Thing 13 Bake a Cake

It's cake. And I made it. This is more difficult than I thought it would be. Pixie Head makes awesome cake. Token Northy's mam makes another awesome cake. So does my ma. I've never baked anything. I'm handy around the kitchen when it comes to lunch, dinner and the occasional fry-up breakfast. But I don't bake... Never have, and never considered that I would.

It starts with a hunt for recipes. And in the middle of the game, Pony Boy gets to lick a wooden spoon. Here's a photo:
Seriously, I trawled the 'net for recipes. I needed some serious help. I wouldn't even know where to start. Most of them had stuff like "nutmeg", "ginger", "half-crushed almonds" and other junk that I don't remember and couldn't pronounce if I tried. Chicken and leek stroganoff I can cook - chocolate cake is a complete mystery. Lasagne, roast stuffed pork steak, potato gratin: no sweat. Chocolate cake: What??

I also made an outstanding mess. The kind of mess than only a rank amateur could make. Butter everywhere. Flour covering me, most of which Pony Boy fired at me for the laugh. Chocolate junk covering more crap than I actually used. Total amount of mess made: Three pots. Two dishes, Five spoons, a fork, three glasses, one counter top, one hob, and most of the sink. Amateurs make this kind of mess.

And the result: Pretty mediocre stuff. It was okay, not great. Like cofftea actually. Except not as weird. It's just basic chocolate cake. Seriously - all that mess, for mediocre cake. It wasn't even moist, or at least only kind of moist. Which is in itself a pretty odd word. And having had Token Northy and Pony Boy tuck in as well, we've still got a half a mediocre cake. What does one do with a mediocre cake? You can't give it to visitors - that's pretty crap. "Hey, welcome to my house, I'm so glad you came, here have some mediocre cake". It's like saying you're glad someone visited, but not that glad, and get out now, leave immediately. Why not just stick two fingers up at your guest when they walk in the door...

I'm putting it down to inexperience, next time I'll bake cake that says; you're welcome to my house, and I'm glad you're here. Leave within the next fifteen minutes to half an hour. I'm building up to cake that says; If you leave I'll cry. Though it's going to taste phenomenal, I feel it could come off as a little clingy...

To add insult to injury, because we ate it, I can't have it smashed in my face tomorrow, which was the plan for tomorrow's Thing. You can't really whack a guy in the face with half a mediocre cake. That's all kinds of wrong. Even a guy with flour on his face...

Thing 12 Make and Drink CoffTea

First of all, I know this is a cop out - it's a short, easy Thing, but these ones are kind of necessary, since I've a job with all the shift work that goes with it. Didn't get home till after half nine tonight, so I needed an nice easy one to get me done.

Secondly, that picture up there? It's hardly the match made in heaven is it?

I'd like to officially blame The Simpsons. They've been mashing some lovely things together for ages: Skittle-brau; the beer with Skittles floating in it. Nuts and Gum; together at last. And who'll ever forget The Pacemaker: One pound of rich creamery butter, wrapped in bacon and covered in chocolate... So, we started thinking of other combinations of things that might make a good match... Cheese and Peas... they rhyme and a like them both (not marrowfat peas though, they're manky). Orange juice and drinking chocolate? Terry's chocolate orange is good right? Coffee and tea then? Oh dear...

See what we did there? One's got a cough and the other's got a "T". It's genius.... We're hilarious.

Token Northy loves tea. I know all Irish people like tea, but Token Northy is properly obsessed, and has passed it on. Since he moved into the gaff, Pony Boy, Thorny Wire and I have been drinking tea to beat the band.

My passion is coffee. I'm obsessed with it. I spend money on coffee every day of the week. I drink it on my night shifts in piles. I have a coffee flask which I take in the car for emergency coffees. I practically live in the Old Quarter downing coffees for fun. I think they're probably sick of me at this rate...

So mix it with tea, and how do we feel?

Meh. It's okay. It's not bad. It's not great. All in all a bit of a let down. If it was awful, at least I'd be thinking of it as a lesson learned. If it was amazing, I'd tell the world how fantastic it is that I, little old me, could invent a drink.

Instead I got nothing. Can't wait for the day that I try putting brown sauce in my tea... it wont be my invention but at least I'll finally know...

P.S. Thanks Dr Zombie for the suggestion on the titles... it shall be so.

Here's a picture of me and Pony Boy for no reason...

Thing 11 Down a Pint of Guinness

I'm fond of my Guinness. Proper fond of it. It's my beverage of choice on a night on the town. It goes well with soccer, rugby, snooker, darts, friends, people you can barely tolerate and complete strangers. It's nice on St Patrick's Day, New Year's Day, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and every other day. I didn't always like it mind, there was a time when cider was the thing, the big thing, but I learned to love the Guinness, and ever since that day, it's been a marriage made in heaven.

Like all good Guinness drinkers, I've also developed a snobbishness for the drink. I don't want the first pint of a keg. I don't want a pin with a bad head. I want my pint to last. I want to see a ring of Guinness head to run from the top of the pint all the way to the very bottom of my glass.

It's a drink to be savoured. To be enjoyed and not rushed.... It's not to be swamped down in one. That's why I've never done it. I've never swamped a pint of Guinness.

Until tonight... Here's a photo of me ruining a pint...

So, it's been done. But why waste the opportunity to waste a good pint of Guinness, when you can knock a bit of craic out of it, and make a game of it to boot...

The Canuck started the game. Pint disappeared from full to nothing in 7.9 seconds. We know this because Token Northy timed it. On a stop watch.

Then I drank mine, but more on that later. Token Northy polished his off in 9.6 seconds. Big Bar and Not Northy dank in 10.4 and a stunning 7.3 seconds respectively. I finished mine in 10.5 seconds... Dead last.

It's not right. I drink Guinness for fun. Surely I shouldn't be dead last. But last I was...

It's a bitter pill to swallow. The Canuck loved it though... His parting words:
"Don't worry Dan, just because you completely failed doesn't mean you're a complete failure... yet". Nice right?

Thing 10 Attend a Drag Show

That's my new bit on the side there in the photo.... Hottie eh?

I know I'm late getting this one up, and for that, I humbly apologise. Not too humbly though. It's not really how I go. So anywho, into double figures and this is yesterday's Thing. I'll blog on today's Thing later on, and then we'll be up to speed... Forgive me? Please...?

So Dr Frasier knows Dublin. He knows where to go to see the sights. The thing is, there are sights, and then there are sights. You know what I mean? Dr Frasier has a familiarity with both. So the plan was to Attend a Drag Show, and the venue of choice was a quaint little establishment called Panti Bar. But in typical fashion, I was late leaving the gaff - drink may have been involved. Lots of drink may have been involved. So when we hit the town, Panti Bar was closed...

No biggie, I'll do something else from The Project and we'll just continue having our fun for now. So we popped into the long established George Bar.

Lo and behold...

Drag Show in progress. Jammy eh? There was no plan to it, and I had totally written it off, but we walked bang into a Drag Show.

So there I was, propping up the bar, minding my own business when the looker in the photo up there popped over to say hello. I really, genuinely thought it was a woman. Cue awkward conversation; I wanted to tell him/her that he/she had put on a good show. I also wanted to make it clear that I wasn't looking for a score, because in my head gay bars are full of promiscuity (and straight bars are so prudish right?). But these things are different to get across without looking like an ass, and all the time trying hard to use the correct gender term. What is the correct gender term?Still she was sound out, and we actually had a good laugh.

Apparently there's a fine art and nuances to drag shows that are missed by plebs like me. I guess it's a straight thing - hard enough to pick up on all the small things (pardon the pun), if you're trying to make it look like you're not uncomfortable as hell... It's a much maligned art. For more info, see Priscilla Queen of the Desert, a thoroughly awesome movie with Hugo Weaving (yep, the Lord of the Elves of Middle Earth, and the bad-ass Agent Smith from the Matrix dressed in drag).

Still, it was a quality night. Good wholesome cross-dressing fun, a pile of drink and I even got a little kiss from my new friend before I hit the road for home.

For fun, here's a photo of me and Dr Frasier after alot of drink....

Thing 9 See the Book of Kells

Did you know that the Irish saved civilization? Or at least that's what they tell me... Basically, as books were burned across Europe and Vikings plundered for all they were worth (they were awesome at that), copies of religious texts and histories were being lost left right and centre. Irish monks were copying and transcribing goodo (and they were awesome at that - which is pretty crap compared to being awesome at plundering).

Among the fine works completed by the Celtic monks was the Book of Kells.

It's described in the Annals of Ulster (stop giggling children), as being one of the most important pieces of lietature in Western Civilization around the time of 1200ad. Which is quite a feat. It remains to this day one of the finer representations of Irish culture. And it's also a complete miracle that it even survived - since the Vikings spent so much time sacking the shit out of Kells. Seriously. They torched that place dozens of times.

It's one of those things that everyone should see if they live in Ireland and have ever heard of Dublin (am I spelling it right? Dublin?). Sad thing is, it's one of the weird things I kept putting off over and over. I'll see it next time, I kept saying.

It's really breathtaking stuff. And I'm kind of ashamed that I didn't take the time to see it sooner.

On the list of other cool stuff that I've not seen in Ireland - Blarney Stone, Giant's Causeway, Newgrange, Longford... (scratch that last one...).

Tonight's fun and games includes a nice trip to Panti Bar with a good gang of Dubs, and will constitute tomorrow's Thing - Attend a Drag Show. Here's hoping it's as inspiring as today's trip...

P.S. Aud - I'll donate blood next week in Limerick. I got the not so subtle text message hint earlier on... :) Thanks though!!!

Thing 8 Picnic on a Roundabout

The great outdoors. You see it pretty much every day, in that short jog between your front door and you car, or between your gaff and the bus stop. It's hard to pay attention to it though, when you're trying to dodge raindrops, or avoiding getting soaked. It'd be great if we had just a few days of decent weather to spend in the sun....

Okay, look, I'd love to go out, but How I Met Your Mother is on, and then I've to blog, and then I want to watch Reeling In The Years, and of course there's probably some crap on Sky Movies that I'd be interested in half-watching while I shoot the breeze with Token Northy, Thorny Wire and Pony Boy. I'd love to see some sunshine, but as you can tell I'm highly busy.

Man, remember when we had those few days of sunshine? I wish I hadn't wasted those....

That's basically the inspiration behind this Thing. I always promised myself I wouldn't be one of those old pain-in-the-ass whiners who give out about the weather and then spend their good days vegging in front of the telly. It's not that I don't appreciate a good winge as much as the next bloke, I just hate the fact that we get about ten and a half days of decent weather in this country - let's not waste it. Plus, I always wanted to picnic on a roundabout...

This should have been done yesterday, but I was too lazy getting out of the leaba... not today, I say. Not today.

Originally me, The Frenchman and Token Northy were to picnic, but we ran into Big Red and Pixie Head who seemed like they'd like a bit of grub in the middle of a modern major thoroughfare, so it was five instead of three. I've always believed in the more-the-merrier.

It's an odd feeling picnicing on a roundabout. It's not like we picnic alot as a nation anyway, so it's normally a special treat. A treat typically reserved for the park, or a local green spot. As for roundabouts; we typically hate them. As well we should. No one in this country has a goddam clue how to maneouvre when it comes to the arcane magic of driving in a small circle around a piece of tarmac. It's like someone's asked us to recite the alphabet backwards - we could probably do it, but it takes time, so we'd rather just skip from Z to A and be done with the bits in between...

So picnics and roundabouts... Not a match made in heaven.... until you combine them.

I'd like to take some time to thank all the awesome drivers and passengers on the road today who craned their necks to look out the windows at us as we munched our grub. A special thanks to all of those who beeped appreciation for our outrageous flying in the face of convention...

I urge eveyone, in all seriousness - take advantege of the weather when it's not trying to drown us. Get out in the fresh air. Pack some grub. Pick up some friends - if you can't find those, I'll lend you Token Northy - he's a pain in the hole, and get outside.

Pick a park if you can, but if you can't a roundabout will do - motorists think it's hilarious. Trust me, I know.

P.S. How awesome is that top photo? It's the picnic reflection in my sunglasses... The Frenchman fairly rocks for that one...

Thing 7 Brush Teeth, Drink Orange Juice

Number of attempted Things today: 3
Number of completed Things today: 1

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Token Northy and Pony Boy for their unwavering support... Assholes.

Since I work shift-work full-time, and that includes night-shifts, I'm obliged to fit in The Project Things around my work hours. It's not easy. Time must be juggled, and as Wise One, Dr Frasier and Thorny Wire will tell you, I'm not the best at the old time management. Basically, I got out of bed way too late after today's night shift to have a picnic on a roundabout. Nobody to blame but myself. So we'll tackle that bad-boy tomorrow.

Then I decided that I'd Count to 2,000 as my Thing for today. I was passing number 23, when Token Northy started shouting random numbers for fun. Pony Boy jumped in on the action. As I passed number 78, Token Northy started counting three seconds behind me, and Pony Boy started counting backwards from the next highest decade up... I persevered valiantly. Refusing to be drawn in by their shenanigans. As I passed number 600, the house phone rang...

Pony Boy answered it, and I hear one side of a conversation:

"Ya, he's here, but he's counting t 2,000 and he cannot be disturbed... What? It's important? How important? He's counting like... Oh... It's an emergency? Ya sure, hang on... DAN!! Telephone, it's an emergency..."

I should have seen the mobile phone in his hand. He'd rung the housephone, answered, hung up on himself and proceeded to enter into a conversation entirely with himself. Duped. I stopped counting. And went to the phone. "Beep, beep beep, beep...."

So.... Options and time limited (I've nights again tonight). I opted for the Teeth Brushing and OJ Thing. It's used as a threat of torture in an Austin Powers' Movie. Earthworm Jim's evil identical twin brother loves it, because Jim hated it. And anyone who's made the mistake of brushing their teeth before their morning OJ will testify... it's revolting.

There's something about the collision of tastes. Orange and mint have no place together in this world. Orange and chocolate - match made in heaven. Mint and chocolate - divine. Orange and min - yeugh.

I dare you, if you've never done it before, try it out now...

Or tomorrow morning. Let me know how you get on.



So I did it, I brushed the crap out of my teeth and swamped back the bottle. I'm kind of glad I did it. It's out of the way. I'll tell you honestly that one was really hanging over my head. I've been not looking forward to it for some time... I imagine the Back Sack and Crack Wax will put it to shame... We'll see.



Here's hoping I wake up on time for tomorrow's picnic.


P.S. Here's a photo of Token Northy thinking he's cool. Just for fun.