Tuesday, October 27, 2009

We begin our broadcast!!!

Well i've been in Dubai now for almost two and a half weeks now and this is my first post to date! Very poor standards!

Things are going well so far. I've acclimatised and settled in to some degree. I'm still trying to get my head around the size of some of the buildings and the sheer gaudiness of some of them, seeing how the tallest building I saw on a regular basis was Liberty Hall in Dublin which is far from impressive.

Its a bit of a strange place though. Its is what I expected in some ways, but not in others. I was aware of the immigrant workers and the poor conditions they work and live in and the complete contrast to the local Emiraties who only come out at night in their Ferraris. I wasn't aware of the ridiculous infrastructure in terms of road layout or the lack of a decent postal service. To get to my office, we have to drive past it, drive for another 10 minutes till you can hardly see it in the distance, then turn around, drive past it again, and find you're way through a glorified building site. It seems buildings are built first, then they figure out how to get people to it afterward. So you have monstrosities of office and apartment buildings, but no direct road or offramp to access them. It takes another year or so to get that in place.

Having said that, it is a nice enough place to live. I'm currently staying in the Marina which has proper footpaths, grocery stores, shops, restaurants, bars etc all in walking distance, as well as the beach. And if I do need to get somewhere outside of that area, there are a steady supply of taxis to solve that problem, for a small price. From that point of view its great. Eating out is cheap (5 main courses, 3 naan breds, 2 bowls of rice and 6 soft drinks for €19 in a nearby Pakistani restaurant) and groceries aren't that bad either. Booze is available but can be pricey but unlike Ireland, they have happy hour here so you can get some good deals.

Overall, its nice. Strange in places, but nice. I was fascinated with the place before I arrived, even more so when I did, and I can see it getting stronger as the weeks go by. I promise to be better at posting now that i'm all set up, so watch this space. Also, you can see the pictures i've taken so far here. There's some good ones and i'll be updating it fairly regularly.

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Pure Gold!

This is one of my favourite Monty Python sketches ever!

Nice base you got ere Colonel

Friday, September 25, 2009

World Premiere!

I've been waiting to blog about this band for a long time and finally I have the chance!

Ana Gog are a fantastic up and coming Irish band with an incredible sound. Their new single, Doves and Fishes is below, and there are many more exciting songs to follow. But for now, have a watch of this, visit their MySpace page and keep an eye out for their many gigs coming up in October (especially the Dingle gig on the 9th!).

Manna from Heaven

Saturday, September 05, 2009

song de Jour

Yet again with another Song de Jour. This time its from a great Irish artist who's playing at the Electric Picnic festival this weekend, Lisa Hannigan.

The fantastic little number 'I Don't Know' taken from her debut album 'Sea Sew' played live from Dick Macs Pub in Dingle Co. Kerry.

Enjoy and the link to her homepage is in the column to the right...

Thursday, September 03, 2009

Song de Jour

Well its not really a song this time... but there's a song in it!

This is the new ad for the new Beatles Rock Band game. Watch it in HD to get the best effect!

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Road trippin




I'm currently on a world tour of Ireland with Jeris from Alabama.

Instead of updating this blog i'm gonna put the link to Jeris' because she's much better at this than I am...

So here it is: LINK

Enjoy!!!

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Busy busy busy

So the summer is quickly moving on. Can't believe its August already!!! And mid august at that!!

The Dubai move is getting closer by the day. Still haven't got a definite date yet but it's looking like early October at this stage. I have three weeks of training and meet and greets, two of which are in London and one in Dublin and then off to Dubai some time after that. I'm like a kid at Christmas, counting down the days till it all kicks off! Very very excited!! I have an induction day coming up at the end of August where I get to meet the other graduates from the IBEC programme that got places with Tourism Ireland. I already met some during a DIT post grad course I started there a few weeks ago and it'll be a great little network when we're done with it!

I was down in Kerry there last weekend with my cousin John. Drove down to Golden in Tipperary on Thursday night so we'd get a good run of the day on Friday. We hit the road early on Friday and after a quick stop off on Inch Strand we landed in Dingle for the night. John had a friend living in Dingle so we had local knowledge on hand. Ended up in a pub called An Droichead Beag for the night with live trad music and lots of 'the black porter'. Best night i've had in a long time!

The next morning wasn't the best morning i've had in a long time however. In fact, it was probably one of the worst mornings i've had in a long time (worth it though!). We headed west out of Dingle with the intention of ending up in Tralee that evening. A phone call from John's friend offering a short hike up a mountain made us turn around though. The perfect hangover cure I might add! We met Cian and the lads from the night before in Dingle and then drove 15 minutes towards Mt Brandon (second highest mountain in Ireland). I was assured that we weren't going the whole way up and thank god we weren't because the clouds were down and we couldn't even see anywhere near the top.

We started off on a pathway that lead us through some farmland and eventually a peat bog that some farmer had been cutting by hand. We eventually made it to a cliff edge and sat down for a break. The views were amazing, as you'll see below. I only had my phone with me so excuse the quality. Cian also pointed out a tiny patch of ground near the bottom of the cliff to the right where you could make out old stone walls. Apparently there used to be a village there that was only accessible by climbing a good way up mt Brandon and it's been derelict since the 40s. There was talk of going down to it but the weather wasn't great so we decided not to.








After a quick bowl of local seafood chowder and an ice cream in Murphys we hit the road and ended up in Tralee that evening. It was very different from the hustle and bustle of Dingle and seemed pretty dead. We had an early night and left early the next morning for Tipperary. We stopped off in Ballybunion along the way. I spent many a summer in Ballybunion so it was nice to see it again. Next stop was Newcastle West in Limerick to see some relations and then Tipperary to pick up my car. All in all,a great weekend.

Heading off to Basel this Friday for the brothers stag do. Should make for an interesting post next week, if i'm still in one piece considering what we have planned (worried Barry???)

Sunday, July 12, 2009

A brown trousers day...

So I got some news there on Friday. The day before I had done an interview with Tourism Ireland for a job in their new Asia office based in Dubai. I thought it had gone pretty well, but as per usual when you leave you start to remember things you forgot to say that would've been perfect and I honestly had begun to prepare myself for the fact that it mightn't have gone as well as I had thought. I know this goes against what most people had said to me about optimism etc but it had turned into my dream job and I was seriously gunning for it, so I just wanted to brace myself for the possibility that it might go pear shaped. And there was also the fact that there were 6 other people up for the role and they were the best of the best so it was fairly competitive.

So back to Friday. I was in the gym for a bit (which in a basement so no phone reception) and when I got out I had a missed call from IBEC (who arranged the interview for me) asking me to call her back in regards to my interview the previous day. Let the panic begin. I fumbled with the phone trying to remember the number she read out in the message and eventually hit the call button. It was freaking me out a little that she called me because most of the communication is done by email, so this could be very good or very very bad. After she answered the phone she proceeded to ask me a few questions about the interview, 'Did I think it went well?', 'Was there anything I thought went badly?' etc. I was mess by this stage, shaking, mumbling down the phone trying to figure out what the hell was going on!!!

So eventually after my answers just became too incoherent to understand she told me she had good news for me. I got the job. I went mental... mad as a bag of badgers!!! I was shaking, hopping around, the whole works. As I proceeded to make a holy show of myself in public, a Luas pulls up beside me so there was an audience to my insanity. While I was jiving on the street she was telling me some pretty important stuff in regards to confirming my job and meeting general managers etc but I was a little preoccupied and I think I missed some crucial bits.

Seeing how it was only two days ago, it still hasn't hit me what exactly is going on and that i'll be moving to Dubai in 2 months. I can see it hitting me on the flight, some 30,000 feet in the air over Turkey. Something similar happened when I was landing in Berlin on the first day of Erasmus. That feeling of 'Oh sweet Jesus what am I at?!?!?'. But then that turned out to be a great 6 months so I can only imagine what this will be like.

This means that the blog will be back in full swing. This is where it'll all happen. Photos, stories,news etc will all be coming from here so keep an eye out. I'll post again when I get more details and all that jazz.

Monday, June 15, 2009

And so it begins....

Its been a while since i've posted. Most of the posts have been music and random musings so i thought I should give a general update as to what the divil I'm up to. As of now I have finished my degree, FINALLY!! Its only been 5 years in the making. My exams were finished in March so I had two whole months to do nothing but my dissertation and lets just say it was eventful. Basically I had two months to write the guts of 20,000 words. That sounds worse than it is because I had most of it in notes and bits of pieces so it was more a task of putting it all together. So after a lot of sweating and nail biting, a few all nighters and a residence in the DIT library, I handed in my 4 copies and went to the pub. That marked the official end of my college life, which didn't really dawn on me till Saturday night actually.

So since the dissertation was handed in i've been taking it fairly handy. I've started working a bit back home in Castleblayney and i'm trying to get a few days in Dublin as well so I can have a good summer. I've a few things lined up for the coming few months. I'm off to Berlin this Saturday for a bit of a reunion with the Erasmus crowd which is gonna be epic! Its been a year since i've been there and I can't wait to get back. Seeing how I lived there for 6 months or so, i've done most of the touristy stuff so we are asking ourselves what we're gonna do. The results have been moving towards the pubs and clubs we frequented, more so than the galleries and museums we saw signs for on the way to the pubs and clubs. Either way it should be fun, and very very cheap. We got a 3 bedroom apartment in the city centre for €20 each a night!! Bargain!!

From there i'll mosey down to Basel on the train for the big brothers birthday. I won't mention what age he is... but it rhymes with dirty!?! Should be gone for just over a week and I can't wait. The next trip then will be back to Basel in August for the same big brothers wedding. There's talk of a college trip away but we'll see what comes of that one. The rest of the summer will mostly involve me chilling out and doing as little as possible, as every final year student should... and is!

So thats the guts of it for the minute. I've other stuff to put up but i'm very against big long blog posts so i'll try to keep them short and sweet.

Monday, May 25, 2009

Summer tunes

Here's a little collection of songs for the summer.

First on the list is 'Breathe' by Telepopmusik (ignore the video, its the music thats the important bit).




Next up we have 'Where Do I Begin' by The Chemical Brother feat Beth Orton




This one is another classic 'All I Need' by Air



And last but not least 'In The Waiting Line' by Zero 7



Enjoy...

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Saturday, May 09, 2009

Song de Jour

What a ledge....

David Kitt - It's Yours (Live in Mullingar). The sound quality on the video is a bit pants but still a great great tune...

WHAT GRASS?!?!

Have a look at this...



If you cant read the caption, let me give you the jist of it.

"A local rakes out the "green" of the Coober Pedy Golf Course on May 5, 2009, in the scorching outback opal mining town of Coober Pedy in southern Australia"

Have to hate that...

Friday, May 08, 2009

Film de Jour...

Have a look at this...



"Two days before his wedding, Doug and his three friends drive to Las Vegas for a blow-out bachelor party they’ll never forget. But, in fact, when the three groomsmen wake up the next morning, they can’t remember a thing. For some reason, they find a tiger in the bathroom and a six-month-old baby in the closet of their suite at Caesars Palace. The one thing they can’t find is Doug. With no clue as to what transpired and little time to spare, the trio must retrace their hazy steps and all their bad decisions in order to figure out where things went wrong and hopefully get Doug back to L.A. in time to walk down the aisle."

Seems like some harmless mindless fun. And what about the baby!!! Funny shit...

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Song de Jour

This is a bit of a strange one but I think it's a great example of Kanye West as a person. On one hand you have a great performer and musician. But on the other hand you have a person with an ego the size of a medium sized African nation! Its shocking, but don't take my word for it, watch this...

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Only in Ballinrobe..

It mightn't have been a china shop but still...



How long was that guy waiting to get his 'fresh beef' joke in??

Monday, April 20, 2009

Eh...no, not really!

Woke up this morning and decided to check the weather forecast on the widget on my laptop. It's usually accurate enough but this took the biscuit!!



Now you may ask yourself, is that Celsius or Fahrenheit?... That would be Celsius! The 16 is fairly bang on, but the 32? I wish!! Still though, it is a cracking day, even if its not 32 degrees!

Friday, April 17, 2009

The Samsung Challenge

Here's a good one for ya!!

Watch the below YouTube video and try to figure out how its done. There's no special effects or camera tricks so get your thinking caps on!! If you can, click the HD button at the bottom of the player because that apparently helps (or it could just be a marketing ploy since the new phone has a shiny HD camera in it!?!? Hmm)



If you figure it out do let me know... its already wrecking my head!!

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Monday, April 13, 2009

SHA WING!!!

Have a look at this beaut! Great ad as well!! If my numbers come up in the lotto this week, guess whats top of the list??

Sunday, April 12, 2009

bleh

its been a crazy few weeks. I finished my finals about two weeks ago and i've been making up for the lack of socialising over the past few months. So to summarise it as easily as possible, here we go (starting most recent):

Kims 21st in Foxrock






Ana Gog gig in Iontas Castleblayney




Two day boozer in Connemara





There were plenty more impromptu sessions in between but i think i'm finally burnt out. Time to get some work done!! Even though my exams are over I still have my dissertation to finish so not out of the woods just yet!!

That pretty much all i've been up to recently. I had an interview with IBEC for their EOP programme which I wont find out about till early May. If I get it, it means i'll be working abroad for at least six months with an Irish company in one of their foreign markets. It could be anything from Tourism Ireland in New York to Moffett Engineering in the Philippines so fingers crossed!!

Now that i've gotten back to normality I should be posting more often so keep an ear out!!

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Song de Jour

David Kitt - Guilty Prayers, Pointless Ends (Live on the Airfield Sessions)



Davids new album 'The Nightsaver' is ot now. Buy it here.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Songs about RTE newscasters!

Follow the link below to some guy from Westmeath who has recorded songs about all the RTE Newscasters. Haven't listened to them all but i think he deserves a view, even just for the effort!!

www.myspace.com/songsaboutrtenewscasters

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

The Final Countdown...

So its all starting to wind up, bit by bit. I've finished lectures FOREVER, and one by one knocking projects and reports off the list. As of this evening I have one project left to finish and by Thursday they'll all be handed up, my final presentation will be made and my time in Group C2 will come to an end. All thats left are five final exams, starting Wednesday week (the 18th of March) and a 20,000 word dissertation by 30th of May. So even though I feel like i'm finishing, i'm actually still miles off!! But it still feels good.

Remember that feeling you used to get in school when the last day of term was only a few days away and the summer was about to begin. Well its like that, only its March and cold. We even had a 'Primary School' stlye party in one of our final lectures where everyone brought in buns and sweets and we just stuffed our faces full of crap at 9 in the morning. Great way to start the day!!

Its weird to think that its all starting to come to an end. Even that phrase, 'starting to come to an end', is weird. I've been five years in college and I always thought i'd be here forever because final year seemed so far away, yet here we are!! Even though I do have two and a half months left of collge, this is kind of the end. The day to day stuff like lectures and group work are all finished and now were on our own, to finish our own work. We're left to our own devices from now on.

The thing thats freaking me out most though, is that there's nothing in September. For as long as I can rememeber there's always been something in September to go back to, whether its school or college. But now, there's nothing. Its like a big, crazy, open ended story that wont start till June. Its scary, but a good kind of scary. I've gotten hours worth of day dreaming out of this one. 'Where will I be this time next year?' etc etc. Its all to play for I suppose but its a shame things aren't better on the job front. I'm eager to get working and make some money. I know everyone says there's plenty of time for work but i've been in college long enough and there's money to be made. SO if anyone knows someone looking for a Marketing graduate with stunning good looks and razor sharp wit, let me know cause I know some!!

But anyway, I better get back to it. This data isn't going to analyse itself!!

Thursday, March 05, 2009

Trocaire 24hr Fast


I'm doing the Trocaire 24hr Fast today and there is still a chance to sponsor me if you can.

You can sponsor me online by credit/debit card on my sponsorship website. It only takes a minute and there are so many ways your money can make a difference. For instance, €35 would provide seeds and trees for a family left impoverished by the conflict in Uganda. This would help them to grow food and provide wood for construction and fires. Any amount is useful no matter how small!!

Saturday, February 28, 2009

General stuff

I am currently sitting in bed on what i thought would be the first morning in a long time that i would get to sleep in. But as I unwillingly suspected, I woke like clockwork at 8 a.m, not helped by the bells of both St. Patricks Cathedral AND Christchurch!! Still, its good to have a lazy morning in bed and I can't complain.

Things are moving along nicely now in college. I only have a week left of lectures in college so I have that feeling of excitement I used to get in primary school when you knew the summer was about to start, except its February! We've planned an impromptu 'Primary School Style' party for our Business Policy class on Wednesday so it'll be lots of buns, Tayto and small bottle of Cadet Orange (remember those!!!). I know its a bit of a contradiction saying a planned impromptu party, but the lecturer doesn't know about it so it sorta counts?!?



We've also planned, booked and paid for a house in Galway for a week after our exams. It sleeps 19 and so far there are about 30 odd going!! Not everyone will be there at the same time I don't think so it should be grand. I've seen pictures and I can pretty much guarantee that it wont look like when we leave!!

In other news, the Smurfit Kappa Graduate Programme I applied for, and had high hopes of getting accepted into, has been CANCELLED! DAMN YOU ECONOMY!!!!! SO its back to square one. Although I did apply to the IBEC Exporters Programme so fingers crossed on that one!! If i get that one I get to work abroad for a year which would be deadly!!

Ever since the recent closer of Road Records i've started moving away from the bigger stores and online stores for my music. Its a shame to see great small independent shops like that closing. If it wasn't for them, a lot of new emerging bands would never get a chance or somewhere to sell their music. I've started going to a shop in temple bar, City Discs. They have a great range of new and second hand CDs and vinyl and friendly staff who don't remind you of Jack Black in High Fidelity! I can't stand that know it all mentality! My latest purchase was Katie Kims album ,Twelve. Its kind of hard to describe what genre her music is. She puts it nicely though:

"new old school fantasm blues folk revival yodalik rock post mccarthyism drone noise phsyk horse tail blowing old wave eastern western style wicker stringed indian high pitch glam metal sometimes dub butnever reggae salsa cuban rave indie shoegaze alternative psykadelic shadowistic breakbeat old style needle rippin round chord scratchin up underneath sampled covertunes with dutch americana underlying bass house techno whistling classical guitar trench beatnick revival downtempo eclectic popsure galant freefolk bollywoodesque 70's grunge glass bottlecore hard range fast slowjam boroque noirscreeching howls of epic sandpits over the top egorock with softblend unfunk soul jazz experimental type leghopping on micleads overtures blended amongst yogurt samples jumping over kraut style accapella ecstaticism brass horn string teasing drunk gospel choir vocals drowning in sounds of bigdrum appreciation type gold recording on leather squeeks punching heels water plops above ambient chinese traditional concrete disco french fusion bossa grindcore industrial lyrical lounge religious tape music which brings punktrance and visual zoup type undertures into a world of ever the expanding."

Those are her words not mine!! I particularly like 'over the top egorock with softblend unfunk soul jazz experimental type leghopping on micleads overtures blended amongst yogurt samples jumping over kraut style accapella ecstaticism'. Rounds it up nicely I think!! Check her out at her myspace and listen to the song called 'Radio". Its amazing!!!

Other than that I dont have much more news. A neighbour from home is heading to Australia in a week or so, so we're all heading out for dinner in Patrick Guilbauds tomorrow night hopefully (yum!).

Monday, February 23, 2009

Trocaire 24hr Fast


While having lunch today, the college chaplain Sr. Mary came up to me and the lads and asked us if we were interested in doing the Trocaire 24hr Fast, kind of ironic seeing how we were stuffin our faces!! I had done it a few times in school so I thought 'Why not?' and signed up. For those who don't know, Trocaire is an Irish charity who do pretty much everything in most developing countries. They cover everything from tackling the HIV AIDS crisis to building a reliable way of life for people in the third world so they are a very worthy cause.

A new part of the fast is an online service that lets people sponsor you online by credit/debit card. So here's my sponsorship website so you've no excuse!! It only takes a minute and there are so many ways your money can make a difference. For instance, €35 would provide seeds and trees for a family left impoverished by the conflict in Uganda. This would help them to grow food and provide wood for construction and fires. Any amount is useful no matter how small!!

I know this is a Christmas ad but the massage is still important.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Twitter??

Does anyone use Twitter?? I understand what it does but why? With everything else out there, why a service that lets you write a sentence? Facebook and most other social networks have similar features built in so why? I'm not saying I dont like it, just curious why!

Anything to add?

Monday, February 16, 2009

Song de Jour

Here's some classic Fonejacker!!!

Druids Glen

I spent the weekend with the family down in Druids Glen Hotel in County Wicklow. It was Dads birthday so we decided to take him away for the weekend. It was great to get away for a bit and see the brother.



While we were there we made a quick trip to Greystones to walk on the beach. Wicklow is a part of the country i've never really been to much before and it was nice to explore it a bit.




Also, on the way back we had some time to spare so we made a slight detour and visited Glendalough. Glendalough is monastic site built in the 6th century by St. Kevin which was destroyed by the English in 1398. What's left today dates from around the 10th century with the round tower as the perfect example.






Overall it was a great weekend. I was glad of the rest and some good food and drink. Back to the grind stone!!

Sunday, February 08, 2009

Its been a while!!

Back again!

Its been well over 6 months since my last post. It was a busy summer and my blogging duties slipped somewhat. Or altogether would be a better description. A lots happened since then! I worked with Dad in Castlecool for the summer which was fantastic. While I was there I got the opportunity to redesign the logo and company image. Well I didn't design it myself but I found a great agency to do it. They're called Dynamo and when we finally sign off on it i'll give you the grand tour. Aside from that, I was also given the role of contract manager for Lindt chocolates and was responsible for ensuring that shops got their chocolate orders on time (there was more to it than that but I could be here all day). It was really busy but great experience!

In September I started back to college in the final year of my Marketing degree and now i'm half way through. Its REALLY different from my last four years with much more case based learning and at least two presentations a week! I used to get anxious when I had two a year but its amazing how used you get to something when you're forced to do them every week. So at the minute i'm just working away at college stuff. My dissertation is slowly but surely taking shape and I only have six weeks of class left till my final exams. Its hard to believe that in four short months i'll be done with college (well for the immediate future anyway).

I moved back into my old apartment complex in Christchurch lat week after living in Stonybatter for a year or so. Its good to be back because there was feck all to do in Stonybatter. Don't get me wrong, it's a grand place to live but compared to the city centre it's quite slow and there's not a whole lot to do in the evenings. I will miss living so near to Pheonix Park but you cant beat a 5 minute commute to college in the mornings!!

So things are pretty much the same as always but I will be posting a lot more often now so watch this space.

P.S. This is one of the funniest things i've ever seen!!!

Stains the Australian Shepard