Crazy weekend....

2 Weekends ago Jo and I stayed at Dorothy and Alans and looked after about 30 Cats. The we went to edinburgh to watch the Giants play.

I must give you a bio of all the cats at some point, what they all look like and where they needed to be fed, its all very complicated.

But for now; Jo decided to take some pictures of me in her hallway, they looked very good, especially cuse i'm exceptionally hard to take a good photo of. Check um out, i look like a proper guitarist!



Check out more on Jo's Blog

Currently listening to: "mouthfull of cavities" - Blind Melon (cuse that's what i was playin')

Smooth as a baby's arse...

I decided to have a trim, as i was starting to look a little too ragged.

From this:


To this:



I aught to get my 12 o'clock shadow back by about april.

WEEEEEEEE ARE THE CHAMPIONS..........

Currently listening to: "Times Like These" - Foo fighters

The daily show with jon stewart

The daily show is a Comedy Central satirical look at politics in the US. Its done in the style of a CNN style broadcast.

click here for their website

click here to watch their take on the vice president shooting his friend in the face!

currently listening to: "Weather with you" - Crowded House

Nice sky

Never fail to be amazed...

by the idiots who live on this tiny troubled island....

Today the loyalists decided to "have a wee march" in Dublin. Needless to say, there was a riot.

Click here for full story.

I saw the report on UTV, where everyone involved on both sides claimed that they were not to blame.

Shocker.

I believe there is probably a riot commitee. People from both sides up here get together and figure out where they'd like to raise hell. At this meeting "little Jaunty" from the shankill or the falls spoke up and said.. "hear mate, wadda-ya-sai we go down-a dublin, ged-a few pints and hava-a bid-ov-a-riat?" Everybody, at the meeting, having drunk way too much white lightening or buckfast thinks this is a capital idea, nod their burbury baseball cap clad heads, and get about organising who is getting hit with the first half brick.

I really don't care for either sides' point of view, i do however envy those who have moved off this rock to less silly places. Maybe i'll join them one of these days.

(/rant)

a little iTunes clearout....

So I started the day with an obscene amount of tracks in iTunes and decided a spring clean was in order.

We kicked off with over 40gb of music, over 10,000 tracks. We're now down to:

Phew!

Its amazing the sheer amount of crap you accumulate over the years.

I'm off to bed now, as i'm exhausted....

Currently listening to: "Home" by Dan Fenner (he's a friend of a friend in Leeds, i got his 2 track ep around 1998, its still fantastic, hope he does well)

National Chip Week

currently listening to: "Immortality" - Pearl Jam (Vitology)

Yup aparently its national chip week.

I went to the chippie after the gym tonight to undo all the work good i'd done, you know how i'm getting to love that belly of mine.

Once more the gym music was ridiculous, and i drowned it out with Pearl Jam's "Vitology" album.

Every track, apart from the last one "STUPID MOP" or "Hey foxysexymophandlemomma, that's me" (depending on when you bought the album) is a winner. I haven't listened to that track in years, it freaks me out a little, and so as far as I'm concerned the album ends with the somber but perfectly crafted "immortality" which is said to be about Kurt Cobain, but hey, i've got no proof.

Every time I rediscover Vitology its like meeting an old friend and going over old times. I have such vivid memories of the time I first heard it, I was 15, and therefore in school. I dismissed it at first as being not what i'd come to appreciate as a Pearl Jam standard sound, with tracks like "Spin the black circle" verging on punk and "Betterman" then "Nothingman" being the absolute opposite. After a couple of plays trough the album it grew on me and i've come to know all of it word for word.

I found as I changed and started to grow up through my later teens that the sound that Pearl jam were producing was growing up too, from the angry raw sound of "Ten" and "Verses" to something new and more textured through "Vitology" to my favorite "No Code".

I've enjoyed everything they have produced since, with varying enthusiasm. "Yeild" sneaked up on me and I only started to enjoy it in its entirety recently, "Binural" is the one i've listened to least, and i figured they were winding up to finish. "Riot act" became the soundtrack to my early 20's, through job changes, moving out into Belfast.

I could talk these guys all day but, well, i should be asleep. I only came on to talk about national chip week. The long and the short of it is, if you like early Pearl Jam, but never gave the later albums a listen hoak them out, they are well worth it.

Post 101 of hararya

(i did the geek test, i got a score of about 12%, which means i'm reasonably normal)

Happy HARARYA birthday to me!

That's right, this site is a year old today.

I started this as a diary, a way to keep crap that i wanted to show people online and a tool for keeping in touch with those i see less of these days.

Its not been a bad year. I've now been in a PROPER computer related job for over a year (many thanks Steria for hiring me, Meelan for reccomending me, Ken Morrow for encouraging me and of course Robert Donnelly for getting the job that we both interviewed for first!). I'm starting to pay off my debts (slowly) and i'm starting to forget what it was like to be working in the Spar, wondering what the hell was happening to my life. That was a pretty dark time.

But listen, listen, never mind me what about you?

Much of the ol' manly love,

Matt

Your Sexy Brazilian Name is:

Djavan Fernandes

What's Your Sexy Brazilian Name?

Update on gym crappy remix music...

Dave Allen said...

I have an Idea, lets all try and think of the worst possible (or most ridiculous) song they could do this to.

Im thinking "What a Wonderful World" - Louis Armstrong.

What do you think??
11:14 PM

Jo said...

are you kidding? they've done that one already! =/

====

Just to update, tonight they had the following songs:

Every breath you take - Sting
(which is interesting from the whole people stalking people in the gym)

Maria (you gotta see her) - Blonde

Right here waiting for you - Richard marx

====

I think the most ridiculous song that could be used would probably be "Dance of the sugarplum fairy" (from the Nutcracker) - Thaikovsky

What do y'all think?

...and now a random fact about Jack Bauer:

Every time the cops get an APB to arrest Jack Bauer, half the department mysteriously calls out sick. The fire department too, just in case.

What kind of villan am I?

What Type of Villain are You?

mutedfaith.com.

(incidently, if you are reading this, dave ashe, that's probably you too!)

So I've been in a gym for a while now...

...and the problems with going are as follows:

1. I'm a pretty skinny ginger 11 stone weakling with terrible dress sense.

2. They play industrial dance / euphoria nonsense music way too loud.

I am hoping to overcome the first problem, but it will take time, maybe years.

The second problem is a little more tricky, but thanks to my trusty Ipod, (being turned up to 11), I can blast rock and or good pop into my ears at a frightening volume canceling out the effect of the mind numbing dispicableness.

The tunes they are playing are largely badly adapted 80's or 90's songs. The standard formula is to slow/speed the melody down to about half of the speed and play a euphoric 'twice the speed a drummer could ever manage' beat over the top. ALL of the songs are the same. The same beat, the same formula.

Starts off with the slowed/sped up sample by itself and slowly the beat raises in volume until it is overpowering. Then, and here is the clever bit, everything stops. The beat then resumes without the sample. The sample joins in after 20 - 30 seconds and gaines in volume. Eventually it all stops again. The song then starts over again with the sample by itself, then the beat builds up to a euphoric ending.

Sometimes at the end of the song they slow the sample down (but don't lower the pitch) so slow that it sounds all distorted and scary. Then maybe stop one more time and bring the beat in again.

I've heard all sorts of abominations, but there are some that border on comedy. Among the most ridiculous are remixes of:

*Sitting on the dock of the bay
*When a man loves a woman
*My heart will go on
*Friends in low places

All of the above have caused me to burst out loud laughing and completely ruin my concentration.

I've resolved the situation by blasting my Ipod really really loud and drowning them out.

I find Metallica works best.

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: "Through the never" - Metallica

10 randomly made up, but humourous things...

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Matt mcivor!

1. If you blow out all the candles on matt mcivor with one breath, your wish will come true.
2. Birds do not sleep in matt mcivor, though they may rest in him from time to time.
3. In the 1600s, tobacco was frequently prescribed to treat headaches, bad breath and matt mcivor.
4. The International Space Station weighs about 500 tons and is the same size as matt mcivor.
5. The eye of an ostrich is bigger than matt mcivor!
6. If a snake is born with two heads, the heads will fight over who gets matt mcivor.
7. A matt mcivorometer is used to measure matt mcivor.
8. More than one million stray dogs and half a million stray cats live in matt mcivor.
9. It's bad luck for a flag to touch matt mcivor.
10. The opposite sides of matt mcivor always add up to seven.

I am interested in - do tell me aboutherhimitthem

Haraya Caleb John Allen?

Welcome to the world dude.

God Bless.

Is it Rod Jane or Freddy?

Auto resolution generator....

In the year 2006 I resolve to: Get a mullet. Get your resolution here

This post is dermo's fault, i copied the idea from his blog...

Currently listening to: "Late for the sky" - Jackson Browne

Some things you didn't know / kinda knew, explained a little....

i largely dont eat vegtables. I will eat: potatoes in any form, and tomatoes in the form of a paste or heinz tomato soup. But that is pretty much it.

I don't largely eat fruit. I will eat pineapple. And i've come round to orange juice and cranberry juice, but i'd freak out to eat an orange or a cranberry. I hate the taste of apple juice. I love apple tart. If i don't look at it i can eat the processed apple, if it is warm and is hidden by, lets say, pastery and some kind of cream.

I'm scared of meat. I can eat chicken sometimes. Maybe beef mince in spagetti or chilli. I'm nearly sick if i accidently eat a piece of fat. (one my friends mums - who was a psychologist - served me up a big peace of fatty pork at their table one sunday when i was a kid - knowing full well of my fears. I tried my best - got a big bit of fat, freaked out and then ran out the back to be sick.)

I don't like fish. but i love the taste of prawn cocktail crisps.

All dairy products are great. I love milk.

I like spicey things and almost every type of sauce. I've discovered indian food which i like pretty well, which is basically nice sauces with chicken, and i can pick out the veg.

Most of the things i have come to like i have sampled on a pizza first.

(its pretty much a fear of un-processed food. Yup. I'm a freak. Many thanks to Elia Montgomery for actually putting it into a phrase for me - the fear part, not the freak, i already knew about that.)

I love coffee in almost all forms. Clements esspresso coffee is the best. I buy it and take it home to make. I make coffee and try to force it on people. (sorry work buddies.)