May 31, 2001
04:23 PM dublin time
right, i think the links are working [i'm not a great person for testing though, so if you come across any flaws please tell me] and thanks to reblogger via tinman we have comments back up and working again.
[link]03:50 PM dublin time
i'm currently trying to add perma links to the weblog entries - so please forgive me if things are acting a bit funny right now - hopefully it'll be all sorted out in a bit.
[link]11:05 AM dublin time
aonghus and me have been saying our moving out goodbyes.
last night sleeping in our lovely flat.
last 'good morning' on pembroke road.
last tooth brushing in the tiny bathroom.
last juice drinking in the window watching people walk to work.
one last photo of the matching piano man paintings [i must take that tonight].
i wonder did my parents do the same when they were my age and moved out of their flat on pembroke road [it's opposite and up a bit from our one]. i know history repeats itself, but i didn't think it would be so uncannily the same.
[link]May 29, 2001
02:55 PM dublin time
this following post of random phrases is for grace incase she's bored at work:
ten to ten
wet and windy
three inches
almost as witty as sharon
meagre groceries
em..
smuggling peanuts?
i think that's all
[link]12:29 PM dublin time
phew i'm knackered. we have to be moved out of our flat by thursday night, and seeing as we're both working til about 5.30 all this week, we're trying to get as much done as possible every evening. it's quite tiring but good fun - i keep getting totally side tracked by a box of photos or a folder full of cards or bottles of lotions i'd forgotten i had.
[link]May 25, 2001
03:56 PM dublin time
following the 'impression people get of you by reading what you've written' thread - it suddenly occurred to me that i might be seen as a big country, folk and rockabilly fan as a result of the previous post. perhaps I should clarify.
first; country [which by my reckonning is very different from country and western] i wouldn't be that familiar with, though i'm not sure what artists would be considered country - i'm gonna have to get a little help from allmusic.com here... [quick browsage later] yes, i prefer what they call 'alternative country' such as palace/will oldham, iris dement, gillian welch, the handsome family or 'traditional country' which is how allmusic.com categorise my fravouite soundtrack ever - 'oh brother, where art thou'.
next; folk - and a have to confess to being a bit of a folky - all my parent's fault of course, having those joni mitchell, neil young, donovan, pentangle, incredible string band and fairport convention records, all of which i still listen to, supplemented now by the likes of nick drake, elliot smith and mazzy star.
and lastly; rockabilly - i'm not even sure what that is. [quick referral to allmusic.com] goodness gracious, maybe i *am* a rockabilly fan - given that it includes the likes of buddy holly, roy orbison and the everly brothers [shucks - when we were little, my sister and i used to do an everly brother's song as our party piece].
i stand corrected - i am a country/folk/rockabilly fan - but with my favourite bands being the beastie boys, pavement, sigur ros, spiritualized, massive attack... - i just have bits of rock/pop/electro/drone/trip/hiphop/lo-fi/indie/alternative/space thrown in there.
[link]11:40 AM dublin time
we were meant to be staying in dublin this weekend - aonghus had organised to go paintballing with peter and billy and their work people, but as i was walking home from work yesterday it was such a glorious evening that i decided we had to get out of dublin. so i was delighted when our friends in cork rang up to say that there's a free "day of country, folk and rockabilly songs down by the sea in cork" at which one of my favourite dublin bands the jubilee allstars are playing. so i managed to persuade a reluctant aonghus to blow off his paintballing, and we're getting the train down to cork tonight.
of course since our decision to go, the weather has totally disimproved, and it'll probably rain all weekend. and i can't decide whether i should i bring my swimming togs or not. if i bring them it'll be the kiss of death to the weather, but if i don't i know i'll miss having them. would the fact that aonghus has packed an umbrella balance things out?
[link]May 24, 2001
05:05 PM dublin time
...got me thinking... i wonder what kind of impression of me people get from reading this stuff here.
but infact i often wonder what sort of impression people have of me in real life too.
[link]04:52 PM dublin time
i love stumbling across a new blog, reading the most recent entries, getting hooked, finding the archives and emerging dazed to your own world a couple of hours later, only to read the latest entries again with a totally different view them and of the person that's writing them.
this just happened to me when i came across targum, [who at first i thought was a bloke for some reason - even though it obviously says "helena's personal website". i think i always jump to that very sexist conclusion whenever people talk about techie stuff - i always assume the author is a guy - it's what comes of having gone to a catholic all girls school - the conditioning is hard to break].
what struck me as wierd though, is that your impression of a person after reading a couple of paragraphs of their blog, and your impression of them after reading six months of archives can be so totally different. and still don't know the real person at all. hrrmmm.
i'm still new to this whole blogging thing, so maybe what i'm saying is old hat, but what i wonder is if a person can appear to be the same on line and off line - can you really know someone who you've only met online??
actually i think i'm getting a bit too serious than i mean to [i'm definitely not going to start discussing questions of a profound nature here and now, i'd much rather discuss food or music or something - did you see the beta band are playing in the redbox on 13th june?] i just wanted to say i enjoyed reading the targum archives - thank you very much.
[link]May 23, 2001
12:07 PM dublin time
the weather has been deliciously nice here for the past couple of weeks, it's definitely exam weather, but even though i'm exam free i've been missing the sun somehow - eating inside at lunch and not getting up til very late on the weekends. but i think it's time i got out there and let the freckles bloom, so i'm meeting aonghus for lunch in merrion square, and he's going to pick us up some tastey hot chicken baps from aya and we're going to laze in the sun and shed this winter pallour. mmm i love the sun. it puts me in a good mood and just makes everything so much nicer.
[link]11:19 AM dublin time
incase anyone was interested - explanation of my truths and revelation of my lie:
1. i've never sat behind the wheel of a car
lie- a bit of a sneaky one though, coz while i can't and have never attempted to drive, when we were little, dad used to put us on his knee and let us steer the car down the driveway, so i technically have sat behind the wheel of a car.
2. i have nine piercings
truth - six in my left ear, two in my right ear and one in my bellybutton.
3. i had to get a stitch in my head when justine frischmann threw an empty [plastic] bottle at me
truth - at feile in cork during elastica's performance - there was blood everywhere - though i could never prove it was justine frischmann that threw it.
4. i wasn't always cool you know
truth - long story behind that. i'll save it for another time.
5. i've had champagne with mary mcaleese [the irish president]
truth - at my boyfriend's dad's swearing in as a judge
6. i've been to the hairdresser once in the past ten years
truth - i gave up going when i shaved my head, and now my mum gives me the occasional trim
7. i don't like chocolate
truth - it's just too icky and gooey
8. i'm a natural red head
truth
9. i own about 40 bottles of nail polish
truth - and i'm lending them to my delighted sisters for the year i'm away
10. my arm span [stretched from finger tip to finger tip] is 5' 10"
truth - did you know that your arm span is equal to your height? sounds unlikely, but it's usually pretty close!!
May 22, 2001
12:42 PM dublin time
swiped from not.so.soft:
seeing as we could all be blatantly lying about ourselves in these weblogs [maybe blogger should introduce lie detection on posts, though i'd settle for a spell checker first] here's ten facts about me. nine are true, one is false. can you tell when i'm telling fibs?
1. i've never sat behind the wheel of a car
2. i have nine piercings
3. i had to get a stitch in my head when justine frischmann threw an empty [plastic] bottle at me
4. i wasn't always cool you know
5. i've had champagne with mary mcaleese [the irish president]
6. i've been to the hairdresser once in the past ten years
7. i don't like chocolate
8. i'm a natural red head
9. i own about 40 bottles of nail polish
10. my arm span [stretched from finger tip to finger tip] is 5' 10"
11:22 AM dublin time
this weeks cooking tip: if you're cooking lasagne or spaghetti bolognese or some such tomatoey dish [as i was last night], use 'tinned chopped tomatoes in tomato juice' instead of plain 'tinned chopped tomatoes', coz it makes the sauce really thick and red and tomatoey, and you don't have to add any tomato puree or anything.
i accidentally discovered this when tesco was out of the brand i usually get, and i boldly chose the alternative brand with extra juice. now it's the one i buy all the time - unless i'm making something that doesn't need to be too tomatoey like a curry or something.
[link]May 21, 2001
10:05 AM dublin time
have you ever been standing in a very large crowd of people [say, in dublin last friday for the opening of the st patrick's festival weekend] and think to yourself 'wouldn't it be funny if, in this gathering of strangers, i suddenly found myself standing beside someone i knew' only to have it happen moments later?
i know it shouldn't really be that odd to bump into someone you know in dublin - it does have quite a small population [1,024,400 it says here] - but i never do. when my younger sister comes up to visit me from waterford, she always ends up seeing more people she knows than i do. in fact, now that i think about it - the person i met on friday night also knows my sister. it's all starting to make sense.
[link]May 20, 2001
02:10 PM dublin time
just added blogvoices to my blog so now you can comment directly on my bad spelling and ridiculous subject matter.
[link]May 17, 2001
04:57 PM dublin time
i love these online personality tests!! i just did the spark bitch test and it turns out i'm '33% bitch [lower than the world wide average of 38%]' and i swear i didn't lie once!! are there any more of these things? please email me and let me know!
[link]11:35 AM dublin time
it suddenly struck me to see if anyone had put douglas adams' "the meaning of liff" online. for anyone not familiar with this book, it's kind of like a backwards dictionary - what he did was take all those things [usually funny] that have no word to describe them and give them an appropriate name. and also, all the names derived are actually towns somewhere in the world.
so i had a look, and sure enough there were several [one of which may be found here]. i started reading them yesterday in my spare moments and have only managed to reach 'J' today.
here's some of my favourites so far:
BANFF (adj.)
Pertaining to, or descriptive of, that kind of facial expression which is impossible to achieve except when having a passport photograph taken.
CORRIEARKLET (n.)
The moment at which two people approaching from opposite ends of a long passageway, recognice each other and immediately pretend they haven't. This is to avoid the ghastly embarrassment of having to continue recognising each other the whole length of the corridor.
DORRIDGE (n.)
Technical term for one of the lame excuses written in very small print on the side of packets of food or washing powder to explain why there's hardly anything inside. Examples include 'Contents may have settled in transit' and 'To keep each biscuit fresh they have been individually wrapped in silver paper and cellophane and separated with courrugated lining, a carboard flap, and heavy industrial tyres'.
i could infact list them all - they're hilarious. just one word of warning - don't even start to read unless you've a couple of hours to spare. they're totoally addictive!! he's definitely left us laughing.
[link]May 16, 2001
11:00 AM dublin time
i just took an emode 'which career would suit you' test and this what they told me:
cd, you're an AstronautIf you had your way, there would be no gray areas to any problem. When you live by the facts, as you do, and are challenged by a search for truth, unsolvable queries are the bane of your existence. You're a true data head. You're the super-woman the world calls when it needs to pad a case with facts, get the numbers to add up, or explore some scary, uncharted entity like tax returns or outer space. Since you're a team player and tend to believe that two minds are better than one, you can be relied upon to contribute viable solutions, and you're great to keep around the lab.
Likely careers:
Astronaut, VP of technology, lab Technician, archaeologist, botanist, marine biologist
hrrmmm. not sure if i'd go for any of those careers - maybe the VP - though the description is accurate enough.
actually my dream job has always been window cleaner. i'm serious. there's something hugely satisfying about washing windows with those squigy mop things they have. and then wiping off the sudds with that wiper thingy. [if i'm going to make a career out of it i'd better learn the lingo first]. but only if it's sunny all the time, so i don't think it would suit me in ireland.
[link]10:03 AM dublin time
we've been organising all our vaccinations and medical requirements for our seven week sojourn in south east asia, and i'm rather disturbed by the fact that for the duration of our stay i'm going to be popping about five pills a day!!
the first of course is the malaria tablets, but the one that we'll be taking [doxycycline] is an antibiotic, which has the side effect of suppressing the 'good' bacteria that lives in the stomach leaving you more susceptible to the crazy bugs and bacteria found in the food in asia. now to counteract this, we're gonna take a supplement of lactobacillus acidophilus - a form of the 'good' stomach bacteria, commonly found in live yoghurt. so that's the first two. [pop pop]
i reckon i'm also going to take multi vitamins - just to be on the safe side. and have also been considering bringing some echinacea [an immune system booster]. [pop pop pop pop]
added to this the antihistamines to combat the nasty swelling reaction i get to insect bites, the antidiarrheals for when the food gets the better of us, and the headache pills for all the hangovers we're sure to have [make noises imitating popcorn], we're going to be like a walking pharmacy. i'm just worried we'll get stopped at a border and be accused of drug smuggling.
[link]May 15, 2001
10:00 AM dublin time
i made the most delicious homemade indian creamy spicy thing for dinner last night. it was cobbled together from a couple of online recipes i found - leaving out anything i didn't have or want in it. and while i can remember what was in it and how i made it i thought i'd best right it down - for my own future reference if nothing else.
ingredients
[to serve 2]
beef [enough for 2 people] cut into cubes
3 cloves garlic
1" ginger
2 tblsp slivered almonds
2 medium onions chopped
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground corriander
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp sweet curry powder [i have one that is far too clovey and cinnamony, but is good in very small doses if you want those flavours]
1 tsp turmeric [gives a nice yellow colour]
1 cup of stock [or (ahem!) 1 stock cube dissolved in water - don't tell my dad - though i'm sure he uses them all the time]
about 1/2 pint cream
4 tblsp yoghurt
butter and oil for frying
method
whizz together the garlic, ginger, almonds and spices in a blender with some water to make a paste.
brown the beef in some oil in a medium hot pan and put aside.
gently soften the chopped onions in some butter and a little oil [stops the butter from burning] for about 10 minutes and remove from the pan.
fry up the spicy paste in a hot pan adding the stock and more water if needed.
return the onions to the pan.
add the beef and the cream and simmer gently for about 15 minutes.
add the yoghurt and heat for a minute or two before serving.
the hardest thing about this recipe was getting the final dish consistency right - coz when you add the cream and the yoghurt it makes it very liquidy - so i let is simmer down to quite a thick sauce before adding the yoghurt.
i ate it with delicious garlic and corriander naan breads, but rice would be good too.
[link]May 14, 2001
10:13 AM dublin time
weehee - handed in my notice.
37 days [and counting] till we depart these irish shores.
[link]10:12 AM dublin time
yeusch. eurovision was a washout for poor ireland. the song was pretty awful, but that hasn't stopped us winning in the past. it was still a laugh to watch though.
and we got to see both 'apocalypse now' and 'hearts of darkness' for our vietnamese movie extravangaza. though 'platoon' was on tv last night and we missed it. but i think i'd had enuf of the war movies.
[link]May 11, 2001
03:39 PM dublin time
goodie - it's eurovision weekend.
and i know the music is mostly awfully bland and cheesy but i still want to watch it. i think at this stage it's become such a tradition - it's the time of year that i usually have exams and wouldn't be going out on a saturday night [this is only my second exam free summer ever] and instead i'd stay in and watch the song contest.
of course it's not the singing that i watch it for - though some of the songs are so bad they're funny - it's the voting, which gets nail-bitingly, stand-up-on-your-chair-and-shout-at-the-tv, super-duper exciting. and it's probably made even more interesting by the fact that ireland always do predictably well [i don't know why though - the songs are never much good. i think it's just coz they're in english].
so hopefully i'll be allowed stay in this saturday to watch. though i think it might be clashing with our vietnamese movie extravaganza.
[link]May 08, 2001
11:23 AM dublin time
the obviously wonderful thing about a bank holiday weekend is that there are 3 days of workless bliss. less obvious, but equally wonderful is that the following week's work is one day shorter. and i think i need a nice short easy week to recover from the excesses of this may bank holiday weekend.
on saturday night we found ourselves sipping guinness from the heights of the gravity bar. now when i first started drinking - and all alcohol tasted equally revolting - i tended to favour guinness [it being the cheaper pint] but i soon managed to develop a taste for larger, which i've been guzzling ever since. however as guinness was the only drink available in the gravity bar, i had no choice and managed to grimace down about half a pint. it really is quite disgusting - i don't know how i ever managed to drink it. [oops - i might be risking deportation by saying that - lucky i'm leaving the country anyway].
we must've gotten a taste for revolting beverages, coz sunday night we ended up in the chocolate bar during happy 'half-price-cocktail' hour. i think those sticky sickly sugary sweet concoctions are just about preferable to guinness. though guinness tends to match what i'm wearing better - maybe i should just learn to like it. or stop wearing so much black.
[link]May 04, 2001
10:34 AM dublin time
while this weblog page is publicly accessable by all you people out in blogger land, i have been sitting quietly on the rest on my personal webpage until after i give my notice at work [as it contains some reference to the fact that i might be leaving the country]. however this internet monster must be smarted than i, because as i was checking my usage log files i came across an unfamiliar domain and on investigation found a link back to my photographs.
wow. my first link. and i'm not even 'out' yet. well i guess now it's only a matter of time.
well thank you kindly to kimbowman [where you can find some great photography]
cd has entered the building.
[link]May 03, 2001
05:17 PM dublin time
speaking of summer/swimming, howabout a song:
"last summer i went swimming,
last summer I might have drowned,
but i held my breath and I kicked my heels,
and i moved my arms around,
i moved my arms around."
04:18 PM dublin time
"for summer is a-comin' in and winter's gone away-o!"
- english traditional folk song
and about time too. though i think it was the may bank holiday weekend last year that the weather was deliciously warm too - so warm we were tempted by a swim at vico. the sun may have been shining but not long enough to warm up the sea - it was absolutely bitter! i won't make the same mistake this year.
i think the best time for swimming in ireland is a warm day in september - after the sea has been heated up all summer long. even october is warmer than early may. and i don't think sellafield is helping at all.
[link]May 02, 2001
12:04 PM dublin time
i'm feeling a little hungover today. we met up with a some friends in the wonderfully grimey bruxelles bar last night and sat in a dingy corner waiting for our songs to be played on the jukebox, which eventually happened about 3 hours and many many pints later. worth waiting for though - the communards and bronski beat and new order. we had a fine 80's singalong from the corner
[link]