The "Boof" Effect

Walking home from the shop yesterday, I saw a bunch of whipper snappers cycling their bikes and talking about the usual nonsense that young teens tend to talk about. "Here bye's (bye's being the phonetic spelling of "boys" because it seems to be a more and more common occurance that young people in Kildare just aren't arsed taking the time to properly pronounce their words) jaknow what'd be gaaas? If we were to start calling each other by our second names!" "That'd be legendary" responds one of the lads..."Grand...so what's your second name?" says the first. "Ian" says the second...Cue prolonged silence..."Whaaa?" says the first. The moment that both lads realised that the second chap had misinterpreted and clearly mentioned his middle name was like something out of a sitcom! Their eyes widened, their jaws dropped, the second lad hung his head in shame while the first took full advantage of his mate's stupid mistake and went "Nooooo ye sap.....what's yer surname?"

Although I found all of this relatively humorous, I was particularly tickled by the fact that one of the lads was on a bike that was clearly intended for a child about three or four years his junior. It is not one little bit of an exaggeration to say he looked utterly ridiculous. To put it in perspective, he looked like an orange on a toothpick with hula hoops for wheels, and the bike was literally crumbling under the weight of this chap...The fact that the bike kept grinding to a halt and making this unmerciful sound  as the chain popped on and off should've been a sign that the kid needs to either kick the cycling habit until he can afford another bike, one more suited to anyone other than a newborn, or he should just kick the habit completely.

The reason I find all of this humorous is because it reminded me of all the blissful ignorance that we exhibit as children...of course the fact that he was far too hefty to be cycling a bike of that size was not the reason the bike was literally crumbling under the pressure.  Well, at least, not in his mind...No, no...the reason the bike was failing was because it is a "hape o' shoite!" It's just one of the many things that you fool yourself about when you're a kid. Other common themes are things like "I ate enough vegetables, I'm full...but I will have ice cream though." and "they who smelled it dealt it!".

Yet, for all the nonsense that we spouted as kids, there were always those little things that we noticed about life that was probably astounding for wee people of our intellectual capacity. One of those things that I noticed as a youngster, that pisses me off to this day as much as it did back then is a little something that I like to call "The Boof Effect".

You'd be watching a tv show or a movie, right? and the main character would be infatuated with this "larger than life" and  "hot as fuck" character, with a view to bedding this individual at some point before the story draws to a close. Co-inciding with this, there'd always be this jealous ass best friend who'd be watching the main character slip away from them as they sit idle and watch the whole story unfold before their very eyes. I take issue with so many things of this nature that it actually brings my piss to a boil. For a start, this "best friend" would always, always have a storied past witht the main character, often dating back to childhood or whatever...and secondly, you actually become one of those stereotypical movie ruin-ers  (of the "Don't go in there girl...the killer be waitin' for ya!" variety!) who shout incessantly at the screen in a crowded auditorium, simply because the best friend is always itching to say something, but never-ever does...it's perposterous.

The one thing that really chaps my ass about this topic though (and this is a real big one), is the fact that this best friend, who'd you presume is an epic fucking loser of Biblical proportions, is in fact not...They're just not. In fact, they're quite the opposite. Despite being intelligent, funny and having this magnificent rapore with the main character, the idiot hero is always blissfully ignorant of the fact that the perfect girl is standing right next to him, as he is presumably blinded by his pursuit of the other "hot chick" who...more often that not, turns out to be an epic bitch of Lindsay Lohan proportions. All this, coupled with the fact that the best friend is generally drop dead gorgeous leaves you in ruination by the end of the film as you end up hating the main character for wasting an hour and a half of your life becasue he didn't cop it from the beginning. The best example of this that I noticed from childhood, was "Boof", the best mate of Michael J Fox's character in Teen Wolf. That movie literally ticks all the boxes mentioned above. Hot best friend - check...Ignorant shit of a main character - check...Promising hot girl who turns out to be an unbelievable slag - check...

Loss of self-respect and respect for others as well as mankind in general upon seeing it - check...

Cyanide capsules at the ready in case you ever find yourself sitting through a similarly themed movie again... You better bulleeee that's a check!


Here's the Boof Effect in full swing

Comments on the Tube!

I remember logging onto youtube for the first time in 2005 and thinking "man, this is the future"...the concept alone blew me away, people could put videos on the internet and share them with the world at the click of a button. Now, it's important to acknowledge that the entire landscape of youtube was different back in those embryonic days...there was probably only a few hundred thousand videos on it at the time, and many of them were mainly just from people uploading entire episodes of programmes, or even feature films. Another important aspect in highlighting the differences between the youtube of yesteryear and it's modern counterpart is the fact that there was no 10 minute time limit on uploads.

If you were a casual internet surfer with an hour and a half to spare, you could simply head to youtube, not sign in to any account, and watch full movies to your heart's content. It was magical...But I genuinely didn't think that it would take off the way it did. In it's current form, youtube hosts billions of videos, and has many hundreds of millions of registered users, and with this being the case, a new "easy access" culture seems to have been created in which we can visit this website and be guaranteed a laugh, a story, or at the very least an illegal streaming of a television programme. Over the years, youtube has provided us with some of the funniest videos you'll probably ever see, created new celebrities, and pretty much granted any of us with a camera and a computer a forum for showcasing our talents.

But one thing that youtube has given us which is just worth so much more than any of these things, is the voice that it has granted to the "haters" of this world, who like nothing more than to place these non-constructive, spiteful, malicious and often times downright hilarious comments on strangers videos! I've often clicked onto a video and was far more entertained by the comments underneath than I was by the video itself! It once again goes to show you that people are bastards...funny bastards...but bastards all the same!

 Fridee, Fridee, Fridee!

This woeful song is one of the most "disliked" videos  that youtube has ever seen, yet it's also one of the most watched...so who exactly wins here? Rebecca Black quickly becomes one of the most despised people on the planet, but becomes rich as all hell in the process. The song is shit, the lyrics are shit...you better believe the video is shit...but the comments... ah the comments:-

"That would rip yer fucking knittin!!"

 "It's fried eggs fried eggs fried eggs!!!"

"LENNON, MOZART AND BEETHOVEN ARE STOOD UPRIGHT IN THEIR GRAVES AND APPLAUDING THIS, THE GREATEST SONG IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE!"


"this shit suck" - I especially love these one's where the person (most likely delusional from overexposure to this utter bollocks) just cannot be arsed putting their dislike into a proper sentence.


"Because of this song... I think I'll just start looking forward to Thursday."

"yesterday was thursday, today it is friday, tomorrow is saturday and sunday comes afterwards" - Lyrical Genius, Rebecca Black.

"I cannot believe 91,212 of you idiot's liked this. I hope it's worth it, because I am going to personally shit on each and every one of you!"


 Another great little habit of youtube comment leavers' these days is to make a comment directly related to the video, but in reference to the amount of dislikes the video has received! For example this video of a scene from Army Of Darkness is re-jigged into a very odd song which features the lyrics "alright you prmitive screwheads, listen up"


One of the highest rated comments underneath is "18 people are primitive screwheads" of course referring to the 18 people who chose to dislike the video...it's very topical and although there are much more witty (sometimes even hysterical) examples of it on other videos, it's definitely something to keep your eye out for...especially if it's an in-joke for fans of whatever the video may be. It really goes down a treat!

 Another very popular video is this clip of Justin Bieber making an arse out of himself on some New Zealand TV show. Yes it's priceless, and yes it's an epic fail...but the comments are so impossibly harsh...funny as all hell though!

"justin..a door is important for every house...true or false?
whats a door? we dont say that in america."

Go forth and watch as many videos as you can. all the while keeping an eye out for those comments that just may reduce you to tears with laughter!

People are Bastards!!!!!!

First of all, allow me to preface this by saying...if you are the dickless piece of shit that attempted to "egg" me through the window of a speeding car on the Ballymount road yesterday, I neither forgive you, nor will I tolerate this kind of bullshit henceforth. You sir/madam/sirs comprise a largely expanding group that us "normies" like to refer to as "the scum of the fucking earth"! And, as the scum of the earth, I understand that you probably feel there is some sort of obligation on you to act accordingly. There isn't. People can tell who you are and what you're about generally just by looking at you (the trackies tucked into the socks, or in the case of a woman, wearing your pyjamas out on the street is generally a dead give away), and as such do not need to see your resoume of fucking delinquancy put on display.

Maybe it's harsh to paint all those trackie wearing codgers with the same brush...obviously there are certain instances where tucking your trousers into your socks becomes acceptable (when people are riding a bike to work on a wet day for example), it doesn't make it any less ridiculous to look at though. But that's just a pet peeve of mine. I can generally forgive that ridiculous sense of "style" so long as it's not accompanied by behaviour that would generally be regarded as "ill-fitting" for any fully functioning person. You know the type of behaviour...walking with some kind of a slouch or hunch, generally weaving from left to right while walking the street, either deliberately in order to disrupt the walking pattern of those who prefer the "as the crow flies" route, or unintentionally as a result of the severe intoxication they are experiencing, spitting every few yards is commonplace, and if you were unsure about the person's scumbag tendencies (because obviously some of them only display two out of the four aforementioned characteristics), just listen to the voice when they encounter someone that they recognise on the street.

The ultimate dead giveaway for these unsavoury characters is if they start a sentence with one of the two following words, the first being "story", but not pronounced that way...it sounds something more along the lines of "Staaaarrrrryyyy?!?" and I believe it is an abbreviation of "what's the story?" The second of course being "fuckin'"... now I know part of being Irish means that when you stall to think of what you're going to say next you generally might throw in the odd "fuckin'" just to break what would otherwise have been a prolonged silence...but there is no logistical reason for beginning a sentence, let alone a conversation with the word..."fuckiiiinnnnn'". If you begin a sentence with that word, there's no hope for you as a person. If you see someone you know, and the first word you think of is anything other than "Hello", or some derivative of it, then you're a Grade - A no-hoper!

Now, onto this egg throwing business! That was the first time that I've ever been even vaguely grazed by a projectile egg, although I've seen it occur far more often than I'd like to admit. It seems to be the staple of juvenile delinquancy in this country. I'm sure most of us have either seen some poor bastard nailed with an egg from a passing car once or twice in our time, if not expereinced it ourselves. Now, generally laughing at someone else's misfortune can be comforting and therapeutic (that's probably why show's like "You've Been Framed" are so damn popular), but when it's an egg out of a car, I don't know about you, but the fact that the poor bastard's clothes are generally destroyed, coupled with the fact that the little shit who threw it is either some unemployed, worthless piece of shit, who probably spent his last 70c on the box of eggs, or a 17 year old dipshit who needs his nose broken, and the wheels ripped off his car, really brings my piss to a boil. Either way, there's no doubt that the people involved need their ass handed to them.

This country is sinking into a slump, and something needs to be done about it. We've all heard those lists about the most dangerous places to live in the world, and Ireland never really even ranked close to the top of the list. But in the last few years I've known friends who were mugged, burgled, and just plain inconvenienced by the absolutle scum that seems to be ptrolling our streets these days, and it's at a point now where you can't even walk around a corner without encountering one or more of these unsavoury characters. I know people who've lived abroad, and I've even visited some of those "dodgy" places on the list of dodgy places. It seems to be generally understood, by the upstanding Irish citizens at least, that these places don't even come close to Ireland in terms of the scum you encounter on a daily basis!

Just some food for thought!

An Lá Tar Éis Lá Fhéile Pádraig

Its' magnificent, isn't it? Celebrating a holiday that we all know in our hearts shouldn't really be a "holiday" in the true sense of the word. It's vintage Irish to shut down the banks and schools for a day at the drop of a hat really, and why would St.Patrick's Day be any exception? In the midst of the worst economic depression the country has ever seen, certainly since the emergence of Éire as a free state at least, it is nice to have something, anything to cling onto to remind people of that sense of patriotism and pride that they used to take in their country 365 days a year. It's easy to see why people wouldn't exactly feel "proud" of being Irish as of late, what with the banking crisis, the IMF bailout, and the fact that the country has now surpassed a 17% unemployment rate!

But yet, amidst all the buttfuckery and the bullshit that people have been forced to endure in this increasingly disappointing country, that one day of the year, March 17th reminds people that Ireland used to be known for something else, something far greater and far more respectable than being regarded worldwide as economic clowns and failures. We used to be drinkers...and not just any drinkers...Dammit we were the best! It's nice to be the best at something, no matter how ridiculous it may seem to those unfortunate people on the outside looking in! Because when you're the best at something, everybody wants a piece of your shit! And that phrase has never rung more true than it does when applied to St. Patricks Day! The festivities are celebrated in various countries around the globe, where everyone likes to think that they can step up to the plate and be Irish for a day! It's like there's about 4 billion people out there collectively saying "Hey Ireland, look...we can drink like we don't give a shit too!"

Of course we laugh at this and say "That's all well and good one day out of the year you posers, but we're rockin' that lifestyle 365 motha f**ka's...and you wouldn't last five minutes in our world!"

This is evident the very day after St.Patrick's Day...March 18th...the day that the world share's a collective hangover, spends a few hours hating themselves, hating Guinness, and hating us Irish in particular for existing in the first place...Fortunately all of that subsides with plenty of time to spare before the next Paddy's Day roll's around, in which case history repeats itself, and we universally fall off the wagon all over again.

I think something else that needs to be acknowledged is the hangover that Dublin experiences after the event every year, and I'm not talking about the natives...I'm referring to the physical place itself. The streets are strewn with the remains of what were once beautiful green banners, balloons, streamers and flags which are now mashed into the ground along with a dastardly concotion of piss, shit, vomit and many other disgusting sights of that nature. The endless ocean of bodies and casualties that are sprawled out across every street must be enough to enduce a flashback for any Vietnam war vet who may be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder...Not a pretty sight. It's safe to say that on this one day, if on no other, the town looks just as wretched, if not more so than it's hungover inhabitants.

But the fact of the matter is, even though it's celebrating a man who banished snakes from an allegedly already snake-free environment, a man who (if he did banish these snakes) has cost us an annual celebration that sounds equally as enjoyable known as "whacking day", St.Patrick is about the only thing that is reminding Irish people, and the rest of the world, that for at least one day out of the year we should wear our tri-colours with pride and stick that middle finger up to the rest of the world and say" Fuck yeah, I'm Irish"...which is quite nice of him really when you think about it, considering he's Welsh!