Wednesday, May 19, 2004

Quick update...

Still no word on whether I can get Paul to cover for me tomorrow night. Don't want to phone him and ask. I might just break down and start begging! I really do need to get out of the quiz though, so not a good situation!

New link added...

I forgot to mention. The Flange Band have a website, though hardly anyone ever visits it. In case you want to there's a link available. There's even a photo of me on there. I'm the one DJ'ing wearing a 'Foley Is God' T-Shirt in reference to wrestling's hardcore legend Mick Foley AKA Mankind, Cactus Jack and Dude Love.

Hmmm...

That last post really sounds as if it ends with me in tears doesn't it? To be honest, things aren't that bad, just a little down. I haven't been able to contact Jenni since she went back to England. Are these two things connected? I couldn't possibly comment...

Tuesday, May 18, 2004

Long time no post...

It's been a while since my last post as nowt really worthwhile has happened, or at least nothing that seems worthwhile when I get round to sitting down and get ready to type. I've lost count of the number of times I've felt guilty for not posting, immediately thought of something to write and then forgotten all about it by the time I get round to actually writing it up in my diary. Ah well here goes...

A reasonably good weekend. I've fallen into the habit of taking Fridays off. I did last week and plan to do so again this week. Thursday nights are pretty good although the Flange Band doesn't seem to be pulling in quite the same size of crowd it once did, although what in Wolseys does these days? I don't know what the deal is but the bar is undergoing a real downturn at the moment. Hopefully once the refurbishment happens there will be a bit of a turnaround, as it really does need a kick up the arse at the minute. Everyone seems to have settled into a rut with little sign of anything happening to counteract the lethargy that consumes the place. Upstairs is in the middle of trying to sort out what they want to play, downstairs nobody seems to make a real effort (even Dodds is simply settling for things as opposed to forcing the issue). Not like him at all. Even the Pub Quiz flyer I mentioned below isn't even put out on the tables unless I'm there to remind them. That bit actually does piss me off a lot. When there is a general refusal to spend money on external advertising, to not even bother telling the people who do come in what is happening in the place is such a big missed opportunity. Not only that but it means I'm wasting my time even trying, and I hate it when anyone but myself wastes my time...

While on the subject of the bar there's another thing that's weird about me though. If I hear anyone criticizing Wolseys I feel obligated to defend it, and I generally take any unfair criticism of the place personally. Just another quirk of my personality.

Anyway I was going to type about what's happening before all that. So this week sees the return of Ryan from Paris where he's been working for about a year now. Of course the Thursday Night Club (A loose social gathering that started from me meeting up with an old school friend Glen for a social pint) was always a big thing for him coz there was a bunch of us who went from Wolseys to Fealtys and then back to Wolseys to see the end of the Flange Band. At one stage there was about 7 or 8 of us heading out every Thursday and he used to comment about how "this was how Manumission started!" Anyway, what with him moving away and the Flange Band moving to Friday nights for a while, it started to peter out mostly although me Glen and Jamie and usually someone else would end up out. Anyway, so Ryan's coming back and Gail, Simon the bar manager's sister and a very good friend is really looking forward to this coz she really liked Ryan (quite how much I'm not too sure if you know what I mean...). Of course it turns out that I have a quiz booked for this Thursday night. The only outside engagement I've had for months, and it turns out it clashes with the one Thursday night I really wanted to have off, if only to try and keep Gail from jumping on Ryan! What are the odds of that? So now I'm trying to get Magic Paul to cover for me if I write the quiz, providing he's not too busy with work, and I don't know how to phrase it to the people of CRUSE (the charity for whom I'm doing the quiz) without making it look like I'm dropping them in the shit for the sake of a few pints. Not that Paul wouldn't be capable of doing an excellent job...

So this is my life at the moment. The quiz sucks, I'm going to look like a complete git to someone this Thursday night, and I'm going to a dead bar to go through the motions again this weekend. A maelstrom of shit indeed...

Thursday, May 13, 2004

Today in Belfast... (and Bangor)

Bit of an odd day today. In Belfast it was such a beautiful day that I started ringing round to try and get someone to go out for a few beers in Donegan's beer garden. Couldn't get anyone, although a good bit of that is coz it wasn't anything like as nice a day in Bangor, at least according to Simon and Steven, although they are both possibly lying gits who just didn't want to hurt my feelings by pointing out that I had no mates!

Did manage to get Jamie and Simon to meet up for a few after work which included a nice dinner in Donegans, the first time I've ever eaten there. Only a bacon & cheese burger but it was very nice, and the spicy chips were good too. Then we went in next door to Fealtys for the match between Southampton and Newcastle. Southampton scored with 5 minutes to go to seal Newcastle's fate and even though they got an equalizer in injury time it means Liverpool will almost certainly finish 4th barring an unheard of miracle. Liverpool need to lose 6-0 at home to Newcastle while Aston Villa win 6-0 at Old Trafford. Not very likely at all then....

Spoke to Christine though which was nice. I know she reads this blog so here's another hello!!. Wonder if there is any way of figuring out whether any other person in the world is looking at this page? I know you can put counters on web pages, but whether they'll allow them on this is another thing. Will have to give it a go sometime though...

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

Check out the time of this post...

So tired. So very tired!

Saturday, May 08, 2004

What's been happening recently...

Sorry it's been a couple of days since the last one, so here goes...

Actually it's been hard enough thinking of what to write on this. Once I'm logged in and all I can usually think of stuff to say, but to actually go out of my way to start typing stuff is usually a bit more difficult. The other thing that annoys me is the fact that despite the fact that there is a perfectly good spellchecker, I automatically go and correct any keying mistakes i make. It's actually quite infuriating, and thanks to my stubby fingers I always make loads of mistakes. Well I'm going to try and leave them from now on and let the spellchecker do it's work unless it's stuff I know it won't pick up on, like typing so instead of do. Oh and grammatical errors as well. I'm not sure it'll pick up on things like that!

Anyway, I was going to tell what's been happening recently. Well, on Thursday I didn't do anything as I was knackered, so didn't bother heading out. Watched Newcastle Utd get beat by a poor Marseilles side, complete with our man Fabien Barthez. Who would have thought getting bombed out of United would see him have success in Europe this season? I think that sums up how shit our season has been...

As for Friday, got word from Jenni that she'd arrived back in the country, and was heading out Friday night. Hurrah! Anyway, so Jenni, Karen, and later on Jenni's sister Danielle and her mate (Louise?) headed down. I got bored quickly (I have very poor hearing and find it impossible to hear people talking in pubs) so started drinking vodka as quickly as possible. Got quietly hammered. At least i didn't end up too bad, as at one stage I was getting a new drink every 15 minutes!

Anyway, feeling a bit rough this morning, so didn't bother heading out for the football. Doing it all again tonight anyway. Have to do a copy of my dance cd that i did for Gail for Kenny so he can play tonight. Plus I want to do a new one for the bar as it's been a few weeks. Still haven't got paid for the last few though...

Wednesday, May 05, 2004

Ooooh, check this out!

Added a title field as I think it would help distinguish my rambling posts from each other. Hope it works!
Not much to write home about today. Had planned to watch the football tonight, but I forgot it was on Sky and couldn't be arsed heading out to watch it. No word from Jamie or Simon about it either. I'm assuming they ended up going to the cinema as they had mentioned earlier in the week. Ah well, Chelsea went out as it turned out. the worst thing was that for one glorious minute, they had the scoreline they needed to go through. So a Monaco vs Porto final. Wonder what the odds would have been on that at the beginning of the season? No English, Spanish, Italian or German teams for the first time in nearly twenty years!

Oh there is the new Viridian Room, the sequel to the Crimson Room puzzle that did the rounds a few months ago. It's excellent fun. I'll have a go at entering the hyperlink here.

  • Viridian Room


  • Hope that works. it a good wee puzzle though. Wasted a good hour trying to figure it out. then gave up and started looking for cheats. Turns out the game was only released on 28th April and there's a full walkthrough already available! What's that about? Some people (myself included) just have no patience!

    Apart from that, not much seemingly happening in the world tonight. Might phone Jenni after posting this, just for something to do. Dunno whether to bother though. I haven't been able to talk to her on the phone properly for way too long for someone I was so close to only last year, when I could really talk to her about anything. Hopefully when she gets back, things will go back to how they were before last year when I think between the pair of us we managed to fuck things up pretty good. I keep having the dreaded feeling they won't though! Let's hope though...
    Damn, I'm getting good at this stuff! Check out the links on the right hand side of the page ---->

    Have figured out how to edit them. Of course the fact that it turned out to be really simple, doesn't put me off my celebrations at all!
    Needless to say, I managed to fall asleep at about 8.30 for about 3 hours. So much for watching Kill Bill! GI Jane is on telly tonight again. Why do they keep showing this film? It's at least the third time this year it's been on. ITV really is the biggest pile of crap going. I noticed an advert for another Celebrity Stars In Their Eyes this weekend, a full week after their last edition. Are there any bloody celebrities left who are yet to appear on Stars In Their Eyes? They must be running short by now. Of course this is in addition to the edition of Kids Stars In Their Eyes that aired earlier THE VERY SAME NIGHT! Honestly. Two episodes of the same tired old program in prime time on a Saturday night. And they wonder why so many people go out on a Saturday. ITV should be fined by the regulators for such a lack of ambition. While they are at it they could impose heavy fines for generally offering garbage to the viewing public. Bad Girls and Footballers Wives are an absolute disgrace to programming, and anyone who enjoys them should have their televisions forcibly removed. Trashy and entertaining they may be, but the standard of acting and production in them is little short of embarassing.

    The same goes for their Sunday night programming. Heartbeat is still on for some unknown reason. Considering they originally moved forward a year with each new series, they should be up to the 1990's by now! Heartbeat for those lucky enough to not know it is also king of the 'musical prompts for idiots' that always accompany truly bad drama. For example, a new dawn on screen will always be accompanied by Here Comes The Sun, or Sun Arise or something similar that immediately reminds even the most retarded viewer of what's happening on screen. Honestly check it out for yourself. Once you spot it, you'll realise how incredibly insulting and unimaginitive it is. And it happens with nearly every new scene. After a while you could turn the sound off and start thinking what song they are likely to use for each new scene. Better yet, turn the television off, or at least change channel. I remember hearing about people whose parents banned ITV from their home when they were growing up, and how it was such a snobbish thing to do. Honestly speaking, the more I see of ITV, I have to say I would very happily do the same. I know it's not all bad but what little decent fayre is on offer I could quite happily live without if it meant never (even accidentally) seeing another epsiode of Emmerdale.

    Oh and while they are at it could ITV bosses please stop automatically using Davina McCall or Ant 'n' Dec for every new program idea they have. Give someone else a chance, for God's sake. it's getting very very boring.

    Tuesday, May 04, 2004

    www.you-at-wolseys.com

    Above is the link that should appear in the post below. I don't know why it didn't originally. The tags and text all seemed present and correct when I went to post the message before, but it just never appeared. Who knows? The dark arts as these things are often referred to as completely baffle me, as you will see more and more of in the future. Bear with me, though I'm sure I've something interesting to say in the middle of all the fuck-ups!
    Good quiz last night. Pretty busy and some stunning women in the bar. If you were one of them, congratulations, and sorry for staring quite so much! Not much blog worthy happening the rest of the weekend except for the end to Sunday night. All was going well in Wolseys with a lot of drink being taken and good banter, until some bright spark (me) decided that we should go up to Donegans to see what the karaoke was like. Needless to say I owe everyone apologies, and the fervent promise that we will never be going anywhere near there again on a Sunday night. What a nightmare. It was busy, warm and you couldn't really move anywhere, which would have been unpleasant enough coupled with Donegan's too-low ceiling and their well-founded reputation for pisspoor warm beer, but all this combined with the incredibly shit steeky beats dance music that they were playing when no-once was singing, made it one of the least enjoyable experiences of my life, made only tolerable for seeing the lovely Louise and Rosie. Simon ended up standing hiding at the front door, Magic Paul ducked out early and generally everyone stood around wondering why the hell we ended up there.

    Anyway, I said Jenni was home this week at the end of my last post. It turns out I'd buggered up my dates. It's the end of this week when she gets back. And I will post some details on Jenni at some point. I promise. I'm not sure as yet how comfortable I am posting it here yet. Needless to say I'll get drunk one night and blab it all (in blog speak at least). Anyway tonight is football and Kill Bill vol 1. At least it will be if I can stay awake that long. All the best...

    I wish I could figure out how to edit the links at the side of this page. Can't see how to change them anywhere!! Anyway for the time being I lurk here occasionally. I wrote the Wizards Sleeve a long time ago, and loads of my messages appear in the boards. Hardly anyone uses it now which is a shame. I am supposed to take it over from the original designer (the afore-mentioned Magic Paul) but have never quite managed to get round to it. Story of mine and many others lives...

    Saturday, May 01, 2004

    For anyone who may actually read this, I'm 30, I live in Bangor, Northern Ireland, I work in the civil service, and I organize a pub quiz in Wolsey's Bar every Monday night. Really I should just link to my friends reunited profile, but I'm not so au fait with posting stuff yet. I've had a website designed for ages, except I can't figure out why it won't appear on lycos. It just says this site is under construction, and I can't figure out any way to have someone talk me through what bit I'm doing wrong. So I ended up just leaving it and pretending as if it doesn't exist, which I suppose it doesn't really since no-one else can read it. It's like that old puzzler, if a tree falls in the forest and there's no-one there to hear it, does it make a noise?

    So anyway, I did a new flyer for the pub quiz this week. First one in 3.5 years. It's pretty good even if I do say so myself. If I can figure out how to create a jpeg of it and then somewhere to host it for nothing I'll post a pic of it. I hadn't realised how long it had been since the last flyer until I realised Simon didn't even realise I used to do my own advertising. Man that's bad. I used to be so committed to it as well. I did a new one practically every month. And as for all those specialist rounds.... It went from one every week to one every other week, to one every whenever the hell I feel guilty about not having done one for ages. I couldn't and still can't remember when I started in Wolseys either which annoys me, coz I'm usually so good with that stuff. Maybe I'm getting old. It's particularly irritating because as someone who places such store in self-mythologising I can't remember such a key year in my life. Anyway, that's where all this was supposed to start (writing a new flyer), except I got bogged down in actually providing some detail about my life. No doubt over coming posts I'll let you know a bit more about my 'exciting' life.

    By the way, if anyone does ever read this, please e-mail me at kayesoATyou-at-wolseysDOTcom, just to let me know what you think of it so far. Good or bad I don't really mind. I just have strong suspicions that even though I would actually like to be the next Belle Du Jour, I don't know how anyone would ever come across my stuff. Oh and I'd like not to have to sleep with quite so many people for money. Actually that bits not true at all. I wouldn't object to getting paid!

    Oh and this bit's for Christine, coz she was the first person I told about this blog. She wants me to write more coz I'm good at it. I don't generally want to because I find it difficult to write without a real burst of inspiration. Anyway, Christine, you were right. Today hasn't been very tough at all. Whether it will be like that normally is another matter though. That makes it sound like I've just knocked out a masterpiece really instead of just some junk about my life and the micro-interesting things that happen in it.

    Oh and Jenni comes home this weekend. More on her some other time...
    chipmunks

    This little (only 7megs!) animation asks what would happen if like all other child stars Alvin & The Chipmunks ended up getting ripped off by parents & managers and ended up on drugs and shit. Very funny...
    Needless to say, I managed to fall asleep at about 8.30 for about 3 hours. So much for watching Kill Bill! GI Jane is on telly tonight again. Why do they keep showing this film? It's at least the third time this year it's been on. ITV really is the biggest pile of crap going. I noticed an advert for another Celebrity Stars In Their Eyes this weekend, a full week after their last edition. Are there any bloody celebrities left who are yet to appear on Stars In Their Eyes? They must be running short by now. Of course this is in addition to the edition of Kids Stars In Their Eyes that aired earlier THE VERY SAME NIGHT! Honestly. Two episodes of the same tired old program in prime time on a Saturday night. And they wonder why so many people go out on a Saturday. ITV should be fined by the regulators for such a lack of ambition. While they are at it they could impose heavy fines for generally offering garbage to the viewing public. Bad Girls and Footballers Wives are an absolute disgrace to programming, and anyone who enjoys them should have their televisions forcibly removed. Trashy and entertaining they may be, but the standard of acting and production in them is little short of embarassing.

    The same goes for their Sunday night programming. Heartbeat is still on for some unknown reason. Considering they originally moved forward a year with each new series, they should be up to the 1990's by now! Heartbeat for those lucky enough to not know it is also king of the 'musical prompts for idiots' that always accompany truly bad drama. For example, a new dawn on screen will always be accompanied by Here Comes The Sun, or Sun Arise or something similar that immediately reminds even the most retarded viewer of what's happening on screen. Honestly check it out for yourself. Once you spot it, you'll realise how incredibly insulting and unimaginitive it is. And it happens with nearly every new scene. After a while you could turn the sound off and start thinking what song they are likely to use for each new scene. Better yet, turn the television off, or at least change channel. I remember hearing about people whose parents banned ITV from their home when they were growing up, and how it was such a snobbish thing to do. Honestly speaking, the more I see of ITV, I have to say I would very happily do the same. I know it's not all bad but what little decent fayre is on offer I could quite happily live without if it meant never (even accidentally) seeing another epsiode of Emmerdale.

    Oh and while they are at it could ITV bosses please stop automatically using Davina McCall or Ant 'n' Dec for every new program idea they have. Give someone else a chance, for God's sake. it's getting very very boring.