world wide madness

It has taken a bit longer than i thought, ie a day but Limericks Live 95FM has started the appeal for steve finnan to be made a freeman of limerick!!. Tune in and vote if you agree. Also, some of the staff from Dunnes on Harveys quay have started their strike this morning. Unfortunately mother nature hasnt been too kind to them because its real Angelas Ashes weather in town this morning!!

As a bit of a pun to Bono and one of his crowds more famous tracks it appears that according to the limerick post some of the streets in they city centre are to be pedestrianised over the summer with a view to making it full time in the future. There was another fatal traffic accident last night in the Rosbrien area becoming the sixth fatality this year in the county. Also, it has emerged that one of the tipperary hurling team, known as "Redser" has been dropped from the panel after getting arrested in the city centre after celebrating a bit too much after his crowd beat limerick in the hurling.

i woke up this morning/afternoon checked i was still alive, pinched the same bits i had pinched last night and it must be true!! Liverpool really did win the Champions league!! it was a long match... so long it started on a wednesday and finished on a thursday!! Who cares if we lost 14 games in the league and finished 37 points and 4 places benind the winners!!! How many of the team will still be there next year is also for debate but for the moment who cares??!! All hail Mr Benitez!!

Not too much happening around still, things are nearly getting boring here in the city.. What happened the good old days when anyone that was being shot was being shot in Limerick and anything of any interest at all happened here, or even if it didnt someone somewhere found a Limerick connection somewhere! If you read last weeks Sunday World, you will have got a good rundown on some of the local gangland stuff, who did what, where and when etc....
Other than that its back to the local papers for some news. The students out in UL are going to get CCTV installed on Campus so that they might feel a bit safer. With a slight association with students its also of note to see that Bruce College will shut at the end of this school year. TD, Michael Noonan has called for an Investigation into diesel prices in the city ... And there is me just after getting rid of me diesel car and going back to petrol!! You just cant win these days!! And also just to piss anyone off who travels on the Limerick to Ennis road, Clare county council in their infinite wisdom have announced that there will be roadworks at Bunratty on the N18 dual carriageway where a A 1.3km stretch of the road will be closed for repairs and a contra-flow will be in operation from the beginning of June until the end of August. Clare County Council engineer Donal Hogan warned that this could lead to "major delays" for motorists but stressed that the roadworks were necessary to repair the surface. Just in time for the toursist season!!
One person who probably would drive through it all is a police officer in West Mercia, UK was let off the hook after being caught driving 159 MPH on public roads.He was found NOT GUILTY in court despite being caught "testing" an unmarked police car on public roads at speeds up to 159 MPH. An on-board video recorder captured Mark Milton, a 38 year old constable, zipping through a 30 MPH zone at 84mph and driving on a secondary road at 131 MPH. Milton claims he was testing the capabilities of his new, unmarked Vauxhall Vectra GSI police car. At least one senior police officer testified in Milton's defense saying that high speeds on public roads was acceptable. Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign suggests that this case is evidence that the obsession with speed camera enforcement is counter-productive. "If 159 mph can be safe enough not to endanger the public, then surely this is a clear official admission that driving a few miles per hour over the speed limit isn't necessarily dangerous either," Smith said. "We have to get back to the policies that gave us the safest roads in the world in the first place, long before speed cameras and the pointless obsession with numerical speed."

the last few posts haven't had much to do with Limerick, so its time to go back to basics!! There's an article in todays Irish Independent (free log in required) about how some of the locals are not going to be intimidated out of town. Two families have gone to the High Court in order to try and sort out a family dispute. And out the county a bit, there was a forest fire that destroyed some 120 acres of land. Also from out the county is an article from the Limerick Leader about how the boys in blue are battling county crime.

the picture above is an official shot of the next generation sony playstation - the ps3. microsoft have recently released details for the new xbox 360 but seeing as i dont like the evil empire of mr gates and co, you will have to look for that stuff yourself. also details for the new nintendo offering the "revolution" are due in the next week for all you gamers.

some of the specs for the machine for the techies amongst you are
It will support Blu-ray (obviously), DVD±R/W, CD-R/RW, Backwards compatible with the PlayStation 2 and original Playstation
One 3.2GHz Cell processor—total system performance rated at 2.18 teraflops (uh, that’s actually about twice what Microsoft is claiming the Xbox 360 will do); it will have 256MB system RAM 3.2GHz, and 256MB GDDR VRAM at 700MHz
The nVidia graphics will be called the RSX (”Reality Synthesizer”), and will trump the Xbox 360 with 1080p (yes, that’s a p) graphics support.

There will be a 2.5-inch hard drive (i.e. laptop hard drive) attachment—a first for a Sony launch, Memory Stick Duo slot, and very surprisingly, an SD and CF slots. Bluetooth support with up to seven wireless controllers and Six USB system ports.

further pictures and coverage of Sony’s PlayStation 3 launch :

All the big hoo ha over the next few weeks will be to do with the release of the latest and last in the series of Star Wars - Revenge of the Sith, but i'm not going to talk about that because i would have been more of a trekkie or trekkor or nerd or nutcase or whatever word you want to insert. And in the world of trek the news is more to do with the cancellation of the latest incarnation - namely enterprise. This CNN article on The last voyage of the 'Enterprise' gives a good run down on how things have got stale in the franchise of late and why now might be as good a time as any to take a break. Personally i think it all started to go downhill after deep space 9 finished but what do i know.
However, one series still going strong is that of the yellow people who inhabit the town of Springfield. After all Homer does rule!! In one of the latest episodes of the Simpsons to be aired "Thank God, It's Doomsday" Homer loses some more faith than he normally does in religion and is shopping in the gospel for less store and sees the iGod ad!!



Its a good parody on the ipod as advertised by Apple and seeing as all of this is put together with a lot of ease on a mac you will probably come across more Apple links as time goes on!!

The latest showbiz celebrity wedding which doesnt involve Damien Rice according to CNN is that Heidi Klum and Seal tie the knot - Fair play to them. The not so bad on the eye Heidi already has a sprog with Renault F1 boss Flavio Briatiore and another bun in the oven already with Seal. Flavio wasnt too happy when he found out she was pregnant and that was pretty much the end of that relationship... At least seal has got her as far as the altar.

The weekends trawl through the Leader and the Post has brought up some interesting stories, links to which are provided below. i wanted to use the headline - "the shit hits the fan" but i suppose Limerick's rubbish crisis deepens will have to do!! it doesnt have the same ring to it though!!The local fire brigade have been learning how to swim a bit and they are now doing river rescue work in conjunction with the local voluntary river rescue boys.

In relation to sporting matters it seems that john 3.7 has got the Red card from Croke Park.. he was in thurles yesterday though at the Limerick v tipp match so maybe he has solved his differences!! And as far as Limerick are concerned the man above was obviously having a bit of a look down to see what was happening at Semple stadium . the replay is at the gaelic grounds next saturday evening so traffic problems ahoy for that!! Up in dublin on Saturday evening last the boys from Munster wont the Celtic Cup by 27 points to 16. Ronan O'Gara played the game and even got man of the match so he must be back to fitness.

Seeing as not too much is happening down Limerick side of note this weather its time to trawl the woo woo woo for more tales of madness and stupidity. Woke up this evening to see on the news that good old George Dubya bush was supposed to be stopping off in Shannon this evening for a sup of gas to be put into Air force 1 before he went back off to Washington after his tour of various parts of russia and other places that are very cold. Then a short time later it was reported that someone threw a grenade' in his direction as he was speaking in Georgia at a big rally. Obviously George had been reading the Local Limerick news and decided that he might have been tempting fate a little bit so he decided to go straight home instead. I presume that protesters of some sort were out in Shannon for a bit of a demonstration and they must be a bit disappointed at seeing their valuable time wasted by a no show from George.

Keeping the topic some bit crime related, (this is Limerick we are talking about after all and of course you have to believe the stereotype that we live in an area worse than Iraq) it is interesting to see that Burglars in Scotland should take the bus to work, since it's more likely that they'll be jailed for forgetting to pay a vehicle tax than for stealing from someone's home. According to figures released by the Scottish Executive, 1574 motorists were jailed in 2003 compared to only 1252 burglars. The motoring offenses resulting in jail time were overwhelmingly minor. Paperwork violations -- driving without a license, insurance, vehicle tax or registration -- put 1182 individuals behind bars. Only 386 were jailed for dangerous driving violations such as driving under the influence of alcohol. And we thought we had it bad!!

After all the traffic chaos a while ago after a cement truck overturned on the shannon bridge its time to read about a joyrider who went a bit mad in england with a dumper truck!! Dumper Truck Joyrider Left Trail of Destruction is an interesting read, he obviously didnt like speed cameras as he flatttend four of them on his trip around the countryside!!

Some things just wouldnt be the same around town if there wasnt a good row to be going on.. Last week, we read about the Titanic watch that sold at auction for over 19,000 euros. Now, according to an article in the Limerick Leader there are doubts as to the whether the watch is genuine. Going to the dogs is going to get posh in a few years. Limerick dog track may now have to be renamed as the new site is just out past the 2 Mile Inn which puts it into Clare. Although, i suppose if the boys in City Hall have their way, they will claim out as far as Shannon airport as a boundry extension to Limerick!! And away from Limerick according to CNN.com - Rene Zellweger has got hitched- and not to Damien Rice!! IF you belived everything you heard lately, Rene and Damien were having a bit of a love in for a few months in Kildare before he went off to write the follow up to his album O... We cant confirm if it is going to be called P!!

A good weekend for the local rugby boys. Shannon won the ail league on Saturday at Lansdowne rd, and then on Sunday the red boys of Munster beat Leinster in their own back yard to progress to the final of the Celtic Cup with a late late show try by Anthony Foley . Munster now play the Llanelli Scarlets next Saturday, again in Lansdowne road. Meanwhile the other red team who are in the Champions league final but play like a shower of muppets away from home in the league got stuffed at highbury thus ensuring that Arsenal handed the last champions league place to Everton for next year... Oh well, i suppose Liverpool will just have to win it and hope UEFA pull a fast one and let them defend it next year! And just to prove that playing in the champions league midweek isnt good for your health, Juve beat AC milan 1-0 in one of the last big matches to be reffed by Pierluigi Collina. Meanwhile in Spain, the rain wasnt on the plain and Kimi Raikkonen won the Spanish Grand Prix Local hero and (not Xabi) perhaps the other most famous Alonso in Spanish history, ie Fernando kept the locals happy and came second to keep his title lead intact. Another great day for Mickey Shoemaker who got two punctures and retired!!

An article from this weeks The Clare Champion talks about a novel way to deal with public order problems in Clare. Judge Mangan (pictured below) has decided to send culprits on Anger management courses!! Only problem being that there is a three month delay for the courses!! How do they contain their anger in the meantime!! One would imagine they would be a bit pissed ( or were at the time of the offence if you think about it!!) at being convicted in the first place!!

Interesting to see that the bidding for the VW Golf that the new Pope once drove on EBAY went a bit mad and wound up at over 188,000 euro..... click on this link ebay germany to view details. Gives the words Pope Mobile a whole new meaning i suppose. Also there was another gangland style murder and yet another one that DIDNT happen in Limerick murder in dublin .Meanwhile, back Limerick related- a watch that belonged to a lady from Castleconnell that went down with the Titanic over 90 years ago went for over 19,000 euro. read article here.And just to finish, good old maximus himself, no less than Russell Crowe sent a letter to Cllr John Gilligan after he read about the Aldermans efforts to get a painting of the late Richard Harris comissioned in City Hall. read here

Nothing to do with Limerick, but sure who cares, the real team in red had a good old night at Anfield on tuesday. click on liverpool fc to read all about it. It will probably be ironic that even though Liverpool wont finish 4th in the league and qualify for next years competition, they could well wind up winning it!! Probably not but for a team that exactly havent set the world on fire in the league they have done the business in europe..

Munster marched on over the weekend, -just about to the semi final of the Celtic cup, marking the last appearance of coach Alan Gaffney at fortress Thomond before he returns home.report here
And back to things more normal, the latest outburst of pellets from a shotgun occured over on the Northside read more here . Another side affect of bank holiday weekends is that there always appears to be some more traffic accidents than normal. Unfortunately there were some fatal road accidents locally over the weekend.