2009 - A summary, top ten things....

A summary of the 2009 year in picture.



And to get in line with the annual top ten from Time, here's my personal top ten for 2009.

• Movie: Pixar Up
  The 10 first minutes are absolutely fantastic in term of story telling. And I got my quote of the year: "I hid under your porch, because I love you"....


• Galway Volvo Ocean Race
  In June, the Volvo Ocean Race visited Galway, fantastic atmosphere in town.
  
  


• Halloween in Mickey Martin
  
  One of the best party of the year.
  


• Irish seals
  2009, will be the year where I saw most seals, the first one were down in Cork in Union Hall basking in early march/april
  Then we saw one or 2 venturing regularly near Kilkee.
  
  


• 90 years ago, my granddad was born, just had to celebrate his birthday.
  
  


• Concert: Mick Flannery in Dolans
  
  


• Snorkel with Dolphin in Milton Malbay
  On of the most amazing encounter in the sea, as i was training for duck diving in Miltown Malbay, a curious dolphin came to see what i was doing...
  


• PS3 Game: Assassins Creed 2
  Finished it but still addicted to that game by now... have to wait for the third installment, now.
  


• Obama election / French politics
  Big hope from the USA with Obama election, and at the same time in France... the left wing are left arguing between themselves in front of a media omnipresent president.
  


• ASM 10th final... lost again....
  No comment. Congratulations to Perpignan.
  
  
  Demie_Finale_ASM_ST
  Uploaded by asm. - Basketball, baseball, pro wrestling and more sports videos.
  
  

Top ten Movies seen in 2009
1. Inglorious Bastard - Q.Tarantino
2. Up - Pete Docter / Pixar
3. Moon - Duncan Jones
4. (500) days of summer - Marc Webb
5. District 9 - Neill Blomkamp
6. The Wrestler - D.Arronofsky
7. Vicky Cristina Barcelona - Woody Allen
8. Fantastic Mr Fox - Wes Anderson
9. Where the wild things are - Spike Jonze
10. The Ugly Truth - Robert Luketic

Additinal interesting movies:
Bolt - B.Howard/C.Williams/Disney
The Men who Stare at goats - ??
A Serious Man - Cohen
Waltz with Bashir - Ari Folman
The imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus - Terry Gilliam

Lisa <3

An additional interview done in Limerick:

Sarah Lynch interviewing Lisa Hannigan for "I Love Limerick" from Dominik Kosicki on Vimeo.

Reeling the years (2009)

Following the post from last year, let's make that a yearly tradition.

The idea is very simple and based on a simple question: Where was i 5 years ago, 10, 15 ...etc ?
So let's go back in time by 5 years leap...

2004
Location: Grenoble, France

My last year, in Grenoble, a very strange year indeed, between "successful" promotion at work ( project and people management ), both great and tumultuous friendship moments... anyway that's the year I've decided i had to leave my job in Grenoble, and go abroad to see if things are different; at the time I had no idea of the country I would end up.

1999
Location: Clermont-Ferrand, France

In Auvergne, studying physics in Blaise Pascal University. Spending lots of time hanging out in cinemas and most notably in the Short movie festival.

1994
Location: Hauterive, France / Lycee Presles, Cusset
Failing the Baccalauréat

1989
Location: Hauterive, France / College Victor Hugo, Saint Yorre
I was not in Berlin for the wall fall.

1984
Location: Hauterive, France / Ecole primaire
France is winning the UEFA Euro_1984, and guess what everybody playing soccer, in the recreational area.
My parents now owns the local shop in the village.

1979
I am no longer the only kid in the house, as my brother just born in March, we're still living in my grand father house in Hauterive, Allier, France.

Xmas ... playmol time

Les Arts Deco proposent actuellement une exposition sur Playmobil

www.lesartsdecoratifs.fr il etait une fois playmobil/

Je vous recommande de jeter un oeil sur les vieilles pubs Playmo....

How to make Babies

How to Make a Baby from Cassidy Curtis on Vimeo.

I love Vimeo :)

Halloween Dive 09

Underwater Kilkee - 1 from Christophe G on Vimeo.

Before Saturday night part, i went to Kilkee do a bit of diving with Tomas, a small one from the pier, mainly so he can test his new dry suit.
Interesting, and i've been able to play around with the video setting on my camera :)


Songs of the Week:
- Octopus Garden (The Beatles), I am rediscovering the Beatles, and on that one had to agree with Summer, this is one of their best song.
- Heartbeats - The Knife
- You can go your own way - Fleetwood Mac
- Seeing Things - Zero7

Halloween 2009

Mickey Martin Halloween party brilliant as every year



And Mister Pumpkin was there....


....
see you next year

Pixar - Up Up.....

Just saw last night the latest Pixar UP. I know it's late, the Irish release is way behind the continental Europe one or the USA - actually the DVD is up for sale next month in the states, I can't really figure out why there is so much delay in Ireland ( off course the market is very small, but it's quite close from UK... )

As usual for Pixar, it's a very moving and great story, and so much focus is put on the characters, to enhance empathy. Technically, there is nothing to say, it's really on the story and the characters that the Pixar team is nailing it down.



Oh and i've seen in 3D, but it not used a lot in the movie, i think Toy Story 3 will make a lot more use of the technology:

Just have to wait 2010.
And there is more coming in 2011/2012 with "Newt" and "The Bear an the Bow", but i am not really looking forward to the follow on to Cars, as it's for me not the best pixar by far.



List of movies i am looking forward in the next upcoming months:
- Where the wild things Are by Spike Jonze ( see New York Times Article )
- The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus by Terry Gillian.
- A Serious Man by the Cohen Brothers
- Ponyo by the sea by H.Miyazaki
- Whip it by Drew Barrymore
- The princess and the frog ... another Disney

Moving (on)

In the process of moving my stuff to the new appartment, the pirates have already been transferred:


and are now gently settling in...


though some are not very happy about the change...


the smaller ones especially

Week End Summary - 20090906

Movie of the WE
(500) days of Summer


Good comedy about an hopeless romantic :o, and as so rightly said this is not a love story, but it has brilliant ideas.

Things I learned this weekend
5. I've got concentration issues.... should I blame internet ????
4. Edinburgh seems to be a nice city to live in, and there is a bar called the Tass ( like the french word cup )
3. The last and only other time a team won four Senior All Ireland in a row was in the fourties (Cork at the time)
2. There is stuff I know but which keeps surprising me, like Winter can start early in Ireland... here we go for the real dark rainy months...
1. Loads about myself, other interesting people, and how wrong i can sometimes be.

Songs of the week end
- Mick Flannery "I wish you well"
- Hall & Oakes "You make my dreams come true"
- Simon & Garfunkel "Bookends"
- The Smiths "There is a light that never goes out"
Take me out tonight....
- The Eagles "Take it easy"

And an interesting blog about expat experience: Lyonnaise in Vancouver

Mick Flannery - Concert

Last friday i went to Mick Flannery concert in Dolans, brilliant act.



The Cork man himself


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.
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And just for the pleasure, i am adding one of his song accompanied by Lisa Hannigan:

Top 5 things I learned this Weekend

Top 5 Things I Learned This Weekend

5. A movie with Matthew McConaughey must contains a scene where is shirt is off, bad (Sahara) or good (How to loose a guy in ten days)
4. I should not trust my horoscope, even the Chinese one, and it's funny to see that my French horoscope is completely different from my English and at the same time both are completely wrong.
3. Irish radio show are brilliant, a full hour of Radiohead on Sunday night (great)
2. I am curiously incredibly productive on Saturday and Sunday early morning, when left alone.
1. I am proportionally more inclined to procrastination on Sunday evening.....

15 books - 15 minutes

Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. List 15 books you've read that will always stick with you. They should be the first 15 you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.

1. Lost Souls - Poppy Z.Brite
2. American Gods - Neil Gaiman
3. The Foundation Cycle - Isaac Asimov
4. Lancelot ou Le chevalier a la charette - Chrétien de Troyes
5. Robur le conquerant - Jules vernes
6. Truismes / Bref Sejours chez les vivants - Marie Darrieussecq
7. Poems ( Down By the Salley Gardens, my love.... ) - W.B.Yeats
8. MacBeth - W. Shakespeare
9. Sur le fleuve Amour - Joseph Delteil
10. Ailleurs - Henri Michaux
11. The Man in the high Castle - Philip K. Dick
12. Vies Imaginaire - Marcel Schwob
13. High Fidelity - Nick Hornby
14. The Bloody Red Baron - Kim Newman
15. Les Onze milles verges - Guillaume Appolinaire

Hymn - Francis Giacobetti

Great news, next year the Hymn project by F.Giacobetti will tour around the world in a series of expositions.
Giacobetti started that project in 1980, and it's a fascinating idea: basically he is photographying the iris ( and hands ) of famous people. I saw some of the picture, in an article in the French magazine Geo, few years ago, and the images of those iris are absolutely staggering.

See below a sample from the exposition website:

I'd love to be able to take pictures like those...




For your information: Giacobetti is a french photograph, famous for his pirelli calendar in the 1970, and for directing Emmanuelle 2.

5 movies for a desert Island

Imagine you're alone on a deserted Island, with a DVD player and 5 movies.... on a rainy days what movies would you bring with you and why ?

1. Monthy Python Holy Grail
To keep the moral up, a bit of laugh, can be watch over and over again... especially to hear french swearing (Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries! )


2. Chung King Express (Wong Kar Wai)
A romantic stylistic movie, because i fall in love with Faye everytime i watch the movie.

(Full Movie can be seen there, and Quentin Tarantino talks about the movie here)

3. Mon oncle (J.Tati)
Another simple feel good movie


4. Once upon a time in the west (Sergio Leone)
A classic


5. MegaVixens by Russ Meyer
Alone, on an island, migt rise some tension, so here's the solution, more cartoonish than real erotic stuff.


Surprisingly, i did not put any pixar movie, nor Kubrick ....
Note: Based on a French Article on Ecran Large.

Rodrigo y Gabriella ... summer 2009

Oh god i miss the free summer concert in Grenoble, fortunately there is some good bands playing in Limerick, most notably in Dolans, last night it was Rodrigo y Gabriella, absolutely brilliant.

How many of these books have you read?

How many of these books have you read?

Apparently the BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.

[Updated August 2016]

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen *
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien *
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brone
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling   X+
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible X
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte *
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell X+
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller *
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare X+ ( i might be missing 2 or 3 )
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger 
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy X+
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll X+
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame *
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell X+
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez *
44. A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood *
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert [Update September 2023]
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley X+
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov *
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas *
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac *
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding X+
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville X ( not sure i finished it )
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker X+
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson *
75. Ulysses - James Joyce *
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola *
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell  X
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert *
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Alborn
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle X+
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad X+
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery X+
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks *
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole X+
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas *
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare X+
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo *

Instructions:

• Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read.
• Add a '+' to the ones you LOVE.
• Star (*) those you plan on reading.
• Tally your total at the bottom

My score 13... not bad

2016 Update -> 15

2023 Update ->  20 (Also realised I missed some books)

iTunes - Medium .... tell me tell me

Today 5 July - Playing with your shufle music player
Go to your music player of choice, and put it all on "shuffle." Say the following questions aloud, and after each one press play. Use the song title as the answer to the question.

What do you think of me, random music player?
"I go through all this
Before you wake up
So I can feel happier
To be safe up here with you"
Hyperballad - Bjork

Will I have a long and happy life?
"Let's Talk
Let's talk
Let the dirt fall
Let Heads Roll"
Passionless, pointless - PJ.Harvey

What do my friends really think of me?
"Send me home restless
Send me home damaged
Send me home disposes
Send me home damaged"
The Soldier - PJ.Harvey

What does my S/O think of me?
Hot Stuff - cover by Jape

Do people secretly lust after me?
"That either way you turn
I'll be there
Open up your skull
I'll be there"
Climbing Up the Walls - radiohead

How can I make myself happy?
"Show your hand
I'm jumping off the fence
Into your corner"
Show your hand - Super Furry Animal

What should I do with my life?
"And if I could be who you wanted
If I could be who you wanted,
All the time, all the time, ohhh... ohh..."
Fake plastic Tree - Radiohead

Why must life be so full of pain?
"Purple haze all around
Don't know if I'm comin' up or down
Am I happy or in misery?
Whatever it is, that girl put a spell on me"
Purple Haze - Jimi Hendrix (Franck Zappa Cover)

How can I maximize my pleasure during sex?
"Oh, My-ex says I'm lacking in depth
I will do my best"
Someday - The Strokes

Will I ever have children?
"And if you complain once more
You'll meet an army of me"
Arme of me - Bjork

Will I die happy?
"mailprintvotesmallerlarger
Send "Novocaine for The Soul" Ringtone to Cell Phone

Life is hard and so am i
You better give me something
So I dont die
Novocaine for the soul
Before I sputter out"
Novocaine for the soul - Eels

Can you give me some advice?
Salsa con coco - Pochy y su cocoband

What do you think happiness is?
"I've been waiting so long
To be where I'm going
In the sunshine of your love."
Sunshine of your love - Cream ( F.Zappa cover )

Do you have any advice to give over the next few hours/days?
"Bought a present for my guy
I bought him a pair of second hand boots
Those boots were white not pink
He liked to think, that he wore them well
He took them to the park, he wore them out
And played with the geese
Those geese were stupified"
Jake Summers - Fight like Apes


Next time i'll change the questions......

Been there

An update in songs....

Been there, done that, messed around....I'm having fun don't put me down,
Bullet Proof (La Roux)

i love the quiet of the night time, when the sun is drown in a deathly sea
Death (White Lies)
yes this fears got a hold on me

It's a cruel cruel world, to face on your own,
Heavy Cross (The Gossip)

But every time it rains,
Youre here in my head,
Like the sun coming out--
Cloudbusting (Kate Bush)
Ooh, I just know that something good is going to happen.

Traffic Jam at Black Head

There was a traffic Jam in Black Head this Saturday:




the reason: the start of LEG8 of the Volvo Ocean Race ( Galway to Marstrand )

As the boat left Galway, they come fast along SaltHill:


Loads of boat came to visit the race, and accompany them along the irish coast


As they pass the lighthouse, they all started tacking to take the inside route, between the Aran Island and the Burren... much to our delight:


And here's the chinese-irish competitor






Some boat came quite close from the shore (here Delta Lloyd ):




Finally everybody wished a goodbye and safe sailing top the Dragon:

King Seal

Seal program tagging in Ireland:


Mobile phone for seal, i love it...

The data is available:
http://sealtrack.ucc.ie/

Other seal links:
Irish Seal Sanctuary

Irish Corals.... Deep

The Irish Marine Institute, has published on youtube one of his latest expedition... and yes there is coral reef in Ireland.

Part 1 - 4


Part 2- 4


Part 3 - 4


Part 4 - 4

Ocean Racing

Spend the weekend, traveling along the west coast:

View Larger Map

First to Galway to see the arrival of the Volvo Ocean Race 7 leg, brilliant atmosphere in town, and it was nice to see so many chips in the bay, especially at night when they escorted the wining boat.
And what a welcome, six thousand drunk Irish straight out of the pub ( 2 am closing time ) welcoming 7 sailer after 7 days at seas. Brilliant. The whole town was buzzing with the event, you almost felt like on a French marina on a sunny Sunday. After that i move to the other side of the bay ( Black head ) where i've got a glimpse ( it was dark around 3-4am) of the Irish boat : Green Dragon.

Finally i drive down to Doolin, to discover a nasty South South-West swell, preventing any boat launch there. So we finally decided to retreat to Kilkee, launch the boat, and try a couple of dive sites:
- the pinnacle was undivable, with breaking waves on the top of it ( due to low tide)
- bishop island turn to be a disaster, only 2 got down, but give up due to bad vis and swell at 25 meters.
Not a great day for diving.

UP on Colbert

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Being a tourist for another weekend - Part2

Another weekend touring Ireland.

Saturday: Blarney Castle and the traditional kiss of the stone.


Inside the castle


Adn where everybody lining up fro a kiss of the stone


I've been surprised by the garden, this time,



And at the end of the tour, as a reminder of how changing is the weather in Irleand is... a beautiful blue sky almost cloudless.



On the next day we moved further south, in search of more sun, and ended up near Drunmore East.





And try to see the ship coming near Ireland, like that man:

Like the Metal Man in Tramore would say: "Keep out good ship, keep out from me, For I am the rock of misery".

Disturbing some seagulls on the way:


And even if we found some inviting signs, we did not go swimming:


Next week end back to Scubadiving...