Canadian Fakir vs Giant Kangooroos

Activites: Street walking, street spectators ; Pub: 1 ; Alcohol Units: 1

So i've been to Galway, this sunday, in order to see the end of the Galway Arts Festival, and hoping to see some giant kangooroos ( A company called Icarus....) Unfortunately I did not see them.....
Thought I saw a canadian fakir

Very funny. And spent the rest of the day walking in the streets of Galway, trying to enjoy a windy sea scenery, and the University grounds....

And soon we were back to Eyre square ( and later Limerick )... okay we went to one pub on the way, and I had my first guinness in 1.5 weeks ...

I'am still annoyed not having seen these giant kangooroos, a canadian fakir, it's not the same as giants kangooroos bouncing around in the streets of Galway... I am so sad...

Some Lessons from the School of Life..

FW FW FW FW FW ... and one day it appeared in my mailbox

• Know yourself – Be honest with yourself
• Define Yourself – If not you will never be comfortable with who you are.
• Know the difference between “I can’t” and “I won’t.”
• Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
• When you say, "I love you," mean it.
• When you say, "I'm sorry," look the person in the eye.
• Believe in love at first sight.
• Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice.
• When you lose, don't lose the lesson
• Remember the three R's: Respect for self; Respect for others; and Responsibility for all your actions.
• Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
• When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
• Spend some time alone.
• Never take yourself so seriously that you cannot laugh at your self.
• Talk slowly but think quickly, and learn to listen more than you talk (that is why we have two ears and one mouth)
• Know what you know. Know what you don’t know
• Don't believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you want.
• Accept that change is a constant. Be a change agent
  
• Never laugh at anyone's dreams. People who don't have dreams don't have much. Dreamers never quit and quitters never dream.
• Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it's the only way to live life completely.

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• Activites: Destroy all humans, shopping, cleaning...
• Pub: None ( 10 days now ... there's something wrong)
• Alcohol units: 0 ( I only socially drink ... in pub so)
• Current Music: Radio Nova ... just heard: David Bowie singing in Italian (RAGAZZO SOLO RAGAZZA SOLA) and some good zik a colleague bring back from France.

Movies seen:

• Pirates of Carribean 2 pure pleasure, not as good and surprising as the first one, but I'll book my seat for the third and final one.
• Cars probably not the best Pixar, (the stoy is a bit lame), but it's damn good !!! VVRRROOOOMMMM !!! Technically it's way... To Infinity. . .and BEYOND! And Jeremy Clarckson from Top Gear has done some voice on it.
  I am really looking forward for their next movie Ratatouille about Rats in Paris ... cheesy ...

Medium - Winamp

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.

1. What do you think of me, random music player?
   Hands around my throat - Death In Vegas
2. Will I have a long and happy life?
   Take it as it come - Doors
3. What do my friends really think of me?
   Desormais - Les Castafiores
4. What does my S/O think of me?
   Dancing Queen - ABBA
5. Do people secretly lust after me?
   Queen and the country - Jethro Tull (Warchild)
6. How can I make myself happy?
   Enferme dans les cabinets - H.F.Thiefaine
7. What should I do with my life?
   Boogie man - ACDC
8. Why must life be so full of pain?
   Immigrant Song - Tomoyasu Hotei (Originally Led Zep)
9. How can I maximize my pleasure during sex?
   La Mouche - Polnareff
10. Will I ever have children?
    Never be alone - Justice vs Simian
11. Will I die happy?
    Mouris sur scene - Les Castafiores
12. Can you give me some advice?
    Love her madly - Doors
13. What do you think happiness is?
    Can't help falling in love - Elvis Presley
14. Do you have any advice to give over the next few hours/days?
    Salsamania - Sergent Garcia

Better than any medium.

Quotation of the day
"La liberté, c'est de pouvoir choisir celui dont on sera l'esclave."
[Jeanne Moreau]
Freedom is being able to choose the master you'll be the slave of.

Jellyfish
That's waht I call a jellyfish:
JellyFish in NGM

GTA in Limeric
Latest news on the Limerick scene crime: four day outburst, between last Thursday and the early hours of Monday morning, there were almost a dozen separate incidents including shootings and one grenade attack.
As a result, Garda is now doing 24hour/day armoured patrol in some part of Limerick.
All details can be found in the Limerick Post

Photoshop - Boulets

fantastic_bopulets.final
Originally uploaded by TOF2006.

It's been a while, since I've played with GIMP/Photoshop to modify Movie posters, add some known heads on it... This one is not particulary well done, but I nethertheless quite happy of producing it.
The 4 guys are the "boulets" presented few posts ago, and I've been hanging around with this year.

Board game

Monday night, one of my colleague introduced us to the joy of german style board game. We play Carcassonne, a very pleasant game.

Things learned
1. I always thought that the answer : "No they've fallen all by themselves" to the question "Have you been to the haircut ?" was part of one Jean Marie Bigard (a fench stand-up comedian, quite popular) show... but it's not, in his monologue called "les expressions" where he fight against stupid question. Like when you go to a restaurant, in france, the waiter ask you if you are here to have dinner.... No I was just planning to play tennis... etc...

2. "Igname" is the french word for Yam, a species of vegetables (cultivated in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania). And it can be used as a symbol, in some culture (Papou)
Not to be confused with :
-Imam which is an religious leader.
-Iguane [FR] (iguana in english).

Question not answered
Origin of the Castres city's name, and difference with the origin of the french world: "castrer" and what is the ethymologic link with "Castor" (Beaver in english)

Update on this question (and back to French ):
Un blog amusant a ce propos: Langue sauce piquante, le blog des correcteurs du monde.
Et une idee fantastique de la bibliotheque nationale (BNF), la mise en ligne de centaines d'ouvrages anciens http://gallica.bnf.fr/

CASTRES (Tarn) Le nom de la ville vient du mot latin castrum qui signifie "place fortifiée".
Les mots "chaste", "incestueux" et "castré" ont la même racine indo européenne kes- (séparer)
kes- couper, séparer
--> lat. castrare (castrer)
--> lat. castrum, place fortifiée (peut-être "place séparée")
--> lat. castus : chaste (séparé, pur, sans fautes), inceste, incestueux (non chaste), caste
Source http://babel.lexilogos.com/

French Comics

Johann Sfar
Originally uploaded by TOF2006.

A small post, to talk about a fantastic comic book author: Johann Sfar...
I've just receive from France, the last volume of "Le Mousquetaire minuscule"... this is absolutely brilliant.

Links:
Sfar website [French]

(You can preview some pages in the dedicated website:
http://www.poissonpilote.com/ )

Since I am in Ireland, I have got many occasion, to enjoy some good comic, it's quite difficult to find a good comic shop here. And when you find one, there is almost only US comics (Marvel)... not necessarly the best part. Anyway, I should probably go to Dublin or Cork to have more choice, and actually with the web-shopping, you can order book from any country now.

Lego - Zizou

Zidane
Originally uploaded by Kaptain Kobold.

One last word about the World Cup ... or I should say one last picture...
lego+headbutt...
I am a (big) fan !!

PS: Hey we are vice-world champions, and in 2 months we meet Italy again during the qualifiers for Euro 2008....

Seal and JellyFish

Pub: 3; Alcohol Units: 2, Activities: road movie, sea swimming, seal observation, beach soccer....

WE summary
Like many WE, this was a road movie week-end. I headed south, saturday morning (post-Bastille day) with MF, GP, NM and his sister.
This means the Micra was fully loaded (litteraly and spiritually)... to my disapoitment as it turns out there was so many girls hitch-hiking :(
Anyway, we headed full south, the initial aim was the Bantry Bay...
We made a stop in Killarney, to enjoy the lakes... but could not stop for a picnic because of a lack of organisation.

The lake was crowded with buses loaded with french teenager. (Bonjour le depaysement !


Then we continued our route, through the second kingdom after the one of God ( I mean County Kerry )
By the way, unfortunately Kerry has been beaten by Cork, this week-end during the replay of the Gaelic Footbal Munster Championship...
We the evening near GlenCariff (Beara Peninsula), as we found a lovely youth hostels (actually the night was quite good, I could have been up for a night under the stars), so en joy 2 of the 6 or 7 pubs of the village... We had a perfect barbeque near Bantry Bay (potatoes cooked in the braise of the fire)... we really put to a test our survival skill (making a fire, extincting a fire)
The evening ended up marvellously (before the pub, yes) as three seals came to say hello, near our campment.
We also swim, although the sea was infected with JellyFishes.

Sunday
We headed for the extreme south-west, I mean Mizen Head.
This mean FASTNET, if you follow the Marine Forecast... (Viking, Fastnet...)


Spend the rest of the day: putting one-two feet in the water, playing beach soccer (world cup replay), playing in the sand... and soon we were back safely to Limerick.


Monday
Back to work, oh I just seen Pirates of the Carribean 2, thought it was not as good as the first (may be the surprise) I think I will have some night dreaming being Captain Jack Sparrow.

Things learned
Loads about Jellyfishes.

• http://www.habitas.org.uk/marinelife/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jellyfish
• http://www.dnr.sc.gov/marine/pub/seascience/jellyfi.html
• http://www.dinosoria.com/meduse.htm

I saw loads of vintage tractors on the irish roads... this must be some kind of Agri-Fair.... I need to investigate this....
http://www.westernvintage.com/
Hip Hip Massey Ferguson !!!

We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl,

Syd Barrett is dead (aged 60).....

It's a long way to Tipperary..

It's a long way to Tipperary,
It's a long way to go,
It's a long way to Tipperary,
To the sweetest girl I know!
Goodbye Piccadilly! Farewell Leicester Square!
It's a long, long way to Tipperary,
But my heart's right there!

Everything in Ireland finish with a song, and it's with this song what I've achieved this sunny sunday evenong.
Of course, because I am french I watch the Final of the World Cup: France vs Italy.
I went to the Nancy's Blake to enjoy some good french crowd:


World Cup in Germany
This french team suprised me, and made it again... they make us dream !
It's hard to believe that it's the same team who draw against Switzerland and Korea... and later brillantly won versus Spain, outpaced Brazil... and another final.
Lost in the penalties...What can I say ... I am sad, they deserved victory.

Thank you Zidane, Thank you les bleus... to make us believe, to make us dream again.


For my italian friends: congratulazione and see you in two years for the european championship.