Like a good number of others, I slept right through the thunderous downpour of rain that hit parts of the East coast on Thursday. 2 weeks worth of rain fell in an hour at Dublin airport.

Twitter was all abuzz with it when I awoke. I thought I was heading to Dublin to see the city centre turned into a river and the tip of the spire burnt to a cinder.

When I finally got to Dublin, I was disappointed to spot only one decent sized puddle on my walk to work. The spire looked like it always did, minding it’s own shiny business. My mood was as half hearted as the poxy drizzle. I think I heard my umbrella sigh too, such was its disappointment at being raised in such conditions. 

I’m definitely booking one of those storm chaser holidays in the US. Those guys know what real storms are like.

Image owned by Colour of your smile (CC License)

The big Friday news today is that the Spice Burger is back.

Due to the publicity surrounding the demise of the chipper’s favourite, Walsh Family Foods have received enough orders to justify production again.

See, who said consumer power didn’t work Nobody will have to make their own now.

(ht/ jonathangrimes)

I’m talking about the victims of drug overdose by the way. To my knowledge, the OD’s that security have dealt with in this shopping centre have all turned out well. When I say well, I mean the drug addict is saved to continue smoking / shooting heroin. It’s very easy to spot them. Eyes sunk into the back of their head, glazed expression, wobbly walk – general incoherence.

Yesterday, it was a bit different. A trio of drug addicts, 2 men and one woman, were sitting in Burger King when one of the men keels over onto the floor. Bit of a kerfuffle ensues while the female starts to do CPR. Burger King manager has called 999, and is out looking for security (who I have already called). Inevitably in these situations, a crowd gathers around to watch. Security first aider arrives and determines that the collapsed man still has a heartbeat and is breathing. No need for the CPR so he puts him into the recovery position and paramedics arrive shortly thereafter.

Through all of this, the second male of the group has remained sitting at his seat, drinking from a bottle and eating his Whopper. No sense in letting food go cold I guess.

Was sad to hear the news of Michael Jackson’s death this week. I had a Twitter client running on Thursday and deliberately logged out when I started to see the news filter through. Not interested in participating in vulture like behaviour on the communication channel “du jour”. Makes me sick actually. And yet, here I am, a couple of days later adding more bits and bytes of data to Michael Jackson’s electronic cloud in the sky.

Back in August last year I posted a photo of how Michael Jackson might look at 50. It was originally published in the Daily Mail. I wrote a little about the obsession with fame and how I felt sorry for MJ. Never thought I’d be blogging about his death 10 months later.

For some reason, when I heard that the 9/11 call had been released I expected there to be some mention of his name, but there’s not. Instead the caller said:

“We have a gentleman here that needs help and he’s not breathing yet. He’s not breathing and we’re trying to pump him but he’s not. He’s not.

Operator: OK, how old is he?

Caller: He’s 50 years old, sir.

Operator: 50? OK, he’s not breathing? Not conscious.

Caller: No, he’s not breathing. He’s not conscious sir.”

and then a short time later:

Operator: Oh, OK, we’re on our way there. If your guy is doing CPR and you’re instructed by a doctor, he’s a higher authority than me. And he’s there on scene. Did anybody witness what happened?

Caller: No, just the doctor, sir. The doctor has been the only one there.

The man adored by millions for his music, died in a rented mansion surrounded by hired help. His final heartbeat witnessed by a doctor, possibly administering a cocktail of drugs to ease the mental and physical demons that plagued his life.

He has left a legacy of music to the world that will live on. Hopefully he has gone to a better place where his real life can actually begin.

Rest in peace.

Image owned by Chibart (CC license)

Surprised no one has thought of this before – a Culchie Calendar. No, not a Culch.ie one, an honest to goodness milk bottley, freckly, red headed, ham sandwich eating version.

Organised by Tracey Clancy in Tipperary, the calendar is being sold in aid of Aware. Great cause, great twist on an old theme – hope it sells loads.

Don’t know if they are available online or anything, but if I find anything out I’ll be sure to update this post.

[Photo above from The Irish Sun]

Imagine that your daughter has a dream that you win the lottery. The dream is so specific that she rings you the following day with the winning combination urging you to buy a ticket.

You head out in the morning with the intention of doing the numbers. You go through the day’s work and the numbers are on your mind. Deadline for buying a ticket is fast approaching. You head to the nearest newsagent to get a ticket. Reaching into your pocket you find you only have enough money to buy a packet of cigarettes or a lottery ticket.

What would you do? Buy the lottery ticket or buy the cigarettes?

That was the dilemma facing Dublin man Albert Power. Unlucky for him that he chose to buy the cigarettes instead of the lottery ticket. If he’d taken the gamble he would be €1 million richer today. The midweek Lotto from last June wasn’t won, so his numbers would have given him the windfall.

Story was reported in the Star today. Seems a bit odd that we’re only hearing about it a year after the event though. Maybe he’s only getting the strength to talk about it now. An expensive packet of cigs they turned out to be anyway.

UPDATE : Spice Burger is back on the menu – see here

Right so, terribly late with this but anyway. The news was out last week that the Spice Burger is no more. The firm that produces them (Walsh Family Foods) have gone out of business. In my meat eating days, I have to say I did partake of them but was never a fan. Don’t think I would have eaten them if I knew they contained “lip meat and lungs” as evidenced via Donncha’s Twitter

20 pence a pound for grotty ingredients like that? Wouldn’t feed that to a dog would you?

Anyway, there’s now the inevitable Facebook group to save the Spice Burger from extinction with 606 members. Due to Facebook’s closed wall I can’t get a link to it. You’ll have to believe me that there are people out there crazy enough to want this disgusting product back on the menu.

For those who would prefer not to eat lip meat and lungs, the Mirror publised a recipe for Spice Burgers on Friday and here it is.

• 1lb of Mince (not too lean, with 3% fat for succulence)
• Half cup of breadcrumbs
• 1 onion
• Parsley
• Pinch of chilli
• Pinch of nutmeg
• One egg
• Flour
• Seasoning (lips and lungs if you like)

Knead the mince, onion, parsley, and bredcrumbs together. Add in a little bit of nutmeg and chilli. Mix in egg and a little flour, again kneading. Fry with a small amount of oil until cooked and golden brown.

If you are in the chip shop business, just lump all the ingredients together and mash it about a bit and then incinerate for 5 minutes in very hot lard.

Can be served hot or cold. Have bucket nearby for vomit later.

Enjoy your Spice Burger!

Awaycity has a handy Google map of all known locations for the much anticipated Dublin bike rental scheme.

The big question is how will the bikes survive? Turbulene Ahead has written that the experience in Paris is one of bikes being stolen and vandalised at an alarming rate.

The city council there has to replace bikes at a cost of €1.6 million a year. In these “challenging times”, there is zero chance of Dublin City Council funding replacements.

It’s really a great idea and hopefully the Paris experience won’t be repeated here.

(h/t walmc on Twitter via Clodagh Kelly)

Recently discovered the Bureau of Communication. Handy site to create fun messages to send to friends and enemies alike.

There’s a few samples of the type of messages people have created previously. Liked the one above. A lovely grandmother encouraging baby Ray to bite his sisters while teething

A Google employee goes out into Times Square in New York armed with video camera and microphone to ask people the question “What is a Browser?”

On first viewing I thought to myself that the video only highlighted the ‘wrong’ answers to make it more entertaining. Surely most people would give the correct answer? As it turns out, only 8% said something along the lines of : “A browser is a computer program for viewing websites” – which is what could be termed the ‘right’ answer.

Mashable has a blog post about the video too. The title of post is “Google asks common man ‘What is a browser?’ Common man has no clue.” The post author says :

“Judging from the video, average users don’t know the difference between IE, Firefox (Firefox), Chrome, AOL, or even “the Yahoo.” Hence, Google’s only path to serious adoption in the near-term might require a move from Microsoft’s playbook: getting Chrome bundled with other software packages.”

Of course average users don’t know the difference between the various web browsers, and why should they? People use software to accomplish a task. How they do it is pretty much incidental. People in this experiment weren’t ask what the difference was between various browsers though. Consider the scenario. They had a camera and a microphone in their face and asked a very open question – ‘What is a browser’. Outside of the tech community, this question is totally redundant. There’s no point in using tech terms when talking to “common man”. A couple of the comments on the Mashable article have said something similar.

The framing of the question is all important. Had these people been asked the question “What computer program do you use to browse the internet” may have evoked a very different response.

As it stands, this video is just something for the technical community to share and have a giggle about and feel a little bit superior to “common man”.

Would be very interesting to produce a couple of videos on the streets of Dublin – one asking the “What is a browser?” question and the other asking something a little more suitable to a non tech audience. The result might be more enlightening and valuable.