It’s hard to take in the extent of the damage done by the flooding in Cork last night. Clonakilty, Douglas, Blackpool, Meadowbrook in Glanmire, Ballyvolane and elsewhere flooded. We were woken around 1am last night by the loudest thunder I ever remember hearing. The storm passed right over Blarney but I think the town escaped the worst of it.
Check #corkfloods on Twitter for further updates.
YOLO, an acronym that I’ve only ever heard on Reddit, stands for “You Only Live Once”. Does anyone actually use it in real life?
If you’re talking to some young hip Irish person try saying NASA to them. That’s YOLO in Irish!
Nil Ach Saol Amhain!
They’ll really know what you’re talking about. Honest. Everyone’s saying it over here.*
* No not really. Thanks BreakfastNT for the translation!
D.A.W.G are fundraising in Blarney this afternoon. Please support them if you’re passing this way!
The Fiscal Treaty approaches. Batman will vote NO and fight on against all odds.
Favourite part? Gilmore as Two Face, or the explanation for the Joker’s name. (via)
Two harness racers on the Cork to Mallow road defying Garda attempts to stop them and driving against traffic on a very busy road. Crazy guys, crazy.
More on Reddit and Silicon Republic.
This comment has received too many negative votes
Look lads there are races on that road all the time with horses and no harm done it was the Garda? that caused the madness forcering the pony to the other side of the road it 2 horses on the right side of the road for 2 mile the first 1 finish first wins but the Garda fucked it all upMrFastpony 1 hour ago
This comment has received too many negative votes
For all ye stupid fucking? cunts that have Notting better to do but call names what about all the junkies and prostitute and rapiest n child malisters of settle people ya never hare about travellers up on court for any of that so who is the real scumbags here I think it the settle kindMrFastpony 6 hours ago
Like all the other European treaties the Irish public is being threatened with doomsday scenarios by both sides of The Fiscal Stability Treaty. Reddit user cianomahony posted the photo above in response.
The Government says that the country won’t have access to any money if we vote no, but the Sunday Times asked the IMF and the Department of Finance if that was the case and they both said the country could apply to the IMF regardless of the outcome of the Treaty. It’s just the ESM we won’t have access to. Today’s Sunday Times goes on to say that Ireland will have to pay 1.27bn Euro into that fund if the Treaty is ratified. Where the hell does that money come from? We’ll get a loan ..
Campaigning has been going on for only a week so far, I haven’t listened to much of what the No side say but right now I want to vote No. I wonder if the Government will rerun the Referendum if we vote No the first time? Fianna Fail and the Greens did it twice, time for Fine Gael and Labour to do likewise?
The Government’s householdcharge.ie website could probably do with some SEO love. When I search for irish household charge the first page of results are news websites, a political party and a property website’s blog.
Maybe they need to open a blog there talking up the household charge and, oh I don’t know, making us feel better about introducing a new tax.
I’m obviously not the only one looking either. They don’t even make it easy to give them money.. Not that I or any of the other householders want to either.
BTW – today’s the last day if you want to set up a direct debit. There, that’s the Public Service bit out of the way. Now, where’s my credit card?
So, if you own a house in Ireland, what do you think will happen if you don’t pay this charge?
So long guys! (via RTed by troopstorm)
I spent the last few days in Dungarvan, staying in the Park Hotel with my family. It’s a really nice town, small enough that you can walk around it in half an hour but plenty of places to eat and drink.
I took my camera of course and almost always shot in b/w mode with my Canon f1.8 50mm lens. I cheated a little as I used RAW+Jpeg mode but I’m happy with the results. RAW lets me recover the colour information while the Jpeg records a useful b/w image I can check against during post processing.
I love that 50mm lens but rarely use it so a whole holiday was a challenge. With such a short depth of field it’s really important getting the focus point right. I usually used the center point or a side point rather than trust the matrix to pick out the right one!
Here’s a 39 minute podcast about Witchcraft (mp3) from the RTÉ Documentary on One series. It was first broadcast in 1976. The first half of the documentary is enlightening, explaining what and how witches worship, but the discussion on black magic is disturbing. The guy who was confident he had killed people with magic was really creepy.
The comments from the Catholic priest at the end are comical, saying witchcraft is incompatible with “true religion” as they don’t worship “all mighty god”. Ah yes. I bet she would have something to say about that! 😉