Holy Shmoly! » When-in-Ireland

Irelande Douze Pointe

Donncha O Caoimh — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 11:25:35 +0000

Oh dear. Dustin will be singing for Ireland at the Eurovision this year. I think we could win. Maybe.

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A right tool

Donncha O Caoimh — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 20:33:30 +0000

Scanning Gmail’s spam folder (815 emails after 2 days) is much more entertaining when I remember that all those messages about a longer tool refer to a completely different thing in Cork.

Sort of. 9 pages of spam.

I need to scan them because Gmail catches an alarming number of legitimate email, despite all my training. Sheesh.

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Sell your soul for a luxury weekend in the country

Donncha O Caoimh — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 16:45:44 +0000

What would you do for a luxury self catering weekend in the West of Ireland? Would you sell your soul and help launch a Google bomb?

Well, the good people at Glengarrriff Lodge would like you to link to their website with the keywords “Luxury Self Catering” in the link. Do that, and link to someone else who may be interested in the weekend and you’ll be entered in a draw for a weekend at the Lodge worth up to 1175 Euro! Nice eh?

Anyway, now that my blog is squeaky clean, I couldn’t possibly consider subverting Google’s search engine. No sirree, but it looks like a gorgeous location so I decided to give it a plug anyway.

Oh, I’ll be in that part of the country in the next few weeks so I might call in and say hi!

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Signs that Halloween is tomorrow

Donncha O Caoimh — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 15:13:04 +0000

Sign reads, “Eggs are at the checkout”. I remember seeing similar signs in other shops in previous years. My car was egged twice on successive years after working late. “Those damn kids!”

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We can have a good world

Donncha O Caoimh — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 14:31:32 +0000

Watch Hans Rosling’s great talk at TED 2006 where he, “demonstrates how developing countries are pulling themselves out of poverty. He shows us the next generation of his Trendalyzer software — which analyzes and displays data in amazingly accessible ways, allowing people to see patterns previously hidden behind mountains of stats. (Ten days later, he announced a deal with Google to acquire the software.) He also demos Dollar Street, a program that lets you peer in the windows of typical families worldwide living at different income levels. Be sure to watch straight through to the (literally) jaw-dropping finale.”

It’s amazing to see how quickly Chile and other less developed nations have caught up with the “industrialised world”, and are about to surpass them in terms of health care. He’s speaking at the it@Cork conference on November 28th this year and should be very entertaining and insightful.

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Stop sending me junk mail Chorus

Donncha O Caoimh — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 13:55:16 +0000

The previous owners of my home had a Chorus box and never cancelled their account properly, or told them they were moving so for the past three years they have been sending me brochures every few weeks or months. At least I presume they didn’t, but all the brochures are addressed to “The Resident”. This blog post is a reminder to myself that I finally rang them on 1890 940 940, pressed 1 for sales, pressed 1 because I really wanted to buy lots of channels and told Sarah that I didn’t want to be contacted again.

Within moments it was sorted and hopefully I’ll get no more junk mail from Chorus.

If you’re getting unsolicited email this document from the Data Protection Commissioner might come in handy but here’s what it warns about those anonymous “The Resident” mail that so frequently litters our doorsteps.

This is the traditional and oldest form of direct marketing. For mail received through your letter box to be considered to be direct marketing it must be addressed to a named person and must be promoting a product or service. Unaddressed mail put into your letter box or mail addressed to “the occupant”, “the resident” or “the householder” does not necessarily involve the use of personal data and consequently data protection legislation does not apply.

You can also opt to be removed from company mailing lists by contacting the IDMA.

Apart from contacting organisations individually, you may also wish to avail of a service run by the Irish Direct Marketing Association (IDMA). Under the Mail Preference Service, if you supply your contact details to the IDMA, it will circulate these details amongst its members. This will result in most of the main direct marketing companies removing your details from their mailing lists.

If only those fake charities respected the law too, we might stamp out all the rubbish flyers that drop through the letter box. Reminder: I really must set up clothingcollection.org soon!

I love this story from boards.ie:

Apparently the postman in my hometown was removing all the spam and advertising from people’s post, putting it in a bag and dumping it in a bog outside the town. Had been successfully un-spamming people for years before he was found out and fired.

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Census 1901 – a look into the past

Donncha O Caoimh — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 09:16:08 +0000

Do a search for Census 1901 Ireland and you’ll find lots of sites offering lists and information from the census that year. However for a personal insight into the Census, Grannymar has an interesting post. It was a completely different world. “The good old days” indeed!

Column 4 – Education.

State here whether he or she can “Read and Write,” can “Read” only, or “Cannot Read.”

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Dinner in Aroma

Donncha O Caoimh — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 22:51:55 +0000

Just a quick note at the end of the night. My sister took care of Adam (thank you so much Mairead!) while Jacinta and I went out for a fabulous meal in Aroma on Emmett Place in Cork. It’s a Thai/Chinese/Malaysian restaurant and I’ve never been disappointed when I eat there. In fact we’ve brought lots of visitors there, including Matt if memory serves.

The Thai fish cakes are scrumptious, and I ordered the a beef dish with a Malaysian curry sauce. The meat practically melted in my mouth and the curry was nice and spicy. It can be quite busy but we arrived early at 8pm when only a few tables were taken. Service is great with attentive staff. Compared to other restaurants in Cork, prices for an evening meal are reasonable.

We’re definitely going back!

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Perfect Parking in Blarney

Donncha O Caoimh — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 11:03:45 +0000

I should blog this at Shite Drivers but this was too good to give up. Sorry Niall!

What you don’t see is the old SUV (probably new when such vehicles were called 4x4s) that swerved across the road in front of me to block 3 parked cars. The elderly driver waited in the vehicle all the time I was walking about there. I parked across the road by AIB because of the stellar parking of the car above. Good thing most of the tourists are gone home now!

Edit: this is how they should have parked!

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Charity photography exhibit starts today

Donncha O Caoimh — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 08:31:41 +0000

If you’re not subscribed to my photoblog, In Photos dot org, you might have missed the announcement about the exhibit. Mallow Camera Club (no, we don’t take photos of candy, cookies or biscuits, Mallow is a town a few miles from here!) will be exhibiting a number of photos in Mallow Town Library for three weeks starting today.

One of the Club’s members, Sean Riordan, is heading out to South Africa shortly as part of a group from the Niall Mellon Township Trust helping to build homes for the poor in that country. All the photos on exhibit will be for sale with all profits going to help fund Sean’s trip and the good work he’ll do in November.

Your one week’s hard work will change the lives of generations of some of the poorest families in the world. Over 200 families will move from a one roomed shack measuring 3m x 3m to a house with 2 bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom. Most importantly, these houses will have running water, electricity, and sanitation – facilities we take for granted in our everyday lives.

One of my photos, this one of Brendan O’Carroll outside the Opera House in Cork will be on show and for purchase too. It’s not exactly like the one shown here. It’s a portrait with a tighter crop and better. I’ll be there tonight at 6pm to see how things go. If it’s bought while I’m still around, I’ll sign my photo for you. You never know, it might be valuable in years to come!

So, here’s me asking for everyone to give this a plug, especially if you live in Cork or some of your readers live in the locality. Come on Donal, Ryan, Tom, Damien, Adam, Gamma Goblin, Conor, Will, Mel, Haydn, Mark and everyone on Cork Blogs .. Giz a link and a plug, please!

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