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Diageo (that'd be the guys who own Guinness) announce a €24m "global centre of excellence for beer research". I think you'll find that's usually referred to as "a pub".

bad timing

Dec. 8th, 2008 11:00 pm
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BCI announces a new TV channel catering to Eastern Europeans in Dublin just as 1/3 of the largest Eastern European group are planning on going home.

(I may be bending the facts a little here, since it's not obvious which parts of Eastern Europe the TV channel is catering to.)
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Thanks, guys, that'll do nicely.

Now, while I'm asking for favours, I would pay cash money to see:
  1. Obama using Day-Lewis' "I drink your milkshake" bit in his acceptance speech to explain to McCain where the votes went. The bowling pin is unnecessary, however.
  2. SenatorChancellorEmperor Obama making some reference to Order 66 and the establishment of the American Empire. Shooting electric bolts from his fingers at this point would be cool, but optional.
And so on.
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The smell has been variously described as "new car smell", "musty", "rotting carpet" and even cannabis.
"My entire room smells bad and I have had to resort to a few air fresheners just to be able to work on it," one report read. (link; my emphasis)
"Otherwise my mom'd, like, totally freak. She's such a square, but I know she was a flower child in the sixties," continued Chad, before returning to his marathon Second Life session.
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I recently received a nice little present: an AVI of me playing guitar and singing at JC and Anita's wedding in 2007. It's post-dinner, so I'm (presumably) a bit drunk and definitely hoarser than I'd like, but it's kinda funny, too. I'm watching myself doing U2's Running to Stand Still and throwing in random smartassery, like singing the "seven towers" line and then quipping that it's more like five now. Thanks, JC.
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There's some irony (or perhaps no irony whatsoever, I'm not sure) in the fact that Ireland's best showing in the Olympics so far has been in "fisticuffs with rules".
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Short description of news article in RTÉ's newsfeed: "A suspicious object ... turned out to be a hoax.". I'm picturing Michael Palin and John Cleese standing next to some sort of Rube Goldberg/Heath Robinson device with cranks, tubing, maybe some steam, etc. "What's this?" "It's a hoax, innit", and so on.
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Many Irish placenames are more-or-less phonetic renditions in English of the original Irish; there are a few commonly recurring words, such as Baile (town), Cnoc (hill), Átha (ford), Béal (mouth, as in river), Cill (church), Dún (fort), Lí(o)s (fairy fort), Droichead (bridge) and Gort (ploughed field). Thus you get Ballina, which is Béal an Átha, or the ford at the mouth of the river; Drogheda, or Droichead Átha, the bridge on the ford; Lismore, being Líos Mór, a large fairy fort, and so on. The further west you go, the more you seem to encounter an endless stream of Ballythis (Bally being the general anglicisation of Baile) or Knockthat (ditto for Cnoc). This is most likely due to the fact that the land to the west being poorer, the English tended to push the Irish in that direction whenever possible (for example, Cromwell's famous threat to the Irish was something along the lines of "Go to Connaught, or go to Hell") so that they could have the good land for themselves, and in that land new towns sprang up with more English names. However, nothing quite matches the further reaches of the west of Ireland, particularly the pockets where Irish is still the native language, and the immediate surrounds of those areas; it's almost as if there's competition to see how many of the "standard" words can be put into an anglicised town name. Thus, you won't be hard pressed to find something along the lines of "The town of the bridge over the mouth of the river by the ford of the fort on the hill of the ploughed field that used be a fairy fort but now has a church", which, by my reckoning, should come out as Ballydrogheadballinadoonknockgortliskill.

If you get there, send me a postcard.

(For a more serious discussion on this topic, try IRISH LOCAL NAMES EXPLAINED. Me, I'm just being a smartarse as usual.)
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Seen on Ireland.com this morning: "Irish boxers off to Olympics". I guess we're mooning in protest or something.
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I noted to [livejournal.com profile] mopti that you could probably make a filk related to current political affairs out of a recent popular song. Alas, when I tried tooling around with the lyrics a little, it came out more against the incumbents than directed at my intended target:
They're gonna shake up the Dáil
Cos Bertie's taken a fall
And Brian's no longer number two
They said he told us some lies
And took some cash on the side
And signed it off with "p.s. - I owe you"
So I guess I'll abandon that...
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Roses are red
Violets are blue
Hallmark Cards, Inc. thanks you for your continued custom.
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It took a book cover to enlighten me, but in Spanish-speaking countries, U.S. is E.U.

No, I don't actually have a point here.
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"The translations below are shown using both the Latin alphabet and the modern Irish script." (link)
Apparently "modern Irish script" still features the séimhiú (that would be a dot over a letter indicating it is followed by H), the ornate no-lowercase-for-us A, and a somewhat germanic-looking long S with no tail. I think someone needs to revise their sources, although I must admit this could plausibly be the "offical" script in some random corner of our legislature.
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From Ireland.com: "Langer refuses to lie down". I presume it's about golf as opposed to an overdose of sildenafil.
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I go away for a day, and there's a new frickin' roundabout up the street. What the hell?
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Passed by this morning on my way to the office: Philip J. Dix engraving equipment and supplies.
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In Web Two Point Oh, I am "Waidr". Actually, waidr.com is unregistered right now, if I were that nerdy...

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