Conor's Auld Blog

Movie Reviews

2009-03-11T14:43:00.001Z

Nice n Easy

Review of Mr Cotton Coffee

2008-03-04T20:37:00.001Z

Mr Cotton Coffee

Mr Cotton has been the key provider of coffee to OpenCoffee in Cork since it has been based in the Rubicon Centre. The owner, Declan, is taking part in the Genesis Enterprise Programme. So far we have only sampled his standard filter coffee which he provides as a mobile service to various industrial estates around Cork. The verdict has been universally positive and I genuinely look forward to a cup of joe from Mr Cotton at each OCC. Those weeks when he hasn't been retained are always disappointing! Keep an eye out for him around Cork. You'll get a rich, non-bitter rounded cup of coffee from him.

Rated 4/5 on Mar 04 2008

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Review Tags: beverage, mobile, coffee, local, enterprise

Review of Photobox Calendar

2008-03-03T15:37:00.001Z

Photobox Calendar

This is now a perennial favourite in our extended family. Previously we gave a calendar to various family members and it consisted of 12 different staged photos of our children. Due to lack of time last year, we just selected 12 of the best pics of the overall extended family. This has gone down even better with everyone and extra copies had to be made for aunts and grandaunts. A simple super service that I would recommend to anyone looking for a gift idea with the personal touch.

Rated 4/5 on Mar 03 2008

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Review Tags: online, calendar, photo, printing, mailorder

Review of Liferea

2008-01-16T22:21:00.001Z

This is the desktop RSS reader I am using on Ubuntu. It's not jam packed with features or anything but it has the one thing I need; the ability to access protected feeds like Trac timelines.

It integrates nicely into the Ubuntu taksbar and the notifications work well. Whilst I use Google Reader for my main reading, Liferea will do fine for everything else.

Review of "I'm a celebrity, get me out of here" TV series

2007-11-20T15:38:00.001Z

"I'm a celebrity, get me out of here" TV series

"Can this get any worse?"

Can this get any worse?

The term celebrity is used here very loosely, I didn't recognise the majority of the participants on this show. Its the usual format of living in the jungle and food earned by accomplishing tasks.

The tasks being the usual eating grubs, insects, unusual animal parts, hanging from heights or being confined in small spaces with various exotic creatures.

The only real difference from year to year, is the interaction between the "celebrities" and even this has become predictable. A bit of romance, a lot of bickering and animosity.

This show, I feel has run its course. Its just boring now. Time to finish?

Rated 1/5 on Nov 20 2007

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Review Tags: reality, tv, tv series

Review of Pilot V5

2007-11-17T17:17:00.001Z

Pilot V5

"This is one of my favourite pens. Fine tip roller-ball which lasts well and doesn't cost too much."

I have a small pen obsession and love buying new and funky models. But this is not at the high-end, you won't find any Mont Blancs in my drawer. I love the infinite variety of roller balls and gel pens that are out there.

The general price range is €1.50 to €5.00 but I have never found any relationship between price and quality at this level. Most recently I purchased a box of 12 Pilot V5's from Viking for the simple reason that they were the cheapest. Cheaper even than the own-brand stuff.

And I'm thrilled to find that they are perfect. Lovely smooth writing, nice ink, simple shape, a useful tool. And only 79c each!

Rated 4/5 on Nov 17 2007

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Review Tags: pen, roller ball, writing

Review of Test item

2007-10-30T12:34:00.001Z

Test item

This is a no summary review

This is a no summary review

Sweet huh?

Rated 2/5 on Oct 30 2007 by Conor O'Neill

Review Tags: test

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Review of Testy Tester

2007-10-18T09:38:00.001+01:00

Testy Tester

Looks like I need a summary

Checking that summary is indeed actually optional and that the first couple of lines are used in the search results instead.

Rated 4/5 on Oct 18 2007 by Conor O'Neill

Review Tags: test1, test2

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Koodos

2007-10-16T19:19:00.002+01:00

Test

Review of V for Vendetta

2007-07-05T13:37:00.001+01:00

V for Vendetta

Far better than I expected it to be. Tres agréable. Mainstream coverage mis-represented it badly. Were they confused by John Hurt?

I hadn't heard many good things written about this movie when it came out but I finally decided to watch it on Sky Movies recently. I was very pleasantly surprised to find an interesting, exciting, well written movie which made up for the horror of the second two Matrix movies.

Basic plot is a dystopian near future where UK is a fascist state run by a dictator (John Hurt) and his secret police.

V is an anarchist/terrorist who blows up the Old Bailey, hacks into the emergency comms system and tells everyone to turn up at the houses of parliament in one years time to take power back for the people.

V spends the movie in a Guy Fawkes mask and it is testament to Hugo Weaver that his voice is rich enough to pull this off.

Natalie Portman gets sucked into his world but has a less extreme vision than him.

Lots of stuff about viruses, germ warfare, experiments on undesirables etc. Pretty standard fare for any dystopian movie.

The plot rollicks along with lots of depth. The colour schemes work extremely well.

Alls well that ends well and the nasty dictator is toppled but V dies in the process.

My main gripe with the movie is that dystopian futures in books/movies are always run by fascists whereas, apart from Hitler, all recent dystopian pasts have been run by communists. I read up on the graphic novel on which the movie was based to discover that it was written in the early 80's and the author thought Maggie Thatcher would lead the UK to a world like V's. What a numbskull.

Rated 4/5 on Jul 05 2007 by Conor O'Neill

LouderVoice Review Tags: action, comic, comic book, drama, dystopian, futuristic, graphic novel, movie

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Review of Test Item with accent agréable

2007-07-05T00:33:00.001+01:00

Test Item with accent agréable

Petit restaurant haut en couleurs, bonne cuisine, service agréable, vue splendide et ambiance “relax”

Rated 3/5 on Jul 04 2007 by Conor O'Neill

LouderVoice Review Tags: test

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Review of Samsung Digimax Cyber 530 Digial Camera

2007-04-20T16:23:00.001+01:00

Perfect for point and click photography. A little old at this stage so good value to be had

Review of product: Samsung Digimax Cyber 530 Digial Camera

Rated as 4/5 on Apr 20 2007 by Conor O'Neill

My mother dropped her ancient 35mm camera recently and it finally died. She popped into her local pharmacy/photo shop to get a replacement. They rightly guided her to a digital one. Due to her total technology phobia, the owner suggested this Samsung. It has a 5.1 MP sensor, 3x optical zoom and unless you want to experiment, everything is automatic. He also gave her a 1GB SD Card for it.

At the semi-regular extended family meet-up I played with it for a bit and was impressed overall. It takes standard AAs or rechargeable ones, is meaty in the hand but quite light and it is large enough not to have overly-fiddly buttons.

It was very fast to take pictures in comparison to our three year old Canon Ixus 400 and the picture quaity overall was excellent.

Navigation in "play mode" was simple and the menus were not too obscure.

I only have two real criticisms of the camera. First is that the USB cable has a proprietary connector on the camera. Why the hell couldn't they use standard mini-USB? And second, the navigation buttons are in the bottom right of the camera and my thumb kept pressing them by accident as I was holding the camera.

Being a local supplier, the cost of the phone was high for what my mother got - €160. She could easily get it for €100 online, but she doesn't shop online.

She now knows how to take snaps and knows to go to the pharmacy to get them to print the pictures she selects So they still have a thriving print business as long as people like her are around!

Summary features:-5.1 megapixels-15X zoom (3X optical, 5X digital)-Large 2.4” LCD-Quick print button-User-friendly “Effect”button-Macro & Auto Macro mode (as close as 5cm)-Cradle charging system (optional)-Available in black and silver

I believe there is no real difference between the S530 and the S500 so the URL on the Samsung site is for the S500.

LouderVoice Tags: camera, digital camera, lcd, macro, megapixel, mmc, point and click, sd, still, zoom

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New Beta of Blogger

2006-08-15T08:05:00.000+01:00

Looks like Google are finally putting a few hours effort into upgrading Blogger to have some 21st century features. I tried switching over for the purposes of experiment but it looks like it is inviation only. They are adding categories/tags and integration with your other Google account info (like your gmail address). Still not good enough to make me use it for anything other than experiments.

Conor's Blog on the move

2005-08-18T21:51:00.000+01:00

Finally, 5 years after registering conoroneill.com and just having it re-direct to geocities, eircom and blogspot (in that order), I am now properly hosted with PowWeb. The value for money they were offering made it an easy decision. The import of the Blogspot Blog went disasterously badly yesterday as I did it on the latest 1.5.2 version of Wordpress which the importer did not like. Tonight I reverted to 1.5.1.2, did the import and then did the upgrade and it all worked swimmingly.

So this blog at http://conoro.blogspot.com/ is now for historical purposes only. Get your ass over to http://conoroneill.com/ from now on. I'm still on a bog standard default Wordpress theme with links to nothing. I'll get a more reasonable L&F on it over the next week or so. For the 0.00000000025% of people who read this blog with an RSS Aggregator like Bloglines, please subscribe to the Feedburner feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/ConorsBlog, rather than directly to the feeds on the site. Let me know if you spot any problems.

Importing from Blogger/Blogspot to Wordpress

2005-08-14T17:18:00.000+01:00

I'm in the process of trying to move off a free Blogspot account over to Wordpress for my personal blog. I have yet to decide whether to use something free like Blogsome or get hosted with a wordpress.org recommended Host like PowWeb or an Irish host like Blacknight. If anyone has opinions on these alternatives, I'd be very interested in hearing them. If the Irish option is reasonable, I'd obviously prefer to go with that.

My concern about Blogsome is the lack of a business model to support their free hosting. PowWeb looks like a no-brainer but if the Blacknight alternative is competitive both technically and price-wise then I'd probably go with that.

But ignoring that for a minute, my biggest concern was that I'd be able to move all my old Blogspot posts and comments over to Wordpress. I have just done a trial run using instructions I found on Andy Skelton's site. It is as awkward as hell but it worked perfectly - I now have posts from 2001-2005 residing on my Fedora box at home after 30 minutes of fiddling.

The only other annoyance is that I have the conoroneill.com domain registered with Yahoo Domains. I then point it at wherever I happen to be doing my posts to. Ideally I'd like to move that over completely to the new host and not need re-directs. This looks messy so any tips there appreciated too.

TCB Baby - Taking Care of Business

2005-08-14T12:51:00.000+01:00

I finally got to see Bubba Ho-Tep recently. What an odd but completely beguiling movie.

I sat down to watch it with a bunch of pre-conceptions and expectations. A low-budget ($500K) movie starring Bruce Campbell as Elvis and Ossie Davis as JFK fighting a mummy in an Old Folk's home in East Texas - how could you not have ideas as to what sort of movie it would be? I spent a summer in Stuttgart during college working in an old folk's home. Most of them thought they were Leni Riefenstahl or Field Marshall Goering.

From the first frame I knew I had it all wrong. The plot moved forward extremely slowly, action was minimal, the movie was very short, much of it was a voice-over and the horror was totally non-horrific. Enough normally to make me hate it (I think it's why I cannot watch 99% of the stuff made in Europe - I sit there thinking "do something for the love of god"). In this case however, the writing was some of the best I have heard in years - not one word or line went to waste. The acting was superb with both Campbell and Ossie Davis at the top of their game. But most of all it is side-splittingly funny. Snot out the nose funny. Giggling hours later funny. And it's been a hell of a long time since I heard the word Kemosabe in anything.

They obviously managed to get a good distribution deal as we were able to get it in the Xtravision in Bandon. Don't watch it if you are tired but it is a movie not to be missed.

A few sample quotes courtesy of IMDB:

JFK: Just what are you getting at, Elvis?
Elvis: I think you know what I'm getting' at Mr. President. We're gonna kill us a mummy.

Elvis: Don't make me use my stuff on ya, baby!

Elvis: It'd been two presidential elections since I'd had a boner like that.

Elvis: LBJ is dead
JFK: Well, that ain't gonna stop him

[killing a scarab beetle]
Elvis: Never, but never fuck with the king!

Elvis: No offense, Jack, but President Kennedy was a white man.
JFK: They dyed me this color! That's how clever they are!

JFK: He had me on the floor. I had his mouth over my asshole!
Elvis: A shiteater?
JFK: I don't think so. He was after my soul. Now you can get that out of any major orifice of a person's body. I read about it.
Elvis: Oh, yeah? Where, man? Hustler?

Elvis: Now the two key words for tonight - "caution" and "flammable".
JFK: Also "watch your ass".

Elvis: T.C.B., baby.

I am the weaver

2005-08-14T12:07:00.000+01:00

To quote the great Bill Hicks.

Yesterday I tried to create a new classic instant meal. I decided to traverse the extremes from MSG to Midleton by creating a masterpiece consisting of Koka Chicken "flavoured" Noodles, leftover sausages and Organic Rocket Pesto from the Midleton Farmers market. Oh dear, won't be having that again. A fuzzy Nokia crap-cam picture of the gourmet extavaganza:

Next week, I will give details of the current greatest instant meal of all time which I have eaten since I was a kid: Heinz Spaghetti Hoops nestling on a bed of processed ham delicately covered in a layer of grated cheddar with optional Chef Brown Sauce. Plate-licking-tastic.

I recently convinced Oisín that the Heinz Hoops were in fact special Bob The Builder Hoops which consisted only of Travis the Tractor's wheels. I can't believe the poor darlin fell for it. He now demands Travis hoops in preference to Scooby Doos.

Woo hoo - free wine for Irish bloggers

2005-08-10T22:45:00.000+01:00

I'll just have to give up the drink next week.

Hugh McLeod of Gaping Void fame has arranged for Irish bloggers to get their hands on free bottles of Stormhoek too.

Hope they give me some Sauvignon Blanc. New Zealand Marlborough Sauvignon is pretty much all we drink but we have got some good bottles of South African Sauvignon recently which are far far better than anything coming out of Chile.

Argolon Solutions company web-site re-launched as a Wordpress blog

2005-08-08T17:04:00.000+01:00

We are very happy to announce our early alpha re-launch of our company web-site as a Wordpress blog. We hope that releasing before completion will accelerate it's development. The main point of re-structuring as a blog is to try and create a community forum for discussing Enterprise Systems, in particular Enterprise Storage Software and Systems. Ideally many of those working in the Irish divisions of storage companies such as EMC, Dell, StorageTek, SUN etc will take advantage of the site and put an Irish spin on the discussions. Please feel free to make suggestions. It is still a work in progress and we hope to make major improvements over the next few weeks.

Argolon Solutions

RSS Feed

Forde's of Wexford, Top 100? Not even close

2005-08-07T23:16:00.000+01:00

We had our week down in Rosslare. I'd call it a holiday but there were 8 kids in the house. My lovely sisters and parents gave us the night off on Wednesday so we had to pick where to eat. Catherine wasn't in the mood for Italian so it was no to Dolce Vita. Heaven's Above sounded good. Dunbrody House was too far. Lobster Pot doesn't take bookings in the summer. A few reviews later and we settled on Forde's. But we left the house with my Ma warning us that they had an awful meal there a while back.

Service wasn't unfriendly but not exactly effusive. Focus was obviously on fish but the meat mains were a bit odd with multiple variations of steak. Catherine got prawn spring rolls to start. Rolls themselves were fine but the "salsa" was brutal. Crunchy veg and overwhelming taste of courgette. Salad was mediocre.
I had Duck Leg Confit. The duck was fine but again the saucing was pretty cack-handed. All I could really taste was pepper.

For main, Catherine had sole fillet. They did them as little roll-mops which unfortunately meant they were over-cooked on the outside and "rare" in the middle. Nasty and pretty tasteless. Came with a basil sauce. Now I adore basil but I'm not sure what it was doing in a sole sauce. I went for brill which was fine if a little bland.

The highlight had to be potato in a spring roll casing. What? I was only disapponted that it didn't have chips right in the middle with maybe a rice coating and spaghetti tails.

Desserts were parfait for Catherine and semi-fredo for me. What came out were two things of identical frozen texture. My semi was really just fredo. I could bitch about espresso coming in cappucino cups but that would be just mean.

So John McKenna thinks this is one of the top 100 restaurants in Ireland? Doesn't surprise me - the Bridgestone guide is good for addresses and telephone numbers only. I have read reviews in there which don't actually mention food at any point.

Of course Tom Doorley recently listed it as a must-visit in Wexford in the Sunday Tribune. I used to think Tom was one of those very bright people who feign bumbling cluelessness a bit like Boris Johnson. But the more I watch "The Restaurant", the more I realise that it isn't an act. This is a guy who reviews wine on afternoon TV but who doesn't seem to have correctly identified one grape variety in this entire series. His laughable attempts to guess origin and price are reason enough to watch the programme. So I don't think I'll be taking restaurant advice from him either.

So a meal for two with two drinks and a cheap bottle of wine in Wexford. How much? €126! They really are relying on never-come-again tourists aren't they? These guys are charging Tannery level prices for Coopers level food. A fine business head running the show there. Avoid.

Unite Against Terror

2005-08-07T12:03:00.000+01:00

An impressive site. Sign up here:

Unite Against Terror

Well worth reading Christopher Hitchins, John Strawson and Alan and Franziska Norman.

Heists for Jesus

2005-08-06T22:43:00.000+01:00

I shouldn't laugh, I really shouldn't, but I'm pretty sure the only Baptist church in Bandon is the one at the entrance to the estate in which we live.

Baptist pastor charged over bank robbery

If only we'd gone to his coffee morning, this could all have been avoided.

The fact that the BOI Bank Manager lives facing the Baptist Church sends this story into the realms of the completely bizarre.

That's all folks, HP RIP.

2005-07-21T22:57:00.000+01:00

Alan Kay is leaving HP. Good Morning Silicon Valley covering it here and Dan Gillmor here.

In a few years time, they'll be just another Sperry, Digital or Data General, picked up for chump change by someone like EMC.

A few years back on an EI/Stanford training course I did in Palo Alto, we were shown around HP. They still had Bill and Dave's offices exactly the way they were when they retired. I guess Hurd has converted them into stationery cupboards by now.

Silicon Valley exists to a large extent because of people like those two guys and the vision of many of those in Stanford. Then one word you could never use when discussing most of the current generation of Valley CEOs is vision.

So after Carly gives them a wedgie, Hurd castrates them. A sad day for a once great company.

Capital Cousin Chloe

2005-07-19T13:11:00.000+01:00

A wee bit delayed, we are tickled pink to announce the birth of Chloe Sheila Johnston on June 30th in the Coombe to Louise and Kieran. The little darling weighed in at 6lbs 15oz, so our young fella should be easily able to bully her.

Kieran has decided to forego a property development empire to set up a hedge fund trading in pampers futures. It appears there is far more money to be made in nappies. Hopefully we'll see them soon so she can meet her country cousins and demand the presence of a translator.

Whilst we are at it - big congrats to Kieran on being made partner. The little pup.

Vendors I would recommend

2005-07-18T12:58:00.000+01:00

I've bought a few bits n pieces on eBay and the web recently and all of the vedors were top-notch and I'd recommend them.

First off I got an FM Transmitter for my car which takes a line-out from an iPod or a USB key. It has taken a bit of fiddling to get a frequency that is not used in either Bandon or Ovens but I'm very happy with it and it only cost £27.94 including P&P. To be found here on eBay:

USB/MP3/iPod/DvD/Cd Player & Car Stereo FM transmitter

Vendor looks like he is in UK but item shipped from USA. Got it in a week.

To go with that I got a very nice Memorex 1GB thumb-drive. A bit of an odd shape but good value at £42.49 including P&P. To be found here on eBay:

1GB Memorex USB 2.0 Travel Drive

Vendor took a while to ship it (ordered June 23rd, shipped July 6th) but it arrived a few days after shipment. Based in Singapore.

But the prize for the most unexpected excellence in online retailing goes to Discount Watches in the UK. I had spent weeks trying to find a good online seller of both Casio Baby-G GMS and Waveceptor watches. Thought I had found the perfect one in Germany but on ordering, it turned out they had no GMS in stock, so I cancelled.

Then I found discount-watches.co.uk. I emailed them to check in advance that they shipped to Ireland and that they had the watches in stock. No reply. Bum. Decided to try that old fashioned means of communication, the phone. No reply. Double bum. Rang the next day and got through to a lovely woman from Llantwit in the Vale of Glamorgan. Nearly said "I'll have a bacardi and coke please Myfannwy" but asked about the watches instead.

Not only were both in stock but they only charge a fiver delivery to Ireland. The real clincher tho is their prices - less than half RRP in many cases! I ordered on the phone with the semi-expectation that I was about to be diddled. Three days later the watches arrived and are perfect. I cannot recommend them highly enough.

You see this? THIS... is my BOOM STICK!

2005-07-14T23:55:00.000+01:00

Great article and interview on Salon about Bruce Campbell and his new book, "Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way". You just can't help liking the man. Does his own thing and is obviously enjoying every minute. B-List my bum.

Still haven't got my hands on Bubba Ho-Tep.

A useful phrase for many an awkward situation "Yo, she-bitch! Let's go!"

Groovey

Dave Barry visits Ireland

2005-07-14T22:03:00.000+01:00

And encounters our most precious cultural treasures:

The Blarney Stone?

A Great Sandwich, a Great Time, at Langer's

2005-07-14T07:41:00.000+01:00

So I have all the maturity of a twelve year old. I live in Cork now - I wait in hope for headlines like this.

But it gets better, click on the link and see who wrote the article.

Oh that's me happy for a week now.

A Great Sandwich, a Great Time, at Langer's

Fabulous Fionn's Fotos Finally Flickred

2005-07-12T20:52:00.000+01:00

I have finally uploaded some photos of the wee mite to Flickr. He is now feeding on 1oz an hour which we are going to have to fix pronto. Oscar and Oisín completely relaxed about the whole thing. Poor Sibéal a bit put-out but being very good really. Any chance of weather somewhere between lashing rain and scorched earth?

Fionn's First Fotos

And I thought I was well travelled

2005-07-12T12:30:00.000+01:00

Still quite a bit of the planet to check-out before I check-out.

Countries I have visited (or passed through on InterRail to Greece in 1988 in the case of all of the former Yugoslavia). And no, I've never been to Alaska.

create your own visited country map

You gotta love Londoners

2005-07-11T15:16:00.000+01:00

30 years of bombings by IRA scum achieved nothing. Mass murderers like Martin Ferris may think that cowardly bombings in places like Warrington were different to what happened last week. Civilized people know there is no difference between the actions of Irish fascists and Islamo-Fascists. These words from a Londoner say it all:

A Letter To The Terrorists, From London

Amen brother. You have the support of all Irish democrats and always will have.

And for a bit of lighter-hearted support:

Fuck Yeah!

Fionn Philip Thomas O'Neill

2005-07-08T14:51:00.000+01:00

image021.jpg
Originally uploaded by bandon1.

Another Nokia Crap-Cam picture. Proper photos to follow on Sunday.

World's first view of Fionn O'Neill

2005-07-07T18:58:00.000+01:00

image010.jpg
Originally uploaded by bandon1.

From Nokia Crap-Cam.

Fionn O'Neill born 16:16 07/07 in Bons Secours

2005-07-07T17:24:00.000+01:00

After a tough labour and a last minute race to the finish line, Fionn was born with a wail. All are well, tired and hungry. 9 lbs 7oz (4 roods metric ). Pictures to follow.

Bons baby blogging bonanza begins

2005-07-07T13:02:00.000+01:00

Arrived 8am. Gel applied 10,30. Some contractions. Tired. Wife fine. Doc figures we'll be done by afternoon. Gut says quite soon. Tens discarded. Sudoku being raced through. Finished national geographic. Starting 'car'. Snip being ordered as i type. This was the easy bit. Next few hours will not be fun for cath.

I'm glad I'm a bloke

2005-07-06T08:27:00.000+01:00

We are now 23 hours and 35 minutes away from Catherine being induced in the Bons. We still haven't figured out if it is inducement or induction and we are having last minute hesitations about the name we have picked for him. We had decided on Cavan O'Neill but my mother objected and thought we should compromise on Navan O'Neill.

Babba was 9lbs last week. I don't even want to think what weight he is now. We have the Epi booked for insertion in the car park (no point in wasting time) and this time we have a pregnancy TENS machine. Turns out the one we used for Oscar was for sore knees. Might explain Catherine's slight discomfort during his delivery.....

Just as with the DeepImpact mission to Tempel 1, we will be broadcasting as-it-happens footage from the delivery room via Nokia Crap-Cam.

The next Blog posting will probably be a picture of the 87th Sudoku puzzle that Catherine has completed whilst wating for Baby Anakin to arrive.

iPod Flea for the Apple drone who has everything

2005-07-01T09:40:00.000+01:00

I figure Steve is seriously pissed that they stole his next product idea. Of course there would be no space to put the "Intel Inside" sticker on it.

iPod Flea Ad

Burgertastic

2005-06-29T08:33:00.000+01:00

Burger Blogs seem to be appearing everywhere but this guy Two-Twenty is an animal!

It turns out that Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles restaurant does burgers too. Bourdain became famous because of his book "Kitchen Confidential" which gave the low-down on the high-jinks in a restaurant kitchen. A great read.

His "Cook's Tour" follow-up was less hyped but also a very good read. The associated TV series was pretty poor.

His "Les Halles Cookbook" is fabulous but I've only read about a quarter of it so far. Tonight I'm checking for his burger recipe. The burger reviewed by Two-Twenty has me drooling at 8.30am. Burger, Fois Gras, Black Truffle, Red-Wine Sauce............

The next Alan Turing?

2005-06-27T20:31:00.000+01:00

IMG_1163
Originally uploaded by bandon1.

Not bad for a 6 year old with no adult help. If only Fireball and Warlord were still being published, he'd be a very happy little cryptographer.

Patrick Kevin Pierce, RIP.

2005-06-25T11:28:00.000+01:00

Aged 22, Patrick died in his sleep last monday night. He was buried at Shanganagh Cemetery yesterday after a heart-breaking funeral mass in Shankill. I didn't know Patrick that well, I met him maybe once or twice a year when visiting Eoin and Jill. But the short life of this young man should be celebrated as a example of achievement in the face of overwhelming adversity.

Nine years ago, Patrick was hit by a car and suffered massive head trauma. He was not expected to live. He spent 4 months in a coma. It took one and a half years for him to start re-learning how to speak and how to walk. Many of us would have given up and resigned ourselves to a silent life in a wheel-chair being waited on hand and foot. Not Patrick! With willpower the size of a planet, he refused to consider himself disabled and improved both his physical adeptness and speech clarity day by day.

It was a humbling experience listening to Patrick speak. Initially I couldn't make out very much, then I suddenly realised that everything was being done perfectly apart from the speed. It was like a strectched audio tape. If you simply slowed down the rate at which you expected to receive each sound, you could understand everything he said. And he was one funny wee bloke when you did listen! His sense of humour was obviously completely untouched by the accident. I often wondered if he was trying to push his thoughts through a damaged speech-centre or if his brain has re-used some other part of itself to provide speech functions. Either way it was a joy to encounter.

At his eulogy yesterday, his Dad said that Patrick always did whatever the hell he set his mind to and as a result, he fell nearly every day. I've seen some of those falls and they were frightening to be near. But he simply got himself up as if nothing had happened, dusted himself down and continued on doing whatever it was he was trying to do. I don't think any of us will forget that protective hat he had for all those years.

Patrick could not have achieved everything that he did without the enormous sacrifices made by his parents Pat and Barbara. Every parent is going to do their best for their baby boy but seeing what they did for Patrick made us all realise what parenting under extreme pressure really means. I am very sad for the pain that Patrick's siblings are feeling right now. No-one should have to lose a little brother so suddenly. But, as a parent myself, I am deeply upset for his parents and the grief that they are experiencing after 9 years of "living on borrowed time" as his Dad put it.

Whilst we rightly criticise the dreadful money wasting in our health service, the serives provided to Patrick in his rehabilitation were world class by all accounts and once again I heard nothing but praise for the NRH.

I had never encountered The Peter Bradley Foundation until yesterday. Long may they help young adults like Patrick achieve the independence that they yearn for and deserve.

In the modern world our kids have a multitude of nonsense role-models to pick from. I dread the day one of my boys tells me he wants to be David Beckham. If (and when) they do, I'll be telling them all about young Patrick Pierce and the nature of true character.

My deepest sympathies to all of the Pierce family and to Patrick's many friends.

Births and Deaths

2005-06-25T09:57:00.000+01:00

The first 3 years of this blog consisted almost entirely of baby announcements for my friends. I guess to be consistent it should also let friends know about those who have passed away. It is obviously a bit clueless to claim that the internet (and blogs in particular) democratises the news but I have to admit that I only buy a newspaper now on Friday, Saturday and Sunday - Friday for the jobs section, Saturday for the food/property section in De Paper and Sunday for the TV bit of the Sunday Times. I use various Irish Blogs and the RTE news feed for everything else.

Over the past few years I have found The irish Times becoming more and more unbearable where at this stage it has disappeared entirely up it's own arse. I used to think newspapers were for news, now I realise they are just paper blogs from those who aren't qualified to do anything else.

This was particularly driven home a few years back when my father-in-law, Brian, died. This was a man who, as County Manager of Cavan, transformed the county. Once a back-water with the biggest potholes in Ireland, under his direction it became the model for how a county could drive forward providing employment, quality of life and cultural pursuits for all sections of society so that it became the most dynamic in the country.

Brian had something so often missing in Public Servants - he had vision. And to back that vision up, he had a will of iron and a big thick Redhills neck! His sudden death shocked many people and it is wonderful to see that the new library will be named after him.

Johnny and the team in the Celt obviously did a fantastic job on the obituary for Brian. And what did the obituary in the Irish Times say about this symbol of Irish achievement in Public Administration ? Nothing! They obviously couldn't fit him in when they had to laud the life of some cultural icon like the Curator of Bee Poetry at the University of Reykjavik.

Unless the IT and other other totally self-referential papers like it somehow manage to make themselves relevant to the lives of more than a tiny sub-section of Irish/Dublin society, I predict they will have disappeared before the end of the decade.

End-Rant

Burger Innovation in Ireland

2005-06-25T09:13:00.000+01:00

One of the best foodie blogs out there is A Hamburger Today. The writing is top class and the enthusiasm for the food shines through.

But it has got me thinking about the complete lack of burger variety in this country. There seems to the only three categories here - Mickey D's Style (incl Burger King, Super Macs etc), Chippers (insert your local chipper name here) and diners (Eddie Rockets being the only example I can think of).

You'll never get a surprise in either of the first two and unfortunately Eddie Rockets ingredient quality plummetted as the chain expanded. I think there is a definite opportunity for someone doing something unique "in this space" (oh god, I've been working for a large corporation for too long). What I'm thinking of is a really great unusual signature burger that people go out of their way to get their hands on.

I was amazed to discover that an entire category of burgers existed which were unbeknownst to be - sliders. These are mini-burgers where you are usually given a few per order and they just slide right down your throat. White Castle seems to be the most famous vendor of these. I need to check out Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle for this (renamed to "Harold and Kumar Get The Munchies" over here cos we've never heard of White Castle).

That's just one option - even going for unusual toppings or different buns might do the trick. The yanks seems to go on about potato rolls a lot but I have no idea what they are. What I do know is that your standard chipper bundy with generic frozen beef patty can definitely be improved on without costing the earth.

It can be done and I have seen it work; I'll never forget the kebab shop just down from the Portobello pub on the canal which I frequented many a friday night in the early 90's. These guys had chicken, peppers and onions on skewers over a charcoal barbeque. They then slid that into a pitta with the best chilli sauce ever, topped with salad and garlic sauce. Heaven in a pitta. I don't know why they shut up shop, they always seemed jammed to me. And yet Abrakebabra is still in business.......

Are the people of Bandon ready for this or is it more a City Centre Pana thing or should it be set up near to some other food-joint where the desperate-for-something-to-give-them-an-identity mid-twenties wannbees might hang out like Wagamama?

Or would it just be a flash in the pan (rimshot please maestro)?

Impress with Wordpress

2005-06-22T20:04:00.000+01:00

Sometimes I identify great software at first sight (XEmacs, Eclipse, VMWare, GMail) and sometimes I need to be beaten over the head with it (Subversion, NetBeans, Flickr).

I have seen references to Wordpress constantly on blogs and for some reason never checked it out, which is totally out of character for a click-junkie like me. But I was getting frustrated with Blogger and the difficulty in customising it and started looking around. I also had the cunning idea of moving the Argolon Solutions Web-Site over to a Blog-based solution as a sort of mini-CMS. All roads seemed to lead to Wordpress.

One quick download later; holy crap, this thing is fabulous. It took all of 5 minutes (max) to install on my Win2K box (already running Apache, MySQL and PHP). Two minutes to configure and I was doing test posts less than 10 minutes after doing the download. So I re-tried on the Fedora box - just as quick, just as easy. Then I tried doing a test install on the Argolon site hosted by Hosting365. OK, this took longer as I wasn't sure how to unzip the distro without shell access. But a bit of messing and it was up and running in about 20 minutes.

I've looked at tons of sample templates and found a few doozies. So now I need to decide (a) do I move Argolon over to it and (b) where/how will I host it for conoroneill.com? All links to my current blog are to conoro.blogspot.com. I need to think more about this.

So if you are in the market for a brilliantly easy, totally free, utterly configurable blogging system, go grab Wordpress and play.

Best In Show

2005-06-20T08:37:00.000+01:00

Forget 100K for Celebrity Love Island; Oscar finally got the 10 Euro for his first place in Juniors/Seniors writing in the Bandon Show. The following is an exceprt from his winning entry:

"Pine nut, which is a nut, but it's also the name of a town. Pistachio nut. Red pistachio nut. Natural, all natural white pistachio nut."

This balanced his unfortunate lack of awards at the Crossmahon Sports day yesterday. The competition in the Senior Infants category was just too tough and his mid-placing in both running and muscial chairs may have scarred him for life.

To make matter worse, Oisín had a cruciate ligament injury in the tiny tots running category and had to withdraw half-way to receive emergency fizzy cola bottle treatment.

Despite the lack of a prizes for bouncy castle bouncing, Sibéal put in a world-class showing and was rewarded with burger-bites and a swig of rola-cola.

And for the second weekend in succession, we shall not mention Conor's burnt slap-head.

Twee at 7.23

2005-06-16T07:37:00.000+01:00

I smiled all the way through this.

The JCB Song

I'm hardcore baby!

I catch a bit of AM Kelly on Today FM on the way in to work. Jesus, does she ever play anything other than bland innofensive soporific music? Fair enough at 4am but something a little more noisy at 6.45 to stop me snoozing off and ploughing into the nearest tractor would help. At least Dempsey gets it and plays the Kickstart right after the news. This morning was "Bat out of Hell". Still makes me laugh every time I hear it for some reason. However, if it does get voted the best driving song of all time on Top Gear then there is no hope for the British driving public as they all drive crammed into the middle lane of the motorway.

Feedburner feed now available

2005-06-15T13:58:00.000+01:00

For no discernable reason other than the fact that I can, this Blog is now also available via Feedburner.

I suppose a possible reason for people using that feed is that I can find out if anyone other than Mark and my wife actually reads reads this blog. The Atom feed is available here:

Conor's Blog

And while I'm at it, I'll lash in a Technorati tag too. Yeah, I'm at a total loss too as to why this is useful in my case.

conoroneill

Beach Top Tips

2005-06-15T13:46:00.000+01:00

As a good husband, I am empathising with my pregnant wife by attempting to grow a belly as big as hers. So far, it has been a resounding success. However, it does pose issues of aesthetics when heading to the beach for what is likely to be the only hot day this year that we had last Sunday.

Myself and the three squirts headed off to the Long Strand in Castlefreke/Rathbarry (how could they get rid of such a hilarious name for a village and replace it with something so insipid?). We did our own rendition of Dudley Moore in "10" by hopping across the sand shouting "ooh, ooh, hot hot hot, sand too hot" and plonked ourselves down for the afternoon.

The aforementioned belly was doing a fine job as a wind-break and sun-shade for my darling daughter. Any potential for slight self-consciousness disappeared when I realised I had placed us between an auld pair and a grossly obese woman. So with zero effort, I managed to look both youthful and slim. My top tip for sun-bathing in Cork.

I won't ruin it all by mentioning my burnt slap-head.

Make the nasty man get out of my head

2005-06-15T08:01:00.000+01:00

Carl Jr's (burger chain) did a fabulous ad recently starring Paris Hilton. It's only flaw was the presence of Paris Hilton. You can see it here:

The Spicy BBQ Six Dollar Burger

A recruitment company have just psychologically damaged me for the remainder of my life with this:

What's Hot?

Ye know, I think I he works here in one of the Labs...........

Camera Phone Blogging

2005-06-10T09:59:00.000+01:00

OK so I figured out how to send a cameraphone picture via Flickr to Blogger but I had to hand-edit this text and post title afterwards. Need to suss how to do this from the phone. All this so I can get picture of new baby out to the world in double-quick time when he arrives. I need a life......

image003.jpg
Originally uploaded by bandon1.

Anne Bancroft Dies

2005-06-08T07:58:00.000+01:00

Damn - Great actress. Still looking stunning even last year. She was great in the final episode of the last series of "Curb" with Mel Brooks. They cast Larry in "The Producers" so that it would be a flop but it all back-fired. Beautiful recursion.

But I have to admit to never seeing all of "The Graduate". What a Philistine.

Graduate star Anne Bancroft dies

Dilation diary

2005-06-07T08:51:00.000+01:00

I've threatened Catherine that i'm going to blog from the delivery room in Bons. Divorce may result if i do. But I've just figured out how! My first phone blog entry.

That's one hell of a plum Matron

2005-06-07T08:20:00.000+01:00

Never let it be said that this blog encourages porn. But here's one just for the fellas:

Rachel Gets Fruity

I hope that fruit isn't meant to be life sized or life coloured. If it is, I'm in serious trouble.

I got news for you pal. You ain't leading but two things right now: Jack and Shit. And Jack just left town.

2005-06-06T22:50:00.000+01:00

Just wasted 2 hours of my life watching "Closer". What a steaming turd of a movie. Why do they make films about people who you just want to die within 10 minutes of the opening scene?

Not a great weekend of movies. "Meet the Fockers" was desperately disappointing - how lazy were they to blow the opportunity of having Hoffman and Streisand on the screen together? And "Ocean's 12" was only passable.

But all of the above were perfectly balanced on Sky Movies by the genius of Sam Raimi:

Army of Darkness: "I got news for you pal. You ain't leading but two things right now: Jack and Shit. And Jack just left town."

I can't wait to see Bruce Campbell playing Elvis in "Bubba Ho-tep"

Infacterly Butterly

2005-06-05T13:14:00.000+01:00

This guy is more and more impressive by the day. Not only is this just an awesome idea for a wet miserable June Bank Holiday Sunday but it also makes me think back maybe 30 years ago to when my grandaunts down in "The Boola" in Adamstown in Wexford used to make butter. I still remember the ridged wooden paddles they used to form the butter and how gorgeous everything they fed us was (those eggs, mmmmmm).

It's interesting that the life they led - tenant farmers, rearing their own pigs/cows/chickens, eating their own milk products, eggs, vegetables etc is now an aspirational lifestyle for so many people. Obviously these downshifters wouldn't be too happy about using the outdoor chemical toilet we found so gross! It's a pity I can't ask my old relations if they'd prefer that life or "modern life" as the only one alive is sadly now confined to a nursing home due to Alzheimers. However she is over 90 years old which is a nice confirmation of what the author below tells us about the nonsense spewed in the media about cholesterol and saturated fats.

Cooking For Engineers - Kitchen Notes: Making Butter

Unique O'Neill

2005-06-03T08:41:00.000+01:00

We specialise in giving our kids names that either can't be pronounced outside of Ireland (Oisín), can't be pronounced inside of Ireland (Sibéal - or Sibín as the Health Board thinks she is called) or make people go "ah, named after X?" (Oscar - actually named after the Sesame Street character). Child number 4 is in serious trouble.

This post has some interesting ones worth considering. Follow the link to Google. I see that Agamemnon was a runner for that blogger at one stage. Along those lines I've always had a soft spot for Xerxes. Two years of Classical Studies for the Inter Cert are to blame I think.

Speaking of which - what is it with take-away restaurants starting off with great names and losing their bottle and going with utter rubbish? "Memories of China" in Bandon now called "Honk Kong" for pity's sake. And my favourite of all time, "Xerxes Ginwalla" in Kimmage, is now called something so forgettable, I can't remember it.

Poptastic

2005-05-30T15:50:00.000+01:00

Bloody vending machine in work is only taking exact change so I could only get a Smarties bar. But this is no ordinary Smarties bar - it's an "exploding one"!

Massive flashbacks going on here. What the hell was the name of that sweet crystalline stuff in a bag that you shook on to your tongue in the 1970's and it exploded all over it? it's the same stuff. Hurrah, I've got a disco on my tongue. I thought they had banned it cos it contained plutonium or some other such "bad for children" thing.

But then this is Nestle, so it probably does contain plutonium.

Clackers anyone?

I finally get my own character in Dilbert

2005-05-27T10:57:00.000+01:00

I've always thought I was a dead ringer for Wally in appearance if not behaviour. Today's Dilbert has "Milt", a married man.

It's me I tell you, it's me.

I need to lie down now - yesterday was both Oscar's and Catherine's birthday.

27 kids in KidzKlub going mental. I was exhausted just trying to remember their names.

Why is it that little girls know how to cartwheel but little boys don't? Is it genetic?

A Wee Dram of Bill Hicks for a dark wet night

2005-05-26T23:00:00.000+01:00

Another reason to like JWZ - he is a Bill Hicks fan too by the looks of things.

The good always die young. Saw him live once when he played Dublin about a year before he died. He was on his anti-smoking kick at that stage (too late obviously) which to be honest wasn't half as funny as his pro-smoking rants. "Non-Smokers die.........every day".

Painful irony.

Excuse me whilst I giggle for a few minutes as I remember:

"Goat Boy"
"Kind of like going up to Jackie Onassis with a rifle pendant on, you know"
"Dinosaur fossils? God put those there to test our faith."

And the one I think of most often when I encounter idiots:

"what you readin for?"

Job supply-demand equilibrium in Cork?

2005-05-25T08:02:00.000+01:00

The job scene is Cork seems very strange to me (coming from working 11 years in Dublin). I hear complaints about the lack of tech jobs down here but at the same time we are having severe problems getting CVs from contractors for Argolon Solutions. To date we have done a Monster ad, an Examiner ad and mentioned openings on this blog and we have received a tiny number of CVs in response. Is every techie in Cork in gainful employment? If you look at the job ads tho, there are very few - hence my comment about Supply-Demand Equilibrium. Basically is it a fixed number of people in a fixed number of jobs, moving between those jobs every once in a while?

So in an attempt to prove myself wrong:

We need contract developers to work on some custom developments with us for a major US multinational based in Cork. Ideal candidates will be comfortable with SQL and Java (J2EE preferably) targetting either SQL Server or Oracle. Knowledge of Workflow products and their integration with legacy data sources would be a major plus. It would be useful to have some experience of reporting products like Crystal. Experience level should be 2+ years of strong development. CVs please to hr@argolon.com

Oscar wins his category in Bandon Show

2005-05-24T20:37:00.000+01:00

Oscar wins his category in Bandon Show
Originally uploaded by bandon1.

Oscar got best Handwriting Prize for Junior and Senior Infants for
all schools in Bandon and environs at the Bandon Summer Show! Next
year - best Aberdeen Angus impersonator.

Elephant No-Show Shocker at Bandon Show

2005-05-24T09:22:00.000+01:00

Oisin O'Neill (3) of Old Chapel Bandon, registered his utter disgust this past Sunday over the non-appearence of elephants at the 2005 Bandon Summer Agricultural show. Proceedings have been served on Conor O'Neill (37), also of Old Chapel Bandon, for mis-leading advertising regarding the nature of the beasts which would appear at the show. Disappontment was also expressed over the lack of tigers.

On a positive note, none of the attending O'Neill family had ever seen bulls that large despite the elder family members having seen calves born in the farm across the road in Ratoath in 1972 at the age of 4. Luckily no awkward questions arose over the size of the tackle on display.

Highlights of the show were the aforementioned bulls and cows, some fabulous horses, a genuine 1960's Ford Mustang (drool) and some fine loking tractors.

Lowlights were the goddammed rain, the frankly disturbing Punch and Judy show done in an indecipherable accent, the candy floss and the fact that Mickey Joe Harte did appear.

A special mention must go to the winner of the best hay in it's category. We live and learn.

Late breaking news: Oscar O'Neill (nearly 6), got first prize in writing in the "nearly 6" category. Would have been nice to know it had been submitted in advance! We belive €10 may be winging his way today.

Nokia Crap-Cam pictures from the event:

Huuuuuuuge Cows Daddy (yes I know they are bulls/bullocks):

Candy Floss looks a lot better than it tastes, can I have an ice-cream:

Gender Confirmed by computer

2005-05-22T12:25:00.000+01:00

Just in case there was any doubt, The Gender Genie confirmed that I'm a bloke. Huge sighs of relief from my wife. Interesting wee tool actually (The Gender Genie, not me). I just cut n paste some blog entries and it gave 247 male vs 146 female.

We're off to the Bandon Show in an hour or so. The last time I was at anything like this I must have been in my mid-teens and my parents took me on the annual pilgrimage to The Spring Show in the RDS. I used enjoy it so I hope I haven't over-hyped this one to the squirts.

In keeping with the Eurovision theme of this weekend, Mickey Joe Harte is headlining the entertainment. Oh sorry, he's Micky Harte now - yeah, that's far more suave and sophisticated sounding.

Oisín will be gutted when he finds out that there are in fact no elephants at agricultural shows. But he's right - there should be.

Is that a bullseye painted on your back?

2005-05-20T15:57:00.000+01:00

I can't help myself. I know they are world's easiest targets. Twenty Major had tears rolling down my face talking about what a pair of utter mingers they are.

But then I found the lyrics - dear god, is English even his first language? "Love can make you happy, love can make you cry"?

Coincidentally, I found this site which sings lyrics for you. So I entered the first verse. A massive improvement I think you'll agree. The result cudda made us a contenda!

http://www.sr.se/P1/src/sing/index.htm?key=5HU5OP13

I heard the sister half of the duo on The Ray D'Arcy show. From what red-neck, hick, cousin-marrying, squeal-like-a-pig hole did they crawl out of? She told Ray that she spent her time in Kiev trying to spot "all the gays". What age is she? 12? I was expecting Daffyd to suddenly make an appearance.

Next year can we just accept the Eurovision for what it is and send a drag-queen?

Flickr

2005-05-18T15:49:00.000+01:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Has Flickr always been free?

2005-05-18T13:18:00.000+01:00

I thought it was pay-only the last time I checked. Excellent, I now have a hosting site for any piccies I want to link to. Just looking through the features - bloody hell, I can see why people are raving about it. Can upload pictures via email, so I can send direct from my camera phone to Flickr. Can get it to automatically post the pictures to my blog, so straight from camera phone to blog. I think we'll be dumping the Canon Imagine site pretty soon for the Ixus photos if Flickr proves to be as good as it looks. I'd better check the upload limits I guess.

This wouldn't be Conor's blog without

2005-05-18T10:18:00.000+01:00

Baby Announcements!!

We just found out that Maria and Maurice had a baby girl back on April 17th. Baby Ellen is an absolute cutie and either has dark red hair or bright red hair depending on whether you ask Claire or Ethna.

Oh, and the Pierce's finally named 3 of 9: Rianna Gail Pierce. That's a very cool name. I'd nick it only for the fact that our next one is a bloke. But then I did meet a bloke called Shelley last week.

Next up Kieran & Lou Walsh, followed by us.

We put Kartik (an American based in Sacramento) into shock when we were out for a pint last week in Framingham. He asked the three paddies at the table if they had kids. The count was Donagh 4, Denis 4, Conor 3 plus one on the way. And they say the Irish are having fewer babies.......

Recording Streaming Audio for later listening

2005-05-17T22:36:00.000+01:00

I've been trying to figure out how to record streaming audio so I can listen to it later (and start/stop when I like). Actually it's specifically for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Quandary Phase. I didn't really enjoy the last radio series and the repeats of the TV series aren't that great either. But it became a technical challenge that I wanted to get to the bottom of. I finally cracked it today. Note that the solution below will not work behind some corporate firewalls but seems to work fine on my NATed setup on a Linksys Wireless Router at home.

Download MPlayer for Windows and all the codecs.

http://www2.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/win32-beta/MPlayer-mingw32-1.0pre7.zip

http://www2.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/windows-all-20050412.zip

Unzip MPlayer and unzip the codecs.Copy the unzipped codecs to the codecs sub-dir of the mplayer dir.

Open a command prompt in the Mplayer dir and type:

mplayer -dumpfile hitchhikers.ra -dumpstream rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/hitchhikers.ra

It streams in realtime so it'll take 30 mins to download.

Listen to ram file later at your leisure using realplayer (or the nifty stripped down, bloat-free Real Alternative)

Do that once a week to get each new episode.

Don't try this with VLC. I spent ages trying to get it to work before I realised it doesn't support realaudio!

MMMmmmmmmmmmmmm

2005-05-17T11:00:00.000+01:00

The top 50 things every foodie should do.

Mock-Tudor Edwardian Georgian Castle with Irish Bar

2005-05-17T08:51:00.000+01:00

Ah yes, those Sheraton folks in Massachusetts really know their architecture. Our hotel was only bettered by the one we drove under which straddled the Massachusetts Turnpike. I've always wanted a room with cars whizzing past 20 feet under my floor.

Shopping disaster - only had time for Toys R Us. Kids happy even if I'm still without a new keyboard and mouse.

On the other hand, we had some very successful meals. If you are ever in Framingham, check out "Legal Seafood" - great food, good buzz and grumpy waitresses; "are you finished with that or do you want to pick some more?" (that's an exact quote). Arturo's Italian was more downmarket but incredibly friendly and not bad food - better than 99.99% of Italian joints in Ireland. Having said that, my risotto is better. And finally "The Naked Fish" - another top class fish restaurant, really tasty food and impressive considering it seems to be a chain. How the hell did I not get a burger in the entire week?

Our "Summit" was a major success. It's nice to know that the work you do, beavering away in Cork, is actually appreciated coast to coast in the US. Came away with tons to do which is always a good sign. And a week after I first heard the phrase, someone else said: "we suck less". Amen brother.

Oh, and I gotta get me one of these for the Bandon-Ballincollig commute: Lincoln Navigator

Greatest Failures in Engineering

2005-05-16T08:15:00.000+01:00

Seems to be mainly focussed on Civil. Interesting enough tho

http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=95907&page=1

Oh my god, they removed Kenny's feeding tube

2005-05-11T11:58:00.000+01:00

Only if you are really, really bored.

Planearium

The title of the post is related to a recent episode of South Park which I cannot wait to see.

http://mediavillage.com/jmentr/2005/04/05/jmer-04-05-05/

So if you're really bored

2005-05-11T11:21:00.000+01:00

Try this quiz.

Nerd Test

Unsurprisingly I had a big score. This big:

Not an April Fool

2005-05-11T11:08:00.000+01:00

From yesterday's ElectricNews:

----------------
Irish company Vordel, the XML web services security company, announced the appointment of German firm, SHE-IT as a reseller of its XML security software in the German marketplace. SHE-IT has a strong reputation for delivering security systems integration expertise to leading companies in the financial services, telecoms and industrial sectors in Germany, Vordel claimed.

-------------

Anyone else have an image in their head of a southern US good old boy stubbing his toe, spitting out some chewing tobacco and swearing "she-it", probably followed by "goddam".

ElectricNews.net:News:For the record 10 May

Why Dave Barry is God

2005-05-10T01:41:00.000+01:00

From a 1992 Column in the Miami Herald Tribune:
----------------------
Speaking of true quotations, please repeat the statement that Sonda Ward of Nashville, Tenn., swears she heard made by a man expressing concern to a woman who had been unable to get a ride to a church function.

He said: ''Estelle, if I'd a knowed you'd a want to went, I'd a seed you'd a got to get to go.''
----------------------

Please un-retire Dave, please.

Bawstan Bound

2005-05-08T13:32:00.000+01:00

A week in Massachusetts from 9th-14th. Staying in Framingham, working in Hopkinton. I was in Boston once in 1996 whilst I was working in Silicon Valley and I met up with Catherine there. Great place. Felt small even tho it wasn't. Brass Monkey weather in November. Looks like it isn't too cold there now. I've already Google Mapped my way from the hotel to CompUSA, Toys R Us, Best Buy and Baby Gap. A couple of forays to Walgreens and maybe a sports store and I'll be sated for another six months.

Loo Blog

2005-05-07T23:54:00.000+01:00

Saw a funny cartoon in The New Yorker (courtesy of sis Fiona) yesterday about guy sitting in traffic, blogging his utterly banal whinges in real-time. Today, I read that Google have launched Blogging from your Mobile Phone. US only for now but hopefully I'll be able to blog my musing from the lav some day soon.

Tim Nice But Dim

2005-05-07T23:01:00.000+01:00

Well it was obvious since Paul was fired but what a disappointment. Tim has not excelled once in the entire series of The Apprentice. Can you think of one thing he did where you went "wow"? The series for me consists of some great scenes involving Paul, James and Saira.

But maybe that's what Sugar wants - an average MOR guy who won't challenge him and will do what he is told. However that is not the sort of manager who replaces you when you retire. But I guess Sugar Jr will get that job.

I've noticed that with strong leaders I've worked with over the years. The sort of people they hate are people exactly like themselves. Fatal flaw.

Roll on Series 2. Hopefully they'll find some women who have a clue and spend more than a fiver getting their hair coloured every month. Meow.

Potential - Not everyone gets to be an Astronaut when they grow up

2005-05-04T08:41:00.000+01:00

I'll be reading this site all day.

Consulting - if you're not a part of the solution, there is good money to be made in prolonging the problem.

Despair Inc.

Nice Car Mate

2005-05-04T08:36:00.000+01:00

That Vauxhall Astra ad is an absolute stonker. I love it. Catches the concept of a petrol-head perfectly.

Oisín, my 3 year old, is already well on the road to being a car nut. But somethimes it's just spooky. We were stuck in a traffic jam in Killeagh on Sunday and were stopped beside a new Bangle-era BMW 5-Series. Oisín looks out his window and says "that's the same as grandad's car". How the hell could he suss that with only the side profile in view when his grandad drives an old-model 7-Series? Then he goes "the wheels are the same". Holy crap, I love cars but I never notice the bleedin wheels. Oh I think we may have a future Schumacher on our hands (preferable to a future Irvine anyway).

This is the same child who shamed me at my latest niece's christening on Saturday. We are sitting not-quietly in the church waiting for the gig to start and someone hands Oisín a missal. He "reads" it for a moment, looks at me and says "I'll have burgers, chips and ketchup please". Yes, we are a very religious family.........

Extinct Woodpecker Found

2005-04-29T08:18:00.000+01:00

A large woodpecker thought to be extinct for sixty years has been found living in the "Big Woods" section of eastern Arkansas.

I crack me up.

Ok, here's the right link: Ivory Billed Woodpecker

6 Years of Electronic Engineering

2005-04-28T09:11:00.000+01:00

I bought my first soldering iron and multimeter by mail-order from Maplin when I was about 16 (1984) to build some add-ons for my ZX Spectrum. None of my creations ever worked :-(

I still have the soldering iron. I finally retired the analogue multimeter only last week after 21 years of sterling service and replaced it with a no-name digital one that I picked up in B&Q for €25.

I spent 6 years in UCD studying Electronic Engineering. In that time, I didn't make one useful thing. I know, I know, they weren't teaching me how to solder, they were giving me the skills I needed so I could get someone else to do it ;-)

Every once in a while I get the urge to put some wee electronic kit together, but I never make the time available.

I have the urge again.

Blogs for Dummies

2005-04-28T08:58:00.000+01:00

Actually it's a great tutorial on how to use Bloglines to track RSS feeds of peoples blogs. I have converted fully over to Bloglines for managing my feeds but they still have a lot of improving to do on the actual blog feature. Blogger is still far better for running your own Blog.

Using Bloglines

Software Development Approaches

2005-04-27T13:02:00.000+01:00

Who needs SOA or AOP when you have the far more interesting POSD:

Politics-Oriented Software Development

O'Neill History

2005-04-27T12:38:00.000+01:00

Neat summary of the history of the O'Neill's. No famous Conor's sadly.

http://www.araltas.com/features/oneill/

More Technorati messing

2005-04-27T08:31:00.000+01:00

No idea what I'm doing

Technorati Profile

If you're not, you should

2005-04-27T08:26:00.000+01:00

Of the zillions of web-sites I access in an average week, only one is unusable with Firefox - the online banking one from the donkey's over at Ulster Bank. Has someone not told them that even MS now recommend the use of the Sun JVM?

Get Firefox and at the very least, learn to browse with tabs.

You'll love it.

Channel 4 gets it right this time

2005-04-24T23:31:00.000+01:00

"The Simpsons" is voted the best kids programme of all time.

And someone just said that it's the best TV show of all time. Ye know, they might be right.

Nice to see "The Muppet Show" and "Danger Mouse" do so well.

But "Bagpuss"? Never liked that show. Nothing ever bloody happened.

And a huge relief that they had "The Tomorrow People". For years I thought I had dreamt that show!

Ah, nostalgia.

Anyone got a MIDI of the theme music to "Play Away"? Might make a good ring tone. As a small child, I thought Brian Cant was god.

Whew!

2005-04-24T23:15:00.000+01:00

My BMI is a disaster. I started on the road to reduction last thursday, but if I fail then it's good to know this:

Pleasantly Plump May be OK.

Meatballs in Tomato Sauce

2005-04-24T18:35:00.000+01:00

I have a recipe for Meatballs with Tomato Sauce which is based mainly on Sophie Grigson's recipe in her "Meat Course" Book. That is one of the best Cookbooks of the past few years but sadly is out of print now. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's "River Cottage Meat Book" is a pretty good alternative for carnivores. My family rave about this meal when I cook it and I have to admit to being partial to it myself. All of the amounts are approximate (use your judgement).

For the Meatballs:
2 lbs minced beef
1 lb sausages
3 tbs milk
1 egg
2 slices white pan (crusts removed)
parsley to taste (couple of tbs chopped)
3 cloves garlic minced (or more if you like)

For the sauce:
5 cans plum tomatoes
basil to taste (loads!)
parsley to taste (couple of tbs chopped)
3 cloves garlic minced (or more if you like)
1 tbs red wine vinegar

Extra Virgin Olive Oil (I prefer Filippo Berrio)

To make the sauce:
Cover the bottom of a medium pan with the oil and put on medium heat
Add the garlic. Cook gently for a few moments but do not let it get brown
Add all of the tomatoes
Cook down gently for 20-30 mins breaking up the tomatoes with a wooden spoon
Add parsley about half way
When it is well broken down, add red wine vinegar
cook a few minutes more

Meanwhile

To make the meatballs:
Add bread to milk in a bowl and soak for a few mins
Peel sausages (or use sausagemeat) and add to a large bowl
Add minced beef, soaked bread and egg
Season well with salt and pepper
If you are very anal, cook a bit of this mix in a pan, check the seasoning and adjust.
Mix together very well by hand
Make the balls from this to whatever size you like (golf-ball is a good compromise).
Add oil to a frying pan and apply medium to high heat
Brown the meatballs well in batches so that they are well cooked on the outside.
Do not over-fill the pan or the meatballs will not get a nice dark colour
Add cooked meatballs to the tomato sauce and cook for another fifteen minutes or so.
Add water if sauce has gone too thick
A few minutes before the end, add tons of basil and then add salt/pepper to taste.

Serve with spaghetti and loads of freshly grated parmesan.

Notes:
There are a million tomato sauce recipes. Use whatever you prefer e.g. add onion or oregano or red wine or whatever. I just like this simple one in this case.

I'm sure I've forgotten something above so don't blame me if it is kak.

Brassica Heaven

2005-04-23T11:41:00.000+01:00

Yes, she definitely has Walls genes.Sibéal is as big a fan of broccoli as her Nana Rose.

It's a miracle

2005-04-22T14:50:00.000+01:00

No, just more dumb blind desperation.

Living, as I do, so close to the famous moving statues of Ballinspittle, I love it when other nationalities can act as clueless as us.

Statues moving? No? Squint. Moving now? Nah. Here drink this paint thinner. Moving now? Yeah! Wow, that's amazing, tell the world.

Mary Image Still Drawing Crowds

Check out the Other Holy Sightings in the side-bar of this one for a belly-laugh.

Project Lifecycle

2005-04-22T13:44:00.000+01:00

I was sent this a while back and I laughed my ass off. Inspired single cartoon summary of my working life for the past 13 years. Check it out:

Deepak Alur's Blog

Web Archive - Spooky

2005-04-22T13:12:00.000+01:00

I've seen plenty of mentions of the Internet Archive Wayback Machine but I only just tried it for the first time today. Bloody ell! Put in www.conoroneill.com and it gives old snapshots of my web-site going back to 2001. You can never leave your mistakes behind. I was disappointed tho that the old Integral Design web-site was never archived. It would have been fun to look back at that awful spinning gold 3-D integration symbol I put on our very first web-page in '96. Now, who else shall I look for on my lunch break?

First Post from w.bloggar

2005-04-22T12:53:00.000+01:00

I'm doing a trial of a client-hosted tool called w.bloggar to see if it can work reliably with Blogger and reduce the overhead of making posts. Seems fine so far for the simplistic stuff I do.

del.icio.us

2005-04-22T09:00:00.000+01:00

I've been trying out del.icio.us for a week now and I still don't get what the big deal is. Yeah it's handy to have the online bookmarks. The RSS feed is kinda irrelevant for oneself but I suppose if someone was stalking me, they might be interested in what sites I am interested in and what tags I put on them. I take back what I said about tags in my previous Bloglines post below - they are actually handy for finding stuff by category (like GMail). But it's just ok, not a killer app. I'll stick with it for another while. Maybe I'm just anto-social (or even anti-social. Anto-social is what our coal-man Anto is) and don't get this whole Social Networking buzz (man).

My del.icio.us page: http://del.icio.us/bandon1

RSS Feed of that page: http://del.icio.us/rss/bandon1

My original comment on it: http://www.bloglines.com/blog/bandon1?id=15

Just discovered in the Dead Sea Scrolls

2005-04-22T07:33:00.000+01:00

Sam's earlier homage to Yakult as read out on the Gerry Ryan radio show a few months back. I cannot believe this did not win a prize.

--------------------------

Let me share with you my tale of woe,

It happened not that long ago.

I went to the cinema with my date,

My tummy was in a terrible state.

I eat too much, I was such a glutton,

I started to swell, I undid my button.

The lights went down, I settled in,

Little did I know what was about to begin.

I was so looking forward to ‘The Last Samurai’,

But when the credits rolled so did I.

My stomach was rumbling and a-rolling,

Loads of activity going on in my colon.

I decided to let out a fart,

Just as the movie was about to start.

And if there were any noxious gases,

I’d blame it on the cinema masses.

So I let it out, that was my urge,

But it was followed by a mighty surge.

I felt a sticky substance, it was just like glue,

My fart was followed by an almighty poo.

Oh Jesus Christ, what the hell?

There was no way to mask the smell.

My face said it all, there was no denial,

Why didn’t I get a seat by the aisle.

My guts were in pieces, I was in such pain,

I walked to the toilets like John Wayne.

I just about got there, to the toilet door,

Because down my leg it started to pour.

I will never forget that terrible day,

That evening when my bowel gave way.

I was so miserable, I admitted defeat,

Because on the roll holder there was only one sheet.

So quick as a flash, I couldn’t move much quicker,

I took off my jeans and peeled off my knicker.

The smell was vile, putrid and rank,

Boy oh boy, my cubicle stank.

When my stomach died down, when I felt no rush,

I dipped my knickers in the clean water flush.

I was mortified, ashamed, I felt a fool,

I got most of it off, that offending stool.

But now I am on the road to recovery,

Thanks to Dr. Shirota’s discovery.

Through all the therapy, trouble, and strife,

I believe that Yakult saved my life.

It’s become part of my daily diet,

I firmly believe everyone should try it.

Cos of my ordeal I could do with some fun,

Please send me to the Land of the Rising Sun!

Pot Noodle

2005-04-21T12:38:00.000+01:00

No more Princess Bride quotes I'm afraid.

Sam entered a world-class poem into a Gerry Ryan Pot Noodle competition today. Unfortunately she was not selected to go on air (unlike her last piece of genius which was up there with T.S. Eliot and she got to read out to the listening public). So, in order to give it the publicity it deserves, here it is in it's entirety.

The Pot heads

We are from the planet Noodle,

We cannot write, we scribble and doodle.

Where we're from, we're like Super Heros,

But there was no atmosphere and the gravity zero.

My family came here to be Earth's saviours,

But instead of names we're called flavours.

My father we affectionately call him BEEF,

He runs a tight ship, he's commander and chief.

He is muscular and handsome, long golden locks,

Our very own Samson, as strong as an Ox.

He flies through the neighbourhood, defending the weak,

Protecting the young, the old, and the meek.

He truly is a wonderful man,

My brothers help him all they can.

The boys had trouble trying to adjust,

They have to blend in, they know it's a must.

The oldest smells foul, so we call him CHICKEN.

It's bad ass this fella is always kickin'.

My other brother's cool, he is a FUNG-GHI,

He smokes strange plants, and is always high.

But he does keep up with the latest trends,

So in with Earth people, he perfectly blends.

My sisters for Aliens, they look really pretty,

Their good deeds are known throughout the city.

One's called CURRY, the other's CHOW-MEIN,

They're not a bit self-centred, not a bit me fein.

The Sizzler is the name we give our mother,

Because like her, there is no other.

She's hot, she's fiery, her humour is wicket,

She wouldn't go home if she got a free ticket.

Because there's a man she thinks is great,

For music and chat, and topical debate.

We sit around we are all ears,

When he says good morning, we give 3 cheers.

No-one comes close, even though they're all trying,

He's up on a pedestal, "HAIL GERRY RYAN".

We listen, we love him, his praises we sing,

Back home on our planet, he wud be king.

So every day between 9 and noon,

We boil the kettle and get our spoon.

We discard our masks, and undo extra limbs,

This is when Gerry's show begins.

We no longer have to disguise our features,

Beneath the latex we're exotic creatures.

We're the happiest family in the land,

Gerry Ryan on the radio, and pot noodle in hand,

and hand, and hand, and hand.

Inconceivable!....That word. I do not think it means what you think it means

2005-04-21T08:21:00.000+01:00

I wish someone had told me this in late 2001.

It took me until late 2002 to figure it out for myself.

Best Laid Plans

Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.

2005-04-20T08:13:00.000+01:00

We don't have it too bad for restaurants down here in Cork. We've had great meals in Gleesons in Clonakilty, Casino House in Kilbrittain and Broly's in Bandon.

Unfortunately most of the places in Bandon target the lower end of the Market and it's nice to see Broly's trying something better. It is a coffee shop/cafe during the day and they re-jig for more upmarket dinner at night. Good tasty food. I hope they do well but it was empty the night we were there before Christmas.

Other places in Bandon we've tried; Roccos - not too bad mid-ish-range place. Overuse of microwaves tho. Sorrento - very average Italian but the kids liked it.

Takeaways in Bandon (all sit-down too): Anarkali Indian - one of the better Indians around. Ho Kee Chinese - pretty average. Rainbow Chinese - started well, degenerated very quickly. Hong Kong - not bad (used to have a fantastic name "Memories of China", why change it to something so utterly crap?)

Gleeson's has given us some great meals over the last two years but the last meal was a let down - just lacking in flavour. The service by Alex and her team is always top class and extremely friendly.

Casino House got voted best restaurant in Ireland by Georgina Campbell which tells you everything you need to know - fabulous food in an awesome setting. Proving that being situated in the middle of no-where is no disadvantage if the food is good enough.

Our most recent expedition was into Cork City to eat at Les Gourmandises in Cook St (always makes me smile - where else would you have a restaurant? Also the barber on Sheare Street still causes a grin). I first heard of these in the RTE program last year about small businesses starting up. They had a baptism of fire but their commitment to the food shone through the program. I got a voucher for de wimmin in Passage to go there recently and they raved about it. So it was about time we checked it out.

The starters were both excellent. Very tasty, great attention to detail. My Red Snapper main was fabulous. Catherine not a huge fan of her Pork Belly but there was nothing really wrong with it, it just didn't suit her. We should probably have swapped plates. Desserts were good but not enough chocolate sauce on Catherines. When will restaurants learn? When a woman orders a chocolate dessert, she does not want to be short-changed. If sauce is involved, bring out a jug of it. None of this "dab here" "dab there" nonsense. Service was efficient and very discreet. Not cheap tho - ?106 for two with just half a bottle of wine. But we'll definitely be back.

Where is left to try in Cork? Cafe Paradiso obviously. Need to go back to Jacobs on The Mall. The Ivory Tower was just a bit too kooky for the sake of it to build up any loyalty. And we have a voucher for Otto's in Dunworley from C&T which we will use very soon. What sort of nutter sets up a restaurant 20 Km from anywhere down a windy headland in West Cork? And then makes a huge success of it? Bloody genius.

I knew it, I knew he was faking

2005-04-18T19:55:00.000+01:00

OK-bleedin-Computer? How stupid is the average Channel 4 viewer?

Fat-bloated-prog-rock-whinge-fest pap voted the greatest album of all time? Maybe it isn't so shocking when you learn that they also voted The Verve (the Verve!) higher than Jimi Hendrix, The Smiths, The Stone Roses and The Doors. What can be the cause of the destruction of the brain stems of the average British TV viewer? Cocaine? E? Fluoride? Tony Blair? PS2? I despair.

OK "shoot me now I can't take any more of this crap and I'm only on the third song" Computer? Better than The Beatles?

Now I don't actually like the Beatles but they had a smidge more talent than these con-artists. At least the emperors clothes were revealed to all the sycophantic muppets who like what they are told to like when the laugh-fest that was Kid A was released.

The only (and I mean only) redeeming aspect of this was that the 100 songs were pre-selected (why???) and viewers just had to vote on the order. This would explain the lack of people like Leonard Cohen, Nina Simone, Cream, Muddy Waters. Hell even Queens of The Stone Age and The Kings of Leon have more talent in their toes than goddammed Dido (placed 57th).

Great show tho. Seeing a clip of Ozzy doing "Paranoid" was a joy. Johnny Marr is a witty fucker too.

Next week on Channel 4: "Sleep" by Andy Warhol is voted greatest movie of all time.