Eleventh Hour

The wind rustled through the trees as the storm passed through the empty city streets. The majortiy of the city dwellers had already sought the comfort and warmth of their beds. But not yet there was work to do, a final task to complete. On through the streets, everyone and everything looking the same. All the buildings, dark, grim souless apratment blocks. The few who ventured out whores and druggies mostly, but some just had no place to go, or they’d rather face the storm then what was waiting for them at home. 

She was different though, he was unique in this motley assortment of the dregs of humanity. She walked with a purpose, with dignity, there was somewhere she had to be, something she had to do. The people on the street sensed that as well they moved out her way. As if her purpose gave her an aura of protection and authority over these people. To the casual observer this could have been viewed as respect, but I recongised it for what it was……Fear. That aura of protection was in the way she moved, she didn’t walk. She glided, loped like a hunter stalking it’s prey. She moved like she had tamed violence and destruction and kept them in her pocket. 

In truth that was true, she was an assassin one of the best. She had killed more than five hundred people in her career. But tonight was her most important kill. Tonight she was not being paid, there was no clean up team to make sure that she could get away clean and move onto the next job. This was personal, the old adage goes “Hell Hath No Fury like a Woman Scorned”. They were right, a man caught cheating,  man about to lose more than his life.

This kill will be the easiest she won’t even use a gun. Her bare hands are enough, maybe a knife if she feels like making him feel some real pain. She enters the apartment through the living  room window, using the fire escape. He sees her and starts to run, she’s quicker and breaks his leg. I sit back to watch her go to work on the guy. After an hour the guy finally dies and I need to get started. “PUFF PUFF” . She never heard not saw the bullets coming, one took her in the left shoulder the second hit a second later and took her head off. 

Why? you might ask. Why did I kill her? The old adage is true about a woman scorned but that is nothing compared to a mans quest for revenge. That woman has killed over five hundred people, but the last three she killed were a mistake. The fourth she should have made sure he was dead.

Published in:  on August 5, 2008 at 9:55 pm Leave a Comment
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The Birth of Rock & Roll

The Jazz man finishes his set, the keys smoke after his melody making. The crowd gives a standing ovation and the player stalks off stage. The smoke filled green room welcomes him back. In the green room the other players greet him. The blues man puts down his cigar and shuffles to the jazzman and the door. He congratulates the jazzman on his show and moves off to start his own set. 

The soul man eyes the jazzman suspiciously. Friends and rivals since they were kids, there’s now a distance between them. One wronged the other years ago, so long ago neither remembers what happened, but their pride is too great to allow either to relent and apologise. They exchange stiff and formal compliments about each others performances and then move off to join groups on either side of the room. Each regretful for a friendship lost.

The smoke that fills the room acts as a barrier between the two groups. The bluesman comes back after blowing the roof off the venue. He enters the room and the smoke dissipates. The presence of the blues man seem to relax the tension in the room. The 3 groups of musicians merge into one in the presence of the bluesman. A new sound is being formed.

The party is getting started, the banter is flowing and they are settling down for what looks like an all night jam session, then the door opens and smoke pours into the room. The silhouettes in the doorway seem alien to the room full of sharp suits and slow melodies.

The silhouettes enter the room and tall hell breaks loose, hammering the 3 musical styles together. The results will shake the world for decades. The backstage door opens, smoke pours out. A small crowd of roadies and technicians has gathered around the smoking door. The silhouette in the doorway is tall, with hair that resembles a lions mane. The silhouette moves with an arrogance and swagger never seen before towards the stage door. The lights go down, the crowd grows silent,

Then the music starts like a clap of thunder, the stage lights come up like lightning and the crowd is awestruck. Never before have they heard anything like this. The building shakes and the crowd sways in time with the music. As the silhouette walks off stage, an awe struck technician asks

“Who are you?”

The silhouette responds

“You may thing I’m strange, but I ain’t never gonna change. I’m about to become millions of peoples religion and law. But no one will be able to kill me. I’m Rock & Roll and I’m here to stay”

Published in:  on July 29, 2008 at 10:06 pm Leave a Comment
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The Jazzman

The Jazz man finishes his set, the keys smoke after his melody making. The crowd gives a standing ovation and the player stalks off stage. The smoke filled green room welcomes him back. In the green room the other players greet him. The blues man puts down his cigar and shuffles to the jazzman and the door. He congradulates the jazzman on his show and moves off to start his own set. 

The soul man eyes the jazzman suspiciously. Friends and rivals since they were there’s now a distance between the. One wronged the other years ago, so long ago neither remembers what happened, but their pride is too great to allow either to apologise. They exchange stiff and formal compliments about each others performances and then move off to join groups on either side of the room. Each regretful for a friendship lost.

The smoke that fills the room acts as a barrier. The bluesman comes back after having a set that literally brought the house down. He enters the room and the smoke dissipates. The presence of the blues man seem to relax the tension in the room. The 3 groups of musicians merge into one in the presence of the bluesman.

The party is getting started, the banter is flowing and they are settling down for what looks like an all night jam session, then the door opens and smoke pours into the room. The silhouettes in the doorway seem alien to the room full of sharp suits and slow melodies.

The silhouettes enter the room and they start a ruckus, hammering the 3 musical styles together. When the door opens again the world will never be the same again.

Out of the door comes a musical form never heard before,

Out of the room comes the musical juggernaut that is Rock Music

Published in:  on at 10:06 pm Leave a Comment
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Titleless

Pay no attention to the man in the corner. He’s old, a has been just waiting for death to take him. Earlier in his life though he was a great warrior, who wielded a mighty hammer. Some say that the only person who could match him in strength and skill with a hammer is Thor himself. The end of his fighting days came suddenly, one day he just simply could not lift his hammer. His pride was broken that day now he is a shadow of his former self. 

Ignore the man at the bar he’s a drunken holyman. He believes he’s on some holy quest from god to save the world. Says he must kill the one who came before him. He doesn’t know where that person is or what they look like but he must find and kill them. He will not be able to rest in peace till that person is in pieces. 

The man behind the bar is a storyteller. His favourite one to tell is the one of the dueling dragons. The two ancient serpents that were each others opposites yet completed each other. They gave the world balance in the early years before law and order existed. The story of how one killed the other in a moment of rage. The slain one simply accepted it as fate. The other went mad and was killed to preserve the world.

The man behind the piano is blind he lost his sight when he was a boy for getting mud on some lords boots. He sits there in and plays the piano. He is trapped behind the piano unable to move trying to compose his masterpiece, a piece of music that will elate and bring joy to people. Some say he can see the music moving up from the back of the piano, that he’s trying to assemble this piece by sight looking for the solution in the melody. 

The man at table dressed in black emits a aura of danger, that death follows him where he goes. He is a death dealer all he lives for in life is the continuation of order and balance in the world. He is not a naive idealist that believes that good will prevail. He recongises the necessity for evil and wrong doing in the world. He is unique in order to gain his attention you must either be completely evil or completely good.

The bar shutters swing open and a woman appears in the doorway, she looks troubled and travel weary. In a bar where everyone is so absorbed in their own thoughts no one notices when she falls down from exhaustion. Time passes and the barman notices and lifts her to a couch at the back of the bar. The woman never wakes. 

Time passes and memory fades the storyteller leaves for bed and asks the man at the bar and the man at the table to leave. Outside the men lock eyes and the holy man asks the man in black.

Are you the one who came before me? 

The man in black looks at the holyman for a while.

The next thing the holyman hears is the click of the hammer going back on the man in blacks gun.

Then The man in black answers the holy man,

No I’m the eternal one neither before or after, I just am

The gunshot rings out in the still night, the holy man falls to a silent death none will mourn or miss him, none will even notice that he has fallen.

The man in black turns and walks away, knowing balance has been restored.

Published in:  on July 26, 2008 at 6:10 pm Leave a Comment
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The Viacom/Youtube Fiasco

Some of you may have read about the court ruling in the US, that ruled that Google must hand over its entire user log to Viacom as part of a copyright infringement lawsuit Viacom have filed. The logs are massive, 4 TeraBytes (over 4000 GigaBytes) worth of users and their viewing history on YouTube. This has annoyed me for several reasons, firstly what has this to do with their current lawsuit? Secondly Are there any conditions attached to this data? and lastly and perphaps most importantly Is this not a blatant breach of people privacy rites and whatever personal (if any!) the United States provides for its citizens?

Some justification for my first point maybe that they are only going to use this information to find out how much of their copyrighted material is available in YouTube and how many times it has been viewed. But can a private company whose sole purpose is to make money and increase profits really just ignore all that information that can be used for Marketing? Imagine it, one of the biggest entertainment companies in the world with access to millions of peoples personal details and viewing preferences. We could see a wave of spam and targeted marketing that nobody signed up for. What’s more if there are no conditions attached to the data, what is to stop Viacom selling the lists to spammers. I don’t believe that this is simply about the court case and an attempt by Viacom to gain access to a huge bank of data that SHOULD be kept confidential by Google.

There are various news reports that are quoting the various laws that this ruling may be infringing on. I’ll link to these at the end of the post.

But more worrying to me is that in recent times the US has become hypocritical and seem to have reverted to the dreaded McCarthyism of the 50’s and the cold war. Recently I found out that the Irish government have given the US government to carry acts of rendition on IRISH citizens that they believe have broken US law and allow them to take them out of the country without going near a court or the Irish judicial system. Also the US government is negotiating with the EU to make this “privilege” Europe wide.

America is after doing a 180 on its views. After the long staunch against communism and steel resolve for the freedom of expression and speech. It seems that American citizens must now be careful about what they say and think in public. Michael Moore’s films while they should be viewed with a pinch of salt do present a somewhat accurate account of what has been happening in American politics and law making in recent years.

But alas Europe is not much better, given the blatant bitch slap given to democracy and due process recently with Ireland’s rejection of the Lisbon Treaty. As soon as that NO vote was announced the treaty should have been dead in the water and abandoned. But no, at the EU in Brussels other member states were encouraged to continue and ratify the treaty. The country has voted NO and that should be it there should be no re vote. There needs to be a new treaty drafted and explained to the people in clear terms not with that farce of a leaflet they sent out.

Democracy which has been around since Ancient Greece, comes from to words Demo and Crate which mean power to the people. This seems to be failing lately as governments try and place more and more restrictions on their peoples. The words of V from the movie V for Vendetta ring especially clear to me lately.

There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who’s to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn’t be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the <Insert Relevant Government here>

And to finish another quote from V,

“People should not be afraid of their governments, Governments Should be afraid of their people”

Links to reports on the YouTube ruling.

BBC Reports

EFF.org Report

Published in:  on July 3, 2008 at 8:53 pm Comments (1)
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Neil Young Malahide Castle Dublin 29 June 2008

Went to see Neil Young on Sunday (29 June) despite a terrible week of weather, on Sunday the weather held up and the sun even made an appearance for extended periods of time. Got there 5- 10 minutes before the gates open, not a huge queue which worked out in our favour with stewards handing myself and my uncle PIT PASSES!!!. Pretty sweet probably at most 10-15 feet away from the stage.

The first band on stage was “Everest”, an indie/folk type band from California, they were very impressive and really helped the atmosphere of the gig. They came on stage with the sun shining and their set consisted of real laid back tunes that was just a good time. Sitting out in the sun just chilling with a great band how much better can it get.? The answer when you know Neil Young is on later on in the evening.

The Frames came on next and I wasn’t horribly impressed with them. The acoustic stuff at the start was boring with the singer guy looking like he was constipated when he tried to hit the higher notes/shout at the courses. All in all thought the singer was very good he bantered with the crowd and tried to get a sing along going. The sing along is actually my last criticism of The Frames he chose probably the most depressing song for a sing along. The song was called “Happiness” but was slow and really depressing to listen to. Even the bit he tried to get the crowd to sing along with was slow and depressing. Aside from the obvious mention of the word happiness it was hard to associate the song with anything other than just plain depressing.

Neil’s stage props and set up were strange to say the least. They included a pulsating red phone, Indian chief carving, a fan and light up numbers and letters. The artist’s easel that was beside the Indian carving was strange but turned out to be a pretty cool idea. Anyway the set list was as follows,

MALAHIDE SETLIST:

Love And Only Love
I’ve Been Waiting For You
Mr. Soul
Spirit Road
Powderfinger
Out of the Blue
Too Far Gone
Oh, Lonesome Me
Mother Earth
The Needle And The Damage Done
Unknown Legend
Old Man
Get Back To The Country
Words
No Hidden Path
—
A Day In The Life (Beatles cover)

Love and only Love lasted nearly fifteen minutes and was a great was to kick off the gig. The sheer wall of sound that came from the stage at the start was unbelieavable. The artists easel to the right of the stage had a canvas on it with a big N. Throughout the gig the setlist was displayed there, these canvas’s were painted by a guy standing at the back of the stage. The gig was fantastic and I’m not going to bore you with a bit about each song but I do have a few criticisms about the gig.

I wasn’t expecting Neil to be a showman ala Bruce Springsteen or Mick Jagger. But at times he seemes totally oblivious to the crowd, with his back turned to the crowd either with the bass player or the drummer. A lot of the songs degraded to self indulgent jamming. Which I have no problem with but when a five minute song gets stretched to the best part of forty minutes and he’s still singing/playing, that sort of thing shouldn’t happen on stage with a crowd that’s getting bored. I was disappointed with the encore as well, I thought he’s come out and play “Rockin in the Free World”, “Crime in the City” or “Cortez the Killer” but no he played a Beatles song.

Still though it was a great gig and I’m glad I went to see him, but I don’t think I’d go again.

The Needle and the Damage Done from the Gig (Sorry about the shakey camera hand)

Pics from the Concert

Published in:  on July 2, 2008 at 9:12 am Comments (2)
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GTA IV

I’ve been playing this game for 3-4 weeks now and much to my surprise it does live up to the hype. So how to start a post about a game that really is a contender for the best game ever. So I suppose the best way to satart off is with a little background information about the game and its main character.

You assume the role of Niko Belic, a hardened eastern European war veteran. Who is “conflicted” he’s very good at killing people and doing all the dirty jobs for all the biggest scumbags in Liberty City. He’s a similar main character and yet different. Previous characters have all had these similar traits of starting off in a new city trying to build a new empire or just survive. However Niko is different he has come to Liberty City on a mission of vengeance. Looking for people who have betrayed him in the past. This is different as there is some justification and reason for Niko’s actions. He’s searching for answers to why some events happened in his past. Throughout the game this becomes more apparent as this GTA is much more of a non stop killing spree as previous games have been. With the setting up business’s being removed. Also new is that you are given the chance to be compassionate in the game by choosing not to kill some of the more minor characters and low rent criminals.

The introduction of the friend system is good and bad. With it adding to the overall effect of the game and helping to establish Niko as a different character. The bad part is that if you are trying to clear missions and progress through the story of the game, you have people calling and texting you to hang out. It can be annoying and distracting especially when they call you during missions. And I’m still undecided whether its a good or bad addition to the series.

The driving and firing systems have been drastically changed as well. The driving system is greatly improved from the crazy powersliding that has been a trademark for the series to date. The system once you’ve gotten used to it is a great improvement. It requires much more tactical and strategic planning of routes while trying to get away from enemies or police. The firing system much improved with auto aim being much quicker and manual aim being easier to use. The best improvement however is the cover system which allows you to keep up the rate of fire keeping your health up. The way your victims react when they are shot is more realistic as well with the victim falling down if you shoot their legs or grabbing their shoulders if they are hit in the chest area. It’s not perfect but a vast improvement on the previous shoot once and they turn into Olympic sprinters.

The wanted system can be a bit confusing as to why you get certain wanted stars but it is much more fun than previous versions. With more thought and use of side streets and alley ways required to lose wanted levels. The spray shops are better as well as they won’t re-spray the car if the cops see you going in. The police are also more likely to “swarm” you as the wanted level goes up, going from one to three stars can mean going from one car to over twenty.

It’s one of the best games I’ve ever played.

I’d give the game a 9.5 out of 10.

It loses the half mark for just the sheer stress annoyance levels that some of the missions generate.

Published in:  on June 26, 2008 at 10:05 pm Leave a Comment

Cars

What’s going on there’s no Top Gear. Where is the summer season? I want Top Gear with more races between the boys and crazy challenges.

But anyway while checking the Ferrari website I notices they have a new car due for release in 2009. The “Ferrari California” and it can only be described as a masterpiece See,

Ferrari California

This is the second car from Ferrari to bear the California name, the first a 50’s/60’s cruiser that was also a masterpiece.
Old California

Cars like these are the reason Ferrari’s are so cool. Theres a sense that they could make an affordable cruiser fro the ordinary Joe soap but they don’t want to, it’s beneath them. Ferrari’s would lose there appeal if everybody had them or could have them. It’d be like having a a Merc, they have an exclusivity of a sorts but they are fairly common. Ferrari, Lambourgini and Bugatti don’t do that there customers are the worlds elite, the oil barons and billionaires of the world.

Ferrari are my favourite car maker. Check out the website for the new California here

Published in:  on June 10, 2008 at 9:07 am Comments (1)

Something to pass Some time

The question is what though, writing about music gets boring especially given that theres never really any very interesting new news. Tabloids are boring because I really don’t care about celebrities and find it very strange that people can have such an obsession with them. Especially lately when the term generic seems to describe all of them very well. I also don’t read broadsheets as I find they are too serious and generally very boring to read.

So what is there to write about, I could take a link out of John’s book and post up links and videos. But I don’t particularly like that because well I like to write. So that leaves me with commenting on various daily show videos or inventing my own news.

My own News:

Now there is an interesting Idea, what would the world be like if I was in charge and controlling the worlds media with an Iron Fist. The world would be a lot more interesting and random. For Example

Breaking News:

The world is in shock today as former president George “Duubya” Bush admitted that there never really were any weapons of mass destruction. And that the whole Iraqi war was just an excuse to give his Daddy’s friends (“Dubbya Senior”) huge oil and construction contracts. Even more shocking was that “Dubbya” announced minutes later that his brother did rig the voting in Florida during the 2000 election.

See isn’t that a lot more interesting than Bertie’s finances or who was seen out with Justin Timberland. It’d be great craic, and a fun newsroom more akin to a comedy scriptwriters club. Plus I’d have a great break room with TV, video games and free food.

Well I think thats enough daydreaming for now, it would be cool though.

What other options are there I haven’t seen any new movies in the last few weeks to share my thoughts on that have not been extensively covered and reviewed in the media (Iron Man and Indiana Jones). Some movies I’m looking forward to however are “The Dark Knight” , “Kung Fu Panda” and the new Bond movie. Also I’ve heard rumours of a new Punisher movie. Unfortunately Thomas Jane is not returning as Frank Castle, personally I thought he was great in the first one. Other movies that I think might be worth a look are “Tropic Thunder” and “Don’t mess with the Zohan”. Tropic Thunder mainly for the brilliant skit at the recent MTv Movie awards and Zohan because its Adam Sandler

So enough pointless rambling I’ll post up a new entry Saturday/Sunday about a band I’m going to see on Friday.

Voodoo!

Published in:  on June 9, 2008 at 1:11 pm Leave a Comment

Recommended Books

The bookstore in town cleverly named “The Book Centre”, they have these recommended books of the month in the different categories/genres. Which allows you to but the book bring ti home and read it at your own leisure. If you don’t like the book, you can bring it back with your receipt for a full refund.

The majority of people would think that this is a system that is open to abuse, with people bringing back books whether they enjoyed them or not. But that does not seem to be the case. The idea/scheme has been running for over a year now and it’s cool.

It’s cool that the someone in the book centre is recommending these books and allowing the public to bring back books jsut because they didn’t like it.

Not a great post I know with some very bad phrasing, but I just think thats its a great idea and should be adopted in more places

Anyone know if other places operate a scheme like this?

Published in:  on June 8, 2008 at 10:07 pm Leave a Comment
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