June 24, 2003
12:22 PM dublin time
two part entry.
part one [the brainteaser]:
which came first, orange the colour or orange the fruit? did they call the fruit after the colour orange or the colour after orange the fruit?
part two [the plug]:
both of the above orange photos were swiped from my new favourite website istockphoto the self-described 'designer's dirty little secret' where you can upload [for free] and download [for $0.50] photographs from a growing collection of royalty free stock.
given the nature of the community, the quality of the photographs varies - things like dpi, file size, image noise, dust, etc. are monitored rigorously, but composition and subject matter slightly less so. though there are some really really good ones up there. and the majority of the photographs look totally professional. definitely useful for web design.
i really shouldn't be tellin' y'all about it.
[link]June 23, 2003
04:59 PM dublin time
woo. looking out my window towards seapoint, i can see someone kite-surfing. i haven't seen anyone doing that since i was in melbourne:
June 20, 2003
11:41 AM dublin time
since we moved into the new flat, i've been getting into the plant thing.
i've always liked my herbs and use them a fair amount for cooking and suchlike [but why do my favourite ones - basil and corriander - have to be mere annuals??] but i've only just ventured into the world of non edible plants with some sweet peas.
at first they were heaps of fun - sending out their spiralling tendrils and pulling themselves skywards on the bamboo supports i'd constructed. but then they got infested with greenfly and have started to look a quite miserable.
i've been trying to do the organic thing with the greenfly - spraying soapy water at them. but for a start it doesn't seem to be deterring the pests at all and it might be making the sweet pea leaves even more limp and miserable. something certainly is.
yesterday i had a go spraying them with some garlicy water. i should probably not have picked such windy a day for that particular experiment. most of the spray ended all over me. i've been giving off a deliciously[?] pungent aroma ever since.
it's the ants methinks that are the real culprits. they seem to be sniffing about an awful lot lately. and y'know they farm greenfly! they take the lil greenfly eggs into their nest for safekeeping and then position them back on the plant when they hatch. and they defend the green pesties from predetors. all so they can feast on a honey-like secretion that the greenfly give off. [as read at you grow girl]
apparently ants don't like garlic much either, so i think i'm gonna give that another go. when the wind dies down a bit.
[link]June 19, 2003
03:49 PM dublin time
ever since i got my noo shoos
i've been reminded of a book i had when i was a child. so on my last visit home i routed it out:
"... The mirror answered:Queen, thou art the fairest in this hall,
But the young queen's fairer than us all.Then the wicked woman cursed and was so terrified and miserable that didn't know what to do. At first she didn't want to go to the wedding at all, but it gave her no peace; she had to go and see the young queen. And as she went in she recognised Snow-White and, what with rage and terror she stood there and couldn't move.
But they had already put iron slippers over a fire of coals, and they brought them in with tongs and set them before her. Then she had to put on the red-hot slippers and dance till she dropped down dead."
it's an amazing version of 'snow white' with the most fantastic illustrations by nancy ekholm burkert.
the iron slippers sorta remind me of my new shoes. not quite as gruesome though.
[more beautiful illustrations from the book here: 1 2 3 4]
[link]June 18, 2003
03:58 PM dublin time
apparently.
not sure what that means or what it has to do with aonghus feeding an elephant.
[it means 'with every half' according to google's translator. but that leaves me none the wiser.]
but bloody hell. they could've asked!
[see, look, daily blogging again!!]
[link]June 17, 2003
05:52 PM dublin time
a mere 65 days after our initial phone call order [as against eircom's advertised 10] i am today sitting down to an honest-to-goodness 'broadband' adsl internet connection in my very own home.
it's informationsuperhighway-tastic!
even if it did take about 25 phone calls [three of which were after they insisted our adsl line was active when it wasn't], 24 hours of totally dead phone line [which they swore was a complete coincidence] and a fair amount of hair pulling.
i'll try to let you know if it's worth it at some stage before we go over our modest monthly bandwidth limit!
[link]