Huge Obama Policy Announcement

Via icanhascheeseburger.

Soundtrack To Your Life

Ok, so this was doing the rounds a while ago, just a fun little timewaster. Stick your mp3 player on shuffle, and let it create the soundtrack to the movie of your life. Some odd results may be thrown up. If you want to try it out, a blank list is below the click for more, stick it in the comments or on your own blog, but let me know. Here we go,

Opening Credits:
Lemon Tree – Fools Garden. (Forgot I even had this song, good credits though)

Waking Up:
Mr. Brightside – The Killers (Going well so far)

First Day At School:
Heaven’s Wall – The Devlins (Has that Irish school feeling about it alright)

Falling in Love:
I Hope That I Don’t Fall In Love With You – Tom Waits (I am not joking here)

Breaking Up:
We Can Run Away Now They Are All Dead And Gone – Snow Patrol (Good thing Pam is a witness)

Prom:
Yr Manged Heart – Gossip(Guess I ain’t taking that break up too wel)

Life’s Okay:
Hey Mama – Kanye West (Haven’t ever heard this song before, but it fits-ish)

Mental Breakdown:
Lose You – Pete Yorn (Ha)

Driving:
Monster – The Automatic (Great song, apt name…)

Flashback:
Bridge Over Troubled Water – Johnny Cash (Great Song)

Getting Back Together:
Happiness – Jack L (I like this song, but its about breaking up. And I don’t know a Genevieve)

Wedding:
Boxing Champ – Kaiser Cheifs (A rather nice song, but for a wedding?)

Birth of a Child:
One Vision – Queen (Nice)

Final Battle:
Hello, Goodbye – The Beatles (iTunes is screwing me now)

Death Scene:
Fake Plastic Trees – Radiohead (Good save Jobs)

Funeral Song:
One Minute To Midnight – Justice (Tanfastic)

End Credits:
Limited Edition – Snow Patrol

All in all a decent list. But where did the wedding song, and my final battle come from. Still I got a good run with falling in love, breaking up and prom. And I really like my end credits song too. So it balances.

Getting My Goat

From Eoghan at Casa Casey-Courtney:

This meme is called Getting Your Goat and the rules are simple;

1. List two things that irritate you for a reason, which you should give, and two things that irritate you for no good reason,
2. Give credit to the person who tagged you,
3. Link your answers to the original blog - http://casacaseycourtney.wordpress.com,
4. Tag four new people to participate.

Eoghan’s dslike of Irish Rail is one I share, and have mentioned previouly here, and I aso find the drink legislation worrysome, but I don’t so much notice the grasping world, or Sports Commentators. As for driving and skinny jeans, meh, I have no strong feelings, but Casey makes some good points.

So, lets try this out:

For Reason

Repeats on Dave

Why have a channel which has my favourite programmes on it, only to have it constantly running repeats. I don’t mean the idea of repeats in themselves, but why oh why do they show the same episode of Top Gear in ten different time sots over a day. Dave, sort it out.

Repets in general are fine, but the Sky News/Dave/Living practice of making 40 mins of programming and stretching that out to fill a schedule are a little funking mental to be honest.

Young Baltic Fleeto Gang (Or gangs in general)

Unknown to me until earlier today, this gang have taken a Glasvegas song, Stabbed, about being set upon by the gang on a night, and having to run for your life, and put i on their bebo page as an anthem. Leave them rude messages here: Young Baltic Fleeto

Why do small groups of young people, or older people have to act in such an antisocial way? Surely they have the ability to achieve even the smallest positive thing in their lives, and not have to rely on this kind of action to justfy their pathetic existence. I’m a big guy, over 6 foot tall, and almost as wide, but late in the evening, when confronted by a gang of 4 foot pipsqueaks, I turn down the iPod volume, draw up to full height and get ready to bolt.

For No Reason

Fergus Findlay

Just saw him on Questions and Answers, and he annoys me for no reason. He couldn’t read Lisbon Treaty, didn’t find the consolidated treaty interesting or exciting, has that wired beard/monk-ish head on him. Everytime I see him, I get a little more angry at this man.

Theseseseseseseses

Yeah, I had the long summer to write 12,000 words for my thesis. Yeah, I bit off more than I could chew. Yeah, I am now banging it out. But its getting on my goat a bit at this stage.No more details, my external may find this site.

Right, there we go.

So who wants to take up the mantle? I do not know a huge number of bloggers, so anyone who happens upon this is free to take up the challenge, just follow the rules above, and link me back too.

Ireland In August

Given that tonight is the subject of a severe weather warning, I thought I’d share some photos from a recent late night trip to Newcastlewest. Pam and I left Dublin late on Thursday night, after she finished work, hoping to avoid the Bank Holiday Friday traffic. We arrived into Newcastlewest just as the river, the Arra, burst its banks. We had just driven into town when the water came up on the Kerry side of the town, and had figured out a way around back through Limerick side, when the town flooded there too.

Anyway, a few hours later, and a couple of pics, we were rescued by Pam’s uncle Garry, who brought us out recently dried back roads. So here’s some photos:

The Curse Of The Opening Ceremony?

Ok, so all the controversy of the singing child, who i believe has been offered a contract with Simon Cowell (joke) aside, as covered here by leesidestory, news reaches us from China that one of the dancers in the Silk Road section of the opening ceremony was paralyzed from the waist down in rehearsals for the show.

From her hospital bed Liu Yan said “I’m not going to feel sorry for myself. I fell at the Olympics, but I will be back to create beauty for the world in one way or another.”

Full story at the Chicago Tribune.

Medal Count

1.		China		27	12	6	45
2.		United States		16	16	20	52
3.		Germany		8	5	5	18

Over-reaction?

.5% of negative growth in one quarter of the year, with global financial markets as they are, and a long overdue correction in the housing market, and we are in the pits of a recession again? We will talk ourselves into one if the economic and political rhetoric keeps up. David McWilliams will soon have a new name for us, the Irish Neigh-Sayers, who talk about a recession, but still spend a fortune on the races at Galway and the Curragh. Or the Boom-Busters. Maybe even Wreckled-Landers.

I’m off to Shannon to catch a flying boat to Merika.

Cowen’s Downfall

This is amazing. Well done whoever is responsible. BTW NSFW captions.

Oh and yeah, I have been posting a lot lately…..

Dancing to save the planet?

Hot on the heels of the reported Eco-club in London, with the power needed to run the club generated by the dancefloor, an eco-pledge and free entry for those who walk or cycle, Glastonbury will have a pilot programme for kinetic phone chargers. About the size of a pack of cards, and weighing about the same as the phone itself, these magical boxes of magnets and levels and doohickeys will generate energy to recharge your failing Nokia, provided you are at Jay-Z, or the Beastie Boys, and not Damien Rice.

More info on the eco club here: Club4Climate

And kinetic chargers here: Via Pocket-Lint

Chooo Choooo

Trains are funny things. Having grown used to getting the poverty express to Dublin (i.e. the Citylink Bus) I found myself one Friday evening running late for a pressing engagement (seeing Pam). I had no option but to spend the GDP of a small African country to be transported by the wondrous Iron Horse.

The train presents a great opportunity for people spotting, and with a reduced likelihood of getting stabbed in the eye for looking at a fellow passenger sideways. So today I present to you dear reader,

THE GUIDE TO TRAIN PASSENGERS.

- The OAP
The OAP is a fixture on trains, and may as well be dispatched early on. Usually doddery (but sometimes fleet of foot and savvy) the OAP will barrage you with questions from the get go. ‘Is this the train to Killarney’ they will ask everyone the come across. And everyone will tell them that in a way it is, but in another way, well, it isn’t. You see the concept of changing trains perplexes the OAP, and when the little flashing signs on the doors, very avant garde, say Dublin Heuston they get flashbacks to the 1956 Railway Cup Final, and the Dub who stole their bottle of tae. Wasn’t all bad though, he left the sammidges. The OAP will extoll the virtues of train tea, but then again we all do, and fret constantly about missing the Mallow change.

Not to be messed with, they fiercely guard their seat, and tell stories of a time when Stevensons Rocket ran on the line to Fenit, and the fun they had for thrupence. Long maligned but train commuters and young people, I say we should embrace OAP’s. They are a pleasant distraction when all you have sitting before you is an essay on Law Reform, Malaysian harm reduction figures, and your iPod is dead. They might even buy you a second cup of cha.

- The Businessman
Again here the businessman, or more appropriately the businessperson, can be divided into two categories, the one who shows up exactly on time, strides onto the train, unfolds his FT and wafer thin laptop, connects up a HSDPA modem and conquers the Tokyo market silently, like a shark circling a gazelle in a scuba suit, and the other type, the ed faced, sprinting sweat ball, who pries the moving door open with his fingertips, uncrumples a business report form the Manorhamilton office, and shouts obscenities through his Blackberry to Michelle, his poor PA. The businessman has no time for the trolley, or poor Petra who is driving it today, mostly because she will not make him a soya extra hazelnut half foam triple caf expresso.

Avoid the businessman. It was only result in a feeling of misery as you get an earful of the abuse being fired back to the office, along with a faceful of spittle when he gets excited, or abject disillusionment as you realise you will never, ever make as much money as this guy, or be as cool as him.

- Housewives
It is a fact as old as time, and universally recognised that the second favourite form of transport for the Mammy (after the 96 Escort) is the train. Luxury at its finest, ‘Sure I can stretch out me legs if I get the pains in me varicose veins’, Mammy’s relish in the splendor of the 1300 hours service from Mallow to Portlaoise, where they are going to visit Declan, or Deco, the black sheep who went to college in LIT and ended up a drug dealer. She loves a slice of Finn McCool’s fruit cake does Mammy, although its not as good as her own, but she doesn’t trust the toilets, the ticket machine, or for that case, the doors and the platform, too much technology. On the journey Mammy is guaranteed to make at least two phone calls, one to her daughter who is collecting her from the train, to say she’s on her way, and one to the daughter who dropped her off, to tell her she made it on ok. These calls are never in the order you expect, nor are they necessarily at the time you would either.. My theory is that Mammy is simply testing her phone, to see if it works when she’s moving.

Mammy may also, at a random point in the journey, pull out her phone and call a friend, who’s house she just passed. She will also watch the road for cars she might know, and may even salute them out of habit. Mammy is not a great companion, as she has the phone mannerisms of the businessman coupled with the quiet but unceasing panic of the OAP.

- College Kids
Yes I have to admit it, student fares on trains rock. So much so that the Friday evening train from any major college town to well anywhere really is usually populated in the main by the youth. Stoned slacker kids, who talk about where they are going to buy weed now Deco is locked up again, sporty types who do wind-sprints along the aisles, Comm Babes talking loudly into phones about last night in Coppers, Feddies, CP’s, Trinity Rooms or any other nameless club and the guy they got a shift off, to friends at home, too stupid to be allowed do a FETAC course, but who live their lives through their college friend in return for doing their nails for free in May’s Beauty Parlour, the entire college existence can be found here. There are also any number of gig goers, drinking exchange students and nerdy types who extract a ring binder and pour over constitutional notes, or really hard sums for the duration.

Students are gems of travel. Constant reassurance means that even if they miss their stop or connection, they know they can ring Daddy, or Mammy if she’s back from Portlaoise, and they’ll drive from Charleville to Limerick to connect them. Sure they are loud and often times can be annoying, but their conversations are more interesting to earwig on than the businessman’s rants about that prick in accounts who won’t authorise the EER for the MPC that is needed for the Qualtrans order like yesterday.

So, adopt a student, or failing that an OAP. And for god sake, if you want to travel with your iPod in and your nose in a book, take the bus.