Fake model photos
Posted under: Had a bit of Photoshop fun making holiday snaps look like model towns. Here’s two of the better ones:
Worked well on Nerja. Looks more like Lego land.
Large version.
Original image.
A riverside in Stockholm looks like a Guinea pig is about to arrive on a boat.
Large version.
There are some great one’s on the
Tilt-shift miniature fakes Flickr group.
Here’s a video featuring the original Tilt-Shift photographic technique.
Teabagging
I’m very proud to discover that I’m top of the list on google.ie for the phrase teabagging.
Had a look around to see could I find anything amusing myself. The Wikipedia entry is tame enough but it’s alightly amusing to see it recommended as relatively safe sex on teenwire.
And members of an american wrestling team were charged with a hazing (a rookie initiation) involving mass teabagging!
RANT: Services in Ireland
I’m so sick of the service you get in this country. Yesterday we were in the Blanchardstown Petshop Superstore looking for an aquarium. That’s what junior wants from the Ho Ho Ho guy. We were waiting for someone to talk us through our options, standing there with our body language blasting out WE NEED HELP, but we just got ignored by all the teenage staff. The place is ran by teenagers! After a good few minutes I gave up and asked one of them if he could come over and answer some questions. No response, he just skulks over as if I’d just told him he had to stop playing with his friends and come in and do his homework. Here’s the conversation…
Me: “So we’re thinking of an aquarium about the size of this one but there’s no price on it, how much is it?”
Spotty: “Well it depends if you want a cold water tank or a warm water tank.”
Me: “What’s the difference?”
Spotty: “The cold water tank is for cold water, the warm water tank is for warm water.”
I swear that’s exactly what he said. We both just stared at him, deciding whether to just walk out or maybe grab him by the ear and see if there was a superior nearby who’s older than sixteen (there wasn’t). But Spotty cracked before I did and explained that you could only put goldfish in cold water and tropical fish in warm water. We had to drag everything else out of him. It felt like we were asking him where he’d been all night, and what time do you call this!?
Who the duck runs this place? Why do they only have moody teenagers working there? Why is nearly every experience in a retail outlet in Ireland similar to this one? It’s the same in the dreadful B&Q, Woodies* and Tescos. (And we all know what the likes of Eircom and NTL are like). What happened to treating customers like customers? Oh Christ, that’s it. I’m officially old. I’ve just had a birthday that made me closer to 40 than 30 and a gear has shifted already. Seriously though, I’m really sick of this kind of service. The rare occasions where I’ve come across good service really stick out a mile these days:
- Aston formal wear.Ok the site is very dated but the service isn’t. This is where I hired a suit when I got married and the guy who runs the place really knows how to treat a customer. Excellent service all round.
- Blacknight are definitely the most headache free and value for money web hosting company in Ireland but their customer care is really excellent too. Any problem or query I ever have is always dealt with instantly. I always get people who I do sites for to use blacknight. I have nothing else to do with the company honest!
- www.computerbits.ie . I ordered a firewire card from computerbits earlier this year, and there was no sign of it after a couple of weeks. Then a guy rang me to tell me it had been discontinued but he’d try other places. Then he kept kept me up to date by email and a couple of phone calls and eventually gave up on his supplier and offered me a better model for the same price. I paid €40 and the one I got was worth €85. Bargain!
- The people on the tills in Marks and Spencers deserve a nod just for acknowledging your presence, rather than craning around you to tell Tracey what Sharon did to Trevor last night.
So the moral of the story is, keep it up! It doesn’t go unnoticed. As for the other guys, I reckon your days are numbered. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow but soon and for the rest of your life every single type of service will be rated online, so you better start sending your teenagers to how to treat a customer school.
*An exception to the case in Woodies is one really friendly helpful guy who funnily enough happens to be in a Rabodirect ad. The guy with the beard:
Update
I can’t believe I forgot something that I definitely meant to include in this post. Someone who really deserves a big up is Allie who runs the Alpha school of driving. I had Allie for a few lessons and he goes through everything. For example he’ll show you exactly how to reverse around a corner, step-by-step. And was over the moon when I passed, first time, thanks to him.
Compare this to the lesson I got from the Irish School of Motoring while Allie was on holiday. It was supposed to be a pre-test but she didn’t go through anything under the bonnet, even though I asked if I needed to know this. After my dismal two attempts at reversing around a corner, said we better give up on that one. And she spent the first 10 minutes texting her friend, not paying any attention to my driving! Overall, she didn’t go through half of the stuff that I needed to know. Luckily Allie gave me his own pre-test as soon as he got back from hols and I definitely wouldn’t have passed without that lesson. Highly recommended. Ring Allie on: 0879860170.
Stuck in a bin
I know other people’s kids doing cute things isn’t half as amusing as the parent’s think it is – but I still think this is funny… discovering junior stuck upside down on the other side of a rocking horse with his head stuck in a bin…
Alive and kicking
Fi beat me to it but after a very long time trying to get to this point, we have a baby with a heart beat. I took this video with my phone, and the sending directly to youtube from phone thing worked for once. So I might chuck a load up now. Videos that is. We’re delighted that it seems to have passed the usual abnormality tests, but a few seconds into the video you can see quite clearly that it’s actually an alien baby.
Accident on O’Connell street
Bit shaken today. I was walking up O’Connell street this morning on the way to the LUAS, walking in the middle as always to avoid the crowds and the paper pushers. Just past the Spire I see this big truck coming up on the path. I was thinking what’s he up to? he’s going to hit that sign post if he doesn’t slow down. Then when I saw he had no intention of slowing down, and was about ten feet away from me, I jumped out of the way. For a second I thought he has to stop, there’s a sign post there! And there was guy just in front of the sign post! I don’t know where I looked just then, I just got out of the way as quickly as possible and then when I looked back, the truck was still going, knocking down everything in its path, and then it stopped at the big christmas tree.
I looked around to see where the other guy had ran to. He hadn’t! Jesus! He was lying twenty feet away in the trail of the carnage looking a bit mangled. His clothes were half ripped off him, and he was very still. I don’t think he ever saw the truck. I think he might have been looking at a phone or an i-pod or something. Shit! I felt terrible. If I’d been thinking a bit quicker, I might just have been able to grab him out of the way. The poor kid, might have been about twenty. A cop arrived very quickly and the kid started groaning horribly. Sounded horrible but was probably a good sign.
Another guy jumped up to the truck to check out the driver. The driver said he just blacked out. Still a bit shaken and upset, I gave my number to the cops, and got some hot sweet tea before coming into work. Can’t stop thinking about that poor guy. Really hope he comes out of it ok.
————————————————————————
Update #1
This was just put up on RTE: http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/1112/rta2.html?rss
Lorry accident at the Spire
Monday, 12 November 2007 09:23
A lorry ended up on the central meridian close to the Spire on Dublin’s O’Connell Street.
Gardaí are attending the incident, which has caused traffic disruption on O’Connell St, northbound.
There are no reports of any injuries.
No reported injuries? That’s odd.
————————————————————————
Update #2
Same RTE link now says:
Boy injured in O’Connell St accident
Monday, 12 November 2007 11:22
A 16-year-old boy has been seriously injured after being struck by a truck which mounted the centre median close to the Spire on O’Connell Street in Dublin.
He was taken to the Mater Hospital after the collision, which occurred at around 8.20am..
Northbound traffic on O’Connell Street in Dublin is down to just one lane. The remaining lane, which is the bus lane, is open to all traffic.
————————————————————————
Update #3 12:40
Just got a phonecall from Garda. The guy that got hit was talking in the hospital. He’s got two broken legs and a broken pelvis and will be in the operating theatre for the day but it sounds like he’s going to be ok. Eventually. Phew.
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Update #4
Some friends told me there are photos on Flickr. It’s a small world alright; turns out both of the people who took these pics (Redmum and Eoghan MCabe) have blogs that I occasionally read. Redmum’s O’Connell street Photos. Eoghan McCabe’s O’Connell street photo.
Also someone from The Star rang me after lunch. At least I’ll get such a small mention that they won’t be able to do some bad punning with my name. Right. Think I’ll leave it at that with the updates on this thing. Feel like I’m milking this for the sake of blogginess now while that poor chap is in the Mater (out my window) in agony.
Wedding Photos
Two and a half years later I’ve finally rooted out all our wedding photos and stuck them on Flickr. Full collection is here.
Bride to be
Fi in the Rolls while I was on the LUAS!
The ring bearer
Let the festival begin!
Ballybeg House
Entering marquee
Inside the Marquee
My 30 second Speech!
The Ska ban, Special Brew
Our honeymoon tree house in Costa Rica
Costa Rican beach.
If you were at the wedding, and you’re on Flickr please add your pics to this group.
Mark Ronson @ the BBC Electric Prom
Caught this Electic Proms show on the tellybox the other week. Was a really good show. A few of the performances have been rattling around my head ever since. Here’s Kyle Falconer of The View doing a great version of Valerie…
Update (Jan 08): Doh! I seem to have ahd the wrong video embedded for the last few months I had this one there which I can remember sending to someone at the same time. Nice!
This one’s been doing the rounds on the wireless at the moment lately, I think. This version has a bit of a history, it’s like a re-arrangement of cover of a remix of a mashup or something. Daniel Merriweather – Stop Me. Video isn’t great quality though…
Couple of Google Reader tips
Came across a couple of Google Reader tips last night. Or rather, they magically appeared in my Google Reader inbox:
1. Add a dynamic blogroll directly from google reader
This is very handy, and very easy to do. You can add a blogroll to your blog that mirrors folders in your Google Reader. This means that I can maintain my blogroll without going near Blogger. And that’s always good news. Obviously you can leave out whole folders and still retain privacy where needed. Of course I only discovered this a week after doing a blogroll by hand. See how atOfficial Google Reader Blog.
2. Integrate your Google Reader into Gmail
This is just one feature in Lifehacker’s Better Gmail Firefox extension.
You can set up Google reader to appear under your emails or/and have a link in your sidebar so you can flick between email and feeds.And if you like your shortcuts don’t miss out on Gmail macros.
Ha ha!
Did you see that Louis Theroux show earlier this year about The Most Hated Family in America? One of their favourite pastimes was to picket funerals of dead gay soldiers, thanking God that they are dead. Easy targets and all that but I’m still delighted that they’ve just lost a case taken against them. $10.9m in damages will surely ruin them. In Nelson’s best voice: “Ha Ha!”
Corky
I grew up with a guy called Corky, who was named after a weird deformity that made his left leg spiral around like a corkscrew. He walked with the strangest limp you’ll ever see, his left leg kind of twirled downwards as he put weight on it and then un-twirled as he dragged his foot behind. Corky was a great laugh when we were younger and he rarely let his disability get in the way of playing football tennis, climbing trees or doing knick knocks, though The Jogger never seemed to administer his trademark kick-up-the-arse quite as hard on Corky as he did me.
As he got older his good nature began to strain to the jaunts of the other lads on the street. He grew to despise the nickname that he had at one stage even called himself. And he grew to despise his twisted leg. He grew to despise everyone, including himself and including me. He swore revenge on the lads who slagged him most, and the more he swelled with bile, the less we saw of each other. He started to see more of his older cousin, Mushroom, a nasty individual with a propensity to torturing helpless animals and an evil grin to show how much he enjoyed it.
Ronan Doyle, the biggest bully on the street, wasn’t thwarted by Corky’s dark accomplice. If anything it spurned him on. He used to get cans of spray-paint and draw caricatures of Corky everywhere – with that corkscrew limb exaggerated more than ever. Corky and Mushroom disappeared for a whole summer one year, just as we were all coming through the harder side of our teens. Doyler showed early signs of maturity, and began to cringe at the site of his own graffiti. He did everything he could to get rid of it, even painting a wall or two, and by the end of the summer as Corky returned, tensions had eased.
We all grew up and left Shankill one by one. Every Christmas you’d see the same old faces in the local, Byrnes. It turned out Corky never left Shankill, and neither did the bile leave him. Still, I always had one pint with Corky. Old time’s sake is as good a sake as any. Last Christmas was unbearable though. Never a more miserable pint have I shared with any man. He just thrived in telling me how much he hated everyone in the pub, one by one, he slagged off the old boys, and saving the best for last he literally spat out nothing but depravity at the sight of Ronan Doyle. I wiped his splashes from my face and left him there, seething. He hardly noticed me leave and continued to spew bile at the vacant stool I left behind.
Then, on Christmas morning word had spread. Ronan Doyle had been found dead somewhere between the pub and his Ma’s house. A terrible wound was left in his chest, a mushy hole of torn flesh. I felt the blood drain from my face at the thought of it. Before we went our separate ways, those many summers ago, sitting on top of our favourite tree watching the darts go by, Corky often described how he’d love to get a corkscrew and tear out Ronan Doyle’s heart. And that he did. I knew it was him. But no one else seemed to know. The thought chilled me to the bone. I had to do something. I couldn’t handle the idea of going to the cops with this mad idea straight out of some horror movie. I decided to go see his family. Or at least what was left of it, a pisshead dad who I caught leaving the house, as pissed as ever. I explained everything frantically, my embarrassment of the whole thing shadowed by his drunkenness. He didn’t want to know. He believed me but he didn’t care!
I went back to Corky’s house. I could hear sobbing coming down from his bedroom window. The front door was open. I entered the house where I’d spent many of my pre-teen years. I shouted his name but he didn’t seem to hear. I went upstairs and straight to his room but before I had a chance to open the door, it swung open. And there was Mushroom. A somehow darker version of Mushroom, all innocence, whatever little of it there ever was, completely washed away, his evil grin titanic on his shriveled face. Then, in a Flash he raised his hand. For a split second I thought he had a corkscrew but it was far worse. A big kitchen knife cut the air and made for my face. I somehow managed to grab his arm. I can’t describe the terror I felt. I actually tried to scream and nothing came out. My vocal cords had completely abandoned me even though my arms managed to wrestle on in autopilot. I eventually managed to stutter, I heard voices in the street below, and as I felt the anger within me strengthen the power of my voice I shouted. And the words that majestically parted my lips were “Happy Halloween!”.
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I actually did know a guy called Corky growing up but the rest is bollix! There was nothing wrong with his leg or anything else but I did wake up screaming last night at the end of a long and realistic nightmare where he tried to kill me with a kitchen knife! Thought it’d make a good halloween yarn!
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