Happy Friday everyone!

So as many of you will have seen, I’ve a nice, new, sparkly blog right here. Design is thanks to the ridiculously talented Gav Hodgins, and techie stuff was done by yours truly.

To celebrate the new design, some of our blogger friends have kindly donated some guest posts which I will be putting up daily next week.

I’m going to call this project The Famous Five You never know. If it’s successful, we may try it again.

What do we have, you ask?

1. Angela Scanlon from The Independent fashion blog has written a piece on ‘How the Internet has changed Fashion’
2. Andy Mac from Youlovethatsh.com has written one of of his trademark rants on cinema
3. Donal Cumiskey (yes my brother )who also writes for Childrens Literature mag, Inis, has written a piece on ‘Dark Fairy Tales in Children’s Fiction’
4. Liam and Craig, from the wonderful Comic Cast have a great piece on Comic Book adaptations
5. And last but not least, Rick O’Shea is writing a nice, topical piece on ‘How podcasting is changing radio’

So do check back here each day next week for some very interesting stuff

In other news, I’ve a few new pieces up on the increasingly interesting Culch.ie:

• Infected: Marketing in Augmented Reality discusses a fascinating way to market products
• Fantasy Bazaar No.1 – Y: The Last Man reviews a wonderful graphic novel

I’ll now be writing one of those columns every second week.

Have a great weekend people!

It’s not often that I find myself able to write from the comfort of a hammock on the balcony of a tree house in 28 degree weather. It’s quite blissful really. The sound of birds singing in the surrounding trees, and the light lapping of the nearby stream drowns out the frogs and crickets. This is the life. This is how to unwind.

Our Tree House

It was fun getting here though. Where am I? You ask. I’m in St. Paul, which is just outside Vence, near to Nice. Myself and my lady friend took off on Sunday morning and flew through Stanstead into Marseilles. The original plan had been to pick up a car from Hertz in Marseilles airport, drive to a hotel in Aix de Provence, and then onto Vence the next day. Of course Rob had to go and lose his driving license. Nothing is ever simple when traveling.

So without the car, we train-ed it here. Trains are more fun anyway, who needs stupid cars?

So we got a train from Aix-Marseille. Then We hopped on a train from Marseile to Antibes and then onto to Cagnes Ser Mer. A 15 minute taxi ride later, and we were outside the gates of Orion B & B where Lucas, the resident dog met us at the gate with Orion owner, Diane. She brought us straight up to our treehouse, named Shere-Khan, after the jungle book character. It’s a beautiful wood cabin, way up in the trees. Everything is so perfectly made and comfortable. It’s wonderful to be so well looked after, right in the middle of nature. Between the immediate surroundings of the Orion gardens and the general area of St.Paul, I would have to rate this as one of the most beautiful places that I’ve ever visited.

The Natural Pool

We’re a 20 minute walk from this beautiful mountain-side town called St. Paul, but it’s all the way up a steep hill, through a dark forest.

What have we done so far? Well it’s all been very civilized. Since we got the car on Tuesday night, we have been able to do a lot of driving.

On Wednesday we managed to drive to a place called La Londe where we rented bikes. We cycled along a wine trail and visited three beautiful vineyards. We’ve bought some of the region’s finest Rose and a beautiful white from a place called Domaine de La Sangliére. They also sell some of the finest local Terrine (Made from Wild Boar…wow). Their Cuvée Prestige Blanc is particularly recommended.

Yesterday, we visited two more vineyards. One of them has the best red wine that I’ve bought in a long time. I would seriously consider bringing it back in bulk. It’s from an Abbey called Chateau Sainte Roseline and their 2006 red is to die for.

We’ve eaten some beautiful food too. Namely a wonderful lunch a a vineyard near Le Muy called Domaine de la Maurette and at a fantastic little restaurant in Saint Paul de Vence called ‘Le Tilleul‘ where I had some of the most amazing duck ever.

But it’s not all civilized wine tasting, sight seeing and eating. We’re off to Aqualand in Frejus tomorrow and hopefully will do some more sight seeing in Monaco and Monte Carlo, before heading to Bouche de Rhone and Montpellier on Monday evening. Then it’s to Barcelona.

I’ll update in a few days, until then…Fromage Frais.

Folks,

Some news:

Design = Getting there, as you can see

Films = Remember the Who’s Watching YOU? video I told you about recently (the one i Produced?). Well it was placed 3rd in the Data Protection Commissioner’s Private I/Public Eye Competition, picking up a €2,000. Here’s the Press Release.

Writing = New Article on Culch.ie: Idiots Zombies Guide to Podcasting – 10 Tips
Also writing for UChoose.ie: Get Free Wi-Fi with Hot Java

Morning all,

Well, the long weekend has indeed long since passed, and I am back in my bed with back problems…why won’t they go away!?

Posting has been light on the ground the last few days, so my apologies for that. I would have posted yesterday, only I spent the day getting scans and injections for the old back and then was too doped up in the evening to type anything.

The long weekend was pretty good though. I managed to get out and about a bit, before the back problems flared up again. My Lady Friend and I traveled down to Brittas Bay in Wicklow on the Bank Holiday Monday and went walking up the sand dunes to lie in the sun for the afternoon. A bit of very cold swimming was also done, before heading back home for a nice Chinese.

I will say that I’m constantly conflicted about the way people’s minds work. As we arrived at Brittas Bay, there was a queue to get into the car park, which we had to pay 5 Euro to use. When we actually got down to the beach itself, it was so crowded with beer swigging kids that we had to hide in a little nook on one of the sand dunes to avoid the hustle and bustle. Living in the city, we have no other option than to head down the countryside with the rest of Dublin on a sunny long weekend, but we’re not really escaping, are we? We’re literally just changing scenery but maintaining the over-crowded, rat race feel. It’s frustrating.

Personally, I want a balance. I don’t want to have to queue all week for transport, lunches, shopping and then have to do the same in order to relax at the weekend.

I will indeed be giving this more thought.

Ta Ta For Now (TTFN)

Check this trailer out.

The Strain

It’s for Guillermo Del Toro’s new book, The Strain, which I may have posted about before. I have the book on pre-order, so I shall let you know more as soon it arrives.

Loosely, it’s about about a bloodsucker plague being unleashed on New York City…nice! That Guillermo is one busy boy!

So I won’t start on my bi-weekly posts just yet. The new design isn’t quite ready, and I’d like to incorporate the complete new direction with it properly.

In the meantime I’ll continue with bits and bobs from around the web (which will of course keep going with the new direction too).

I came across this movie yesterday on Shocktillyoudrop.com:

The movie is called ‘Pontypool’ and it’s based on the book ‘Pontypool Changes Everything’ by Tony Burgess. I think it looks very promising. Mind, it does take elements of ‘30 days of Night’, ‘28 Days Later’ and many other Zombie/Vampire classics…

Pontypool Changes Everything

I don’t want to say too much more about it. I’ve read stuff from around the web and although it hasn’t completely spoiled the movie, it still would have a better effect if you knew nothing about the movie going into it. Loosley, it’s about a small town in Canada where a small radio station receive reports of violence in the streets on their morning show.

If you want to read on (Spoiler Alert), the Wikipedia page has a paragraph about the virus entitled ‘Conversationalists’. Apparently it is not a Zombie movie.

I’ve the book purchased and in the post so I’ll give my thoughts on that at a later date. The story-line ties in nicely with the idea of memes and the spread of ideas/cultural phenomena. All-in-all I think it’s worth a look!

So it’s been a few days since the last post…

I’ve a couple of things in development, that aren’t quite ready. Namely a new design and some fresh content for the blog.

Design should be up in the next two weeks I’d hope. In terms of content, I’m now going to be posting twice weekly. We’ll start with Tuesday and Thursday and see how we get on, shall we?

In other news:

I’ve a new post up on Culch.ie. How to Infect people Zombies with your Ideas. Pop over there and have a look. It’s the second article in my ‘Infected’ column.

I’ve been confined to the bed for a few days with me back…all together…awhhhhh. What have I been doing? Well apart from catching up with emails, blogs and writing, I’ve had a chance to get into ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies’ and also keep moving through ‘The Walking Dead’ (I’m on Volume 6 now).

Also watching ‘The Inbetweeners’ on recommendation from my good friend Aidan Coughlan. Fantastic stuff that reminds me of my school days like nothing has before. Wonderful script and great young actors there. Check it out!

Any suggestions from people for things to keep myself occupied?

P.S. I saw Synecdoche, New York last Sat…Kaufman has out-done himself yet again. Go see it!

Thought I’d mention that I’m now writing a weekly guest post over on Culch.ie. Culch features many a blogger including Rick himself, Darren, Daragh, Unarocks and many more.

It’s called ‘Infected’ and will cover Pop Culture in Viral Marketing, and also some other sporadically ‘viral’ related posts of my choosing (most probably involving Zombies and the lark…)

Pop over and have a look.

The New Yorker have a very interesting piece on Self-Control in today’s issue. They also review Star Trek in a most sarcastic manner…

Boldy going where no man has gone before.

Wired review a fascinating new Nintendo DS game. I want one. Now.

How good does the Primavera Sound Festival look this year!? So annoyed I won’t be in Barcelona till the following month. Sickening!

Very much looking forward to seeing this movie.

Howdy Doody,

Haven’t posted in a few days for a couple of reasons: mainly due to the fact that I was training last week, and also had a pretty busy weekend.

I’m a bit behind in terms of posts as a result, and I hope to get some reviews and thoughts up over the next few days.

Caught Star Trek and Coroline on Saturday and also have some new music both Irish and otherwise. Adrian Crowley, Peter Bjorn and John and St.Vincent’s new stuff have all been purchased.

I’m also onto Book 5 of ‘The Walking Dead’ comic series. Flying through it at this rate and very much addicted! I’ve still so much other stuff waiting to be read, just sitting patiently on my desk.

Will hopefully be back with more stuff over the next few days,

R