The Roof, The Roof, The Roof Is...

This fine morning in Ireland is a Bank Holiday Monday, a day of rest and relaxation, a day of Xboxing, movie watching, comic reading, and, yes, blogging. Claire rose early, requiring tea and Warcraft, while I rolled over in my warm bedsheets, stretching out to enjoy the full space of the bed I now had to myself.

And then the fire alarm went off.

Now, as anyone that lives in Ireland will tell you, when a fire alarm goes off, everyone looks around and says "Is that my phone?" or "Sure, there's no smoke, so there mustn't be fire." The alarm has gone off once before, and I met one of the other tenants who informed me that if it does start ringing, I can just hit reset. If it's a minor incident caused by cooking breakfast, as long as that apartment has already looked after it, it will be fine. The alarm will reset and I can return to my beloved Xbox. The system is the same one NASA uses for it's labs.

Just as I was reaching the hall, the fellow (let's call him Fred for the purpose of this tale) I had previously met was already there hitting reset. I smiled, turned and closed the door.

And then the fire alarm went off.

I grabbed a jumper. "I'll get dressed", Claire said. I went back into the hall and asked Fred if I could help. Apartment 22 was causing the problem, so I raced up the stairs to the fourth floor to see if everything was ok. There was definitely a smell of smoke in the hall, and there was no answer when I knocked. Drawing on years of watching American TV, I placed my hand flat on the door, but there was no heat. Oh yeah. I rock... er... Now what do I do? I started downstairs, filling Fred in by calling down the stairwell. Fred was already on the way up, having left someone else at the alarm controls. We headed to the roof garden and had a look down. A faint smell of smoke, but still nothing visible. Fred and I looked at each other. Time to evacuate.

Both of us walked back downstairs, stopping at each floor to alert the various apartments. Once back on the ground we waited for the arrival of the fire brigade. One of the other tenants in the block rang them, but was just hanging up when we heard the sirens outside. Fast reaction times! They arrived in, questioned one or two of us on the situation, and headed for the building. There must have been ten to fifteen fire-fighters. It was incredible. They were so well organised and meticulous, and everything was done perfectly, at least from where I stood. I enjoyed spotting some of the tech they had as well. As well as all the standard affair stuff, they had a somewhat bulky thermal vision camera. Cool.

They gained access to the apartment in question, and removed a bin bag that had been smouldering from a disposed still-hot cigarette. One of the people renting the apartment had shown up in the meantime, and got a stern lecture about how careless she had been from the lead fire-fighter.

In less than 45 minutes, everything was sorted. We were let re-enter the building, and Claire found her morning cup of tea sitting on the table, cold.

I gotta say, it was a good morning. No-one was hurt. Nothing was destroyed. The people in the block got to meet each other and say hi. It turned into somewhat of a nice experience, and it has encouraged me to consider organising a block barbecue at some point so that we can get to know each other, and will know who is in what apartment if this every happens again.

And now I'm awake. I haven't wasted my morning of freedom asleep in bed. I'm off to fire up the Xbox for a bit.

Denis 2, Boredom 0

It's been a busy few weeks for me, so much so that I've had little time to enjoy photographing toys, blog, or do very much online at all! In particular, the last two weekends have been jammed with excitement and fun!

On Saturday the 20th of October, I was home in Tipperary at a wedding. Not my own! No, this was for a friend of the family that we've known for years. Although she's from Coventry in England, her parents are Irish and her fathers family is from the area. She wanted to get married in the small parish church of Killea, the village I'm from. It was a great day, and both the Bride and Groom looked amazing. I spent most of it babysitting their daughter, who was simply adorable. She's only 15 months old, but so well behaved throughout. I was surprised when she took to me so fast, and spent most of the day in my arms. I guess it helped that I brought her brightly coloured toys she can safely chew on.

The meal was great and after a break to watch some big rugby match, we went back in for the dancing. Woo! I'll tell you, I could have danced through until the sun came up the next morning! It was a blast. I just had loads of fun. And I got to dance with a bridesmaid! I took loads of photos up until the music started and then I was far to busy jumping around looking like an idiot to stop to take any more.

Which was exactly what happened this weekend as well! I was having so much fun, I have no photos at all as visual aides to relate my awesome weekend through! For the October Bank Holiday weekend Claire and I travelled to Dublin for GaelCon... and to escape the Cork Jazz Weekend.

This year, Claire and I decided to do something different. Normally, we go to GaelCon, meet friends, go into the city, shop, go to the con, hang out for a bit, sit around bored, get the bus back into the city, go to the hostel we're staying in, go to sleep, travel back to the con and so on and on. This year, Claire and I booked ourselves into Clontarf Castle, where the con itself was on! This made some huge differences to how the weekend unfolded right away. No travelling once we reached the hotel on the Saturday morning. No having to leave early to get the last bus to the hostel. No pressure to go anywhere. In fact, for the first time I can remember we didn't leave the castle for the entire day on Sunday! And we got awesome all-you-can eat breakfasts in the hotel. How can you possibly top that?

And we played games! Claire tried to get into an RPG in every slot, I tried out a few, though not every slot, and while we weren't playing organised games, we were playing games like No Thanks, Guillotine and Tsuro in the main hall with anyone that walked past. All in all, it was a busy, eventful, fun weekend. Add to that getting to meet Lynn and Graham for the first time in ten months, hanging out until 2am with Mulcahy, Killian, Fiki, Sarah, Farrell and Lorna in the lobby telling stories and gasping for breath between fits of laughter and getting to meet a tonne of new people and you could say I had the best damned convention of my life!

Right now I'm exhausted! I hadn't even recovered from the wedding weekend when we left for GaelCon! Next weekend, Claire is heading back up to Dublin for another wedding, and I'm here in Cork. I plan to keep up the great run of weekends with a gaming night in my house on Saturday, and possibly even Friday and Sunday evening! Well, at least Saturday. Maybe Friday will be drinks in the Well. If you're reading this and around for the weekend, just let me know! I'm sure we can fit you in.

Daily Double Homicide

I was at home for a few days from Sunday through to Thursday of this week. Originally planned as just a nice trip home to see the family and chill out with no commitments or pressures, it would seem some higher force felt otherwise. However, more of that later.

While I was at home I got the chance to catch up on some television viewing. As some of you know, I don't have a television in my house, or to be accurate, I do, but it's not plugged in to any aerial, so technically I'm only short on channels, not the physical box. Anyway, the one show I enjoyed most while I was at home was an old favourite of mine, Murder, She Wrote.

RTÉ One are currently airing two episodes a day of J.B. Fletchers adventures in Cabot Cove, from 3:30pm in case anyone wants to catch it. I remember when we were really young my brother and I were let stay up to watch Murder, She Wrote when it was considered prime time viewing. My mum loved, and indeed still loves, this show, and we all watched it together. I often asked why we never saw any of Jessicas books in the bookstores, as I really wanted to read some of her stuff! Ah, the innocence of youth!

Watching it again, I know why I loved it so much back then, and I still do now. The show is incredible! When it's hitting its stride, the plots are clever and suspenseful, the dialog sharp and witty and the acting strong and engaging. The style and look of the show is classic, and even walking in during an episode, before Angela Lansbury appears as the master-mystery-writer-turned-detective, you can name the show simply by the framing of the shots, the colours and the movement of the camera. There is something distinctly unique in it.

Angela Lansbury is riveting to watch on-screen. She has a power that few actors possess, and her presence is powerful, yet never seems to overshadow the accompanying actors. Speaking of which, in the five or so episodes I caught of the show over the time I was home, Jessica was in three of them for less than five minutes each! Instead, master-thief-turned-detective (pattern emerging) Dennis Stanton headed up the case, getting into mischief along the way! Although I enjoyed this character, played with flair by Keith Michell, he wasn't Jessica. A little research into the matter proves I'm not the only one who thought that. Episodes like these I saw, as well as a few narrated by Jessica as one of her novels, and one or two other master-whatever-turned-detective were used to give Angela a break from the hectic shooting schedule, however, negative fan reaction meant that they were dropped in later seasons.

Watching Murder, She Wrote at home again was a joy. After seeing it I did some research and discovered the following:

• Angela Lansbury is the only one to appear in all 263 episodes of the series, during its 12 seasons, from 1984 to 1996, on CBS, as well as the four subsequent TV movies.
• On it's 12th season it was moved from it's Sunday evening slot where it had been hugely popular for over a decade to Thursday evenings, putting it against Friends. This was because CBS was trying to make Sundays more teen-friendly. The show floundered and was announced to be finishing on that season. The last four episode returned to the Sunday slot, receiving high ratings once more, the final episode being the 16th in the ratings and the most viewed show on CBS that week!
• None-too-subtly, the final episode is titled Death By Demographics and sees a station head changing the stations focus from classical to rock'n'roll to reach a younger audience. The experiment fails, and he ends up dead! Hmmm...
• Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski spent time as producer on the show, writing a number of episodes. He is credited as spending the most time emphasising Jessicas career as a writer, making deadlines and such a part of the episodes.
• I read somewhere that Straczynski attributes his time on Murder, She Wrote as invaluable in helping him learn how to write mystery's with effective foreshadowing. Apparently, writing for the show allowed for no short-cuts, as the audience had to be able to see all the clues in the episode, and potentially piece them together themselves. Straczynshi has said that this helped him in crafting story elements that would pay off much further down the line for everything from Babylon 5 to Rising Stars and even his run on Spider-Man!
• Angela loves Ireland, owning a home in West Cork. Because of this, there are a number of episodes based in Ireland, particularly in the south. Two of them are titled A Killing In Cork, and Another Killing In Cork. How imaginative! The most recent TV movie is also based in Ireland, The Celtic Riddle.
• And finally, in 1986 there was a cross-over with Magnum P.I., which began in Magnum and concluded in Murder, She Wrote with the episode Magnum on Ice! Sweet! Two of my favourite shows!

Sorry if all that was a bit long winded! I just loved reading about the show, and wanted to share! Besides, if you don't like it, tough! My blog! I get to write what I want! Ha! Anyway, thanks for reading, as always. I'll be putting up more over the next few days, including why my time at home wasn't all fun and games, what I thought of The Bourne Ultimatum (I'll save ya reading that one! Freakin' awesome is the summary!) and one or two other interesting bits and pieces that are itching to get onto the internet! Until then, have fun!

Not Your YouTube, My YouTube

So you might have noticed in my last post that I put up some of my own videos on YouTube. I have had an account for ages with them, and I'm hopeing to make some more us of it over the coming months! Stay tuned.

In the meantime, here's a clip of Stephen almost killing himself. At the very end you can just make out Margaret-Ann start to suggest he do something even more "fun"! She was really trying to get him to hurt himself at that!

My Busy Weekend

This Easter bank holiday weekend I went home to my family for a few days, as I do every Easter. I got away from the internet, friends, work, the world. Home is in the open countryside, a beautiful area in the centre of Ireland, surrounded by green fields, trees, hills and valleys. Below is the nearest town, some five miles away, and from the front of our house you can look down on it, stunningly lit at night. Above, is the Devils Bit, a mountain that has been an unforgettable part of my childhood. By day, it is a wondrous mix of colours, and by night a huge cross glows brightly at it's peak.

So over a glorious weekend I mowed both our lawns, turbo powerwashed most of the drive around the house, helped feed and play with the neighbours two Labradors, watched some movies in the evenings, went to Mass, cooked dinner for mum and my sister, spent lots of time playing with our own two dogs, shot my brother Stephen a few times, caught up with some of the cousins, and generally hung out and had a great time. I also took a few pictures over the weekend, though not nearly as many as I thought.

All in all, a great and activity packed weekend!!