Peace Out. War In.

Sam here....

 

I've been staring at the white cursor flashing for the last few minutes, trying to put thoughts down. But everything seems to be unwordable, the second I try to think.

So Christmas day. Just the usual dinner thing. Because my fathers' mother died last year, this is sort of the first Christmas with no extended family. My fathers' brothers and sisters just want no contact with each other, apart from one. It's sort of sad, and I'm determined to not let it happen to myself and my siblings.

I woke up on St. Stephens day (26th December) and just played with my new laptop. On that note, Vista is making me feel physically ill. Like I want to vomit every time I see that. Ugh. Such incompatibility. Just. Ugh. I miss XP something terrible. Went out that night, just went for a walk, to get out of the house, and I get a phone call, summoning me to the pub! I headed to my local, and met the guys from college, my old school and a few familiar faces. So I had a good night.

Got up today, and the ceasefire was over. The war at home was back on. My exams are on the 12th and basically they know how little study I've done, so their cramming it down my throat. It's going to go like this. If I fail 1st year, their not letting me repeat, and I'm going to have to get a job within 2 weeks from the date I drop out of college, or else they start taking my savings as weekly rent. When that is used up, I'm out of the house. My brother was evicted for a little while a few years ago, so I know it's not an idle threat.

But I don't want to be in college. I want to do something useful. Something practical. Something I like.

How do you say that to a parent. Oh. I got a job actually! It's in a cafe/bar here in Dublin, and it's run my a girl from the LGBT Soc in DIT. She told me she'd have work for me in January, when the shifts change, but whether that's true with our current economic climate remains to be seen.

I'm going Ice Skating and then onto Make&DoDo @ Pantibar(visit the site. It's fun) with them! But I accidentally invited Alan, and he's bringing loads of friends with him. So do I ditch the society people and go off with Alan? I know that the 2 won't mix, because the society people will destroy me. They know about my days of pure sluttery, while Alan doesn't. So I'm sort of shittin' it about that.

I Hate Vista. I hate it. It's a needy fucking child, tugging on my freshly ironed sleeve every 5 seconds when I try to do ANYTHING! With XP, it just let you work away, only informing you about important shit. But Vista. My god. I'm done ranting.

This picture, was taken outside the bar. Yer man was really drunk, and he was talking pure shite. Turns out dialling drunk isn't a youth thing. Oul' Fellas get it too. It made me laugh, so I photographed it. I have to do a mobile photo slideshow soon, I have some ridiculous pictures actually. I photograph everything!

I'm in love with Cat Stevens Greatest Hits, Eurythmics Greatest Hits, and the entire No Doubt & Prodigy back catalogue. Flavours of the week.

New years. No plans yet....

Merry Christmas!

 

Sam here....

 

I hope y'all have a great Christmas. The fire is lit. The Christmas songs are everywhere. The presents are wrapped.

The Buddha is even smiling!

And Jack, only you will understand this picture ;)

Have a good one!

Update, Anyone?

New post new post new post. This is going to be unstructured, you've warned! So Alan, things with him are developing, but I'm not sure if it's good or bad. He's very vague with me, and it's almost like he's trying to hide anything interesting(which is vital for converstion!) from me. I don't know. Maybe because I realise how shit people are. And he's bi. I'm always suspicious of bi people. Here's my analogy. Say someone sits on the path outside your house one night. You look out and you know their there. And then an hour later, their still there. Is he coming or going? Waiting for someone? The one? That's what bi people are like. I know it's weird, but anyway.

It's the 22nd of Decmeber boys and girls. This time 3 days, my house will be full of family, there'll be turkey in the oven and I'll have a new laptop! I restored this one the other day. Like completely. Put almost everything (I wrote this bitchin' post and saved it to my documents. then wiped my hard drive. I'm a tit, I know) Anyway. So now my laptop is super fast and ready to be given away to whoever wants it/put into storage.

The 22nd also means that the days start getting longer again. Longer hours of daylight, because I was convinced that I had that disorder where no sunlight and shitty weather affects your mood. I'd been so low for the last week or two. Could just be Christmas stress?

I'm a lot closeer to the DIT homo society. After wednesday night, things are going great with everyone. And I have loads of fun new people to go gaybaring with. Yes, you read right. Gaybaring, the act of going from gay bar to gay bar checking out purty boys.

Actually, morality time! If I'm only 'seeing' Alan, whatever the fuck 'seeing' means, can I kiss other people? Or is that cheating? I personally wouldn't consider it heating because we're not in a relationship, he made that very clear to me.

Went out on Saturday night. Didn't leave the house to midnight, got to the party at twenty past midnight. Police arrived at half. So we walked to the 24 hour supermarket. And purchased junk food. ANd sat in the car park eating it. It was so mundane, but I laughed and smiled and felt young.

Fuck me! This time 9 months I'll be 20. I'm going to be in my 20s. Now there's a downer. I'll be dead soon!

This is from saturday. Myself and a very old friend of mine. I know for a face that she would take off her shoe and beat me to death with it, if she knew I put this terrible photo of her online.

7 Courses, 3 Bars & Vodka From A Bin

Sam here....

Last night was wild! And I mean wild. So it starts with me skipping my last lecture at 5, going home in 'the-week-before-Christmas-at-rush-hour' traffic, throwing on something vaguely respectable and just running out the door! So we went to The Living Room first for a few student pints (anything under €5/$7.20). After that we headed up to a Lebanese restaurant for a 7 course meal. It was actually gorgeous. And we were all in such an amazing humour! It was like the start of a joke actually....

13 homo's and a Jew walk into a Lebanese restaurant....

I digress. Anyway, so after that, we were heading to The Front Lounge for a few drinks, but myself and Jess, a friend from college had a bit of a plan. We nipped into the off licence (AKA liquor store) to buy a naggin of vodka between us. Between us. So a small bottle of coke each, and half a shoulder into Jess' bag, and into the front lounge we went! A shoulder is 400ml by the way. Anyway, so we had that out in the smoking area, and shortly after were were on our way to being drunk and on our way to theG It's a good thing we had the Half shoulder each before we went in. Guess how much a pint is on a student night? Guess. €7.90! To Americans that's $11.50. Ridiculous. But there was a drag show and loads of really nice people. Maybe the bitchy gays are becoming a minority or I was wearing rose tinted glasses, but it was actually the best night I've had in so long!

The place closed at around 3AM, so we went across the road to Charlies IV, for some non traditional chinese food! Charlies are all over town actually, but they've all got different numbers. Like I was in Charlies IV last night, but there's a Charlies III around the corner. It's a pretty clever actually, makes it unique kinda.

Anyway, so then it was taxi time, because it was verging on 4:00 here. Got a taxi home. In bed by 5AM, up at 6:30, straight into college, still drunk!

And now, boys and toys, I am on my Christmas holidays until the 12th of January.

How?

Sam here....

Can somebody explain how a program can crash this many times, please?

On a happier note, things are going well with Alan. We've sort of been seeing each other when either of us has free time, but he has exams starting Wednesday, and I know how stressful that is, so I'm trying to keep showing him I'm interested, while maintaining my distance at the same time. You know that way? And the thing is, he's really difficult to text. Like I could be writing for hours, a big two page text, and I would get a two or three word response. I suppose he's just not a tester?

 

Are we all set for Christmas, boys and girls? Because I sure as hell am! I'm a big Christmas weirdo, so now, the house smells like pine from the tree, there's candles everywhere, the fire is lit on a nightly basis. I finish college this Wednesday, so I'm pretty happy about that.

Happy Happy. Everything is ok. And my mother is still not talking to me or cooking for me, but I'm ok with it. Also, their still giving me cash every month, so basically, their hardly winning. They should know, that cutting off my cashflow would be the thing that gets to me the most!

Amateurs!

I'm A Fucking Idiot!

Sam here....

So last night was a bit unusual. Strange times. Basically I went straight from college, went to the discount off licence, and bought a litre bottle of red bull and a shoulder of vodka. A shoulder contains 400ml. So I went to another college building, straight into the toilets, poured about half the litre of red bull straight down the toilet and poured the vodka in. Gave it a bit of a shake-up and went to the LGBT meeting. So about an hour in, and I was absolutely hammered. Actually, a load of us were drunk. We, em, then headed to our local gaybar, were I proceeded to do shots of Southern Comfort with Jess.

After about another ten minutes, I wasn't feeling quite right. So I headed to the toilets. Holding myself up became a bit of a challenge and the floor was tiles, lovely and cold. So I sat on the floor of a cubicle, and threw up. And then fell asleep for about forty minutes....

"Sam, are you in here?!"

"*gurgle* end cubicle."

So a guy from the society came down and helped me. Grabbed my bag, dragged me to a taxi.

I got home. It was about 10PM at this time. And both parents were still around. I fell in the door, and went straight upstairs. Left my keys in the door. Left the door open. Fell into bed fully clothed.

Never again.

Seeing Someone, Booze & Bitchy Parents

Sam here....

 

I met one. I met a man. A nice young man. aged 18 years. Not 'SceneThin'. Not a cunt. Optimistic attitude. Just a pleasure to be around. He asked me to meet up with him I did. We kiss. Nothing more. And then he asked for future plans. And I agreed. And now my status on bebo and Facebook is set to 'Seeing someone', and 'Sam is no longer listed as single', respectively. So I'm hopeful. His name is Alan. and he's great.

I am swamped with projects, and mother dearest kept butting in, criticising. And politely told her to keep her nose out of it. And on Tuesday it will be a week since she spoke to me. And I'm not bothered. She can't get me down. Alan keeps making me smile.  But last night her and my father dragged me in. Sat me down. Told me that their reducing my income severely, as in bus fare only,  if I don't cop on. And then told me I was unappreciative and lazy, and I can, from now on wash my own clothes and cook my own food. It's 2 minutes past 10. I'm only home now. I lashed a chicken breast under the grill. It was half cooked and I cut it in half, and put grated cheese on it and put it back under the grill. Made pasta and tomato sauce. Cut up the cheesy chicken into chunks. add pasta. add sauce. took 20 minutes. Delicious. I bought travel detergent earlier. It means you can wash all your shit in a shower/sink/bath and it'll come out fine. The thing is, I have all blue jeans, loads of red tee and hoodies and yellow tees. So I just need to take 20 minutes to wash huge amounts of my clothes in the bath. As for her not speaking to me. My self-confidence has never been better. A hot boy is wet for me. My stream of criticism has stopped speaking to me. And it's almost Christmas! This blog is almost one!

I'm finshed college on the 17th of December for Christmas. I'm back on the 19th of January for 3 exams. Then I'm off for two more weeks while exams are corrected. Can you say 6 weeks off?! That amount of holidaidge is lethal!

My brother is an alcoholic. Fact. But he was seeing a councillor, and hadn't drank in close to 3 months. But last night he fell off the wagon. He rolled home at 7AM this morning. And there was WAR. Everyone is disappointed and angry.

I really need to start Christmas shopping!

IOU

I owe everyone a post. I've been crazy busy lately. My next post which I'll write tomorrow. Here's a taster:

My relationship status is set to 'seeing someone' after his suggestion.
My mother hasn't spoken to me in 4 days.
I'm on the verge of happiness.
And I have a week of college left for 6 weeks of holidays.
My brother fell off the wagon last night.


I had 5 projects to since the 29th of November, all due this week. Hence no posting.

Watch & Learn

 

Sam here....

 

I learnt what the 'Prnt Scrn' button does. I'm going amuse myself for days with this one! Like now, minutes before I started typing this post, I was copying the pictures you see below!

Big Brother is watching you. You all know there's no such thing as digital privacy and blah blah blah. Well I don't care, but I was pretty freaked during the week. I was doing a project, using Word.

How the fuck did it know I was writing a letter??! That's scary! Does Microsoft know I'm writing this? What I'm listening to?

In the wrong hands, that sort of power is very useful. Like their placing advertisements everywhere now, so if windows knows, say that I'm using a Tevion wireless mouse, or a Casio digital camera, then companies could advertise, right on my desktop? Because they know I use their products? And what about silent market research? By simply plugging a product into your computer, statistics of how many products are in use go back. We have no choice.

I'm not suggesting we all go throw our laptops off the roof. But. Well we have no choice. It's weird how you can just be cornered.

So, say I type words associated with terrorism, will the CIA, FBI or Europol pick up on it? Will my traffic thing down there on the right register the computers they use to find the keywords by scanning?

Big Brother is watching. How very George Orwell - 1984.

 

North & South.

Sam here....

I know it's not socially acceptable to talk about money. And I accept that. But "the world is fucked" economically, to quote Tommy Tiernan. (link isn't working on blogger. Try www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdsmRGOR1jc)

So, as you may or may not be aware, Ireland is split in two.
There was a big 'thing' about 2 centuries ago, where the English came over to Ireland, made us start speaking English and gave local Irish land to wealthy English landlords, as well as making us respond to the British government in London. We persuaded them to give land back, and they kept 6 of our 32 counties. The 6 counties is referred to Northern Ireland.

Southern Ireland, which uses Euro currency, Kilometres per hour and has a democratic political structure. We have a state education and examination system and an independent health system.

Northern Ireland uses pounds sterling, miles per hour and has a queen as a monarch, as well as government. They have an education system run by the English government and use the NHS, the English health system.

Now, there are young men, who are aged 13-17 in Ireland and indeed Northern Ireland, who are quite bitter about the whole affair. Well, their living in middle class suburban surroundings, presumably with no girlfriend and bitching about 'the 6 counties the British bastards stole' makes them feel quite special.
But. There is a more sinister aspect to it all. Through all this, paramilitary organisations like the Irish Republican Army(IRA) and the Ulster Volunteer Force(UVF) had a bit of a battle. Hundreds died in tit-for-tat fights involving murders, threats, car bombs and all the rest.

In 1998, there was an agreement and both side stopped using weapons. Since then things have been dealt out around a government table, rather than on a grotty council estate divided by intimidation and thugs.

Anyway. Money. As Northern Ireland is ruled still by the British, it means that things are a whole lot cheaper, in big English retailers, because no Irish tax has to be paid, and lower production costs. Our Irish government is pushing tax up. The British Government are bringing tax down considerably. So as the money-conscious, recession-panicked public are faced with ridiculous prices in the cleverly named 'Rip-Off-Republic', they are heading just over the border, doing all their weekly food shopping and driving down.

We have done it again. The Irish public who have been faced with huge government scandals, wasteful spending of tax and voting with their feet, and paying considerably less tax to a different government. The British government.

Apparently by shopping up north, we're unpatriotic.
But as a nation. We're laughing all the way to the bank.

I'm Not Stealing This Title From Blondie. No Matter How Fitting.

Sam here....

On my travels through the city, this girl was handing out free SIM cards.

On a tangent - a SIM card is like a mobile(cell) phone operator. Your number is on your SIM card, so you can put your SIM in any phone handset. The number and the actual phone aren't one unit.

So I took a free one. So now I have 2 numbers.
This is where you benefit.

Call me!

00353 86 883 4448

Just remember, if you're American, I'm between 6 to 9 hours ahead of you, depending what side of the country you're on.

I'm at GMT 0:00

Oh, and I made a little talkie. Enjoy below!