Sodomize your way to Salvation

Every now and again, whilst surfing the internet, something will jump out at me as being worthy of sharing with my peers. This is the latest example.

Before I go on any further, I have to ask you to bear in mind that Google advertisements are based on the context of the page you’re looking at, or what you’re surfing for (try searching for ‘Playstation’ and see what comes up if you don’t trust me).

Recently, I’ve been listening to a band called Broken Social Scene, and when I heard a certain lyric, I had to look it up online to verify what I thought I was actually hearing.



Sure enough, my ears had not deceived me.

So far, nothing worth blogging, right? That’s until I scrolled down and noticed the following advertisement:



I don’t get it – what does sodomizing children and the Catholic Church have in co-... Oh right... Yeah. That.

The page it leads to is an absolute disaster, featuring an incomprehensible mish-mash of text and images. The page belongs to the
Most Holy Family Monastery, who are responsible for this somewhat disturbing book;



My mind boggles at pages like this. Before I had time to ponder why paid advertisements are pointing to such an amateurishly assembled web-page pushing a dogmatic religious agenda, I noticed that the page ends with this inspiring message:

Life is short and Hell is forever. So, make saving your soul and embracing and practicing the true Catholic Faith your number one priority.

Nutters.

Click here to see what I saw.

UPDATE:
Wow – completely missed the other few ads that were to the right of the page! Plenty of God Ads to go around!

Those Hard-to-Reach Places

It seems that October has shaped up to be a month of not-very blogworthy busywork for ol’ Sully here. In times like this, just for the sake of having something to blog about, I pilfer the Sully & Mega Productions back catalogue; a collection of videos we made between the ages of 15 and 17 or so.

I’m not quite sure how much back story I can offer about this one... At least, not without getting myself in trouble with an old friend. I do urge you to bear in mind that this tale, believe it or not, is based on a true story. Remarkably enough, the opening 20 seconds shows the actual moment of ‘inspiration’ that prompted the following 2 minutes of poorly-acted depravity!

Please to enjoy:

Teetotaller's Tiff - The Last Word?

The results are in!



A landslide victory for the pro-Fanta-Fuelled-Fury camp, it seems. Given that I exist only to do the bidding of my readers, I submitted the letter late last week to the editor, and it was published yesterday.

Now that the hype is over and the letter is in print, I feel as though I may have hyped this up a tad too much! That notwithstanding, I submit the following for your reading pleasure:

Sir,

Yet again I find myself writing to issue an apology to your publication. This time, however, I am throwing my hands up and saying sorry for my own actions. It was wrong of me to treat your newspaper like a college paper, rather than a kindergarten newsletter. It was wrong of me to consider your letters page a forum for critical thinkers expressing an alternate viewpoint. While I’m at it, hell – it was even wrong for me to assume that anyone who makes it to college can understand a Junior-Cert honours level of English.

This came to my attention through Cillian Burke’s warblings (which almost resemble a letter if you squint a little). Somebody needs to explain a few things to this guy. For one; when he was told ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’, nobody wanted him to reduce the standard of writing in An Focal, reuse the same ‘need one’ phrase ad nauseam until he tripped over it, and recycle not only one of my jokes, but also my opinions, for those who missed them the first time around.

As much as I’d love to point out the various instances where it seems he wrote his letter in French and translated it through Google, I’ll instead hammer home the fact that Mr Burke and I are pushing the same agenda. Not drinking is absolutely not a ‘quirk’, as insinuated by Catríona McGrattan in September 4th’s An Focal.

My letter was an attempt to entirely discredit Ms McGrattan’s writings, and illustrate through an ironic sense of humour that not all teetotallers share her viewpoint. I appreciated her effort to show the ‘alternate choice’, but no amount of pseudo-Tommy Tiernan endorsements will make a person think that non-drinkers are cool, especially when buried under so many holier-than-thou statements.

Mr Burke, thank you for making the teetotaller tiff a threesome, you’ve shown me the error of my ways. I do request, however, that before you storm off to wherever it is you go to belt out a vitriolic response in which you buttress my statements, you endeavour to ask your mommy a few more times ‘what does this word mean?’ Furthermore, there’s no need to get on a high horse about matters of erectile dysfunction – a fussy penis is not a cause for shame.

While I have your time, dear editor, I humbly request that you begin an investigation into how the Stables can justify charging €1 for 30ml of Mi Wadi and tapwater; your rather vocal teetotalling readers would be very much obliged.

Yours,

Seán O’Sullivan

There's a whole lot of restraint going on here, and I might have been a little too diplomatic towards the end. I am quite proud of that ‘translated in google’ line – I’m patenting it. You want to use it? $1.25 a pop.

Was this entry worth the two mouse-clicks it took you to vote it into existence? You tell me.

Seán O’Sullivan - “Ideal Renaissance Man for Today”?

Sick of reading about people who don’t take kindly to the man that is Sully? I’m not - but in case you’re some OCD type who can’t sleep at night until equilibrium is restored to the world, I’m pleased to link to a(nother) blog about me.

This artefact of creative writing is the academic obligation of Megan Dovell; a girl I took a class with during my study abroad tenure in Pittsburgh. It seems to have been constructed around a random comment I made one fateful day, fleshed out with details about me she only half-remembers:

Seán O'Sullivan is an Irish native who was a fellow classmate of mine from our Television and Video Production class. My opinion is he is a great representation of an ideal renaissance man for today. He has the tall, dark hair, handsome, and athletic features. But more importantly he is highly educated, cunning, charming, has manners, and respects women!

Yeah! Take that haters! I don’t want to undermine a fellow writer’s efforts, so I won’t allow modesty to interfere with this objective portrayal of something worth sharing! I will point out that she opens by talking about how much respect I have for women and then comparing it to my (alleged) detestation for men (we call that ‘misandry' folks - it’s your word of the day)!

Megan's Blog is called It's Not Me It's You, and the full text of what she said about me can be read here. Much like how (for a while) my blog viewed the States through bleary, unfamiliar eyes, hers is an attempt to portray the dirty foreigners who invariably show up in her life.

This made my afternoon when I was alerted to its existence... So don’t ruin it for me! Yet. Comments are much appreciated - you should know the drill by now. No registration necessary.

Teetotaller's Tiff – This Time, it’s Personal

I never know how to start off these ‘sequel posts’, but anyhow... Remember last week, when I told you about how I was contributing naughty words (among other things) to the school paper? It seems some young ragamuffin has seen fit to engage me in a battle of wits!

Without much more of this ado business, I’d like to welcome Mr Cillian Burke into the fray! Let’s see what insights he can lend us, while I talk over him through my mastery of the square bracket!

Sir,

I wish to refer to Mr Sean O Sullivan’s letter in the last edition of An Focal. I will not as per Mr O ‘Sullivan start off on a mindless attack on his letter published ‘apologising’ for the Ms Catríona McGrattan’s ‘Fanta Fuelled’ article on the 18th of September.

I will merely express my belief that Fanta Fuelled was Ms McGrattan’s effort to let any member of UL’s student body know that a choice exists on a night out. But to describe an article outlining a free choice available to all as being ‘ill-conceived evangelicism’ is completely over the top.

Why need one get on any high horse in relation to the drinking topic? [‘The drinking topic’ – sounds very taboo]There is nothing wrong with a drink on a night out. [Right you are] One may even over celebrate on occasion. Are we now living on a campus environment where it is wrong to express that one does or does not wish to drink? [Only if it’s condescending towards those on the other side] Need one feel self congratulated that a pint of Rock-Shandy costs €4.80 or that a pint of Guinness costs €3.90 I think not. ["Durr. Writing letters is hard... I know! I’ll throw in a random fact!"]

Why congratulate somebody for making a free choice?.. [My point exactly, jackass] Need it be an issue? [Did he even read my letter?] If it is...is there not a more pressing question to be asked… [Oh good, here comes a pressing question!] Mr O Sullivan obviously does not like being a non drinker so perhaps he should try a social beverage with his friends and loosen up. Maybe the fear of ‘waking up with a hangover after an embarrassing night of alcohol-induced-erectile-dysfunction’ as Mr O’Sullivan describes it is more his issue. [Where was that pressing question he promised?]

In the meantime need I feel special, quirky, ashamed, insulted or any other emotion offered by Mr O’Sullivan as a non drinker I think not!! [Two exclamation marks = classy. Someone explain to this fucktard that I lamented the labelling of not drinking as a ‘quirk’ before I insult his mother in a public forum.]

On my behalf no apology was or is required for Ms McGrattans article. [Read that last one again. It makes 0% sense!] Need one stand out from the crowd as a non drinker? Not in my experience.

Yours [retardedly],
Cillian Burke

Did you see that? He left out the accent [fada] on the ‘a’ in my name and didn’t put the apostrophe between ‘O’ and ‘Sullivan’ a couple of times. Bastard. Meanwhile Catríona’s fada is left intact… Strange indeed.

Nitpicky details aside – this jackass has essentially rewritten my letter, but tried to make it sound as though he is contradicting me the whole time! He even recycles my hilarious (if I say so myself) joke about erectile-dysfunction!

I was quite excited when I heard that there had been a reply, but imagine my crushing disappointment when I read this drivel. The scope of his thinly veiled imitation was so flattering that I felt no need to respond to him, and gave it no further thought. But then a curious thing happened...

This is quite hard to explain, but bear with me. I was taking a shower one morning in a groggy stupor, and all of a sudden the response that I should send to the paper popped into my head in its entirety. Before you could say “Sully, please finish cleaning your nether-regions” I found myself sitting in my underpants in front of my computer, channelling this message.

I have to say, the response that came forth is quite apt, but for now it sits on my harddrive. Is it right to impose the same issue upon the letters page for the fourth consecutive edition? My last correspondence was more of a public-service announcement. This is just me making some asshole my bitch (I like to think of the letters page as prison showers, and Burke just dropped the soap).

Y’know what? You tell me.

The poll to the right of the page is now live, and will be until the end of the week.

No registration is necessary, so no excuses! Get to it!

Update: Poll Closed - landslide victory for the "go git 'im, Champ" camp!