Foosball

I don't know if I've ever mentioned but I'm pretty beast at foosball.
Here's some tips for people who aren't very good at foosball so they can appear to be as good as me, or maybe even become as good as me if they practice them all a lot.
The ones marked Pro-tip are the especially important ones.

1. When people ask if you're any good, reply with something along the lines of, "Oh I dabble.", or "Well I wouldn't say I'm very good, but other people do.". This is important because now people will think you're good, but may think you're joking so you have an out if you lose.
2. If playing 2 on 2, when your defense has the ball, the attacker should keep his players up so the defender can shoot.
3. Defenders don't shoot from in front of your goal, it's asking for the attacker to hit it straight back into your goal.
4. Pro-tip: Always keep your players with their feet down, otherwise they won't block anything.
5. Always put your goalie slightly to the side of your defenders, this way you cover a little wall.
6. Pro-tip: If the table has a roll, pick the side where the ball rolls towards your goal. This way the ball rolls towards your players so you can control it easier in front of your players. (In front of your players is the side you shoot from so you can shoot anytime when the ball is there).
7. Pro-tip: Be as slow as you can to take your shot, it's not easy as the ball will roll away usually or you'll knock it away. Not only does it annoy your opponent, but it also gives you time to see any gaps to shoot for. 
8. Don't spin. Not only has it way less control, but it leaves your players randomly positioned so your opponent may get a free shot on you because you're breaking rule 4. With that said, spinning adds huge amounts of randomness into the game, so if you're playing someone way better than you, spin away. If they complain say, well you can spin too if you like. Then sing Kylie Minogue's spinning around if they're especially being a dick.
9. Pro-tip: Always watch the ball, even if your hot chocolate or tea is done and you want to go get it.
10. If playing 1 on 1, always keep your left hand on the keeper. Maybe I'm just really good, but it's insane how well your reflexes work; you'll make miracle saves way more often than you'd expect. Also there's nothing more frustrating than a slow ball rolling towards your goal and having to switch bar and accidentally knocking it into your own goal. Well, there are some more frustrating things, like leaving your hot chocolate on for too long and the milk gets kinda burnt.
11. Pro-tip: This is the last and probably the most important tip if you want to win. If you're playing 2 on 2, always pick me as your partner. I'm the best and if you have a choice, you should pick me.

In other news I gave my 1 months notice in to work, so I'll be finishing up there at the end of this month and hopefully spending the winter in the alps! 

Exciting stuff! Gotta get applying to jobs.

You should watch adventure time. I'm pretty hooked.

I've been shit at DOC'ing lately because I have a girlfriend now and that takes up pretty much all of my blog time. 

I'm not sorry. 

I'm happy.

If life can stay this good, I'd be very appreciative.

It's the little things.

It's watching milk diffuse into tea.

It's looking at the stars.

It's looking at clouds.

It's watching trees move in the wind.

It's making someone laugh.

It's when someone makes you laugh.

It's when you make someone happy.

It's feeling appreciated.

It's trippy music visualisers.

It's hearing a great new sound.

It's caring about the outcome of a sporting event.

It's learning a new piece of music.

It's drawing a picture.

It's saying something funny when you weren't sure if it was appropriate.

It's not saying something inappropriate when you weren't sure.

It's wanting to do something, and then just doing it.

It's not wanting to do something, and then just not doing it.

It's nice dreams.

It's those 10 minutes in the morning when you snooze your alarm.

It's the following 10 minutes when you snooze it again.

It's a bath when your muscles are sore.

It's realising how easy it is to make a list of great things.

It's getting a compliment on something creative you did.

It's realising you're writing in a pretentious, middle-aligned style but doing it anyway.

It's feeling attractive.

It's not caring about being cliche.

It's seeing someone you haven't seen in years and realising nothing has changed between you.

It's watching children try to figure something out.

It's a reason to live.

It's the little free things in life that somehow give it a meaning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wIbylO24gE

"Hey james what's new with you?" - Bitta this. Bitta that. You know yourself. It's actually looking quite likely that I'll end up doing a ski season by the way.

Sozzletoff

Hi, I'm Dave and I say words like sozzletoff.
Sorry, Dave is in the states and I just miss his beautiful face.

My apartment smells atrocious. Sometimes they cook really rank food next door and we share a vent or something so now after a long days work I come home to an apartment smelling of dog food. The bad sorta dog food smell, not the borderline BBQ Hoola Hoops smell (They do smell like dog food. And absolut pear vodka tastes like soap. And I'm sure there's other flavours easily ruined out there too).

So anyway, I've been crap I realise, but I've been busy and easily distracted.

I nearly posted 2 weeks ago when I got a great question; this question:
"Is doing charity work a good idea if you've become cynical about the human race?" - I wanted to respond straight away but got sidetracked :/. Yes, it's definitely a good idea. I used to think people in general were a pretty shitty bunch, and still did a bit while I was over there, but in general I think a lot more of people now. There's a lot more good people out there than bad people, it just also happens that there's a lot lot more people who don't care or don't do anything than there are of the other 2 combined. I guess I fall into the latter category since I didn't do anything during that incident mentioned at the end of my last post, and that I don't do more for charities. I could be worse though I'm sure.

Anyway, what's happened.
Well quite a bit. Life has been good.
I've been seeing the aforementioned girl a bit and it's going pretty well as far as I can tell.
Kind of the reason I haven't been doccin' has been because I'm not sure how much I want to talk about that here. I'm usually surprisingly open on this thing but this isn't just about me so I guess it makes sense not to want to write too much.
Basically all you need to know is her name is Sinead, she's going into final year of a science related course but she's not geeky (or at least she's hiding it very well if she is), and she's far too good looking for me but I'll get over that.

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Well work kinda does suck a bit these days.
I didn't get the pay rise I was supposed to get in June, they just never mentioned it and I haven't said anything about not getting my salary re-assessed so I dunno.
I'm still hoping to do a season skiing, Canadian visas are gone though for the year so it's a bit weird, not really sure what the story is there, apparently you can get sponsored for one somehow but I don't really know anything about it yet.

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My friend at work wrote this website for listening to playlists in sync with your friends, it's pretty cool. This is my room on it so feel free to join in and paste some youtube song videos in for me to check out.
http://synctune.net:5000/r/12

Oh and I wrote an application for windows for sorting out songs taken from iPods.
http://heuuuth.com/applications/

Here's the other anon comments I got:

"i'm on your website. hi. nice piano." - Thanks.

"If you decide to quit your job, Amusement City on.Westmoreland street are hiring electronic/computer engineers. Could be an AMUSING place to work." - Cheers for the headsup, I'd probably rather not work for a gambling company though unless there was some crazy incentives. I'd say it could get depressing.

Nothing has been done before.

What the fuck

"ever question your sexual orientation?" - Who doesn't? How can you say you're straight if you've never thought about it? Growing up guys call each other gay every day. In those insecure days I used to wonder if maybe I was gay and just didn't know it. Even though I liked girls and couldn't even tell if a guy was good looking or not (legitimately, unless they had something horrendously wrong with them, I'm still quite bad at it to be honest.). I'm definitely straight.

Was in Galway over the weekend just gone there. It was really fun apart from when I wrecked myself trying to do a running forwards backflip ("gainer") on about a 10-15ft jump into the water. I'd never tried before and it ended up with a big huge backflop. Doubt I'll ever try it again, twas so sore.
On the plus side, yet again I kissed my younger sister's best friend. Weird that it's been 2 years since last time. Time flies. More deets on it encryptoed below.

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Saw a bit of a fight in the park near my house today. Some 16ish year old scumbags (about 20 of them) were throwing water balloons at people, and some kinda towny woman started shouting at them, and they hit her with a water balloon, so she got one of them back with one that was on the ground, and then all the guys mates started laughing so he felt he had to act the hard lad so he started squaring up to her and it all got a bit mad. His mate actually punched her in the face, and some other lad wacked her friend over the back of the head with a bicycle seat and then promptly pegged it off. It was a bit crazy. Then the police came and arrested one of them. They're such little pricks wrecking other peoples fun for their own excitement.

This kid is the cutest thing in the world. I'd be so proud if he was my son. Not 100% sure how of his own will his words are, but it's still amazing.

Love makes the world seem sound

"why aren't you more self confident though? everybody likes you, that's a pretty good reason to feel good about yourself." - thanks.

"wow that IS slightly Rude." - Indeed.

"what kind of spam were you getting? like viagra shit or what?" - Nope, I was getting just gibberish stuff like "yPTdh1  <a href= .... ". Haven't clicked the links but their names are gibberish.

"So do you like anyone at the moment? Is that rap about anyone in particular or is it just a general representation of girls you like?" - That rap was about someone in particular yeah, but at this stage I wrote it like what, 2 years ago or something? I think to have a proper crush on someone you have to see them at least semi frequently so no, but everybody always has someone they think about sometimes as they fall asleep.

I had planned to write more but I'm shattered after work today (we went zip-lining in the Dublin Mountains, it was exhausting and really fun) so I'll blog again soon hopefully.
Going out stronggg tomorrow night and hopefully it will be eventful, been quite good mooded these days which always makes for better nights out. 

Ryan, Gav and myself booked in for speed dating on the 7th June (2 wks away). I'm slightly excited for it but also a tiny bit nervous but mostly it's too far away to think about yet.

Shane has agreed to go do some piccies with me again this weekend, so I can't wait for that!

Did you know, Lana Del Rey's 'pussy tastes like pepsi cola'? What an odd lyric.

Rap #2

YO. I mentioned this post AGES ago and said that some time in the future I'd put it up, I think we've traveled sufficiently far into the future so it's now definitely ambiguous who I had in mind when I wrote it. It's rated R for slightly Rude.

I had no battery on my phone nor anything really to keep me entertained on the dart home so I came up with this among others, but this was the one I put the most work in to. 

It's just a verse and then the chorus.

It makes no sense,

I'm smitten through her absence,

I want us to take absinthes,

and see whatever happens.

See some girls are just tap-ins

but she's a 40 foot shot

that I'd be so happy if I got
but I never fuckin' will
cos I make her fuckin' ill

'Imagine kissing James,

man that makes me fucking sick,

imagine all the places that he want to put his dick.'

Although in reality I don't know what this girl thinks,

her words are riddles, she's my personal sphinx.

If I had to guess I'd say she thinks:

'He seems pretty meek,

but I bet if I looked under the covers,

I'd find out he's a freak.'

Eh I can't actually remember the chorus, it had a nice tune which you obviously never would have heard so no loss really. It was something equally depressing.

I was reading through a list of all the labels I've put into this DOCS as I side-tracked looking for this old rhyme. Friends, Teddy Bears and Crayons seem to be a recurring theme. Frogs slightly too. Bit weird, friends makes sense because I'm writing this for my friends to read, but the others kinda surprised me. Maybe Teddy Bears because I write this when I'm going to sleep so generally am tired. Crayons? Anyone any idea? Maybe because I feel like this is slightly my creative outlet so crayons? I don't buy that though. And frogs well, frogs can just go get fucked I've no idea where they come from. Well, obviously I know where ACTUAL frogs come from. Tadpoles. See. Yes yes. Quite.

I decided to write today because someone left me this message:
"you sound a bit down james.": I thought I definitely came off a bit down from the last post. I nearly wrote again the next day because I hadn't intended to be so glum. It was just hangover / dread of having to go to work. I'm sufficiently happy and my mother re-assures me (I hate when she says this but she always brings it up) that you're never going to enjoy any job whatsoever unless you're like my dad who enjoys everything and since I don't find everything interesting I just have to suck it up and slave for the man. I disagree somewhat, I'm too young to resign to the thought there can't be a job I'd be happy to get up in the morning for.

"do speed-dating ON SPEED" : Great idea, but no. Definitely no. Terrible idea really. I've never taken speed and I really don't think that would be a good time to dabble with it, and honestly I don't ever plan on it.

"get back into drawsomething! it's drawesome.": No thanks, I had my fun and it's over now. Exams are over now. All about snapchat now!

"when cycling, how do you stop bugs from flying into your mouth/eyes": I close my eyes if I see them coming, otherwise I just take it like a man. And I eat them when they go into my mouth, they're snacks to keep me going. I think I generally breathe through my nose actually when I cycle because I got a fly up my nose the other day when cycling and that was a horrible, horrible feeling.

This is a pretty lovely 8tracks playlist if you're okay with the cover picture having a topless woman in it. Embers of Love

Is it really Monday already?

First things first. Check out:

http://smileffiti.tumblr.com/

I really don't want to go to work tomorrow.

I went surfing last weekend for the bank holiday wkend, I got so drunk the night and it was fun, but the next morning really made me genuinely want to stop drinking. I was just hanging thinking that if I keep this up I'll eventually just off myself in some hangover depression some day. That's why I didn't really want to drink this weekend. I'd love to give up booze and weed. I barely ever smoke anymore anyway, but giving up drink would be great. I can't do anything when I'm drunk and I usually just make a fool of myself. I dunno... I've had far too many unsuccessful nights out that all the disappointment from them builds up. I used to be fine getting pissed the whole time because I used to score a moderate amount of the time. For whatever reason I've progressively been getting worse and worse. There's no fun in being ridiculously hungover and thinking about how you could end up still alone at 50, or even worse, married to someone you don't even like. I think I might go speeddating next month. It was made for lonely IT sods like me.

I've been reminding myself lately how much happiness comes from your mindset and doesn't just happen by itself. You have to make yourself happy by seeing the bright side of things, but I just find it hard to fully buy into it.

I really don't want to go to work, but on the flip side I don't know what I'd even do if I didn't go. I work for money and this money is just paper that can't buy emotions. It buys preconceived notions of requirements which ultimately are unnecessary for my desires, despite what economics would want me to believe. I realize how bent that sounds, but I'm not gonna delete it because it's how I feel right now, even if it is the douchiest, hipsteriest thing I've probably ever said. 

I was asked, presumably by the same person:

"are swans dangerous?" - Apparently they're only vicious when they have kids on the grow, but in general they're not safe.

"Is it a good idea or a bad idea to keep a window propped open with a AA battery?" - Well I guess this would depend on whether or not you want the window open, what the window is made of, and how likely it is to rain.

To be honest I really enjoyed these 2 questions actually. You made me laugh. Thanks.

No song today. Not that you ever listen to them anyway.