DarrenByrne.com

Catherine’s project, Homepages, was launched last Monday in Le Cirk in Dublin City Centre. The book, a collection of stories from some of Ireland’s finest bloggers, is available from Lulu.com and can be ordered for €14 on a print-on-demand basis.

Homepages is a unique collection of stories and photographs, the first of its kind in Ireland. The nation’s best bloggers hold forth on the theme of “home”, covering everything from pets and expat life to parenting and the Kellogg’s Variety Pack. By turns hilarious, heartbreaking and thought-provoking, it promises a captivating read and showcases some of Ireland’s best undiscovered writing talent. All proceeds from the sale of each book, compiled on an entirely voluntary basis, go directly to Focus Ireland, who provide services and support for people who are homeless across Ireland.

Click here to purchase this excellent book and support Focus Ireland.

(It’s possible I have a story in there too)

Daragh (with one ‘r’) is doing some kind of feasibility study on how many people would be interested in going to a Charity Blogger’s Table Quiz before the Blog Awards in February. Specifically, if you can’t make the blog awards, maybe you’d be interested in a Dublin meet up.

Check out Daragh’s blog here for more information and please fill out his very quick survey (hint: Do you feel lucky, punk?). Spread the word too…

Incidentally, if you have not done so already, go register to attend the Blog Awards 2009.

For a telly addict, my TV viewing has been very light of late. Apart from my near religious following of Heroes and the occasional episode of The Sarah Connor Chronicles and, for my sins, Gossip Girl, I’ve only caught fleeting moments of television in recent weeks.

So today, I’m going to start planning my Christmas viewing schedule. It’s a military process and takes place over several days. Indeed it is subject to much tweaking even as the season unfolds. The mission begins with intelligence gathering. To give them a fighting chance, I go hunting for the Irish channels schedule first. RTE and TV3 have some decent shows on this year.

After that, I widen my search to include the UK terrestrials. BBC usually features heavily at this point. ITV seem to expect people to switch their brains off for the Christmas period. Who’s to say they’re wrong? Channel 4 often has some nice surprises.

This year adds something new to the mix. I tentatively expect to have the Sky+ installed over the next week, so I will have a plethora of channels from which to draw my ultimate TV schedule. And with Sky+ I will be able to avoid those awful Sophie’s choices where overlapping occurs on my planner – I’ll be able to catch EVERYTHING.

I’ll keep you informed as to how my planning progresses, but if there’s anything you feel I can’t afford to miss, let me know.