Tuesday, September 22, 2009
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...
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!
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???)
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.
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.
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...
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...
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...
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...
"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...
Friday, May 01, 2009
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??
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!
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!!
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!!
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!!
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