A Chocolate Tragedy

There is nothing more crushing to the human spirit than to take a bite of a chocolate bar thinking you have purchased a Drifter only to find, after your teeth have effortlessly and swiftly crunched right through it with a disappointing wafery snap, that you have indeed bought a Time-Out.

Drifters are the unsung heroes of the confectionery community. Ask any one who knows and they will tell of you of its immense power; the ability to hold the feeding ability of 10 regular bars, a rich, thick denseness that seems to break Newtonian physics as it packs untold layers of caramel and wafer into its chocolate vessel. Not for the faint of heart, or weak of teeth is its chewy innards. Having eaten only one, a mere mortal could wander long into the desert to ponder the soul without suffering a belly-ache for days on end. Truly it is the king of chocolate.

Time-Outs, on the other hand, are pathetic, limp-wristed excuses for chocolate bars. Weak, brittle and full of stale air they are the snack equivalent of Michael Bolton. So, you can imagine my disappointment when I bit into what I expected to be an epic battle between jaw-and-caramel to be greeted by the feeble munch that is the Time-Out. In all honesty it can’t really be described. The utter dashing of expectations, the instantaneous sting of failure.

I guess the lesson is one should read the packaging on items and not just try and stuff it into ones face as soon as possible without pause for breath. Or maybe, there is a grander lesson to be learned, about the transitory illusion that is life and the folly of constantly living in expectation of rewards to come in future, at the cost of enjoying the present moment.

Its probably the former, though.

The Wrestler

There seems to be an abundance of soon-to-be-modern-classic films coming out at the moment, each week there’s an another 5-star or Oscar nominated feature gracing our screens. I don’t know why this is, but we won’t complain. Last night I saw the rave-reviewed (that is, it has gotten good reviews, not reviewed by men on ecstasy) “The Wrestler”. It’s pretty darn good, but I’m not sure if its the masterpiece many are making it out to be. That’s OK of course, masterpieces are hard to come by, and “the Wrestler” is still a very good film. It is, as you may well know, built on the foundations of a stunning portrayal of the titular grappler by Mickey Rourke. He is every bit as good as people are saying, but I can’t help feeling that the fevered enthusiasm for his performance has built up the film to something it can’t live up to. In this way it reminded me of “There Will Be Blood”. In that film, Daniel Day-Lewis steals the show, but I left the cinema after seeing “Blood” thinking that if you removed Day-Lewis the rest of the film was just OK. Now, in “The Wrestler”’s case, I don’t think it is as extreme; Rourke is the centerpiece but around him is a very good film, just possibly not as good as he is.

I also think wrestling-fans or former-wrestling-fans might enjoy it that little bit more. I was an avid watcher of the squared-circle back in the day, only giving up when the WWF bought every other big wrestling promotion and thus had three hundred wrestlers involved in two thousand cross-over story lines. I couldn’t keep up. Imagine if Eastenders and Coronation Street merged and was set on the island from Lost. Too much. Anyhow, wrestling-fans will get alot out of this film, and especially those who have seen the classic documentary “Beyond the Mat”, from which Rourke’s character could have been directly lifted.

My enjoyment of “The Wrestler” was also increased by the fact that I saw the film in the company of late 80s heart-throbs New Kids On The Block, who sat two rows in front of us. One of them, (Mark Wahlberg’s brother i’m sure) did his utmost to let us all know he was there by bellowing at other members and constantly using his BlackBerry, safe in the knowledge he was surrounded by giant fat men with walkie talkies. I shouted something about “Hangin’ Tough” at them, just to give them a taste of traditional Irish hospitality.

Finally, if you want another perspective on the film, watch this clip and consider that your mind is Hulk Hogan, and Mickey Rourke’s acting is the Ultimate Warrior.

Jay-Z “My President is Black” (REMIX)

CHOOOOOOON!

“My president is black, in fact he’s half white
So even in a racist’s mind he’s half right
If you have a racist mind, you’ll be alright
My president is black, but his house is All White
Rosa Parks sat, so Martin Luther could walk
Martin Luther walked, so Barack Obama could run
Barack Obama ran so all the children could fly
So imma spread my wings, you can meet me in the sky
I already got my own clothes, already got my own shoes
I was hot before Barack, imagine what i’m gonna do?”

Listen/download here.

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS

Ruddy hell, someones only gone and nominated the humble Meatrack for an award at the Irish Blog Awards. We’ve made the nominations list, which isn’t the long list, nor is it the short list, but it is a list and appearing on lists is always good. It gently massages the ego. This year we are vying for the “Best Popculture Blog” gong. When I first read that I was kind of confused, then I quickly remembered that about 90% of my posts are indeed about shit what I seen on the telly and all, so I guess its fair enough. Like mankind at the end of times, we are set to be judged. As I did last year, I welcome the judging committee to my online manor and apologize for making you sift through the grammatical wreckage that is this blog. I am fully prepared however, to bribe you, and can offer you the coveted prize of a VHS cassette on which I have taped in LP format the Holy Trinity of ‘Caddyshack’, ‘Back to School’ and ‘Coming to America’, collected under the title “Best 80s Comedys”. It may require mild tracking for optimum viewing pleasure.

The awards take place on the 21st of February in Cork City, where drinking and LOL’ing are the order of the day.

Whilst I have your unwavering attention, I would also like to say that I haven’t checked my spam logs in an age and realised loads of legitimate comments had been zapped. Apologies. These missives have since been restored to their rightful place.

Finally, has anyone seen that bizarre advert for the Heineken Cup? You know the one where a TV crew are interviewing a groundsman  in a crumbling shell of a stadium, apparently in a dystopian post-apocalyptic future and the ghosts of dead Rugby players are running around. What the fuck is that about?

You can’t fucking win.

“Clearer skies over Europe as fog halved in 30 years” reports the Guardian. Good, yes? The article claims:

Scientists discover ‘massive decline’ in fog, mist and haze as air quality improves

Hooray! That’s what we want, yeah? Lower pollution. Air quality has improved!  That’s good isn’t it? But wait…it continues…

but it may accelerate global warming

FUUUUUCCCCKKKK that. I give up. I actually began to properly care about this shit. I believe it. I hate the sceptics, I really do. But fuck it. FUCK IT. The scientists can head off to Switzerland and come back and tell us what to do when they make their fucking minds up. Now clean air causes global warming. Balls. BALLS TO IT ALL. I’m getting rid of my green bin.

A Helicopter Based Story

A common way to mock the intelligence of people is to infer that they stop what they are doing and point and stare any time they see some kind of large or airborne vehicle. This interchangeably can be a combine harvester, the fair-ground coming to town or a blimp. Really any kind of large slightly-non-regularly-appearing vehicle will do. The insinuation is that these simpletons are baffled by the technology or that they lead such basic lives that the sight of such things is the highlight of their week.

Regardless I am proud to say that my family, despite having lived by the sea for all of our lives, will stop what ever it is we are doing and rush to the window every time we hear the thunderous drone of the search-and-rescue helicopter. Just last week we all literally dropped our cutlery during lunch and ran to the window to catch but a fleeting glimpse of its orange double-rotared glory. It is one of life’s simple pleasures to instantly stop doing what you are doing and strain your neck for a quick peak at a helicopter. It is our angelous.

After it passes we usually go back to what we are doing, but not before reminiscing about previous occasions when the search-and-rescue helicopter flew by our house. My favorite is the time bank-robbers, who had just robbed a local bank, were hiding out on our beach and the search-and-rescue helicopter was used to try and catch them.

True story.

Feel free to share your own helicopter-based stories.

On the nature of free-will and the ultimate question.

I have been thinking a lot lately about the nature of free-will. What is it? Do we have it? One man will tell you he does have it, that he is free to make his own destiny, untethered by creed, ideology or faith. Another man will argue that conditioning of our minds, whether by nature or society refutes this and that we only have the illusion of free-will, that we are ultimately slaves to a predetermined sub-conscious force and further more we are tricked into believing we are in control of destiny. The more we learn about human nature, the more we realise that a great deal of what we do and think is the result of our upbringing, our education, our environment and our biology. Retroactively we may notice that decisions we thought were made freely were in fact influenced by many number of external factors. This realisation can have a strange and possibly devastating effect on modern man. Are we free? Can we ever be free?

With these thoughts in my mind, I was browsing the internet this morning. I clicked onto the popular videohosting website YouTube to look at a video of Will Smith solving a Rubik’s cube on French television when something caught my eye.  Usually, like many people of my generation who like to avoid the complexities and responsibilities of everyday life in the ‘real world’ by hiding more or less constantly on the world wide web, I do not notice adverts online. My mind is quite adept and scanning over them and suitably ignoring them. Unless of course they are the particularly obnoxious kind which fire off siren sound effects or feature smiley faces shouting “say something!” like some kind of desperate husband trapped in a loveless marriage to an emotionally comatose wife. Then you are forced to notice them. This time however, I noticed the ad. At least I think it was an ad; I do not know what it was trying to sell, all that I can tell you is that one look at its devastating nature has shattered all my preconceptions of the nature of free-will and left me paralyzed trying to contemplate its meaning.

Socrates, where are you when we need you?

Cheers Lads!

I was just thinking, remember those white Chris-Martin-approved ‘Make Poverty History’ wristbands? Remember that whole ‘Make Poverty History’ campaign?

Holy fuck, did those guys miss the target or what?. No amount of rubber jewelry is gonna help this time around. A for effort though.

Slumdog Millionaire

Brian Cowen should take the last few remaining pennies left in the national piggy bank and pay for everyone in the country to go see “Slumdog Millionaire”. Then after seeing the delights that is the slums of Mumbai, any fucker who complains about the hardships in this country could have their eyes plopped out with a hot-spoon and then be dumped in an open sewer.

Also, for everyone else, the heartwarming tale would give us all some well needed joy. Its a damn good film. The Wrestler, Milk, et al, the ball is in your collective court.

Obama, hire Peter Schiff right now.

Via Damien. The man is a prophet.

Also, bonus LULZ everyone else on this clip telling Peter he was wrong.