zen.org Communal Weblog

RTE 2fm dj (and all around good guy) Rick O’Shea has set up a fundraiser for Brainwave, the Irish Epilepsy Foundation.  Brainstock will be on October 12 at Vicar St, one of the best places in Dublin to see anyone.  The lineup so far is:

Boss Volenti on the foot of their newly released debut album “Boss Volenti”. 
Couse & the Impossible – Meteor Music Awards 2006 Nominee – Best Irish Male & Best Irish Album. 
Emm Gryner fast becoming a regular on the Irish music scene after the Irish release of “A Summer of high hopes” at Oxygen 2006. 
Jape Richie Egan striking it out on his own 
Neosupervital one of the most genuinely interesting and intriguing acts in ages 
Penfold DM after a string of sell-out shows in Whelans & the Sugar Club. 
Pugwash the champions of the cause for melodic & enigmatic rock and the critically adored Steve & Joe Wall – many more special guests to be announced over the coming weeks. 

You can get tickets from Ticketmaster for 20 euros, that includes booking fee.  These are some great bands, and honestly, the cost of the ticket is a steal for what you’ll get.  And Brainwave says: All the funds raised on the night will support Brainwave’s 2007 Epilepsy Awareness/ Anti-stigma campaign which aims to eliminate some of the ill-informed prejudices surrounding epilepsy which still exist in today’s society. 

Why is Rick doing this?  He was diagnosed with epilepsy when he was 16, and has recently become patron of Brainwave.  Recently, he blogged about a seizure he had, and in his words the “real reason for talking about it here is not to drag you through my dreary medical history but to give you some idea of how this whole process works for the next time you come across someone who either has epilepsy or is having a seizure.”

Fair play to ya Rick.  And if you want to go to Brainstock…GO!!! 

If you visit the Guinness website, they first ask you what country you’re from. It’s not even necessary, since they can actually figure this out based on your IP address.

But the fun only starts there. After the more expected choices, there’s a series of hyphens then an alphabetical list, starting with Afghanistan. Most of the time there’s no reason to be honest with this sort of question (marketing demographics, bah) I went with Afghanistan.

The result was better than the fact they even ask:

SORRY

Sorry, we are unable to allow you access to our website due to regulations in your country of access

Please leave the GUINNESS® website »

The “Please leave” line is a link to Google. A little script would let you put together a list of all the countries they believe aren’t allowing access to their site. Wonder how they keep track of laws and regulations for every country on the planet?

We had a situation where we needed to be able to call someone in America from a payphone in Ireland. No calling card handy, nothing the phone company in Ireland could do to charge it to our Ireland-based home account. Can’t do a collect call. Can’t do 3-way calling even though it’s mentioned in the phone book. Can’t do conference calling cuz the department for it in the Irish phone company goes home at 6pm. Is it actually impossible?
Whatcha do?

In Ireland, call the international operator (American accents) at 1-800-945-555. They’ll call anybody you want and let you charge it to a credit card.

Whew.

Patrick watched Ireland win tonight’s rugby match against England; it gave Ireland the Triple Crown, the gold cup they get for beating all of
Wales, Scotland, and England (the other “home nations”). It was a great match, with an incredible ending. E and I cheered and clapped our hands, and told P what had just happened. He looked from E to me, then shouted, “YES!!!!” and began fervent clapping.

hee hee

We don’t like the image of him playing this game, of course, since they beat the living crap out of each other. (Making American football players look like total wooses with all the padding and helmets.) But we also know it’s really common for kids in school, and he’s as likely as any to take part. Our neighbor across the road and his son have both played rugby extensively throughout their school years.

We’ll keep our fingers crossed he doesn’t break anything too important. 🙂

NYC’s Parade Organizer compares GLBT to neo-Nazis.

Ahem:
“If an Israeli group wants to march in New York, do you allow neo-Nazis into their parade? If African-Americans are marching in Harlem, do they have to let the Ku Klux Klan into their parade?” Dunleavy was quoted as saying.”People have rights. If we let the ILGO in, is it the Irish Prostitute Association next?” he said.

WHAT?!?!?!?! As they say on Grey’s Anatomy…”Seriously? SERIOUSLY?!”

Let’s please compare the GLBT community with prostitutes. Yes, please. That’s just perfect. We won’t say a damned thing about the freaking Roman Catholic archdiocese and their little sexual abuse issues. No no no…

Hello Mr. Pot, this is Mrs. Kettle.

In today’s Indo:

—-
Dublin City Council told the Irish Independent yesterday that while the roadworks on O’Connell Street would not be completed in time for the festivities, any items that could be damaged or used as weapons would be removed.

Weapons

During the recent trouble on O’Connell Street, rioters used bricks and debris from the pavement works as weapons. To avoid a repeat of that, all machinery and loose material will be removed tomorrow and fences around the works will be reinforced.
—-

“During the recent trouble”?!?!?!?!?!?

Jeez. Forget it. I was thinking of going up to town for the parade on Friday with P, but maybe we’ll just hit up the carnival that’s on in Merrion Square. /shakes head

[tags] stpatricksday loveulster riot dublin parade carnival irishblogs[/tags]

P’s best friend D was over playing today. We were in the dining room, coloring, when the doorbell rang. P is in his “I’LL GET IT” stage (wait til he figures out he can answer the phone!) and ran to the door, with D in close pursuit.

There were two older men there, in woolen scarves and jackets. “This is for the parish…” and handed me a flyer. I, of course, having NO idea what to do with it, said “Oh…um, is this everything?” and as they were moving away, they said yes.

So I look at the pamphlet, with the boys trying to see it.

“Is it from…God?” asked D.
“God?” I said, not knowing what to say. D tried to open the pamphlet in my hand, looking for a special picture.
P, not knowing what/who God is, said “Oh, it’s from Galway.” And D replied “From Galway?”, looking at P like he’s nuts. And then they both walked away.

Apparently God is from Galway.

Let’s all go and demand Wil Wheaton to come to Dublin for a talk. Sound good? Go on, click it, you know you want to.

[tags]wilwheaton dublin talk demand eventful irishblogs ireland blog[/tags]

Today’s adventure: make dinner.

Sounds easy. Wasn’t. Cause as I sit in my comfy couch this afternoon, I see happy Vera walking by. She pops in, says, “I’m going to the doctor to see if I need stitches.” She *sliced* her thumb on a ham tin. I mean sliced (dude, if you’re squeamish, please don’t look. I warned you). Like, I’m never using a key to open any of those silly kinds of cans ever. She didn’t believe that she needed company, but I convinced her otherwise. Thank god, too, cause we were there for like 2 hours waiting. Then they finally saw her, had her put her finger under the taps, and then *glued* it shut. GLUED. /shakes head. I had that in the back room….we coulda avoided the 2 hour wait!

So after she let me to go Tesco to get the few things I needed for dinner. Basically leeks, since it’s chicken and sweet leek pie. Now, this is a Jamie Oliver recipe, and it’s one we’ve done before (tho no comments written in the book, so that should worry me…), but it takes forever. First you have to skin and debone the chicken legs (thank you for teaching me technique, Alton Brown), then cut up the leeks, carrots and prep the thyme. (Does anyone else get thyme all over the place when they strip the leaves? I got some in my hair.) Then cook for 15 minutes, add wine (we used apple juice instead, as I had no vino), water and soymilk, and boom. Stir, and bubble for 45 minutes. Then put in pie dish and then top with puff pastry.

Sounds easy. Can take a while. Was it good? Ummmmmmmmm….yeah. Filling. Hopefully the puff pastry will last til lunch tomorrow. We’re having a massive leftover lunch, since almost every plastic container (and that’s saying a lot) is being used right now.

P decided that he wanted to make something from the leftover puff pastry. So we did. All together now…awwwwwwwwwww.

[tags]altonbrown, cooking, jamieoliver, vera, p[/tags]

There is a great talk that is going to happen in Belfast on 16 March, with [tag]Richard Stallman[/tag] and [tag]Bruce Perens[/tag]. This is one of those events that true geeks can’t miss :-). And it’s FREE (as in beer, as well as in speech, that’s even kewler). Sponsored by Google.

[tags] freesoftware, belfast, irishblogs, irishblog, google, seminar[/tags]