E. M. Esq. » Links

Set up a tumblr, innit

Colm — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:23:22 +0000

Because I really should stop bothering people on gchat with every little thing I find on the internet.

It’s dangerous to indulge him, but

Colm — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 19:36:28 +0000

Thanks largely to that spectacularly gluttonous synapse that has been stuck open and hyperventilating since the first time I got a glimpse of a battered Ladybird¹, I am inordinately and often uncomfortably aware that I’m supposed to be a writer. That being a given, I never really made any more than a half-arsed attempt at that whole deal with scrabbling around trying to find a calling², but nevertheless there are odd Saturday mornings where I’m stood around in a dressing gown drinking slightly rum-tinged water from a glass I’m much too high-powered to wash and it occurs to me that some big human thing passed me by somewhere back when I was in short pants³, and I can’t help but wonder how exactly it is that other people settle on what’s going to get them up for the next whatever hundred thousand-odd mornings. Which, by a commodious vicus of recirculation, leads me to the reason I’m writing this: it would appear that people find out through the ancient ritual of taking to the streets and bothering foreigners.

Ladies and gentlemen, re-presenting Andy Gaffney, the housekeepin’ work-shy freeloading psychologist.

I believe it was The Stone in the Soup.
Which level of blind self-assurance plays its own brand of havoc when you’re an otherwise fairly rickety 17-year-old, but despite all appearances thus far this isn’t about me so let us shall we get back to the point.
Not terribly specific, seeing as I was forced to wear such things as late as my eldest brother’s wedding, when I was 12. Golden opportunity to wear a Tiny Tux ™ and I’m garbed up like a cabin boy.

A couple of links

Colm — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 10:13:33 +0000

Does it annoy anyone else when people say “a couple” when they really mean “a few”? I mean, it doesn’t annoy me as such, but “a couple” very obviously means “two” and why would you use it otherwise, because that’s asking for trouble.

Anyway. The first link is one I got off this post on reddit. Executive summary: American mortgage broker becomes homeless, has laptop, maintains some kind of social life/support network by talking to people on the internet. He’s now set up a blog at Lillyweather Lane whereon he’s documenting his continuing adventures. I will point out that he is both smart people and good writers and well worth reading.

Link the second is to a main dudette of mine who has finally done the honourable thing and started a blog. She’s from Belfast, everyone. She has a funny accent. It adds at least three layers of excellent to her already jolly good material.

And just because I’m not about to be pushed around by no pedant, here’s a third link I happened to have open. I don’t care whose toes I step on.

Depression is bad times for all concerned

Colm — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 10:37:58 +0000

but this man has the right idea.

Chuffed

Colm — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 14:44:03 +0000

Today I stumbled into becoming a cartoonist by proxy, thanks to the quick-witted, nifty-with-a-sketchpad and heavily-hyphenated Sparky Donatello. Which confirmed a suspicion of mine: while blogging is indeed a powerful tool of informational power media buzzwords 2.0, it’s not the blogs themselves that have the moxie; no no, my freakish little amigos, it’s the comments. You show me some maggoty ould tramp who wanders into a comment box and I’ll give you favourable if somewhat complicated odds that they’ll end up being treated like royalty.

With this in mind, I’m going to go lurk behind Leinster House with a laptop and mutter about tax cuts for the bearded. Going by my current run of luck, I expect sweeping reforms within the week.

I have a headache

Colm — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:01:26 +0000

from banging my noggin against the Free Rice game. It’s one hundred levels of vocab-testing madness! And for a good cause.

Actually, I don’t know how many levels there are. I’ve never made it past 49 (which still makes me pretty smart and handsome if you ask me) and it gets damn punishing. I hope the skinny bastards know what I’m going through here just so they can have their leisurely brunch in the sun.

In other news I remain superlatively tired, having never gotten around to a proper night’s sleep since Batman Weekend. Or long before, for that matter. Still: no time. There’s celebratory Antics to hit tonight, podcasting tomorrow and whatever’s going on on Friday on Friday. I shall trust in jaegerbombs and ProPlus to get me through.

I love statistics

Colm — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:12:22 +0000

I installed StatCounter a few weeks ago and it really is the business. The install was painless and the level of detail is fantastic. For instance: I have learned that I have a reader in Surprise, Arizona. This please me no end.

(And while I’m here… I don’t know what air freshener they use in the jacks at work, but good golly it smells like cola bottles. Delicious!)

A jolly good cause

Colm — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 09:22:54 +0000

Saw this on le craic the other day: folk band Avoca have released a single called “Saving Lives” which is dedicated to the RNLI – that’s them who run the lifeboats – and all proceeds from the sale of the track are going straight to the charity. The download costs 99 cent and you can get it with a credit or laser card at downloadmusic.ie, while you can buy the CD single for €4.99. Or if that’s not super-handy enough for you, text music 1231 to 57501 and you’ll be sent a download code.

As AJ pointed out, the lifeboats are manned by volunteer crews, and 8,000 people were rescued last year. So, you know, that’s a little bit heroic right there.

Quis critiquiet ipsos critiquies?

Colm — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:33:58 +0000

Rosie has waxed critical-like on the Irish inter-blogging-o-sphere. I have some thoughts of my own but right now I have a bus to catch. I’m only posting this so that the lazy part of my brain can’t weasel out of posting a longer bit at some point over the next few days. Although now I kind of want to weasel out just to show that I’m not the boss of me.

Update: and away we go.

Forget Lisbon

Colm — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 09:32:11 +0000

There’s a much more important election going on.