Archive for the 'Blogging' Category

Thoughts on awards

March 20th, 2011

That’s the Irish Thingy Awards over.

When I say ‘over’, I mean just that.  It is a possibility, nay a probability that they won’t be held again.  Damien who has organised the Awards for the last six years is retiring.  He has announced this before, but I have a feeling in my waters that he means it this time.

Needless to say, I was robbed of my gong by that upstart Manuel, and I suppose I should pass on my grudging congratulations.  If I am to be denied what is rightfully mine, the he would be my choice of usurper.

The Awards this year were a bit of a catastrophe, as Beaut.ie weren’t in the running.  I was disgusted to learn this as one of the long standing traditions of the Awards is to rip the piss out of them after.  I have no one to slag off now.  I could pick a site at random, but somehow it isn’t the same.  It’s like Easter without an egg or Christmas without a bottle of whiskey.

I deliberately didn’t nominate myself this year.  I thought I would sit this one out and watch from the side-lines, but that wasn’t to be.  Somehow my name got into the hat but I knew I wouldn’t win.  You see, the votes are rigged.  They have to be, as if they weren’t I would win in every category every year.  That would be disheartening for all the others so they deliberately disbar me.  I don’t mind.  Not in the least.

Congratulations again, Manuel.

And I hope you have eyes in the back of your head.

You’ll need ‘em.

Ya little sleeveen, ya. 

Irish Thingy Awards

March 1st, 2011

I see the list of finalists for the Irish Blog Awards is up.

Through some strange quirk, I seem to be on the short lists.  I confess to being a tad flattered and a tad embarrassed.  You  see, I made a point of not nominating myself this year, so at least one misguided soul must have nominated me, for which I thank you.

One of the results of being short-listed is that I get quite a few visitors wandering in from the Awards site.  If you are one of those, then you are more than welcome.  If you haven’t visited before, then maybe a few ground rules should be explained?

For a start, this is a smoking area, as distinct from a no-smoking area, so if you are in a pub, or in your office, or indeed doing over eighty on the M1, then feel free to light up.  If anyone complains, just tell ‘em to fuck off, and that I said you could smoke.

And that brings me to my second ground rule…. language.  There has been a minor kerfuffle over Melissa Leo swearing on stage so it is important to understand that I am fussy about language on this site also.  Any fucker who swans in thinking he can swear all over the shop had better fucking think again. 

If you want to know who I am, then you had better ask someone else, as I’m not too sure myself.  The old memory isn’t as good as it used to be.  If you want to know what the site is about, then I’m afraid the only way is to read it.  There are only 1757 ramblings so  it shouldn’t take too long.  If you find the answer, then could you please let me know too?

Another drop of fall-out from being shortlisted is that I get to schlop another ink-blot on the side of the site.   Just to make sure they all matched each other, I had to redraw the images which was a bit of a hassle, but one must suffer for one’s art, I suppose.

One final note, if you are a new visitor – I fucking hate that word ‘Blog’.

I would much prefer an alternative name such as ‘On Line Diary’, or OLD for short.

I could relate to that.

Making the heart grow fonder

February 7th, 2011

Apparently my little pearls of wisdom are too much for my server.

It crashed.

I have given it a severe kick.

It apologises.

Now it’s in a sulk.

Heh!

And the winner is

February 6th, 2011

I see it’s time for the annual love-fest.

The Irish Blog Awards have come around again.

They are going all foreign this year and are going up to Belfast.  The Europa Hotel, no less.  The world’s most bombed hotel.  I hope hotel management learned from all that destruction because the awards mob are far more damaging than any bomb.  It’s no coincidence that the acronyms IBA and IRA are so similar.

I imagine it will be a fairly quiet affair this year though, as a shed-load of sites seem to have disappeared over the last twelve months.  I have 170 sites listed in my feed reader and it is scary when I check the inactive sites.  I keep telling myself to prune the dead sites out, but then I am afraid I will have very few left to read.

There are some really weird fucking categories this year.  “Best Outraged Blog Awards Post”?  What the fuck is that?  Maybe they mean “Best Outraged Blog Post Award”?  That doesn’t make much sense either.  Outraged at what?  God knows, there is enough to be outraged about so I can imagine there will be quite a few entries there.

I do wish they would change the name of the event though.  You know how I hate that word ‘blog’ and I refuse to call this site anything other than a site.  They should call it the Irish Awards For The Site That Is Not A Professional Website That Is Updated On A Regular Basis.  I would be more inclined to support the IAFTSTINAPWTIUOARB Awards as I would feel more at home there.

There would also be less chance of confusing them with the IRA

Designer bugs

January 12th, 2011

I have a bit of a bug at the moment.

I mention that because it explains one or two things.  I’m not one of those Mammy’s Boys who whinges about Man Flu or anything like that – I prefer to sit quietly and let the bug try its worst while I  do my best to drown it in whiskey. 

Anyhows, I was sitting here yesterday doing my best to ignore the sweats and aches and I started to mess around with the design of the site.  It was just an idle piece of whimsy to pass the time.  I don’t know whether it was the bug or the whiskey, but I got a couple of files mixed up, and the next thing I knew, part of the new design had crept onto the live site.  It was a messy bit of confusion, so rather than try to sort out the mess, I put the whole new design live, even though there were lots of things I hadn’t tweaked to my satisfaction.

Shortly after that, I feel asleep in my armchair.

I woke a lot later to find that the fucking site was broken.  There were all sorts of things that weren’t working, which didn’t put me into the best of form, but I managed to fix them, and then I went to bed.

I was woken at three this afternoon by Naughty Rita [he’s our Meter Man], but that’s neither here nor there.  I switched on the laptop and took a look at the site to decide whether or not to run with the new design.  It wasn’t too much of a shock, so I think I may leave it there for a while.  After all, the old design must be well over four years old.

So what do you think?  Will I get used to it?  Is it an improvement and what else does it need?

I will leave it in your capable hands.

Mind you…  I don’t half miss those tits.

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