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:

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

thieving_duck.jpg

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:

  1. Robert
  2. Dankoozy
  3. David Precious

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!

So what is the Seanad for anyway?

The Government of Ireland is split into two houses. The first House is the Dail where politicians make important and not so important decisions and talk endlessly on matters of State. The second House is the Seanad. This is a little known and secretive group of people who are elected in a complicated election by a small subset of the Irish public.

Who can vote for the Seanad? If you went to University you can, so my wife Jacinta can. She filled in her ballot sheet this morning and while she was wondering who to give her No. 1 vote to I read the newspaper and came across Kathy Foley’s article in the Sunday Times, So what is the Seand for? It’s a very entertaining and cutting look at the Seanad and if you’ve wondered about them you should go read it in full. Here’s a taster for you on this Saturday afternoon:

What happens in the Seanad?
Very little. Senators sit about on comfy leather seats and engage in witty badinage. Unlike the upper houses of parliament in other countries, our senate cannot veto bills from the lower house. It can merely delay them a little. If the Dail passed a bill forcing all citizens to wear yellow hats and blue shoes, the Seanad could object in the strongest possible terms and put the whole plan off for a few weeks. That would give us just enough time to dye our hats and spray paint our shoes.
…..
Sometimes our senators go to America, where they are celebrated everywhere they go. This is because Americans confuse their sort of senators, who are very influential, with our sort, who aren’t.

So there you have it folks. Don’t feel too bad if you can’t vote, but do feel bad if you can’t get a nomination to stand for a €60,000 a year, 2 day a week job.

Why blogs are better #368

How else could I get on to Google Finance’s page on MSFT? It might be gone by the time you check it, but click the thumbnail for a screen capture. My boss at Tradesignals.com would have given his right arm for exposure like that!

Did I get many hits from there? Only 9 so far, but it was pretty cool to see that url pop up in my referrer stats!

Read Me Now!!! from Microsoft

Oh no! New bugs have been found in Windows XP! My Macbook must be vulnerable because this email said it is! I better run that exe file straight away.

Hello! Hackers discovered new bugs on Windows XP versions. Now, your computer is very vulnerable to this attacks,

that`s why Microsoft Corporation relased a new patch to protect your sistem!

If you do not install this patch, the hackers can attack your computer, break into your sistem and steal passwords

or secret informations. In USA over 11,000,000 computers were attacked! Those computers didn`t have installed

protection patch!

Please download the patch and install it on your computer now!

DOWNLOAD PATCH: => http://www.bemont.net/patch.exe

* * DO NOT IGNORE THIS MESSAGE * *

Thank you!

Phew. What would we do if Microsoft didn’t email everyone on the planet telling them about these bugs? You’d think they’d have some sort of Auto Update system in place instead of the fuddy duddy old email system. I’d be up the creek without a paddle if that email had been stopped by Spamassassin. It doesn’t bear thinking about what might have happened if I had missed this warning. Thanks guys!

Pillars of black smoke rise above the city

Yes, it’s bonfire night again. Driving past the Blackpool Shopping Centre I counted at least 3 thick plumes of black oily and dirty smoke rising from close by. I hope nobody lighting fires around the city objected to the incinerator in Ringaskiddy, those fires probably released more toxins and chemicals than a year of incineration.

Thankfully this year there wasn’t a fire locally. Last year’s bonfire was quite a spectacle but I’d hate to think of baby Adam breathing in all the crap released from burning tires and sofas. Anyway, the good people over at PROC are discussing the night and reminded me that I had researched the origin of the night a while back.

Driving down the Commons Road also proved to me the futility of yet another road safety campaign. At one end of the road a crashed car is displayed for all to see. It doesn’t seem to make a blind bit of difference to drivers as they speed along at 60 to 80kph in a 50kph zone. Granted, the road is long and straight and served by two lanes in either direction but that’s not the point. There are always some pedestrians walking along there. I do admit a certain amount of satisfaction when I inevitably catch up with the offenders at the numerous traffic lights. I bet this busy road will be the location of at least one speed camera when the 600 are introduced in the future.

I need to read and absorb 5 Powerful Reasons to Drive Slower, and How to Do It, driving with speeding maniacs on the road has never been a serene experience for me. (via Dave’s Picks)

Later .. Niall rants about the bad driving he sees on Irish roads. Crazy stuff!

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