Conor's Bandon Blog

Running, Food and Local stuff from a blow-in

We're up to 1986, Speccy Fans

Nick Humphries has done it again.The 1986 edition of “The Your Sinclair Rock n Roll Years TV Show” was released for download recently. All nostalgic ZX Spectrum fans should grab it and watch 8 minutes of great memories. Non-Speccy fans can listen to the music and Apprentice fans can laugh at how young Alan Sugar looks in it. 1986 was simultaneously the peak of my Spectrum involvement and also my last year.

In-n-Out Burger Santa Clara

In-n-Out Burger Food style/ethnicity: Fast Food Map Chain: In-n-Out Burger Price: 2 - 5 ($) **Location**: <p>3101 Mission College Blvd Santa Clara, CA 95054 USA Food rating: 3 out of 5 Decor rating: 4 out of 5 Service rating: 3 out of 5 After my SF disaster of driving up, failing to get parking and driving back to Santa Clara, I grumpily decided to check out In-n-Out Burger for once and for all.

The new Noddy and Big Ears Wheels

Budget Car Rentals gave us Noddy’s own vehicle from the live action movie. The Chevy HHR, the answer to a question no-one was asking. All we need is a few tommy guns and fedoras and we’ll be sorted the next time we want to smuggle hooch. [tags]Chevy HHR[/tags]

Return to the Holy Land

The Grotto of Geeky Goodness remains the same after 7 long years. [tags]Frys, San Jose[/tags]

The Good Things Cafe - The 2 Day Kitchen Miracle Programme

I spent last weekend on a fabulous 2-day cookery course down in deep West Cork in The Good Things Cafe in Durrus. I honestly won’t be able to come up with enough superlatives to describe the fantastic programme that Carmel Somers put together. It is now Tuesday and I’m still buzzed and still full. It’s not too bad a drive from Bandon - about an hour on the crappy but scenic Dunmanway Road.

Meet your individual seeking

Oscar the little sod broke the hinge on his DS again. Definitely a design flaw. The guy who provided the last replacement case no longer ships out of the US. Luckily some knock-off merchants on e-bay are selling clone cases in a variety of colours. Got a replacement funky dark grey one for him for £8.88 incl postage from Hong Kong. Not only is their Englsih a joy to read, check out their spelling on Nintendo.

Barbecue is a noun

I could be a cynical smartass and say that the people in this movie look a little too close to Christopher Guest’s character in “Best in Show” but it really looks like a wonderful movie about people who are passionate about Barbeque/Barbecue. The horror that we perform in Ireland is what they call grilling (or more accurately “incineration”). What these guys do takes hours and hours and hours. I’ve eaten the result in Texas - they should have Michelin stars.

Sing along now Oj,da da da da da da

Technology in the wrong hands is dangerous. I just turned on the “Sing Along” feature on the Sky+ Box for the Croatian Eurovision entry. The first translation was “the grass has not yet sprouted”. I’m guessing their entry came from the Croatian version of Teagasc. But my favourite was when they translated “Oj, da da da da da da” to……wait for it……. “Oy, da da da da da da”. Brian has just been on and sadly had the same attack of sciatica that laid him so low in the semi-finals.

Gosh those Germans do take their Eurovision seriously

I just did a Technorati search on Eurovision and most of the recent posts are in German. One poor lad was so excited he was counting down the minutes: “Noch 20 Minuten bis zum Start des Halbfinales”. Go Scorpions! Pot, kettle. [tags]Eurovision, Scorpions, Hasselhoff[/tags]

Albania to Win!

Any country brave enough to have a hobbit and a garden gnome as their backing singers deserves to win. To be fair to Daniel O’Donnell Brian Kennedy, he did allow his grandad to be one of his backing singers. His song “Bacardi and Coke please Mafanwy” really pulled at the heartstrings like a bad case of angina. The best aspect of his performance was that he decided to keep his thighs covered, a decision I wish many of the other performers had also made.