As I mentioned last week, all the national holidays come in a big glut from now till June 1st after which we have ne’re a long weekend in sight till Christmas.

It all kicks off with the Queens day festival, 30th April, marking the birthday of the Queen Beatrix (well actually her mothers birthday, but as QB’s birthday is in January, the pragmatic choice was to leave things in March)

Anyhow, there is Koninginnenacht, the Queens Night, the evening of the 29th, mostly celebrated in The Hague, but also celebrated wherever there is alcohol. Once work finishes the bars open and all hell breaks loose. The next day is Queens Day, Koninginnedag. Amsterdam is awash with Orange, and stalls appear everywhere, selling anything from a broken teapot to a donut, from a dress mannequin to a dental mirror and everything in between. Needles to say with5 days left people are already laying claim to the “best” plots on pavements and the like, marking their turf by writing BEZET in some manner on the ground

Next week my Mum is coming to visit for the festivities, but I do promise to post a round up of it all here.

In honour of this National Day our cocktail this week includes 4 essential Dutch ingredients, no not Hash, Cheese, Tulips and Arrogance…..

Something from BOLS, Genever (Dutch Gin) Orange Colour and the word Dutch!

Comfortable Young Dutch

• ½ shot BOLS Genever (young)
• 1½ shots  Southern Comfort
• ½ shots  Freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 2 shots Freshly squeezed orange juice

Add all ingredients to an iced shaker.
Shake and strain into an ice filled old fashioned glass.

Liquored Up? now lets get Linkered Up!

All this recession talk would have you believe nothing is happening in the shops these days, but I think thats Bull!

And so do Panti, Rick, Redmum, Ian, the Guardian and even CNN

RTE 9 0′clock news

Click here to view the embedded video.

Full CCTV Video

Click here to view the embedded video.

Last night I got a wonderful invite from @kittynel to go for a cruise through the canals on her new boat!

It was gezellig hoor!

Twitter News

We all know Oprah joined Twitter recently, but not to be outdone on the emerald isle, our own fair female shlebs piled onto the social networking train…. Twink, Lorraine Keane, Grainne Seoige, Bláthnaid NíChofaigh, Amanda Brunker and Glenda Gilson all joined very recently and are trying to figure out what the hell is going on!

Speaking, or tweeting about whats hot, Friday saw #doylejoke day. On prompt of @lecraic’s jibe about tweetbombing @darraghdoyle for his “bad” jokes, AJ offered a limited edition Helvetica Moleskine notebook to the best “worst” joke tweeted by 5.30

My last top twitter tale, is this  – Development of a method of tweeting using brain activity

That’s right, no keyboards, just a red cap fitted with electrodes that monitor brain activity, hooked up to a computer flashing letters on a screen. Wilson sent the messages by concentrating on the letters he wanted to “type,” then focusing on the word “twit” at the bottom of the screen to post the message.

The development could be a lifeline for people with “locked-in syndrome” — whose brains function normally but who cannot speak or move because of injury or disease.

Blogger News

Some bloggers need YOUR HELP

The ladies of Gaelick what to know

What the velvet hearts on the tree trunks along East Wall are for?

Panti would like your help resurrecting a lovely turn of phrase

“To Beat the Band”

The Culchies are up in arms, about the possibility of a musical based on the life of Jade Goody with songs such as “DOH! Whats a Dear” and Lottie’s suggestion of Don’t Cry For Me East Anglia? Suggestions on a postcard to the Beeb, where we are sure it will be their new 12 part search for a star.

Other thing happening in the blogosphere, Lilly Collison has moved blog home, she’s now a WP blogger!
Check out her new WWW place of residence www.lilycollison.com

My 2nd appearance on Desked – My Home desk  —>

Biff Sniff has some pretty cool tshirts to mark the demise of the global market economy – click on the image to get your shirt!

Wantsies and Other Stuff

Every Elf has wantsies – and coming up to my birthday…. here are a few of my pointlessly favourite things:

Singing Gizmo from Gremlins – you have to watch the video

Click here to view the embedded video.

Zip up headphones
Mine are always in a mass of knots! They even have a volume control on the zipper!

Noma Bar’s May 2009 Limited Edition Cover for Esquire

and finally: I leave you with two natural wonders:

Northern Lights (as I know they are @fontfiddler‘s favourtie thing ever)

Click here to view the embedded video.

and
Scenes from the zoo

According to the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA), over 600 million visitors pass through the gates of over 1,300 zoological parks, reserves and aquariums worldwide every year. Springtime brings many new animals to these parks as well, as newborns. Collected here are some photographs from zoos and aquariums around the world from the past couple of months. Don’t forget that 2009 has been designated as the “year of the gorilla” by the United Nations. (37 photos total)

More of those please… actually the Dutch have a very strange public holiday system,

Easter (Good Friday & Easter Monday)
QueensDay (30th April) the Queen’s official birthday  – her real one is in Jan
then…. this is where it gets complicated,
Liberation Day (5th of May) which we get once every five years!
Assencion Day (22nd May)….
Whit Monday (1st June)
and that’s it…. nothing again until Christmas Day! Not a Sausage! But we do get compensated in our time off allowance.

Anyhow, as tonight is my good friend Keith’s 26th Birthday.

That’s the fabulous Keith at the Drag Party he threw in his pad at Muntplein.

As the fact he is 4 years off 30 depresses him… WTF?

I have found the perfect cocktail for the occasion.

Corpse Reviver #One

• splash of absinthe
• 25ml brandy
• 25ml calvados
• 25ml sweet vermouth

Method
1. Pour a splash of absinthe into a Martini glass and swirl around to rinse the glass, pouring out any excess liquid.
2. Place the brandy, calvados, sweet vermouth into a cocktail shaker with ice and shake hard.
3. Pour the drink into the prepared Martini glass and serve straightaway.

According to Underhill Lounge “Corpse Revivers” were a class of pre-prohibition drinks meant to be taken as “hair of the dog”. This version seems to be credited to Frank Meier of the Ritz, Paris and is identical to Hemingway’s “Death in the Afternoon”. A shot of Absinthe topped up with champagne  Which is a pretty fitting name for such a concoction.

So Drink in hand… we move to the links!

I made my debut as the Mainland Europe Culch.ie, it was a bit paltry as debuts go, but I’ll be back and I’ll find my stride

The hair razingly wonderful Alan Costello wrote a moving and intelligent post on Adoption

We all know the Obama’s got the famously promised dog, BO (Barack Obama?) – and that he’s a Kennedy!

But they also celebrated the White House’s first Seder for Passover.

Kiera Knightly HATES the internet? Well if she does but still has a compulsion to update her status…

Perhaps she should invest in one of these.  An offline status updater if you will, basically a reduced day diary, but it looks soo cool! Wantsies!

On the topic of good ole hand written journals, the much loved Moleskin have launched their DIY inserts for your Moly Love, MSK by Moleskin allows you to create your own pages based on your iCal or Outlook Calendar and contacts from your iPhone or Outlook.

There was a #Big-scandal when it was noticed  that Amazon had tagged any products with the labels LGBT as “adult” and thus removing them from search results and recommended titles many blogs have picked up on this, and our own Daimen Mulley wrote an interesting piece on the immediate overreaction to what was a system failure Amazon came back later and apologized for the “embarrassing and hamfisted” error.

Our own supermum Sharon Fennell got a mention in the New York Times no less, on her reactions to the book about the supposed “fight against autism”  The Horse Boy, by Rupert Isaacson. Well worth a read!… the NYT article and Sharon’s blog that is…. skip the book!

Phil of Icedcoffee fame organised a photowalk in Dublin at the weekend, results here, here, here, here, here, and here

The ever wonderful RP’s and her highly addictive game…. be warned, it will suck you in!!

Mr Evert Bopp went a ways to dispelling my Mum’s idea that I’m talking to no one on the internet, when he was interviewed on The Business on Radio One last Sunday about his start up support project GreenHouse Limerick. Please support it here, and if you are on twitter Evert is too, and GreenHouse. They are hoping Dell will help them out with some furnishing or supplies, computers… so tweet about it using this hashtag #doitdell. If you think GreenHouse Limerick is exactly what your startup or business idea needs, let the crew know.

In an update to last weeks link where Sweary pondered and ranted about those that believed friendships that began on the internet are less than those began in say the pub, Sweary takes a moment to remember her friend Chris, who has sadly passed away. Remember him and those that miss him.

And finally… a useful tool I discovered via LifeinJars, check it out at www.925ing.com

So, Ive run out of energy,  I’m writing this on Thursday night so I can party with Keith and Co safe in the knowledge that my blog will be fed! Its now (as you can see)  almost 2am and I need sleep.

My soundtrack to this post has been Ben Folds, who I love so much! And so I will leave you with not one, but two classics!

Still Fighting it – which always reminds me of how much I love my nephew.

“And you’re so much like me, and I’m sorry”

Click here to view the embedded video.

and

The Luckiest - I like to listen to this to remind myself that I am very blessed and lucky.

Click here to view the embedded video.

At present I am at home in my mom’s and this is brought to you on macbook (@fontfiddler’s macbook) so we’ll see if bloging is better by mac certainly there are enough mac bloggers so it cant be that hard! lol

Ok on with the Drinky, it being Easter, there is really only one way to go!

Easter Bunny

• 1 1/2 oz Creme De Cacao
• 1/2 oz Vodka
• 1 teaspoon Chocolate Syrup
• 1 teaspoon Cherry Brandy

Directions:
1. Shake creme de cacao and vodka with ice.
2. Strain over ice in an old-fashioned glass.
3. Float chocolate syrup and cherry brandy.

So here I am watching *roll eyes* Britain’s got talent with my Mum and @fontfiddler so if this seems off kilter but its a bit hard to concentrate, as Britain’s answer to the Kelly Family sing their hearts out, if for some reason you are interested, check this piece out or this piece, burlesque wardrobe malfunction.

Anyway, that cocktail is YUM and you should try it.

So furthermore with the links!!

This week was Ireland’s April 09 Bludget, avidly commentated on around the web’s and heavily Liveblogged. With over 150 livebloggers well done to Lexia and Suzie for moderating and leading the informative and smartass amongst us.

Even the Flatmates got in on the action, but it seems they weren’t to keen on listening to the reactions.

Anyone that follows me on twitter, will know that Im thinking about buying a new laptop, the one i have now is nealry 3yrs old and is really only good for blogging and surfing, but not the daily encoding and transcoding that i have call for. I’m somewhere between a MacBook 2.4ghz and a Sony Vaio with equal spec but with the dreaded Vista. At least until Windows 7 is released.

Any suggestions please please let me know!

If all else fails and I can’t decide, I may end up getting this….

Laptop that rolls up

Yes? No?

Another piece of tech I think is interesting is the Pogoplug, a plug type device that turns and USB storage into a networked drive, but better yet, an internet accessible plug and play drive Handy for travelers and accessing documents on the move.

I usually find something bike related of interest, and I have to say, I’m not the most knowledgeable cyclist. But I’ve always wondered why some sport saddles have a split in the middle

I don’t know about you, and with the focus in Irish media being about Bludget 09 and the Italian Earthquake this may have slipped under the radar, but the story of the young Uncle and Nephew in Doncaster, UK that were attacked by two brothers near an unused quarry. Disturbing enough if both the victims and accused were older than 12. But at 11, 10 & 9 this story is a chilling repeat of the Jamie Bulger murder.

I’m home for a few days over the Easter with my family. I love spending time with my young nephew, and sharing our mutual nerdy passions for Lego and Star Wars, which as John Keyes discovered, is even better when watched with the fresh eyes of younger family members!

The Lovely Lottie came to a decision about happiness, have to say I love the sentiment of this post,

“When I was 5 years old, my mom always told me that happiness was the key to life.

When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up.

I wrote down “happy.”

They told me I didn’t understand the assignment and I told them they didn’t understand life.”

the Sensational Sweary got annoyed about how some can judge the nature of friendships began on the internet,

And this has brought me to the point where I might have to stop myself piercing with an acid-tipped spear the fuckwits who claim that the Information Age, or the rise of Social Networking sites, or the evils of texting instead of popping by for tea, or whatever new-fangled gimmick is eroding the morality of our children, has lead to our being completely dissociated from society and from human contact. If it hadn’t been for this great evil internet behemoth not only would we not have been able to keep up with Best Man’s latest haircuts (Skype video calls feed the curtain-twitcher in all of us), but when he was injured we would have had no way of knowing about it. We wouldn’t have forged a tie between him lying in a hospital and all those strangers on Twitter who paused for the sake of empathy. His dad wouldn’t have been able to keep Best Man’s friends informed of how he was doing. We’d have been cut off from a friend we love, blind to everything but that which happens right in front of us. And if the Old Testament is right, and information was that which got Eve fecked out on her arse, well then I’m fucking happy to join her. I am human, after all.

and the Amazing Ann gave us some tips on SEO Optimization

In your goal to improve your search engine rankings, it’s very easy to overly focus on all these words and numbers — and lose sight that this is a good way to guide you to the information that your target market is looking for. So be organised in your research, use your site map, prioritise and don’t lose sight of the fact that these searches are being made by individuals that are interested in what you have to offer, so talk to them in their own terms

Being a bit of a closet Ad nut, a campaign that caught my attention was MTV.org’s Our Planet’s Losing Patience

And finally I leave you with this ….

Preeeeeetttttyyyy LED’s:)

For what its worth, blogging on the Mac was a bit slow and frustrating, but once i got used to the comands and keystrokes, it was ok and worked well. Only minus point was the inability to open more than 15 tabs in the one Firefox window, but maybe I ask too much of my computing systems.

So, with the many April Fool’s jokes this week, I thought I’d give you a bit of a fun cocktail:

Drinky: Black Magic

When served it’s off white in color due to the pineapple juice but as it settles down the color of dark rum appears. Wait until the second or third cocktail and then introduce this, its fun watching peoples reactions as their drink changes colour.

Ingredients:

* 150ml Pineapple juice
* 30ml dark rum
* Dash of orange squash
* Dash of lemon juice
* 10ml grenadine syrup
* 30ml Peter Herring cherry liqueur

Method:

1. Blend all the ingredients with three cubes of ice
2. Pour this in a cocktail glass and serve

————

Linky’s:

Have to have: Ninja Throwing star magnets

Will stop the Madonna Linkage but, I have no idea how to process how this makes me feel

This will be stuck beside my door from now on!

Possibly the cutest way of celebrating a growing new arrival: Belly Series

New things for my bike, new things for your bike?

Monkeyeletric Bike Lights

And something I got this weekend, once I’ve tried it I’ll let you know how (if) it works:   a coffee holder for your bike

Cup-to-go from Tazzina Cafe on Browersgracht

Can imagine Xbox will be on the list for one of these some magical day soon

And the loveliest ad I have ever seen (yes I know its evil Coca-Cola advertising)
Made my uterus cry, from my eye sockets!

#alanshair tried to take Alan by suprise

From this weeks BTW metup in Dublin (more to come perhaps in other cities)

Alan Costello posts his favorite images Set One & Set Two

Over at the Kitchn they have some seriously good tv snacks *drool*

1. DIY Microwave Potato Chips – Make your own potato chips! So easy, and you control how thin and crispy they are.

2. Bacon-Wrapped Potato Bites with Spicy Sour Cream Dipping Sauce – Wow! The mother of all sports-party appetizers. Deeeliciioussss……

3. Kale Chips – Keep it really light with these surprisingly addictive and tasty kale chips. Try with some vinegar and olive oil, or some pepper and sea salt. Delicious!

So the Obama’s give the Queen an iPod, but Michelle got a little more personal

Check out the video of the 8sec protocol shocker

Hug me Queeny!

Sinead Cochrane gave us a peek at her research on Irish Blogging and not to be outdone by one so young,

A University of Melbourne study published suggests that workers that use Facebook and Twitter during the workday are more productive.

The University of Melbourne study showed that people who use the Internet for personal reasons at work are about 9 percent more productive that those who do not.

Another study, shows that having sisters make for better mental health in families?
*shakes head* Come round my house and I’ll show you how wrong that is!

Speaking of families, Sweden allows Same-Sex Marriage
And Iowa also upholds Same-Sex Marriage rights lawyer for the plaintiff’s Dennis Jonson said:

Go get married, live happily ever after, live the American dream

Adam & Eve

And finally:

The Register reports, that a German website has been given till the 6th April to pull their site or face legal action.

File Sharing? Piracy? Porn?

No! Playmobil!!
Playmobil are not happy with Klicky-bible’s depiction of scenes from the Bible using thier figures.

Tonight’s cocktail: Tulip Cocktail

• 1 shot / 30 ml / 1 oz Calvados
• 1 shot / 30 ml / 1 oz sweet vermouth
• ½ shot / 15 ml / ½ oz lemon juice juice
• ½ shot / 15 ml / ½ oz apricot brandy

Shake all ingredients with ice and fine-strain in to a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon zest twist.

The Tulip Cocktail is another taken from the pages of The Savoy Cocktail Book. It is a rich and fruity cocktail, with plenty of apple upfront and a long apricot finish. The vermouth provides a floral bitterness that along with the lemon juice provides a counterbalance to the sweetness of the Calvados and apricot brandy. The Tulip has a complexity that I really love in a cocktail, and despite the small amount of apricot brandy used it has a surprisingly strong effect on the drink. Definitely a drink worth exploring – highly recommended…

Apart from being yum, it is my choice in celebration of the Dutch national flower, to mark the 60th Anniversary of the Keukenhof. They are using the anniversary to mark the 400 years since Henry Hudson stepped off a ship owned by Dutch East India Company, purchased the land for the modern equivalent of UD$1,000 from a tribe that didnt own it and proclaimed it New Amsterdam.

Anyhow, when my mum comes to visit at the end of April we are going to visit the Tulips

On with the Linkage

While 99 Designs might not be the best way to get new work and protect your copyright Mashable held a competition to redesign their logo - which one do you like best?

The Guardian’s piece on “The Rise and Rise of Twitter” makes for interesting reading

Wallace and Gromit’s new ad for Npower, more here on Creative Review

Click here to view the embedded video.

Madonna wants to expand her brood, PopSugar reports

Yesterday it was confirmed that Madonna is trying to adopt a little girl from Malawi though there’s already controversy as the process moves forward. The little girl is an orphan named Mercy, and Madonna will appear in court on Monday to take the next steps.

Some thought Madonna got special treatment when she adopted David Banda, and the procedures could be even more complicated this time since she’ll be a single mom and there’s rumors of her personal life getting in the way

While we are on the topic of families, here are three posts from Travelling but not in love who has been hosting his lovely mother, aunt and cousin.  Read these while drinking your cuppa and risk a keyboard full of tea!  He is one funny guy and his mother and he make quite the double act.

Panti explains the Bicycle in homo friendly terms

The Lisa Hannigan video, for Lille, the pop up book was designed by Maeve Clancy of Flatmates fame.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Flatmates is a year old! And to celebrate, the first 10 people to send their postal address to Maeve with ‘Flatmates Poster’ in the subject heading will win signed limited edition posters.

@paddydonnelly ‘s fantastic set of Origami Web 2.0 icons

Grandad opens his advice clinic doors, Sunday suit you sir?

Dine to read.ie was this weeks Tuesday Push, looks like a really interesting way to meet new people and share a book and a meal.

Kevin Coleman finished his Guide to Blogging in three easy parts

And finally,

Found this week while the wonderful @fontfiddler was over to visit

Plop Chocolate Pudding

]]> http://elfinamsterdam.com/2009/03/28/elfs-drinky-links-iv/feed/ 3 http://elfinamsterdam.com/2009/03/22/drinky-links-iii/ http://elfinamsterdam.com/2009/03/22/drinky-links-iii/#comments Sun, 22 Mar 2009 23:30:05 +0000 elfinamsterdam http://elfinamsterdam.com/?p=296 So, better late than never, here are this weeks Drinky Links!

The only choice for this weeks cocktail is:

The Grand Slam

So in case you live under a rock the Irish Rugby team won the Grand Slam, and as ever the wonderful Patrick Phelan had his twouds up for the pre, during and post match tweets. My favorite is this one

78 mins: DROP-GOAL Wales 15-17 Ireland

Some great charity things you should support:

@Debbiemet‘s good friend in Brooklyn wants your signature to save a feral cat colony – Do It!

Friday was Daffodil Day, if you missed out, or you want to dedicate a Daffodil to someone, Plant a Daff

Two friends of mine Una & Kelly are doing a 70km from Dublin to Arklow on May 16th to raise money for Women’s Aid

On my now openly favorite topic, I’m not the only one that’s broody and if you’ve been bitten by the bug the Guardian has some advice for reducing the expense of these lovely little bundles of sleepless nights, and one very strange and freakily interesting story of the shared pregnancy experience of twin sisters

iPhone 3.0 release is another thing you *might* have heard about this week, the ever sleek and well groomed Allan Costello has been busily Tethering his nest

On the topic of nests and homes you may have noticed my new home, someone else who has a new home is Stephen Spillane *waves* Howdy Neighbour

Cool finds of the week: Polar Clock, (see below)

Drool Worthy Stairs and the Mixilator

Polarclock Screensaver & iPhone app

Gay this Week for the homos and the LGBTQ SOFA’s in the audience – Ellen on Oprah and Oprah on Ellen and from Panti’s Blog Portia DeRossi apologises for marrying Ellen.

Picture of the Week I love this image from GlasseyAlley

Finally today marks my first anniversary in Amsterdam (more on that later) and this week marks another cool anniversary, the very talented Maeve Clancy’s webcomic Flatmates

Back to work in the morning…..

however in the horsey theme The Kentucky Derby has its official cocktail, The Mint Julep!

Very easy to make, and might be a nice change for those that like Mojitos!

That’s the Drink… now for the links……

Xbox makes the newspaper for the second time in as many months

Gingerpixel too!

Macawilliams First photo from his new camera

Swiss Miss’s four rules more to be found on Notes to self

Proof that the Duck (like the man) is not for turning – have to say I laughed at the Registers heading for it “Bloke-Duck-Mounting”

The Guardian post Wendy Richard’s Chilli Recipe - I love the commentary on this recipe and recipes in general, which says a lot for our culinary blog friends.

“A recipe isn’t just a set of instructions for cooking, it’s a personal gift.

When someone gives you a recipe, they are not teaching you how to do something, but wanting you to experience something they loved.”

Sticking with food, the ever wonderful lady that is Grannymar has shared with us most graciously her favourite sandwich recipes – now these hit the spot in terms of my culinary prowess…

The influence of Desked, our new favourite blog is can be seen all over the place - ok so maybe not Desked influenced but it is a gorgeous desk!

On the topic of cool things on Design Milk, this is a fantastic idea for families with power hungry kids , although you would have to find a way to ensure they cant just unplug it and toss it to the side.

Don’t forget to vote for Irish man George in his attempt to get the Best Job in the World

And OF COURSE for our own Rick O’Shea in the Meteor’s

And to finish with something sweet!

What you talkin bout Willis

I call this Elf’s drinky links as I am currently an Elf drinking (its Friday) and I will try and share a drink recipe with you each week. Tonight the theme drink is my standard drink when out in a good bar, Whiskey Sour and just so you can do it with panache, here’s a vid.

Ok now we are all liquored up…(everyone except Tommy) I will begin.

We all use Twiter to solve problems, well I do, and now… so does Obama

Who says technology makes us lazy?

We all think Firefox is cool, but now we know its 100% ice cold!

With the new domain on the horizon I’m obscessed with WP and things to tweak it with

Want to know if anyone actually looks at the links you tweet?

One of the coolest, nicest guys blogging in Amsterdam, and he doesnt like the Saturday’s either.

Leuk, Koel en Lekker **

Taking the anti-whingebox award is Twitter’s Niall H, with 10 reasons the recession is good

Two beautiful posts on Mammy’s and the love they give us

On the topic of family and love, Allan Cavanagh‘s nephew has a love hate relationship with lemons.

And now, as I swirl the dregs of my whiskey sour, and mumble those immortal words

“You never loved me Jr” I leave you with this

G’night John Ross….

**Cute, Cool & Tasty