Every Day is Election Day

…is the photo that went with the news story in RTE this morning.

Consider the case of nine-year-old K from New Zealand. Or, at least, that’s how her friends know her - that’s how she introduces herself, her actual moniker being “Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii”.

A New Zealand judge has ordered a name change for the embarrassed kid, and expressed dismay at the other examples or unorthadox naming.

Quoth the National Broadcaster:

The judge discovered New Zealand parents had given their
children some other unusual names including Number 16 Bus Shelter and Midnight Chardonnay, both of which may relate to the conception of the child.

One child was named Violence and two pairs of twins were called Benson and Hedges and Fish and Chips. The children from another family were all named after six-cylinder Ford cars.

But what’s worse? The names, or the fact that RTE supplemented the story with this cutting-edge, incisive graphic?:

Hmm.

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the Big Bad Interweb:

He’s back! Rick O’Shea returns to Twitter and will be tweeting his morning Gerry Ryan stand-in today.

Via Steph at work: Lilsugar wonders if Sesame Street is the new Oprah…

Possibly the most Epic. Fail. Ever…

The Spanner [disclaimer: I used to write for it] reports that the Internet has declined the latest Paris Hilton tape…

And Jazz Biscuit takes the, er, biscuit, by proclaiming that - somehow - Pippa O’Connor was unharmed when her horse fell beside her.

PS - Thanks to everyone for the brilliant feedback from the Wordpress Walkthrough post; I’m honestly stunned by the great reception from it so thankyou to everyone who read and left a comment.

Officially diagnosed with exhaustion (FE1-itis) by Dr McNerdy, and I’ve been banished to the bed. As a result, there has been considerable resting and  I’m all disorientated when I sit up so typing is difficult. I hope I’ll be back soon, I need to mendsies. Thanks for the loves, I shan’t be long…

Meanwhile:

I took my love down to Violet Hill
There we sat in snow
All that time she was silent still

So if you love me
Won’t you let me know?

If you love me,
Won’t you let me know?

Long live the crusts…

Brennan has just delivered the whole “You wouldn’t leave me alone at the side of the road, so why are you leaving me alone on the information superhighway?” so here I am, filling in the blanks in a quite absent online presence over the last while - well, except for my Twitter, but that’s just handy because a lot of my work has involved web inboxes and the like. So I’ve been online, but while working. If that makes sense.

That’s a rambling paragraph so allow me to start again!

Like the Brendawg I’m finished in UCD now, as although my time in the Students’ Union doesn’t end until next Monday, I’m currently on two weeks’ annual leave with time that I’d worked up taking so few breaks during the year. I’m starting with the Affordable Homes Partnership next Monday so I’ve spent last week and the last two days just hanging around at home, doing a few bits that needed time out of the office to finish.

The thing occupying the bulk of my time - and something I’m not sure if I’m at liberty to speak too much about still - is to do with an events guide-style website for UCD. Towards the end of our tenures in UCD, myself and Ciara went to meet some senior people in the UCD admin about a rejuvenated attempt to get an events website off the ground; something UCD themselves had tried to do previously (see www.ucdevents.com for a real-life reference of crapness) and failed quite a lot in doing. The project involves rejuvenation (if not complete replacement altogether) of the website so that it can handle an awful lot more events, as well as daily email alerts with the day’s activities and (hopefully) with the ability to send text reminders before events. It’s just in incubation right now and my role - if any - is yet to have been confirmed - but things are being discussed so I’m hopeful of a successful service coming of our efforts. I finally got my 3,000-word proposal on the matter finished and shipped off to the University authorities yesterday and feedback seems to be quite positive, so hopefully once things are a little more confirmed I might post the actual submission up here for public perusal.

It’s something that we’ve been trying a couple of times this year to get going - Ciara had promised the re-introduction of the What’s On Guide at the start of the year only for the University to take command of the idea and then scrap it - so it’s nice to think that stuff can still be achieved in the lamest part of ones time as a lame duck in office.

What else? Well, yesterday I was on MSN (having sent the proposal) when I got a message from Steph, incoming SU Postgraduate Officer and who’s working with me in AHP, having started a few weeks ago. She was asking if I was free today, because AHP were launching a new consumer website showcasing all of the affordable homes they had in stock, www.affordablehome.ie. They needed a few people to go to a photocall with the Minister for Housing, Michael Finneran, demonstrating the site, and possibly a “young couple” (read ‘unwilling interns’) to look like they were decorating a new pad bought under the scheme.

Well, there are no words really… pictures speak louder…

There’s a fair chance I might be on the Herald AM, Metro, Irish Independent and Evening Herald tomorrow, especially with all this talk of recession and the property crash.

So help me God, I think I might be crawling back under my cyber-rock for a while yet.