Nialler9, an Irish music blog is hosting a poll to figure out the best Irish albums of 2006. Head on over there and vote. Nialler9 looks like a quality site, we’d never seen it before.

Graphics taken from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker which is fantastic by the way. Go play that when you get the Wii if you haven’t already.

Brandon Flowers is ill and the gig is off i’m afraid to report. Full refunds will be given etc but if you haven’t got a ticket for the gigs in February, I think you’re pretty much screwed.

story at rte.ie

Its a global roll out starting with business customers and as you would expect tcal received a copy to use and review but we lost it so there ya go.

SCI FI Channel has given a green light to Tin Man, a wild SF reimagining of The Wizard of Oz, as its next six-hour original miniseries. Written by Steven Long Mitchell and Craig Van Sickle (The Pretender), Tin Man (working title) is slated to begin shooting in Vancouver, B.C., in early 2007, with an eye to a December 2007 premiere. Casting is currently underway. SCI FI is re-teaming with RHI Entertainment (Legend of Earthsea) to produce Tin Man.

Well, who the hell knows how this will turn out. There’s a bit more detail on the sci-fi channel website.

IQ Content blog has an entry on the usability of the Irish kitchen sink, and questions the practice of inserting a plastic basin into the sink.

The basin merely does the same job as the sink, but less effectively: the capacity is reduced by about one third; the sink’s stopper is made redundant; and draining the water from the basin can be very difficult, especially when it is full. Surely the sink by itself does a better job. Yet this practice is common throughout the country. Why?

Read on.

Warning, prepare to waste a fortune when out drinking surrounded by half the pub watching classic clips or moronic american teenagers doing crap to themselves to impress their 8th grade teachers..

A deal between YouTube and US mobile firm Verizon Wireless will see the popular video-sharing website extended to mobile phones.
Users who subscribe to Verizon’s Vcast service will be able to view content on the YouTube website via their mobiles.

full story everywhere so just read about it here

..for JP who is unavailable to post as he is preparing a special stunt as we speak..

Nirvana’s iconic 1991 single “Smells Like Teen Spirit” beat out hits from Madonna, Britney Spears and U2 to be named the best pop song in 20 years by Britain’s Q Magazine.

Full story.

Since we’re rocking out today:

Top of the Pops 1991 performance of same:

This is another gem culled from boards.ie. The clip below shows how they enforce no entry restrictions at Cross Street in Manchester - buses and official vehicles are allowed through. Cheeky bastards in cars and SUVs and the like aren’t.

Boards.ie thread.

Kill the bad guys, rescue your dudes, save the world etc. in this variation on the side scrolling copter save-em-up. Skyland: Raid and Rescue.

We’re not done rocking yet.

via.

The shit you can find on youtube when you miss press CTRL-V into the search field.

Lets rock the fuck out of your Wednesday.

I’d actually kill everything if this is how they actually ended up ending lost. I think it’s a rubbish idea for the end; and by King’s own admission:

It would creak, but I’d make it work.

Read how Stephen King said he’d end Lost.

Myself and a good few people I know have already noticed the little factoid this video is based on.

A two-minute clip of a teenage boy pretending to wield a Star Wars lightsaber has become the most popular viral video on the internet.

The footage of Ghyslain Raza - who became known as the Star Wars Kid - has been viewed 900 million times.

Full story.

Here, be the 900 million and first person to watch it:

And sure why not:

And continuing in our ahem fairness series… It’s an ad for the wii. Reader Paul who sent along the link says:

in the interest of further fairness heres a two minute long wii ad, its interesting to see the different marketing methods each company are using nintendo- family fun, microsoft-games, sony- im not sure.

We mentioned the Votetube competitionbefore, well now it has it’s own spiffy new website; votetube.org. Simon says:

We’re running ads from the US to start with, just to get the ball rolling, but if any of your readers want to send links to political, civic or public interest videos from anywhere (though particularly Ireland, obviously) we’d be delighted to hear from them.

The Economist tells us

A typical Irish household is expected to spend €1,339 this year ($1,734), rather more even than the average American family and more than twice as much as a French one (see chart). That may be because the Irish expect a big family party with lots of children and gifts, while the French choose a good dinner of oysters and champagne on the 24th of December.

They also have a lovely chart showing us as top of the heap when it comes to spending on Christmas Presents. (See here for all of those words and pictures.)
What if you don’t like Oysters?

Pure lollerskates here, good old crazy scaremongering American media.