Archive for April, 2005
Extinct Woodpecker Found
Posted on April 29, 2005, by Conor, under Uncategorized.
A large woodpecker thought to be extinct for sixty years has been found living in the “Big Woods” section of eastern Arkansas.
I crack me up.
Ok, here’s the right link: Ivory Billed Woodpecker
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6 Years of Electronic Engineering
Posted on April 28, 2005, by Conor, under Uncategorized.
I bought my first soldering iron and multimeter by mail-order from Maplin when I was about 16 (1984) to build some add-ons for my ZX Spectrum. None of my creations ever worked 
I still have the soldering iron. I finally retired the analogue multimeter only last week after 21 years of sterling service and replaced it with a no-name digital one that I picked up in B&Q for €25.
I spent 6 years in UCD studying Electronic Engineering. In that time, I didn’t make one useful thing. I know, I know, they weren’t teaching me how to solder, they were giving me the skills I needed so I could get someone else to do it 
Every once in a while I get the urge to put some wee electronic kit together, but I never make the time available.
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Blogs for Dummies
Posted on April 28, 2005, by Conor, under Uncategorized.
Actually it’s a great tutorial on how to use Bloglines to track RSS feeds of peoples blogs. I have converted fully over to Bloglines for managing my feeds but they still have a lot of improving to do on the actual blog feature. Blogger is still far better for running your own Blog.
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Software Development Approaches
Posted on April 27, 2005, by Conor, under Uncategorized.
Who needs SOA or AOP when you have the far more interesting POSD:
Politics-Oriented Software Development
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O’Neill History
Posted on April 27, 2005, by Conor, under Uncategorized.
Neat summary of the history of the O’Neill’s. No famous Conor’s sadly.
http://www.araltas.com/features/oneill/
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More Technorati messing
Posted on April 27, 2005, by Conor, under Uncategorized.
No idea what I’m doing
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If you’re not, you should
Posted on April 27, 2005, by Conor, under Uncategorized.
Of the zillions of web-sites I access in an average week, only one is unusable with Firefox - the online banking one from the donkey’s over at Ulster Bank. Has someone not told them that even MS now recommend the use of the Sun JVM?
Get Firefox and at the very least, learn to browse with tabs.
You’ll love it.
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Channel 4 gets it right this time
Posted on April 24, 2005, by Conor, under Uncategorized.
“The Simpsons” is voted the best kids programme of all time.
And someone just said that it’s the best TV show of all time. Ye know, they might be right.
Nice to see “The Muppet Show” and “Danger Mouse” do so well.
But “Bagpuss”? Never liked that show. Nothing ever bloody happened.
And a huge relief that they had “The Tomorrow People”. For years I thought I had dreamt that show!
Ah, nostalgia.
Anyone got a MIDI of the theme music to “Play Away”? Might make a good ring tone. As a small child, I thought Brian Cant was god.
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Whew!
Posted on April 24, 2005, by Conor, under Uncategorized.
My BMI is a disaster. I started on the road to reduction last thursday, but if I fail then it’s good to know this:
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Brassica Heaven
Posted on April 23, 2005, by Conor, under Uncategorized.
Yes, she definitely has Walls genes.Sibéal is as big a fan of broccoli as her Nana Rose. 
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It’s a miracle
Posted on April 22, 2005, by Conor, under Uncategorized.
No, just more dumb blind desperation.
Living, as I do, so close to the famous moving statues of Ballinspittle, I love it when other nationalities can act as clueless as us.
Statues moving? No? Squint. Moving now? Nah. Here drink this paint thinner. Moving now? Yeah! Wow, that’s amazing, tell the world.
Mary Image Still Drawing Crowds
Check out the Other Holy Sightings in the side-bar of this one for a belly-laugh.
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Project Lifecycle
Posted on April 22, 2005, by Conor, under Uncategorized.
I was sent this a while back and I laughed my ass off. Inspired single cartoon summary of my working life for the past 13 years. Check it out:
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Web Archive - Spooky
Posted on April 22, 2005, by Conor, under Uncategorized.
I’ve seen plenty of mentions of the Internet Archive Wayback Machine but I only just tried it for the first time today. Bloody ell! Put in www.conoroneill.com and it gives old snapshots of my web-site going back to 2001. You can never leave your mistakes behind. I was disappointed tho that the old Integral Design web-site was never archived. It would have been fun to look back at that awful spinning gold 3-D integration symbol I put on our very first web-page in ‘96. Now, who else shall I look for on my lunch break?
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First Post from w.bloggar
Posted on April 22, 2005, by Conor, under Uncategorized.
I’m doing a trial of a client-hosted tool called w.bloggar to see if it can work reliably with Blogger and reduce the overhead of making posts. Seems fine so far for the simplistic stuff I do.
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del.icio.us
Posted on April 22, 2005, by Conor, under Uncategorized.
I’ve been trying out del.icio.us for a week now and I still don’t get what the big deal is. Yeah it’s handy to have the online bookmarks. The RSS feed is kinda irrelevant for oneself but I suppose if someone was stalking me, they might be interested in what sites I am interested in and what tags I put on them. I take back what I said about tags in my previous Bloglines post below - they are actually handy for finding stuff by category (like GMail). But it’s just ok, not a killer app. I’ll stick with it for another while. Maybe I’m just anto-social (or even anti-social. Anto-social is what our coal-man Anto is) and don’t get this whole Social Networking buzz (man).
My del.icio.us page: http://del.icio.us/bandon1
RSS Feed of that page: http://del.icio.us/rss/bandon1
My original comment on it: http://www.bloglines.com/blog/bandon1?id=15
1 Comment
Just discovered in the Dead Sea Scrolls
Posted on April 22, 2005, by Conor, under Uncategorized.
Sam’s earlier homage to Yakult as read out on the Gerry Ryan radio show a few months back. I cannot believe this did not win a prize.
————————–
Let me share with you my tale of woe,
It happened not that long ago.
I went to the cinema with my date,
My tummy was in a terrible state.
I eat too much, I was such a glutton,
I started to swell, I undid my button.
The lights went down, I settled in,
Little did I know what was about to begin.
I was so looking forward to ‘The Last Samurai’,
But when the credits rolled so did I.
My stomach was rumbling and a-rolling,
Loads of activity going on in my colon.
I decided to let out a fart,
Just as the movie was about to start.
And if there were any noxious gases,
I’d blame it on the cinema masses.
So I let it out, that was my urge,
But it was followed by a mighty surge.
I felt a sticky substance, it was just like glue,
My fart was followed by an almighty poo.
Oh Jesus Christ, what the hell?
There was no way to mask the smell.
My face said it all, there was no denial,
Why didn’t I get a seat by the aisle.
My guts were in pieces, I was in such pain,
I walked to the toilets like John Wayne.
I just about got there, to the toilet door,
Because down my leg it started to pour.
I will never forget that terrible day,
That evening when my bowel gave way.
I was so miserable, I admitted defeat,
Because on the roll holder there was only one sheet.
So quick as a flash, I couldn’t move much quicker,
I took off my jeans and peeled off my knicker.
The smell was vile, putrid and rank,
Boy oh boy, my cubicle stank.
When my stomach died down, when I felt no rush,
I dipped my knickers in the clean water flush.
I was mortified, ashamed, I felt a fool,
I got most of it off, that offending stool.
But now I am on the road to recovery,
Thanks to Dr. Shirota’s discovery.
Through all the therapy, trouble, and strife,
I believe that Yakult saved my life.
It’s become part of my daily diet,
I firmly believe everyone should try it.
Please send me to the Land of the Rising Sun!
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Pot Noodle
Posted on April 21, 2005, by Conor, under Uncategorized.
No more Princess Bride quotes I’m afraid.
Sam entered a world-class poem into a Gerry Ryan Pot Noodle competition today. Unfortunately she was not selected to go on air (unlike her last piece of genius which was up there with T.S. Eliot and she got to read out to the listening public). So, in order to give it the publicity it deserves, here it is in it’s entirety.
The Pot heads
We are from the planet Noodle,
We cannot write, we scribble and doodle.
Where we’re from, we’re like Super Heros,
But there was no atmosphere and the gravity zero.
My family came here to be Earth’s saviours,
But instead of names we’re called flavours.
My father we affectionately call him BEEF,
He runs a tight ship, he’s commander and chief.
He is muscular and handsome, long golden locks,
Our very own Samson, as strong as an Ox.
He flies through the neighbourhood, defending the weak,
Protecting the young, the old, and the meek.
He truly is a wonderful man,
My brothers help him all they can.
The boys had trouble trying to adjust,
They have to blend in, they know it’s a must.
The oldest smells foul, so we call him CHICKEN.
It’s bad ass this fella is always kickin’.
My other brother’s cool, he is a FUNG-GHI,
He smokes strange plants, and is always high.
But he does keep up with the latest trends,
So in with Earth people, he perfectly blends.
My sisters for Aliens, they look really pretty,
Their good deeds are known throughout the city.
One’s called CURRY, the other’s CHOW-MEIN,
They’re not a bit self-centred, not a bit me fein.
The Sizzler is the name we give our mother,
Because like her, there is no other.
She’s hot, she’s fiery, her humour is wicket,
She wouldn’t go home if she got a free ticket.
Because there’s a man she thinks is great,
For music and chat, and topical debate.
We sit around we are all ears,
When he says good morning, we give 3 cheers.
No-one comes close, even though they’re all trying,
He’s up on a pedestal, “HAIL GERRY RYAN”.
We listen, we love him, his praises we sing,
Back home on our planet, he wud be king.
So every day between 9 and
We boil the kettle and get our spoon.
We discard our masks, and undo extra limbs,
This is when Gerry’s show begins.
We no longer have to disguise our features,
Beneath the latex we’re exotic creatures.
We’re the happiest family in the land,
Gerry Ryan on the radio, and pot noodle in hand,
and hand, and hand, and hand.
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Inconceivable!….That word. I do not think it means what you think it means
Posted on April 21, 2005, by Conor, under Uncategorized.
I wish someone had told me this in late 2001.
It took me until late 2002 to figure it out for myself.
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Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.
Posted on April 20, 2005, by Conor, under Uncategorized.
We don’t have it too bad for restaurants down here in Cork. We’ve had great meals in Gleesons in Clonakilty, Casino House in Kilbrittain and Broly’s in Bandon.
Unfortunately most of the places in Bandon target the lower end of the Market and it’s nice to see Broly’s trying something better. It is a coffee shop/cafe during the day and they re-jig for more upmarket dinner at night. Good tasty food. I hope they do well but it was empty the night we were there before Christmas.
Other places in Bandon we’ve tried; Roccos - not too bad mid-ish-range place. Overuse of microwaves tho. Sorrento - very average Italian but the kids liked it.
Takeaways in Bandon (all sit-down too): Anarkali Indian - one of the better Indians around. Ho Kee Chinese - pretty average. Rainbow Chinese - started well, degenerated very quickly. Hong Kong - not bad (used to have a fantastic name “Memories of China”, why change it to something so utterly crap?)
Gleeson’s has given us some great meals over the last two years but the last meal was a let down - just lacking in flavour. The service by Alex and her team is always top class and extremely friendly.
Casino House got voted best restaurant in Ireland by Georgina Campbell which tells you everything you need to know - fabulous food in an awesome setting. Proving that being situated in the middle of no-where is no disadvantage if the food is good enough.
Our most recent expedition was into Cork City to eat at Les Gourmandises in Cook St (always makes me smile - where else would you have a restaurant? Also the barber on Sheare Street still causes a grin). I first heard of these in the RTE program last year about small businesses starting up. They had a baptism of fire but their commitment to the food shone through the program. I got a voucher for de wimmin in Passage to go there recently and they raved about it. So it was about time we checked it out.
The starters were both excellent. Very tasty, great attention to detail. My Red Snapper main was fabulous. Catherine not a huge fan of her Pork Belly but there was nothing really wrong with it, it just didn’t suit her. We should probably have swapped plates. Desserts were good but not enough chocolate sauce on Catherines. When will restaurants learn? When a woman orders a chocolate dessert, she does not want to be short-changed. If sauce is involved, bring out a jug of it. None of this “dab here” “dab there” nonsense. Service was efficient and very discreet. Not cheap tho - ?106 for two with just half a bottle of wine. But we’ll definitely be back.
Where is left to try in Cork? Cafe Paradiso obviously. Need to go back to Jacobs on The Mall. The Ivory Tower was just a bit too kooky for the sake of it to build up any loyalty. And we have a voucher for Otto’s in Dunworley from C&T which we will use very soon. What sort of nutter sets up a restaurant 20 Km from anywhere down a windy headland in West Cork? And then makes a huge success of it? Bloody genius.
1 Comment
I knew it, I knew he was faking
Posted on April 18, 2005, by Conor, under Uncategorized.
OK-bleedin-Computer? How stupid is the average Channel 4 viewer?
Fat-bloated-prog-rock-whinge-fest pap voted the greatest album of all time? Maybe it isn’t so shocking when you learn that they also voted The Verve (the Verve!) higher than Jimi Hendrix, The Smiths, The Stone Roses and The Doors. What can be the cause of the destruction of the brain stems of the average British TV viewer? Cocaine? E? Fluoride? Tony Blair? PS2? I despair.
OK “shoot me now I can’t take any more of this crap and I’m only on the third song” Computer? Better than The Beatles?
Now I don’t actually like the Beatles but they had a smidge more talent than these con-artists. At least the emperors clothes were revealed to all the sycophantic muppets who like what they are told to like when the laugh-fest that was Kid A was released.
The only (and I mean only) redeeming aspect of this was that the 100 songs were pre-selected (why???) and viewers just had to vote on the order. This would explain the lack of people like Leonard Cohen, Nina Simone, Cream, Muddy Waters. Hell even Queens of The Stone Age and The Kings of Leon have more talent in their toes than goddammed Dido (placed 57th).
Great show tho. Seeing a clip of Ozzy doing “Paranoid” was a joy. Johnny Marr is a witty fucker too.
Next week on Channel 4: “Sleep” by Andy Warhol is voted greatest movie of all time.
