Upgrade to WordPress 2.6.2 completed

I haven’t been posting that much recently but hope to remedy that in the days and weeks ahead. Hopefully, now that I have (finally) completed by Masters Degree, I will have a little more time to post some new articles.

In the mean time, I took the time to update my blogging software to WordPress 2.6.2 this evening, so if you notice anything unusual, be sure to let me know.

Beijing 2008, LEGO style

A group of LEGO enthusiasts from Hong Kong have constructed their own version of the Olympic venues from Beijing 2008.

By the looks of it, they’re made mostly from fairly common LEGO pieces and as a result, they’re both highly impressive (as it anything made from LEGO in my opinion) but also refreshingly simple. Far too many modern LEGO kits have pieces in them that are all to realistic, taking the fun out of it for me.

Source: SlashDot

Secret LEGO Vault

Here is real treat for LEGO fans everywhere. I learned today that there is a special vault at LEGO Headquarters in Denmark where they store one of every LEGO set ever created from 1953 to 2008, that’s 4720 sets, still in their original boxes!

Apparently one of the primary reasons for retaining such a collection is that LEGO can use it as a safeguard in copyright and patent cases.

To a long time LEGO fanatic like myself, this is an unimaginable concept and represents possibly the finest toy collection in existence bar none. Special thanks goes to Gizmodo for sharing the experience and emotion of his recent visit to this labrynth of true wonderment. His article and accompanying video are well worth checking out.

Source: SlashDot

For Focal Sake

Monday, 26th May 2008 saw the launch of a new book called For Focal Sake: A 32 County Guide to Irish Slang. I had the privilege to review an advanced copy of this publication and have to say, it’s both hilarious and brilliantly put together.

It features a collection of the most popular slang terms from each of the 32 counties of Ireland, based on submissions to the popular slang.ie website. In addition, there is a brief (but informative) outline of each county including its colloquial name, names of some of the funnier townlands from that county and so on. My favourite part of the entire book has to be the collection of Irish words for being drunk – it’s absolutely priceless.

The front cover (below) is also great and would make a great T-Shirt!

You can find out more about it on the official Slang.ie website.

Indiana Jones meets LEGO

With the long awaited release of the fourth movie in the Indiana Jones series, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, hitting Irish big screens next week, the creators of LEGO have pulled off another master stroke in the form of a new series of video games called Indian Jones: The Original Adventures. Here’s one of the trailers for the new game (and the new movie) that’s currently doing the rounds. If like me, you grew up on a diet of LEGO and Indie, you will love it!

What’s amazing to me about this is that it’s basically computer-generated animation that’s been made to look like LEGO. It’s normally the other way around. In any case, it is quite brilliant and an extremely clever move from a commercial sense.

Dan Haspert also has a short review of this same topic and you can see more trailers of LEGO computer games here.

Bear With Me

I’m in the process of updating the software that drives this blog (moving to WordPress 2.3.3) and also going through the process of adding proper tags to each post (as well as re-categorising existing articles).

Due to this, you may receive some previously published posts again.

100 Ways to say I Love You

Thanks to Michele Neylon’s post on how to say I Love You in over 100 different languages (110 to be precise), you now have no excuse for not being able to find the right words to tell that someone special how much they mean to you this Valentine’s Day.

If you time it right, you might even get through them all over dinner … just before she falls asleep into her dessert 🙂

Have a good one!

Language Phrase
Afrikaans Ek het jou lief
Albanian Te dua
Arabic Ana behibak (to male)
Arabic Ana behibek (to female)
Armenian Yes kez sirumen
Bambara M’bi fe
Bangla Aamee tuma ke bhalo baashi
Belarusian Ya tabe kahayu
Bisaya Nahigugma ako kanimo
Bulgarian Obicham te
Cambodian Bung Srorlagn Oun (to female), Oun Srorlagn Bung (to male)
Cantonese/Chinese Ngo oiy ney a
Catalan T’estimo
Cheyenne Ne mohotatse
Chichewa Ndimakukonda
Corsican Ti tengu caru (to male)
Creol Mi aime jou
Croatian Volim te
Czech Miluji te
Danish Jeg Elsker Dig
Dutch Ik hou van jou
English I love you
Esperanto Mi amas vin
Estonian Ma armastan sind
Ethiopian Ewedishalehu (to female), Ewedihalehu (to male).
Faroese Eg elski teg
Farsi Doset daram
Filipino Mahal kita
Finnish Mina rakastan sinua
French Je t’aime, Je t’adore
Gaelic Ta gra agam ort
Georgian Mikvarhar
German Ich liebe dich
Greek S’agapo
Gujarati Hu tumney prem karu chu
Hiligaynon Palangga ko ikaw
Hawaiian Aloha wau ia oi
Hebrew Ani ohev otah (to female)
Hebrew Ani ohev et otha (to male)
Hiligaynon Guina higugma ko ikaw
Hindi Hum Tumhe Pyar Karte hai
Hmong Kuv hlub koj
Hopi Nu’ umi unangwa’ta
Hungarian Szeretlek
Icelandic Eg elska tig
Ilonggo Palangga ko ikaw
Indonesian Saya cinta padamu
Inuit Negligevapse
Irish Taim i’ ngra leat
Italian Ti amo
Japanese Aishiteru
Kannada Naa ninna preetisuve
Kapampangan Kaluguran daka
Kiswahili Nakupenda
Konkani Tu magel moga cho
Korean Sarang Heyo
Latin Te amo
Latvian Es tevi miilu
Lebanese Bahibak
Lithuanian Tave myliu
Macedonian Te Sakam
Malay Saya cintakan mu / Aku cinta padamu
Malayalam Njan Ninne Premikunnu
Maltese Inhobbok
Mandarin Chinese Wo ai ni
Marathi Me tula prem karto
Mohawk Kanbhik
Moroccan Ana moajaba bik
Nahuatl Ni mits neki
Navaho Ayor anosh’ni
Nepali Ma Timilai Maya Garchhu
Norwegian Jeg Elsker Deg
Pandacan Syota na kita!!
Pangasinan Inaru Taka
Papiamento Mi ta stimabo
Persian Doo-set daaram
Pig Latin Iay ovlay ouyay
Polish Kocham Cie
Portuguese Eu te amo
Romanian Te ubesc
Russian Ya tebya liubliu
Rwanda Ndagukunda
Scot Gaelic Tha gra\dh agam ort
Serbian Volim te
Setswana Ke a go rata
Sindhi Maa tokhe pyar kendo ahyan
Sioux Techihhila
Slovak Lu`bim ta
Slovenian Ljubim te
Spanish Te quiero / Te amo
Surinam Mi lobi joe
Swahili Ninapenda wewe
Swedish Jag alskar dig
Swiss-German Ich lieb Di
Tajik Man turo Dust Doram
Tagalog Mahal kita
Taiwanese Wa ga ei li
Tahitian Ua Here Vau Ia Oe
Tamil Naan unnai kathalikiraen
Telugu Nenu ninnu premistunnanu
Thai Chan rak khun (to male)
Thai Phom rak khun (to female)
Turkish Seni Seviyorum
Ukrainian Ya tebe kahayu
Urdu mai aap say pyaar karta hoo
Vietnamese Anh ye^u em (to female)
Vietnamese Em ye^u anh (to male)
Welsh ‘Rwy’n dy garu
Yiddish Ikh hob dikh
Yoruba Mo ni fe
Zimbabwe Ndinokuda

Source: Michele Neylon :: Pensieri

Martello Gets a Makeover

I finally got around to giving my site a new and more modern look and feel. As well as the new Glossy Blue theme, I’ve also added a few useful widgets to the sidebar, including a Tag Cloud which shows the more popular categories (or tags) from the site.

If you have any comments, good or bad, please don’t keep them to yourself.

Happy 50th Birthday LEGO Brick, my old friend

The infamous LEGO brick that we all know and love turned 50 years old today.

Personally, I have been a fan of LEGO for as long as I can remember and much to the credit of my forward-thinking parents (or were they just hoarders?), I still have pretty much all of it to this day. In recent years, I have discovered a renewed appreciation for this wonderful toy, mainly due to my 9 and 5-year old nephews and my 3 year-old daughter, all of whom play with the myriad of less-than-shiny bricks, wheels, windows, roof tiles and mini-people on an almost daily basis.

Amazingly, the boys have lots of their own (modern) LEGO but seem to prefer the simplicity and imagination of my collection. There aren’t many toys that could survive intact for over 30 years and still hold the imagination of today’s tech-hungry children for so long!

The LEGO company itself was actually first formed way back in 1934 by a Danish carpenter, Ole Christiansen, who had been making wooden toys for a number of years prior to that. It was in 1934 that he first named his company “LEGO”, a name that was derived from the Danish phrase leg godt that means “play well” but interestingly, LEGO also means “I assemble” in Latin. It was not until much later, in 1958, that the first LEGO brick was patented.

Gizmodo have also put together a great LEGO timeline in celebration of this momentous day.

Sources: SlashDot, WikiPedia

Castaway Canoeist

The story of John Darwin is somewhat intriguing. He disappeared of the UK coast in 2002 whilst on the canoing trip and was presumed dead. However, he turned up alive and well at an English Police Station a few days ago.

At first, you might think this would be the best Christmas present his family could ever have dreamed of, and it probably is. But there appears to be more to his story than meets the eye.

Source: RTE News