Category: humour

Like many of the irish population I listen to the Last Word on Today FM regularly while travelling home from work. Today I managed to catch a section on the Lonely Planet guide’s description of certain Irish towns and counties. A link to the press release on the Irish section of the guide can be found here
The section was typically Dublin focussed with most of the interview covering the guide’s comments about Temple Bar. Lads, you’ll never achieve any decentralisation if you don’t educate the pale about the rest of the country. Surely it’s worth pointing out there are places where you can get to work in under an hour without having a multi-million euro mortgage and a helicopter.
However, at the end they mentioned the comments about Waterford.

Waterford Town: “Although that seedy port-town feel is still evident in places, the city has received a facelift in recent years. Pedestrianised streets and public artworks have improved the centre, and it’s now a more attractive place to wander.” (P184)

Now, this back-handed and cack-handed complement is typical of the bluster that the editor Justin Bambridge tried to defend on Matt’s show. He made vague references to “proper research” but couldn’t articulate what this really consisted of. There are not “seedy places” in Waterford CITY. I can only think of a few square metres in the town that could be described as “seedy”. I can assure the reader that having grown up in Waterford if there was any more seediness to find, my intrepid group of friends would have found it. I kinda wish they’d included some photos of all this licentiousness.
While we’re at it, I’ve found greater need to “take care after dark” in the “cultural centre” that is Kilkenny or the “buzzing with energy” Cork than in Tralee. As for Dublin, I’ve seen more alcohol-related fights in Dublin on my ocassional nocturnal outtings there than many years spent in Waterford and frequent trips abroad. I suppose depending on their mood the writers would thus describe Dublin as “having something for everyone”.
Perhaps the planet is lonely as it’s so goddamn smug.

It’s fair enough to suggest that most people will watch movies during the holiday season that they wouldn’t normally dream of. Not only that but they’ll watch them repeatedly. This holidays I managed to watch one of the most dumbest movies ever made for the second time. The film in question is the John Woo movie Broken Arrow. My first introduction to this movie was when Scott Adams mentioned it in his book “The Joy of Work”. The overall impression is of a fun but mindless movie and this is definitely the case. R & I watched with her concluding that it was just one explosion after another with little to connect them. Logic and laws of physics are gleefully dispensed with throughout the movie as the IMDB’s list of factual errors attests. My particular favorites are the EMP from the underground nuclear explosion (misunderstanding the cause of an EMP in the first place) and the skinny girl throwing the hammer which hits the guy in the head and knocks him into the air. It’s not even probable but the movie seems to have a cult following based on pure daftness. So this got me thinking about a script of improbable silliness.. which is guaranteed to be a blockbuster success and a surefire hit during the holiday season.
Witness Alexander versus the 300 or AV300. The movie would consist of two independent 3 hour movies with little in common except name but shown back to back, being true to old addage “more may not be less but it’s definitely more”. To direct this masterpiece I think from recent viewings the most qualified directors are Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez on the first movie working in tandem with Peter Jackson, John Woo and Ang Lee for the sequel which may or may not be a prequel or even a trequel.
The plot is a work of genius as I’m sure you’ll agree. In my story Alexander the Great didn’t die (from poisoning or bad dialogue) in Babylon but instead met an alchemist (philosopher in the US version) who told him about magical spring of water producing eternal life in a strange land across a great ocean. Alexander and a crack team of macedonian commandos and military engineers promptly invented a steam engined warship and sailed from the mediterranean sea and crossed the atlantic where they discovered america. Once on the ship the crew discover that Alexander is terrified of sailing and they must repeatedly knock him out by hitting him over the head with a lump hammer.
On their voyage they swap artwork depicting the egyptian pyramids for information and supplies. This later leads to a craze in pyramid building in South America. During their epic voyage they fight many enemies, spill lots and lots of blood, perform many daring escapes including one where they disguise a hole in the fabric of a wigwam with a natty tapestry of Alex himself cutting the Gordian knot. Through their travails they discover the true meaning of friendship. Any similarities between this movie and the myths surrounding the travels of Alexander known as the “Alexander Romance” would be purely coincidental.
Eventually they stumble across a holiday town in
I’ve a speculative cast list below.
Alexander the Great – Colin Farell
Aristotle – Colm Meaney
Leonidas – Russel Crowe (or perhaps Philip Seymour Hoffman, whichever is available)
The Predator – Dennis Hopper (although I’m not actually sure why he’s in the movie)

Maybe it’s something in the water. Maybe too much sun is killing their braincells but recent important news events have called into question the state of education in North Carolina and South Carolina. First there was this fluffy link from Damien Mulley. I know that beauty pageants don’t require mensa-level reasoning skills but listen to the attempts of this beauty pageant winner to answer a simple question a few times to gauge the sheer vacuousness.
Then there’s this link from El Reg.
This North Carolina kid tried to cool down his XBox 360 power supply unit (more on this later) by putting it in a basin of water, while it was plugged in. Luckily enough he’s still alive with only minor burns.