cork – Page 8 – Something Odd!

Retro consoles for sale again!

Retro gaming has made a comeback! A temporary looking shop on North Main Street in Cork is selling old retro consoles at possibly “Irish” prices. According to the “Bargain Hunt” section in Retro Gamer, a Sega Dreamcast can be purchased on Ebay for about £25 Sterling. They’re going for 59.99 Euro here. Cheap enough for an impulse buy? What do you think Mark?

What’s on offer? I saw the Dreamcast of course, many Gameboys in the window, NES, SNES, Sega Mega Drive (Mega CD), Sega Master System, Nintendo Gamecube (why bother when you have a Wii?), Original Playstation, Master System II with Sonic the Hedgehog cart still stuck in it, Xbox 360 external HD DVD player (40 Euro? Can you buy those discs?) and lots of games. I think there were original Xboxes too. There were loads of games for the system anyway.

I doubt the shop will be open after Christmas, none of the consoles or games look brand new so it might be best to test out any purchases when you get home before wrapping them up for Christmas. Bring a copy of Retro Gamer with you if you go in to check the price on Ebay. I have a feeling the guys running the shop will be more than happy to haggle!

Thanks Richard for the heads up. Worth going in there just for the look. I think Branedy may be interested in it too. (I never owned any of the consoles above so I didn’t get a burst of nostalgia for them!)

Irish Blog Awards 2009 Photowalk

About time I posted these. The Blog Awards took place in Cork this year, last February, and before the big night, a good number of photographers wandered around Cork City. I posted several IBA09 photos on my photoblog already but here are a few more:

BTW – if you’re in Cork next weekend, there are still places left in the photowalk! I haven’t decided where we should go after the walk but it’ll probably be The Old Oak as they have plenty of room.

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The King of Pop is dead

Where were you when you heard? My wife and I were relaxing in the sitting room of the Dingle Skellig Hotel when we heard that Michael Jackson had died. An elderly couple across the room had the Irish Examiner and were poring over the news.

I remember the day he played in Cork. I lived in Blackrock, only a mile and a bit from the stadium, Pairc Ui Chaoimh, where he played to a sold out audience. That day my French exchange student arrived by ferry and spent the evening in bed recovering from the trip. I hung around the house since I didn’t want to be away in case he woke up.
I could hear the glorious pop tunes from my front door and I longed to walk down and sneak into the grounds around the stadium for a better listen, but nooooo, I bloody well stayed at home. He never woke up. He slept through until the morning! Argh!

Thankfully my wife has better memories of the day. She was there, and even before today she’s said it was the best concert she’s been to. She has mentioned it several times over the years. She remembers the 15 year old teenager with tears of joy as MJ sang “Man in the Mirror”. She went on and on about how he played all his hits rather than pushing “the new stuff” nobody knew yet.

*Sigh*. Jean-Jacques, I wonder if you’ll ever read this. I don’t hold it against you, but I should have had the sense to wander off down there!

Edit: a few more posts about Michael Jackson:

MS Paint Portrait
A mashup of “Rock With You” and (Queen and?) David Bowie’s “Under Pressure”.
Did you know MJ registered a patent?

Sorry I missed you Cllr. Dan Fleming

This message from Cllr. Dan Fleming was stuffed into gates all over my estate this evening. I know they only have so much time on their hands but the letter was rolled up tightly and squashed between the bars on our gate and in the gates of other houses. I’d venture to say that it took as long to roll and fold the letter up as it would to walk to our front door. Oh, and yes, we were in when they “called”. The only other people to stuff literature into our gate are those clothes collectors and they’re possibly more popular than Fianna Fail at this stage.

I’m sure he’s a great guy and he’d have a great chat with you and all that but there’s no sign that he’s a Fianna Fail man. The missing party name strikes again! His website is down but his Fianna Fail page is up however.

I’m still not sure who I’ll vote for but you can hurt Fianna Fail without helping Sinn Fein if you vote carefully.

The Boy Racer Song

Heard this mentioned on Ray Foley’s show on TodayFM so I had to go look for it. Mad stuff!

Christ with a K. performs “The Boy racer song” live in Cork, in the Slate bar. If you like funny songs and are from Cork you’ll like this!

And not one mention of today’s Budget.

The Irish Blog Awards in Pictures

As I may have mentioned once or twice before, we were at The Irish Blog Awards on Saturday night. Here are a few photos. They’re after the jump because there are 70 there and I’d hate to see them load every time someone loaded the front page of my site!

Gallery of shots from the photowalk to come tomorrow. Possibly over 100 shots in that. I do like to take photos don’t I?

BTW – Please Photoshop Grandad above. What’s he saying? Two example to follow ..
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Back from The Irish Blog Awards 2009

Jacinta and I are just back from the The 2009 Irish Blog Awards and we’re elated after the experience. If I thought I could convey half the good humour and energy and enthusiasm I’d try but I know I’d fail dismally. It was a wonderful night, full of great people and I’m only sorry we couldn’t stay longer and chat some more!

Thank you Damien and everyone who helped. You pulled off a hugely success celebration of Irish blogging.

I called the litter warden

This morning I discovered a black refuse sack of rubbish had been dumped almost in front of my house. This afternoon it’s still there but I rang the litter warden for South Cork, Jim Dooley at 021-4285417 giving my name, address and phone number. Hopefully they’ll get out here soon and find incriminating details buried in the bag but I don’t hold out much hope of that.

From a brief inspection of it, whoever dropped it doesn’t have the healthiest diet in the world. Packets of crisps, cans of Diet 7UP, plastic wrapping, and of course some of the local dogs have got their jaws into it too. Oh yeah, dogs are supposed to be under the owner’s control? ‘Course they are. The dog warden would have a field day around here too.

Anyway, I’m really pissed off at whoever dumped the rubbish. It’s disgusting, ignorant and completely irresponsible. I’ll update this post if the litter warden shows up. Seething.

Zavvi

Sometime last year Virgin sold it’s retail music business and was renamed Zavvi. The first I knew of it was when the Cork store had this strange forgettable green brand name plastered over the door. I could never remember the name, not a good sign for a retail chain.

They didn’t last long unfortunately. The notice above is displayed in their front window. The company appointed a liquidator on December 30th. If you go in there now they have some great sales. 30% off games, lots of DVDs and CDs slashed in price. Long queues at the cash registers though and I wouldn’t count on getting a refund quickly if they’re liquidating stock.

Stop the Killing

A protest march in Cork today against the Israeli invasion of Gaza. Plenty of photographers covering the event, I wouldn’t be surprised to see photos appear on Flickr soon.

A leaflet urged the reader to boycott Israeli products and listed many well known brands. Unfortunately if I was to do that I wouldn’t be able to use my Intel powered laptop, and I wouldn’t be able to use WordPress because Israeli citizens have contributed to it. Oh wait, you probably shouldn’t even use the Internet. Log off now please.

At the end of the march, the speaker pictured above told the crowd that there would be another march next weekend. Ominously he said all shops in Cork should not sell Israeli produce and whatever it takes will be done to force them to do that. He added that only lawful pressure would be applied, that “we must stay on this side of the law”.
How is that really going to hurt Israel? The produce is already bought and paid for by the retailer. Irish shop keepers are reeling from the worst Christmas sales in years and they want to put more pressure on them? You’re only going to hurt the local economy if you go ahead with that boycott. Insane!

I have so much sympathy for the people in Gaza and Israel. Innocent people get killed and maimed on both sides and the cycle of violence goes on and on and on and …