Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien

Well much to the annoyance of the internet masses, and after a lengthy break, I have returned to update my blog. I say returned as if I was on some fantastical voyage of discovery and merriment but alas no I was just busy with work, lazy, uninterested or a combination of the three. Now I am back!

I’ve spent mere moments contemplating what to post here - valuable insomnia moments as those who have noted the timestamp will attest.

Eggs.

Specifically boiled eggs and even more specifically hard boiled eggs. It seems I’ve been over boiling my eggs, as noted by the sulfurous grey edge to the insides of my eggs. On the plus side I didn’t go the completely disasterous way of turning the egg into some sort of rubbery bouncy ball with a blackened core of doom as described by Delia. How I managed to avoid this I don’t know as I had the eggs on the boil for a good hour or so, busy life and all. Perhaps what saved me from the rubbery egg of death was my instinct to douse the chicken spawn in freezing water as soon as cooking was completed. This it seems is good for the anti-sulphurous deposit brigade.

Why the rambling on eggs?

Well during my investigations as to perfect egg boiling techniques I was shown this wonderous video on how to quick peel an egg. Having nothing better to ramble about I thought I’d share that discovery with the world.

Who knows it might help you impress guests at a swanky dinner party, be careful with your blowing though. The last thing you will want is to fell Mrs Jenkins from No. 3 with a super-sonic egg of pain.

Oh and anyone who loves eggs this much is clearly strange.

I got some very sad news yesterday, Seb Masawi passed away on April 8th. I met Seb at NBC Camps three years ago, he was a true NBC’er. He had time for everyone at camp, was truly committed to the sport and had some amazing insights into life. I will always remember the talk he gave two years ago on Dreams without Limits, I still try to live to those principles today.

Alot has already been said in the media about Seb’s death but to me that is irrelevant. I’ll always remember him as the kind hearted and inspiring man whom I can only hope to be half as good as.

Rest in Peace Seb.

“Challenge your dreams, each and every one of you. Don’t be satisfied with what you have but further your dream to the best of your ability.” - Seb Masawi

Well it’s been an extremely long time since I updated here. I could tell stories of work, of campaigning, of winning elections and of being laid up with an infected foot but I’ll not. Instead I want to briefly document one of the weirdest dreams I’ve had in a long time. Blatantly being signed off ill with a gammy foot has adversely impacted my mind. The constant stream of movies and TV have eaten at my grey matter and turned it into some kind of insane Bachelors Cup-A-Soup mush.

Whilst snoozing this afternoon I dreampt of some sort of bastardised hybrid between The West Wing and Jumper. It started off with me realising I could teleport around the place ala Jumper but not only in space, also in time. The next thing I know someone shows up who has been randomly killing off people - including friends and family again sort of ala Jumper. This fact is uncovered and myself and a third person, who came out of nowhere but who can also teleport, battled to try and kill him. This was all taking place around where I lived but then came the Hollywood-esque surprise.

Just before we put an end to him he revealed some mad secret that would enable us to save our lives or someone elses life or a block of cheese, I can’t remember but it was something important. I then end up fighting my partner to try and save this mystery murderers life which is when the crazy time travelling comes into effect. My former sidekick starts travelling back in time and changing events to try and make me want to kill the man again - all very bizzare. Anywho I travel back correcting things and eventually win but I can’t remember how, I think we all just got bored and gave up. Thus he was saved and we for some reason went to the white house.

At this stage a mad “you’re not supposed to know this but the audience is” reveal took place. It turns out at age ten this madman had killed one of my best friends! Expect further crazy plot twists and reveals from that one.

So we get to the West Wing and for some reason all these teleporting people decide to barricade themselves into the canteen and setup a government in exile. The real government takes gumption to this starts killing teleporters and invades the canteen at which point everyone teleports away, apart from the leader of the teleport-government who it turns out couldn’t teleport and so had to tunnel out of the back wall of the canteen. Alas just as they invade the canteen my teleporting powers fail me and so I’m left holding a bag right up until the moment of almost being shot at which point they mysteriously work again and I’m teleported to some mad snow country.

This, it transpires, is where the President of the US - Jed Bartlett - has been during all this maddness. He is travelling back via heli-jet when he is assassinated by the teleporting people who teleport around sabotaging the jet and causing it to crash. Then begins a bizzare sequence whereby the ghosts of the pilot, the President and someone else wander round and discover the new base of the teleporters but realise they can do nothing as they are infact dead (although Bartlett was all for reconciliation prior to being assassinated). I turn up at the base and am welcomed with some suspicion - why did I not turn up with everyone else? Am I a spy? As I’m led to my new room in this secret teleporters base I overhear some conversation and uncover the ultimate plan of the teleporters - involving explosives planted in the foundations of buildings and such.

At this stage the dream became too bizzare even for my mind and I woke up. It was absolutely insane and at once the oddess and most vivid dream I have ever had. Crazy details like packing my bag and grabbing momentos and such before evacuating the soon to be invaded canteen were all included. I think there might have even been some dramatic music overlaid at appropriate times. Really was weird and I thought I would share it with the four people who less than regularly check this page.

Those of you who managed to stay the course and read all that should be given an endurance award. Those of you who managed to read it all and yet still maintain the thread of the tapestry of intrigue that made up the story should be concerned for your mental health. In any case I have decided it’s best if I don’t watch anymore TV for a very very long time

At least it’s back to work tomorrow!

Just a short note, I ain’t got much time and all with the election campaign!

Kosovo declared independence today. I had the great pleasure of visiting Pristina with work in December of last year. It’s an interesting city. It can in one minute feel like any other European city with bustling streets, modern hotels, coffee shops, fashionable shops. The next moment it you can be in the centre of a post-war disaster zone, UN trucks and troopers, bombed out buildings, burnt out cars and man sized pot holes. Despite all this the people I met were warm, friendly and full of enthusiasm for the future.

They face unimaginable challenges, high crime, rolling power cuts, ethnic tensions, a national library that contains no books, but they still march on with hope and optimism.

I can only hope that they obtain the peace and prosperity that they seek and deserve.

Congratulations on independence and best wishes for the future.

It’s that time of year again. Time for beers a-plenty, nachos, dip, whiskey, random thrusting of arms in the air and horrific mornings after the late night before. Yeah it’s time for ADFEST 2008!!!

Four hours of near pure advertising interspersed with burly blokes in burly padding chucking some pigskin about a field for the craic. I’ve been watching for nearly three hours now, it’s NE Patriots 7, NY Giants 10 and I have a stunning urge to go buy Bridgestone tyres. I don’t own a car but I sure want them tyres.

How is the watching achieved I hear you say. You have no telebox young Senor Dunne does your mind remind you. I am watching through the wonders of modern technology, a spiffy little program called SopCast that quite simply is Peer-to-Peer online teleboxing. It’s wonderous and I love it more than I ever loved any spiffy program before.

Anyhow enough of this, install SopCast, and join with me as I enter my 16th ad break in 10 minutes. They make so much money off this it’s just not fair…

Sad news arrived at Dunne Towers today. The legendary TV Presenter and prankster Jeremy Beadle has died. I remember watching Game For A Laugh, Beadle’s About and You’ve Been Framed during my ill-spent youth. I also had the great pleasure of meeting him when he came to the Isle of Man many years ago.

Well, I say meeting him, but that’s not wholly accurate. More I had the great childhood pleasure of being elbowed out of the way by burly adults seeking his autograph and getting my mum to queue and shove on my behalf all for a name-like scribble. I don’t remember what happened to that piece of paper but hopefully I still have it.

Sad day, sad day.

Welfare Two is here at last and it’s driving me up the wall!

There’s plenty going on and sure tis good fun but this getting up at half five to get to the fruit market to buy boxes of fruit for the young student types is amazingly tiring and makes me do crazy things. But before that onto the fruit market.

Oh twas a wonderous place! A hive of activity I have decided that the fruit market is infact the center of the known universe. Millions of tons of fruit and veg arrives in from all over the world to be ferried across the city by what can only be described as homicidal maniacs. Forklift trucks fly around the place at close to the speed of sound the only warning of their changing direction is a sudden “MIND YER BACKS GENTS!” and then the searing pain of a forklift fork impaling your leg.

Once you’ve freed yourself from such impalment and tidied your trousers of the gushing blood you can purchase all manner of fruit. For a minimal fee you can get enough fruit and veg to build some sort of mad fruit and veg castle that will be the wonder of the ages before it rotted and collapsed upon you. The fruit is stored in mad garage like comparments with special gas gushing pipes which would surely lead to suffication if you are trapped inside.

An interesting side note - most of the fruit arrives in over-ripe (or is it under?) allowing time for it ripen in the warehouse while masses of paperwork are completed and ensuring that it arrives in the shops tasting just right; or if it’s my local brand-name convenience store rotten and maggot infested (oh the nutrition), anyway this sentence has become unwieldly and long and needs to end, now. Thanks to Dave of Fyffes for that lengthy nugget.

Anyway, after dodging the forklifts of doom and retrieving the fruit of health my companions and I continued on our quest of delivery. At this stage I had gone completely mad, as can be noted by the ye olde style quest descriptions. In this maddened state I posed for several fruity photos (we were waiting for the college doors to open). The results of which will bring this extensive ramble to a close…I’m not taking responsibilty if they turn you blind.

Well I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t somewhat upset.

I watched two programmes from Channel 4 today about two legendary people. One was called Alex, about a 16 year old named Alex Stobbs who suffers from Cystic Fibrosis yet who still managed to conduct one of Bach’s most challenging pieces of music. The other, The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off, was about Jonny Kennedy, a 36 year old with dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa a devastating disease whose sufferers blister at the slightest touch but who lived a full and rewarding life.

They lead by example and I only hope I can follow.

Legends both.

“I know inside that there’s more to life than this mortal coil. It’s a very shallow minded person who thinks that somebody is born and dies and that’s it.” - Jonny Kennedy 1966 - 2003

No, I Regret Nothing…apart from that pack of sugarfree polos, gave me the squits like mad.

Luckily though an infusion of high in fibre brown bread has soaked up everything and kept me off the porelain long enough to post. Huzaaaah! Anyhow to business…

…Welcome to my first post!

This, like all my attempts at a diary and record of my life, will be brilliant for about a fortnight and then die a slow and pointless death as I get bored. I shall post such wonderous things as my observations, witicisms, photos, thoughts and non-copyrighted idea in the small corner of the internet. To make it more homely I shall also install a small stove and a rocking chair, I might get one of those whistle kettles as well.

A brief synopsis of me and then I’ll be off on a quest to find fair trade gel (on another point, how exactly does gel work and is super glue merely a super form of gel?). My name is Martin, I live in the Big Smoke known as Dublin and I am currently the Vice-President for Academic & Student Affairs in the Dublin Institute of Technology’s Students’ Union. I have a good and proper honours degree which is currently covering the calendar on my wall and I likes the basketball. Oh and some people say I’m a bit mental but away with them.

Now to my quest for gel…Over and out.