Every Day is Election Day

…is the photo that went with the news story in RTE this morning.

Consider the case of nine-year-old K from New Zealand. Or, at least, that’s how her friends know her - that’s how she introduces herself, her actual moniker being “Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii”.

A New Zealand judge has ordered a name change for the embarrassed kid, and expressed dismay at the other examples or unorthadox naming.

Quoth the National Broadcaster:

The judge discovered New Zealand parents had given their
children some other unusual names including Number 16 Bus Shelter and Midnight Chardonnay, both of which may relate to the conception of the child.

One child was named Violence and two pairs of twins were called Benson and Hedges and Fish and Chips. The children from another family were all named after six-cylinder Ford cars.

But what’s worse? The names, or the fact that RTE supplemented the story with this cutting-edge, incisive graphic?:

Hmm.

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the Big Bad Interweb:

He’s back! Rick O’Shea returns to Twitter and will be tweeting his morning Gerry Ryan stand-in today.

Via Steph at work: Lilsugar wonders if Sesame Street is the new Oprah…

Possibly the most Epic. Fail. Ever…

The Spanner [disclaimer: I used to write for it] reports that the Internet has declined the latest Paris Hilton tape…

And Jazz Biscuit takes the, er, biscuit, by proclaiming that - somehow - Pippa O’Connor was unharmed when her horse fell beside her.

PS - Thanks to everyone for the brilliant feedback from the Wordpress Walkthrough post; I’m honestly stunned by the great reception from it so thankyou to everyone who read and left a comment.

Inspired by Darragh’s recent masterclass on how to leave comments on other peoples’ blogs, and guiding Scally through the following process yesterday, I thought I’d post a guide on a similar theme to Darragh’s - how to get your own webspace and install Wordpress on your website.

Though there are a couple of other downable blogging software packages, Wordpress is by far the market leader, powering pretty much all self-hosted blogs at the time of writing. From an Irish point of view, almost all the prominent Irish blogs - Damien, Alexia, Tom, Elly, Twenty Major, Beaut.ie, Sarah, The Chancer, Jazz Biscuit, and so on [I wouldn't dare list myself here!] - are built on Wordpress’s reliable, stable, and very adaptable blogging software. What’s more, even more sites - like Rick O’Shea or Casa Casey Courtney - are hosted on the pre-provided Wordpress.com service, which has a lot of identical features but is not made to be quite as adaptable.

Wordpress is also fantastic for importing blogs you’ve written elsewhere - so if you have an old Blogger account, or maybe a LiveJournal, you can import these posts and they’ll appear as normal entries within your Wordpress. You can even export posts from Wordpress.com and import them into Wordpress on your own webspace if you like, which is very useful if you’re a current Wordpress.com user and want to graduate to hosting your blog yourself. What’s more, if you’ve got your own webspace, you don’t have to worry about exceeding Wordpress.com’s size limits for attachments to your blog, as you’ll have all the space you need to upload files for your posts.

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I’m feeling much better, hurrah for concert news!

As announced on Rick’s blog in the last half hour - Coldplay will play the first gig at the new o2 Arena on Sunday Dec 21st, with tickets on sale this Friday.

/excitement

Three bits in my Google Reader that demand worldwide attention:

Darragh puts together a worryingly funny collection of celebrity muppet-a-likes (no Irish soccer team though!)…

Armando Ianucci paints a picture of Rupert Murdoch’s business era from 2010-2014, which reminds me a little of the Deus Ex Machina scene from Matrix Revolutions…

…and I Can Has Cheezburger get into the sporting spirit with the Invisibl Olimpiks:

Officially diagnosed with exhaustion (FE1-itis) by Dr McNerdy, and I’ve been banished to the bed. As a result, there has been considerable resting and  I’m all disorientated when I sit up so typing is difficult. I hope I’ll be back soon, I need to mendsies. Thanks for the loves, I shan’t be long…

Meanwhile:

I took my love down to Violet Hill
There we sat in snow
All that time she was silent still

So if you love me
Won’t you let me know?

If you love me,
Won’t you let me know?

Long live the crusts…

(This is the follow-on to my first blog earlier this week, which you can find here.)

So I’ve outlined the two crucial flaws with the All-Ireland Hurling Championship as it currently is:

1 - The devaluation of provincial championships
2 - The tiering system that bars most competitors from winning the main prize - the All-Ireland itself.

The unfortunate thing about what I’m about to propose is that it’ll have to concurrently take effect in the football series, but this should probably also be welcomed.

Now, I know I promised to propose something radical, and I know that the instant reaction of most readers will be to exclaim that the main part of what I’m about to propose will be to say it’s nuts, and that it would never happen. But it already has.

My proposal is thus:

To seperate the Provincial Championships from the All-Ireland series.

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…between the cover of Coldplay’s new album, Viva La Vida…

…and the cover of Oasis’s forthcoming album, Dig Out Your Soul, due for release on October 6th.

Funny how these things come around in cycles, isn’t it?

They say that you can measure the strength of an economy by counting the cranes on the horizon.

From my second floor window on Fenian St, Dublin, there were 20 cranes on show on my first day, only a fortnight ago.

Now there’s 24.

So what’s this about a recession…?

Another day, another dollar. (Less every day mind, was bloody sick when I heard this this morning.)

Was a late one last night, we all stayed up to watch President Hughie on One to One with Aine Lawlor (you know you’re a hack when…) and I only got a chance to grab dinner at the absurd hour of 11pm, so I was wired till all hours. And then something very exciting happened: someone came to visit us. I can’t disclose more till Troy allows me to, but trust me, I was excited and you will be too once you know the circumstances. Let’s just say the garden might yet get some green fingers, eh, Troy?!

Attention span isn’t the Mae West at the minute. I’m so scared of unravelling good study/class work done that I’m trying to surround myself with only vacuous nonsense to prioritise my learningz. Everything is casenames. I’m trying new memory techniques for them, like every shop on Grafton St. has a case name associated with Constitutional cases, and I’m trying to connect Contract cases as a hurling team, lining out from goals to corner forward to will it to stay in my noggin’. Rough stuff.

When I really, and I mean really needed the laughs though last night, my unlikely knight in shining arbour was Leo Varadkar. Anyone see Q&A last night? A woman in the audience was beckoned by Bowman to contribute to the discussion and she started with a “I can’t believe I’m saying this… but I agree with Leo Varadkar…” and as she said that her face exploded with embarrassment and shock that she had ever verbalised such a thing, that she covered her face in her hands going, “Oh Jesus, I forget what I was gonna say now!” Oh, it was priceless.

I think I have to go home for another funeral. So many of them at the minute, just hard to take. Hate them, I always feel like I’m intruding on the immediate group of family/friends. Unless you are part of that group… is there anything worse? Such waste of lives out there at the minute. Dreadful.

We’re off to Kerry for a family wedding in late August (my plea yesterday worked a treat) and I have to sort accommodation for us… this is more a reminder than news. Sorry, I’m that much hitting the ground in spots, writing at all must include to-do reminders… please be sure to hit me when I put laundry collection or bill paying here. Ever. (That’s just one graituitous one for Reilly for tonight. :-P)

Leinster Final Sunday. The Wexicans have all been sorted with tickets. I may even lend them a lung of support.

In the meanwhile, throw your eyes over these beauts…

• This made me laugh so much on Friday: DOD continues to rock my world in quite a gentle way (like a delicious cake as opposed to a bag of drugs).
• Twenty Major tells it how it is… or how the courts should see it.
• Hello Kitty, goodbye childhood.
• I really, really REALLY want to go to this but exams would be a loomin’ around then! Guilt is a terrible thing.
• Deal reached between Google and Viacom it seems…
• Shameless plug for the lads at home, but if I can’t get to Kilkenny to see this, I’ll be going to this.
• And before you reach for the off button, have a read of Darragh’s take on the biggest headache the BCI ever had, or ‘Tommy’ as his mother calls him.

M’off to legitimise my pay…

Falling asleep at work. There is a weird smell of patchouli (and bittterness actually, don’t ask) around here and I swear, it’s the only thing keeping me awake. ‘Tis vile. Study fatigue is such that last night I dreamt I was sitting on the bench of the New York District Court, discussing the the Leonard v. Pepsi Co case, and reasoning with Justices Leonard and Wood about the harrier jet.

If you haven’t a clue about the background of the above case, I congratulate you on avoiding the legal profession, her evil rubble of cases, and the destruction it wreaks on your sleeping habits.

Meanwhile I’m beasting Constitutional Law (DeV- dheanfainn cinnte), even if it meant that Gav and I argue over judgments (this happened with Evidence in my finals: Mackey v. AG was nearly the end of us). Anyways, I’m doing alright thus far, but I really need to stop the 9-5-ing now, I need to case it up and do not much else. Expect a “Being an FE-1 widower… it ain’t fun” post soon from Reilly. Yesterday it got so bad I painted my nails black (to represent the fissures of my pain, man) but instead of looking like LC, aka ‘the less stupid one from The Hills’, I was dangerously emo. Get thee to thine Central Bank, boi.

So Mayo are still the bridesmaids, and Clare the whipping boys of Munster once again. How proud was I of Offaly on Saturday? Maybe I was just emotional after a day of express and implied terms in a contract but when Joe Dooley spoke at the end of the game I nearly burst into tears. If one person tells me that Leinster hurling is dead I’ll lock you in a room with nothing but the Lisbon Treaty for company and I’ll play Ann Lee’s “Two Times” over and over and over. Lesson much?

Oxegen revellers (such Metro/Hedd-eld lingo out of me) were present en masse on O’Connell St this morning, wellies on the lot of them. Ploughing Match chic, I was jealous, I won’t lie. I’m planning on living vicariously through Rick and Una’s blogs and Lili’s photees over the next few days.

Well done to Bertie on the new gig.

Eldest and middle sister are off to Paris today to storm the Bastille. Hags. I would have lovesies it. Fiends. An Taoiseach is over there today too, with Angela and all the lads. Want to be there.

I should have done the teaching. Should have done the teaching.

PS - I tried on my debs dress at the weekend and whaty-ya-know, I still fit into it! On the look out for a wedding now to give the old rig-out an airing. You can even have me at the table with the weird Laois cousins. Oh come on, we all have them…