have you noticed her ex-boyfriend in the picture? She kind of likes more hot looking guys.

woo hoo COULD YOU BE MORE ROMANTIC ?!?!?! :P:P:P ... ... aahhhhhh, if you dont turn into sugar, i will :D:D:D how sweet :D:D:D

He didn't look black anymore because he's old.

You'd better consider a three-some instead of trying to find a girl for him.

Before the Devil Knows You're dead (Review), directed by Sidney Lumet, starts with a widescreen view of Andy’s (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) (Andy) buttocks swaying at the rhythm of some doggy style sex with Gina (Marisa Tomei). The next scene takes us to the day of the robbery, a robbery the two brothers, Andy and Hank (Ethan Hawke) planned on a diamond shop. That's just about the first 5 minutes of the 2 hour movie, but it's as far as I will go with the plot without spoiling it for you.

The film explores the robber’s family interpersonal relationships and how each family member deals with the chaos of the situation at hand. And there’s loads of chaos going on. It's a combination of choosing the wrong thing to do at the wrong time, and Murphy's Law acting at full force, which makes the whole situation messier than a witch’s cauldron. Each of the 4 main characters has his own way of dealing with the situation, but none of them does anything to make life simpler. The subtitle of the film could be "A portrait of dysfunctional family".

Lumet (83 years old) uses a sequence of flashbacks to tell the story and keep you gripping the sofa with your fingernails with suspense. The flashbacks are only a week long at most, so they are used in an artistic way rather than being required, but this gives a nice twist to the direction of the storytelling.

You know that American movie feel-good feeling? There's nothing like that in this movie. The first word that comes to mind when thinking about the movie is 'sick'. In this case it doesn't mean bad, but it can be potentially disturbing for some people. It's the sort of movie that no matter how twisted and abnormal you feel, at the end of the film your life feels very normal. 4.5/5

I like to give ties as gifts. You tell men that when they wear a tie they'll keep you close to their heart, but then you can eventually choke them with it.

Have just returned from lunch and met O. I have to say that he looks much better without the beard, not like the bear any more. So I can understand he gets girls easily.

Ignore him until he gets back to normal again

Buying chocolates from Belgium is like taking wood to the forest

Is this a new spice girls song? Is it a lullaby?

At last I've uploaded some pictures from the Budapest trip in June. I had to lookup some places in the guidebook again because I forgot what they were. The pictures are uploaded at Smugmug in the Hungary 2007 album. These are the best 2 pictures in my opinion.

  

As part of my 2007 year in review I've determined that this blog deserves more readers so I've decided to do some self-promotion. Evidentially if people don't know about you they cannot read you. As part of this campaign I decided to self nominate me to the Irish Blog Awards in the Personal Blog Category.

Where do you come in? Easy, in nominating me. Just click on this link and fill in the name and my blog in the personal blog category with a short description of why. That's it. You only need to nominate a minimum of 1 blog so don't be scared at the length of the form.

This is who I nominated for in the other categories:-
Best blog: Twenty Major
Best Technology blog: Semantic Bits
Best Food blog: The humble housewife

It's that time of the year, time to start planning a nice holiday escape out of Europe. As soon as I realized that the Russia/China plan fizzled, my mind started racing and exploring alternatives. Also, I haven’t really had the opportunity to choose a place for holiday in quite a while, so this is also part of it (the Venezuela trip wasn’t entirely 100% my choice).

At the moment I'm looking for interesting destinations and still open for suggestions. I had to park Japan and Madagascar options but they’re just slightly postponed to a later date. South America and Australia are also parked because of the recent visits and that leaves options in Africa and Asia. These are the options under consideration (in no particular order):-

China - For the cultural heritage and loads of other interesting stuff. Was already thinking of going there last year but again that didn’t happen. This year there are the Olympics so there’s a hope that road signs and the like will be translated in English. The Olympics period is not a runner but because it will be busy, but just after the Olympics should be good. China is cheap and there may also be some discounts after the Olympics.

South Africa:- This is a very good choice too, relatively safe and quite a popular tourist destination. The definite must visit places here are Kruger Park and Cape town, which happen to be on different sides of the country but that’s ok. I already have some planning done her because I was going last year with my travel mentor.

Namibia: This is probably the safest spot you can visit in Africa. I know 3 different groups of people who went there. All of them said it’s very cheap and very easy to get by. Like South Africa we can go on a safari, but in Namibia there’s the desert and some very unique scenery.

India: Again a good destination with loads to see and explore. The only thing is that I don’t know much about the place and planning might be a bit tricky with all the options available.

Cambodia/Loas/Vietnam: The Cambodia/Vietnam thing is also very interesting. This area is getting quite a lot of attention from tourists supposedly being beautiful and cheap. Vietnam is probably the most interesting of the 3. Probably might end up choosing 1 of the places to see it properly depending on the time available.

So basically there are spots in Asia and Africa. The Asian part is more concentrated on culture (especially China and India) and the Africa is more concentrated on nature. All of the countries are cheap to visit. Probably the most expensive option from the lot would be South Africa.

If anybody has been to any of these countries or has any alternative suggestions please feel free to comment.

Update: NY Times list of places to visit in 2008

Some people who are going to read the title of this post are going to smirk and probably think I'm being ironic. I'm known to slag my mum's cooking, sometimes rightly so, but this time I'm serious. I like this simple dish that my mum used to cook during the week, usually when we'd have more than two cabbages in the fridge. I tried to look up the recipe on the internet but didn't find anything similar to it, so I phone home instead and asked mum how to cook it. (Funny how the first instinct was to look it up on the internet instead of asking mum directly).

The ingredients are very simple:-

• 1 cabbage
• 4 streaks of bacon
• 3 garlic cloves
• 2 beaten eggs (like a little boy I disobeyed and used 3, but mum was right 2 is the maximum you should use)
• salt

1. Cut the cabbage in 4 large pieces and boil it for about 30 minutes
2. Drain the cabbage properly and chop it into about 1 inch squares
3. Cut the bacon into medium sized squares and the garlic into large pieces
4. Heat some oil in a pot and add the garlic and bacon for about 2 minutes
5. Add the cabbage and stir
6. Add some salt. Note that cabbage tends to be sweet so you might want to add some more salt then usual.
7. Add the beaten eggs and stir thoroughly
8. Cook on medium heat for about 20/25 minutes stirring occasionally
9. Serve with fresh bread

Tuesday 1st
To start the year on the right track we snoozed till 10.30 then crawled down straight into the kitchen for yet another filling breakfast. In the afternoon we went for a walk in Laskomer forest, which is just behind her mum's house. There was a frozen stream along the path, and like a 4 year old child who never saw frozen water I went about throwing stones at the layers of ice, giggling with pleasure with each crack. In the evening a friend of the Miss came over and we spent the evening chatting near the palm tree in the piano room.

Wednesday 2nd
Went skiing to Donovaly, but this time to make sure that there were skis left in the rental shop we arrived at 9am. The weather was perfect because it was sunny and not so cold. We skied on both sides of the resort, Zahradiste (Donkey Meadow) and Nova Hola (Zvolen), until the last lift closed. In the evening we ate beef broth and roast pork with mashed potatoes and peaches. The beef broth is exactly like the broth my mum used to cook back at home. After a whole day skiing we just happily vegetated in the evening.

Thursday 3rd
Had the usual breakfast, but today instead of the 2 or 3 varieties of sausage, there were 5 different types. Even though at times I could almost feel the fat clogging my blood vessels, I still kept savouring them with pleasure. One of them tasted quite like the traditional Maltese sausage with some added paprika and chili. After breakfast I went for a walk in the forest and found a path uphill off the beaten track. I tracked up to the top of the hill hoping to get a good view of the village but it was too foggy to take any good pictures. Later in the evening when I told her relatives where I had been, they said that I shouldn't have gone there because there was the risk of meeting a bear.

In the afternoon we went to one of her cousins who's just had a baby girl. At her cousin's place nobody spoke English so I ended up nibbling finger food and staring at the 3rd Stephen Seagull movie of the week. At least the gunshots and punches were not difficult to understand.

After meeting the cousin we went to see grandma and the aunty and uncle she lives with. Like her cousin they also live in Liptovska Osada. Grandma gave me one of the warmest welcomes ever. I could see it on her face that she was very happy to see me, and my personal translator confirmed my impressions. I gave her a small souvenir from the dot, and when she saw it, full of excitement she replied "danke schon" in German. The aunt and uncle were also very warm, but grandma was special.

Apart from meeting grandma in person, the highlight of this visit was visiting her place. She lives in a smallish house attached to, but separate from the main house, where the aunties live. Grandma's place has a total of 3 rooms; the kitchen, the living room and bedroom. In the kitchen there's an old wood powered cooker and oven. On the right hand side of the oven there's a square drawer with burning wood which heats the metal hotplate on the surface. Near the oven granny had some mandarin peel drying. She uses the peel in the oil burners, with some added water, to scent the house.

In the living room there were many glassware sets and holy statutes. Grandma is the only real practicing catholic of the family, and her house is full of holy pictures, icons ans statuettes. In the library under the glassware sets there were a couple of books which I obviously scrutinized. Amongst them there was a Czech copy of one of my favourite books, War with the newts. Also, hidden underneath the the coffee table there was a fitness ball. Yes, grandma has a fitness ball and she uses it regularly. In her bedroom she has a double-deck cassette player and a music CD player for listening to music whenever she cannot sleep.

If you imagine a shortish, fit, smiling lady with untamed gray hair and add it to the description of her house, then you've got a good idea of what grandma is like. Just before we left the grandma's house tour, she took out a brown paper bag and gave it to me. It was nothing less than her own dried apples. Granny's dried apples. The best present I received this Christmas.

After the tour we went back to the main house and unsurprisingly there was a cold meat platter with different types of sausages, potato bread (which is almost identical to the traditional dottian bread), homemade biscuits, and sweets, waiting for us. I'm not the sort of person who needs a push to eat in these occasions but here they kept on asking me to eat more and more, just like my aunties and own grandma used to do at home.

At around 10pm we left back home in the frosty weather. Liptovska Osada is about 36km away from Banska Bystrica but it usually has colder temperatures.

Friday 4th
Today was shopping day. We started off with a visit to Lidl and then we went to Europa again. I got a Slovak picture dictionary in the hope of learning some words for my next visit. After I paid for the dictionary I tried to be polite and say "thanks" in Slovak but instead of saying thanks (Dakujem) I said "cheers" (Na zdravie). Typical of me isn't it. LOL! In the evening we ate soup and pork.

Saturday 5th
The end of the holiday was coming closer and we started chilling out and preparing for the inevitable return. We stayed at home most of the day since the Miss had some unpacking and repacking to do. In the evening I went to watch American Gangster with her brother and his girlfriend.

Sunday 6th
After praying for snow the whole week it finally came - obviously on the day we were leaving. It was snowing heavily all night and it continued till the morning so we had to leave to the airport early. Abdul, an Egyptian friend of the family, drove us from Banska Bystrica to Bratislava airport, then he continued to Munich with her sister. At first he had to drive at about 70km/h on the highway because of the snow. We arrived at the airport in about 3 1/2 hours which wasn't that bad. At the airport we met two friends of her, a couple, and then it happened. It finished!

The rest of the pictures of the Slovak holiday.

This weekend I watched Borat for the second time, and by coincidence today I came across and series of articles on gadling on how to distinguish between the ex-Soviet countries that end in 'Tan'; Kyrgyztan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan. Steppe Magazine, a magazine focusing on central Asia, also has a good map to help you distinguish between the 5 different countries.

Obviously the suggested way to remember Kazakhstan was to associate it with Borat. This association though is not looked upon favourably by the Kazakhstan government, as the government plans on running four-page ads in the NY times and other US media to counteract the bad press that Borat created. I sincerely hope that people in 2008 have the common sense to realise that the film wasn't meant to be taken literally. I hope nobody thinks that Kazakhstan space program launches toddlers in space and a traditional beverage is fermented horse urine. I still think it's a good idea to capitalise on the exposure Borat gave to Kazakhstan, and continue marketing the country hopefully people will be interested in seeing what the real Kazakhstan looks like.

Friday 28th
The flight to Vienna was delayed by an hour so I busied myself reading Rivers of Babylon by Peter Pist'anek, the only Slovak author translated to English I know about. From Vienna airport I got a bus directly to Bratislava airport which took approximately 1hr. Met the Miss and her sister at the airport, and we drove to her parents house in Banska Bystrica (BB), about 200km away from Bratislava. After a warm welcome by all the family I was treated for a late dinner with duck and sweet purple cabbage. We spent the rest of the evening drinking Ballantines whisky, which quickly became the signature drink of the holiday.

Saturday 29th
Visited BB centre and from the few remnants of the Christmas market we tasted Trdelnik, punc and gorg. Tredlnik is a piece of warm, soft pastry, coated with sugar, walnuts and cinnamon. Punc is a sort of mulled wine but not quite so, and grog is like hot whiskey but with rum and other spirits instead. We went shopping in the newly built Europa shopping centre, and I was impressed two things:- a) finding Murakami and Chuck Palahniuk English books in a bookshop, and b) the number of miniskirts in clothes shops.

In the evening we went for dinner in a Slovak Coliba (wooden restaurant) called St. Christopher Coliba. Tried Halusky the Slovak national dish and liked it alot. The dish is made from potato dumplings covered in a sheep cheese called bryndza. In the middle of the dish there were some cubes of bacon for the taste. Apparently in Slovakia the bacon is 5/6 fat and 1/6 meat. Although it's quite unsightly it's still very tasty. After dinner we went to an oriental style bar serving a full menu of teas and shisha pipes.The place was really cool and very informal. We say, or rather lay down on carpets, and there were even people playing chess and other board games.

On our way back home we were wandering around the city outskirts and passed through the village of Malachov. We discovered a new world full of snow and frost, as if coming out from a fairy tale. The place was only a couple of minutes away from BB but it was full of snow unlike the town. There was even a skiing resort with night skiing, something we made use of on the following day.

Sunday 30th
In the afternoon after breakfast and lunch we tried to go skiing at a popular resort called Donovaly, but all the skis and boots were rented out. It was a bit annoying because the weather was perfect, sunny and not so cold. We then went to Malachov and managed to rent boots for me there. Skiing in Malachov was ideal as the piste was not so steep and wide, with enough snow and not so many people, the best scenario after about 7 years away from the slopes. It seems that skiing is like riding the bike though, you'll remember what you have to do once you start going down the hill with that funny feelings of the alien boots and skis.

In the evening we had vegetable soup with dumplings, and chicken legs with rice and stewed fruit. Even though I'm not a big fan of soup I liked all the soup I had here, because the soup is not very thick and has lots of water. Another interesting thing is that they eat sweet stewed fruit with the main dish, some of which her mum (mamka) prepares herself, like the sour cherries, pears and plums.

Monday 31st
The highlight of the day was the end of year dinner, which traditionally in the family is a replica of the Christmas dinner. The table was prepared in the main dining room near the real Christmas tree. An extra chair and plate with waffles for the "potential visitor" was prepared as per tradition. The dinner started with a tape recording of grandma saying grace, then we ate a clove of garlic with honey for good health, and mamka made a cross with honey on everyone's forehead.

The dishes were:-
Kapustnica - Sour cabbage soup and first class mushrooms collected from the forest
Pork and cod fillets in a homemade breadcrumb crust and potato salad
Opekance s makom - A desert with small sweet breadcubes, loads crushed poppy seeds made into a paste with some milk

Traditionally poultry is not eaten during the end of the year because otherwise luck will fly away with the bird.

After dinner I gave everyone a little present and then watched some Slovak TV about national celebrities. At around 10.30pm we went to the town square where there was some live music (folk and later some Slovak songs played with a disco beat). Before midnight we went back home and as the clock struck we drank champagne and fired some fireworks. Father fired his pistol in the air several time too. After our celebrations were over we watched some of the other major fireworks that were fired from all around the city. Before we went to bed we watched a Russian fairy tale called Mrazik, which the misses kindly translated for me in English.

The rest of the pictures of the Slovak holiday.

Saturday 22nd: Arrived home and chilled out recovering from the previous night drinking with my work mates after the Christmas lunch.

Sunday 23rd: Met my ex-work pal, and gave him the laptop I smuggled for him from Dublin. I also tried to convince him to become my work pal again in Ireland. Watched Milan lose 2-1 in the derby because of an abysmal mistake by Dida, the Brazilian keeper. In the evening we went to the farmhouse and caught up on some card playing with the pals, ate some delicious lamb with mint, and vol-a-vents with seafood and meat. Slept on the refurbished farmhouse couch.

Monday 24th: After a lazy morning start with a game of canasta which we were losing miserably, I went to KFC for the traditional meeting in the dot. Went back to the farmhouse afterwards, and played pictionary. We had a late dinner with quail, stuffed chicken, and meat balls. After dinner we played a new game called Mafia, that Y and B thought us . We weren't enough to enjoy the game fully but we noted its potential for a large group game.

Tuesday (Christmas): The most boring day of the whole break. Had Christmas lunch from 11.20 to 11.40 and a long siesta. In the evening I went out with the pals to a loud overly pompous club that was so annoying we stayed outside.

Wednesday 26th: Went shopping to the crafts village with my pal, the one who got the Dell XPS. I caught up a bit on the gossip and some local food (octopus sandwich and cheesecakes). In the evening we went for a traditional Maltese meal with all the village pals, and a newcomer from Finland. Went to the nightclub area after for more drinks.

Thursday 27th: Went to the usual visit to the dentist and chilled out. We had a dinner at our local pub in the evening. Ate rabbit, horse and all sorts of local delicacies (sausage, cheeselets, bigilla etc.). We also played a proper game of Mafia amongst about 9 people in the pub. Stayed there drinking till about 3am (the place usually closes at 10pm).

Friday 28th: Packed and left to Slovakia for part 2 of the holiday.

Time for a laugh. These weren't necessarily released in the last year but I got to know about them then.

1. Achmed the dead terrorist
2. I can has Cheezburger - LOLCats
3. Book of bunny suicides
4. Vibrator phone call prank
5. Man getting pissed off with the photocopier
6. Fight for kisses - Wilkinson ad
7. Irish vs Indian phone call
8. Bathroom mirror prank
9. How to get back at telemarketers
10. Despair.com - motivational quotes

1. Amorphis - Silent Waters
2. Paradise Lost - In Requiem
3. Ajattara - Kalmanto
4. Finntroll - Ur Jordens Djup
5. Pain - Psalms of Extinction
6. Dark Tranquility - Fiction
7. Dimmu Borgir - In Sorte Diaboli
8. Samael - Solar Soul
9. Porcupine Tree - Fear of a blank planet
10. Battlelore - Evernight

This year it was very difficult to choose the best album of the year. It was a tough decision between the first 3 albums as all of them are great with very little to criticise. At the end I chose the Amorphis album because it's probably the easiest to listen to, and has the best cover art. The best music event of the year was Tuska, but then that's the first and only festival I've ever been so there was little competition there, even because there weren't loads of concerts in Dublin this year. The "revelations" this year were Pain and Ajattara. Even though they've been in existence for quite a while I only really listened to them this year.

January (12): The month of the dead, nobody wanted to do anything so I worked and got fixated with World of Warcraft.

February (3): Went to Venezuela.

March (19): A pal from the dot came to visit me. Went to Donegal for St. Patrick's weekend. Earlier in the month I fell, smashed my face against a pavement, and broke the Treo.

April (19): The memorable Ring of Kerry trip on Easter Weekend. Started going out with the Miss, 2 weeks later. Got new HP smartphone.

May (10): Milan won the champions league. The dot didn't even qualify in the Eurovision. Had a great BBQ birthday party on the balcony of a flat.Went to Riga for a short weekend break.

June (29): Went to Budapest and Tuska Metal Festival. Made up my mind to start research.

July (34): Decided on a research project and submitted the application. Saw Ozzy live. The weather was miserable for the whole month.

August (24): Grandma died on the 1st of August. Went to Edinburgh to celebrate my birthday and the little black one was born. It was yet another cloudy, grey and rainy month.

September (22): Went home for the village feast and she met the parents in a sparkling clean house. Madot, the laptop arrived. Saw Therion live in concert. Read lies of Locke Lamora, one of the best books I read this year.

October (26): The Dundrum chapter finished, and the Miss started working in Luxembourg. Feeling lonely I got Hiisi (or Lord Hiiss), the snake. South Africa won the rugby world cup.

November (25): Worked like a dog and accumulated some extra days time in lieu. Went to Luxembourg for a weekend break, and I did nothing for Halloween, again.

December (15): December was busy with work again. I went to Brussels my first Christmas market and had some gluhwein after about 7 years. Also discovered Achmed the dead terrorist which was by far the funniest thing I saw this year.

DVD Craze: The Office (American Series)
Best book I read this year: War with the Newts
Project of the year: Started research
Best Holiday: Venezuela
Best Game: World of Warcraft
Best Service / Software: Foxmarks and facebook
New thing tried in 2007: Dancing in a club (only twice)
Band discovery of the year: Ajattara / Pain
Favourite Pub: Czech Inn
Total Number of Trips: 12
Total Number of blog posts: 238

The numbers in brackets near the months are the number of blog posts in each respective month

I'm back from my extended Christmas holiday in the dot and Slovakia. I was so taken by the holiday mode I didn't even wish Happy Christmas and new year in the blog. Belated regards to all readers.

Unsurprisingly the best part of the holiday was the visit to her parents house in Banska Bystrica in Slovakia. Christmas day was dead boring at home, imagine by noon on Christmas day I was having a siesta in bed. At least there's always the clique to make up for it.

The preview for the new year is work, work and work. Hopefully I'll be so taken that I don't even have holiday blues, but I seriously doubt it.

Today I came across an easy to follow tutorial on how to create professional HDR images. This technique lets you combine multiple pictures of the same subject taken at different exposures to create "a perfect picture" with no under or over exposed areas.

After my camera decided to die just in time for the warranty to expire I abandoned photography for a while. After reading this tutorial today I just feel like giving myself a very expensive Christmas present.

The Ryan McGinnis tutorial - Found via Hackzine

The lack of blogging in the last week was due to a mini project I was doing with Many Eyes. This website lets you create data visualizations (like charts etc) and then lets people discuss the data and the displays of the data.

I collected some data from social networking sites (like facebook, bebo, myspace and the rest) and created a map of which websites are the most popular in each country.

There are three different views of the same data. You can see all the diagrams here in the technology page. You can take a look at the different visualization and comment upon them and perhaps choose which diagram you prefer most and why.

P.S. If you like the pictures please digg them by clicking on the Digg button on the post or this link. The more people who comment on the diagrams the more useful this proof of concept I'm trying to show will be.