It’s a universal remote control that also opens beers. Keep it simple, stupid.

(Via Gizmodo and Myclicker)

Let’s set the scene; The Twilight Saga: Eclipse is the third movie in the billion dollar grossing series of films based on the Twilight novels and isn’t due for release until June of this year.

Meanwhile, The Eclipse is an Irish film directed by Conor McPherson and shot in Cobh, Co. Cork. It gets a limited U.S. later this month.

Now guess which one of these films the Irish broadcaster R.T.E. showed on St Patrick’s night and guess which one of these films R.T.E’s graphics department thought they were showing on St Patrick’s night…

**SHAMROCK SHORTAGE SOLVED.**

In the meantime, Ireland’s harsh winter has left the country looking like 40 shades of brown and, according to the U.S. media, a lack of shamrocks. However, news comedian and Irish man Stephen Colbert has found a substitute. A five leafed, mind altering substitute…

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Viddler video.

**AND FINALLY…**

Well it’s not really St Patrick’s Day related, but I think someone wasn’t at all happy to be stuck in work, manning the newsdesk at R.T.E’s website that day. Click below for a snap of a story the site published and it’s accompanying graphic:

Couldn’t the person publishing the story have gotten some stock pictures of chickens on a farm or something? Chickens are strange looking enough but chop their heads off and strip them naked…well all I can think of is this:

Yes it’s St Patrick’s Day again, the one day of the year that the western world aligns itself with the Irish so it has an excuse to go on the beer. It’s Paddy’s Day at Cheers and hostilities between Sam Malone’s bar and Gary’s Old Town Tavern have kicked off again to see which bar makes the most profit that night. Sam hopes the Irish band he has hired to play rebel songs will kick start the craic…

EVERYBODY! “Limey scum, limey scum, I toss a bomb and still they come…”

The National Library of Ireland yesterday launched their refreshed, online archive of pictures. Now available to search and view are 34,000 pictures of Ireland and its people from 1860 to 1954. You can start here and have a glance back at just how miserable we all looked…

First up, now one was seriously hurt during this incident, so sit back and enjoy the noisy destruction! A crane collapses at a coal mine in Queensland, Australia, to a magnificent sound. This includes the Aussies attempt at problem solving by saying ‘Aw Fuck’ a few times and then the sound of the start of AC/DC’s Hells Bells. Oh I only hope the end comes with this soundtrack!

(via liveleak)

Here’s a very funny but telling clip from The Daily Show last week about the web site Chatroulette. As Jon Stewart explains, the site allows you to randomly meet strangers via your webcam, but it has also led to loads of people getting their kit off. It’s like flashing without having to got out in the cold with only a rain coat on. But it’s the old media’s reaction to this website and it’s ‘dark side’ (as a journalist calls it) that Jon lampoons so will. Here’s what’s interesting about this clip:

• It saddening how most of the old media treats the new media like it’s both a threat and a passing fad. They seem kerfuffled by all the facebooks and twitters, which most regular internet users have taken to no problem, and it undermines the authoritative air that is the cornerstone of broadcast journalism. In the clip below you can hear the news anchors say things ‘look at this thing’ and ‘the latest craze’. Even the way Harry Smith pronounces the internet like ‘The Inter-Net’, as if it’s the crazy new toy that the kids are crying out for. I’ve seen many times before how the civil-service journalists of Ireland’s national broadcaster, R.T.E., seem so out of their depth on everyday lifestyle issues, it’s hard to watch.

• There’s the ‘almightier than thou’ attitude that the journalists adopt to the website’s ‘dark side’, yet they give it acres of coverage. It’s like the tabloid tactic when raunchy pictures are found of some TV presenter or upstanding citizen and they go ‘look at these disgusting pictures. You can see for yourself how disgusting these pictures are in our full colour, 2 page pullout featuring them’.

• But on the plus side, the clip shows the journalists that are willing to have a laugh with the personas that they and their colleagues put across, something that The Daily Show and it’s correspondents have done for some time.

• Plus there’s Jon Stewart at his funniest, I always get a laugh out of someone looking down a fish-eye lens!

I’d forgotten about this little video. Back when The Stylebitches first appeared (on something called bebo, ahem) the then anonymous and mysterious ‘B’ and ‘L’ decided to sit down with the gormless reporter ‘Jack Clancy’ (me doing a little combination of Pat Kenny and Stephen Colbert).

Shot about 5 years ago, it was done without a script but with a few pointers and guidelines. Blanaid and Laura are brilliant, sharp, witty, catty, it deserves a follow-up I think!

WHOO HOOO, OH YEAH! THE IRISH ARE COMPETING AT THE WINTER OLYMPICS AND WE ARE DOING ABSOLUTELY…..ah who am I kidding, I have no interest in sports.

And neither does American satirist Stephen Colbert but he’s still sponsoring the American Speedskating Team. Plus he called around to the Irish House in Vancouver the other day to visit ‘home’ as he calls it (well his relations are from Limerick!)

I bet you’ve been on a plane, flying over some amazing landscape, when you whipped out your cameraphone or digital camera and snapped a few shots of the amazing sight. And I bet you felt like a champ because you have this stunning, once in a lifetime, photo.

Well International Space Station resident Soichi Noguchi has spoiled it all for us. With the recent installation of a viewing deck on the station, and Noguchi signing up for a Twitter account, he’s been tweeting beautiful pictures of the earth everyday that outdo any of our cramped aeroplane efforts.  Which kind of ruins the only good thing about flying to Europe with Ryanair.

There’s no pictures yet of Ireland, but next to his picture of London he says “first time that I saw the whole city without any cloud”, which kinda rules out any pictures of the auld sod I think.

Hold your mouse over the picture for details of that picture. Oh and by what I can tell from the exif data on his pictures, he’s using a Nikon D2Xs with a massive 800mm lens…gravity is for losers you know.

Steve Munoz from Duncan Business Machines in Texas enthusiastically explains how a fax machine works. It’s got to do with body contact, or something. Anyway, I can finally rest easy at night…

He also explains how to fax common business destinations such as Sweden, Hungary and, of course, Panama (because emailing your drug shipment requests to Panama is bound to be risky).

(Via Robert Popper)

You may or may not have seen the utterly brilliant Old Spice ad with our hero being the MAN. If not check it out below.

But also check out the really frightening Sean John/Puff Daddy aftershave ad. Or maybe I’m just not down with water-skiing in a tuxedo…

By the way, I too am on a horse…

What’s your favourite American TV series. 24? Grey’s Anatomy? C.S.I.? Ugly Betty? Heros? Law and Order?

These big budget series set in various American cities love getting out to shoot glorious exterior footage of the characters out and about in their locale.

Except they never actually leave the studio back lot in Los Angeles. Those wide sweeping New York shots in Heros and Ugly Betty? It’s all a green screen effect shot in a glorified parking lot out West.

Check it out…

I’m all for alternative fuelled cars, fossil fuels are running out yet there’s no way I’m going to start taking public transport. But if Peugeot’s concept of electric cars is going to make me feel this lonely…well I’m still not going to take the bus for my barefoot walks along the beach. (via coroflot)

OK, enough of that, here’s the new engine from Audi, hmmm…

Blogs! They’re influential, entertaining and give a voice to those who don’t have the access and privileges of the traditional media, as political spin-doctor Malcolm Tucker explains…(oh and don’t listen to this clip aloud in your office!)