Julian Beever is a pavement artist who has been drawing amazing pictures on the streets of UK, Belgium, Holland, Germany and the USA.
But for me, his optical illusions are just sensational. Take a look at some of his street drawings at http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/pave.htm
Rumours are rife today over suggestions that Google has created a new advertising medium aimed at Fortune 1000 companies.
The Google Display Advertising Network is devised to help Fortune 1000 companies develop and advertise their brand on their website. Most of these companies don’t market their products or services, but mainly their brand.
The ads will be display and video advertising based on a CPM system. Google have apparently been hand picking these companies and signing them to flat rate contracts based on the CPM levels they choose.
So for now, we’ll just have to wait and see how it all pans out.
Well I’m finally getting back some time to write some posts after my weekend away in Manchester. I was lucky enough to be able to attend Manchester United and Chelsea at Old Trafford on Sunday.
I personally thought it was a good game, however, the guys I travelled with were Chelsea supporters and thought the game was poor. This shocked me as I really thought it was good!
So we met up with some other people who couldn’t get tickets for the game afterwards. They had all spent the afternoon in the pub watching the game on the telly and all of them thought it was a great game. So the jury is still out on this!!!
Anyway, to get to the point, I thought United were the best team in the first half, but Chelsea were the better team in the second half. So it was a fair result. My biggest problem with the game was Ronaldo, I’m sick and tired of his lack of willingness to chase back for a ball after he’s lost it. It’s something that you don’t get to see on TV too often, but it really annoyed me.
Everytime he made a run, he just strolled back to the halfway line, whether Chelsea were on a break or not. The you look over at a 33 year old legend in Ryan Giggs, who constantly chased back, whether or not he lost the ball. The sort of attitude Ronaldo has really got on my nerves. It’s easy for us who watch these games on the TV to forget that Ronaldo is always like this and when you see him in the flesh, only then to you get a real idea of how annoying it is!
Well as predicted, if United scored, there was only going to be one scorer and that was Saha. I thought he had a poor game, but you can’t knock the way he took his goal. I was sitting right behind it and from where I you could see exactly what he meant…. and he did it! I still don’t rate him though!! 
Last night was probably the worst in traffic history for people who rely on the M11/N11 to get home from work. A busrt water mains pipe was said to be the culprit of last nights shenanigans. It meant that the N11 was down to one lane just as you entered bray from the M50.
It took me what usually takes 20mins, 2 hours to get home. But I didn’t suffer the worst of it. On my way out that evening at 9.10pm, the traffic was still tailed back from Bray all the way to Dundrum on the M50.
FM104’s phone show had people telling of horror stories. One lady entered the M50 at sandyford at 3.15pm and was only at Shankill at 9.50pm She was on her way to Glen of the Downs which meant she was easily going to be in her car for over 7 hours by the time she got home!
Thank god, everything seems to be ok now!
Feels like De Ja Vu… I think I was only talking about this a couple of weeks ago. Does anyone believe me yet that he’s a waste of space?
Maybe I’m being too harsh, but God does that guy get up my goat! United were comfortable throughout tonights game. Celtic never looked like scoring. An absolute wonder free kick, from a shocking decision by the referee, who it must be noted was poor all night, gave Celtic the lead.
Louis Saha had the chance to even things up when he beat the offside trap to go one on one with the keeper from a glorious Rooney ball. But what does he do? He tries to be good and he’s not… The legend that he is (hahahahahaha), thought that he could chip the keeper from like two yards. Unsurprisingly, Boruc easily caught it in the air.
In the closing stages of the game, United were awarded a penalty from another terrible decision by the referee, but at this stage I would have taken anything.
Low and behold who steps up to take it? The legend again, Louis Saha. After another feable attempt on goal (from 10 yards) he basically handed the ball to Boruc again…..
Seriously, if this was Van Nistelrooy, Ferguson would have him on the bench for Sundays game against Chelsea, but do you think that will happen? Nah, either do i!
But I don’t mind, I’ll be at Old Trafford for that game, so that will be fun for me anyway!!!
I was honoured to be asked to speak at the GAATES inaugural meeting in Dublin today. GAATES aim to be a leading organisation that will bring experts in accessibility of electronic and communication technologies together and promote the importance of accessibility to a wider audience.
I was there today to discuss the accessibility of websites and to help them develop a strategy for the online marketing of their new website which 2bscene will be developing for them.
Watch this space!!
Sadly, I’m a huge fan of talent spotting TV shows. but I tend to lose interest when they no longer search the streets for talent and become nothing more than a glorified cabaret show.
However, this weekend while waiting on my wife to get ready to leave for a night out, I tuned into The X-Factor results show. I was surprised that the last two fighting for the judges votes were Robert and Eaton Road. It’s fair to say that both these acts were certainly not the worst left in the competition.
Just before the two acts were about to repeat their performance in the hope that the judges would keep them in, Simon Cowell insisted he would choose the best act based on their performance of their final attempt. He even went as far as to say, “Robert, so far you are in the lead”.
Robert took to the stage first and there was no doubt that this guy is a talented singer. However, I always felt he didn’t have what it takes to be a huge pop star. His voice is old fashioned and his appearance…… well there is none. None the less it was a great performance.
Eaton Road took to the stage and sang what can only be described as a terribly embarassing rendition of the Scizzor Sisters, “I Feel Like Dancing”. It was excrutiatingly bad, it’s just so hard to explain. The song just did not suit them at all, or should I say, their voices just didn’t suit this song!
I’m a fan of Simon Cowell and in most cases feel he seriously can spot talent. Although sometimes, he gets stcuk on something and is to proud to admit he was wrong. So as I sat in anticipation, waiting to see if Simon for once had the guts to stick with an act that was by far the least commercial of the two, but miles better in the talent department. I really thought for once he was going to change his tact!!
But no, commercialisation stuck through for Simon, he just knew he couldn’t sell Robert to the masses, but he does know that these guys probably have the greatest chance that any group that has performed on X-Factor to actually carve out a career….
Shame on you Simon!!! Never true to your word!
Well as every Irish supporter expected, Ireland came through tonights game convincing winners in their game against San Marino. The 5-0 scoreline was a deserved result for Ireland, but I can’t help feeling that Ireland we’re very poor on the night.
For the first 20 minutes it looked like San Marino’s own goal was the only way Ireland were going to score. But in fairness to Ireland they kept at it and get their rewards.
How Kilbane stayed on the pitch as long as he did is beyond me, he was poor from the start until he came off late in the game. Another person I thought was very poor tonite was Stephen Reid. It’s obvious that he has tremendous talent and a sweet left foot, but he is over weight, lacks match fitness and most of the time he was playing nothing balls or just losing it to the opposition .
Three players caught my eye tonight, Robbie Keane, Paul McShane and Aiden McGeady. Robbie Keane, who seems to be back to his very best was fantastic. Each time he touched the ball he seemed to create something and of course he scored a hat-trick to prove it.
Paul McShane was again very confident looking and always trying to get involved in the game. He even got forward and won a pentaly, which was slotted home by Robbie Keane.
Aiden McGeady game on late in the game and should some fantastic skills running down the wing. This guy is really a class act and should definitely start before Kilbane, even if they have to play him out of position!!!
All in all, I thought it was a flattering scoreline for Ireland. Although they thoroughly deserved to win, it was more down to the fact that they played a really poor team rather than them putting in a world class performance.
I worry about our game against Wales, we’ll have to play a lot better to get a win out of that game!
Well Steve Staunton sure knows how to instill belief into all Irish fans who will be attending tonights game (me included!).
Steve reckons we are going to have a really tough game against a team that lost 13-0 to Germany only a month or so ago. Ok, San Marino had a great game against Czech Republic where they were narrowly beaten, but surely Ireland can handle these amateur group of footballers???
Is this Steve Stauntons way of justifying what would be a terrible result for Ireland if we were to get less than a win?
Today I booked flight tickets on Ryanair for the first time since they brought in their new bagge handling fees. I was delighted when I was able to get 2 return flights to Manchester for €26.00. How can you complain about that?
As I went through the online ordering process, I knew that this was not my final cost as there were airport taxes etc. to add on to my flight costs. But I have to admit, I was very confused at how they handle the whole baggage cost situation.
When you have chosen your flights at the great prices that they offer, you are brought to another page with a drop down menu for each passenger travelling with the following options:
0 Bags - Online Checkin/Priority Boarding
1 Bag
2 Bags
3 Bags
etc.
You can choose up to 5 bags at a cost of €5 each. But what I couldn’t get my head around was the message if you had chosen the first option:
You have selected our Online Check-In/Priority Boarding service, passengers who qualify for this service can avoid check-in queues and be priority boarded onto the aircraft. Don’t forget to check-in online from 2 days up to 4 hours prior to the scheduled flight departure time. Click to Remove this service and just travel with 0 bags.
I really wasn’t sure what the hell they were trying to say to me here… Did it mean I can bring a carry on bag and I simply queue to check in on the flight only? I’m still not sure, but as I am only going for one night, I was happy to just take a chance on it being free to have a carry on if I don’t choose to check in a bag.
But anyway, this wasn’t my only issue with Ryanair…. after I had confirmed all the details and gone on to a payment section, the website should me a total cost of €142.15, which I thought great, let’s do it!!!
I inserted my credit card info and clicked the confirmation button…. TICKETS CONFIRMED message appears on the screen and the total cost. Now, absolutely no where along the ordering process was I made aware of an extra charges, but on my order total, the price had jumped €10. This €10 was a credit card charged.
It’s not the €10 that bothered me, it was the way in which it was stealthly added to the cost that got to me. This should have been made clear from the time you entered your credit card information. Surely there is a law against this??
