July 2007 – Page 3 – Something Odd!

Feeling Lucky, Punk?

I know what you’re thinking. Did he fire six shots or only five? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I’ve kinda lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?

Well, today you might be feeling lucky, but when confronted by Dirty Harry I doubt anyone would feel the comfort of lucky number 7. Today is however the 7th day of the 7th month, 2007 so you never the know. The punk might take a chance. As today is 07-07-07 I can only imagine the hysteria surrounding the same day in 1977. I were a youngster then so I’ll have to rely on some of you older gentlemen and ladies to fill me in on the wonders of that day.

I was intrigued and I did some extensive research and found that yes, many people do believe the superstition and think the date 07-07-07 is lucky. There’s even a Flickr group dedicated to today.

Then I got bored and went looking for Dirty Harry trivia and movie clips. Here’s that famous scene.

the bogosphere snapshot on July 6th 2007

Gomaith have their own definition of fettish. In a pub of course.
Phil has some great photos from a few gigs held during the week.
Eoin wants some attention given to Gaelscoil Cluain Meala.

… at present they are located in a victorian building previously used by South Tipperary County Council Engineering deptartment and deemed by them to be unsuitable for employees to work in so they rent it to the Gaelscoil …

It’s a familiar story to anyone involved in primary school education unfortunately.
Turly says Guinness workers are leading opposition within the trade union movement to mandatory alcohol testing in the workplace. Hic!
Donal wants you to go to the Unitarian Church on Sunday night for Máirtin de Cógáin’s one-man show. The first night was sold out the first night so get there early!
Both The Swearing Lady and Grandad comment on our prime minister’s suggestion that the naysayers should commit suicide. Bloody stupid and grossly insensitive thing to say.
I knew I had forgotten a few blogs. Treasa has two photos in the Aer Lingus inflight magazine. I’m flying to London in a few weeks time, possibly with them so I’ll look out for the pics!
Richard rips apart the Independent’s website and discovers some silly JS redirects.
Robert can be glimpsed in the beach scene of Saving Private Ryan.

I was one of 6 out of 300 that got picked for special placements around set because apparently I look like an intelligent American. If you look closely about 30 mins in after the battle you can see me albeit briefly.

There you go, more to come from Irish blogs next week.

The Great Pretender

If you are a fan of Freddie Mercury, you’ll be familiar with his hit song, The Great Pretender but what you might not know is that it was a cover of a 1956 song by a band called The Platters. Here’s the original Platters version, and the 1987 remake by Freddie Mercury for your enjoyment. I didn’t look too hard for the Dolly Parton cover …

Addictive Online Games

These games should come with a health warning. Really. They should. I was happily going about my business, when up they pop and literally assault me with their great playability and gameplay. My wife heard the scream from downstairs but thought it was the baby. Before she looked into the office it was too late. I was hooked. So, don’t tell me you weren’t warned and take a peek at the following online games.

A month ago Frank blogged about Boomshine, a fiendish game where you have to start a chain reaction that destroys all the balls on the screen. It’s fiendish because I managed to get to the very last level but could get no further.
A week after that, he blogged about another game. Does Frank have any conscience? Does he not realise his visitors will lay waste to the zombies in an orgy of blood and violence? Yes, I’m talking about Boxhead. I spent a good few minutes happily mowing down the zombies with all sorts of weaponry until in a daze I emerged tired and weary from my desk.
Finally today, I stumbled upon Robert Scoble’s post about Kongregate, a company that hosts online games. They are the ultimate in evil. They have (almost?) 1000 games ready to be played. I’ll be there for days! My first port of call there was The Fancy Pants Adventure. It’s a mix of Super Mario, with bits of that Sega hedgehog, Sonic, thrown in for good measure. Add a not half bad soundtrack and special effects and it keeps on trucking. You’ll have to pry my dead fingers from the keyboard..

As previously mentioned, I sort of like Desktop Tower Defense. If you’re a fan too, check out the new version on their site. New graphics, updated sound effects and a few gameplay enhancements too. Best of all, Paul and Dave who created the game have their blog on WordPress.com! They announced the new version a while back.

Now, I don’t think many people will get as far as this, but do you have a favourite online game? I’d love to hear about it!

Happy Fourth of July to all my US readers, you’ll have something to keep yourselves busy with today!

News from the beaches of Cork

Following the news that €105m worth of cocaine was recovered from the waters off West Cork over the last 2 days it appears that some people have been down to the beaches helping Gardai with their investigation..

Thanks Derek for the image, anyone know where it came from originally?

You're all just jealous of Cork

Kathy Foley is right on the ball with her article, You’re all just jealous of Cork from last weekend’s Sunday Times! I was going to post this tomorrow but as Damien beat me to the punch here it is for everyone else to enjoy too.

Life as a Corkonian in Dublin often seemed like one long session as a judge at a terrible talent show. You had to smile through gritted teeth at the impressionists: “So you’re going to do a terrible version of a Cork accent? Great, go on then. It’s only the 12th time today.” You had to laugh at the jokes, or should I say the joke, as it was almost always the same one. Had I heard the one about the Cork mother who says, “My son, the solicitor, is drowning”? Yes, very good. It gets funnier every time.

Whither the outcry?

Bombs were defused and a disaster avoided in London and Glasgow yet I hardly hear a word of it online. Strange. The terrorists must be Apple users who knew that everyone would be talking about the iPhone.

Mark reminds us it wasn’t the police who noticed the bomb outside the nightclub in London. I read somewhere that paramedics were attending to a young man who had fallen outside the club when they spotted the suspicious packages in the car. If they hadn’t been there how many people would now be dead? Hugh points towards this post showing the nonsensical imbalance of news reporting.

I guess if it doesn’t happen in your own backyard then it doesn’t happen at all.

Tagged for charity by Justin

Justin tagged me for the latest blog meme. Link to Irish charities to improve their pagerank. Looking through the list I see a lot of non-Irish charities and foundations, but I guess they all do good work.

The list of charities so far is:

MS Society Ireland
Irish Red Cross
Samaritans
Cancer.ie – Irish Cancer Society
Irish Hospice Foundation – Hospice and palliative care in Ireland
Barnardos – Ireland’s leading children’s charity
The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity – Polish Charity
CPR For Schools Across Poland – CPRTraining
Program of Insulin Pumps in Diabetic Children Therapy – Insulin Pumps For Children
Non-invasive Neonatal Breathing Support – Infant Flow
Program of Universal Neonatal Hearing Screenings – Neonatal Hearing
American Red Cross – disaster relief
Raleigh Rescue Mission – homeless raleigh
Samaritan’s Purse – emergency relief programs
St. Jude Children’s Hospital – cancer research
Medecins Sans Frontieres / Doctors Without Borders – Humanitarian Relief
American Red Cross – Emergency Preparedness
AMREF – African Medical & Research Foundation – African Health Development
DOROT – Programs for Elderly
Feed the Children – Protect Children
Service International – Disaster Relief
Pujols Family Foundation – Children with Down Syndrome
National Alliance to End Homelessness – Homelessness
The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research – Parkinson’s Research
Ronald McDonald Care Mobile Program – Child Healthcare
Aids Research Alliance – Aids Research
Wildlife Conservation Society – Wildlife Protection
Cancer Research Institute – Cancer Research
Second Harvest – End Hunger
AARP Foundation – Helping Senior Citizens
Bubblegum Club – Children In Crisis
Autism NI – Autism Northern Ireland
Adoption Ireland – Irish Adoption Charity
Ireland Funds – Peace and Reconciliation In Ireland
Dublin Simon Community – Combating Homelessness in Dublin
Aware
To Russia with Love
Debra Ireland
Focus Ireland
ISPCC

I’ve added a link to the ISPCC above. Seems like the obvious choice given that my brother has gone to Africa to raise funds for them, it’s the least I could do!

Who will I pass it on to? Ken, Mel and Donal can carry the baton now.

There’s another thing to consider now that this list of links is doing the rounds on Irish blogs. Google is fairly smart. They may very well spot the same text and links, and penalise sites. I don’t know for sure, but they do discount “link exchange programs” so it’s highly likely they’ll notice this meme too.
They may also discount links if many links are seen with the same anchor text. Does this happen if you link with the name of the charity and that name is in the page title or domain? I don’t know, but there be smart boys and girls working at Google!

Jethro @ Phunnypictures.com sucks

Unfortunately it’s simple to steal photos these days, and I spotted my Thieving Duck on yet another joke site. Most recently, the News of the World used it, this time it’s on http://archives.gophercentral.com/Gettin_Ducked_phunny_pictures.html

Unfortunately Jethro, the owner of the site, has declined to acknowledge my email of the 25th June and so refused to add a link to my blog post.

Hi Jethro,

The picture of the duck robbing the woman (http://archives.gophercentral.com/Gettin_Ducked_phunny_pictures.html) was taken by me in Chicago in 2005 and the original image can be found at https://inphotos.org/the-thieving-duck/

I would appreciate a link back to that page next to the image please as it’s a copyrighted image. Lots of other sites have already done the same, including snopes.com and cuteoverload.com: https://inphotos.org/the-most-sent-around-duck-photo/

Thanks, glad you like the photo!

Donncha.

I don’t mind too much when a site owner responds and adds a link back to my blog, but when they ignore me then my temper rises. Bah!

The most prolific commentators of June 2007

Short and sweet, the people who left the most comments on my blog in June 2007 are:

Thank you guys for participating!

It doesn’t take much to get to the top of that list, but I will delete or ignore comments from people who I feel are just taking the mickey and leaving one or two word comments!