MacDara@TypePad

QotD: A Little Something To Start With

What's your favorite appetizer to order at a restaurant?

This is far too open a question, as it all depends on the restaurant. But I will tell you this much: I won't be having the nachos at Spur again. (Far too much food! No room for dinner!)

Camera by David Cronenberg

Camera

QotD: Work It On Out

Do you have a regular workout routine?  What's your favorite form of exercise?

Ha! I don't exercise at all! Well, I do like walking, but I haven't had much time or motivation for that lately, much to my dismay.

I'm in good health, but Lord, am I unfit! And what's more, I have to go for a physical soon (for my life insurance policy) so I just know I'll get a stern lecture from the doctor about that.

QotD: The Real Deal

What fictional creature do you wish were real?

Simple answer: the esquilax.

A true story...

Yesterday at Eason's, on a whim, I bought a heavy metal magazine (this one) with my newspaper.

You know what the total was when the till jockey rang it up?

€6.66.

Not the worst band in the world

Worst Band in The World

The above video, featuring two of the three members of Behold... The Arctopus, is entitled 'Worst Band in The World', but I think that's being a tad unfair. I found it today after a blithely insulting reference to its supposed "awfulness" in last week's Observer Music Monthly. Sure, the song's got a terribly cliched title, and the dude on the left with the Warr guitar badly needs a haircut, and they would sound tons better (and tighter) with their drummer around to hold the time changes together. But 'awful' they are not. Some people just don't get technical jazz-metal...

QotD: Greatest Video Game Console

What's the greatest video game console on the market? Do you own it or is it on your wish list?

I'm TOTALLY getting a Nintendo Wii next year, finances allowing (sure, it's cheaper than an Xbox360, but when you count in games, peripherals, etc. it all adds up).

For now I'm making do with my DS Lite (which is the greatest handheld console ever conceived, hands down). And I'm thinking of getting a PlayStation 2 after Christmas, only because they're so cheap now, and it'll do double-duty as a DVD player.

QotD: World's Best Beer

What is the best beer on planet Earth? 
Submitted by Remmy Van Hornie.

Draught Guinness (or Extra Cold Draught) from a good old-man pub somewhere in Dublin. There can be no other answer.

(Note to my good friend who works for Diageo: any chance of a 'gift' for the free plug? Hint, hint.)

I don't really think of Guinness as beer, though; I hate the taste of beer, especially piss like Heineken and Budweiser. They taste like sucking on a two-by-four. Yuck.

QotD: My Musical Influence

Which friend or acquaintance most influenced your taste in music? 
Submitted by Rev Stan.

I can't say any one person did, because for the most part I discovered stuff on my own. It all started in the summer of '94, when I saw the video for Soundgarden's 'Black Hole Sun' on MTV:

Soundgarden - Black Hole Sun

Delving into their back catalogue led me to their first album, Ultramega OK, which was released on SST Records, and came with a little folded paper catalogue from the label, listing records by some of the most celebrated 'underground' artists in the canon -- from Black Flag to the Meat Puppets to Husker Du to Sonic Youth to Dinosaur Jr to the Minutemen, and many many more.

From that one little paper catalogue, seriously, you can pretty much trace your way to almost every existing branch of the musical tree. (I'm not kidding; name any genre and I can probably cite at least one SST artist who has a connection to it.) And that's what I've been doing for the past 11 years, more or less.

QotD: Past Five Working Years

How many jobs have you had in the past five years? Where and what did you do? 
Submitted by M.  

I've had three jobs in the last five years. I'm all about variety, me.

In 2002 I was a sometimes full-time, mostly part-time sales assistant in the 'rock and pop' section at the Irish flagship store of a certain major high-street music and DVD retailer. (Which would be pronounced in French as 'Ashemvay'. Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more.)

It wasn't the greatest job in the world to keep those misanthropic tendencies at bay (anyone who read by blog back around then will know what I mean about that) but I did learn a lot about music (and expanded my CD collection to near the 1,000-mark), brought a lot of my own knowledge to the table to help the occasional appreciative customer (hey, not all of us part-timers know nothing about the product!) and, I have to admit, the staff discount was pretty sweet, too.

After that, and following my Master's degree, I got my first 'proper' job, working part-time as a subeditor for an agency producing advertorial supplements for Independent Newspapers (of Sir Tony O'Reilly fame), as well as assistant editing an aborted men's lifestyle supplement project (which is pretty ironic, considering that to look at me, I'm clearly not the target audience for GQ).

I didn't make a lot of money, especially considering the amount of time I was expected to be 'on call', but the experience was still valuable -- and it did lead me to my current full-time gig, subediting and laying out pages for Metro Eireann, which I've been doing for almost a year now.

As for the next five years? Who knows...