John Key.es

Endwise Seven

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 22:46:11 +0000

Knees creak like great gates made fast.
Weekly domestic bazaar trade cease.
Embers orange blinking sleep at last.
No light remains dark table peace.

Recollect no pure faculty habit.
Tarnished garment taunting abut.
Never before now rudimentary facet.
Humiliation and shame cannot chance it.

Peace and heaving silence woven pact.
Younglings wrapped up wardshipped.
Elders lay in content cogitation.
Doubts drowned up smothered.

Plumbing Supplies in Dublin City Centre

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 22:34:55 +0000

I recently had need to acquire two ¾” flexible compression pipes. I was in Smithfield and the thought of having to get in the car to go get them wasn’t very appealing.

My usual port of call for such hardware requirements is to call into Lenehans on Capel Street. Unfortunately they only stocked ½” but they gave me the name of somewhere else I could try; Unit Supplies and Services, Dorset Street. I gave them a call and they had them in stock.

I cycled along Dorset Street for the guts of a year on my way to work and I’d never noticed this shop.

Image from Google Streetview

They have everything you could need plumbing wise, and the lads working in there are lovely gentlemen. After handing over the cash for the pipes (which were very reasonably priced), I thought I’d try my luck and see if they stocked the Triton T40i booster pump.

I had tried three Triton stockists in Kilkenny, and none of them stocked it. One did say they could order it, the other two told me they don’t sell them. Unit had it in stock, so I decided to give these independent traders my business.

It saddens me that shops like this are not the norm anymore. In Portlaw, where I grew up, we had a great hardware store, Phil Fogarty’s. You could get anything you needed in there (or so it seemed to a young me anyway). If a room was being repainted, we’d head down there, and Phil would mix the colour you needed. If you needed a handful of nails or screws, they’d be wrapped in newspaper for you. It’s a shame that the current crop of superstores like Woodies, B&Q, and Atlantic are making it so hard for small shops like this to survive.

Here’s hoping that Lenehans and Unit Supplies and Services remain in business for a long time to come.

Ireland vs Wales — RWC 2011

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 12:48:00 +0100

Five point summary:

Warburton
Roberts
Warburton
Roberts
Gatland

Televisual Treats

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 12:47:00 +0100

My new season of television includes the following:

Terra Nova — meh
Breaking Bad — excellent finale to a drawn out series.
Dexter — potential to be a decent series.
Pan Am — fluff with a bit of added steel in latest episode.
Downton Abbey — I really want all of those girls to be happy (except O’Brien), they’re all lovely.
Homeland — building up nicely, would like if Danes character was a little bit less on edge.
Fades — the beeb continue their recent run of good shows (Sherlock, The Shadow Line)
Boardwalk Empire — the battle for Atlantic City (and the entire East coast) is hotting up. Love the feel of this show.

Ireland vs Italy — RWC 2011

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 10:35:00 +0100

Five point summary:

Castrogiovanni’s injury destroyed Italy’s game-plan.
Murray and O’Gara justified their positions, their replacements were excellent when they came on too.
Mike Ross is the silent scrum assassin.
Ferris, and O’Brien: battering rams (with finesse) carrying the ball, and tackle magnets without it.
Donnacha Ryan impressed again for his short period on the pitch.

Sexton Class

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 10:22:47 +0100

When you have the responsibility for place-kicking on a team you have to take the rough with the smooth. You get the kudos when things go well and when they don’t you have to take it on the chin. Everyone wants to play from the start but you have to respect the decisions that are made for the right reasons. It’s about the team, not the individual.

When is tall enough?

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 12:12:46 +0100

The Kingdom Tower will be 173 metres taller than the Burj Khalifa.

To put that into an Irish context, Liberty Hall is 60 metres tall, and the spire is 120 metres tall.

Unsurprisingly, 50 of the 100 tallest buildings have been constructed since 2000, a tall legacy of the property boom.

YOU MIGHT FIND YOURSELF

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 09:47:00 +0100

YOU MIGHT FIND YOURSELF:

If caterpillars emerged from their cocoons as butterflies with heavy, sagging testicles I’d imagine they’d feel the same as you might right now.

Same-sex marriage challenges freedom

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 01:42:59 +0100

Same-sex marriage challenges freedom:

We cherish true freedom, not as the license to do whatever we want, but the liberty to do what we ought.

It comes as little surprise that this quote comes from the mouth of a catholic clergyman. I think he should be more worried about sorting out his own house, than doling out such pearls of wisdom.

You can be a football supporter and not be an idiot

Thu, 05 May 2011 22:47:19 +0100

In this wonderful piece Brian Phillips claims he is here to save your life. While that may be a stretch, he does speak bucket-loads of sense.

The modern football fan accepts their teams faults (in some cases they celebrate them), but reacts with “furious anger” to any slight from an opposing team (the depth of this anger grows exponentially when it’s their local rivals).

The problem is (and again, I’m not the first person to notice this) that for a lot of people, that rage-tap is getting harder and harder to shut off. Anger is increasingly becoming a default element in how people interact with the games they follow

We’ve probably all experienced this at some stage, whether we are the angry party, or merely in the same county as one. A knee-high foul goes unpunished — the referee is biased; a marginal offside call — the assistant is biased; a blatant dive wins a penalty — the perpetrator is more evil than unicorn hunters.

Rather than accepting these calls as part of the game, supporters go in search of evidence to support their beliefs that their team is being targeted. Soon, they are in conspiracy theory mode, a slip is dive, inches are miles, and two or three players becomes the entire team.

…soccer has devolved into a realm a little like politics, a realm where fans’ access to preconceived explanations that suit their emotional allegiances is drowning reality out of the discourse.

Rather than trying to apply any common sense, they react sub-consciously, fueled by the ever greedy media-machine, and leap to join their army of equally deluded peers.

The problem is that by doing so, you condemn yourself to a life of always being at least a little angry about a thing you supposedly love, a life of storing up slights and spinning them into bitter little stories, a life of basically hostile, suspicious, and un-fun commitment to a thing that only exists to give you joy.

Ask yourself, does football make you happy or angry? If it’s angry, maybe it’s you that needs to change and not the game.

Cheating in Football

Wed, 04 May 2011 23:36:42 +0100

The furore amongst the English media and supporters of English football teams (and Real Madrid) over Barcelona cheating amazes me. Cheating is part of the game. English players cheat. Players for the club you support cheat.

This piece by Andi Thomas covers the hypocrisy of the English media’s approach.

What’s interesting, however, is the persistent and constant elision of English deception from the English media’s presentation of the English game. While the amount of moralising that followed the clásico was due in no small part to the waves of hype that had preceded it, there nevertheless remains a stubborn refusal to admit that this might be something that is a problem with all football, not just other football. This attitude finds its nadir with Steven Gerrard (yes, alright, him again. But does any player so neatly encapsulate English football? None that I can think of), who once told the Daily Mail, apparently with a straight face, “I don’t think there’s anything worse than a player diving when no-one’s been anywhere near him. It does ruin the game”.

Playstation Network Master Accounts

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 11:08:02 +0000

From Sony:

I can advise that PlayStation Network Master Accounts created on a PlayStation 3 console do not currently require e-mail verification during the account creation process.

No criminal proceedings

Wed, 08 Dec 2010 22:27:00 +0000

After all, the evils committed by those in power can be suffocating, and the sense of powerlessness that erupts can be paralyzing, especially when … government evildoers almost always get away with their crimes. …

The above quote is from Pravda (see Daniel Ellsberg’s piece on WikiLeaks) and is what they say is the reason Americans are politically apathetic.

I believe it also mirrors the general feeling of Irish people, and the handling of the property/banking/Fianna Fáil/Bertie Ahern crisis.

I will continue to work hard to fulfill my financial responsibilities, both national and personal. That is my responsibility, and regardless of what those national responsibilities are, as a citizen of this country it is required of me to fulfill them.

I know Ireland will survive the trials caused by the ridiculously pathetic and embarrassing situation our corrupt and unapologetic Government have landed us in. They continue to govern our country with no “mandate” (I fucking hate that word), they continue to hammer out deals that are shrouded in secrecy, and they continue to treat the populace with unflinching contempt (one has to admire their steadfast application).

As I said, I know we will survive, but the fact that so many individuals who should be facing criminal proceedings will walk free, will stick in my craw. Those individuals will not have to accept their culpability because our Government will not fulfill their responsibility to us.

Ireland is an international laughing stock. A country with no spine, an electorate who forgive national failings for local gain, an economy dependent on foreign investment, and a Government of lying cowards.

For, thus I hoped some day to aid,
Oh, can such hope be vain ?
When my dear country shall be made
A Nation once again!

Last Man Standing

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 16:51:29 +0000

My football team (even though I haven’t played for them for a few years they’re still my team), Iona, are running another English Premier League Last Man Standing competition. It’s starting this weekend (Nov 27th) and costs €10 to enter (subsequent entries are €5 each).

The rules are simple. For each round of fixtures you must pick a team to win. The tricky part is that you cannot pick the same team twice. If you forget to make a pick, the best placed team you haven’t already picked is selected by default. If the team you pick loses, you lose a life. Lose another and you’re out of the game.

The prize is a sum of money that is determined by the number of entries. The more entries the more prize money. Last time around first prize was €900 (there were 183 entries). The remaining money is put back into the club.

Each week the fixtures and picks are emailed to every entrant, so the process is completely transparent.

If you’re interested in playing send an email to johnkeyes@gmail.com and I’ll put you in touch with Keith Doyle (the organiser).

Garda Flickr

Tue, 09 Nov 2010 23:43:10 +0000

For once there is an Irish Public Sector “social media” encounter that might just work. An Garda Síochána have a Flickr account that provides function as well as fluff.

The first thing that strikes me is that person looking after the account knows what they are doing. There are no IMG00234.jpg titles and they have the photos neatly organised in sets.

Their lost and found photosets are divided in two, one for bicycles, and one for other lost property.

Each item is clearly photographed, with a reference, and contact information for the Garda Station where the item is located. Who knows if this will scale well country wide, but it’s a good place to start.

Iraqi Civilian Deaths Mapped Contextually

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 23:28:41 +0100

We all hear about the deaths of UK and US troops, it’s great fodder for News networks and war mongers. This map though pinpoints where 65,649 Iraqi civilians have died and allows you to visualize the results in context of some major US cities (New York, Washington, LA).

The goal of this project is to give you a better perspective on the toll that war has taken on the civilian population of Iraq. By clicking on one of the cities below, the map of a place you are familiar with will be overlaid with data representing civilian deaths in Iraq over a five year period.

This idea allows people to apply context to the data, and eliminates some of the ambiguity introduced by geographical awareness.

Unwanted Penis

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 05:45:45 +0100

What would you do with an unwanted penis?

What a disgusting thing to do to a ‘mate’!

The Flesh Drum

Sat, 23 Oct 2010 01:25:27 +0100

My fingers press keys
My eyes see each one
My ears hear each one
My brain feels each one
All to the rhythm of the flesh drum

Money saving advice for AIB Card Services

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 13:33:16 +0100

Every AIB credit card customer received a letter detailing changes in how AIB charge interest (i.e. you pay AIB more interest if you don’t clear your card each month).

It’s a two page letter on two pages of A4 paper. Here’s a tip AIB, double sided printing will halve your paper costs.

A panorama created by AutoStitch using some photos I took of...

Mon, 18 Oct 2010 13:33:00 +0100

A panorama created by AutoStitch using some photos I took of Kilkenny from the roof of the Ormond St. Car Park.

High resolution available on Flickr.