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Yesterday, in work, a customer was looking for help with her laptop. It seemed she couldn’t get her touchpad to work for her. Now she was 85 years of age, so I was impressed indeed that she used a laptop at all. All I had to do was go into Control Panel and re-enable the touchpad in the mouse settings. Once I did this, though, and showed her how well it was now working, I somehow became a saint in the old woman’s eyes (and she somehow became a witch - the nice kind, mind you - in mine).
She turned to me and, in her best fortune-teller voice (I imagine…) asked me “you’re not married, are you?… but it’s on the cards, isn’t it?”, to which I said, “er, yes, … you’re right there.”
Then suddenly, she was doing incantations, calling on God to come to my aid - proclaiming that my marriage will be a joyous and lasting (and, dare I say it - fruitful) one. It was like she was cursing me, only it was in a nice way… the opposite to a curse, if you will… a blessing… and it kinda made me feel warm and fuzzy inside that: a) I’d been able to help her… and, b) she’d bestowed some sort of blessing on me and my partner. I mean, come on - I may not be much of a believer in God, - but if the fecker DOES exist - here’s an 85 year old woman putting in a good word for me - that’s got to count for something… As Father Ted says, they don’t need priests any more - they’ve got the direct line to the man upstairs.
Rambly old women and their incantations aside, tonights radio show was pretty triumphant. The top ten was “top ten Irish acts of all time” - according to Cluas.com. (I basically used this list), I didn’t have a band but I played local music, some requests, read out the celebrity gossip shite and played a track from 50 Pence (50 Cent parody by Comedy Dave from the Chris Moyles show on BBC Radio 1). The track played was P.I.N.T. and yes, there’ll be more comedy in upcoming shows.
I’m currently entertaining the idea of doing a live radio show from one of the local venues (such as Lawlors or the Spirit Store) although if I do it, I’d rather do it TOTALLY from there and not have to have the person back at base doing anything,- that means not using the TELCO system the station uses for OB’s (outside broadcasts) at the moment. Basically, when they do an OB, it’s done through the telephone line, so the sound quality is shite - so they only use that for the links and theres a person in studio playing CD’s or whatever. If we were to actually do an OB from a venue though, we’d want to be able to broadcast some of the live bands as they play, so we’d want better than telephone quality sound. Ah well… it’ll take time, but we’ll figure it out 
There never seems to be enough hours of the day. I’m off again on Monday but, far from sitting on my hole all day, I’m presenting “Dundalk Daily” on the radio from 9 to 11am and then I’ve to go shopping, pay the bills and cook the dinner no less. Heading out for a few scoops tomorrow night - to see The Stormers in Jackie’s bar on the Dublin Road. Should be good craic - usually is with those lads.
Anyway, finally, why can’t Americans come up with ORIGINAL town names of their own instead of pilfering the best ones from over this side of the pond??? I know there’s a few Dublins there (best known one in Ohio but about 4 or more others too) and a Limerick or two as well, but only recently did I realise that there’s a Dundalk in Maryland (not far from Washington DC, where that shitebag Bush lives). There’s absolutely NO meaning behind the name of the town there. Ask anyone in Dundalk, MD or Dublin, Ohio what their town names mean and will they know? …
Pfft.
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2 Responses to “The blessing of a laptop wielding octogenarian”
Yes some of us do know where the name of our towns come from, and yes for the most part their is a story behind them. I happen to be a native of the Dundalk, MD you speak of, and the name comes from the Dundalk in Ireland, in which i have been threw.
In 1895 Henry McShane, an immigrant from Ireland, established the McShane Bell Foundry on the banks of the Patapsco River in the far southeastern outskirts of Baltimore. The foundry, which has since moved, manufactured cast iron pipes and furnace fittings. When asked by the Baltimore and Sparrows Point Railroad for a name of a depot for the foundry, which was on their rail line, he wrote Dundalk, after the town of his birth Dundalk, Ireland.
As for for the Dublins out their that you have mentioned, i dont know. But two Dublins that i do know of, an extemely small farming community called Dublin, Maryland, and Upper Dublin Township in Pennsylvania (at one time it was called Dublin Township), where named by the residents who started the respective communities, many of which were from or had ties to Dublin in Ireland. This is also the case for many Irish named places in Both the US and Canada.Also many of these communities had large Irish immigrant communties.
So dont blame Americans for the names of the towns, as for the most part it was the Irish that named them.
I sit corrected! Thank you, Jason, for your boring yet helpful reply!
:p