It’s A Day For Goodbyes… But Who Will You Miss?
February 29, 2008 (No Responses)
I NOTICED from various news sources today that there are quite a few goodbyes in the headlines, and apart from the sheer coincidence and randomness associated with this it made me stop and think. Of all the goodbyes I read about, which ones did I actually give a crap about?
So – who is saying goodbye then?
Well first up we have the old man of Internet browsers, the unlikely challenger to Microsoft in it’s day and ultimately the first real looser in the browser wars. Today is the last day for Netscape as AOL officially closes down support for this browser from March 1st 2008.
Today is also the beginning of the end for the notorious “Chemical Ali” in Iraq – one of the senior aides to Saddam Hussein – as the courts today removed the last obstacle to hanging him for his crimes and the plan is to carry out this execution in the next few days apparently.
Today is also the day the Spice Girls decided to say “Goodbye” to their fans via a message on their website; it seems they have finally come to the end of the road and are breaking up for good.
Not to be outdone, Brit rock legend Elton John announced today that he is saying “Goodbye” to all the fancy dressing and crazy garb as he’s getting a little old for it; so from here on he is going to just your average billionare I guess.
And last, but not least, I noticed that one time indepentant New Line Cinema announced today that they are folding up shop and merging into the parent company, Time Warner, with approximately 600 job losses in the frame.
So of all the “Goodbyes” today, which one will you miss? Read more
Did You Know Your Teeth Can Save Your Eyesight?
February 28, 2008 (One Response)
I KNOW THIS SOUNDS PRETTY INSANE, but it’s actually true. It’s a procedure called Osteo Odonto Kerato Prosthesis (OOKP), and it’s just saved the eyesight of a very lucky Irish man called Bob McNichol.
The story begins a couple of years ago when a freak accident involving hot liquid aluminium exploded into the eye of of Bob McNichol from Mayo. He lost his eyesight as a result and assumed that’s the way things would stay, which I think you will agree is a fair assumption given the circumstances.
After doctors in Ireland said there was nothing more they could do, McNichol heard about a miracle operation called Osteo-Odonto-Keratoprosthesis (OOKP) being performed by Dr Christopher Liu at the Sussex Eye Hospital in Brighton in England, and that’s when the story gets really weird.
You see the principle behind this procedure is pretty wild. It’s a technique which the Italians pioneeredback in the 1960s (I’d love to know what they were smoking when they came up with this one!) which involves creating a support for an artificial cornea from the patient’s own tooth and the surrounding bone.
In this particular instance his son, Robert, donated a live tooth so that the surgeons in England could perform the procedure on his father. The medical types gave the procedure a 65% chance of partial success, and wouldn’t you know it the crazy thing actually worked.
McNichol’s right eye socket was rebuilt, part of the tooth inserted and a lens inserted in a hole drilled in the tooth. The first operation lasted ten hours and the second five hours; they basically built a new eye socket and foundation based upon a tooth extracted from his son, and now McNichol (senior) has enough eyesight to watch TV and generally get around again.
I guess the thing that pisses me off the most about this amazing story is that the Irish doctors just gave up on him, and weren’t even informed enough to know that there were other potential options out there less than a few hundred miles away over in England.
Still, it’s a happy ending for the McNichols and will provide great hope to others out there who find themselves in a similar – if unfortunate – set of circumatances.
All you need is £40,000 in your pocket, probably access to the Internet, a willingness to do the legwork yourself and a ticket to England it seems.
Irelande Douze Pointe – Eurovision Gets A Proper Hand Up It’s Arse At Last!
February 23, 2008 (2 Responses)
I HOPED, I REALLY DID… and tonight it actually happened. Last week I heard about the 6 Irish Eurovision song contest entries and the one that caught my attention was the duck turkey from Dublin with the most outrageous idea yet. I’ve always avoided watching the Eurovision because it’s so campy and crap, but this year when I heard that a hand puppet was being entered into the contest with a song called “Irelande Douze Point” – as a kind of protest vote – I just had to tune in tonight to see what happened in the qualifiers.
And would you believe it… the idiots left it up to the voting public to decide who goes through. So of course the voting public decided to push for the biggest fuck-you act possible; they voted in a turkey for the Eurovision. I’m not talking about a bad song, I’m talking about an actual hand-puppet, fowl mouthed, Dublin based ex-builder Turkey with a hand stuffed up it’s arse!
It was absolutely pure class to see the reaction of the judges in the room after the hand puppet performed what I can only call an abomination of a song, surrounded by some seriously dodgy dancers and what appeared to be some kind of drag act/opera cross. This has literally just happened folks, so the video of this act is probably not yet available on the ‘net, but as soon as it is I will link to it from here.
You have to see this to believe it. Really. Words cannot possibly convey how truely atrocious and outlandish this is… and I just love the fact that the Irish public have voted this forward to the Eurovision competition. How the hell will the other contestants react?
G’wan you good thing!
Update: Here is the link to the video of this insane entry into the Eurovision 2008. Enjoy!
Is Fidel Castro The Luckiest Man Alive?
February 19, 2008 (2 Responses)
THE NEWS TODAY that Fidel Castro intends to resign as presidente over in Cuba has been greeted with the usual – if not expected – responses. The US Whitehouse and even Barack Obama, presidential candidate, threw in their opinions citing that his “exit from power was not enough to bring democratic freedom to communist Cuba” and that the embargo on Cuba should continue until such time as a real democratic process is installed in the country.
News of Castro’s intention to keep his retirement permanent was met with equal cynicism and caution by Cuban exiles in Miami; residents of “Little Havana” are adopting a wait-and-see approach. Broadly speaking the reaction from across the entire world has been similar, but I think they are all missing the point. Completely.
This guy may have been one of the most successful dictators of his time. In his nearly half-century of power there have been approximately 638 failed assassination attempts (most from the CIA I guess!) upon his life, and he still managed to make it to 81 and retire from the position under his own steam.
Just think about that for a minute. Never mind the politics, forget the man and his despot ways for a second. Consider the maths… 638 attempts in nearly 50 years. That’s an average of nearly 13 attempted assassinations per year, at least one attempt per month. Can you imagine leading a life where someone is trying to kill you every single month?
Better yet, as if the sheer volume of attempts wasn’t enough, the actual types of assassination attempts are straight out of a James Bond story. In fact some of them are so outlandish that they belong in Hollywood. Maybe this says more about the incompetence and desperation of the CIA than it does about Castro’s ability to survive, but just take a gander at the following highlights from the hundreds of weird and whacky attempts that were made on his life:- Read more
Looks Like The Format War Is Over…
February 17, 2008 (No Responses)
ACCORDING TO VARIOUS news sources today it looks like the most recent format war, between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD is finally over. Or at least it’s about to enter the final stages where the main combatants have agreed who won and everyone else will either give up or just gradually fade away.
The winner this time around looks like Sony’s Blu-Ray technology, and the victory must be very sweet for Sony since they lost the last great format war over 30 years ago to JVC. Back then the competition was between video tape formats Betamax (from Sony) and VHS (from JVC). I remember trying to sell both varients to customers back in the day and I wasn’t exactly surprised that VHS tapes won out in the end.
I must admit though that this time around I did suspect that the HD-DVD format was going to take the spoils, but recent announcements from Netflix and Warner coming out in support of Blu-Ray seemed to set the scene for the demise of HD-DVD, and today the rumours are flying that Toshiba, until now the number one backer of the HD-DVD format, is about to announce it’s switch to Blu-Ray. Even worse, an insider blogger at Wal-Mart has let slip that they are also about to switch over to the same format and then it was confirmed on Friday to be true.
So basically the format war looks like it’s pretty much over. Blu-Ray is the winner and in a year or two most people won’t even remember HD-DVD. Let’s just hope the price of Blu-Ray players starts to drop as a result.
Is Fortress Europe Inevitable?
February 14, 2008 (2 Responses)
IT’S TOUGH ENOUGH to keep track of the Eurocrats and their exploits at the best of times, and I must admit I’m as confused as hell about this latest Treaty Of Lisbon, not least of all because of the directed efforts of our so-called government to mislead the population about the treaty itself and, even worse, to try to slip it in under the blanket of confusion caused in the process. It’s just like the Treaty of Nice all over again.
I read an article in the Sunday Business Post over the weekend entitled “What Exactly Are We Reforming In This Treaty?” in which the journo tried to get a copy of the treaty in question in order to understand the issues and what exactly we – as a nation – are being asked to vote on later this year. What he discovered however is that there is a funky clause within this proposed treaty which refers to another treaty, called the “Treaty on the functioning of the European Union” which shall have precedence over the Lisbon Treaty… the only problem is this ‘other’ treaty doesn’t in fact exist. At least not yet. So basically the government can hide anything they want externally to the Lisbon Treaty, but still get us to vote on it… whatever ‘it’ in fact is. Does anyone out there actually know what the hell this treaty is really about?
This is just one more example of how we are being driven to a modern day Fortress Europe from all angles. Politcally its been happening for quite a while. Economically is how it all started and even legally it’s starting to come together, but the one that worries me the most is the military and defence angle. The whole idea of a common European Defence Force just scares the shit out of me when I think of the muppets in charge of it.
Worse still is news today that the latest idea from Fortress Europe central is proposing to implement a futuristic border defence and monitoring policy incorporating biometric checking (digital fingerprinting) at the border entry points, unmanned low-flying drones patrolling the lengths of the border itself, Satellites and sci-fi sensors placed at strategic locations to monitor movements and of course the inevitable massive databases and enforcement organisations that follow such a deployment of technology… all to keep undesirables out of Europe.
What’s next? Minefields? Big shark infested trenches? Basically they seem to want to create one big happy xenophobic federated entity, a massive private club that you can’t join unless you have the right credentials, a massive military force to back up their political views one big fuck-you border solution for the rest of the word to look at, but not over… any of this sounding familiar to you yet? Read more
Finally, A Eurovision Turkey I Can Watch!
February 6, 2008 (2 Responses)
I MIGHT ACTUALLY WATCH IT this time around, especially if Dustin is on stage!
I refer of course to the ever-present Dustin the Dublin turkey, a famous muppet puppet if ever there was one in Ireland. This turkey has pedigree. He ran for president of the country for a while before being ousted. I think he even got into politics along the way. Rumour has it he has turned down a top job at the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) in order to concentrate on his singing career and more specifically Eurovision 2008.
And why should anyone care? Well you see Dustin is not just a turkey, he’s a hand puppet. That’s right, this stuffed, insane and manky turkey with a hand up his arse is getting almost as much press coverage as Clinton and Obama here in Ireland, it’s even making some international publications and I love it! Really. I mean Ireland has it’s problems these days, but seriously… where else in the world could you get a turkey with this much talent?
The mad turkey – if he makes it to the final stage – will be singing his song entry entitled “Irelande Douze Pointe”. No doubt some sanity will interfere with the plan, but the possibility of having a hand puppet representing Ireland and delivering a truely aweful song in the Eurovision would actually make me want to watch the damn thing, possibly even sober. Can you just imagine the ensuing carnage from the other competitors that would follow, especially if he scored some points in the process? Mmmnnn… fun indeed.
Ah hell, given the state of the political parties in this country I’d even give the damn bird my vote if he decided to run against the Fianna Failers and their bitches the Greens. 
G’wan ya mad thing!
