Mine by Guns N' Roses. This guy had hair that stretched from his head to half way down his back and looked about forty. From what we could tell, he was alone.
For every ones sake, I hope that not every body in their forties does this. I don't want to be the creepy guy at a party for 17/18 year-olds. Here's what he looked like. He's the dark guy in the background

Yeah....Mid-life crisis? I think so
The raffle was an endless source of amusement for us. Now me being me, I didn't buy any tickets. Charity? Those needy kids have had it too good for too long.
The only guy I actually saw win anything was Niall Lynch.  Next thing I know Oonagh Laverty has told me the wrapped raffle prizes are now fair game. Ben and I turn and look at each other and sprint for the presents.
You want to know what I won? A PedOrb. One of those things you use to scrape dead skin off your foot...Awesome. Ben got a big bag of plastic toy animals. We named the giraffe Gerry.

Gerry got around a lot that night. Ben was weirdly attached to that toy animal. It wasn't until later I realised, quite by coincidence that they were Ben&Gerry. Not much more to say there. That just made me giggle.

Saturday
This was the day my friends and I went go-karting. Twelve teenage boys, none of whom have actually any driving experience, racing round a wet course in petrol fuelled karts. We knew that this could only end in hilarity.

And sure enough Ryan Kennedy crashed into the first corner so hard that he got half his kart wedged underneath it. This corner was fittingly named Kennedy's Corner.
The best time that day was David O'Neill with an insane time of 20 seconds exactly. I was close behind....in eighth place. Although my time was 20.8 seconds. AAAAAANNNND  I got a medal. Superhappyfuntimes? Why yes Timmy. Yes they were. I don't even know anybody called Timmy. Or Tim for that matter. I know somebody whose last name is Timoney but I don't suppose that's what you're looking for.

OK so I may have only got the medal because it was my birthday. But more importantly we looked like a crime fighting team when the guy took a photo of us on the podium

We are the ELITE!!

The effect was suitably ruined by Conail McMullan and Ryan facing the camera. Jamie Higgins and Michael McNaghten are looking at the camera as well but Michael looks like a super villain and Jamie his henchman. I suppose Conail could be the comic relief character that does everything wrong. Look at that little face of his. Hard to take seriously as a super hero.
But yes anyway in short, I have a medal and Dave doesn't so I think we all know who the real winner here is.

After that we all went back to mine. It was you're typical guys night in. There was pizza, there was call of duty, there was hide and seek.
Yes folks, there was hide and seek. And I won't lie to you, it was a lot of fun. My parents walking in at one point to find me hiding under the table and Jamie hiding in a cupboard. They were more than a little shocked when they saw him and ashamed they had a son like me. To be honest, they should totally be proud to have such an excellent hider of a son
I was it one point and I went into a room and searched under the table when the lights were off. I stuff my hand under and heard something shuffle. I reached back further. Another shuffle. Then the hider got very unlucky for you see ladies and gentlemen, his phone began to ring. It lit up under the table and showed me exactly where he was hiding. Poor Kricky Donnelly. You don't catch a break do you?

Well good. Because you did a bad thing. The first time Kricky comes to my house, he takes pictures of photographs of me from when I was younger. There's one of chubby James, pajama PlayStation James and his personal favourite, the King James. The King James is a photo of me standing in one of those things you stick your head in and take a photo so it looks like its your head on a weird body. For instance, this was a King and I pulled a "regal" face to the best of my ability. Needless to say I looked ridiculous and Kricky did what every teenage boy with those kind of photos would do.

He put it on Facebook.

Kricky's dead to me.

Anyway after the pizza got here but before Kricky ceased to exist in my mind, the guys decided they wanted to go on the trampoline outside...at night...in the the cold and ice...My friends aren't exactly cautious.
Jamie and Kricky were on the trampoline and told me to jump and see how easy it was to fall.
Skeptical me with a slice of pizza in my hand, I gingerly stepped onto the trampoline. I took one jump straight upwards and wound up suddenly flying sideways.

Now I know what you;re thinking and I was worried too. But no, the pizza was not harmed during the incident. It as good pizza too. Mmmmm Dominos pizza.

Speaking of Dominos Jordan Duffy now works there and spent 10 minutes describing to me how Dominos and crafty A-holes. He says that with those deals like "Buy one large get another free" your charged like £4 extra per pizza. What a Jip!
If there are two things I hate its spending money unnecessarily and being hungry. I guess I'm going to have to choose which one means more to me.

Well I'm pretty sure that's my weekend wrapped up. Next up will probably be about the Romania QUIZ. Another one that is. Unless there isn't really much to talk about.

I'm thinking about updating on a regular basis so you guys don't have to guess whenever I have a new post up.
Maybe every Sunday between 7 and 9 sometime. Well we'll see how this goes.

How do you like the time? Don't answer. I don't even care.

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