"Keep on pretending that heavens worth the waiting, keep on pretending that we're alright" - 'Pretending' - HIM

Alright, I'm back from my exile in Bruff with an Argentinian away football shirt as a reward for my trial (quote from Niall, "I prefer Brazil". He would! :-p) Anyway we left the Shels - Lille match at half-time cos Shels were brutal and losing 2-0 and decided to check our mail instead. And as hotmail isn't working I'm doing my blog instead. Niall has just gone through a doorway into a room that we suspect to be a toilet... we've been coming to this net place for months and had nowhere to pee so it's a big moment! :-)

Anyway, Niall also complained that there were no weekly awards (I'm glad that somebody cares anyway!) so I've decided to replace them with monthly awards instead. This suits everybody really cos it's less work for me and hopefully you people will appreciate them a bit more! And Niall has just confirmed that it is in fact a toilet. Good to know.

I'm back to work tomorrow. At 8am which is a bad bad thing indeed so I'm not smiling about that. 8-5 tomorrow, 5-10 on Saturday night and 8-5 again on Sunday which is more than I like to work in three days (hell it's as much as I like to work in a week!). And I probably won't get Monday off like usual because I wanna get Thursday and Friday off to go to Cork. To catch up with a few people and possibly buy a Screeching Weasel album (though this plan may be effected by the fact that 'Eternal Sunshine Of A Spotless Mind' is being released on Monday according to Niall and I wanna get that). Depending on availability of people and cash and work I'll either crash out in a B & B again or else take advantage of one of my friends for a bed/couch/nice bit of floor. We shall just have to see.

I'm gonna finish now because Niall and myself have just hatched a nefarious scheme. Mwah ha ha... text if you're curious. :-)

Be good peoples

“You can’t put your arms around a memory” – ‘You can’t put your arms around a memory’ – Johnny Thunders

Ok, so I’ve kinda abandoned my Blog of late and as a consequence there’s probably nobody listening anyway. Listening??? Sorry, reading. In part this is due to the fact that I am exiled in Bruff for a week. Babysitting my kid sister while my Mum is on holidays in Spain. Nice for her. Less so for me. There’s not a lot to do in Bruff. Though I’ve played a hell of a lot of Championship Manager and The Sims in the last couple of days. Championship Manager couldn’t be going much better. I’m in my second season managing Limerick. First season went well, I won the First Division and reached the Munster Senior Cup final. This season though I’m currently sitting prettily on top of the Premier Division some two-thirds of the way through things and I’ve already won both the League Cup and the Munster Senior Cup. Sadly I just got knocked out in the last eight of the FAI Cup, dashing my hopes of a domestic quadruple. I would imagine that Niall, Don and possibly Bob have all made an impressed noise by now while the rest of you are scratching your heads at the last few sentences. The Sims are also going pretty well for everybody in my neighbourhood except for myself. I put myself into the game first and because I hadn’t played the game in ages I made my house way bigger than I should have with the result that I couldn’t decorate it all. So there’s still grass floors in a few rooms, I’ve only now managed to paint all the walls and I’m eating out of a microwave because I accidentally destroyed my oven when a fire started. Living in such a gloomy state means my little Sim hovers on the edge of full-blown depression (I had to sell my TV so I wouldn’t starve at one point) so promotion is a near impossibility and he keeps refusing the proposals of the hot neighbour who has her own fully-furnished house just waiting for him to move in… So that might need some work.

Anyway, my real life clearly needs a little work too because it’s starting to invert itself at such a horrible rate that I’m getting disoriented. I mean, somebody who doesn’t really care about me anymore is getting upset because I don’t think that we should hang out and somebody who apparently likes me is showing the type of distant behaviour usually associated with people who… well with people who don’t care much for me. And because I’m stuck out here in this rural purgatory I feel a bit out of the loop. Many many kudos are due to Trev for helping to keep me sane by actually ringing today and even driving out here the other day as well. Nobody else (and I mean nobody) is even answering my texts. At this rate I’m starting to wonder if they’re even delivering or if there’s been some horrible, slanderous story about me doing the rounds in civilisation that hasn’t quite made it out here yet. And hopefully it won’t because I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the warm reception my one-time townsfolk have given me these last few days. Good for them! :-p

Man, what else to say? I’ve written a bit more of Jessica Suicide, my story/book/thingy that is kinda maybe taking a little bit of shape. I’m not sleeping very well either for some unfathomable reason. I’ve had somebody else accuse me of having no ambition or short-term goals and another tell me that I’m not wasting my life (admittedly they’re probably just feeling guilty). The truth, as ever, is probably somewhere in the middle! :-D

I could go on at some length but I’m conscious of the fact that I’m only gonna run up my Mum’s phone bill so I’ll just finish up by saying that I’m still trying to just live for today. I’m bored of trying to look into the future and figure it out. It’s the here and now that’s important and overall I’m not dissatisfied with my lot (though I wanna clarify a few things before I commit to that opinion). However I’m still thinking that after Christmas it might be time for a move. I might go to Cork where I can hang out with Keith, Eanna, both Niamh’s, Katherine, Sarah, Gary and Kitt. I might go to Galway where there’s… well just Rob really but what the hell right? Or else maybe a little farther afield to London (Joanne and the Switch girls) or Glasgow (Derek and Liz). Or maybe to somewhere totally different. Might even go sprawl out at the Dad’s place in Spain for a while.

What odds on me not going anywhere though? :-/

'Your ass like Jesus' feet, worth kissing' - 'A Moment of Clarity' - Therapy?

Hmmm... once more for some reason I'm totally unable to make any kind of formatting changes here.. oh well, anyway. Today you will doubtless be pleased to know that I have recovered my good mood despite (or perhaps because of) an accident at work which resulted in part of the ceiling collapsing on my head. Even though it's been nearly 24 hours since this happened I think I'm still a bit groggy so I will probably be far more truthful today than I usually am.

I'm just outta work which was crazy busy cos all the students from the college that housed me for the last five years are back today. So many, many of them were in about the shop, including the inagural winner of my villian of the week award (if I recall correctly that is) but happily it didn't really bother me at all. Anyway, I'm bot gonna stay for long because happily Dave T has bought The Sims 2 and invited me to go play. Yay!

On a more negative note I got 10 hours work tomorrow and then Wednesday morning too before I go into exile in Bruff for a week. But still I'm happy again. :-)

Laters my ever diminshing flock.

"May you rot in heaven" - 'New World' - Soul Asylum

Today I was gonna talk some crap about if my life was actually a sit-com and then get into my weekly awards but because I'm in an unexplainable whore of a mood I really could not be bothered.

I mean, I just feel so bloody uncomfortable and kinda pissed off with everything and nothing. I can think of a few small reasons for this sorta thing but the fact that I have work in a few hours and Limerick's toothless display in their 2-1 defeat to Dundalk yesterday shouldn't really be able to do this sorta thing to me. I haven't had a really bad day in ages now and I gotta say that I hadn't missed them. Now, I just wish this day was over already, what I wouldn't give for it to be 10PM so I can leave work, go home, go to bed and try to sleep my way outta this malaise. In fact fatigue is probably a factor in my mood. I'm tired as fuck, in fact I dunno why I even got up earlier, I shoulda stayed in bed until like 4.20, rolled outta bed and gotten into work at 5. Hopefully I'll be off work tomorrow and if so I think I'll stay in bed all day and do nothing more strenuous than watch a few DVDs. Whatever man.

I haven't actually written in this for a few days and a few bits and pieces have happened that I'd normally prattle on about at some length but today I just really could not be bothered. I feel that my blog is running outta life here folks... :-/

Anyway, best of luck to My Pet Giraffe guitarist 'Evil' Dave Ryan who's heading to Chester for a year to study. The zoo will be less enjoyable without him.

"I don't wanna be an asshole anymore" - 'The Last Time Again' - Lit

Hello little people whose names I can't be bothered reciting. I am in a really, really good mood. Despite a couple of moderately shit things happening. Well one moderately shit thing anyway. Basically I lost a day of work which means that I'm gonna be down 35euro a week which I really can't afford and if I can't get some dole to substantiate my meagre earnings (though apparently I can) then I am gonna be a poor little camper for a while. It's not much consolation that pretty much everybody has lost hours because our new management are trying to streamline operations to a crazy level. We'll have to see how it plays out. As a result of this though, capitalism is an early contender for Villian of the Week in my awards.

Today I lazed around cos I can't afford to do much else but fortunately I bumped into Damien while he was teaching people how to drive so I just hung about with him for a few hours. Damien's probably my favourite person who's taller than me in the whole wide world.

Anyways, I'm in a talkative sorta mood so I is just gonna opine about crap for a little bit. This will either interest you greatly or not at all (almost certainly the latter). I'm gonna talk about what it means to be happy though I'm gonna have to hurry a bit cos Trev just called and he's gonna be here in 10 minutes or so. Anyway, happiness is the metaphorical bomb that people talk about. It's excellent to be totally blunt. And it works in different ways for different people. I've lost the thread of this already but I'm going to keep going regardless. I've kinda managed to concoct something approaching a plan for the future again. That's half the battle, just having some sorta purpose in your life. I've managed to lower my regret count to one which isn't bad for 23 and a half years of life right? I've gotten something appraoching desire again, I feel like I've got stuff to look forward to in the short, medium and long terms. I am in a good place and it's for a variety of reasons. I've learned first hand that it doesn't pay to put all your eggs into one basket. But I've also learned that scars fade with time and that human nature allows us to rise again from disaster and pick ourselves up to start over again. People, music, football, movies, more people and more music are the main components of my life. Somebody told me the other day that I'd been really good to them and it warmed my soul. Knowing that I sometimes make a difference is enough in many respects and there's so much that I might manage to pull off along the way to keep me interested anyway.

A big thank you to you all, those who have hurt me and those who have healed me. You have helped to make me who I am.

And before I forget a big Darspeak welcome to Mr.Ross O'Donoghue who has become the latest person to throw their lot into the metaphorical zoo that is My Pet Giraffe. May the journey be long, joyous and full of kisses.

"I wanna always feel like part of this was mine, I wanna fall in love tonight" - 'A Praise Chorus' - Jimmy Eat World

Well after a comparatively lengthy gap Darspeak returns. I shall first give a brief synopsis to explain my disappearance before looking at things in a little more detail and time permitting giv a belated version of Dar's weekly awards. So here's what happened, on Friday morning I headed down to Cork and spent the day with Kitt. And we stayed in Cork for the night so I hung about with her some more on Saturday. Then after she went home I had hours and hours to kill by myself before I met up with Rob for the Munster-Connacht match after which myself and Rob drove back to Limerick at some unGodly hour, I chatted to Don for a while cos he's moving out today sadly and then myself and Rob came down town to get some breakfast, he went home and I came into a net place to write this.

So, anyways, I might as well talk about Cork some more. I bought the Dashboard Confessional live album. I stayed in the same B&B that I stayed in a coupla years ago when I got stranded in Cork for the night after heading down to see somebody in hospital and discovering first hand how crap public transport is in this country. I bumped into Brian Patwell who I hadn't seen since May. I had a banana and a muffin for dinner on Friday. I watched some of Cruel Intentions and two episodes of The Simpsons with Kitt. Overall I had a lot of fun with Kitt who makes me laugh sometimes and smile lots. She appeared to like her little present. I appeared to like her hair. Actually, I did like her hair. And her eyes. We sat at the bus-stop in the rain. I left after she got her bus. She texted a coupla minutes later and called me back cos her bus was full. We got something to eat and then went back to the bus-stop. She got her bus this time. I went to the cinema myself. Watched 'The Terminal'. Which isn't bad apart for a decidedly sickly sweet ending. I bought a Spiderman comic and walked out to Musgrave Park. Got their absurdly early. Rob on the other hand, got there rather late. Late enough for me to have read my comic, eaten some junk food and paid into the ground for Munster Vs. Connacht. Where despite my Munster background and address I found myself rooting for Connacht. For a number of reasons. Munster are dirty. Especially the Scottish guy. Also they attract a massive percentage of tossers to their support and I have no desire to be affiliated with such a motley crew of skangers, snobs and bandwagon jumpers. Connacht are the underdogs too. Much like my beloved Limerick FC. Anyway the match was a draw. 27-27. Connacht got robbed.

Anyway before I get to my awards I wanna give a special mention to Don. Who's moving out today. :-( He complains that I never say anything nice about him here so I hope he reads this. Don man, you've been an absolute pleasure to share a house with and out of all the people I've lived with I've probably been closest to you. Obviously we both had our shit to deal with in the last year but I know that you certainly helped me a lot and I hope I did the same for you. Basically you've seen my at my very, very lowest and very, very worst and didn't turn away. That means a lot. You are a truly excellent friend. Anyway, before I get maudlin let's go to:

Dar's Weekly Awards III

Person of the week: The one and only Kitt takes this award and deservedly so after spending a full, unbroken 26 hours or so with me and not screaming once. Which is quite a feat. She's cool. :-)
Honourable mentions: Rob, Niall

Villian of the week: The Referee in last night's match who found 10 minutes injury time and denied poor Connacht a first win over Munster in 18 years.

Day of the week: Friday/Saturday kinda ran together and shall be treated as one super day that easily wins this award.

Invisible Man of the week: Niall even though I saw hime a few times. Bu our own horribly high standards we saw very little of each other this week.

The I can't believe you're still alive person of the week: Rob cos I hadn't seen him in a coupla months until yesterday and he's still great. Good for you Rob!

The Phone person of the week: Kitt, as ever is by far and way in a league of her own in this field. This also makes her the first person to win two awards in one week!

Band of the week: Dashboard Confessional retain this mostly on the strength of their live unplugged album which will probably be a staple of my stereo this week.
Honourable mentions: Blink 182

Workmate of the week: Kalam wins this again by a whisker for just being himself and raising huge sums of money for the less fortunate in Bangladesh.

"I heard from someone that you wish you could set things right between us, well I guess I should have heard of that from you" - 'The Best Deceptions' - Dashboard Confessional

This entry is more in the nature of an experiment because for some reason my last entry isn't appearing on the mainpage of my blog. Oh, it's in the September archive if anybody wants to read it that badly but for some bizarre reason the entry from Sunday retains pole position. Perhaps the nice people at Blogspot just like Funeral For A Friend.

Well in the name of putting something up here I'm gonna throw up a few quotes that I've always liked to take up some space...

1. 'Not one of the creatures of blood can escape death. We all face it, and succumb to it. It follows us like a dark shadow. Yet, if we live in terror of it, then we do not live at all. Yes we are born alone, and yes we will die alone. But in between, we live. We know joy.' - David Gemmell - 'The Sword in the Storm'
2. 'We are not enemies, but friends... Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.'- Abraham Lincoln
3. 'Childhood's over the minute you realise you're gonna die.' - Top Dollar - 'The Crow'
4. 'Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around'- Sofia Serrano - 'Vanilla Sky'
5. 'First of all, Papa Smurf didn't create Smurfette. Gargamel did. She was sent in as Gargamel's evil spy with the intention of destroying the Smurf village, but the overwhelming goodness of the Smurf way of life transformed her. And as for the whole gang-bang scenario, it just couldn't happen. Smurfs are asexual. They don't even have reproductive organs under those little white pants. That's what's so illogical, you know, about being a Smurf. What's the point of living if you don't have a dick?' - Donnie Darko - 'Donnie Darko'
6. 'I said, uh, the great thing about M.J. is when you look in her eyes, and she's looking back in yours, everything feels not quite normal, because you feel stronger, and weaker at the same time. You feel excited, and at the same time, terrified. The truth is you don't know what you feel, except you know what kind of man you want to be. It's as if you've reached the unreachable, and you weren't ready for it.' - Peter Perker - 'Spiderman
7. 'On the self-abuse front -- and this is important -- I don't think it's advisable to do it in the shower. It wastes water and electricity and because we all expect you to be doing it there in any case. And, not on... under the linen... Well... Anyway, if you're worried about anything at all, just feel free to ask and we'll look it up.' - Jim Hood - 'The Ice Storm'

That'll do for now, like I said this is all basically an experiment anyways...

"It's funny how everything was roses when we held on to the guns" - 'Breakdown' - Guns N'Roses

Ok, it's been a few days since I wrote in this and can you believe that a few people actually complained??? Darspeak has become an important part of some people's daily routine it seems. However to keep quality levels up the powers that be here at Darspeak, well me actually, have decided against daily episodes. What can I say, I guess I'm just too boring a person to pull off this daily thing. The only problem is that I'm probably going to forget stuff that's happened in the previous couple of days.

Also before I go any further, I should warn you all that my weekly awards will be delayed this week from their usual Friday position. Until Saturday at the earliest. And more likely Sunday. This is because I am heading to Cork on Friday. And also on Saturday. Once to see my blue-haired bunny Kitt and get the live Dashboard Confessional album (Friday) and then the following day I'm accompanying Rob back to Ireland's dirtiest city (officially this is so) to watch a rugby match with him. And no I'm not sure who's playing but whatever, it should be fun anyways. I'm also thinking about adding an award, "The I can't believe they're still alive" award for people who have turned up after a long absence from my life.

Anyway, things are pretty quite at the moment. It's just work and Darcrap to be honest (Darcrap comprising the futuristic wrestling card game, playing bass at levels that annoy the new neighbours, watching DVDs, taking the odd run and sprawling out on the bed listening to music amongst other things). Let's examine some of the Darcrap a little more specifically shall we?The wrestling card game is called Champions of the Galaxy and hell it keeps me entertained. My current champions are Mayhem, Lance At-Las, The Ultimate Gladiators (Brute & Massacre), Brute, Wolf, Star Warrior and The Greek Gods (Actagon & Proteus). Only Niall and Brian will have any idea what I'm babbling about now, the rest of you have probably got a sort of slightly perplexed expression on your faces. Actually, I couldn't be arsed going through the rest of my crap, it's pretty self-explanatory after all! :-p

I had work last night but the time flew so that was ok, same story again tonight and hopefully it'll go just as fast. Bob better come back in tonight to, I got my chess groove back by beating Niall with some ease the other night and I fancy continuing my renaissance about the currently teetotal one. Actually I think Bob should get one of those signs like they have outside nuclear plants in cartoons and comedies that say "XX days since last accident" except Bob's would say "XX days since last failed attempt at sobriety" or something like that.

I is gonna make tracks I think, for the last few days I have been meaning to lapse back into the kinda psycho-analytical crap that I so enjoy but I haven't gotten around to it. Soon. Perhaps.Anyways,I'm away cos Niall has arrived.

"And I'm nothing more than a line in your book" - 'Juneau' - Funeral for A Friend

Hi, back again after a coupla days off (well yesterday anyway) and I do have a few things vaguely worth talking about that came outta Bob's party on Friday night.

1. Don should never be allowed to drink. He gets argumentative and talks a lot of crap and trys to pick fights and makes the most nonsensical arguments I've ever had the misfortune to have to listen to.
2. Bob should never be allowed to drink. He gets argumentative and... well, fuck there's no point in me beating around the bush here. Bob gets argumentative and over emotional and a bit gay to be honest. And I love you to bits Bob but where in the name of God did that shirt come from? :-p
3. Niall can drink if he likes. He gets a bit louder but that's all. In fact the other two could do with taking drunk lessons from him! :-)
4. If you squeeze 8 people into Trev's car and drive around the ass end of county Limerick for about 45 minutes tempers will become frayed. This is the fault of Don and Don alone.

That said overall Bob's party was kinda fun. There were some rather nice people there that I hadn't seen in a while and stuff so yay! Happy birthday Bob!

Ok what else, I was moved more than I thought I would be by the whole fiasco in Russia. It's just not right to use kids like that. When I was heading papers at work last night there was a picture on the front of 'The Daily Mail' (horrible xenophobic paper by the way) of a girl of about 9 or 10 I'd say. This kid was been carried outta school in her underwear with blood all over and her eyes were just so, so haunted that it really caught me. I brought the picture home and anytime I feel like whining about my crap I'll look at it. This little girl will probably never be ok again. And I think I got problems? *Dar gently rebukes himself*

On happier news I'm heading back to Cork this Friday. In part to try and get the MTV live Dashboard Confessional album and in part to hang with Vercetti (probably better known to readers of this Blog as Kitt). I'm vaguely hopeful that it won't pour with rain this time too! :-)

I'm also off work tomorrow and I have no plans at all for that. Oh well, there's worse things than a day a nothingness (and I should no cos I've had plenty of nothingness in the last few months).

So long for now kids

Stay happy.

"Everytime I see your face I'm reminded, of what it means to be alive" - 'My Reminder' - The Beautiful Mistake

Well I didn't get around to writing in this yesterday but that doesn't really matter because my Wednesday was boring anyways so I wouldn't have had anything much to write about anyway (except for another solitary run through the rain). However yesterday had a little more activity going for it so as a result I do have slightly more to talk about.

Well I went to the beach yesterday for the first time this year. Myself, Niall, Brian and Trev headed of to Lahinch on whim. Brian's whim to be precise actually. The weather was beautiful in Limerick when we left, got progressively worse as we drove through Clare and then picked up again as we got closer to the beach itself. I was the only one of our quartet who actually went swimming. It was pretty cool too, the water was a little bit cold I suppose but overall I enjoyed myself immensely and happily there were other like minded fools who overlooked the fact that swimming in September is a really, really bad idea.

The other side of the day was when Niall dragged me down to the pub last night to provide moral support and the illusion of friends when he was meeting some girl that he was with before whose name embarassingly escapes me at the moment. I remeber that she's an Arts student but her name... (long pause)... no it's gone, I might think of it later. Anyway she wasn't the problem, nor indeed were the company she keeps who were actually dead on. What annoyed me was when we changed pubs (from a pub I like to a pub I loathe) was that Niall and myself were stopped and basically refused entry. Actually the bouncer's exact words to me were "Not tonight mate". They hauled up Niall on not having any ID. I was about to kick up my usual crap and inform them that they can't enforce a dress-code unless there's a written display announcing such when I realised that I didn't really wanna go in anyway (there was some awful charty crap bouncing out of the speakers) so myself and Niall had a quick discussion, I told the girl (what the hell is her name? Karen, Emma? Wait, I remember, it's Maeve!), so I told Maeve that we were going to somwhere where the staff were nicer and we just went back to my place instead. Even so I would like it if the Old Quarter were to burn down tonight (after it's been closed up so there are no fatalities though).

It's Bob's 21st today so I'm gonna finish up in a few minutes and go buy him a present. But before I do... it's Friday so... time for

Dar's weekly awards!

Person of the week: Brian upsets the applecart here and comes out of nowhere to pip Niall in what was expected by many (well by me anyway) to be my fellow Blogger's crown. Brian wins this week because he did stay over a few times so for once I saw more of someone who isn't Niall than Niall himself.
Honourable mentions: Niall, Trev, Don

Villian of the week: The Old Quarter Pub wins this by the proverbial landslide for being knobs. Enough said really. I've never actually been in there now that I think of it and long may that continue.

Day of the week: Thursday (yesterday) wins this week by virtue of my trip to the beach and swim. Today threatens to be ok too...
Honourable mention: Saturday

The Invisible Man of the week: Bob for basically spending it at home with his parents and his other friends! Just because they're nicer to you than we are doesn't mean they love you more Bob! That reminds me actually, when I said that Bob was probably hiding at home because he'd gotten his hair cut like his Mommy told him... I was right! Are you sure you're 21 today Bob? :-p
Honourable mention: Dave T (has anybody seen him?)

The Phone Person of the week: Kitt. Can you spell shoein? Is that a combination of 'sure' and 'win' by the way? Anyway, my favourite American retains her award with a degree of ease while Cack remains her understudy.
Honourable mention: Cack

Band of the week: The Killers, listened to them most of the way to Sligo and back (much to the grievance of Don), and for most of the week to follow until Trev borrowed the album 'for a day or two'.
Honourable mentions: Dashboard Confessional, The Beautiful Mistake, lostprophets

Workmate of the week: I always seem to be running outta steam by the time I get here so I'm just gonna give the award to Kalam and wrap things up and leave.
Honourable mentions: Saif, Hazel, John

Have a good weekend now kids.

"The refuge that you've built the flee, the places that you've come to fear the most, is the place that you have come to fear the most" - 'The Places That You've Come To Fear The Most' - Dashboard Confessional

Well the weather has returned to shit today. Yet somehow I have retained my comparative good mood. In the interests of keeping this in someway interesting I'm going to go through the people who matter again and talk about their current roles in my life and that kinda thing. So far Don is the only person to have complained about his description earlier so let's see if I can rattle a few more cages huh? :-p

Bob: Bob has been on the missing list all week. This is a bit perplexing especially as he turns 21 on Friday and I don't wanna shell out for a present in case he's been murdered or something! :-p Actually I'm gonna text him now and see if he responds by the time I'm done. Ok I've sent the text. Personally I suspect that he's given into pressure from his Mother, cut his hair and is afraid of me bollocking him out of it. Which I probably will. Because his hair had gotten all nice and fluffy after all. I live with Bob so it's a fair bet to suggest that he'll have a role to play in the next few weeks and months.

Brian: My brother and I are about to defy convention and actually hang out for the second time in a week tomorrow. Which is good. Because we get on famously after all. We is working on one of my songs at the moment and it sounds good. Which is also good. Brian, like me, is wasting his time in Limerick at the moment but for now at least that means we should get to hang out and generally sprawl for another while yet.

Cack: A new entry who has been in touch quite a lot of late (in truth I suspect it's solely so that she gets mentioned here :-p). Anyways, I used to live with Cack (or Cat. Or Caithriona to be precise). She's gonna be back in Limerick very soon (in fact she's visiting today) so we'll probably end up getting better reacquainted after she spent the last year in Newcastle West and somewhere in the USA respectively.

Dave T: He's gotta be back to work in the next few days. Dave works as a teacher so we can almost rely on the kids poking fun at his hair behind his back and some of the bolder ones perhaps 'accidentally' calling him "Mrs.Tobin". They'll only do it once though because Dave is a sadistic disciplinarian to be honest with the kids. Though he's surprisingly compassionate about it all beneath the surface. Dave is probably gonna be in Limerick for the rest of his life so it's a safe bet that he and I have got a few more meetings within us.

Don: Well I live with Don too so I'm gonna see him in a coupla hours (though he's going home to his Mammy later on). In the longer term though Don is looking at pissing off and actually making something of his life so I'd better make the most of him while I can. Granted I'm still thinking of moving myself after Christmas so it might all be irrelevant but anyway...

John: I don't actually see John as often as I should given that we both live in Limerick (granted he lives miles away on the other side of the city) but we've been through enough shit together that we always just about manage to stay in touch and I can't see anything changing that anytime soon.

Katelyn: Well already the fact that we live quite far apart has already been lamented but I figure we've got a few miles in the tank yet. I'd like to think that we'll still be in touch in the mid-term at least but we shall just have to see won't we!!? I would like to meet her dog though! Oh the suspense of it all is killing me (or maybe it's the way I'm sitting). :-p

Liz: Is going back to Scotland today so e-mail will be my only way of contacting her for a while. Well, that and her mobile. But anyway I digress. Unless I motivate myself sufficiently to actually move and unless Glasgow overcomes London and Cork as potential destinations then I'll probably see very little of her until next summer. Though I must confess that due to a myriad of factors I didn't even see very much of her this summer.

Niall: I think that there will always be a Dar & Niall thing going on. We've endured seperation before after all! And we always find our way back. In fact with the greatest of respect to all of the ladies who have touched my life things would probably have been a hell of a lot simpler were Niall and I both gay! Curse this heterosexuality! :-p In short, regardless of where either of us end up, myself and Niall will be alright.

Rob: Rob is another guy who I suspect will still be there when we're both cranky old men. He's that kinda guy. And I like to think that I might be too. Which augers well for trips to Kilkenny in 50 years time I suspect.

Sorcha: Is teaching on the Aran Islands so if I stay in touch with her it'll be impressive. I wouldn't rule it out totally though. Can't imagine we'll be on the phone once a week or anything but we'll drift in and out of each others lives from time to time.

Trev: Trev is the kinda guy who probably secretly hopes I do move so he can take advantage of free holidays! :-p Granted he's just back from America and heading to Madrid this week. So while I might not see a whole lot of him before then, afterwards I'm sure we'll catch up again. Like we did this week. Yay!

Damn, how the hell do I manage to juggle you all? And to be honest there's loads more people I should mention but I haven't because I'm lazy and I know they won't read this. And maybe it'll make you guys feel special and it'll all have been worth it. It's nice to make a difference! :-p