Neg IV

There's gonna be absolutely no fine-tuning on this entry cos I'm at Bruce Springsteen right now

Sunday:
At Springsteen right now.


Saturday:
Something's wrong with me, I've missed Lost this week and the repeat!


Thursday:
Was meant to be at Springsteen tonight, ah well.


Wednesday:
The Apprentice, pretty poor episode but one of my(and everyone's) favourites, Raef, is out of the competition. I wonder is Alan keeping Michael on for viewership ratings, or was it all recorded ages ago?
If it were done in full-on real time though I'd make sure not to sit in the central seat at next weeks meeting, Alan points in that direction when he says "You're Fired" during the "on next weeks show" part of the closing credits.



Tuesday:
Ireland's appearance in the eurovision and all. Just wondering what sort of direction they were using, the camera work was positively schizophrenic... did they just attach the cameras to some birds or something?
My prediction for the Champions League final tomorrow: Man Utd 2-1 Chelsa


Monday:

Probably will have been mentioned many place by the time I post this, but I find it great how the first thing Doherty notices is the veins pumping blood through the baby mice.

Song of the Week:

The best Swedish pop song of the decade

My Irish Times Review

That'd be quite a stretch of the truth... so it'll do just fine for me.

Shane Hegarty of the Irish Times wrote (what I am calling) a brief review of my blog on Friday.

Here's the beginning of the review:

"The blog Positive Boredom has some fine ideas. None of which succeed, but he shouldn’t let that put him..."

Since all my blog could has going for it is ideas, I'm pretty pleased with that.


I am currently in conflict with myself as to whether I can add an "As reviewed by the Irish Times" sub-heading to this blog... or would that be going too far?

Ambitions I

Small children generally can come up with some pretty obscure choices of careers for when they grow up sandwiched between the usual Garda and Teacher ones... Asides from wanting to be This Morning weatherman Fred Talbot when I was 3, here is one of my more serious ones.


Auntie Elle was a key groomer in my earliest realistic ambitions. Like every 80-year-old spinster of her generation, her sole-dream was to make one of her grand-nephews become a priest so that he could pray for her and do free masses, sign mass cards, etc... After all, would make you the envy of everyone more than having living proof of your ticket to heaven.
It's actually quite easy to convince a child into wanting to be a priest, the collection baskets filled to the brim with all those 1 cent coins looked like ridiculous amounts of money, didn't they?

I had one black shirt which became my priest suit, it was the only item of clothing I ever wore for about 6 months asides from my spiderman suit(Priest at day, superhero at night. Stopping crime, then saying the funeral for the convict you killed... actually why hasn't there been a superhero who runs a funeral home?) I found one of those pieces of collar cardboard from a new shirt and used it for the white collar.


I used to get slices of bread and cut out round pieces using an egg-cup.
Then, I would flatten the round pieces of bread with the ever hygenic apparatus of a 5-year-old's hand. I would also gently scrape a crucifix sign onto each one at this point.
Finally, I would leave the bits of crushed round bread over the fire til they were a bit stiffer. Next up was the mass itself.


Like many children, I insisted that Teddy Bears and such make up the vast majority of the crowd. My parents usually weren't in attendence, my mother in particular was always slightly horrified of the consecration.
When I told them that I didn't want to be a priest, they were delighted. However, each career I've looked at since has been met with far more derision than my blasphemous mock masses ever were.

What I Wasted My Lunch-Break On

I spent my lunch in the local furniture store attmpting to negotiate a daily fee to use one of their display beds for resting.

What better way to show how good your product is than by having real life models resting inside them, I could see all sorts of professionals embracing this idea(the narcoleptic ones anyway).




As a result of the long day, I don't really have time for a proper blog entry.

P.S. McVities dismissed my proposal.

Super Sands

Now I don't know how everyone else picked up the story of Bobby Sands and the Dirty Protest when they were younger. I personally thought the british government had banned them from being able to get toilet paper so they decided to smear the walls with shit in protest.

However, yesterday my slightly dim-witted little cousin came up with one of the most brilliantly ridiculous interpretations of Bobby Sands that I've ever heard. Dustin had just got eliminated from the Eurovision and he started yelling "Bobby Sands is gonna go over there and shit all over you bastards". I proceeded to ask him what he was on about.

"There was this man called Bobby Sands in Ireland, okay? and whenever someone used to attack Ireland he would come along a shit on them to help Ireland" was his reply. In his reply to how did that help, he said "Then the bad people would have to go home to clean themselves up".

He genuinely said all of this as if it were some sort of superpower... I neither see a film adaptation of the comic or indeed the comic itself coming out any time in the near future.

Not a Real Country

I noticed today San Marino are in the Eurovision, d'you think one person calls the entire nation over to their house for tea and then they pick from the 2 or 3 people that haven't already represented them in the competition? I can picture it being like those arguments everyone used to have in primary school when someone had to say a reading at mass.

It appears that San Marino has more political parties than the United States does.

Imagine how easy it'd be to get into parliament there! You could then return back here and put it on your CV... but would even the role of Prime Minister of San Marino be worth as much in the grand scheme of things as the experience of being a shelf-stacker on a resumé? Sorta like putting down "I am grand ruler of my own bedroom".


1:1 Scale Map of San Marino

Marketing Proposal

Dear McVities,

From an early age in my life, I have always been amused by the packaging of Penguin bars. With their humorous(often satirical) images involving Penguins and the simple(but dry) jokes hidden on the back, they always stood out hugely due to their packaging alone.
I recently came across a few of their wrappers from at least 10 years ago. This prompted me to find a website on the internet which contained a large archive of all
the different packaging and art designs which have graced the bar throughout it's long, glorious existence. Unfortunately, not only did no such site existed, there was a staggeringly small amount of images of wrappers altogether.

Therefore, I am wondering if it would be possible to provide me with a large supply of older wrappers to help build up an archive. Alternatively, if you wish, you could set up an official site for it. Perhaps even initiate a public-campaign to collect all forms of classic penguin wrappers.

I would gladly let you use these ideas so long as I am able to receive some form of credit on the website for the idea. The creation of a thorough archive containing ALL the wrappers would also help further establish the Penguin bar in the public-conscience as being an institution of british-society.

I eagerly anticipate your reply to my proposal,

Yours faithfully,
My Name

The best quality uploaded wrapper of a standard penguin wrapper,
taken from Mike's Candy Wrappers

I am currently awaiting a reply


Also, just to be clear, I am serious about this proposal.

Negative Boredom III: yep

Saturday & Sunday:
Stacking shelves and cleaning bins nonstop for two days makes it hard to find anything media related. No One by Alicia Keyes sounds so much like Where is the Love by the Black Eyed Peas that I become extremely aggressive each time it plays in the shop... which unfortunately for me is every second song.

Friday:
I hear Shania Twain is getting a divorce from her songwriter / producer / husband(obviously), Mutt Lange. They've decided to keep the reasons quiet but I think it had to be something odd. I've been saying that there was something odd in that relationship for years. His lyrics seemed to always force a slight dominatrix twinge onto just about every song... Of course his name was Mutt, which'd fit perfectly in that setting.
"Don't wantcha for the weekend, don't wantcha for a night
I'm only interested if I can have you for life, yeah
Uh, I know I sound serious and baby I am
You're a fine piece of real estate, and I'm gonna get me some land"




Thursday:
Today I finished season 1 of Dexter. Great show, the best thing about it being how it's intro of him just getting ready for work has the power to scare most my family outta the room.



Wednesday:
The Apprentice!
Sara got the boot this week, there was something likable about her undoubtedly but she didn't do a decent job at all on the challenge. Congrats to Michael though for managing to be the blame(or some part of it) for every single thing that their team(who was led by some woman called Helen that I never seen on the show before) done wrong.
Like everyone else, I wanna see Raef or Lucinda win.
I wonder how all the tramps felt when they saw the people who sold them their wedding dresses even thought they were awful.
It really is the most watchable thing on television right now, nearly makes up for all the reality tv thats gonna be coming up during the summer season.
ALSO, doesn't Lucinda look like a character from Harry Potter? The Harry Potter soundtrack also was played during the show, so someone else has noticed this.
7:45 in this minute being the best example I can currently find


Tuesday:
One Foot in the Grave is getting repeated a good bit on BBC again, needless to say I've been watching it all too. It truly was a magnificent sitcom, also managed to be hugely popular with all audiences despite being darker than even all the Alan Partridge related stuff. Although to be honest this photo alone makes it great.

Richard Wilson is a wonderful comedy actor, unfortunately too good really, since he's now "Victor Meldrew"... I've seen several terrible things he, solely, made watchable and then there's his cameo on Father Ted.

Monday:
Shortland Street were talking about the Matrix this morning, complaining about Keanu Reeves "wooden" acting performance. Nothing too funny about that except that it was in the setting a Shortland Street, a show with acting so stiff it must be cast-iron.


Song of the Week:

Web in Front by Archers of Loaf(taken from the fantastic album Icky Mettlewhich is reviewed here)