THE PLAN is badly executed, cynical and not worth your time or money…

I’m a huge Battlestar Galactica (BSG) fan, in particular the now infamous modern take on the series. Granted it had some dodgy moments, but overall it was (and remains) a wonderfully realistic and gritty take on a old sci-fi story with great twists and deep pockets when it came to special effects. I really enjoyed the series and even though I wasn’t particularly happy with the ending, I could deal with it. After all it had killer robots, babes, space-based dogfights, religious overtones, death and destruction and a continuing sense of menace each week. Still, all good things come to an end and the show finished over a year ago.

Since then I believe there is a movie and even a mini-series in the works, mostly due to the potential commercial opportunities to rake in some cash I’d imagine rather than any real artistic need to tell another BSG story, but out of the blue I came across this entity – Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, which proported to tell the entire series again, only this time from the Cylon perspective.

Interesting? Might be worth a look, I thought.

I was wrong; dead wrong. This is quite simply some of the worst shit I’ve seen cobbled together in a long time. There is no new insight or deeper understanding of what the Cylons were up to, no real difference in the story arc or plot that took place in the main series and certainly no reason for anyone to part with hard cash to watch it.

It’s a very cynical piece of exploitation, trying to cash in on the name and fame of the series and I strongly urge you to avoid it at all costs. There is nothing new here other than to re-tell the exact same story through the eyes of the “1″ series Cylon model, who promptly spends the 2 hours organising the other Cylon models to do whatever they can to kill off humanity right up to the point of the truce that breaks out between them. And that’s it. Honestly.

At the end of two hours I was left with an intense feeling of ’so what’?, and if you manage to watch this you too will wonder why the hell you bothered. It’s a shame really because the series itself was fantastic for the most part. I hope the upcoming mini-series and movie don’t drive a bigger set of nails into the coffin… but I guess we will just have to wait and see on that score.

This really is  a cynical piece of commercial exploitation which fails to hit the target at almost every opportunity… avoid at all costs.

Technorati Tags: Battlestar, Battlestar Galactica, Cylon, Cylons, Galactica, Review, The Plan

WE ALL NEED a rubber stamp like this, every now and again…

Let’s face it, life rarely goes exactly to plan. If it isn’t your work getting in the way of you actually, you know, living… then it’s your lifestyle getting in the way of you doing anything useful. Unless of course you are one of those very lucky few people who have found themselves doing exactly what they want.

Me? I’m not in that club. I’m in the same boat most of the rest of the western world is in right now. Working too hard to barely keep ahead of the next crisis and trying to keep my head above water without loosing the will to live. It’s difficult and it sometimes seems like an endless list of problems and shit just waiting to hit you… but I have discovered a fool proof way of dealing with the stress.

It’s called a ‘Fuck It!” rubber stamp, and everyone should get one. Immediately!

Next time you run into a problem that you just can’t be arsed solving, simply rubber stamp it with a nice crisp “FUCK IT!” and then forget about it!

This approach works extremely well on ‘to do’ lists, emails, work requests and requisitions, invoices, wedding invitations, bus tickets, handouts people try to give you in the street, expensive receipts, ex-girlfriends,annoying neighbours, nuns, visa bills, monthly reports, traffic wardens, project plans, whining children, invalid lotto tickets, door to door salespeople, out of date milk, lists of any kind whatsoever, inlaws, recruitment agents, missed opportunities and in fact most problems of any nature at all that you can think of.

Try it. I think you will agree it delivers instant satisfaction and a kind of stress-release everyone needs at some point.

I dare you!

Technorati Tags: Fuck It, Rubber Stamp, Stress Release

IT’S NOT EVERY NIGHT you  end up dancing with Princess Leia,  a bumble bee and a gorrilla.

It started out as a typical client bash which kicked off around 6pm in Dublin city centre. The team needed a night to blow off some steam so we headed out into the wintery void and, infused with copious amounts of alcohol, proceeded to laugh and joke our way through the evening. At some point the suggestion of heading into a night club next door reared its head and fuelled by God knows how many drinks a gang of us followed our trusty guide into the club to a VIP area which had been sectioned off for us and that’s when it all got a bit surreal.

Now, it’s fair to say that its been quite a while since I’ve hit the night club scene, so I was expecting it to be full of the usual assortment of pretty young things flinging themselves around the dance floor to base beats and high energy madness, and indeed it was, but then I noticed something very odd. In the VIP section next to us there were some pretty strange looking characters and wouldn’t you know it, we somehow ended up dancing with most of ‘em:)

Outstanding in every way was my personal favourite, Princess Leia. She was in every way a perfect Latvian replica of the iconic figure, resplendant in the  white sexy number which seemed to have all the best bits and none of the weaponry and holy cow that Princess could move with the beat. She even kept the braless look that is so famous for that outfit. A quick spin and suddenly I was dancing with her mate the bumble bee, dressed in a short orange and black mini-skirt number with wings and all. At that point the Gorilla passed into my field of view and I thought I was seeing things. I still don’t know quite how the guy in the full body gorilla suit was able to move around the floor without being reduced to a puddle of sweat, but he did somehow. There were other oddities around, shaking and moving to the thumping heartbeat of the club but none of them, not one, could compare to the Princess.

And boy did I feel old as a result, because when I took stock and looked around my companions almost every one of them was glued into the Princess too, because for the most part we are all middle aged or rapidly approaching it, so our childhood memories of Star Wars are primal compared to the watered down crap George Lucas served up in recent years. We are fans of the original trilogy, and so when confronted with a young, vibrant and sexy Princess Leia swirling around a dance floor in the middle of Dublin in the wee hours of the morning we are all taken by surprise and realise, with knowing smiles, that everyone is thinking the same thing; we’re getting too old for this shit. All the other pretty young things were bouncing around the dance floor doing their best to attract some attention, but they just couldn’t compete.

Thank you Princess. You may not know I even exist and I doubt we will ever meet again, but you certainly put a smile on my face last night and I’m thinking it’s time I watched the original trilogy again:)

Technorati Tags: Bumble Bee, Costume, Dance, Gorilla, Middle Age, Night Club, Princess Leia, Star Wars, VIP

IRELAND INC may be in shite (with worse to come before it gets better), but there are still some good things happening which we need to focus on…

It’s easy to get lost in doom and gloom in the middle of one of the worst recessions this country has ever seen. Hell I’m as guilty as the next person of falling into the same old traps because, as usual, it looks like we (and by ‘we’ I mean me, you and every other private sector worker in the country) are going to have to fund the recovery over the next few years whilst others get away scot free. I think I’ve finally figured out what the “Inc” in “Ireland Inc.” stands for too… Incompetent, Nearsighted and Corrupt. So yes it’s true to say that the bastards that caused all this mess are gettig away pretty easy compared to the rest of us, and I wouldn’t even deny that the corruption and incompetence will probably prevail through to the recovery, but there are some side effects of this recession which should make our lives a little easier going forward if we can just hang on in there and get through it.

For starters “Rip Off Ireland” is getting a kick in the nuts at long last. For the last decade prices in this country have been out of control and we’ve been getting royally screwed at the retail and services end of things. Some of those greedy bastards that were raking in our cash are now going to the wall and I certainly wont miss ‘em. So even though we have to take some pain in the short term, the longer term outlook should be better going forward. For example…

House prices are coming down, and will continue to do so for a while yet. Bad news for those of us with large mortgages and negative equity, but good news for the country as a whole in the long term as house prices return to some kind of normailty.  I won’t be shedding any tears for the property developers who go to the wall either; greedy bastards took enough from us as it is, and if the government wasn’t so spinless we’d be getting it back now through the courts.

Car prices are also dropping. Granted those of us who payed a fortune for the big rigs in the boom years are getting hit hard now because the same motors aren’t worth a fuck now in the second hand market, but new car prices are dropping at a huge rate and, given the number of car dealerships closing every month, you can pretty much haggle the arse out of any deal now with them and they will bend over backwards in order to get a sale and keep their job. The same fuckers who wouldn’t let you in the door a year ago because you didn’t look like you were floating in cash will now kiss your arse to get you in to purchase anything at all.

The politicians have been exposed for what they really are, a bunch of self serving, corrupt, greedy, nearsighted and incompetent fuckwits, most of which ought to be behind bars or on dole queues with the rest of us. The downside of course is that this has always been the case, but is only becoming more obvious in recent times given the issues the country is facing and of course the seemingly endless series of scandals and media exposes. On the brighter side, I seriously doubt the Greens or Fianna Fail will get a look in again at the next election. Unless of course they grow a set of balls and actually adress the bloated public sector problems we have in this country. I’m not talking about the teachers, nurses, fire brigade or cops here; I’m not even talking about the genuine folks who do an honest day’s work. I am in fact referring to the massive amount of wasters and wastage that exists within the public sector, the mandarins and beauracrats, the clerical officers and administrative staff who bring no value what so ever to the frontlines, who cost this state billions of euro every year and deliver absolutely fucking nothing in return. It would be nice to see those gits taking some of the pain for a change.

Hell, even the price of hookers is dropping in the big smoke. I came across a website recently which was advertising ‘credit crunch’ deals and ‘recession busting’ hourly rates for escorts in and around Dublin. Even they seem to have realised that in a downturn price is king. Discretionary spend is rapidly going to shrink and unless everyone starts to compete on price they won’t get a look in… Even for the oldest profession in town! That should merge nicely with the hotels dropping their prices dramatically in the last few months too. I wonder if they have moved to a ‘by the hour‘ model yet?

Plus, you can pretty much chance your arm now in any department store, online retailer or service provider, looking for a better deal. Competition is king remember, so why don’t you try calling up Sky Ireland and telling them you’re thinking of leaving for a cheaper service… I guarantee you they will drop their price by 20-25% right then and there on the phone rather than loose your custom. You can apply this same logic to everywhere else and get some deals at last, and maybe even some value for a change.

And remember – when all the dust settles – just remember who got us here in the first place. It’s always you and me that has to fund the recovery, but let’s not forget the politicians, bankers and property developers who got us here folks. Because I can tell you I won’t forget ‘em, and next time I get my hands on one I will gladly ‘remind’ them of their culpability.

And even though you are probably either trying to keep a job, or worse trying to find one right now… just remember to hold your head up hight and fight back. Demand better from your politicians, from your retailers and anyone else who trys to sell you something. Go look for better deals. Don’t just assume that because you have been taking it up the ass for the last decade that you should continue to do so. Challenge the status quo.

Try it! You might just be surprised at the results. And in these recessionary times, any victory is a good victory in my book!

Technorati Tags: car dealers, escorts, hookers, hotels, Ireland, Ireland Inc, Politicians, property, Recession, Rip Off Ireland

IF EVER you needed a clear sign that the recession is here in full force then look no further than the new McDonalds burger joint in Ennis, County Clare.

During the so-called “Celtic Tiger“ period the clearest sign that our economy was on the upswing was the fact that all the services jobs went to foreign nationals. By that what I mean is most of the jobs in the service industry were being filled by non-Irish people who had migrated here because the economy was booming. Service jobs were suddenly not good enough for Irish people and they ditched them and moved on to bigger and better things.

Conversely the surest sign that our economy is in the shithouse is when the non nationals start leaving the country to head elsewhere and, most importantly, when Irish people start looking at the service industry again as a viable employment opportunity… usually becauuse there is nothing else for them to work with.

And so we come to the opening of yet another McDonalds burger joint, this time in Ennis, County Clare. When they recently advertised for staff, they became overwhelmed by the sheer volume of prospective employees hoping for a chance to join the extended Ronald McDonald family. The noteworthy item however is not just the volume of respondants (over 500), but more the fact that a huge percentage of them are well-qualified Irish professionals, including accountants, architects and bankers, all looking to sign up to serve burgers for a living. Apparently so many people responded to the adverts for the jobs that the opening has had to be put back 2 weeks in order to process all the applications. This tells us two things on the recession-o-meter:

1. There are already too many professionals out on their asses from recent job cuts and now they are looking to do any job possible to bring in a wage, even working at a McDonalds.
2. The fact that Irish are applying for these minimum wage jobs again in the service industry highlights the exodus of non-nationals to other countries.

It’s oficial folks; if you have a job do whatever you can to keep it. It’s going to be a rough 2 years for everyone.

Technorati Tags: Clare, Ennis, Ireland, McDonalds, Recession, Service Industry

I KNOW I haven’t been posting much at the site in the last month or two, but there has been a very good reason.

Ever sice around mid January I’ve been working insane hours, and by insane I mean 18 hours a day, seven days a week on average. I don’t do this out of choice, but out of necessity.

I’m not sure how bad things are where you live, but here in Ireland the recession has hit hard, and it’s going to get worse. I’ve been around long enough to recognise the signs and every day there are announcements of either job cuts or salary cuts. It’s a continuous onslaught of bad news, day by day, week by week at the moment.

Everyone is facing tax increases, income levies, pay cuts, job cuts and more, no matter which industry sector they work in. As usual us standard workers have to pay for the fuck ups of both our inept Government (and their appointed regulators) and of course the real architects of this recession, the property developers and bankers they are all in bed with.

So – right now I’m working my arse off and doing everything humanly possible to keep a job, just like everyone else in the country who knows what’s coming. It’s not pretty. It’s not fun, but it is a reality I just have to deal with for a while so my time has been limited here at Avalon5, but rest assured I’m still around and twill be more active going forward once things settle down a bit. Right now however here seems to be a lot of activity taking place on the forums in relation to the open source multi vendor multi site e-commerce discussion so I trust that will continue in my absence, and if there is anything else I can do to help facilitate that topic progression let me know.

So in summary – gone for now, but not forgotten… And if you’re in the same boat as me then I wish you good fortune because we all need a little good luck these days.

Technorati Tags: Insane Hours, Recession, Seriously Overworked, work

IS THIS what we all have to look forward to in 2040?

In Pharmacology, all drugs have two names, a trade name and generic name. For example, the trade name of  Panadol also has a generic name of Paracetamol. Amoxil is also called Amoxicillin and Nurofen is also called Ibuprofen.

The FDA has been looking for a generic name for Viagra.

After careful consideration by a team of government experts, it recently announced that it has settled on the generic name of Mycoxafloppin. Also considered were Mycoxafailin, Mydixadrupin, Mydixarizin, Dixafix, and of course, Ibepokin.

Pfizer Corp. announced today that Viagra will soon be available in liquid form, and will be marketed by Pepsi Cola as a power beverage suitable for use as a mixer. It will now be possible for a man to literally pour himself a stiff one. Obviously we can no longer call this a soft drink, and it gives new meaning to the names of ‘cocktails‘, ‘highballs‘ and just a good old-fashioned ’stiff drink’.

Pepsi will market the new concoction by the name of: MOUNT & DO.

Thought for the day: There is more money being spent on breast implants and Viagra today than on Alzheimer’s research. This means that by 2040, there should be a large elderly population with perky Boobs and huge erections and absolutely no recollection of what to do with them.

Technorati Tags: funny, Old Age, Viagra

DUE TO Popular demand I’ve created two new forums here on Avalon5 (public and private) to discuss multi-vendor, multi-store e-commerce requirements and solutions.

There are two particular articles running at this site which discuss the need for, and the various potential solutions for, a multi-vendor / multi-store open source e-commerce solution. Rather than try to keep the two seperate threads of conversations up to date in parallel I’ve decided to open up two new forums at the site to help promote and record the discussions.

The multi-vendor, multi-store (public) forum is for general discussions, rants and raves etc. about the state of things and what kind of experiences we are having dealing with vendors etc.

The multi-vendor, multi-store (private) forum is for those of you who want to get involved in a serious capacity, and by that I mean that we are formulating a list of requirements (generated from discussions) and contacting various e-commerce vendors with a view to soliciting a price to get the required functionaltiy developed, which we would then hope to share amongst us. This forum will require a password which can be obtained from me as required and discussions in there may relate more to the financial and commercial side of things.

All you need to do to use either of these forums is just register at the forum itself and from then on you can start/respond to threads as required.

I hope the creation of these forums helps promote and advance the discussion, and at the very least it will provide a home for all the conversations and a place to debate the potential solutions. Let me know if you need anything else in this area and I’ll do my best to provide it.

Technorati Tags: Avalon5, e-commerce, forum, holy grail, multi store, multi vendor, Open Source

IT’S A YEAR I’d rather forget, and if I could throw some petrol on it and light a match I would, yet looking forward into 2009 is like standing on the edge of an deep abyss.

It started out so differently and I can remember this time last year being full of hope for the future, where as now I realise I was just operating on bad instincts and false promises at the time. I had thought 2008 was going to bring a measure of personal and professional success, but instead it delivered betrayal, bad judgement and seemingly endless trials.

I write this article not to divulge the details or to bitch and moan for no good reason, rather I commit these words to posterity so that I will not forget, so that I will mark this occasion and remember well the hard lessons learned this year as we all face into an uncertain future in 2009.

The global economy has faltered and crashed, the banks are in disarray requiring bail out packages from governments. The outlook in pretty bleak with over 50% of surveyed companies indicating that they are shedding staff in order to cope with rising costs and falling revenues. Everywhere you look it’s getting tougher, and I suspect it will be like this for a couple of years at least before any semblance of balance is restored. I’m lucky enough to still at least have a job, but I have no illusions about that either. Everything is pretty fragile heading into 2009.

And so, when I consider what could have been, and how differently the past year might have been if things had worked out as originally planned and promised, well I think I would just prefer to douse the entire thing in petrol and throw a burning match over my shoulder upon it as I turn my back on the year once and for all.

Although the burning pyre that was 2008 was a disaster for me I know it was a great year for others and to those lucky individuals I wish them continued success and good fortune. In the great balancing scales of our existence some must go up while others fall further; it is inevitable and rightly so. Good needs bad, success is defined in contrast only to failure. Let this brief post serve as a reminder so that - if I am lucky enough to still be here in one year and find myself looking back at 2009 – I can compare and contrast this low ebb, this point in time. Who knows, maybe the scales will have balanced back in my favour this time next year, or perhaps I’m only at the start of the slide downwards.

Enough said. Christmas is upon us. Whichever shared delusion religion you subscribe to I wish you a safe and happy break from the usual rat race. Enjoy the time with family and friends if possible.

Me? I’m going to warm my hands on the burning pyre that was 2008

Technorati Tags: 2008, Year in Review

I’VE BEEN on a long running quest for the Open Source e-commerce holy grail: Multi Store, Multi Vendor functionality, and now it seems many others have joined the quest too.

One of the most popular items on my website in recent years has been an article entitled The elusive Opensource E-Commerce Holy Grail: Multi-Site, Multi-Store, which is probably worth a read if you’re in the market for an open source e-commerce solution and trying to decide which one is for you. The comment trail alone makes for great reading as quite a few contributors have included their opinions and thoughts about various products.

Given that the article was written back in 2007 I decided it might be time for an update, and also because so many other (new) products and potential solutions have been mentioned in the comment trail I think it’s a good time to widen the scope of the article as well.

So here is what I’ve decided to do. I’m going to build up a functionality matrix – in other words desired functionality in the perfect solution – and then contact all of the product developers in the list for a view on what their solutions are currently capable of doing, as well as what future enhancements they have planned. Depending on the response I’ll publish each item in isolation as well as the full updated list – hell I may even dedicate an area of the website to it.

So – if you’re interested in participating in this quest, or if you just have some specific functional requirements that you believe should be included in the review – then please get in touch with me and let me know. Alternatively if you can think of any product or solution that you wish included in the scope of my reviews – just let me know that too. Keep in mind the functional list I’m looking for is not what’s available today, or what bog-standard e-commerce solutions can deliver, it’s quite opposite actually. I’m looking for that list of functionality that we can’t get today and therefore are hoping for in an upcoming or in-development solution, or at the very least if it’s possible to get this functionality included in the developer roadmap for any product it would suffice. I’ll try all the angles.

You can either leave comments here on this article or contact me seperately. Either way I’ll publish a consolidated list and then go do the reviews of the various products out there on the market to see what the state of play us now days, almost 18 months since the original article. I will try to make this as thorough as possible, utilising a common approach to all vendors and their solutions and grading/marking them appropriately.

It might also help to let potential developers out there know just how many people are waiting on this type of functionality, so feel free to link back to this or any other related articles on my website and publish your own thoughts on the subject matter. Hell – maybe we should start up a petition site

Technorati Tags: e-commerce, Ecommerce, holy grail, multi store, multi vendor, Open Source