NiallOK’s Blog

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I’m impressed with a few people actually…

I was impressed with the people that turned up at football tonight in our local sports centre - enough, finally, that we didn’t have to call it a day and not play any more. I was impressed with how well they played - and somewhat impressed with myself that I made it through the night, could still hack it with the youngsters and that I actually managed to score a few goals! Good work football playing fellahs!

I was impressed with RTÉ’s new 4-part documentary, Bertie, (or what little I saw of it, at least) which documents the life and times of our last Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern. It was made by the same (also impressive) team (Miriam O’Callaghan’s company) who made “Haughey” - about our most infamous Taoiseach. Part two goes out next Monday night. Good work, telly production fellahs!

I was even impressed to learn that there’s an Irish version of Wikipedia… although I guess I should have realised that ages ago… Good work, language loving online encyclopedia localisation fellahs!

I’m somewhat impressed by Barack Obama (as, it seems, are both Damien and Fergal) and would like - and expect - to see him become President Elect of the United States within the next 36 hours. Good work, America’s first black President fellah!

Incidentally, I’m also impressed with Damien himself, in all honesty - with the incredible work he did as Ireland Offline chairman - as well as his creation of both the Irish Blog Awards and the Irish Web Awards. Good work, hard-working comms consultant fellah!

Speaking of awards - well done to Michele Neylon, who won two of the gongs at the NetVisionary awards recently - those being the awards for business blogging and Internet marketing. Good work, ISP running net visionary fellah!

I’m impressed by a few radio DJ’s too… particularly with Today FM’s Ray Foley and his sensible stance on the Brand/Ross controversy. Honestly - it’s a ridiculous situation that’s been blown out of proportion by bandwagon jumping complainers who, for the most part, probably never even listened to Russell Brand - or possibly even to the excellent BBC Radio 2. Seriously - read Ray’s blog post on the issue - it’s clever and well written, and while the story is still unfolding and we have yet to see the results of the BBC’s investigation into the incident, I find myself agreeing strongly with him… so good work, just-a-bit-of-fun-for-your-lunchtime fellah!

At the same time, while he doesn’t want to comment on the controversy itself, Rick O’Shea brings up another point that’s well worth considering… where do we draw the line? How far is too far in comedy? What rules should there be? How should the BBC react? … and so on… Good work, hairy-whiskey-drinking-good-point-making-DJ-slash-blogger fellah!

Finally, more DJ’s I’m impressed with are these two lads from CKY Radio, Montreal - who prank called Sarah Palin in a way that helped showed off her… erm… “qualities” even further. (Good work, prank-calling Canuck fellahs!) As if everything that Saturday Night Live has done to her (not to mention her own performances) hasn’t walloped her credibility hard enough, here she displays her incredible (and I mean “in-credible” in the literal sense) intellect when she believes she’s talking to President Sarkozy of France.

Canada seems cool…

(Yeah, this has just been a post of links… sorry.)

I find myself in the all too familiar territory of agreeing entirely with something Twenty Major has said… the Irish blogging scene does feel a little dead at the moment. It’s like we’re in the middle of a lull. A sort of blogging recession, if you will.

Mind you, it’s not like I’m doing much to combat that as my own blog has gone a bit quiet of late… I guess I’ve just not had much to say, really… must work on that. Especially if I’m going to be in with a shout at the 2009 Blog Awards (ha!), which are being held in Cork.

Here’s what Tommy Tiernan thinks of the Cork accent, by the way:

So… um… what’s happening with me ?…

Well, I scored a few goals tonight,- real ones,- playing football down in our local sports & leisure club, before coming home and being beaten 10 - 4 in FIFA ‘08 on the PS3 by my brother. He was Argentina, I was Liverpool (with newly added Robbie Keane ).

Saw The Dark Knight on Saturday in the VIP cinema in “movies @ Swords” and there’s very little I can say about it that hasn’t already been said. It. Was. Awesome.

Not much else going on with me… how are you?

I’ll be attending the Irish Blog Awards (or the “Bloscars” as one paper has nicknamed them) tonight because ShiteDrivers.com is nominated.

I’ll be taking photos with my Sony Ericsson K800i and uploading them directly to here during the event. I’ll probably take a few better shots with my 8MP camera and upload them later.

Now, if only I could find my “fluffy” badge…

Good luck to all the nominees… as someone else said,… “break a link”!

Been away from this blog for a few days. There are reasons. Work aside, there’s a few other web sites I maintain which needed attention lately - one being ShiteDrivers which features a new entry today from me about kids. They can be shite drivers too, you know. The ShiteDrivers site has been shortlisted for the Irish Blog Awards - which gives me an excuse to stick on my best suit and head to Dublin on March 1st!

Another site I maintain is the Dundalk FM 100 one - which is also based on WordPress. The latest additions are podcasts and YouTube videos (one can be seen on the RehabCare on Air page) plus a full schedule and loads more besides including live football scores and commentary!

My own sites aside, it’s amusing to see Marks and Spencer making a slight cock-up, in trying to sell a lingerie model (with ‘durable hardwood feet’) on their web site. Great value at only £1,549!

Via Damien… iPhone’s available in Ireland… how trustworthy does this look?

Ralph Wiggum for President! Oh yes! … Do you “dig the wig”?

Ruairi thinks it never happens that you’re waiting for ages for a bus and then two come along at once… I beg to differ. Happened to me loads of times when I lived in Dolphin’s Barn in Dublin.

As Conor Pope reports, BT can be pretty nasty too when it comes to billing for their broadband ’service’ (or lack thereof)

Finally, from the “ooh that’s entertaining… and clever… and incredibly nerdy” department (and via Michèle) comes this… a tune made entirely of Windows sounds: