Happy Valentine's Day!

Hello all, I have come here to wish you all a very happy Valentine's Day!

Since it is such a wondrous occasion, I have decided to dedicate a Vlog just to it!

Here is the fruit of my labours, ENJOY!

A Kiss To Be Remembered

    During the hustle bustle of Galway night life, a few friends and I decided to go for a drink at our local, Neacthain's pub. We all sat and drank our pints to merry content as we told the stories of our rather monotonous lives thinking they were hilarious to our fake laughter. Half way through this conversation my friend Damian offered me a cigarette in joining him for a smoke, I obliged.

    So off we went outside and smoked watching people rush us by eagerly to get to the pub boxes for drinks and what not and as we watched we noticed one of the city's socially dysfunctional people walking by across the road. Now don't get me wrong, I feel sorry for this guy because he's the more severe of the mentally ill people wandering the streets of Galway, but from one of my previous excursions outside Neachtain's I saw him hit a woman across the back of the head because she did not have a lighter to give.

"He actually kinda looks like House, but even more angry. And even more psychotic."

    So naturally I was afraid of his presence because he constantly shouts loudly and violently at passerbys in threatening tones. The trick with him is to avoid eye contact. Much to my dismay I had accidently made eye contact with him at this very moment in time. I quickly turned my head nearly giving myself whiplash and looked at Damian saying "Oh God he just saw me looking at him" to which Damian kindly replied "Yes Seán, he's coming over now". Afraid to turn around I just ignored the unfolding event hoping the man would veer as violently as he talks to people to the left or right. Neither happened.

    I turned around to be greeted to his face practically in mine. He held his hand out waggling his fingers like a piano player with arthritis. I was afraid so I shook his hand hoping he would leave. He shouted in my face with a positive comment, not a bad one, to which I didn't fully understand and then asked for a cigarette. I calmly replied while shaking nervously "I'm sorry bud, this is my last one" to which he brushed me off (with an exhale of relief on my behalf) and turned to Damian. "I'm sorry bud, I got this off a friend inside" said the Damian. And then the man got angry. So Damian, out of the well being of not getting smacked in the face offered the man the rest of his cigarette.

    A hilarious hen party broke out inside of my nerves as I thought this was the end of the situation. But no, much to my dismay the man leaned over and gave me a hug with his arm, resembling more of a headlock than anything, and kissed me on the neck whispering "Thank you". I presume he was trying to thank Damian whom quickly went inside straight after this. I WAS following suite until the man stopped me wriggling his fingers at me yet again. Scared and confused I went to shake his hand again, was this the beginning of a new relationship? No. He was not pleased I tried to shake his hand, instead he violently shuddered towards the cigarette still in my hand. Naturally I obliged and he took it now holding two cigarettes, one in each hand. I then made somewhat of a a dash to the door which was only a meter away at this point when he grabbed me yet again and nudged me in the ribs and screamed in my face,

"Don't die".

"My Reaction"

I didn't. But the look on his face almost led me to believe that I was about to. I made it back inside to warmth and safety a millisecond later. The lads laughed, I nearly cried and we all pretty much went home.

And that, my friends, is the most action I've had in a while. And it's a kiss I will remember for days, weeks, hell even YEARS to come.

Until next time, BYEILOVEYOU!

Gazing Upon People and Past

So after a mad summer of parties, weddings and going-away-wakes for my friends  Becky and Dee (who deserve a post on their own for some of the stories I have about those asylum fugitives), I've managed to get evicted from one apartment 3 times (the third being the charm) and winding up living in my friends' old apartment bang in the middle of Galway City, but here, I practically lived there anyways so it was only destiny that I land up here. The Summer past was eventful to say the least.

Now I sit on my perch stealing internet from a free hotspot café with my laptop (which is practically rubble, becoming merely a mess of wires,  a TFT monitor and keyboard) where it sits nestled in the corner of the room at the window because it's the only place I can pick up internet. This however is working out wonderfully as I have become the ultimate voyeur, peering out as people walk by unsuspectingly to my gaze. It may be creepy but it's a hella lot of entertainment, lets just hope no one looks up or my face may meet the window sill in an attempt to hide which would prove more noticeable as my face explodes against the window by the sheer force of my ducking powers for the now suspecting viewer. I guess you could say I couldn't be happier at the moment.

"I''m watching you"

But here here, I have decided that I've now finally built up a requiem of stories to tell that I will post over the next few weeks for anyone who cares to enjoy, I can assure you one or two may catch your interest, but for now I'll only go with what I can think of because it will take time to piece together some of the nights of madness that are both memorable and unmemorable at the same time.

My plans this year are to quit smoking again, make silly shorts to more serious shorts (that may inadvertently turn out to be silly), find an unsuspecting boyfriend who can buy me custard cream biscuits and make me tea at a whim's notice and possibly become a celebrity. These are all unlikely things, especially some one who will buy me biscuits and make me tea. And the celebrity part. And the short films part. And the smoking part. Hmm this is almost like my new years resolutions again.

Realistically I've just realised I don't know where I'm going with this post so I will start with the more disturbing story that actually got me evicted from my last apartment. I call it "Don't Shit on your own Doorstep", you'll understand soon enough.

Amongst the fair warnings of parties and so called anti social behaviour warnings from our landlords (to which I disagree, parties are incredibly social if they stopped and thought about it) there was one particular incident that seemingly went in favour of our eviction. The worst part was, it wasn't even our fault but it was obvious we would be blamed.

Upon returning to my apartment block with a few friends after clubbing, we entered the downstairs lobby area of my block to get the elevator to the third floor where my apartment was. However, before we could even make it to the lift we were hit with what can only be described as a gigantic fart (which wasn't far off the truth). What was this fart you say? Why, it was none other than literal shit all over the lobby floor. Let me elaborate.

Apparently while we were out boogying down like the groovey cats we are, some poor girl back in Kirwan's Court who may have had a little too much to drink managed to wander from a party in the block down to the front door of the lobby. But this simple task proved exceedingly difficult to our female friend and the overwhelming sense of her victory travel to the door made her puke all over herself and pass out. But that wasn't all. I'm assuming that when she came to again that she got so excited about the prospects beyond the door that she couldn't contain herself any longer.

And SHIT eeeeeeeeverywhere.

"I just shit on your doorstep!"

And when I say everywhere I mean it, my theory is she tried to walk again which was unfortunately brought her into this mess in the first place, while proceeding to unload into our lobby area. In the end the paramedics had to pick up our poohey friend and leave. But they did us a small favour, they left news papers on the biggest poohs so we didn't have to see all of them, like she was a DOG!

Anyways, much to our disgust we went upstairs and slept or whatever. The next day a caretaker told us that everyone though she came from our house and a few hours later we had an eviction notice in the form of our landlord standing at the door. What a shitty situation har har har! We naturally explained that we don't get that... SHIT faced, when out and about and that we are also aware of where the toilets are if we do need to use them but alas, it was all in vane, that was the final nail in my eviction from number 23 Kirwan's Court. And while we didn't shit on our own doorstep, someone else happily did it for us.

So that was the story of how I wound up perched here, gazing sexily out the window with come-hither-to eyes contemplating the next step in my exceedingly unpredictable life (when I say that I mean bad luck), which is in part why I came back to this.

For now, I bid you adieu, until next time I say, don't shit yourselves, it's not cleanly and it may get people evicted from their apartments!

Toodles!

Dance Pants - NO!

I just recalled a slightly embarrassing memory from a few years back. I went through this odd phase thanks to a few of my friends where I would pull down my pants whenever I was drunk, because, y'know, it was just THAT funny to do. What was even MORE funny was doing it in a nightclub, on the dance floor, because everyone wants to see that right? So there we all were, early as the morning birds (except it was night time, at the club Cuba, and we're not birds), we had the dance floor to ourselves so we all took our stationary dancing posts at each corner and dropped the pants, laughing at our delightful foolishness! This idea progressed into the night but became less frequent as more people began arriving, the non early birds. It seems we were only trying to impress each other, our strange insecurities made secure by bearing our legs to each other. As the night wore on (like a pair of jeans!) we got progressively more drunk, me in particular as the event I'm about to tell you unfolds.

Everyone was dancing in a group on the dance floor. This excited me greatly so I downed the remainder of my pint, slammed the empty glass hard on the table as if what I was about to do my final note on my "to-do before I die" list and headed to the dance floor. I imagine if this was some sort of film the remainder of this would play out in slow motion. Like an unexpected ostrich I sprang onto the dance floor into the center of the group dropping my pants and flailing wildly in an orgy of cacophonous laughter while swinging my head around in a drunken insanity. If I had feathers they would've been flying everywhere. As I continued flailing but slowly succumbing to a more acceptable dance so I could read the reactions of my friends, a sudden realisation fell upon me, like a bird had shat on my head. These weren't my friends. And they certainly weren't impressed by my powerful bare ostrich legs. The looks on their faces were caught somewhere between disapproving, disgusted and eyebrow raised confusion.

As the truth of all of this dawned on me I turned around to see all of my friends sitting in the corner laughing at my misfortune. All I could do was stand there, hang my head in shame in a group of strangers, with my friends pointing and laughing at me, with my pants down. Textbook humiliation

Welcome to Silent Hill

"If you ever see this sign run very far in the opposite direction"

I suppose it was only a matter of time before a few of you who know me have come to expect me to write a post about a little game called Silent Hill. And for those of you who don't know me, if you did know me, you would've come to expect me to write a post about Silent Hill. Now, I will write a post about Silent Hill.

I love Silent Hill because personally to me, it is quite possibly the most terrifying experience in the multimedia medium. I love the horror genre and have a bit of an obsession with them (a h-obsession?! har har har!) but this game surpasses every good horror film and gets not just under your skin but also in your head, assuming you have one, which would be quite disturbing if you didn't because then you'd anatomically incorrect. Anyways, I honestly have only played through the first game in the series on the PS1 and I have played half way through 2 and 3. But unfortunately due to compatibility issues with the 2nd and 3rd one on my laptop (yes, my laptop strikes it's whiny bitch hammer onto me yet again) I never got to finish 2 or 3. But fortunately, I'm quite impatient and have the mouth burns to prove it, so I went ahead and spoiled the rest of 2 and 3 for myself with wikipedia. I'm also only going to refer to the first 3 games as they're essentially the main trilogy that are considered the strongest in the series (there is also a prequel, a 4th and a 5th).

Basically, all of the Silent Hill games revolve around a town called (you guessed it!) Silent Hill. This town has a malicious history but in the modern era has become a tourist resort town. In each game you play as a protagonist that is some how linked to the town and winds up being caught in its hellish grasp and can only leave or escape when they have revelations about their past uncovered. You see, Silent Hill is a little different from most towns, it's caught in a certain situation, and not a Mike "The Situation" sort of situation, but something a little more terrifying (just a little!).

"Yo I'm Mike "The Situation" and don' go to Silent Hill or you'll be caught in a Situation! 

Situation, situation, situ....zzzzzz"

It seems to have somehow got itself caught between here and Hell, referred to as "Otherwold" in the games. Silent Hill has itself based in 3 dimensions. The normal dimension, which is just the normal town, the 2nd dimension which is essentially when you're caught (and also screwed to say the least...) in a fog shrouded town where demons roam the street and exits from the town fall into infinite voids, and then there's the final dimension. The final dimension is the Otherworld, a hellish twisted, rotting industrialised version of the town, pitch black and filled with stuff of nightmares. And trust me when I say stuff of nightmares, they really really are. The creatures in the game are usually representation's or metaphors of some part of the protagonist's psyche or other characters' psyches in the game and as you learn more about your in game avatar the more disturbing each revelation and monster gets. The most terrifying of these creatures usually reside in "Otherworld" and sometimes bleed into the foggy second dimension of Silent hill. I can already imagine what my terrifying creature would look like:

"Noooooo not the Custard Creams!!!!"

What makes these creatures terrifying is also their appearance. You can feel the repressed violent urges of some, the dramatic pain of others and suppressed sexual connotations of several. Usually appearing as some sort of wet sheen coated, curvy (and sometimes bobacious) twitchy and rotting entity, they twitch, crawl and run towards you in a terrifying manner. Their disgustingly sexual appearances subconsciously affect us as they take most intimate human actions and twist them into a horrifying form.

I'm trying to think of the best way to describe them but it's very tough and this quite possibly is the most honest post I have ever written about something. I remember when playing through the first one I could only handle it in small doses, probably 30 mins is the most I spent playing it on my first go through. It had me on the very edge, so much so that I had to turn my phone onto silent just so it wouldn't give me a fright. But alas that plan failed miserably as the vibration of my phone on the desk as I played nearly gave me a heart attack, and subsequently I didn't play any more that day. That would've been an embarrassing funeral story!

"Engraved on my Hello Kitty Tombstone: He played, He put his phone on silent, he got a phone call and died"

However there is one of the creatures in the game that has become iconic with the series (amongst others, such as the nurses) and he appears in the second game. He goes by the name of Pyramid Head and yes, it quite literally means he has a pyramid on his head. Welded to his head in fact, he can't remove it and it constantly inflicts intense pain on him. He kind of becomes instantly burnt into the VERY FABRIC OF OUR BEING with his first appearance. For lack of better words I shall show you instead.

Yup, the first time you come across this pointy headed nightmare (apart from one brief appearance beforehand) he's having smoosh smoosh more intensely than Snooki with two other creatures. If that doesn't make sense to you, he's raping two other creatures. This is a little "unsettling" to watch one might say but sets the dread dead into stone for each encounter you have with him throughout the game. And encounters you have, from being locked into a confined space with him while he tries to give you a little nick with his blade (the size of me) to being chased down a corridor where he slaughters the only other person you find in the town like Uwe Bowl does to every film he directs. He's just a nasty piece of work and the only thing scarier than him is being caught in an infinite time loop watching the same 2 episodes of Friends (or just "flicking on E4" as I like to call it). He's the series reminder of how creative (and wonderfully twisted) the creators of the series are and how the simple concept of putting something, such as a pyramid on someone's head can produce a jarring and unsettling appearance. Each game has it's own story and unique set of monsters but they are all linked in a way to each other and they always result in a journey to/through Silent Hill.

Anyways I really wish I could go on about these games for ages and ages but I feel like this post is already too long as it is (I know I probably would have given up halfway through this if I didn't write it) so I leave you with a recommendation of playing these games if you can get your smelly hands on them. Thanks for the read if you made it this far and hopefully you won't have the same nightmares I did about these games!