Buy It!

I just picked up a copy of Róisín Murphy's new album "Overpowered" and I have to say it is a fantastic album. On the first listen I liked it, but by the third I am completely won over.


If you like sophisticated pop/electronic/dance this is one for you. It is in the same vein as Moloko's final album "Statues", but not as heavy-weight - it has far more variety and a little more soul. It's light enough on the ears to have it on in the background, and has enough quality dance-funk beats that you can really get into when you pump up that volume. The highlights of the album for me so far have to be the Andy Cato tracks (he being of Groove Armada fame) You Know Me Better, and the current single Let Me Know which has a fantastic accompanying video:








In other music news, Girls Aloud's new video has been uploaded to youtube for their forthcoming single "Call The Shots". It's an excellent mid-tempo track and a far more straight-forward track than their last single "Sexy! No, No, No...". I really love this track, but at the same time I hope they don't play too safe with the rest of the material on their new album "Tangled Up" which is shaping up to be another brilliant album, improving on the completely and horrifically underappreciated "Chemistry" album. Most people don't realise that they are more of an albums than singles band and alot of their best tracks (cf. "Some Kind of Miracle", "Graffiti My Soul", "Models") never see the light of day.








Myself and Alan are going to see them in G-A-Y on the 17th November. Can't wait for it. It will be great to get away before Christmas, seeing as we really only had a one-week holiday this year, and I know this Christmas is going to be tough giving everything that's happened this year. It's also a great distraction from my current unrelenting frustration with work. I miss optimisim.

Tech Madness!!!

So I went and bought myself a shiny new Nokia 6300 phone. Previously I had the Moto Razr V3, which had just started to piss me off big time, mainly because when texting the predictive function was awful and response time almost as bad. So far I absolutely love the 6300. I was going towards a smart phone, but figured I was just going to pay extra for a load of features that I'd mess with for a week and then get fed up with. The main thing about the new phone that I really like is the screen which is super bright and has fantastic resolution, and texting is no longer a painstaking chore.





Following on from this shopping buzz I went ahead and bought a black Creative Zen Stone Plus. I was looking for a smaller companion to my iPod mainly for the gym.
The Stone Plus is similar enough to an iPod Shuffle, although it has an OLED display screen, an FM radio (with a resonable reception which can be a little bit crackly depending on your location and station), stopwatch, voice recorder and still the size of a pebble. One limitation is that you can't browse tracks while listening the music - if you move to another folder the player starts playing files in that folder.

You also can't actually browse tracks, only folders, but I suppose it is really only designed to contain one or two main playlists, but at 2GB you could potentially have over 200 songs on it - more than enough for what I need anyway - which can be put on the player using simple drag-and-drop. Another slight critisim is the response times when you are flicking through the menu are a tiny bit slow, but overall its fine. I suppose the real attraction for me though was the design - small, extremely light, smooth and, most importantly, shiny.

San Sebastian

Here's just some photos from my trip to San Sebastian. It's such a beautiful place to visit, plus it was all-expenses paid and all I had to do was do a crappy 10 min presentation. Although it is a bit shitty going to these places on your own, especially when you don't speak the language and most people you're with don't speak English and you have to go out to dinner with them, while they all chat away telling jokes and all you can do is just sit there and smile along.

On the last night, completely against character, after paying €3.50 for what I thought was a glass of wine, when it was in fact the price for a whole bottle (which I, of course, polished off), I ended up going to a bar to have a drink, got chatted up by two tranny-hookers, then met some random people along the way (from here its pretty vague) and headed along to a party with them in a different bar before finally crawling back to the hotel at around 4am. Ah, good times!

Current Top 10 Listens....

...in no particular order.

• Singapore (Unreleased Demo) - Girls Aloud, from 'Sound of Girls Aloud [ltd. ed. bonus disc]
  
  


• Medevac - Siobhan Donaghy, from Ghosts
  
  


• There's A Place - Siobhan Donaghy, from 'Ghosts'
  
  


• Aerodynamite - Daft Punk, from 'Daft Club'
  
  


• Futures - Zero 7 (feat. José Gonzalez), from 'The Garden'
  
  


• Golden Skans - The Klaxons, from 'Myths of the Near Future'
  
  


• The Way I Are - Timbaland (feat. Keri Hilson & D.O.E.), from 'Timbaland presents: Shock Value'
  
  


• Alala - Cansei De Ser Sexy, from 'CSS'
  
  


• Overpowered - Róisin Murphy, from 'Overpowered'
  
  


• Green Light (Freemason's Remix) - Beyoncé, from 'B'Day (deluxe edition)'
  
  

I'm espcially enjoying all of Siobhán Donaghy's latest album Ghosts. It's a great pop album coming a little from the left-field.

In Limbo

I'm finding it really hard at the moment to get back into things, now that I've finished by Ph.D. Granted, I still have all my corrections to do, but besides that I'm technically finished college, apart from graduation in March sometime. I've been in the same place for 7 years, which means I've probably become somewhat institutionalised. The last year has kept me cut off from most of my friends, the older ones in particular (not by choice), who let's face it, all have their own shit going on, which I suppose is inevitable. And now that I'm finished college, it's going to be harder to keep in touch with the group of friends I've made in college (none of them work-related). So in one way I'm in a kind of limbo. I always told myself that I wouldn't end up being part of one of those couples who just hang out together all the time, but it seems almost as if that's exactly what I've become, despite my best efforts. Working from home for this new job of mine, is not going to make matters any different either. Speaking of which, I still have no idea what exactly I'm supposed to be doing for this job which I'm supposed to be starting next Wednesday. I should really get that sorted out. All this oral contract stuff has left alot of things up in the air.

Call me Doctor...

....Just passed my viva voce with only minor corrections!! The presentation went well, and the question and discussion session lasted for just over an hour. Towards the end of the session, I started to stumble over my words, probably due to all the stress affecting my sugar levels (God, that sounds so nerdy), so my internal examiner just dropped the last few of his questions, which suited me fine!



It's a bit of an anti-climax at the end of it all, although I'm still pumping adrenaline. I'm just so glad its all over and done with. Now I can really enjoy Xmas by getting paralytically drunk!

My Defense Looms

So, I managed to successfully hand in my Ph.D. thesis, despite it almost killing me, and the 3 weeks later the day has almost arrived for my defence. I am absolutely shitting it. On the one hand, it could be fine. The examiners might have really like my thesis, thought it was perfectly complete as is and just end up asking me general discussion questions during the viva. Or, it could be a disaster, where they nitpick at almost everything I have written, don't agree with me, and then put me on the spot and I whither to a sobbing heap. I am sincerely hoping for the former senario. Yet, either way I am still shitting it.

Driver to the Rescue

After having a great Friday 13th Night last night, supported by John's fantastic Friday 13th drinking game - "dead body - drink", "nudity - drink!" "crazy Ralph - two drinks!", I go and have a fucking hypo on the bus on the way into college today.



I was about 5 mins away from my stop when I started to shake and dropped my bag so the guy in front of me asks if I'm ok, to which I tell him I have to get off the bus. He goes down and tells the bus driver, who stops the bus and comes up to see if I'm ok just about when I start to shake. After I say I'm diabetic and all of the passengers are wondering what the hell is going on, there are a few people down the back volunteering some sugar and diet coke (well, their hearts are in the right place). Luckily there was a girl sitting across from me who offers some sweets (as it turns out she's diabetic herself) which the bus driver feeds to me seeing as my hands are going all over the place. So the bus driver then drives to the next petrol station, gives a guy some money to run in and get me a drink all the while the bus is waiting outside the station full of passengers. At this stage I'd come round ok, so I run off to the shop to tell the guy I'm ok and I tell the bus driver I'm fine, but he waits for me nonetheless and let's me off at the university stop.



I'm just so fucking embarrassed right now. I hate when crap like that happens to me. I was meant to get loads of thesis work done today, but now I'm just worn out. How and ever, it's nice to know that, for all the assholes, scangers, knackers and scumbags, there are still plenty of decent people out there.

"I'm Getting too Old for that Whorey Look"

If you haven't yet seen the brilliantly and unintentionally funny Showgirls yet, do not fret. The film which contains some of the most memorable dialogue of any film is apparantly being adapted for stage.
I wonder if Showgirls! The Musical will hold onto any of the dialogue from the film, such as the title of this post or the immortal quotes ""Must be weird not having anybody cum on ya." and "Life sucks, you know" or even the brilliant "I used to love Doggy Chow too!". But my alltime favourite piece of dialogue from the film is:

"I got my period."

"Yeah, right."

"Check."

"That's alright, I got towels."

I wonder how they'll re-enact that scene on stage?

Gays in the US Military

This clip from youtube is doing the rounds lately, but I just had to stick it up here for those of you who haven't seen it yet. It's taken from The Daily Show: