In this one I liveblog Northern Ireland

Oh hello,

I didn't see you there. As you lovely sinners all know, the Republic of Ireland is near and close to my heart. This is in part due to the fact that I am in it, but also due to the fact that Northern Ireland turned out to be a massive let down. Please join me as I and my faithful sidekick MT  as we tour around Northern Ireland. In italics are the accurate descriptions of the locations provided to us by the trusty guide "The AA best drives of Ireland" and our experiences which were recorded by my photographic memory. In this case the use of the word guide is about as reliable as my memory. That should not bode well for anyone. 

In this one I crack the code of ancient Irish

Sometimes, I shock myself. As the smarter of you lot might have figured out, I am in Ireland. The Emerald Isles are truly a gorgeous place. The vistas are truly awe-inspiring and, hell, the cliffs of Moher are alone worth a post. I am not going to write the post, because, well, I am lazy but I stand by my initial assessment that the place is phenomenal.

But since I can bitch about anything, I had a few questions to the ancient Irish. Why? Why did you put stone walls EVERYWHERE? I do not mean here and there. I mean everywhere. I mean look at Inishmaan on the Aran Islands. (Photo courtesy of Chris Hill at Pixdaus)

You see those lines, they are all walls. The entire island is full of them. Why? I was perplexed my little toucans. And then I put my 984 years worth of brain cells to work. With the processing power far exceeding the earliest computers, my brain told me "Mate, why do jersey cows look like that?" I promptly discarded it's answer as useless and turned my keen eye towards the country side. More walls, but hidden here and there were ruined keeps and castles. Abandoned towers and look out points (all made with more rocks) festooned the landscape. And then it hit me.

The ancient Irish, were great builders. Certainly the predecessors to Ikea, given their skill at assembling said buildings with rock and nothing but a rock (save a pickaxe which can be likened to an ancient allen key) they built these buildings and walls everywhere. The problem was that no one told them about the good spots to put said walls and buildings. I like to think of the ancient Irish as a band of enthusiastic nomadic DIYers going from village to village constructing castles and keeps. To thank people for food, or to warn other tribes of nomadic DIYers from entering villages or even specific houses they built these walls. These facts seem to fit my observation. Consequently, any further research in to this subject is pointless and not required.

As I said, sometimes I shock myself.... WITH BRILLIANCE.

Stay tuned as I live-blog MT and my experiences with sight seeing in Ireland.

In this one I steal ideas to start my own members exclusive club

My little Orcs and Goblins,

It is a well known fact that I am classy and stylish in every sense of the word. Why, once, I went undercover to study the homelessness situation in the Nomads of the Saharan deserts and even there, I was voted as the best dressed person. Granted, I was the only person who was dressed in a full tuxedo, but that is beside the point.

In this one I liveblog a cricket match from Lords

Starring in this live blog is Mr. KB and your lovely brown blogger. Come join us as we take you on an adventure through the mecca of cricket, Lords Cricket Ground.

These events are largely based upon factual events. (Sort of)

In this one I rock it in W8

Hello my lovely peasants,

As I type this, I am sitting in a lovely living room on top of a mansion block (also known as a penthouse, dah-ling) in the prestigious Kensington neighborhood of London. As my impoverished fans know that I am a down-to earth-person, who has his feet rooted to reality, so really this kind of top upmarket neighborhood does not really swell my head too much.

Now where is that goddamn butler with my badger infused macchiato that can only be served in a gold plated skull. Ugh, serfs.

So my little plebs, you might ask, how was your day, you handsome yet humble blogger? Well, children, day one in London was spent going to Brunch and then watching cricket. Brunch is an interesting experience in the motherland. In Toronto, where a certain handsome bald blogger lives, Brunch is a yuppie, fun experience to catch up with friends. However, Brunch in London is more of an upmarket dining experience. I had something called Prawn Omelette, with coriander, green chillies and Sambal sauce. Yea, kind of makes my badger infused macchiato sound normal now, huh?

KB just pointed out that my Badger infused macchiato joke is not funny. I took this to mean that the Butler could not prepare it, and consequently told him that he was fired. Bloody peasants.

Tomorrow, we actually go to Lords and hope to have cucumber sandwiches served to us on silver plated gold platters.

Toodles,

@damookman

In this one, London. I am in you. Again.

So here we are my lovely Gerdie-root hunters (I am on a Harry Potter kick, shut up). I have begun my travels again.  Armed with nothing but a general idea of where I will be waking up tomorrow morning, I have hit the road.... well first, I hit a person, then the millenium falcon and finally the road.

As I escape the monotony of running entire cities (added megalomania plus dictatorial aspirations to my list of mental health conditions), I find myself in my happy place. My happy place just happens to be London, England. Why this place? Well, as I type this, I am chilling in a cafe, where people are nice and friendly to me. In fact, to paraphrase a luminary of the 21st century, Homer Simpson, they call me sir, without adding the words "you are making a scene" right after it. It is warm but not too warm. Test cricket is being played live in this city and Tour De France is happening in the same timezone. Yup, this is my happy place. Also the cafe is a Starbucks because they have unlimited internets.

So how did I end up here you may ask, oh aspirational dementors?

A few aeons ago (it might have been last year, come to think of it) I went to the beautiful island of St. Lucia with my friend KB. KB, if you recall, is a man who is blissfully unaware of technology. Well, KB and his lovely wife V recently moved to London. Since they left me, I decided to follow them and impose myself throughly upon them. Consequently, they now have the good moderate some kind of fortune of hosting me for the next 8 days. During this time I hope to detail why, I am in love with this city. Stay tuned fellow Aurors.

Love,
@damookman

P.S A thought strikes me. I should not be insulting the person who is offerring me shelter. Right?

In this one I stand by helplessly

I am going to break the fourth wall today a bit. As many of you may or may not know, my Mother was diagnosed with Hogdkins lymphoma a few years back.  We went through the necessary treatments which included an open biopsy, a series of Chemotherapy and Radiation sessions. Eventually she went through complete remission and was declared healthy as a horse. While, normally, I object to my loved ones being referred to as farm animals or large bovines, I figured this was a good proclamation. The last few years she has been in tip-top shape. Thankfully.

A few months ago that old sinking feeling returned. They discovered new nodules in her neck. Thankfully, we are linked up with one of the best cancer treatment hospitals in the world. As I type this, she was just wheeled into an operation theatre where they intend on going inside of her in a tiny ship and extricating a nodule. Obviously, the tiny ship is a joke, but it feels better than saying that they are going to make an incision and extricate a lump from inside her.

Neither of us are overtly emotional people. In fact, most of @damookman's ex-partners have described him as cold and emotionless. She is strong and I am trying to be as logical as possible. To a great degree both of us have good coping mechanisms, mostly because worrying about an unknown never helps. This  system does break down though when faced with a particular road bump.

The wait

The wait feels like the worst part of this journey. You feel like yelling, screaming, snapping at things, people, objects and pretty much anything that crosses your path comes across as an obstruction to the answers that you need. The wait is like the Black Knight, it just refuses to move aside.

As she was wheeled into the theatre about 20 minutes ago, I stood there, helpless. Fully aware, that I should let the experts do their job, I stood there.... rooted to the spot.

Once this interminable wait is over, we will have to wait again for the results. Once again, Princess Margaret Hospital is amazing and they have treated us amazingly. Their turnaround time for things like this is spectacularly fast. But moments like this make you want to shake people just to make things go faster.

Still waiting @damookman

P.S. Humorous observations will commence in a short period of time. I just figured this was a journey of a different sort and wanted to talk about it a bit.