Back in the Game

Today was another day for firsts. Today I had my first interview in Estonia and by the time it was over I had been offered my first job. I start on Monday for a week of training and then the real fun begins.

The company is called BetGenius. http://betgenius.com/, the company collates stats on sporting events for bookmakers across the world, including Premiership, Italian and German football leagues as well as Basketball and Tennis competitions.

Its a short blog for a big event, but I'll tell you all more over the coming weeks.
I shoot, I score, cliche, cliche, cliche.

Book Reveiew 8 and a HALF

Yes this title sounds rather bizarre, but the last time I finished a book it was back in July 12th. Since then off course I was back in Ireland and running around the Estonian countryside leaving me with somewhat less time to idly sit down to read and read and read.

Added to this, the next book that I started and am partially reviewing today is Bloody huge, with 482 small print pages "Lionheart and Lackland" is the first of twelve B.B.B.'s (Bloody Big Books) that I have embarked on and this was the smallest of the bunch.

Well half a review is better than no review and it gives me to chance to go over what happened in the first three hundred pages. To give the book its full title this is "Lionheart and Lackland, King Richard and King John and the Wars of Conquest" by Frank Mclynn.

Its the story of two brothers and kings of England in the twelfth century, the times of the Crusades and Robin Hood. With treachery, double crosses and massacres in the name of Jesus against the Saracens, the first half of the book is about the brothers childhood and the exploits of the adult King Richard the Lionheart, while the second is all about John, which is precisely where I am right now.

So click on MY BOOK Reviews on the Right hand side and see what the first half is all about.

Mega Shark V Giant Octopus

Every now and then along comes a film so bad, that its actually good. You know what I mean, there was Excellent "Starship Troopers" and the preposterous but still entertaining "Snakes on a plane" and "Deep Blue sea".
With the title "Mega Shark V Giant Octopus" how could I not watch this. This film was truly awful yet some how it was compelling viewing, it was as if this film was so incredibly terrible (now that's bad) that it did a 180 degree turn and became watchable.

This film had every cliche that you could predict and then a few well placed extras...
- An unbelievably stupid villain, who was bound to die stupidly.
- Extras who seemed so confused every time they appeared, that I felt sorry for them
- One building was used to represent numerous government and secret locations.
- Mean (dumb) looking soldiers wearing sunglasses standing under flashing red lights.
- Scenery last used in the original Star Trek TV series.
- Dialogue that was first used in the 80's "My god what have we done" (the answer to that question was "the incredibly obvious")
And speaking of the 80's, the main character was the American superstar from that glorious decade, nope it wasn't Madonna, Cindy Lauper or even Tiffany, but Debbie Gibson.
What do you mean who?

Anyway this film did however have a few saving graces, for instance there was an Irish actor in it and if this guy wasn't Irish then I have discovered the first American that can do a real Irish accent.
- The CGI may have been truly truly awful, but the imagination of the high school kid who came up with the ideas was wonderful.

Anyway here is the trailer, watch, enjoy and then run away laughing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa7ck5mcd1o

Another day, another commemeration

It seems just like yesterday that I was talking about Independence day celebrations, cheering crowds and politician loving the sound of their own voices as they babbled along at the recently opened Freedom Square.

Well yesterday the politicians were back making more speeches in Freedom Square, this time it was to commemorate the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact when Hitler and Stalin sliced up the

Baltic countries and Poland between at the outset of World War II.

But this time instead of vast crowds straining to get a better view of what was happening, the Estonian President found himself alone but for a couple of tourist who were wondering what a TV crew was doing there as he laid his reef.

Was this one commemoration too many perhaps?

Or maybe its time to forgive, if not forget?

Forget this pact?

Well maybe, but too forgive and forget the curse placed on these lands by those two dictatorships?

No, I don't think so, not for a long time yet.

Independance Day, err.. again

Funny thing happened here the other day, actually it was more odd than funny.

Estonia celebrated its Independence day on August 20th, the odd thing about this is that they had already celebrated it back in February when we were still knee deep in snow.

This second celebration marked the collapse of the old Soviet Union and its withdrawal from the Baltic states twenty years ago, whereas the earlier Independence Day commemorates 1919 when Estonia broke free from Russian control for twenty short years.

In Ireland Independence from Britain isn't really acknowledged, yet over here there is a bank holiday for a day that surely lost all relevance after the Russians came back for another fifty years after world war II. Then again anti-Russian feeling still runs high here and celebrating this day in some small way is a slap in the face to the Kremlin.

After two years of construction a central plaza was completed on this very day, to much cheering and crowd waving, with politicians making speeches, bands playing and fireworks exploding. Appropriately the square is called Freedom Square. The central point to the square is a large glass cross, this was a rather bizarre choice as this country is far from religious, but apparently its not meant to be religious but some ancient Estonian monument. The cross has aroused as much debate and differing of opinions just as the Spire did in Dublin, hopefully it'll grow on us before it collapses.

Vote for me

Today I received my first ever letter while in Estonia. It notified me that as an E.U. citizen who has permanent residence "I have the right to participate in the elections in the rural municipality where I reside" In other word the local elections are coming up on 18th October and I get to vote.

I thought that perhaps I should vote in the time honoured Irish tradition of voting the way my father did and his father before him and at the risk of sounding like a Monty Python sketch "My fathers fathers father". But enough of this nonsense, as I'm the first Lynch to stray this far from Cavan, its unlikely that Fianna Fail will be on the ballot paper.

But it's not merely about voting, after all the letter said that I had the right to participate.

Yes, you've got the idea, I want to stand for election.

At least I wanted to stand until I discovered that you had to pay a registration fee to the value of two months salary of the elected official. As I have no idea how much this is or that its unlikely that I will gain 5% of the votes to get my deposit back I have decided to decline this generous offer.

So all that's left for me to do is to find an honest hard working politician to vote for.

Now that's gonna take time, a lot of time.

Replace, Replace, Replace

Once upon a time I had a video collection, it included the "Life of Brian", "Gladiator" and "Independence Day", all the usual suspects, actually I also had the "Usual Suspects".

Then along came the DVD revolution. Overnight my video collection was old fashioned, yesterdays news, cliche, cliche, cliche, and I had to replace all my movies. But that was OK as well after all DVD was going to be the perfect format, expensive, but still OK, remember they would never need to be replaced.
Well alright I knew that this wasn't true, but come on I had just paid twice for the same bloody films I needed to hold onto this belief.

Now I find myself in a foreign land and without my DVD collection. The fact that I've seen most of these films a dozen times or more is no reason why I shouldn't get to watch them again. So tonight I borrowed that 70's master piece "Waterloo" from someone in cyberspace. I'm not cheating, or stealing, as I said I'm merely borrowing it from someone whom, I'm sure bought it just like I did. After all if the Sony corporation can charge twenty euro for a forty year old movie, my conscience will allow me "to borrow" it.

Speaking of Waterloo, while looking at the films available to borrow online I came across a French six hour mini series about Napoleon. Its hard to imagine France as a super power, then again its hard to believe that Russia still thinks that it's Super power, with that crazy publicity seeking narcicist Putin in charge.
Ah there I go again ranting and babbling along, completely forgeting what I was talking about, which was errr, emmmm, oh never mind sometimes its good to complain and rant for no other reason but making me feel good.

Airplane Flu

Never mind Swine flu or Bird flu, the one to watch out for is Airplane flu.
Since I left Ireland in January I have barely had a cough or a sneeze and considering that I usually get half a dozen colds every year this is pretty amazing. Maybe its because I'm eating my vegtables, maybe its because I'm doing my exercise, but whatever the reason I felt immune from the sickly days when I would catch a cold simply by looking at snow on TV.

However on the flight back to Estonia, for some bizarre reason cold air was pumped into the plane for the three hour journey. Although I held on tightly to my jacket the cold still got through to me. No amount of moving those little nozzles, buttons and lights above my seat made any difference as the cold air poured in.
So now a day and a half after that flight I am sweating, coughing and sneezing.

Airplanes don't spread the flu, they are creating it.
The airline industry must be working hand in hand with the drug companies to create new flu suffers and thereby creating more sales for these drugs.

This is no conspiracy story my friends, this is the truth, well maybe....

Back in Ireland 2

My ten days in Ireland are drawing to a close as I fly back to Estonia tonight. As always it was great to catch up with friends and family and the latest local news stories, such as the pharmacists dispute with the H.S.E., Thomas Cook staff looking for more redundancy money, the government's NAMA plan to save the economy and another drug dealer / gangland killing in Dublin. Wow and all this happened in one week.

I spent a day in Northern Ireland with a trip to the Marble Arch caves in Fermanagh http://www.marblearchcaves.net/, interesting stuff, but with a return journey time from Dublin at five and a half hours it was pretty exhausting. Having said that it was the only day of constant rain, which for those unfamiliar with Ireland it's rather unusual even in the summer.

Meeting up with friends was off course great, as was the surprised look on one or two of their faces when they saw my new bearded look for the first time, weeding the garden was time consuming yet in a strange way rewarding. But the highlight of the trip was seeing my son getting picked for his football team's final selection of players at the start of the new season. The squad was cut down from 24 to 16 players due to new regulations. There were tears from the boys that were dropped but at their first game of the new season there was an air of confidence, even arrogance as those that made the grade congratulated each other before the game.

Having indulged and banished those uniquely Irish things that I felt I was missing, namely salt and vinegar crisps, minstrels chocolates, a kebab at Abrakabra and the shops Game, Chapters and Waterstones I realise that I wasn't missing too much after all.

So now its back to Eesti with the Sunshine, twice weekly football and most importantly of all, Tiiu.

Ten days in Ireland

My ten days in Ireland are drawing to a close as I fly back to Estonia tonight. As always it was great to catch up with friends and family and the latest local news stories, such as the pharmacists dispute with the H.S.E., Thomas Cook staff looking for more redundancy money, the government's NAMA plan to save the economy and another drug dealer / gangland killing in Dublin and all this happened in one week.

I spent a day in Northern Ireland with a trip to the Marble Arch caves in Fermanagh http://www.marblearchcaves.net/, interesting stuff, but with a return journey time from Dublin at five and a half hours it was pretty exhausting. Having said that it was the only day of constant rain, which for those unfamiliar with Ireland it's rather unusual even in the summer.

Meeting up with friends was off course wonderful, as was the surprised look on one or two of their faces as they saw my new bearded look for the first time, weeding the garden was time consuming yet in a strange way rewarding., But the highlight of the trip was seeing my son getting picked for his football team's final selection of players at the start of the new season. The squad was cut down from 24 to 16 players due to new regulations. There were tears from the boys that were dropped but at their first game of the new season there was an air of confidence, even arrogance as those that made the grade congratulated each other before the game.

Having indulged and banished those uniquely Irish things that I felt I was missing, namely salt and vinegar crisps, minstrels chocolates, a kebab at Abrakabra and the shops Game, Chapters and Waterstones I realise that I wasn't missing too much after all.

Queens Park Rangers F.C.

Apart from my twice weekly match, I've avoided talking about football too much on this blog. As a Fan of English second divisoin team "Queens Park Rangers", I don't have too much to write about. But as today is the start of a new season I suspect that this may be my only chance to talk about them with the optimism a new season brings, before reality brings my hopes crashing back down to earth.

A little over two years ago Q.P.R. was saved from bankruptcy when when three exremely rich men bought Rangers. At the time it seemed like it was going to be the Chelsea scenario all over again and that we would buy a bunch of good footballers, win promotion and then buy a bunch of great footballers and win the Premiership.
Well none of that happeden and after hiring and firing five mangers in those two years the club was lucky not to get relegated last season.

Far from buying their way into the Premiership Q.P.R.'s owners appear to be trying to run the club on the cheap, getting players on loan deals or buying players that i've never heard of. ,
Tommorow the season kicks of with a home game against Blackpool, for those of you took the easy way out all those years ago and chose your team based upon who had just won the previous championship, "QPR V Blackpool" probably doesn't mean much. Yet for those of us who have faced mediocre football for countless years, a new season means fresh hope and a chance to dream of glory.
So with hopes and expectaions once again raised, lets bring on Blackpool our first victims of the new season.

COME ON YOU R's

Secret Payments

As if the war in Iraq wasn't messy enough I have uncovered a secret method of payment that the United States is making to U.K. for remaining a part of former President Bush's "Coalition of the Willing".

These payments are not made in Gold, fuel or dirty cash, nope England's reward for Americas folly is flattery and ego boosting and the delivery vehicle for this payment is Hollywood.

Over the last few days I've seen a couple of big budget action movies, namely "Transformers 2" and "G.I. Joe". As you would expect America saves the world from the bad guy or robot, but here is the almost interesting part. The British "Union Jack" flag is seen waving ever so proudly alongside the American "Stars and Stripes" in the background as our hero's march of to face the enemies and now there is also the token English hero type person with an incredibly strong London accent punching the bad guys alongside the true American hero's.

Now I'm not here to complain about the war, as it such a bloody mess I wouldn't know where to start, I'm just making Hollywood aware that I know all about it's clever little game and that my silence cannot be bought, well not too cheaply anyway.

Secret Payments

As if the war in Iraq wasn't messy enough

So whats new?

I've been back in Ireland for a week now and not much as changed. The expected novelty factor of going to book and game stores once again is here, catching up with old friends has been