Archive for the ‘irishblogs’ Category

So it was a busy few days

Monday, March 5th, 2007

Flew into Dublin on Friday morning and the phone was hopping from 8am til midnight. RTE filmed me in the Alexander at 1130am and it went well. Philip that interviewed me was fantastic to chat to. Someone who knows his subject matter and gets blogs. We had a good discussion after the interview where we talked about media and technology and he educated me a little on what he does. Chatted to a few journalists by phone all day and then rushed to Trinity for 1830 so I could give a talk about IrelandOffline and lobby groups. Thanks to the 6-7 people that turned up on a Friday night. 🙂 Glad I could answer everyone’s questions.

After Trinity I headed over to the Village to see “I’m from Barcelona” play. They eventually took to the stage at 2130 and I was so physically wrecked that I lasted for 4.5 songs. Still, widly entertaining pop music with the main singer deciding to go crowd surfing 30 seconds into the first song, it seemed. The tiny stage at the crappy Village venue was filled with about 20 of the band members singing and dancing and throwing balloons into the crowd. Worth seeing again. After that met up with an old friend for a chat for a while and then decided to get some lunch in Burger King around 2330. Eventually got back to the hotel for midnight.

On Saturday lunchtime I had to scoot off to Newstalk where I went head to head with a ComReg guy. This was the first time ComReg actually agreed to take part in an interview and interact with IrelandOffline. Previous to that they refused to come on-air or came on-air but refused to acknowledge and interact with us. The ComReg guy that was sent is a genuinely nice guy and I don’t envy his job. From the feedback I got from numerous people it seems I rang rings around him. As I said, I don’t envy people in ComReg because there are some genuinely cool people in there but it’s like they’re working for the Bush regime because as an entity they are doing tremendous damage. On a side-note I see we have once again NOT been invited to a ComReg event. I am rather busy these days but lads, I can still create a fuss over this. On the Newstalk interview it was mentined that ComReg have a Broadband Manager job advertised and I was asked would I apply and ComReg were asked would they think I was good for the job. The physical reaction from the ComReg staff member was entertaining.

After that it was back to the hotel to get the room ready. Went downstairs and met Elana, saw the room and shouted “oh fuck”. The room was massive. That’s what 400 seats looks like so.

The night itself was good but I wanted it to be a little better. I wanted a few surprise things for it such as the free bar for the nominees and judges, the goody bags, the champagne bottles and a web link to Dave from Blather.net who was on a Greenpeace boat near the Anarctic. The goody bags were practically empty and might have been fuller if I had blogged about it but that would have ruined the surprise. Still, it was something additional. The linkup with Dave was a disaster due to issues on our side but since it wasn’t announced the only people to be disappointed were me and Dave. The mafiosi people Bock the Robber sent were brilliant. When I have the energy I’ll go more in-depth about the night itself but thanks to everyone who came along and apologies to the majority of people I didn’t get to chat to. I was a lil busy as you all saw. 🙂

Finally got home a little later than usual on Sunday night after yet another Ryanair flight where the pilot aborted the landing. After 20mins circling, we finally landed. Yes, I Twittered from the air. It is not an air-danger as air industry people say, it is more to do with keeping the mobile companies happy as a mobile signal on a plane uses up more processing time on the masts as they try to track your fast moving signal. Ok I’m rambling. Still feel hungover from Sat night even though I wasn’t drinking. Glad to see the positive coverage in the papers today too. It’s not over for us yet with more interviews this evening.

*breathe out*

A proper post over on Awards.ie will follow.

That was fun

Sunday, March 4th, 2007

Thanks.

Irish Blog Awards owns the airwaves

Thursday, March 1st, 2007

Had an interview with Newstalk this evening about another ComReg report with dishonest facts. Did this from home and then sped into town to go on the Fanning show on Radio1 at 1900 to talk about the Blog Awards along with Kieran Murphy. On the way in and finding a spot to double-park in, I’m listening to TodayFM and they’re talking about the Blog Awards with Piaras. At home this evening doing final preps for the Awards and Rick O’Shea on 2fm is talking about the Awards and ohmygod but Twenty Major is on the show!

I think there’s something in the Irish Times tomorrow too and tune into Six One News tomorrow night as you might see some faces behind some of your favourite blogs. 350 have now registered to go, which is fantastic too. This thing is turning into a Carnival. Actually, does anyone want the Awards show to be part of a blog carnival next year? A few events all weekend with the Awards show as the highlight?

So yes, today was another insane day and tomorrow is worse. Meeting people in Dublin from early morning til late afternoon, then talking at Trinity about my work with IrelandOffline then going to see “I’m From Barcelona” at the Village.

Lastly, the staff of Bubble Brothers and especially Julian fucking rock. I’ll explain more on Monday, if I survive the weekend. I won’t probably post on this blog again until I get home late Sunday evening. I hope everyone has a good time this weekend and please remember not to take these things too seriously, only I should be stressing!

Fluffy Links – March 1st 2007

Thursday, March 1st, 2007

Via Anthony, is the best of Olli Williams.

Google Ads are free speech, apparently.

Why pilots say “Roger”.

Details of Second Life event running at the same time as the Irish Blog Awards.

Tracker devices in our staples now. Scary.

Evelyn Rodriguez is running a series called “Forty Days of Everyday Inspiration” on her blog. Well worth checking out.

Over the forty days I’ll share tips for everyday inspiration. This won’t be philosophical, but practical

Already had “I’m From Barcelona” on my blog a few days back but they’re back again because they play the Village on Friday night. I hope to go along if my talk in Trinity is over in time.

The many faces of Blogorrah – Metro Mention

Wednesday, February 28th, 2007

Metro mentioned the Blog Awards today and had a pic of the Blogorrah folks. They look different to the photo in the Irish Echo don’t they?

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Fluffy Links – February 27th 2007

Tuesday, February 27th, 2007

Laser Etched Beans with messages that unfold as the sprout grows. Weird.

Richard tears apart another website.

Videos from the Taste conference. Yumm.

Via Blogorrah. Not seen this before but am sure it did the rounds – the iProd.

Seth Godin gives some good tips on making name tags. Make your own for the Blog Awards!

Via Kevin Burton The PS3 Song or how Sony fucked everything up for themselves:

Fluffy Links – February 26th 2007

Monday, February 26th, 2007

100 seats left for the Blog Awards. Not registered? Do so now. Sponsorship slots left too.

Edelman Dublin has started a blog. Hooray. Well done to “No. 1 on Google for my first name” Piaras and the others in Edelman for that. Hopefully they might show up in the top ten Google search for Irish Public Relations Company. Piaras owns the phrase “Irish public relations” you’ll notice 🙂

I shall call this photo “Where is the love?”.

As Suzy points out, some previous blogging regulars are back again.

Jeez. Matty Kiely’s is closed. Matt was great. He’d go on holiday and put a sign in the window “On holiday” and leave it at that. Fantastic fish and chips in there though.

Microsoft Paint on an ATM. Hah.

Via Fred, Arcade Fire played on Saturday Night Live (video below) but also Fred posts a very very old SNL video of Peter Tosh and Mick Jagger doing Don’t Look Back.

Arcade Fire – Intervention

Peter Tosh and Mick Jagger:

285 now registered to go to the Irish Blog Awards

Friday, February 23rd, 2007

Finalising the last bits and pieces this weekend for the Blog Awards. 285 have registered to come along so far. As I mentioned before on the Awards blog, there’s room for about 400 people. Details of the night are here.

Fluffy Links – February 23rd 2007

Friday, February 23rd, 2007

Fluffy links without any actual links. (Advertising standards have been notified.)

Silly Bee

Look Around You – Iron

Scary HIV ad.

Diamond in your mind

Thursday, February 22nd, 2007

Moving on…

Solomon Burke – Diamond in your mind(Live). Song written by Tom Waits. The album this came from is fantastic.