Painting my skis

"Now we are starting to get somewhere. At this point a little voice inside you will be screaming at you to just stop while you are ahead. This voice will says things like: “those skis look great right now, don’t risk it by trying to do more,” “you are bound to screw it up, just cash out right now before you ruin a perfectly good pair of skis.” You need to ignore this voice. Find that voice inside you that pushes you to greatness. The one that says “you can do anything,” “if you really wanted to you could make a pair of skis from scratch, much less paint them,” “you are meant to do amazing things.” It is this voice that you need to learn to listen to."

I'm planning on painting my skis to make them look like cool-dude-skis, so that lead me to reading this post someone made about painting skis. 

I just wanted to share that snippet with you guys. 
I think it's a great mentality and it's how I feel whenever I'm doing anything mildly creative.
You won't fuck it up, and if you do, you'll work something out to make it not matter that you fucked it up and it'll still end up better than it is right now because you are beast.

You are beast.

Beathoven

So given the lovely praise from my mate about the last song being brilliantly creepy or something, I decided to go hopefully even creepier.
It actually took me ages to record this because I kept hating how it sounds, I can't do a little girls voice. So eventually I settled with this. I just wanna add that I don't actually know where the microphone is on my laptop!

Tomorrow is my last day in this place.
Really looking forward to getting home. I'm slightly going crazy being on my own.
If I ever have to travel alone somewhere again I'll be sure to download loads of movies I want to watch before I go. It's not nice being reliant on a crappy wifi that you can't even get in your room, and always cuts out before you finish downloading a movie...... Not nice at all.

I'm comin' home

So I had a close encounter with a job but alas it was not to be.
This woman rang me about an au-pair job that sounded pretty cushy, possible to ski everyday as not needed til half4, but minding kids every evening, and 1 of the weekend days would be fully on, one fully off.
Then she texted me saying an aupair they had before had said she could come back so I'm kicked to el kerb. Which is completely understandable if it is true. Or maybe she just hated my Irish accent (I have one?) over the phone as she is English. Them brits....

So anyway, I think I'll come home on Saturday so... I'm really just not having any fun here. I've kinda accepted the fact I'm going to go home so I doubt I'd even take one even if one came up between now and this time tomorrow when I book my flights.... I'm sort of looking forward to going home actually, it's really boring on my own. Although French people here are super nice.

I've no idea what this song sounds like as I don't have earphones down here in the lobby but I hope it's the song I'm thinking of. Probably not.
The lobby actually reeks of dog shit. A dog took a shit like 8 feet from me about 10 minutes ago. The owners cleaned it up but the smell remains.

I've been making another song you'll all be happy to know. But.... It's kinda hard to record the words. It's kind of a messed up song a bit and the walls are like, paper thin so I feel really self conscious while saying them. I don't want someone calling the police or something. You'll hear it in the next post hopefully.
All in good time.

Spendin' all my cashhh

So I checked my bank balance today, it was almost exactly what I expected. So I decided to buy ski boots/poles/bag to go with my lovely skis. Unfortunately I couldn't get a ski-bag that would fit my boots though, and I want one that could so I can put them together for flying on planes. Trek of having to carry them on.

So here is a picture of my lovely new ski boots.

I didn't want to spend over 200euro on them, but when I went into the shop (skimium) the guy was like 219 is our cheapest boot (in french, I was bossing it up to that point but had to ask him for English after the next bit). I then asked was there anything cheaper and he told me I could buy any of the boots they rent out, he just has to check them on the computer for how many times they were used, could get a pair for as low as 50 euro if they were used maybe 40 times. But he also said they'd never fit my feet as well as a pair that only I had used, which is something I had heard before. So I figured what the heck I'd at least try on the new pair. And as soon as my feet slid into the bad boys I knew I had to buy them. They fit so much nicer than any boots I had ever tried on before. Even the buckles were nice, they closed tightly without having to use loads and loads of energy. I got them half a size too small because he warned me they'd get roomier after about 4 weeks use. They still fit perfectly, just extra snug for the moment. I'm dying to go skiing tomorrow now. Was talking to the guy a little bit and he said he used to do freestyle skiing, big-air/half-pipes sorta stuff til he broke his collar bone the 3rd time and he decided to chuck that. He now does telemark skiing. That shits crazy. He said it was exactly like learning to ski all over again, but it's a really free feeling when you're telemark skiing. If you've never seen it you should give it a google, it looks nuts.

I also bought ski poles, which I've combined with a picture of my skis. My skis are ugly but I didn't exactly choose them. I also rented them in a different shop to where I bought this stuff.

And here is the hole in my ski.

Hopefully it'll last at least 10 days skiing. If it lasts that long I'll have just about broken even.
Looking back now I thinks she did rip me off getting me to pay the cost price for them. They've clearly been rented out a fair bit...

I had really horrible nightmares last night. The worst was the really realistic one where I thought I had woken up, then when you actually do wake up you're still kinda freaked. I've basically had 3 nightmares in that room over the last 24 hours, from naps and sleeps. That's pretty bad going. I think it's the room has quite a few noises, there's a really weird smell of kinda like solder or something all over the building, and the 3rd little roof-suite thingy is just creepy as fuck. Why the fuck is that there.

I'm hating the fact there's no wifi in my room too. It's taking ages to download this stupid movie I want to watch, and everytime I have to leave for whatever reason it won't resume where it left off. Twice I've been maybe 10 minutes off finished and had to leave to get something and start all over again. It's at 50 minutes til it's finished now.... Sick.

Anyway, keep cool guys.
Keep it cool.

Knackorrrrred

I'm wrecked.
It was such an unbelievable trek to change apartments today.
I had to get up early to make the apartment squeaky clean so I get my deposit back, just made it to checkout in time, then I had to go lug around my heavy-ass bag, my skis, my backpack-bag which was full of crap, and my camera-bag(which is tiny and light but still inconvenient. I also had my bed linens in my hand too when I was going to checkout; it was cumbersome as fuck.
So anyway, eventually after checking out I managed to find the place where they had kindly printed my voucher for this weeks accommodation. They call them vouchers for some reason, they're just a piece of paper that says what accommodation I've paid for. I guess it is a voucher but it seems a bit weird calling it one... Anyway, I found that place and then had to go back basically all the way I had come from to get to the new accommodation agency.
It's suchhh a chore dragging a bag across snow. It's a solid 10 minute gruelling trek between these 2 places.
So then I get there and fortunately my apartment was already ready despite it only being like 11am, so that was a relief, but the downside was I had to now try find the place that rents bed linens because they didn't rent them there. I decided I'd come back for that since I wasn't up for lugging around all my crap while looking for this place, which turned out to be a great idea because it took ages to find. It did take me friggin' AGES to get to the new apartment though, it's quite out of the way. I had to walk all the way back past the place that printed my voucher again, and keep going, lift my bag up 20 steps, walk across some snow, go up another few steps, get a lift thing, go up 10 more steps, go across a bridge thing, get to this REALLY FUCKING STUPID walkway, which had a 1inch step or so every 3 feet, so carried my, I reiterate, HEAVY ASS bag up those 20 more tiny long steps, then walk across more snow, and FINALLY I get to the place. I find the lifts and stand there like a dope as a maintenance guy walks past me and opens the door for me. I didn't realise the lifts were BEHIND doors. It's so strange. They have these doors in front of the lift doors that only can be pulled open when the lift arrives. Why the fuck? I don't even know. I guess it has to be for aesthetics, which is hilarious because this place looks ugly as, well, balls. I walked into my room and felt like I was walking into a brothel. Here's the room.

Note to self, never buy thin red curtains.

I turned around after opening the windows and observed this crazy piece of room.
So apparently you can climb onto the top bunk, and then climb from there onto this hidden bed above? How utterly bizarre. I had to climb halfway up to the top bunk just to double check there were no bodies or anything up on the roof-suite (that's probably what they call these). Y'know yourself..... Peace of mind is important when you're living alone.

These are the keys they gave me. I think there's probably just about a key to every door in France here.

This bathroom is described as having a "hip bath". The most outlandish parts of me had hoped it was some uber-cool super-hip bath, but in reality this piece of shit is exactly what I was expecting. What the fuck is the point. I guess we just don't have that concept back home, and for good reason.

Anyway, I dumped my bags off and went back to look for my linens. Walked around for about half an hour before finding what i thought was the place. It closed at 12 which was just as I arrived and was to re-open at 2. So I basically wandered around for about 2 hours trying to find wifi so I could apply to jobs and couldn't get anything anywhere. Seriously. What the fuck France.

So at 2 I wander back to this place, stumble my French til she tells me in English that I'm at the wrong place and the other place is closed til 3 she thinks. So I wander around some more and get directions from some other Frenchie to the "lingerie", that's what that shit is called, which indeed is closed til 3, so I walk all the way home, and come back an hour later and finally get my stupid bed-linens.

Christ. You'd think they'd just leave that shit in your room for you. It's kinda nuts it's not free too, but whattaya gonna do.

In other news I had a really fun day yesterday. I was skiing with my friend and 2 of his mates which was nice to finally actually talk to people, and skiing with people is so much less tiring. You have to stop at every junction to clarify with everybody else where we're going. It was so much easier than just bombing it down as fast as I'm comfortable with (cos that's how I roll baby) and going back up.

Oh I forgot to mention. There's no wifi in this fucking room so I've to sit in the cold but thankfully indoor market area at the 6th floor but also it's ground floor on one side of the building to get it. And the wifi here is soooo shit..... I want to download a movie but I can't find any movie download links, and I also can't use stupid putty to access my server to move files to the public folder so I can download movies I already have.
It's SO FUCKING ANNOYING.

I think I'll have to just try sleep.... Or make another phat song.

A song in an evening.

A productive day some wouldn't say.

It's literally totally shit but it was fun to make and it fills you in a little on good old Bob.
Actually, I mean, expect to hear this shit on MTV soon.

It's funny that right after I made this my friend Conor rang me to say he was nearby so we chatted for a while. Apparently he's going to be living nearer me for a while, possibly for good all going well for him.

I didn't realise Morcheeba had a new album out. I'm such a shit fan.

SO MUCH BLOG WHERE TO BEGIN!!

Ok, so I've basically 3 posts to make here.
1. 2 things that I had been meaning to write about for about a year now but kept fobbing it off. It'll be short.
2. pics and shit about my day today.
3. cool shiz that is well dope.

1- Random overdue stuff.
So first up, what are these mysterious things I've been meaning to write about...

The first one is a little embarrassing I guess.

One time when I was very little I was at home from school because I was sick. For some reason I was watching some really weird documentary because back in those days I had a choice of 6 tv channels because I'm pretty sure it was even before TV3 and TG4 (or whatever it was called back then) doesn't count because ew who understands Irish. So anyway there was little me watching this documentary that I thought was about music, but looking back it actually must have been about stripping but that was just so over my head as I was honestly about 6 or 7. I'm not sure how it was daytime tv, maybe it was mostly innocent, but there was one part that just stuck with me. The women being interviewed had REALLY long tongues, and I was a little boy and mildly infatuated with snakes so I thought this was the coolest thing since tomagotchis. So these "ladies" were talking about how they did stretches for their tongue everyday to get them to be so long and flexible. I literally had no idea why they wanted such long tongues (I still don't really know why, it's kinda gross seeing a really long tongue, but presumably it's somehow related to blowies) but I still thought the concept of having a really long tongue was like a superpower nearly.

Honestly, who wants that shit? She looks like an attractive girl but my god I wouldn't be rushing after her. Imagine kissing her. She'd be able to tickle your tonsils with that monstrosity. Actually that sounds hilarious. Imagine having your tonsils tickled..... Hmmmmm... May have to review my thoughts on this..... Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... Nah, still a no-go. I'd probably be suffocated.
Anyway, my point here is just how it's funny how children (or at least child-me) look on things in such a different way. Such different things are considered cool for totally different reasons as you grow up.

The second random thing I've mentioned is something that I wanna just throw out there and see if any other lads (or even fembots I suppose) are guilty of this...
Did you ever pause movies growing up when there were boobs on display? I have such vivid memories of watching The 5th Element on VCR (midweek movie recording with the classic galaxy ads, such a nostalgia watch now) with my cousin and pausing at the bit where Mila Jovovich changes her top in the background. It was an out of focus background boob, but it was boob none-the-less. We'd be all to ready to press play in case one of my parents came in, but it was worth the hassle. It was boob and it was ours to see. Our boob. This is what a boob was. This was what men live for and as far as we could tell it was awesome!
Kids these days have it so friggin' easy. If they want to see some boob all they have to do is open incognito window - type boob into the google search bar - go to images - BAM. Hundreds of boobs. I don't know how they cope. If the first time I saw boob it was in a google search and I was flooded with hundred of the fleshy blobs I think my little brain would have just crashed. I hope I don't sound like a pervy child here because I really wasn't. This was about the extent of my boob viewing til I was about 14.
It's funny how boys from the age of about 11-17 call each other gay the whole time, or at least in Ireland when I was growing up that was the case. I used to be actually worried that maybe I was gay just because people called each other gay so often. I never once would have thought, well, I like these boobs and peen/man is not for me sooooooo...... I was far too insecure as most teenagers are. I've actually talked about this before.

2- Today - (the internet went last night so this is now yesterday)!
Ok so here's some pictures from my day today.

I was walking around aimlessly killing time earlier (I thought I was waiting for my friend to come visit me but he got too busy at work) when I saw this ice sculptor dude.

He was carving a pretty sweet 2014 into a block of ice with a chainsaw and busting the occasional dance move to the loud french pop music. it was very cool.

There was a bit of a crowd around him and I took my share of photos and was in the process of buzzing off when I heard a noise and had to turn around.

Yeahhh that's right buddy, that's a blowtorch in his left hand. Naturally I turned around and was all what the shit's he gonna do with this. So he started doing some more dancing and lighting that ice on fiyaaaa. Well. Not actually on fire, but he was melting the shit out of it, and it ended up looking really cool and see-through. Then I eventually decided to retreat to my room.

The finished product with some people from the crowd.

I was in my room nice and I saw the snow-groomer thingy going and it looked quite amazing so I took a picture. I should say this is the nursery slopes which is visible from my balcony, I'll talk about it later. So being happy with myself I took the pictures off my camera and was chilling out listening to Skye when I heard all this banging. At first I was thinking shiiiiiiiiit are the walls that thin? The neighbours must be seriously pissed off. Then I realised it was fireworks outside so I went to my balcony and couldn't see them which was disappointing. I went back inside and after about 5 minutes of humming and hawing and expecting them to stop any second I put on my shoes, grabbed the camera and headed downstairs. And of course it was so typical, the instant I got outside I just saw a firework go off and people started whistling. It was over. I did realise there was some sorta event going on though by the bottom of the slopes so I mosied over and saw what became of the second block of ice.

 Pretty cool no?

There was music playing and this wee lass doing balerina shit in that plastic ball. It wasn't terribly exciting to be honest. Although they were giving out free hot chocolate and vin-chauds.

The hot-choco was pretty muck, but the vin-chaud was delish. I plonked it in the snow and took a picture. It's very exciting. The problem was that after I did this it was no longer a vin-chaud. The snow cooled the crap out of it.

And here's a piccy of the bell-tower which is visible from the front of the apartment block.

So back to the nursery slope. It's definitely the best slope to have visible from your balcony. Kids are friggin' hilarious. I was standing out there for maybe 5 minutes and in that time I saw one kid fall over at the start of the drag lift and get dragged along the ground the whole way up to the top of the lift. And I saw one kid go over this little ramp thingy, and she snow-ploughed too hard so her skis slipped outwards and she ended up being stuck doing the splits over the jump. It was gas altogether.

3- Stuff I enjoy.
So finally the "cool shiz that is well dope.".

First off. This is Skye Edwards from Morcheeba.
She's my favourite famous person. Watch this video and you'll see why.
She's soooo sweet. The bit about not telling a wish, awwww. And the music is so good.

Here's this pretty good blog I've been reading lately. It's this nursing student from 'merica, she's funny I think, and the fact her blog's name is a dragonballz pun is pretty cool in a totally uncool way.
If you're too lazy to click the link, there's these 2 videos in it. They're super cool so I'm going to link one of them here anyway because I know most of you won't bother even though maybe you should.

4- Today again.
This is a bonus 4th section (woooo) because I had written most of the above yesterday before the internet went.
So I rented skiis today, got up early and skiied my unfit ass off until after a pathetic 2 and a half hours I had to take an early lunch because I was completely knackered. I say an early lunch but all I ate was an apple. It's so exhausting skiing by yourself, you basically just don't stop ever. I NEEED breaks. So come half 11 I'm back in my apartment and I lie down and wake up an hour later, still exhausted. So I snooze another hour and then hit them slopes again. The second session was way more fun as I was feeling a bit more confident again, and I was listening to music in my cool earphone-hat instead of wearing a helment (which is far too warm). So blah blah I was skiing, why are you telling me this you may be asking yourself. You knew I was going to be going skiing, so who gives a crap? Well I'll tell you, my wallet gives a crap. I went to return the skiis when yer wan in the shop points out to me that I've totally broken one of them...... UH OH..... I didn't even notice it, but under the binding the edge of the ski had pushed out somehow leaving a hole in the bottom of the ski... They basically told me the ski is irreparable and it'd be going in the bin. I don't think my travel insurance covered it and I hadn't taken out insurance with them so basically I had to pay for it all. I was kinda like fuuuuuuuckfuckfuckfuck since I had no idea whatsoever how much they'd charge. I figured I'd been skiing fine on the ski though so I may as well ask if I could keep it if I was going to be paying for it, to which they replied yeah sure it was only going to go in the bin. So I'm 218 euro down which was a little less than I expected thankfully. She said they charged me the price they buy them for which is like 35% less than I would be able to buy it for, which at the time sounded like a sweet deal but I've since considered that it was probably last years skis. So they've had a solid 5 months probably of renting it out most weeks I imagine so it's been worn down a lot. Did they overcharge me? I dunno... I was too exhausted to care to be honest. At least now I have a pair of skis which work, even if one of them may snap in half as they warned me. Also at least I have bindings too so if I ever want to buy new skiis I won't need to buy bindings! I still need to buy ski-boots though. I hadn't even planned on buying skiis but it can't hurt to have a bad pair anyway. I can ski over rocks now and not worry about my skiis! Although I'll still have to worry about the fleshpod in which I reside.

I think I've linked this song loads of times but it really is an awesome song to ski to.

Ok I'm knackered. I'm going to watch a movie. PEACE.

Day 2 in the land of Frenchies

This picture happened to be on my camera from the day before I left Dublin. That'll be my lil bonsai tree  on the window-sill and it will most certainly be dead when I return to Ireland if it is not already dead. It is truely withered as fuck.

I've always thought bonsai trees were cool, so I bought this one and it was all going fine, and very little effort until I moved back home. I for some reason decided to leave the little fella in the little couch area beside our kitchen, probably for more sunlight or something. But since I spend precious little time in this area I ended up completely forgetting to water the chap for about 3 weeks. So it's poor little leaf-eens were falling off like mad yokes, abandoning ship. 

Also visible in this picture are:

• My lovely slippers; I love them. 
• My bedroom window; it doesn't keep the cold out very well, or noise out. 
• My "condom" hat; it's black.
• My upside-down mouse; it's upside down because it's unplugged and I just plonked it there. LOL!
• My curtains; they're typical.
• My wardrobe door; it's a very old wardrobe with a long long mysterious history. It was once owned by one of my dad's aunts or maybe my grandfather or something; it is quite small which is good because it means it fits in my room.
• And last, and by far the least, my old i-pod mini; It still has music on it and works when it's plugged in, but dies immediately once disconnected. It's fun to look at the music I used to listen to though.

Ok so here is a view of the apartment that is my home until Saturday, and the next picture is the view as you walk out of the apartment building.

It's quite nice really for the price I paid. Although it is a little cold at night since the blankets are as thin as............. I'm REALLY stumped for a simile... As thin as paper. Whatever, shit one, I don't care (I do. You know fully well how disappointed I am at myself for that one). I've wacked the working radiator onto full wack for tonight so hopefully I won't be in the fetal position under my ski-jacket again tonight.

So what is going on. Well it seems this resort is quite a French one. Or maybe just the fact that I'm all alone means I just realise more than usual that I'm a foreigner. I've barely heard anybody speak English since I got here. I just wandered around all day basically today. I didn't apply for any jobs but I found at least 2 jobs online that I can apply for tomorrow. I've to travel to drop in the cv to one of them, the other is a phone call. It'd be for a worse job but has more hours. I'll fill you guys in with how that goes.

So I think I'm going to flick on "Dances with wolves" as I have it on my laptop and it's one of my Dad's favourite movies so I figure I should probably re-watch it as I can't remember it at all. Probably last saw it when I was about 12.

Here's a pretty song that's quite popular right now.

And here's another song that I really really like.

I am here in Les Menuires

Comin' at ya live. Well. Not live, but alive.

So I'm completely fucking knackered after a day of travelling and waiting and dosing off and not enough eating. I went for a few goodbye drinks with the lads last night, got home at around half 2am and had to be up at 5am. It was weird because it was pointed out that it was probably the last time we would get a taxi home like that together, possibly even the last time we were all together in one place. It made me feel a bit of regret that it wasn't some crazy night, or that I didn't go out strongggg on stephen's day but I was too run-down then to enjoy it to be fair.....

I think I was snoring on the bus, and I had no friends on it so I had nobody to ask if I was. I also woke up expecting to get sick at one stage but thankfully I didn't. It was a horrible sensation.

Ok I'm falling asleep here.

I'll hit this up 2mw and post up some piccies.