RoryQ

generous man, but they're both great artists! are you going to Japan?!

Yep. For all the talk about how hard it is to book in with Shige, if you're prepared to actually go over there he seems to be willing to make time. I think he just gets several hundred timewasting e-mails a day and the stock response is that he's booked for years.

@RoryQ .... just keep sayin to yourself, "I've already booked Shige. I've already booked Shige. I've already booked Shige..."

Ah, actually it's a bit of a funny situation. My GF is booked in with Shige and I ended up booking in with Tomo. But yeah, I need to keep that to the forefront.

That or get a better-paid job....

This year I began with the intention of saving some money for a change. Last year was a write-off, I went overboard on a variety of things and pretty much spent everything I earned.

I know that I've got some expensive stuff coming up over the next couple of years and figured I better get my act together. I've got two days booked in at Yellow Blaze at the end of the year and I had decided that was going to my last big splurge for a while.

...Then I heard today that Ching and Yang from East Tattoo are going to be at White Dragon in Belfast for almost a full month and a half around the time of the London Tattoo Convention. I was like "shit, that's a great opportunity to bring my sleeve down on my right arm like I planned... It would probably only take 2 days. Great idea, right?".

No, it's a TERRIBLE IDEA!

Had to more or less take myself by the scruff of my neck and shake myself.

Yep, I think that sounds like the right approach. Some of the coolest trad style tattoos I've seen have been fillers / squeezed into unlikely places anyway...

I'm staying in Soho for three days later in the summer... Going to maybe try and get a walk-in in Frith St.

Making home-made baked beans again.

This is supposed to serve about 8.

1. Sliced onions (3) and smoked paprika (1 heaped tsp) in oil in a pan - soften 'em up.

2. Add cannelini beans (6 tins, but to be honest I've used less without a problem). On this occassion I used 2 tins of black beans and the rest as suggested. Juices from the tins too... Then 2 tins of chopped tomato. 3-4 bay leaves too.

3. If you've got dried chillis then you can add them now, having soaked 'em in boiled water to loosen them up. Failing that, I used a chipotle hot sauce. Also add salt and pepper.

4. Bring to a simmer and let it cook, having stirred it well, for 1.5 hours. Tricky to let it cook this long without mashing the shit out of the beans when you stir it from time to time. Some of 'em inevitably split on me too.

5. Meanwhile, phase two: 4 slices of bacon, 125g of cheese and about 200g of breadcrumbs in a blender... Whizz them up and then when you're done with the beans this breadcrumb/bacon/cheese mixture is spread on top.

6. Pop the whole lot in an oven until the top is golden brown and crispy and the bacon is cooked and that's it.

It's a modified Jamie Oliver recipe. He may cry a lot on T.V but his recipes are sound, IMO.

I'm doing my right leg traditional style. My left leg is taken up more or less completely by a single piece - a Japanese style dragon. For the right leg I really want to add to it bit by bit, and there are a bunch of traditional style tattooists that I'd like to try and get pieces from ... Chad K., Ross Nagle, Steve Byrne, Xam, maybe someone from Frith St... Thinking of places like Smith St., Spider Murphys and so on down the line too.

So by definition it'd have to be piece by piece rather than planned that accurately. The only thing I'm thinking of is ramifications for particular places and sizes of pieces etc. I don't want to 'cut off' spaces and make sure I'm making the best use of what's there.

So far I've done the front of my quad and my foot. Doing my knee in July. After that I'm not sure how to tackle the lower leg i.e whether to do a big piece on the front of the sin and a big piece on the calif / back ... Or to really just let it happen higgledy-piggledy.

Wow, that's a pretty good deal.

Got a Brekkle's Brown (Anchor), 2 Liberty Ales and 2 Anchor Steam in the fridge. Unfortunately I'm also working Saturday and Sunday morning so it's unlikely I'll drink 'em (all).

The English wiki is a lot different than the finnish. In the english ROA they only speak about military, but in the finnish one also about police. And the police holds the trainings for people who want to teach the "Special forcible means" :) That is the term from finnish police website. I guess they just directly translated from finnish to english :P

So, I have no idea what the correct term is!

Use of force / defensive tactics, I wonder?

Staying with the Anchor brewing theme, had a Bock last night. Got one of their brown ales on standby.

I'm not a vegetarian or vegan, but I always thought it was kind of neat that at least there are still supplement options out there- pea, soy, hemp etc.

Vegan Protein | Soy Protein Isolate | Pea Protein Isolate | Organic Hemp Protein | Brown Rice Protein | Myprotein.com

Assuming regular whey protein is out.

One thing: The guy who played Josh from the 'West Wing' has a role. I like that guy as an actor, pity he doesn't feature more elsewhere.

Drinking a bottle of O'Hara's Irish Stout.

There's a plethora of great Irish stouts around at the moment... Dungarvan Black Rock Stout, Porterhouse plain, Porterhouse Oyster stout, Porterhouse Wrasslers XXXX, O'Hara's Lean Folainn and the plain old O'Hara's Irish stout I just mentioned. Mostly dry tasting, in the real Irish fashion, and all of them infinitley superior to Guinness.

I think, of all of them, the regular O'Hara's is my favourite session stout. Their Leann Folainn is a thicker, heavier brew, but the regular black bottle 'Irish stout' is a good one to look for. The brewing company behind these - O'Hara's / Carlow Brewing Company - stole a march on a lot of other Irish companies and started exporting abroad before they even had much of a market here in Ireland... That's worked out well for them apparently. Worth trying if you guys come across them.

@ShawnPorter

I just googled that review since you mentioned it. Amazing - it's like he didn't actually watch the movie, totally bizarre. He refers to a few things that I can't recall happening, and also seems to have completely misunderstood the whole plot ... There references to a 'game' and 'paying customers' / video game angle seems completely fabricated?

Very odd.

Saw 'Cabin in the woods' yesterday.

Echos of 'Buffy the vampire slayer', as you might expect from it being produced by Joss Whedon. I mean that in terms of the cast (a lot of regular Whedon actors getting roles) and some of the themes. Whedon is a big feminist, so you've got a subversion of the 'whores get punished, virgins might survive' staple of slasher movie lore. Actually a lot of the reviews and chatter about this movie have pushed the postmodern ironic critique angle of this movie, although to be honest I'm not sure that it's really strong enough to trundle along with all that baggage. This is a clever and fun movie, but I'm not sure it's really the groundbreaking incisive piece of work that some critics would like it to be. Didn't we do ironic reinvention years ago with 'Scream'?

I like it... If you're going to drink on the train, none of that generic crap they sell from the cart.... Gourmet all the way.

Dragonfly on my chest by Mo Coppoletta (The Family Business, London). Very simple, but I still like the way he did the wings.

Had a pork kassler steak (braised for 5 hours) for dinner... With carmelised apples, black pudding mashed potato and some saurkraut.

Having a Road Dog Porter now... 6%, interesting malt and hop balance. Not what I think of when I think porter, but it's good stuff. I paid the equivalent of $5-$6 for the 330ml bottle though.

Finally started using an aeropress, having ignored it (it was still in its box) in favour of my more expensive chemex and kalita wave drip filters.

Well, turns out it's easier to clean and to be honest I think I might prefer the coffee it makes.

The 'press' part is a kind of airtight seal that pushes the hot water down through the grains, and through the filter. I guess it's a sort of hybrid french press and espresso maker: There's a degree of pressure being put on the water/grains, and you end up with a kind of espresso... Not quite the real deal, but a sort of syrupy concentrate coffee that you can add water to. Sounds weird but it's really good.

This dude has a good method.

In summary: Aeropress = relatively cheap, portable/small, durable, mostly idiot proof and easier to clean than most brewing devices and makes good coffee. It's like the glock of the coffee brewing world.

Drinking a Liberty Ale ... One of the first to use cascade hops, if I'm not mistaken. Great stuff, although I think I prefer the Anchor Steam I had on Monday.

Going to follow it with a Dungarvan Brewing Company irish blonde ale. Very cloudy and there's a layer of sediment at the bottom of the bottle. Some of their brew runs can be hit-and-miss but it's a great product when it comes together.

Ah beer - truly liquid bread.

@dcostello

I had a glass of uigedail last night, oddly.

I actually just booked in today for Deluxe again in late June ... Knee piece...

Never knew Pioneer Tattoo existed, had fun browsing the site. Biedron's new school (if that's the right term) = pretty impressive stuff.

I had a really weird dream a few weeks ago where my girlfriend had gone on holiday, and when she came back, she was like "Hey, I got you this tattoo as a present" ... And somehow we were able to transplant the tattoo from her to me. I kind of vaguely remember it - I think it was some kind of Thomas Hooper blackwork on my belly. It had that magical realism touch where this surrogate tattoo gift didn't seem strange in the slightest.

A couple of times where I've been tattooed for long sessions and then been back in the following day I've had unsettled sleep with some dreams where I'm being tattooed endlessly or being jabbed with needles (once it was a guy with a syringe doing it, which I guess is my mind coming up with another way to say 'needle').

I didn't know that about Diageo, Gregor. Unfortunately they own a shitload of Irish distilleries as well. In fact, the very last Irish-owned distiller (Cooley Distillers) sold out to Jim Beam earlier this year / late last year. It's a shame.

I've had a few Taliskers, from 10 year old to (I think) 15 year old. All very nice - peaty but not as heavy-duty as most Islay offerings, as the man said.

I hear Ballantine's Finest is a pretty amazing blended whiskey... Jim Murray (Whiskey bible?) seems to consistently rate it highly.