The Guinness Hurling Boot Camp

A friend of mine from college, Sinead Kissane, is presenting a show on TV3 called The Guinness Hurling Boot Camp which starts at 11 o'clock tonight.

The eight part mini series will follow seven Irish sports personalities from non-hurling backgrounds learning how to play the sport, and being put through their paces to win money for their respective charities. So it's for a good cause people!

Sinead is one of the best sports journalists on TV today; you'd be hard pressed to find someone more enthusiastic and knowledgeable about sport. She's also filled to the brim with charisma and is blessed with a wicked sense of humour, so even if you're not a fan of hurling you'll still get something out of it.

Ye gods

How's this for bad karma? I spend the whole week writing and cleaning the apartment like a woman possessed so I could sit back and watch some TV today, just to ease me into the weekend...and the bloody cable is down!

Strangely enough, when I called NTL to query the problem, it only took me 5 minutes to speak to someone there. Not like them at all, usually they put you on hold for 30 minutes and then disconnect you, or just move you from department to department until you've forgotten why you called them in the first place, or have spiraled into total lunacy. That's their master plan. Sure all your gibbers and sobs gives the customer service reps something to laugh at, their jobs must be dead boring after all.

But I digress. Today's fault is 'being rectified.' That'll teach me for wanting to watch TV when others have to work.

I suppose I could go for a walk or something. I'm pretty lazy though. TV is my drug, man.

*Just realised this is my 100th post. Perhaps another sign to leave the house and do something constructive!

When books leave you cold

Unfortunately my reading mojo is still nowhere to be found - Spencer brought it back temporarily but interest in him has faded too. Luckily I've found that copious amounts of tv watching and website trawling have plugged the gap nicely.

One programme that I can't get enough of is Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which is a shame because it's been put on indefinite hiatus by NBC due to disappointing ratings. I find it hard to understand why it hasn't been a hit. Studio 60 is about two friends (Bradley Whitford and Matthew Perry) who have been drafted in to save a late-night comedy show, not unlike Saturday Night Live. The cast, plots and writing are excellent, and I just can't get enough of Aaron Sorkin's intelligent and funny characters and the 'Walk and Talk' technique that he perfected on The West Wing. It's been on TV3 in Ireland since February and it's starting on Channel 4 from June or July of this year, and it comes highly recommended by yours truly.

I read and enjoy a lot of blogs too, and a really interesting one that is updated every Sunday is PostSecret. People from all over the world send in their secrets anonymously on homemade postcards. Quite a simple idea but the results are compelling and inspired. It's not a misery trip either - some entries are hilarious. I'm never disappointed.

Fauxhawk

I just watched Sanjaya's performance on American Idol through my splayed fingers. Yeah he murdered the song and the judges' faces were a picture, but what is up with his hair? At first I thought it was an early April Fool's joke by the makeup department - gathering his hair up in bunches to create the mingest fauxhawk I've ever seen - but he was loving it and shook it at any opportunity. If you want to know why he's still in the competition this website throws some light on the matter.

Then Melinda Doolittle came on and did her thing, resulting in tingly spines galore. She should be looking over her shoulder though because the other contestants must have a contract out on her or something. Otherwise they would just pack it in and declare her the winner already.