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.