Flour Power

Remember the gold-plated Macbook, iPod and iPhone? Well, if computers are not your thing and you're more into bikes, what do you thing about this?

The Aurumania "Gold Bike Crystal Edition" is hand built, plated with 24 carat gold and hand-adorned with more than 600 Swarovski crystals. This limited edition of only 10 bikes also features hand-sewn chocolate brown leather handlebars and a moulded Brooks leather saddle. The price: only €80.000! And you get free delivery anywhere in the world. Quite a bargain, eh?

But if you think that €80.000 is too much to pay for a bike or if you don't like crystals for some reason, they have a "cheap" version without them. That will cost you "only" €21.000...

(via The Inquisitr)

Shouldn't be too hard getting to 100...

I've mentioned this song in a previous post, and since it's such a big thing here I think it deserves a whole post about it.

Galway Girl was written by Steve Earle and recorded with the Irish fiddler Sharon Shannon, and tells the "semi-autobiographical story of the singer's reaction to the beauty of a girl he meets in Galway". Although the song was recorded in 2000 it only became really famous in 2007, when a studio version of the track (recorded by Mundy and Sharon Shannon) reached #1 in the Irish Singles Charts and ended up being the biggest selling download in the Republic of Ireland and winning a Meteor Music Award. The song was also the highest selling single in Ireland in 2008. It was also part of the 2007 movie P.S. I Love You.

Here's video of a live performance by Sharon Shannon and Steve Earle:

And the lyrics:

Well, I took a stroll on the old Long Walk
Of a day -I-ay-I-ay
I met a little girl and we stopped to talk
Of a fine soft day -I-ay-I-ay
And I ask you, friend, what's a fella to do
'Cause her hair was black and her eyes were blue
And I knew right then, I'd be takin' a whirl
'Round the Salthill Prom with a Galway girl

We were halfway there when the rain came down
Of a day -I-ay-I-ay
And she asked me up to her flat downtown
Of a fine soft day -I-ay-I-ay
And I ask you, friend, what's a fella to do
'Cause her hair was black and her eyes were blue
So I took her hand, and I gave her a twirl
And I lost my heart to a Galway girl

When I woke up I was all alone
With a broken heart and a ticket home
And I ask you now, tell me what would you do
If her hair was black and her eyes were blue
'Cause I've travelled around, I've been all over this world
Boys I ain't never seen nothin' like a Galway girl

A note about the lyrics: there are two local references in the song. The Long Walk is a pier road in the historic part of Galway, accessed through the Spanish Arch (just around the corner from my place). The Promenade (Prom) in Salthill (the oldest of Galway suburbs, just across the river from the center) is about two miles away to the west, by the sea and overlooking Galway Bay, with bars, restaurants and hotels (one of those places I have to visit when the weather gets better).

Last Tuesday Gmail had a 3 hours outage and it seemed like the world was going to end, considering all the Twitter and Facebook cries of panic. It's clear that a lot of people rely on Gmail as a work tool, and the possibility of such "glitches" happening is something to worry about. But there are a few things you can do when it seems you can't access your Gmail account properly:

• Maybe the problem is just with your connection, and not with Gmail itself. You can find out about the status on Gmail and several other Google apps in their Google Apps Status Dashboard;
• If the web interface is not loading properly, you can try accessing the more secure SSL interface or the basic HTML mode;
• You can also access your email using POP or IMAP on any email client of your choice. During the outage this was the only way of accessing Gmail, but you had to have it enabled, which can only be done through the web interface (Gmail settings/ Forwarding and POP, IMAP). It's probably a good idea to just enable it even if you don't plan on using anything besides the web interface. Just in case... 

So the next time Gmail seems to be down, don't panic. First try the items above. And if none of them works, then you can panic

After going to The King's Head two days in a row, yesterday I decided to go somewhere else for a change. After all, the idea is getting to know as many pubs as possible, and not going to the same ones every time.

The destination of choice was Coyotes, a place I had been curious about since I passed in front of it a few weeks ago and liked what I saw at the door. And Wednesday the drinks are cheaper - only €3.5! A bargain, I say!

Upon arrival we (two of my housemates decided to come with) were greeted with a queue - they were asking for everyone's ID. This didn't sound very good, because it probably meant that the crowd inside would be very young... so young that they really needed to check everyone trying to enter, to make sure no under-18s would be able to slip inside unnoticed. And my suspicions were right. We were probably the oldest people there (apart from the staff), and I felt like I was someone's older brother, there to keep an eye on my sibling. And to make matters even worse, the music was terrible! So after one Guinness (in a plastic cup!!), we headed off to the next stop - The Living Room.

The Living Room is a pub with a small dance floor, that becomes somewhat nightclub-ish later at night. It's a good alternative to the "pure" nightclubs, and the crowd is usually on my age range. The problem yesterday was that, apparently, it isn't very nightclub-ish on Wednesdays, and since the gals insisted on getting some dancing done, we immediately left to our final, and longest, stop of the evening.

Which was Róisin Dubh. I had already been there a few times, and knew that at around 11pm (after the live performance of the day), a DJ goes on stage and the concert area turns into a dance floor. Yesterday was no exception, and after some time I was jumping around like crazy. The music there is not the mainstream stuff you find in nightclubs. It's more of a rock genre, and yesterday's playlist included Pixies, Franz Ferdinand, Beirut, Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers, Gomez, Nirvana and Blur. Great stuff! When I got home at 3am (yes, I had to get up at 7am to go to work...) my ears were still buzzing...

This episode helps proving that here in Galway there's no such thing as only going out on the weekend. There's plenty of animation every single day of the week (I didn't even mention the queues to the nightclubs, but maybe that was Rag Week's fault). The only problem is that I have to sleep every once in a while, and having to wake up every morning to go to work doesn't help...

Not very impressive, I know. I almost missed it even though I was holding a map with it marked as a tourism landmark...

On my attempt to really get to know Galway's nightlife, I took upon myself the task of not staying at home a single night during this this week. Only two days have passed and the tiredness is already building up, but so far it has been worth it.

On Monday the destination was The King's Head. It's one of Galway's oldest pubs, and well known for it's nightly live music gigs. I have to say that there is a good reason for it to be known for the live music gigs. A two-man band was playing a nice selection of covers, including some Jack Johnson, The Beatles and Counting Crows. The crowd (mostly foreigners, a lot of them Americans) was always very involved, especially in everyone's favorite Galway Girl (with a few improvised, and much more interesting, verses).

I was too lazy to record any videos, but I did take a couple of pictures:

On Tuesday the idea was going to some other pub, but after checking out a few of them, all of which were either too crowded or too empty and with no music, I ended up at The King's Head again. And I was again greeted with a two-man band (a different one), playing great covers. A special reference to the awesomely performed Hotel California and, of course, Galway Girl. And this time not only did I take pictures but I also recorded a couple of songs. The problem is, they turned out pretty dark, but at least the sound is decent. So, here's Galway Girl (a few seconds missing at the beginning, but the more interesting verses are still there):

Update: Did some editing on the video to try and make it less dark. The result is embedded above.

Yes, you read that correctly! I spent no more than 1 minute inside the locksmith shop to make a new key, and it cost me €5. I mean, even if the cost of the key itself is half of it, that's still a lot. And the actual work of making the key took no longer than 20 seconds! This would be a hell of a per hour revenue, if only there was enough work to be done continuously...

With so much being said about the Oscars, the Golden Raspberry Awards, or Razzies, tend to get little to no attention. And that's wrong, because we also want to know about the worst movies and actors in Hollywood. The Razzies, traditionally awarded the day before the Academy Awards, celebrate the worst that the film industry has to offer, and this year Paris Hilton and Mike Meyers are the big "winners", each taking home 3 awards.

Here's the full list of "winners" for the 29th Annual Golden Raspberry (Razzie©) Award “Winners”:

Worst Picture: ‘The Love Guru’

Worst Actor: Mike Myers, ‘The Love Guru’

Worst Actress: Paris Hilton, ‘The Hottie And The Nottie’

Worst Supporting Actress: Paris Hilton, ‘Repo! The Genetic Opera’

Worst Supporting Actor: Pierce Brosnan, ‘Mamma Mia!’

Worst Screen Couple: Paris Hilton and with Christine Lakin OR Joel David Moore, ‘The Hottie And The Nottie’

Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel: ‘Indiana Jones: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’

Worst Director: Uwe Boll, ‘1968: Tunnel Rats’ and ‘In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale and Postal’

Worst Screenplay: ‘The Love Guru’, written by Mike Myers and Graham Gordy

Worst Career Achievement: Uwe Boll (Germany's Answer to Ed Wood)

I find the fact that Paris Hilton winning both the Worst Actress and Worst Supporting Acress is just hilarious! And I'm also a bit happy to see the over-hyped chick-flick I-bet-it's-terrible musical "Mamma Mia!" getting a taste of the action, with the Worst Supporting Actor award going to Pierce Brosnan. I'm so glad I didn't go watch it...

University Rag societies are student-run charitable fundraising organisations that are widespread in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Most universities in the UK and Ireland, as well as some in South Africa and The Netherlands have a Rag. In some universities Rags are known as Charities Campaigns, Charity Appeals, Charity Kommittees, or Karnivals, but they all share many of the same attributes, and together raise over a million pounds for charity each year.

That's what Wikipedia has to say about Rags. But from what I've been told, Rag Week is more like an excuse for students to start drinking just after breakfast and stop when... well, when they pass out... And the same thing in the next day. Sounds fun, eh? Sounds like Queima das Fitas, the graduation celebration turned into a drinking festival. Should be interesting... I'm sure I'll be able to get some more pictures for my Image of the Day collection

It's not all drinking, though, and the student's societies organise quite a lot of activities for this week, including concerts, sports events, scavenger hunts, auctions, etc... with the proceeds going to charity. But since I'm not a student, and I have a job to go to during these activities, I'll only be there for the parties...