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

I can’t be having this humidity #tweet

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“Boris is making a balls of it! Quick! Let’s have the queen do something weird with a sword!” #tweet

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Unearthed a nest of red ants in an old planter the garden, and watched as the ants diligently ferried the eggs to a safer place #tweet

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I share the exasperation of every tweet in this thread > @Sarklor #tweet

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Has any gaming media even reported on this? I know, E3 yadda yadda, but the all-round silence is pretty fishy, y’know? > @MacDara #tweet

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Door-to-door alarm sales millennial asks “Did I wake you?” judging my choice of pyjamas as loungewear. Well excuuuuuse me! #tweet

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There was a solar eclipse this morning and NO ONE TOLD ME??!! #tweet

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So, has Steam said a peep yet about what appears to be a chargeback bug that’s restricted (at least) hundreds of genuine user accounts? #tweet

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Just watched Shingo/Okada and now I care about New Japan again #tweet

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Back from a flying visit to Newry. You could tell who else was over the border to shop as they couldn’t be arsed social distancing #tweet

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Kimchi ramen with broccoli, spring onion and a dash of Chinkiang vinegar? That works for me #tweet

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Still rankling at the notion of any crowds (pandemic, yeah?) but that was some real fashy stuff that went down in Dublin last night #tweet

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A new Palm album would be great right about now. Whatever happened to them, anyway? #tweet

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Four hours to download a 25MB RealVideo file of Sleater-Kinney’s ‘You’re No Rock N Roll Fun’ > @Sosowski #tweet

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Got a box of instant matcha latte in yesterday’s post and is it too soon to put in another order? #tweet

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Literally just a screengrab from Google Maps and I get more likes than I’ve had on anything for a while > @MacDara #tweet

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Buddy Murphy was “not in the creative forecast” for WWE, apparently. I can see him going to AEW and becoming a big feckin’ deal #tweet

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Bee got me the Squid double LP for my birthday. I can’t get over that band name, but the music is brilliant > @MacDara #tweet

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Really enjoyed Double or Nothing. There are things I would’ve done differently, but they delivered a thoroughly entertaining show #tweet

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Film review — Sputnik

This Russian sci-fi horror has a decent premise and appropriately bleak setting and all that, but the execution is half-baked, full of logic holes and worst of all terrifically dull. More…

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Film review — The Doors

This is not a knock on Val Kilmer or the rest of the cast, but two hours of Jim Morrison’s insufferable bullshit is just too much. Still, was nice to see Michael Wincott who is a gentleman and a scholar. More…

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Yeah, sorry not sorry, I’m not having this ‘don’t blame hundreds of people gathering in a small space in the middle of a pandemic’ BS #tweet

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It’s Friday, I got a heap of stuff in the post from Asia Market (kimchi ramen!) and I’ve got both My Bloody Valentine analogue remastered LPs. That’s a win for me > @MacDara #tweet

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I was hoping to find Sunwatchers in this selection and I wasn’t disappointed > @Bandcamp #tweet

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Was just at the shopping centre to pick up something essential and…yeah. Say hello to Lockdown 3 in a few weeks’ time #tweet

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Film review — No New Kinda Story: The Real Story of Tooth & Nail Records

DVD extra-standard hagiography of the pioneering US Christian rock label. I would have preferred a deeper examination of its place in the indie label environment and how it straddled the worlds of ‘Christian music’ (as a distinctly US phenomenon) and ‘secular’ rock, punk, hardcore, etc. That it doesn’t even bother to explain what the Cornerstone festival was shows the level we’re at here. I know more now than I did before, sure, but there’s another film to be made here. More…

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Film review — Piercing

You can’t just slap on the themes from Tenebre and Profondo Rosso like it’s the seasoning that makes your dish. Maybe work on the ingredients and their preparation first. More…

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Aaaaand Juno emails in the small hours that the MBV reissues are in stock so of course they’re sold out now > @MacDara #tweet

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I don’t remember ever getting hay fever when I was younger; I always had bad sinuses. But the pollen count’s literally gone to my head, ugh #tweet

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Just accidentally discovered a bumblebee nest in the back garden. Apparently they’re quite rare to find! #tweet

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Got the double LP of Sons of Kemet’s Black to the Future in today’s post. I was worried as it’s major-label vinyl but it sounds pristine #tweet

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Film review — Zappa

It’s clearly made by someone (noted Blind Idiot God fan Alex Winter) with a passion for the work. But the presentation seems overly drab and stuffy for a musician whose music has such a zany reputation. Maybe that’s a problem of being too close to the thing, to feel like treating it in anything but the most reverent manner would be too frivolous or inappropriate when the opposite is more likely the case. More…

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Just got confirmation that Jawbox’s London show’s been bumped to June next year > @MacDara #tweet

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Film review — The Net

Finally saw the whole thing after half-watching from midway through on Channel 4 one weekday afternoon a million years ago. It’s actually a decent story as these things go, but hangs on a hook so preposterous that it could only have allowed suspension of disbelief if it were set years ahead of right now, let alone 1995. More…

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It’s six whole months since the launch of the Xbox Series X but you still can’t buy one retail in Europe #tweet

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Found a woodlouse spider in the bathroom last night. I don’t think I’ve even seen one in the garden before, let alone the house #tweet

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Film review — Billy Liar

My 1,500th film logged on Letterboxd, and perhaps not the wisest choice for Sunday night viewing. I feel alienated somewhat from the small-town ennui as Bradford is hardly a small town; I’ve been to smaller places than that in England’s Midlands and there’s a distinctly more connected-to-the-outside-world feel than what you’d often find here in Ireland, even nearly 60 years after this was made. But the world is what you make of it, I suppose. More…

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