…Bo Burnham. I don’t normally see a youtube video and think to myself – yeah, they’ve got talent alright. However, I picked up a link to this guy initially from Damien Mulley’s Fluffy Links and maybe it’s just me but I think the kid has talent. He’s genuinely funny even if one shouldn’t laugh at times to be totally PC about it all. Worth checking out if you have a few free moments. Below is a song about a rehab centre for fictional characters but he has lots of other stuff on youtube worth looking at too for a few laughs.

It’s official, not that I haven’t known it for some time anyway, but the ESRI have finally sent chills down the spine of every estate agent and recent property investor in Ireland. C’mon lads we’ve been telling you for ages! Yes, houses in Ireland are massively overvalued, yes supply will now ease off to try and help the market recover, yes this will have a knock-on effect on the economy with a big drop in the demand for construction workers. Still want your fancy high street retail store? I’ve been telling you for ages that it’s diverse jobs that you want not shopping! Semper stultus! source: Irish Times

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…somebody wrote the rule book 50 years ago and never bothered releasing a second edition! This morning on the radio I hear that the equality authority, whom I have had the pleasure of dealing with in a professional capacity once upon a time, are putting out to tender, a report to indicate how women are discriminated/stereotyped in the media. WTF?

No offence ladies but I think that the balance of power may have slightly shifted in recent times with respect to certain areas and it is indeed men who are suffering in favour of women in those sectors. Simple example, somebody show me one example of a motor insurance company who offers special deals for men. You’ll find plenty for women! Just like all women are not ditsy blondes, neither are all men the same. However, when a female cries foul play it’s sexual discrimination but when a male cries it, it’s deemed to be statistical evidence. I’ve been through those figures way too often to enter into it again but here’s that link once more.

I would like to suggest/implore the equality authority conducts a study into the number of road safety ads that feature young males driving in a reckless manner. I would then ask if this number is proportionately representative of the road accidents on our roads. I would further inquire if the public monies being spent on these ads (always with the support of an insurance company) are being solely spent on targeting young males instead of aiming at all road users of whom no one group is exempt from accident statistics. I personally see this as an open and blatant discrimination against young men supported by the companies who make the most by portraying young men in this fashion. Where’s the equality there?

Yes, the truth is still out there; in Ireland! Just read in the Times this morning that a dossier that was kept by the Irish defence forces for 37 years has been released, including details of UFO sightings around the emerald isle. The most comical entry in the dossier must be a sighting reported by a Garda near a bog in Falcarragh (Co. Donegal), where the report states that he heard a gushing sound, looked up and saw an object flying overhead that looked like a household iron with fins at the back. Only in Ireland could banks identify anyone who benefited from ATM’s that mix up their notes, lose all records of people they overcharge, fail to account for any money that our Taoiseach had, and have a steam iron thrown at a Garda classified as a UFO. source: Irish Times

Ya scurvy dawgs! Get thee to the nearest tavern and be loaded to the gunnels with a fathom of ale, less ye be sleeping in Davey Jones’ locker. Yaarrrgh!!

Such is my obligation every year, to remind everyone of International Talk Like a Pirate Day – have a good one!

Google has just added its much awaited Presentations to its current offering of Docs & Spreadsheets. I read this announcement on the Google blog earlier and just gave it a whirl. First impressions, yes, I’m impressed. Obvious omissions are a big selection of templates and slide transitions but additional features such as webcasting your presentation to invited parties and a hook-up with gTalk is genius! You need never have to travel again to give a stupid 15 minute presentation followed by idle comments and questions. You can do it all online and save a frickin’ fortune!! Google I salute you once more but if you ever decide to start charging for your basic services, I’ll download the internet and ignore you forever. source: Google Blog

UPDATE: Random yet provoked thought. Google-based Barcamp anyone?

Scarcely can I believe reading the headlines today that Scottish rally legend Colin McRae was tragically killed in a helicopter accident yesterday, along with his young son and two family friends. Such tragedy casts my mind back to the day when I heard about the death of Joey Dunlop, another daredevil of the racing circuit. There’s not much to say except that a huge talent has been lost from this world, along with three other lives in an incredibly tragic accident. My deepest sympathies to all families involved and may they all rest in peace.

Yesterday, in the most anticipated docking since the astronauts joined the International Space Station, our beloved Taoiseach finally stepped up at the Mahon Tribunal to answer some questions relating to all this payment scandal that we have been hearing about and funding as tax payers. When it was put to Bertie that he may not have been as forthcoming with information as was possible, he conceded this fact. However, still hiding behind the pain of the act of a marriage separation he tries to block viewing of his affairs from this time. A move that has gained much public support and I’m sure that others are taking notes at the moment as to what works and doesn’t work for covering up periods of your life that you don’t want investigated. Bertie will stand further questioning today but in my honest opinion this is all likely to come to nothing. I can’t really see an outcome whereby Bertie will be publicly shamed and forced to step down if proven to have done wrong. Lots of tax payers money poured into the legal profession who are quite possibly buying themselves retirement islands at this stage. source: Irish Times

On another somewhat related note: I see that Damien has just given http://www.politicsinireland.com/ a bit of an overhaul. For those of you who don’t know, this is a blog aggregator that gathers posts relating to political items and puts them in one place for you to read. Worth subscribing to if you want the latest from the blogosphere of what’s going on in the life of Bertie or indeed any other TD of your interest. Check it out!

Bet you it’s not this big. A spider web discovered in Texas, USA is suspected to be a collaborative effort of thousands of spiders and stretches over 200 yards. This is the kind of stuff that horror movies are made of… source: Boing Boing

A couple of days ago I got around to setting up MovableType 4 on my blog server. All went well for the upgrade as usual and I was very happy with the new features and the new look and feel of the upgraded platform. However, last evening I think I have stumbled across the first bug. I have my Flickr account setup to post images to my blog via XML-RPC and this appears to have broken since the upgrade. So, I tried the usual steps of recreating the Flickr setup through my Flickr account and resetting the web services password in MovableType but nothing seems to work. Flickr complains of an invalid password and I cannot setup the feature again because of this. Anyone else stumble across this problem since upgrading to MT4?