Category Archives: Diaries

Jive Talking Choirboy Revisited: The Storm

About a year ago, David Reilly found himself in the middle of a hurricane in New York. In a piece, long thought to have been lost, David recalls his experience.

 Just as I sat down to write about my exhilarating adventure to find the birthplace of Lucy Liu, (mission accomplished by the way!) the Apocalypse decided to happen. I quickly realised that it wasn’t the actual Apocalypse, but a storm comprising of two parts electricity, one part water and three parts malice. [but a storm more akin to a high school production of Judgement Day]. Between bouts of soiling myself I clambered to the window to take a look at the storm outside. The lightening was so fast and regular that I was instantly reminds of the lights in the youth discos I went to during my teenage years. The thunder was so loud that it too reminded me of these discos, despite being a lot easier to listen to than some of the music that was played.

I returned to my desk feeling more calm and composed but still a little shitty-pantsed. I decided the best approach would be to ensure that the storm could not get into my apartment. I locked the doors, closed the windows and even turned off all of the lights to give the impression that there was nobody home. Rather than rest on my laurels, or even my hardys, I also created a contingency plan in case the storm manages to breach my defences, like some kind of electrostatic battering ram. This will pretty consisted of me wearing the rubber gloves from under the kitchen sink. My logic being that I’d be able to deflect or even catch the lightning. Yes, the combination of reading comics into the wee hours and the lack of sleep that this brings about has caused me to develop slight Walter Mitty tendencies, but there’s no harm in being prepared.
Just as I’m saying my farewells to the cats, the storm stops. Typical. Now the cats are going to be smug, thinking I meant all the nice things I said to them. I only made the emotional speech so as to meet my requirements as the underdog protagonist going into battle. It worked out alright for William Wallace as far I remembered. I probably should actually watch all of Braveheart though…

 A.K.A Captain Victory

Business as Usual

Hi guys,

Davey’s moving house, Conor has Death of Comedy in the Workman’s in Dublin tonight at 8, Giles and Damon finished Storyland last night, Jon has to buy a suit and Kevin is getting his voice recalibrated so business will return as normal tomorrow. We’re not forgetting anyone right? That’d be awful.

From all of us we’d like to thank everyone who helped in the making of Student Teacher and in the promotion of it, we came second in the competition and are very proud of the shows we made. Full episodes can be found here.

In the meantime, here’s a picture of a present we got for one of our stars Carol Tobin:

 

We’re going to be posting more over the SUUUUUUMMMMMER with videos, cartoons and podcasts from our friends, yes, real life friends. It’s gonna be fun.

Damon Blake is a comedy maker and tea-drinker. He likes comic books and hurting people's feelings.  He's the Uncle Ben to the bitter loners of Humourisms, ie, his death will motivate them on to greater things.You can find him on Twitter @blakingpoint writing jokes and crying.

Powers Irish Whiskey Flash Fiction Competition

Damon Blake found out about this competition to write a short story to win €10,000based on “Celebrating What Truly Matters” five minutes before the midnight deadline.

Here is his story:

As I walked into the bottle shop with my €10,000, I laughed outloud thinking of everyone who said I couldn’t write. Where were they now, with their fancy “Masters Degrees in Creative Writing” and “Scrivener Mac 5000″s ? Not here, in this bottle shop with me, or else I would’ve laughed in their faces, hopefully knocking their berets and monocles off.

The surly teen behind the counter, who had clearly lied about their age much like some brave soul going to fight in World War One or Two or wherever Gallipoli was, spat chewing tobacco on the floor.

“What do you want?” he asked, in the form of a question.

“Give me €10,000 worth of Powers Gold Label Irish Whiskey” I replied.

“€10,000? That’s a lot of money…and a lot of whiskey”.

“Yes,” I confirmed. “Yes it is. But I promised in my short story that I would spend all the money on Powers Gold Label Irish Whiskey, so they weren’t losing anything on this marketing venture that most people knocked out at five to midnight. Also…it shows they can take a joke.”

The young man nodded, then shook his head, then nodded again.

“Bad neck?” I asked. He swirled his head around, which I took to be an affirmation. “Well, no worries, we can have the first sip of this whiskey together, that’ll make you feel better, what do you say?”

“Let’s celebrate what truly matters!” he replied.

And so we did.

 

Damon Blake is a comedy maker and tea-drinker. He likes comic books and hurting people's feelings.  He's the Uncle Ben to the bitter loners of Humourisms, ie, his death will motivate them on to greater things.You can find him on Twitter @blakingpoint writing jokes and crying.

Diary of a Man Slowly Dying in The Corporate World

A guest post from our wage-slave pal Padraig Fox.

Monday

Sat through a 22 page PowerPoint presentation about a new product.  It probably would have had more of an impact had the marketing graduate actually spelled the product name correctly on 16 of the 22 pages.  
Look! Europe!

Consumed: 6 cups of coffee.

Tuesday

Heard the phrases “going forwards”, “cascade down” and “these economic times” all before 10am.  Contemplated stabbing the next person who says “going forwards” in the eye with my pen.  See how they get going forwards to hospital.  Incidentally, every time I type “going forwards” Microsoft Word tells me its not an accurate phrase.  

SEE THAT CORPORATE MANAGEMENT TYPES?  NOT A REAL PHRASE!

As if that wasn’t bad enough, I was also informed by a colleague that something was a bit of a “damp squid” and also that the internet was a “mind of information”.  
Yes, that does say mind and squid.  

Consumed: 8 cups of coffee.

Wednesday

Was told by an irate customer that my company only wants to make a profit.  Well, yes.  That’s how the world of business works.  And if that is not the primary aim of your business, sir, then I think I see the fatal flaw in your business plan.  Left him a copy of our latest price list plus a copy of Business For Dummies.  Sadly, that may also be too challenging a concept for this genius.  A book!  With advice!  Not in the Midlands, thank you very much!  

Consumed: 10 cups of coffee.

Thursday

Another joyous day in the midlands.  And when I say joyous, I mean hellish.  Not just regular hell either but the inner most circles of Dante’s vision of hell.  If that was in Offaly.  Which I’m starting to believe it is.  Told today that things were better in the old days.  

Bear in mind electricity only came to the midlands in 1957.  

That’ll give you an idea of depressing that place is.  To top all this, I was informed that Tesco is run by a “Jew” and Lidl and Aldi are run by a pair of Krauts.  Apparently in some parts of Offaly, it’s still 1937.  
Look at that dumb frog.

Consumed: 16 cups of coffee, a new personal record.

Friday

The slow realisation that I should I have studied marketing in college is setting in as yet another marketing graduate gets one of the top jobs.  Personally, I think it’s their ability to infuse their presentation packs with key demographic data mining, taking ownership of content management, ramping up our empowerment of the key stakeholders setting us up on a road map to success.* 
That weird UFO is attacking the Midlands!

Consumed: 12 cups of coffee, 2 biscuits and an overwhelming desire to kill.

*Basically putting a pie chart on a page using stats found on google.
Padraig can be found on the road and on Twitter, complaining about the road.

Life’s Too Long – Day 53

Carol Tobin returns with another journal entry from Sam Fox’s diary. Previous instalment can be found here.

I got my first letter this morning. I was hoping it was a marriage proposal from some horny truck driver who might have admired my picture in the paper around the time of the court case and knew good bone structure when he saw it. I fantasize a lot about truck drivers in here. Maybe it’s the open road and how I would love to be on one.  Maybe it’s just me assuming they would be great in bed because they have all this lonely time to themselves, to be thinking of what they will do to you, when they see you next.

 Keep on trucking. Save me.

But it wasn’t a letter from RANDYSCANIA33.  It was a letter from my daughter Destiny asking how to use the washing machine. Because I have plenty of time on my hand’s, I was able to measure exactly how sad and funny that letter was and I conclude that it is as sad, as it is funny. She also sent me a plastic watch, which had a note attached saying, “I’m counting down the minutes Mama”. Emotional blackmail at its best. But maybe counting down Mama’s Minutes might keep her occupied and she won’t end up on drugs, on the game, or on both, taking performance-enhancing drugs to keep her punters happy. If she does take that path/lane in life, then I really hope she doesn’t borrow any of my clothes in a bid to attract punters. I’d kill her if she did that. She’s always had her eye on my expensive leopard print shorts.

Well whores are sitting on a fortune aren’t they?

 I have started reading Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment because it’s the only book in here where the pages aren’t stuck together with tears. I think women’s tear ducts should be removed when they come into prison. So many red fat eyed women walking about with flaky faces from where the salt in their tears has dried out their skin. Have a bit of self-respect lassies.  I have to say I am empathising with Raskolnikov in the book, we both think that murder is permissible in pursuit of a higher purpose.  My higher purpose was to rid the world of my husband and that I did. I was also high at the time so is that a High Higher purpose?

Who gives a shit?

 I am off to bed now to listen to the various levels of sobbing that you can hear in here.

As a truck driver on his walkie-talkie would say OVER AND OUT, as I say OVER AND NOT OUT.

Carol Tobin is the best person on Twitter.

Ruthe Phoenix – The Dangers of Twitter

Ruthe Phoenix once again brings us news from the front-line of the internet.

I first realised I had a problem when one day I saw a small child fall over a cat and I tried to laugh but couldn’t. Every time I opened my mouth all that came out was the word ‘retweet’.

Then I started to notice other symptoms of my addiction. Like when I was watching television and kept trying to report the ads for spam.

Or how I prefered to drive on the motorway during rush hour because it felt like I had more followers.

Anna Does Internet Dating

In an effort to understand women/dating we forced Twitter annoyance Anna Lark to go internet dating and let us know how she got on.

Okay, so far I hate this. I have been on [site redacted] for ten minutes and my anxiety levels are high you guys. I need a cup of tea like babies need milky baps.

I have been single since March 2011 but when I tell people in real life I say February because my mom’s birthday is in March and I don’t want to steal her thunder.  100 days after myself and my ex broke up he called me and announced that he was ‘over it’ and had joined ‘Plenty of  p***’ aka the main dating site in Ireland and was ready to mingle with the minge.

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