Via Fabulist is “Girls just want to have fun” by Greg Laswell. MP3 available from Fabulist or you can watch two video versions below. Didn’t even realise this was a cover until I twigged the song title. This
Live version of Girls just want to have fun:
This is the song with video clips from the awful OC programme to accompany it:
Mr. Boyce won a ticket to see Liverpool make it to the finals. Ahhh YouTube is great.
Vincent Browne taking on Bertie Ahern now on YouTube. Also taking PJ Meara down brilliantly. Quality not great. (see how long it lasts):
These are not so much fluffy as linky. Call it an early morning new blogs on the block.
First up is TÃr na nÓg aka Adventures of an Irish Mammy. Already great blog posts from this very new mammy.
Tiny Planet is the blog of David O’Mahony, a freelance sub-editor for the Irish Examiner.
Rough Hands – The blog of a Dairy Farmer in the South West of Ireland.
Bit old now but Dan Hardie has another great blog post here about Amir the carpet seller.
Finally! Woo! Yay! Rock on! Minister for Dialup Noel Dempsey has a blog. It seems his blog comments are not moderated so anyone with a blogger account can leave a message. And they have.
Via the Ray D’Arcy show is John Bracken. Your candidate for Laois/Ofally:
There’s also a song about him doing the rounds. D’Arcy played it this morning. A lot. We must find a copy and put it online somewhere. If anyone can procure it, let me know.
Update: Song is on Mongrel
Fuck EI and Irish VCs, learn Mandarin. The Chinese have a Trillion to invest.
Seems someone wanted 45k to hand the main Obama profile over to Obama. Up to now it was run like a fansite. Now Obama’s people got the profile shut down instead. Shutting down your biggest fan makes sense how?
Via the Guardian is a very Fight Club looking ad for Nike, including the Ed Norton voiceover:
IrelandOffline press release on National Broadband Tender.
The gist is this: Dempsey announced today, 3 weeks before an election that he was the Jesus Christ of broadband. The saviour for all the broadband sins of Ireland. Lots of talk of everyone now getting broadband.
The tender says that all areas not covered by eircom and the various wireless companies out there will be covered by the tender. Where do they cover?
This is the godawful map:
How did they make the map?
Well the DCMNR asked the wireless companies for their coverage areas and it seems many were quite liberal with their coverage. Example: Permanet said they covered the whole of county Wexford and so now Wexford will not be covered by the tender according to the 18MB 1 page PDF the DCMNR issues today. Yes, irony that you need fibre to the home to download the damned map. But see, the major issue is that despite Permanet saying they can cover the whole of Wexford, not everyone in Wexford will get their signal. Coverage is once again, the old eircom definition, which means it is not the same as getting a signal. So no signal because of trees, or buildings or interference or blackspots? Tough. Look at Donegal too, a broadband paradise according to the DCMNR!
Also, many people even in an area where eircom “provide” broadband, still cannot get broadband because of split lines and poor quality lines. It is not just about distance from the exchange. This tender excludes these people. If the exchange is already enabled then it is tough for you too. Unless you are 4.5km from that exchange, any nearer and again, no deal.
Additionally, the tender does not cover areas where eircom recently said they will enable. eircom are still not offering a timeline on this so right now they hold a monopoly on these areas. That’s about half the country, geographically speaking, from what I can see. We’re in week 1 of an election and so far no political parties have pointed out all these flaws. Jesus people!
Then there’s the case of WestNet who do offer a service in but are not on the map so according to the tender, the tender winner will be subsidised by the taxpayer to go in and compete with them.
This is the real coverage map (excluding wireless companies). With every single exchange in the country enabled, (only half are) this is what the map would look like yet the DCMNR seems to have a different take on this.
Here’s an interactive Google Map with 4.5km radius
Fergus Cassidy has a great piece on how the canvassers do way more than put a leaflet in your door. I must say most of this was new to me but it makes complete sense. Well worth reading. Look forward to part 2.
Jemima Kiss from the Guardian has gotten back to me about the attack piece on me in her Organ Grinder Column. She has now rectified (at the end of her piece) the misrepresentation that I said “fuck off” to content labels. I also asked that the piece link to what I actually stated, since she linked to a blog post where Paul Walsh argued against what I said. It would only seem right in terms of balance. Glad that has happened. Apparently this could have been resolved sooner had it not been for Jemima being away from the office and apparently because of my agressive attitude to this. Glad this is sorted.
I guess everyone is in a rush sometimes but it is sad that someone doesn’t check their facts. Though since her piece where she quotes Paul quoting me was the 6th Organ Grinder in the past few months where she quoted him, she obviously considers him beyond error. But one must always double-check sources, right?
Oops. Crowded House went on stage a few hours before Rage Against the Machine for their own reunion concert. The crowd were not at all happy.
And … nothing. By this point we were far back into the crowd, and you had to be there to appreciate just how thunderous this silence was.
PrezVid points out how the French do TV debates. Pity the guys can’t do it here.
Tales from recovery of anorexia.
Google has about 900 millionaires. Microsoft has so far made 12,000.
Via Smartmobs:This thingymabob removes ads from webpages and replaces them with art. Cute.
I finally finish with IrelandOffline on June 9th. Replacements wanted. (Not as if I can take a rest then. 3 new Mulley projects on the way around same time.)
Barry:
