Raiméis

Ah now this is ridiculous, in Australia officials have basically banned the game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas over these stoopid ‘explicit sex scenes’ which can be viewed by anyone with access to a special game mod. The official classification for the game has been revoked which means it cannot be legally sold, hired, advertised or exhibited in the country. Struth mate, have you all lost the plot?
As I said before, the game already contains extreme violence and bad language, and it only got a 15+ rating in Australia, but some stupid badly-made scenes gets it banned?? Bleedin’ eejits!

As well as a new blog script I have also been planning some new content for Ráiméis.
When it comes to learning languages (in this care Irish) motivation (or rather lack of-) is a big problem. I have all the books/tapes etc but never use them. So a couple of week ago I decided that I might start again with “Progress in Irish” and post each lesson here as I complete them. I’ve been doing the odd lesson here and there but not in any structured way and so i’ve gained little value from doing them. Perhaps if I take the time to post them here I might learn more, plus it might help with the motivation problem.
I will try to keep them discreet i.e. all you will see on the front page is a lesson except or perhaps just a title or description, for those of you who may want to avoid the language, and those of you who may be interested in checking out the lessons can open the full post.
Good idea, bad idea? Any of you use Progress in Irish?

I was looking for some comedy sketches when I cam across this, thought it was worth posting, NI being in the news an’ all.

A Protestant ( John Byrne ) & A Catholic ( Kevin McAleer ) are sitting in a pub in Northern Ireland. They confess to bigotry in the past, but applaud the new spirit of finding common ground, particularly in relation to History…

Kevin McAleer : “The Protestants, I think we would all agree, arrived here 400 years ago, they robbed the Catholic land, they drove us up to the hills like so many sheep, they did their best to brutalise our culture, our language, our traditions. Our struggle continues to right these wrongs, and that struggle goes on even, I suppose, even as we speak… ”

John Byrne : ( who has been signalling warm approval, takes the batton ) “I couldn’t have put that better myself. These early settlers were fine, decent, hard-working Protestant stock. They found a wasteland, a bog, as Kevin said, inhabited by semi-nomadic non-English-speaking Roman Catholics. They built towns, they built cities, they started up industries, basically they transformed Ulster into the garden that we know today… ”

McAleer continues : “It’s so refreshing to hear John speak of the positive aspects of Ulster. Our Gaelic culture, as he says, is flourishing, and we’re going to outbreed you Prods. And we will not hesitate to use the ballot-box as a weapon if that’s what it takes to achieve our constitutional ends of a united Ireland… ”

Byrne adds : ” I share Kevin’s vision of this threat of a United Ireland, and what we need is a wall, a big wall… ”

This article “Holding The Fort” 24th May 1998 : Declan Lynch proposes that the Good Friday agreement on Northern Ireland is but an imitation of the following comedy sketch…

Right here we are … WordPress in all her glory.
A few things you should note:

• template isn’t near done, this was some template I downloaded which I bastardised, colours look a bit dodgy
• categories don’t work just yet, I need to edit every single fucking post (450+) and manually set the category, which will take some time
• link section is a bit mixed up, will get it sorted soon
• the post order is a bit strange, problem with the import script I reckon

Sin é, that’s about it. It’s late here, and I have to be in work in about 5 hours so these problems will just have to wait …

Da Town got a right shock in Wales tonight. Leading 2-0 from the first leg of the first qualifying round of the UEFA Cup against Carmarthen, da Town thought it was an easy one, especially at half-time when they went in at 1-1, they held the advantage. But a four goal blitz by Carmarthen in the second half sends Longford Town crashing out of the UEFA Cup. Defeat snatched from the jaws of victory, as they say. Feckin donkeys!!

Well obviously the big news of the day (ok, i’m half an hour late, it’s Friday here) is the IRA statement. It’s been covered everywhere BBC, RTÉ, the Guardian and a dozen others. You’ll get some good analysis and commentary from the blogs: Slugger, Balrog, United Irelander, Most Sincerely Folks … that’ll get you started at least. Oh and Twenty has the “statement” in full.

I have to say the statement wasn’t what I expected. It’s a big leap forward in my opinion. Two questions though; 1. Will the IRA finally follow through with their promises? 2. What excuse will Paisley come up with now to avoid talking to Sinn Féin? Let’s wait and see.

Twenty addresses a serious topic for a change, albeit in his usual humorous way, the issue of morning after pills being made available to girls as young as 11. Yes, twas Tánaiste Mary Harney who suggested this, after she said there was “evidence to show Irish girls in the 11 to 14-year-old age group were sexually active and regularly seeking the morning-after pill”. It’s flippin crazy when you think about it, sexually active at age 11?? What’s the world coming to at all at all??
At age 11 I was only interested in pucking a sliotar round a field. The only ridin’ I was doing was on a BMX! I think Twenty might be on to something with those suggestions…

WordPress testing still ongoing, just working on the template … trying to decide if I will stick with this current template (even though it’s plain I kinda like it) or if I should try something new. There might be some disruption over the weekend…

Todays question: Are you a problem solver or a day dreamer?
Many of us have our own regular thinking times; mowing the lawn, driving the car, going for a walk, sitting on the dunny, having a quiet cup of tea, shaving ones head (yeah that’s me); all opportune times for pondering lifes little puzzles or figuring out next months budget. So which are you, problem solver or day dreamer?
I have to say i’m the latter. I’d happily sit for an hour with a cup of tea and let my mind wander from websites to 3D projects to tv programmes to handball to the fuzzy headed young one with the big arse who works in the supermarket nearby to just about anything and everything! No, no constructive brain storming or problem solving for me, that’s much too strenuous! So which are you, problem solver or day dreamer?

Came across this via Michele Neylon‘s blog. If you are tired of the name Google you can simple change it to whatever your heart desires with this little tool from Logogle. Ok, it’s not very useful but if you’re easily amused like me you should get 5 minutes craic out of it. My efforts: diddies, amused, who the hell.