Raiméis

Back online again and back to blogging business…

While I was out forrin’ John at Roaddeaths.net finally got his map online. Well done John. This is a great project and I hope it gets lots of publicity. I’ll email you if I get time John but may I suggest something, can you display a more prominent link to the map itself? Just a thought. Shortly there’s be a permanent link to the site here.

Speaking of links. It’s rare that I add links to my blogroll, I hate long blogrolls, once a link list gets too long it loses it’s usefulness in my opinion. Anyway two bloggers which get the dubious honour of being linked on Raiméis this link-adding-round are Curly K (That Friday Feeling) (whose pic reminds me of Gwen Stefani (did I ever mention I hate Gavin Rosdale for stealing her from me?)) and the Swearing Lady (Arse End of Ireland) (who gets extra points for her taste in music); two good Irish bloggers who I’ll be stalking in future.

Update, i’ve also had to add Derek O’Connor’s Blogorrah, it’s just the bomizzle my nizzle!

Blogging will be slow/non-existent over the next two weeks or so. Tomorrow i’ll be heading to Ireland for a weeks break (and to stock up on tea bags) and then to the Far East (or far west, depending on which way you’re facing) for another week assuming the bill payer approves the trip. I might bring my camera this time and see if I can get some good snaps. No parties while i’m gone, ya hear?

p.s. comments will be allowed, but new posters will need to wait until I’m back online before their comments are approved.

Seems like as good a time as any to post on the Ice Hockey World Championships which are coming to an end in Latvia later tonight. Finland, disappointingly beaten 3-1 in their semi-final against the Czechs, just knocked 5 past Canada in today’s bronze medal match. A good end to a disappointing championship for Finland. Overall i’d say the mood is pretty high in Finland today with last nights win in the Eurovision and now their ice-hockey team’s win over the Canadians, a good day to be Finnish I guess.

I don’t know how the fuck they pulled it off but Finland just blew away the competition tonight! Here they are … Lordi (from the semi-final) …

The Eurovision is utter shit. Yes it is. And we’ll have to suffer through it again this weekend. I may have to leave the house when it’s on, herself will be watching it because Lordi made it to the final. Sad thing is Lordi were one of the better ones tonight. There were some downright awful singers this year, really pathetic. I can’t believe Kennedy got through. Urgh. Did I mention that the Eurovision is utter shit?

Anyone interested in 3D modelling and spacey things … Nasa have scaled dimensioned drawings of the various modules which make up the ISS (plus a handy exploded view) available for download in pdf format right about … here. Probably been online for yonks but I just found them.
First person to send in their completed model (on the back of a postcard please) gets a virtual clap on the back.

Via drrnwbb.com (you might have just spotted this on Irishblogs.ie). Greetings.fi is a collection of postcards/photos showing an alternative side to Helsinki. There’s a great selection of pictures, some pretty and some not so pretty, but well worth a browse. Although they seem to have a fetish for bums (not arses, the other bums).

You’ve probably read the news recently that three Augustinian priests concelebrated mass with a Church of Ireland Rector on Easter Sunday and got in some hot water over it? According to the news this morning the three priests have apologised to the RC Church authorities.
I wasn’t going to post on this at all but decided to post in response to a post made by one of our fellow bloggers. Kirsti from “a finnish woman’s diary” had some harsh words to say about the Catholic church following this incident, and although I wouldn’t be classed as religious I still get these odd urges to defend my church when I see it attacked.

I’ll point out first though that I detest picking on other bloggers or trying to put other bloggers in a negative light and I’ll apologise to Kirsti or anyone if they feel I have attacked them personally. But that’s not what this post is about, it’s solely about answering a specific post which I feel twisted the truth.

I totally support the RC & COI priests who decided to concelebrate mass recently and I wish we saw more of it. I also don’t think they needed to make an apology but of course that’s their decision, and I disagree with the criticism which has come from church leaders. And this is what I want to highlight, the criticism has come from both the RC Church and the COI and not solely from the RC Church.

“The controversial Mass in Drogheda, Co Louth, was criticised by both the Catholic and Church of Ireland primates, who said it could cause confusion and misunderstanding.”

“The Church of Ireland Primate, Dr Robin Eames, said that such occasions while well-intentioned might well be misunderstood.”

So to say this is the fault of the Catholic Church or to say this is evidence that the Catholic church ‘doesn’t want a prod about the place’ is a total lie. I really dislike this attitude, this over reaction and distortion of the facts, you see it on Slugger all the time. It was the same sort of thing after the Love Ulster march, no prods wanted in the ROI because a few hundred scumbags attacked a “loyalist” parade. Rubbish.
Anyway, I digress. In summary, free the Augustinian Three!

“Yu Ming is ainm dom” is possibly the most famous short Irish language film around. Maybe it’s because it’s award winning (won about 8 million awards), maybe because it’s a very well made nice story or maybe because of the message it sends about the Irish language. It seems to have gotten a lot more exposure since it became available online and has been mentioned on numerous blogs like An t-Imeall, Donal and Holy Shmoly … eh, and now I just mentioned it here again.
One film which i’ve never seen mentioned is a little cracker called Fluent Dysphasia (also available online), written by Daniel O’Hara and starring Stephen Rea as a bloke that after a hard nights drinking wakes up speaking only Irish, losing the ability to speak or understand any English. It’s well made, well acted and a very funny film and if you haven’t seen it yet I highly recommend it.

“Go n-eirí an bóthar leat an’ all dah, céad míle fáilte, wha?”

Via TCAL, this is a classic, one to be bookmarked. Cab driver was mistakingly put on air for an interview about the Apple vs Beatles court case. Details on TCAL.

Fair dues to him for playing along. His face at the start of the interview is priceless.

Update: Again via TCAL, turns out the cabbie wasn’t a cabbie afterall…