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

Development perhaps only interesting to me: I can once again play on-demand videos from NJPW World in Chrome #tweet

I have no strong feelings about the Eric Bischoff thing. Bruce Prichard will surely do a better job, politically at least. But I’m not interested in WWE’s panic-stations booking at the moment so whatever #tweet

I have what I feel is quite a noticeable facial twitch this week. Probably stress-related. If you’re not the cause, I’m not sneering at you #tweet

Those N-plate arseholes in the BMW who honked as they close-passed me on my bike, I hope their balls shrivelled when I overtook them around the corner literally a minute later #tweet

Serendipitous to find this in my timeline seeing as I was in the presence of a cask of this stuff yesterday afternoon > @MacDara #tweet

Another thing I did not expect to be doing this week: seeing this > @MacDara #image

Thing I did not expect to be doing this week: speaking Afrikaans at a café in Killorglin #tweet

Whenever I try to hate on David Gray, I remember that one of The Last was in his backing band for years and deservedly made bank #tweet

Took the Glider out to West Belfast this afternoon. It’s deadly, and the ticketing app is a doddle. No other public transport as easy to use on this island #tweet

Weaknotes for m/e 5 October 2019

So I let a month go by. That’s why I went with ‘weaknotes’, after all. Bullet points required here, I think — just the highlights, the most remarkable that I didn’t already tweet or blog. Here we go. More…

Film review — Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw

Where action movies often go wrong is not that they try to do too much — that’s pretty much what we expect — but that they never know where to end. Hobbs and Shaw is case in point. It’s poor enough that this squanders the chemistry The Rock and Jason Statham have undeniably displayed in previous Fast and the Furious outings; but a story that drags on past the point of caring, while rendering too many of its probably-cool-on-paper set-pieces as Michael Bay-seque screen noise, just isn’t forgivable. Sometimes, even for a bombastic action film, less is more. More…

Wasn’t expecting to like the new Exhumed but here we are #tweet

Film review — In the Tall Grass

I looked up the synopsis of the original story, written by Stephen King and his son Joe Hill, and it’s King by numbers. Haunted grass? Check. Man who’s manipulated into sublimating his shortcomings as a husband and father into psychotic rage? Check. Unsatisfyingly denouement? Oh, you’d better believe that’s a check. But in the hands of Vincenzo Natali, who’d previously never really fulfilled the promise of Cube all those years ago, the story is something else. It’s an adaptation that adds a mind-bending twist to the premise while foregrounding its themes of power, patriarchy and toxic masculinity, though it does tend to get a tad too obvious about those for its own good. More…

I won’t see SmackDown till tonight at least, but is WWE being racist again? > @MacDara #tweet

‘Noel Grealish breaks his silence…’ If that’s the headline, you can be pretty sure it’s not an apology #tweet

AEW on TNT review: good for a start; moved at a quick pace; matches too long; can we not rehab a Tr*mp supporter even if he’s supposed to be a heel, please? > @MacDara #tweet

No, you just got yourself up in the middle of the night to avoid getting sniped on a Jushin Thunder Liger action figure on eBay > @MacDara #tweet

I missed half of the Monday Night Wars because we didn’t have a satellite dish to watch Nitro on TNT Europe (or live in Maywood/Bettyglen which had their own community MMDS TV thing going on) > @MacDara #tweet

Just baked some tofu after thinking about doing it forever and a) it was really easy to do and b) it tastes pretty good. Will season it better next time #tweet

I’m afraid I’ve become one of those people who listens to King Crimson live albums #tweet

Tweetbot update hasn’t fixed the weird bug since iOS 13 where I can’t tap to put the cursor in the middle of a word to edit, etc #tweet

Boris Johnson, Shady SEO Master?

This kind of ‘reputation management’ is clearly awful but makes perfect sense, and reminds me of an article I read recently about what I believe was the US agricultural giant Cargill, and how it uses SEO tricks to keep its bad press buried on the web, but which I now cannot find (touché). #link

My anxiety is peaking this week #tweet

WWE repping USA Network in the new Raw branding like they haven’t done since the end of the Attitude Era #tweet

So I held on till the end and finished the fantasy baseball season in sixth place. One ahead of the commish! > @MacDara #tweet

Film review — In the Shadow of the Moon

‘Ambitious but flawed’ is a cliche, but it nevertheless applies to Jim Mickle’s follow-up to the hardcore Cold In July — a sci-fi mystery that holds its cards so close to its chest, I’d imagine it’ll lose many viewers before the reveal finally comes. Mickle’s previous was more successful at the bait-and-switch plotting move, and with its period depictions. There’s a jarring sense of not-quite-rightness here that ultimately distracts and detracts from the story. More…

Every dog in the neighbourhood has just gone berserk over the pipe band playing at the GAA club over the way #tweet

Film review — Wing Commander

OK so it’s bad. The plot is the epitome of derivative, the leads are poorly cast and directed, it looks decidedly ropey when its opts for CGI over practical effects. The aliens look pants and should’ve been scrapped. All of those things. But hear me out. More…

I am watching Wing Commander and five minutes in there are already two Star Trek connections > @MacDara #tweet

Another cow! It’s a bad week on Ireland’s railways. Also a metaphor for something, probably > @MacDara #tweet

Irish people getting up early to watch the rugby: now you know what it’s like being a fan of New Japan Pro-Wrestling #tweet

Who’s the ring announcer on this AWA SuperClash IV show? It sounds like Mike McGuirk but it can’t be #tweet

Lucky enough to hear the new Vastum album that’s out next month. It only underscores the fact it’s never not a good year for death metal #tweet

Ahem, Sybil (note only one 'l') Hill Road is in Raheny, not Clontarf > @IWCare #tweet

I’ve just seen the new Yahoo! logo. Why would you even bother after all these years? #tweet

NJPW moving New Year Dash out of Korakuen Hall is kind of like when the WWF stopped hosting Raw at the Mid-Hudson Civic Center #tweet

My MacBook Air’s battery needs replacing. Should I take it to the Apple Store in Belfast or CompuB in Dublin? #tweet

That bit when Greta Thunberg said “all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth”; I really felt that #tweet

My gig history: First concert - Avail/Bouncing Souls / Last concert - Catherine Sikora & Brian Chase / Next concert - DEAFKIDS / Best concert - Rush / Worst concert - GY!BE* / Seen the most - Mike Watt / Haven’t seen but want to - Dead Neanderthals > @MacDara #tweet

It could be last night’s computing stress, but I am not feeling well this morning, not at all #tweet

I want to play the goose game but I don’t want to sign up to the Epic store so I guess I’m not playing the goose game #tweet