I already made a mention of a book I’m reading at the moment called Quirkology. It’s fascinating and I’m taking my time reading it because it’s one of those books I don’t want to get to the end of. Anyway, many of you will have heard about a very famous psychology experiment done in the 1960′s by Stanley Milgram. It was designed to test how much pain people would inflict on others when directed to do so by an authority figure (in this case a man in a white coat). Follow the link above if you want to read more. 60% of participants were prepared to deliver a potentially fatal shock to another human being just because the authority figure said so. Even though I’ve read about this experiment many times, I didn’t know about another similar experiment. Instead of actors playing the part of people getting electric shocks, they used live puppies. Incredibly, 50% of men delivered the maximum shock to the puppies versus 100% of women. This either shows that women are innately submissive or they really just don’t like dogs because they remind them of men, ergo women hate men? Thoughts on a postcard

Youtube video time. Superb promo for the Zurich Chamber Orchestra. The sheet music turns into a roller coaster. Bet you’ll watch this one twice at least.

An inspirational story. I had read this before and dug the book out last night as, for some reason, it came to my mind when I was doing the Apprentice review post. There are days when I feel like what I do doesn’t amount to a hill of beans, so this is a bit of a pick me up.

In the pioneering days of space research, John Kennedy was visiting NASA at Cape Canaveral. He had met many great scientists and researchers. He had met the men whose great ambition was to conquer space and walk on the surface of the moon. He had met administrators, accountants and many others whose contribution to the project was immense. Men and women who had a sense of destiny, purpose and pride.

Walking through the corridors on his way back to his limousine, he came across a stooped, grey-haired black man with a bucket in one hand and a mop in the other. It seemed to be quite a redundant question, but the president asked him politely, “And what do you do here at the Cape?”

Straightening his back, the cleaner looked square at the President, and with a strong sense of pride and dignity in his voice replied, “Sir, I’m doing the same as everyone else, I’m working here to put a man on the moon. That’s exactly what I’m doing here.”

If you are in the vicinity of Leopardstown on Sunday it might be worthwhile to drop by the Green Energy Fair. As well as having lots of ideas for home owners to reduce their carbon footprint, all your favourite green party people will be there – John Gormley, Eamon Ryan, Deirdre de Burca and Ciaran Cuffe. There’s foodie things there as well so it’s not just all about houses. I might pop along myself. It’s on Sunday from 11 to 6.

US postage stamp photo by mwboeckann and used under a creative commons license.

Via Frugal Ireland – €2 off Ben and Jerry’s Baked Alaska. Deb points out that it’s €3.24 in Te$co at the moment. Voucher valid until December. I’m stocking up – great deal…

It’s always good to learn something new every day. Yesterday I learned that Fota Wildlife Park in Cork is one of the world’s leading breeders of this magnificent animal. The latest additions to the cheetah family in Fota were revealed on Wednesday. So cute.

A little experiment that I found interesting in a book I’m reading at the moment called Quirkology. Using the index finger of your dominant hand, write the capital letter Q on your forehead. Did the tail of the Q you wrote go towards your left eye or your right eye?

Write your result in the comments. I’ll reveal what it means later.

Excited? I am For the record, I wrote the Q and the tail went towards my right eye.

Well done to Grannymar on winning the Blog post of the month award. A very touching post. Grannymar definitely walks the talk about encouraging other bloggers too so it was well deserved. Congrats.

Oh, and check out the website that Grannymar has inspired – toyboywarehouse.com

Jessie Buckley FTW in I’d Do Anything on Saturday. Yes, I do watch the programme and watched last years Joseph as well. Sad, I know. I’m hoping to go to London and see the show next year and hopefully she will be in it. Might take in the Lord of the Rings musical too, if it’s still on then.

Finally, a bicycle in the shape of a vagina. Isn’t that just wonderful? Link to the flickr photo below. I’ve made it a NSFW (not safe for work) link.

http://nsfw.in/7ae73b

One of these fine days I will actually make my own ice cream. It’s something I have never done before. I always think it will be difficult. With so many delicious ideas on Ice Cream Ireland I really don’t have an excuse. Whilst visiting the afformentioned purveyors of deliciously sweet things, I came across the post highlighting that Dingle and Killarney are in the top 100 places to visit worldwide according to Tripadvisor. The only other place in Ireland to be included is Galway. I was rather disappointed that Glendalough wasn’t on the list.

It’s my favourite place in the whole world. Not to be morbid or anything, but when I shuffle off this mortal coil, I want my ashes to be scattered there. Back to the Tripadvisor survey though. Try as I might, I couldn’t really get a great grasp on exactly how they compile the list. Obviously, visitor ratings are part of it, along with forum discussions and bookings also.

Tourism bodies around the country should be looking at Tripadvisor carefully to see what Dingle, Killarney and Galway are doing that sets them apart from other locations.

Silly Friday video which has just had it’s 1^st anniversary on Youtube. This is one of my favourite videos ever. Never fails to make me laugh. It’s been viewed an incredible 27 million times in the year since it was uploaded. I only discovered it recently though.

Lifehacker has a good list of Firefox 3 features. Firefox 2 has been running very slowly on my PC lately and it quite often hangs so I’m glad to see the new version has improved performance. It’s only a preview release still so I will wait until the final version before installing. It can’t come soon enough as far as I’m concerned.

Of all the bits and pieces I have read about Dustin’s demise in the Eurovision, this piece by Gerard O’ Neill really stands out for me.

I think he hits the nail on the head when he says:

It is a measure of our success that we need neither heroes nor trophies to feel good about ourselves

I’m not so sure that we were ever infatuated with Europe, but this is the best thing I’ve read about the Eurovision all week and why Ireland will never win a Eurovision again. A must read post if ever there was one.

Ok, this is quite possibly the most pointless way to waste time on the internet, but I find myself strangely addicted to flipping the pages every which way and seeing what colour comes next.

Don’t know if there has been a similar campaign in Ireland, but this certainly caught my eye anyway. Even though he died in 2003 from prostate cancer, Bob Monkhouse is spearheading the campaign for research into prostate cancer in the UK.  

It’s been great weather this week but my God, the heat on the bus in the evenings on the way home is just unreal. Wednesday was particularly bad. The driver would put on the air con on for a short while and then it would be off again, but it didn’t seem to cool down. A bus inspector got on at one point, and all of sudden the aircon seemed to work – cool air – it was magic. I am really convinced some of the drivers deliberately put the aircon on the wrong setting. How else could the sudden temperature change be explained?

Is there anything better than this song for good weather like we’re having right now? I love when my iPod shuffles to this track! Magic.

Look what I’m going to make. It’s a Vegetable Paella and it looks fab. It’s from Victoria’s brilliantly named ommnomnom.com blog, which is stuffed with loads of Vegan recipes. I tried changing to a completely vegan diet at one point, but had to revert back to veggie – I missed the dairy product but I didn’t have much in the way of inspirational recipes until now.

ommnomnom though – it’s a great name for a food blog

I have developed an irrational hatred of a certain type of Dublin guy who has, with the good weather, forsaken his usual tracksuit for shorts. It’s not the shorts they are wearing that bother me. It’s more the exagerrated swagger that accompanies the wearing of the shorts. Where does this manner of walking come from? It’s meant to be the “hard man” walk. Some comedian or other (might have been Andrew Maxwell) characterised the walk as being like that of a pigeon. The hard man walk is evident all year round, but it IS definitely more prominent at this time of year.

The absolute worst offenders are the ones who wear shorts, do the swagger AND have a penchant for stuffing their hand down their shorts. Even though fondling the crown jewels is very comforting and soothing, there is a time and a place for it and it certainly isn’t in public.

I’ve often wondered about the music from the pensions board ad. I find it very sad and wistful and was surprised to learn that the brief for the ad was for a “60′s feel, upbeat song with a country edge”. Whatcha think. Was the brief met?

Here’s the link to the music. It’s composed and produced by Steve Lynch who is the name behind a lot of familiar ad music on Irish TV and Radio.

First off, I think I might extend the That’ll never work book competition, so if you get a chance take a look at what it’s all about and give the two thumbs up to some deserving Irish business. Go on, you know it makes sense!

The Dear Lover Blog – have you checked it out yet? The first post I thought was very hearfelt.  I love the header graphic on the blog as well – ‘tis very nice. Rosie found it first.

All the Simpson’s Couch Gags, all in one video.  And there’s a whole list of them on Wikipedia.

After paying for Oxegen or Electric Picnic, would you then pay over €300 for a myhab. It’s an absolutely fantastic idea but waaay too expensive. Looks like lots of people are paying for them at Electric Picnic anyway – it says limited availability.

But, as they say on their site, if 2 people are sharing maybe spending €150 each isn’t so bad for the bit of comfort.

Finally, One for the road has the definitive take on Brian Cowen’s cabinet shuffle.