Here we go again...

Munster started his campaign to retain his European crown.... [H-Cup website]
And that's Bourgoin which has been defeated despite:
28/10/06 Pool4 Munster 41-23 Bourgoin Thomond Park (12,800)

The Good The Bad and the Queen

Back to more regular posts. Damon Albarn (Blur, Gorillaz...) has started a new adventure or story with: The Good, the Bad and the Queen. I've discovered it thanks to Tom Dunne's Pet Sound show on today FM, with their first single Herculean. And also Zane Lowe (BBC1). You can listen (until the 2 november 2006), the show they gave for BBC: here. Brilliant. There is loads of good stuff on BBC electroprom website, from Paul Weller to the Magic Numbers. In a world where with an IPOD, you can have litteraly months of music in your pockets... does it make sense the old question: which cd would you bring on a island ? My answer would be something on this left side.

Note : Lego are becoming greater and greater.

finally a post....

Long time since I've been blogging regularly, just to keep up to date.

Activities:
- Sailing ( at least trying to learn ), fantastic week-end with the University of Limerick Activity Center. I have just done the course start sailing Level 1, and looking forward for the level 2.
- Nintendo DS: Brain Training and Brain Academy.. and so far the results BT = 26 year's old brain and BA = 1300g brain weight....
Unit of alcohols: 1 last week.
Books read: "Ubik" and "A Time out of joint" by Ph.K.Dick

Links:
- Le petit champignacien [FR], if you like the champignac mayor.
- BBC1 Zane Lowe Radio Show
- The nintendo Wii will be soon in our saloons...You can watch videos of people trying the system... my favourite is this french girl. Probably the most exciting console ( for the concept ) to come.

A mystery [FR]
Dans Truismes de Marie Darrieusseq, page 52 de l'édition P.O.L :
Un jour la dame en noir, l'amie de ma vieille cliente, m'a donné un euro. Elle croyait que j'avais faim.
Rien ne vous choque?
Le roman est paru en 1996, soit trois bonnes années avant le passage à l'euro (le premier janvier 1999). Même dans les bourses internationales, cette monnaie n'était pas utilisée avant 1998 ou 1999.
Étrangement, mieux que les autres disparités délibérement uchrononiques du récit, c'est ce détail-là qui le place pour moi dans une sorte d'anticipation bizarrement proche.
Ce n'est pas moi qui est remarque mais je l'ai decouvert ici.

Testing my self

In summary: 16 years old, tempereed with reasonable way of thinking. If I was a beer, I would be a guinness, and if I was a muppet, I would be Scooter, even if I prefer the Fraggle rocks ! By the way Uncle Matt is still travelling.

Your Brain's Pattern

You have a tempered, reasonable way of thinking.
You tend to take every new idea in, and meld it with your world view.
For you, everything is always changing. Each moment is different.
Your thinking process tends to be very natural - with no beginnings or endings.

What Pattern Is Your Brain?

You Are Scooter

Brainy and knowledgable, you are the perfect sidekick.
You're always willing to lend a helping hand.
In any big event or party, you're the one who keeps things going.
"15 seconds to showtime!"

The Muppet Personality Test

You Are 16 Years Old

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe.
13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world.
20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences.
30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more!
40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

The Keys to Your Heart

You are attracted to those who have a split personality - cold as ice on the outside but hot as fire in the heart.
In love, you feel the most alive when your lover is creative and never lets you feel bored.
You'd like to your lover to think you are stylish and alluring.
You would be forced to break up with someone who was emotional, moody, and difficult to please.
Your ideal relationship is comforting. You crave a relationship where you always feel warmth and love.
Your risk of cheating is zero. You care about society and morality. You would never break a commitment.
You think of marriage pessimistically. You don't think happy marriages exist anymore.
In this moment, you think of love as commitment. Love only works when both people are totally devoted.

What Are The Keys To Your Heart?

You Are Guinness

You know beer well, and you'll only drink the best beers in the world.
Watered down beers disgust you, as do the people who drink them.
When you drink, you tend to become a bit of a know it all - especially about subjects you don't know well.
But your friends tolerate your drunken ways, because you introduce them to the best beers around.

What's Your Beer Personality?

FYI: End of the Limerick Boat Club

Hi, sadly this is the last month for the following venue: Limerick Boat Club.

Quite a sad news for the musical/cultural scene of Limerick, this closure won't improve the diversity of the offer.

This is (was) a great place for gig/concert of small bands, unfortunately their adventure ends at the end of this month, and here the last opportunities to enjoy it, so here the list of the last gig:
10/10/2006 08:00 PM - HOSTILE COMBOVER (US), The Boatclub
10/12/2006 08:00 PM - BALLS OF IRON BON VOYAGE, The Boatclub
10/13/2006 08:00 PM - DEFIANCE, The Boatclub
10/14/2006 08:00 PM - RICHIE McCOY, The Boatclub, - FREE!!
10/16/2006 08:00 PM - CANKICKERS - FREE GIG, The Boatclub
10/18/2006 08:00 PM - STEEPLE REMOVe (France) + ENDFINDEAD, The Boatclub
10/19/2006 08:00 PM - WAITING TO EXPLODE, The Boatclub
10/20/2006 08:00 PM - DEADBOTS, The Boatclub
10/21/2006 08:00 PM - CHEEBAH PRESENTS..., The Boatclub
10/27/2006 08:00 PM - LORDS/UNIT AMA, The Boatclub
10/28/2006 08:00 PM - STAR BELGRADE, The Boatclub
11/02/2006 08:00 PM - CAPTAIN MOONLIGHT, The Boatclub
11/04/2006 08:00 PM - CAP PAS CAP & MIRAKIL WHIP, The Boatclub
11/05/2006 08:00 PM - STANLEY SUPER 800 (woohoo!), The Boatclub
11/09/2006 08:00 PM - BERKELEY, The Boatclub

More Info on:
http://www.myspace.com/gigtown
cheebah.typepad.com/road_to_nowhere.html

“Hello. Sorry to bother you but we’ve got important news. The rumours are true. The Boatclub is shutting down. Our loyal gig goers have very little interest in boats, so we’re not getting our license back. Added to that some developer is taking a wrecking ball to the place in the new year to build some swanky new apartments. Asshole. Anyway we’re shutting down in just over a month and we’d really appreciate your support at all the gigs before we go. There’s bills to be paid! All the gigs are on the profile (there’s loads) and if it’s okay I might post some on your page another time (if that’s not okay, just say so!) Thank you for all your support. Please post a comment on our profile if you have a favourite memory and we might put them all together for nostalgia’s sake. Thanks again. The LBC boys."


Where to listen music in Limerick:
Wicked Chicken (website eightball.ie)
Dolan's (website dolanspub.com)
University Concert Hall (website uch.ie)

Radio Shows
Tom Dunnes Pet Sound (Today FM, Mo-Thu 7pm-10pm)
Annie Mac Mash Up ( BBC1, every Friday 10pm-00 )

Where is the little green man ?

Reading the newspaper

Have you seen, the little green men, musing along the wall of the Limerick Art Gallery ?

Sitting on a wall

Anyway, there is this october, a very funny interactive video exhibition in the Limerick Art Gallery (look in Arts Events in the website of the Limerick City County Council).
It's near People's park i Limerick, and the exhibition is based on camera recording the spectator and projecting it with some delays and others effects... very fun.
It's called "Here There Now Then" by Dennis Connolly and Anne Cleary.

One particulary interesting installation, display the recording of your move in front of the screen delayed and incrustated with past recordings...

Readings: I've just finished "Time out of joint" a novel by Ph.K.Dick, disturbingly very similar to the plot of "The Truman Show" movie. Seem I found the little green men in Limerick (a reader of the book should understand). It's been a long time since last time, I've read any Dick novels, my taste has been revigorated by the viewing of a "Scanner Darkly" brillant adaptation of Dick universe. I was a bit anxious and curious about the permanent photoshop effct on the movie, but it works admirably well.

Quotations

• "My major preoccupation is the question, 'What is reality?'" - Philip Kindred Dick


• Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. - Philip Kindred Dick


• The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words. - Philip Kindred Dick


• Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane. - Philip Kindred Dick

Last Action Hero ?

Scharzie ... saving the world again... Are the USA finally starting to wake up, and realizing the desastrous effect of their energy politics ?

• Al Gore is travelling the world with his presentation about Global Warming, and a movie "An inconvenient truth" relates it. Former Vice President Al Gore called the 19th Septmber 2006, for a popular movement in the United States to seek an “immediate freeze” inheat-trapping smokestack and tailpipe gases linked by most scientists to global warming.
  See official website of the film.
  Basically the message, is we need to do (stop) something now and massively, because it's just in term of month/week you can count, until we reach a non return point in the quantity of CO2 emmitted in the atmosphere.
  
• As written by Daniel AKST in the New York Times (17th September 2006), any drop in the oil prices are not a good news, it's definitely a bad news as it does not force people to change the way they use their car.
  I quote: "[...] You figure cheaper oil would boost economic growth while slashing the income of such lovable oil exporters as Iran? Don’t kid yourself. Anything that reinforces the role of fossil fuels — particularly oil — as the industrial world’s primary energy source is bad, not good. Anything that prolongs the life of the internal combustion engine is a negative, not a positive. Anything that makes it cheaper to pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is cause for mourning rather than celebration.
  What we need is not lower oil prices but higher ones — significantly higher, enough to deter consumption and make us look seriously at alternatives."
• California is suing 5 major automakers, for their contribution to the Global Warming (announced this 21st September 2006). It's a very capitalistic and american view, suing a company to inforce measures that will benefit the society, I hope it will turn better than the case against the tobacco (It has been revealed that cigarettes makers have increased in the USA, the level of nicotine in their products).
• And still in the NY Times, THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, realized that as "dumb as it can be", USA would rather power anti-Americans with its energy purchases than promote antipoverty.
  
• California which already the state which the most active in term of energy economy [see NYT article], will be the first state to inforce a law which follow Kyoto. Already 42% of the electricity produced by California (via Nuclear and Hydro plants) does not produce greenhouse gases, compared to the 71% of the USA. Unless the rest of the USA, which has seen a more than 50% increase in the annual electricity use by person since the 70s, California, has pretty much the same consumption per inhabitant.
  So Mr Universe/Terminator has signed which imposed a control on carbon dioxide emission... basically the Kyoto protocol, DoubleU has refused to sign...
  

Sounds good news, I must admit the capitalism has a very flexible approach to problem, by simplifying them, in term of cost (aka money)...
On the other hand, people still drive big SUV and the Top Gear presenter R.Hammond crashed a car at more than 300mph during the recording of the show. And here in Limerick, the city did not take part in the car free day like many european cities.
More worrying these doomsday seeker, holy bible fervent lovers, who judges that polluting is good because it make closer the divine doomsday. I've seen this very frightening documentary by Tony Robinson, (yes Baldrick in Black Adder, but also he presented an interesting documentary about the DaVinci Code). So in the documentary called "Doomsday code", Tony followed the american fundamentalist catholics, and the way they are influencing (Bush administration) politics in the goal to bring nearer the end of the world. For example, they are financing the israel occupation of some Palestinian lands, so all jews can be re-installed in Israel, and this will allow the christ to ressurect.

Here 10 things you can do to improve your impact on global warming [PDF] :
- Replace your light with fluorescent carbon bulb (reduce by 60% the electricity consumed)
- Drive less (walk, use a bicycle instead)
- Recycle more
- Check your tyres (if your tyres are not at the correct pressure, you increase your gasoline consumption).
- Use less hot water
- Avoid products withe lots of packaging (reduce garbage). And consume more bio products.
- Adjust your thermostat in winter and summer.
- Plant a Tree
- Turn off electrical/electronic devices when not in used.

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In the meantime, the list of movies I won't able to see in Limerick is becoming bigger and bigger:
- Volver (Pedro Almodovar)
- Inland Empire (D.Lynch)
- Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola)
- Avida (B.Delepine/Gustave DeKervern)
- Nausicae (H.Miyazaki, Ghibli studios) [Fan Website: nausica.net]
- An unconenient truth

But Good surprise, "Scanner Darkly" [French critic] will be displayed at the Omniplex thursday 28th September 2006. And I've just seen "Clerks 2" [official website ] almost 10 years after I've seen the brilliant first movie by Kevin Smith, in the amphitheater of the University of Lettres of Clermont-Ferrand. Nice movie, loads of laugh, with less discussion about Star Wars ( the only trilogy) and a bit more about the sexuality of the hobbits...