Hello, world. I’m MacDara Conroy, and this is my blog.


Date: March 2018

There was no Shinsuke Nakamura Pop at the comic con this afternoon so I’m going to buy one on eBay #aside

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Lot of people looking up what ‘Streisand effect’ means this weekend #aside

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Wrapping up work for the week and a good job too as my brain is mush #aside

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Oops, I appear to have blown out my desktop speakers. Left one is attenuating softer, deeper-mixed sound. Drat and double drat #aside

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Opening Day is done, and now it’s time to rebalance my roster. Reader, I drafted too many fielders #aside

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Speaking of Vastum, co-lead Leila Abdul-Rauf has a new solo album out next month and it’s not at all death metal but it is very good indeed #aside

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To the #IBelieveHer hashtag trolls - you know who you are - I think the more pertinent question is, why don’t you believe her? #aside

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It’s no consolation for her harrowing ordeal, but #IBelieveHer and I hope she gets something out of what’s happening today #aside

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I didn’t always think before I tweeted. Sometimes I still don’t. But it’s a good rule to go by #aside

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That Irish Times headline buries the lede: the first paragraph says nearly half of Irish adults believe some races are superior to others #aside

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Justice can be a travesty sometimes #aside

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Why Is Anime Obsessed With Power Lines?

In case you were wondering — and yes, it’s the signifier/metaphor you might expect. Though it also fits with the not-necessarily-metaphorical groundedness of most contemporary anime (street scenes, convenience stores, vending machines, vehicles and public transport, etc). #link

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Google Maps’ Moat

This is incredible stuff. But I’m not the only one given pause by the scale of detail here, am I? #link

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D’Lo Brown vs Val Venis at SummerSlam ’98 is one of the all-time great opening matches. You know I’m right https://goo.gl/7fvvtL #aside

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It’s after 7.30pm and still daylight outside! You have no idea now happy that makes me #aside

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My fantasy baseball draft room opens in half an hour and I am nervous #aside

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A Defence Forces helicopter just landed on the GAA pitch across the way, as you do #aside

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Seriously, though, what was the story with the movie Jack and all those SST/Cruz Records T-shirts? #aside

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I don’t feel good about Daniel Bryan being cleared to wrestle; doesn’t sit right with me at all #aside

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My fantasy baseball draft is next Sunday at a relatively reasonable hour. And now the panic sets in… #aside

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More snow in the winter that never ends #aside

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The Fractured series may have come to a close, but John Mulvaney’s not done with his engaging profiles of bands in their creative milieu — this time across the Irish Sea with British doom metal crew Solstice. #video

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Ah, the Luas fiasco: what happens when you don't build flexibility or redundancy into the system #aside

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Terrible news about Filmbase. No room for creativity without the goal of financial profit in today’s Ireland #aside

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Here’s a thing about this sports funding controversy: it goes where the State thinks it’ll get the biggest return, not for the public good #aside

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Have to give the new Soderbergh a miss this morning with other things to be doing #aside

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Should’ve been the Chyna Memorial Battle Royal; someone people actually care about. Moolah is just a monster #aside

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Got on the bus and the radio was playing CCR’s ‘Green River’; now it’s ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’. What parallel universe have I slipped into?! #aside

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April Fool’s jokes only work on April Fool’s Day, if they work at all #aside

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‘Irish should be compulsory’ says the person who went to a Gaelscoil and developed a unique passion for it while also admitting it’s taught as a subject and not a language. Right… https://t.co/ghx8sCABqM #aside

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New Directions in Grindcore

My second feature for Bandcamp Daily and one I still can’t believe I was commissioned to write — but that is the point of the site, to surface and celebrate smaller genres and scenes, no matter how far from the mainstream they might be. (Also, the overlap with that other article on Belfast music was inadvertent.) #link

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Finally cracked a hard WordPress nut thanks to number_format_i18n #aside

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What Ever Happened To Brendan Fraser?

Turns out, he got old, then found a new direction. “It’s so cool to see leading men become great character actors later in their career,” says a producer quoted here; indeed it is, and Fraser comes across as such an intelligent, sensitive and likeable guy in this GQ profile, that I’m quite looking forward to watching him in Trust now. #link

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By Bee’s and my count, 40 separate and deliberate shots of the WrestleMania sign at #WWEFastlane tonight #aside

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