Separated at Birth: 10 Celebs who look Like Video Game Characters

I need to get out more.

Bill Gates' Last Day at Microsoft

Click here to see the spoof video featuring George Clooney, Jon Stewart, Bono, Jay-Z, Brian Williams, Steven Spielberg, Matthew McConaughey, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

(I never knew he had a sense of humour!)

Wine

OMG what a hangover. I went to Paddington's housewarming last night and drank wine for the first time in ages. I now remember why I gave up drinking the stuff - I only woke up twenty minutes ago and my body is one giant aching tooth.

Because I am in no state to write a proper post, here are some links. Articles first:

Meerkat pups go to eating school
New currency for space travellers
'Gay bomb' scoops Ig Nobel award
Mannequins mauled in store wars
US man seeks change for $1m bill
The Celebrity Driving Test
Doctors save man with vodka drip

And here are some videos:
Scrubs - Don't Smother Your Kid
SNL - Kevin Federline Parenting Tips
Colin Farrell's Diary at Special Olympics

Doozy

It's Friday!

Onto the links, it's a doozy today:

Fighting giraffes
Worst workplace lies revealed
Beleaguered bear in bridge rescue
Unlucky gambler tries to overturn £2m debt
Burning chilli sparks terror fear
Peacock 'fell in love with car'
US fugitives offered wedding deal
Bubble Wrap is 50
Pictures from the Zoological Society of London

Hurray!

I am now officially pox-free, so I can leave the house today! Yippee! To celebrate, here are some links:

Polar bear and wolf
Train through Bangkok market
Boy develops foreign accent
US family tries life without toilet paper
Talk like a pirate day: the five As

Have a good one.

Itch

Thank you for your get well messages and anti-itching tips - yes, at some very itchy moments yesterday I did have to sit on my hands!

The medicine I was prescribed seems to be working. Around four o'clock yesterday the swelling went down considerably and I'm a lot easier on the eye! Itchiness is still there but I had a good night's sleep and I've resisted the urge to scratch...so far.

As I must leave you to smother myself in Aloe Vera, here are some links for your perusal:

Hedgehog survives washing machine ordeal
McDonald's fined for bolt in meal
This must have taken him AGES
Silly signs

And...here's an old one but I wasn't blogging when I first watched it. Like many talk show hosts, Craig Ferguson performs a topical comedy monologue at the beginning of his show. But when Britney Spears shaved her head earlier in the year Ferguson refused to ridicule her. Instead, he took the opportunity to speak, very movingly and often humorously, about his own experiences with alcoholism and made some insights into addiction that I'd never thought of before. Watch the short clip here.

Part-ay

It's the weekend
It's time to part-ay
So get up!
C'mon everybod-ay!

Unfortunately I shall not be partay-ing this weekend as we're trying to save some money, but it's nice to have a break. Fingers crossed the weather keeps up.

Here are some links:

Guinness is good for you
The president's brain is still missing
Fans gear up for Monty Python day

No excuses

This is brilliant.

Shattered

Gosh I'm tired. Have had such a busy week wining and dining. It really takes it out of you, you know?

Here are some Friday links:

Reverent humour
Nigeria - the new Ireland
Inmate thriller
Ireland's leading ubersexual - discuss

Have a good weekend.

Happy birthday Paddington

Well it's been another mad weekend - Paddington's 40th birthday on Friday night which we re-celebrated from three o'clock yesterday, culminating in a Korean meal with Brisbane's Answer to Nigella Lawson's parents. Daisy scored us tickets to today's Kerry vs Monaghan match at Croke Park so I'm sure we'll end up in the pub again at some point.

It's just part of the washed out Irish summer I suppose...pubs offer both entertainment and shelter!

Here are some links for your enjoyment:

Crocs stop escalators
Cat frenzy
Inmate thriller
The festival where 19 is too old
The Glitch (strong language)

My head

I think it's fair to say that I'm in the horrors right now - three nights on the trot nearly killed me. I managed to knock over several cocktails during the weekend, the kitchen counters are three deep with plates and bottles and there is a ton of washing to be done before our weekend in Luxembourg.

But it was all worth it. It was great to spend time with friends that we just don't see enough. We had a great turnout each night - our mates all made a big effort to welcome the blow-ins from London. Lots of laughs, good food and drink, what else do you need?

Anyway this skip isn't going to clean itself so I leave you with some links:

This is Charley
Puppy vs kitty
Psychic cat
Wall walking
Fan spider

School night

I really must stop getting drunk on school nights. I even have a large nightclub stamp on my arm. What am I, 23 or something? That meatball sub did the job on the way home though...

As I'm fit for nothing but lounging and eating, here are some links for your perusal.

Best Guardian CiF thread EVER!
MacGyver multitool
More bad news for writers...sigh
Repeat after me. IT'S-JUST-A-BOOK
Seagull becomes crisp shoplifter

(Apologies for the overuse of caps in this post. Chalk it up to hangover)

Prep 'n' links

Preparations for the penultimate story are going very well, I seem to be on a roll this week. Hopefully this will continue as I’d like to finish the story by next weekend; I’m not sure if that will be possible but I want to keep ahead of the deadline that has started to prey on my mind. It’s keeping me well motivated, no doubt about that.

I also realised that by the time I start editing I’ll only have four months until the end of the year, so I probably won’t have the second draft finished until the end of January. Then I’ll send it to people for review – and incorporate their comments into another draft. I don’t want this to drag on though. Perhaps my deadlines are too generous?

Anyway in the spirit of Friday I thought I’d post some links today. Some writing ones first:

Novel Racers are a group of blogging writers who post their writing progress, experiences, wobbles and advice to motivate each other and anyone who is just happy to lurk (like me!)

Bookarazzi is a new website set up by a large group of published writers who also have blogs. It contains lots of resources and advice for writers, both with or without book deals.

Now here are some amusing ones:

These things cost a lot you know
Man-eating badgers
Police puppy cam
Michael Moore vs CNN

Passive Aggressive Notes

What a brilliant, brilliant idea for a website - Passive Aggressive Notes. It's even funnier if you've had as many psycho flatmates as I've had.

Friday links

I did it - I just finished the sixth story (2010 words today) and the novel is now 59.9% complete. I could have written more to push it to 60%, but so far it's the story that I'm the least happy with and will need the most rewriting. I started it with a vague idea but I couldn't decide on a definite path, but I decided to plough on with it anyway and tinker with it later. I figured that some ideas are just going to be like that, vague and unformed, while others come to you so clearly that the story is whole in your mind from beginning to end. It's fine though, and the ending didn't need any more work for this draft.

But now I'm ready to begin my holiday. As I was pretty busy this week I couldn't do my usual mindless trawling of the Internet for random stuff, so the links are pretty sparse today. Forgive me.

Attack turtle
"The Landlord" outtakes
Van vandalism sinks wedding plans
Fakespeare

Am going out tonight with Daisy, 'doing' lunch tomorrow with a neighbour and going to Croke Park to watch the Meath vs Kildare Gaelic Football match on Sunday. Have a great weekend.

Friday links

It's been a busy week. Wednesday was taken up by masses of paperwork (our apartment development is in dispute with the management company and the builders over a massive electricity bill) and a very long roundtrip to the airport to collect my mobile phone.

But the slog is about to end - a weekend of three birthday parties lies in front of me. Tonight is Blondie and Shortie's birthday bash. I haven't seen Blondie for ages, and Shortie has just returned from a two year round the world trip, so it's going to be a great night. And on Saturday it's the Ours' birthday drinks.

Saturday is also the night of the Eurovision Song Contest, so my first two posts are dedicated to this stellar (and utterly earnest) competition.

Switzerland's entry this year, had me in stitches
Father Ted's entry - My Lovely Horse

If the Eurovision isn't your thing, try these:

Conan o'Brien visits Intel
A Bit of Fry and Laurie - Barman
The Irish search engine

Friday links

Men plan and God laughs.

After boasting about my good run of writing on Wednesday, I stayed up until three in the morning reading The Stand by Stephen King, which was so disturbing in parts that I was afraid I'd have nightmares. I slept in the next day and didn't get to my desk until half past eleven, when my dad phoned me from the airport and asked if I wanted to meet him at the bus station before he headed off to Meath. Well, I don't see my parents very often, right? We end up in a pub with his cousin who is belting back pints to relieve his hangover before he begins his shift. On my way home with a pint of Bulmers in my belly, I think about how lovely the weather has been and feel all cosy inside. So I go home, listen to Talking Heads and Elvis Costello at full whack and catch up on my emails to friends while drinking one or two gin and tonics. That's the writing out the window! (Good excuse, non?)

This week's links have a LOLcat theme:

Has feeshy
Nevermind
Knock first
Bat country
Cookie
Ladybug
Driving
Lives
Ducky minions

And this one from BBC about embarrassing situations made me laugh too.

Friday links

Still not ready to start on the fifth story. I've done a u-turn on the original plot and characters that I prepared back in January, and I think my new idea is more interesting. Today I'll be rewriting the character's backstories and finetuning the premise.

Here are some links for your viewing pleasure.

Laser Cats 2
Top 10 most awkward interviews
Farewell to the Stardust Hotel
Virtual soccer
Sand castle explosions
The alcoholic squirrel

Enjoy your friday!

Friday links

I'm well on the mend today, still have a head cold but a big improvement on bullfrog gullet and feverish ranting.

Enjoy your Friday.

Chocolate 'better than kissing'
Monkey washing a cat
Bringing Hoffy back
Miss Mexico 'war gown' toned down

And this involves Will Ferrell and a swearing toddler - don't say I didn't warn you:

The landlord

Cheese

Still recovering from Daisy's birthday last night in the Porterhouse Central on Nassau street. The music was plenty cheesy but nobody seemed to mind, myself included, as we all got drunk and danced like loons. Great night.

Here are some links for your amusement:

Bento blog
Police arrest My Space party planner
More cowbell
Crocodile snaps off zoo worker's arm

Have a great weekend.