Any amusing email / text / social media faux pas you’d care to share?

“How do you wake up the President?” wondered Slate’s twitter feed last month. The tweet linked to an old article I’d read before, concerning the protocol that surrounds when and how the commander-in-chief is roused from his sleep for an emergency briefing.

It was a Friday evening. I was babysitting my niece. On a whim, I retweeted the original question (“How do you wake up the President?”) along with a tongue-in-cheek suggestion of my own. (“SUPER-SOAKERS!!!) For some reason, the image of Obama’s Chief-of-Staff bursting into the presidential bedroom with a florescent pump-action water blaster just amused me.

When I refreshed the page a few minutes later, I had 25 fewer Twitter followers. Read the rest of this entry »

“The nets are looking great. The markings all seem to go in straight lines…”

I can’t think of a whole lot else to say to the guy. “There’d be some in this club wouldn’t think twice about playing a match after it pissing down for a fortnight,” he spits. “Then they want to know why the surfaces are cut to shit!” He sniggers bitterly. Read the rest of this article here.

Published: Irish Times, March 26 2011

“Half the ads on there were from professional ladies. Solicitors? No, not solicitors.”

You’ve never tried it yourself, of course. Nor, as far as you’re aware, have any of your friends or any of your friends’ friends. But no more than Enya’s record sales, or the viewing figures for Mrs Brown’s Boys, the statistics tell a very different story. They suggest that far more of us dabble in the world of online dating than would care to admit it.

Even in the midst of recession, it has never been as popular. Two year ago, online dating overtook pornography as the third most valuable source of paid-for online content. Only digital music and online gaming generate more revenue. This year it is projected to bring in a staggering $932m in the US alone. Read the rest of this entry »

Published: Irish Times, March 26 2011

At the very least, he might come out of all this with a better haircut

Independent TD Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan has announced that he will not smoke cannabis while serving as a member of Dail Eireann. The former Roscommon mayor is Ireland’s best known advocate for cannabis legalisation and, during his recent successful Dail campaign, acknowledged growing “one or two small plants” for his personal use.

The announcement followed an editorial in the Garda Review magazine, which made a veiled call for action against the maverick TD, who was regarded as openly flouting the law. Read the rest of this entry »

Miscellaneous amusing items I come across #54

I resent feeling that I have say this, but I WAS babysitting my niece at the time…

Published: Irish Times, February 19 2011

“I learned everything I know from illegal downloading… So I don’t mind giving back.”

The External World from David OReilly on Vimeo.

Congratulations to Irish animator David O’Reilly, whose extraordinary short film The External World (above), won an Adobe Award at the Regebsburg Film Festival last night. Here’s his (King’s) acceptance speech.

My interview with him is after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

St. Patrick’s Day, 2011

According to press reports last week Tottenham are set to introduce new space-age football jerseys, which will alert coaching staff when a player is suffering from fatigue. If I’d be wearing one climbing Croagh Patrick Thursday morning, I suspect my number would have been called before we’d even left the car park.

This was my first time climbing The Reek in almost four years and, man, it was tough going. If it wasn’t for the presence on the mountain of climbers thirty and forty years my senior, I’d have been tempted to throw in the towel. But those pints in Galway that night tasted all the sweeter. Made it Ma, top of the world!

About the blog awards

I have no idea who nominated me for an award at the Irish Blog Awards, which take place in Belfast tonight. I don’t know much about the awards, except that I am nominated in the same catagory as David McWilliams, Jim Carroll and Donald Clarke. So obviously, I am extremely flattered.

I’m not deluded enough to think I have any chance of winning. But whoever nominated me, and for whatever reason, I’m sure it wasn’t for thinking things but not saying them. So here are my two cents. Read the rest of this entry »

This is funny

This is from a few years back, starring Jerry Seinfeld as himself and Patrick Warburton (who played David Puddy on the show) as the voice of Superman. Yes, it’s an American Express ad, but it’s rather amusing all the same. Part two is after the jump… Read the rest of this entry »

I’m a pedestrian

You know the way some people are motorists, and some are cyclists, and others are, I dunno, innocent bystanders? Well I’m a pedestrian. I don’t walk for the exercise or the love of it or any of that crap. I walk because, for me, it’s the optimal method of getting from A to B. Not just that, there are all those extra little perks: no monthly payments, tax, or insurance. There are no timetables, parking spaces or unbecoming head gear of any type. It’s free like the Luas, except that this train leaves when I say it leaves. And – because there are no strikes, signal failures or traffic jams – it’s only late if I’m late.

There’s just one problem: there are no Rules of the Footpath. Honestly, it’s like the Wild West out there. Read the rest of this entry »