DarrenByrne.com

In this dire downturn, some people hang their heads and moan about money, give out about the government and whine about the weather, but others are far more enterprising……

Why complain about the bad weather when you can sell snowballs for $1.00 a piece. Fair trade?

via

Yay – work just let us go early to play in the snow…woohooo!

So, I leave you with the funny kid after a visit to the dentist:

Is this real life?

Some total moron in the Cavan Post decided to let Maxi Cane loose on its unsuspecting readership. God help Cavan.

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Maxi, congratulations on going into the print media. You deserve it, boy.

In other backslappery this week, Damien Obama has embraced the Blogosphere. Go say hello to the young man.

Speaking of young men, Dermot is new to the blogging thing too – give him some encouragement.

And, though not new, it is new to me – Batteries Feel Included – it’s one of the most bizarre blogs I’ve come across and I’m addicted. Click back through the categories or just start on the Sex Shed post. 🙂

Speaking of sex, I found this blog via Maxi’s comments. It’s also new and could be, eh, interesting…

The UK Eurovision entry. I’ve mentioned before that I have something of a weakness for the Eurovision. It’s not that I think it’s good, but often it’s so awful it’s funny. This song however, a showtune by Andrew Lloyd Webber, is not even laughable. Surely they can come up with something better than this? Anyway, here’s Jade Ewen with My Time:

via Ian

Just heard a gorgeous modern version of this song (sung by Ane Brun) on the radio and went YouTubing for the original. So bad, it’s good, Alphaville with Big in Japan.

And this is Ane Brun’s version:

Best. Lunchbreak. Ever.

I began in Stephen’s Green Dome, watching the snow fall.

I went down to take some artsy fartsy photographs of the snow-covered Green.

I turned a corner to be see the most evil thing ever – a gang of Dublin teens.

In truth, I’ve never seen so many complete strangers enjoy themselves so much…and so spontaneously.

Ultimately it was so much fun and it was very heartening. Some of the ‘fighters’ had even developed their own unique throwing technique.

Some were happy to just stand back and watch it all go by.

No one seemed to mind me taking photos of them and some even posed.

What were the chances of me escaping without being hit? Ahem, I hadn’t a snowball’s chance in hell. More snow tomorrow please.

(And I know I’m getting a little obsessed with the snow pictures, but who cares – I can’t remember the last time we had this much snow)

From Bock the Robber, this is one of the funniest of all the many Obama thingies going around at the mo. It’s funny ’cause it’s true.

Well, yesterday evening, the DARTs to Greystones were cancelled and traffic was crazy, so we decided to go to the cinema instead. On my short walk down to the IFI, I took these few photos. Dublin can be so beautiful.

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One of the advantages of getting up early and driving in to work is that I get to hear the Ian Dempsey Breakfast Show. Gift Grub aside, Ian tends to play some great music and this morning was no different. For the first time in years I got to hear the full unedited 8 and a half minute long version of Don McLean’s American Pie on the radio, rather than the usual abridged version.

The reason? It’s 50 years to the day since the plane crash that took the lives of The Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens and, of course, Buddy Holly. McLean’s classic 70’s track is dedicated to that day, the day the music died.

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And it’s amazing the things you never notice until you have a camera in your hand.

1 hour and 20 minutes later, I am just around the corner from work.

So disinterested in this film, I find myself drawn to the laptop instead to surf the Internets. Trouble is, I have no internet connection, so what to do? I am doing the unprecedented – I am writing a negative review for my blog. I see a lot of films and I attend many events, I go out a lot and I have an active social life. Generally speaking, I only put the positives up on my blog with a few exceptions.

Tonight (Saturday 31st January), after watching a couple of excellent episodes of the new series of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, we (in truth, it’s less ‘we’ more ‘I’) decide to watch the Bob Dylan semi-biopic, I’m Not There. I was disappointed to miss it in the cinema and I just never got around to watching it until now. Ruminating on the story of Dylan’s life, the man’s emotional tale is told through six characters representing different stages of Dylan’s existence, including Richard Gere as Billy the Kid and Cate Blanchett as the drug addicted recording artist.

Oftentimes it’s been said that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts – in this case the whole is pretty poor when compared with what is ploughed into it. The acting is quite superb – in that Cate Blanchett plays a heartbreaking ‘Dylan’; the supporting cast give it their all, including a small but good turn from Dawson’s Creek and Brokeback Mountain‘s Michelle Williams and surprisingly striking performance from Bruce Greenwood as both Mr. Jones and a sympathetic Pat Garrett (the man who killed Billy the Kid). The cinematography is good – we are presented with some great shots from stark angles. The music is understandably perfect. The whole film is based upon the life of the most mysterious and fascinating of all singer-songwriters of the last century. And yet, despite all that is going for it, this film ends up as a too long, pretentious muddle. As I said to Lottie before she fell asleep from boredom, the film makers spent so much time making a clever movie, they forgot to make a good one.

Never create anything, it will be misinterpreted, it will chain you and follow you for the rest of your life.

Playing the many faces of Dylan the film includes a dull performance which I’m thankful Heath Ledger will not be remembered for; I’ve mentioned Blanchett‘s understandably Oscar nominated role, but the two standout performances for me are from the young black ‘Dylan’ played by Marcus Carl Franklin and the underused Ben Whishaw as the poetic ‘Dylan’ who doesn’t get enough screen time at all. Richard Gere‘s performance is solid but heavily let down by the director’s attempt at making a western style Sam Peckinpah movie…minus the grit. Lastly, Christian Bale‘s performance in the film is largely pointless apart from the fact that he does a fine ‘political Dylan’ impression. Although this good performance is counteracted by the dismal take on the ‘born-again Dylan’.

It’s like you’ve got yesterday, today and tomorrow all in the same room. There’s no telling what can happen.

The film closes with this line, as if it is offering some kind of explanation or even apology for all that has gone before. All I can say is exactly the same thing I say to anyone who apologises to me: Don’t say sorry, just don’t do it again.