Cian's Blog

The Crap Blog Rises

Cian — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 17:12:43 +0000

I now live in Tokyo, so I sometimes have marginally interesting things to report. So I suppose I’ll put them on here when the mood takes me. And maybe some other stuff too. I just hit the one year mark in Japan, and it seems to have resulted in a resurgence of interest in stuff I had successfully avoided thinking about for a long time, so maybe idle thoughts about ethics and things like that will seep out here too. And I guess I’ll try to upload some pictures and the like too. Because this place is pretty neat. Yeah. A flamboyant return to the blogosphere. If this abject half-drunk post hasn’t got your rashers dripping like a gutter then I don’t know what will.

The Great Plan

Cian — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:55:51 +0000

Once I have some money saved up I’m going to move to some rural spot in New Zealand and raise honey bees on a tract of land, by myself, save for one or two trusty hounds. I’ll only encounter other people when I roll up into the nearest village once a week to collect my post, groceries and so on. All I’ll need is some advanced satellite TV set-up so I can watch lots of football. There, life sorted.

Adventures in Not-Drinking

Cian — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 14:05:24 +0000

If having an alcohol problem means that a person’s alcohol consumption interferes with his work or personal relationships, then I probably never had one when I used to drink, but I appear to have developed one since I stopped drinking. I am very much looking forward to leaving this island. The picture is not particularly relevant, but I like it.

Semi-Proficient Guitarist Seeks Semi-Proficient Bandmates

Cian — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 04:25:55 +0000

Title says it all. Influences include Taking Back Sunday, Brand New, Jawbreaker/Jets to Brazil, and Alkaline Trio. Plenty of other stuff too, but that’s the general idea.

…

Reading this back, that band sounds pretty terrible. So let’s expand the range of influences to include the industrial-lite stomp of Nine Inch Nails, the alt-rock stylings of mid-90′s Smashing Pumpkins and the discordant and chaotic riffage of Every Time I Die.

…

There’s probably no way that anyone could make a combination of these styles sounds good, but maybe things will just blend together nicely resulting in a pleasing post-hardcore mush that sounds a little like Rival Schools. I could certainly live with that, and in this spirit I’m naming the band Mako Reactor (“Rival Schools” is also a video game reference).

The band is based in Cork, Ireland. Leave a comment if you’re interested.

Spain Plane

Cian — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 00:57:41 +0000

Footage of the Spanish teams’ flight home from South Africa. Probably the only time you’ll ever get to see Pepe Reina, Sergio Ramos and David Villa dance a conga line down an airplane aisle while singing along to Spanish music.

Tiki Taka

Cian — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 00:41:03 +0000

As Paul the Psychic Octopus foretold, Spain defeated Germany in Durban this evening to progress to their first ever World Cup final. There’s no point going into detail about the match itself; anyone reading this probably watched it: Germany played well but just came up against a much better team, and it was absolutely beautiful to watch. The Spanish midfield was superb, keeping possession marvelously and pressing well whenever they didn’t have the ball, and Sergio Busquets, a player I’ve long been critical of, was exceptional in his defensive midfield role. All in all, great display from a great team, and I sincerely hope they beat the Dutch on Sunday because it will be a shame is this Spanish side doesn’t win the World Cup.

My Vocation

Cian — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 02:30:06 +0000

After trying my hand at philosophy and medicine, I’ve finally figured out what I want to do with my life: I’m going to be a football journalist.

Sometimes I Catch Myself,

Cian — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 04:27:01 +0000

Pondering questions like,
“How the fuck is buying a marimba going to help me?”
But then I just carry on.

UCC’s Students’ Union

Cian — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 23:52:36 +0000

Maybe it’s unfair to lay all the blame on the SU for these issues, but:

UCC students pay for the use of the Mardyke Arena in our capitation fee; it’s been closed for weeks and we’re not getting any compensation for it.

Secondly, all the roads in Cork are covered in snow, the buses are all cancelled, anyone who usually drives to UCC is in no position to make it in tomorrow, and yet college is still open. If the SU can’t successfully bat for students on a softball issue like this then what use is it?

“Sory Wrong Number”

Cian — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 21:18:39 +0000

Why would someone go to the trouble of writing down a made-up number for you and pretend it’s theirs? Why not just use some stock excuse, or say you’re not interested or whatever? I was having such a good day too…

New Alkaline Trio Song

Cian — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 14:37:16 +0000

‘This Addiction’. I love this band so much

(Yes, that’s right, Alkaline Trio get a smiley from me for being so goddamn awesome.)

Top Five Records

Cian — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 00:58:38 +0000

I saw High Fidelity earlier on, so inspired by that here are my top five albums:

1. Your Favourite Weapon (Brand New)
2. Dear You (Jawbreaker)
3. From Here To Infirmary (Alkaline Trio)
4. The Downward Spiral (Nine Inch Nails)
5. Perfecting Loneliness (Jets To Brazil)

Honourable mention awards for Sing The Sorrow (AFI), Good Mourning (Alkaline Trio), United By Fate (Rival Schools), and Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (The Smashing Pumpkins). Feel free to leave your own list in the comments.

Why, Why, Oh Why, Oh Why,

Cian — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 22:11:14 +0000

Why Is It Always Like This?

Back From The Dead

Cian — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 20:08:36 +0000

Essay deadlines are looming large on the horizon, so I’ll be posting nonsense here again for the next two weeks as I desperately try to avoid doing work. Here’s some stuff I encountered and liked while I was off-lining:

The Idiots (the Lars Von Trier film)
Wild Strawberries (the Ingmar Bergman film)
Biffy Clyro
The Big Dirty and New Junk Aesthetic (albums by Every Time I Die)
Billy Idol’s Greatest Hits (the less said about this the better)
The Distillers’ Coral Fang album
Tegan and Sara’s discography
The Smiths ‘best of’ album that Eoin Winning kindly lent to me
Ben Folds
Generation Kill (watched the series again; it’s my favourite show ever)
Borderlands (Xbox 360 game)
Tuning my guitar down a whole step

I also returned to veganism and got a job. Well, a Christmas job. But it would be pretty sweet if I could keep it on after Christmas, which is a minor possibility.

That’s about it. Stay Frosty.

Signing Off

Cian — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:20:18 +0000

I would very much like to put something up here, but I’m afraid that it could fuck everything up, so I won’t.

…

Looking back on it, blogging here has been a mixed bag. In the early days I posted reactionary political opinions which I’m thoroughly ashamed of now, but thankfully they were mostly washed away when I moved to my own domain. On the plus side, I did meet a very good friend through my early forays into the blogosphere; he’s probably the nicest admiring internet-stalker you could ever hope to encounter.

Recently I haven’t wrote a damn thing however. The only people who read this are friends or people lost in the Google-vortex. There’s nothing of value on this spot, I’m just another new-media vandal clogging up the intertubes with my bullshit half-assed opinions of stuff I know nothing about. This is no way for a man to spend his time. I expect that the only interesting things I ever post here are the kind of things that a sensible person would shy away from posting, and for that reason I hereby announce that cianboland.com is going on indefinite hiatus, effective immediately. Go rot your brain somewhere else.