Raiméis

Just downloaded a few more albums in the past few days. Johnny Cash‘s American V – A Hundred Highways (which I notice is on Rick O’Shea‘s Favourite New Albums list) and N.E.R.D.’s Fly or Die since my CD got a bit fucked up.

One interesting album I downloaded is Billy Joel‘s An Innocent Man.

I ammmmmmmmmmm … an innocent maaa-an, ohh yes I ammmmm … an innocent maa-aan, oh Oh OH ohhhhh dum dum dum dum da dum

Interesting (sort of) because this was actually the first album I ever bought (excluding that breakdance album, but we won’t talk about that anymore), way back in 1983 I scrounged and scraped together IR£5.99 (if memory serves…) and bought it in the music centre in Longford. I still have the tape 23 years later.
I just found myself in the mood then for some oldies [when I say oldies bear in mind i'm a 70's child], check out these downloads…

• Kate Bush – Wuthering Heights
• Clannad – In A Lifetime (with Bono)
• Simple Minds – Belfast Child
• Hothouse Flowers – Dont Go
• Jim Diamond – I Should Have Known Better
• Feargal Sharkey – A Good Heart

An odd selection perhaps but sometimes it’s nice to hear the popular songs from your youth, brings back memories. I’ll have to add to that list today.
Maybe Rick O’Shea will play us an oldie, I’ll have to send him a request. Done!

Outstanding news for the Irish Defence Forces. From August of next year until July 2008 Ireland will take control of the peace keeping mission in Kosovo! They will be responsible for the “co-ordination of the Nato-led international task force in the Balkan state, commanding, controlling and directing operations”. While Irish Officers have served as Force Commander on UN missions; such as Lt Gen W. Callaghan on UNIFIL or Lt General David Stapleton on UNDOF, Major General John Vize on UNIKOM, this will be the the first time that Ireland will be in overall command of the multinational task force.

Excellent news for our Defence Forces and a testament to the magnificent contribution our soldiers have made to peacekeeping operations since joining the United Nations in December 1955.
Since 1958 our soldiers have had a continuous presence on peacekeeping missions either as observers or peacekeepers serving over 50,000 individual missions on UN operations in numerous hot spots throughout the globe.
Our first mission was to the Lebanon in 1958 as observers (UNOGIL) and since then our troops have served with distinction in the Lebanon with Unifil [a small group still serve there today], The Congo (ONUC), West New Guinea (UNTEA), Cyprus (UNFICYP), India-Pakistan (multiple missions), The Sinai (UNEF II), Afghanistan, the Iran/Iraq border (UNIIMOG), Namibia (UNTAG), El Salvador (ONUSAL), Angola, Cambodia, Yugoslavia, Somalia (UNOSOM II), Haiti (UNMIH), Macedonia (UNPREDEP), East Timor (UNAMET +), Kosovo (UNMIK +), Ethiopia & Eritrea (UNMEE), Liberia (UNMIL), Bosnia, Croatia, Albania, Russia, South Africa, Rwanda, Honduras and many other cases you never hear about including the Irish troops seconded to various NGOs for missions in Somalia, Angola, Rwanda and Zaire.
And if you have been watching the papers recently you’d know that Irish Troops are likely to be deployed once again to the Lebanon in partnership with the Finns on what could be a difficult peacekeeping operation. In 1998 Ireland underlined our committment to UN peacekeeping operations by committing 850 Defence Forces personnel to UN peacekeeping under the UN Standby Arrangements System so it’s great to see Ireland not shying away from sending her troops into difficult situations such as exists in Lebanon today.

Ireland has a strong tradition with the United Nations, we are respected throughout the world for the work our troops have done on UN missions and it’s a fantastic honour for us to be given the responsibility for operations in Kosovo. It’s something we should all be proud of.

Some light reading: The United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).

p.s. It’s worthwhile remembering also the contribution of An Garda Síochána to peacekeeping operations, they have been serving with the UN since 1989.

I’m redesigning my website (not the blog) and am going to do something I don’t normally do, get someone else’s opinion on it before I finish it. Would anyone with 2 minutes to spare consider taking a peek and giving their honest opinion? Be brutal. (content styles haven’t been looked at yet, just the header/footer/side bar).

• new template
• same content in old template for comparison

Anyone make the unfortunate decision to watch yesterday’s All-Ireland Football Final? What an awful awful game, one of the worst I have seen in ages. What the heck happened to Mayo? Did all the pressure and expectation become too much and cause a mental breakdown? They weren’t in it at all yesterday, they never even got off the starting blocks. I feel sorry for the fans, not because they lost the game but how they lost it, their team just didn’t contest the final at all.
For Kerry it was easy, with little effort they knocked in 4-15 to win their 34th(!) All-Ireland SFC title. The margin would have been bigger only for Mayo got a few goals against the run of play to put a nicer look on the score line. But what now for Mayo, how will they pick themselves up from what must be one of their hardest losses in years?

p.s. as well as being a bad game of football it was also dirty at times, with Kerry especially making many cynical challenges. The bullying side of Gaelic football has always turned me off the sport and sadly it’s evident at almost every level of the game but it’s obviously not something that the GAA considers to be a problem.

Audioslave: Revelations.
One of the first things I did when I got connected yesterday was to download Audioslave‘s recently released 3rd album Revelations. A revelation it is not. It’s also not an album to win over any non-Audioslave fans, who will probably find it a touch boring or think that all the songs sound the same, sort of what I think of Coldplay.

Audioslave fans shouldn’t be too disappointed though. While it isn’t a revelation it is a decent album with some good tunes. Unfortunately though it’s more of the ‘same old’ from the Axis of Justice group. Fans like myself are waiting for them to kick it up a gear but it just doesn’t happen with Revelations. The first few songs in particular are ‘been there done that’ tunes, leftovers from their earlier albums perhaps. It does lift a notch at Original Fire, the first single from the album, but by Shape Of Things To Come they have reverted to old Audioslave so much so that in the opening bars of Shape… you think you’re actually listening to Soundgarden!

While all this might sound a touch negative I have to say despite not being anything new it is still a good album. If you don’t mind it being in the same vein as Audioslave or Out Of Exile then give it a listen.

This review has been brought to you by the letter Q and the number 19216811.

Yes, is fíor sin, i’m back to torment you and just when you thought it was safe to go back in the em … water.

So we’re back in Ireland, still trying to get settled in in the North West. It’s nice enough being back though I do miss Finland a bit, even though I was always whinging about it when I was there. I’m not working yet (haven’t been looking too hard to be honest) and i’m enjoying the time off. Just got broadband last night, it’s great being back online though strangely enough I didn’t miss blogging that much, I guess I needed the break.

Speaking about whinging, plenty of that done in the past two months …

- Traffic problems in every town
- Pedestrians who crosss roads where they like
- Brian Kennedy … why is this guy on TV?? I have more talent between the folds of my scrotum than this guy has in his entire body
Plus I have just come to the conclusion that RTÉ is muck … Eur155 for a much licence!
- Internet, yes it sucks in Ireland
- Prices … food prices, damn!
- School uniforms & books!

But it ain’t all bad, at least now I can understand what most people are talking about. And access to Lyons tea is easier.

So what has happened while i’ve been ofline? Any big stories from the Blog O’ Sphere?

Dia dhuit!! I’m back … hello … hello? Anybody? Shit, I think they’re gone …

It’s the end of an era. Tomorrow I finish work, been here over 5 years, and in 2 weeks or so we leave Finland, for good. We’ll be back in Ireland mid-July looking for work so if you know of anyone looking for a somewhat-talented exotic dancer give me a buzz. I also do bar work. (i.e. pole dancing, not serving drinks)

Our home net connection has been cancelled and will probably be cut off tomorrow or Saturday so I won’t be online again until we get set-up in Ireland, assuming they have broadband where we’re going (I guess I shouldn’t make assumptions when it comes to broadband in Ireland).

It’s been fun here. Finland is a great country to live, such a pity salaries suck, the economic situation isn’t great, the winter is long and the pint expensive. Apart from that there are worse places you could set up home. I’ve mixed feelings leaving. I can’t say I’m thrilled to be going home but it must be done. On the plus side I’ll save a shit load on Guinness.

Maybe I’ll get to meet a few of ye over the summer. Till then slán go fóill.

Can this be true?

A Spanish intellectual property law has finally banned unauthorized peer-to-peer file-sharing in Spain, making it a civil offense even to download content for personal use.

My initial reaction is “you stupid fucking idiots, you’ve been spending too much time in the sun!!”, however i’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume there’s more to the story that this article tells. Afterall the law as exlained here would ban people from sending files THEY created themselves to someone via P2P. Now surely the Spanish aren’t stupid enough to implement such a law as that. Are they? Interesting to see how they plan to enforce it.

I notice they’ve also introduced a small tax for all blank media. Bastards.

…that’s what we’ll be called at official European Union meetings in the future, since Irish will be an official and working language from the start of next year!
p.s. to clarify what should be obvious, name change applys to signage and name plates!