Dublin Riots
That's all Dublin has been talking about in the last couple of days. Riots are less than common here, the Irish are pretty laid back in general, and the Troubles-related issues are usually confined to the North.
I got a few pics here and there:
Pretty bad, as you can see. Here's a webcam shot of O'Connell Street in the aftermath:
It happened right in the city centre, leaving from Parnel Square, down O' Connel Street, Westmoreland St and Nassau St. Couldn't get more central than that. Bricks were thrown at the Gards, cars set alight and shops looted... The beauty of the Authorities is that not once did it hit them that organising an Orange march on a street in the process of being refurbished implied there was a need to clear the road from all the roadworks material (fences, bricks, wheelbarrows, all laid there, waiting to be used as weapons).
I wasn't in town at the time but saw the extend of the carnage in the
9 o'clock RTE news.
Chomsky's AI lecture
I got myself some reading for tonight.
Noam Chomsky's lecture for Amnesty International Ireland at Trinity College last month. I did try to get tickets but the demand was so huge I couldn't get one :-(
But AI is kind enough to put it online:
So
here if you are in a reading mood.
And
here if you can't read.
I predict a riot!
Good thing I wasn't
in town yesterday.
Notre empire
Aujourd'hui, au bureau, un Allemand qui devait faire partir du courrier pour les DOM-TOM m'a demandé si les "colonies françaises" devaient être considérées comme la France.
Voilà.
Quote of the Year
"You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance, Germany doesn't want to go to war & the three most powerful men in America are named Bush, Dick & Colon. Need I say more?"
Chris Rock
Pimp my ride
Finally, I've got a new car after our Citroen ZX died last Decembre (R.I.P.)!Isn't my Peugeot 306 really cute?
It's a 1998 car, mileage 50K. It was originally €500 more than my budget, but the car dealer gave us a €150 discount AND the road tax is paid till Sep. 06, it has NCT and is fully serviced. The lad changed the brakes, the front tyres and fixed bits and pieces a little everywhere (don't ask...) so it's perfect... Oh, and it also has a 3-month guarantee, quite uncommon for used cars.
I had looked around for what kind of good-condition used car I could get for my budget, and thought I'd end up with a Fiat, Daewoo or Nissan. Good deal!
I'm happy! :-)
Ching chang chong
Finally, after months and months of talking about it I got around to enrolling for Mandarin Chinese lessons and had my first class yesterday. I was looking for a new language to learn that would be both exotic and challenging, and I think Chinese is definitely the one!
So, first class and I can already say a few things and introduce myself, but the pronunciation is crazy! It is a whole new approach to speech and everything sounds incredibly weird!
For now we're learning through pinyin, but trying to also learn the actual characters, and this will get pretty tough in a few weeks time... Looking forward to it!
