“Obsession” – a Painting by artist Paul Doran.
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My Tom Yum Soup Recepie
I used to make this for my father before he passed – his sense of taste went and everything tasted bland to him – so I made him a spicy soup and he loved it. I had to make it every week! Lots of other people tasted it and loved it so I write down the recipe – I thought I’d share here too:
- Tom Yum Paste – has to be the proper stuff!
- 1 Can of Coconut Milk 400ml
- 700ml litre of Chicken Stock
- 3 Cloves of Garlic
- 1 chunk of Ginger
- 1 Red Onion
- 1 Lime
- 1 stalk of Lemongrass
- 3 Kaffir Lime Leaves
- 2 Chicken Breasts
- Sugar (Palm sugar if possible)
- Fish Sauce
- Vegetables: Peppers, peas, tomatoes, mushrooms, scallions, Chillies
Instructions:
- Boil coconut milk in a pot for 5 minutes with a stalk of Lemongrass, 3 cloves of Garlic, some ginger chopped finely, and a chopped red onion.
- Add the stock, and then add the Tom Yam paste. 2-3 tablespoons depending on how hot you want it – taste it and add more if necessary. Let simmer for a few minutes.
- Thinly slice the chicken and add into the pot. You can use Prawns also.
- Add any vegetables you like. Peppers, peas, sweetcorn, mushrooms and small chopped tomatoes etc.
- Add 1-2 tablespoons of fish sauce, the juice of half a lime, and 2 tablespoons of sugar. It’s the balance of these three ingredients that make the final flavour so add in small increments to taste. Fish cause gives the sour taste, sweeten with sugar and add zest with lime juice.
How Football sounds to people who don’t like Football
Firstly, imagine every time within a day that football is mentioned by someone else. Secondly, replace it with something that you don’t want to hear about every day. Say… Archaeology. Then, think about how an average day would pan out.
So, you awaken to the clock radio. It’s 7AM. Just as you awaken, it’s time for the news and archaeology already. Not news and other historical investigations, like library restorations or museum openings (unless there’s another event happening), but just the news and archaelogy. Malaysian plane is still missing. Pistorius is still on trial. New dig announced in Giza. Ancient Mayan temple discovered. Exciting stuff.
Time for a bite to eat over the morning TV. More news. More archaeology. Yes, you are aware of what is up with the missing plane. Fine. Now the archaeology in video format. Video of people dusting off some skulls and bits of pottery. All well and good, but archaeology isn’t your thing. It would be nice to hear about something else. Even when it isn’t archaeology season, the media follow noted archaeologists. They drive fast cars, have sex with beautiful women, advertise fragrances, and sometimes they go to nightclubs and act in the worst possible way. Scandals erupt as the tabloids follow these new celebrities when they’re not searching the past for answers. It is entirely possible you can recite the names of certain researchers, even if you don’t pay attention to archaeology. You don’t know what transfer season is, but you know that someone was transferred to a dig in Peru for a sum of money that could fund the London Underground for two whole days.
Out of the car at 8:55 and into work. What are the colleagues talking about, I wonder? Oh, Jones dropped a 3,890 year old pot and smashed it? What a useless wanker! Someone should do something unpleasant to him. And don’t even ask about the unfortunate incident in Athens two years ago – you’ll be there all day! Breaking a pillar like that! We don’t talk about that here, mate. What? You don’t want to discuss the finer points of the prevalence of phallic imagery in Pompeii? Is there something wrong with you?
The drive home from work. Every thirty minutes, no matter the station, someone mentions the archaeology. Best sit in silence. Drive past a huge billboard with a black and white picture of a rakishly handsome archaeologist draped over an impossibly beautiful woman. He’s winking at you. Trowel in his left hand, supermodel in the right. Jurassic, by Calvin Klein.
And now the pub. A nice pub with a beer garden. Posters in the windows. LIVE EXCAVATION AT THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS! All of it on a huge TV with the volume up too loud. Drunken people yelling at the screen. “SEND IT FOR CARBON DATING, YOU USELESS CUNT!” “WHAT ARE YOU ON, MATE? DUST THE ANCIENT MEDALLION GENTLY! SMELTING METHODS OF THE TIME PRODUCED VERY SOFT AND IMPURE METALS EASILY PRONE TO DISFIGURATION!” All this from two men out of a crowd of twenty. One lousy drunken idiot and his chum ruin the image of other archaeology fans. Carbon dating report from the lab updates on TV, read by a man employed because they’ve been following the beautiful science since they were a boy. The drunk chimes in again. “WHAT PHARAOH’S REIGN DID YOU SAY? DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS SAYS ABOUT THE UNDERPINNINGS OF OUR THEORY OF AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF 4TH BC EGYPT? GET IN, MATE!” A cheer cascades through the building and you can only wonder why.
Best go home and avoid anyone who might be drinking and singing. You once met a disagreeable chap who threatened to beat you up because you didn’t watch the archaeology. “Not a late paleolithic era supporter are you? Think you’re better than me? I’ll fucking have you, you scrawny cunt!”
To bed. To repeat the cycle tomorrow. The inescapable, inevitability that wherever you go, someone, somewhere, is just dying to talk to you about the archaeology.
F1s Greatest Racing Rivals – Hunt vs Lauda
I recently saw the documentary “Rush” – about the fantastic rivalry between James Hunt and Nicki Lauda. It’s a great movie, not as good as Senna, but I still highly recommend you watch it.
However, if you don’t have time to go to the cinema, this BBC documentary tells the same story – definitely worth a watch
How to get over 200gb of cloud storage for (almost) free!
It seems like every other week there is some new cloud storage vendor coming online giving away a few free gb’s of storage. I’m a big fan of dropbox and I managed to get over 20gb of storage from them using the referrals link. I use Dropbox every day and love it.
However, I do have a need for storage for stuff I don’t need to access every day. Instead of backing up DVD’s etc of my photos and old files, I have been meaning to find an online alternative. I just found it. A new service called copy.com who give you 15gb free – and then with a few referrals I managed to get that to 30gb. However, I found a fantastic gig on fiverr of a guy who gives you an additional 200GB, yes 200GB, for just five bucks.
Check out the the gig here – I had it in under 24 hours – and now I have 230 gb to back up a large portion of my hard drive to the cloud, and not have to worry about it, or have it cost me anything!
20 TED Talks that EVERYONE should watch
If you’re not familiar with TED – you’re in for a treat. TED, which stands for “Technology, Entertainment, Design” was founded in 1990 it was a small secret gathering of very smart people with the plan to share and spread great ideas. It now has conferences all over the world and has hundreds of videos on the web. Here are a collection of my favourites…
Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?
Reggie Watts disorients you in the most entertaining way
James Randi: Homeopathy, quackery and fraud
James B. Glattfelder: Who controls the world?
Amy Cuddy: Your body language shapes who you are
This is what makeup can do!
Asian makeup artist Promise Phan can make herself look like just about anybody. From famous people and popular cultural figures such as Antoine Dodson to Jack Sparrow to Taylor Swift.
- Promise Phan without makeup
- Johnny depp
- Michael Jackson
- Kim Kardashian
- Jessica Rabbit
- Angelina Jolie
- Britney Spears
- Drake
- Nicki Minaj
- Katy Perry
- Lil Wayne
- Yes We Can – Geraldine Hoff
- Princess Jasmine
- Rihanna
- Mystique
- Marylin Monroe
- Mona Lisa
- Neytiri
- Pocahontas
- Jack Sparrow
- Megan Fox
- Milan
- Taylor Swift
- Chris Brown
- Edward Scissorhands
- Antoine Dodson
NeverWet – an insanely cool water repellent
The History of Typography
This is very nerdy but I think its cool
Great Slideshare on the Irish Tech Startup Scene
Ducati 749 review
I thought I should probably write a review of the bike I’ve had now for 2.5 years. When I was buying it I did not find much in the way of real world reviews so hopefully this can be of some use to anyone who is considering buying one… And in short, yes, you should – it’s brilliant and I could not recommend it enough! Anyway, here is some background.
I did not originally intend to buy a sports bike (this is classed as a midrange superbike) I was looking for something more in between, but most of those types of bikes are pretty ugly and just not special. I considered this and when i rode it I was surprised how nice it was and easy to ride. I’m pretty short and it was not too big – but if you are 6 foot plus it might be on the small side.
So, firstly, I love this bike, its my pride and joy and the best thing I’ve ever bough out of all of toys. Mine is a 2005 which may be old but it has never low mileage and the guy who owned it before me put loads of nice little bits on it like carbon and other shiny bits. It was remarkable value for what I got I think. And going on market prices it has held its value very well.
Ok so here is a summary of what I like and don’t like:
The Good:
For a superbike it’s surprisingly easy to ride in traffic – I hear the 1098 is a total bitch at low speeds. I ride mine to work every day through the city and it’s great. It has more than enough power – scares the crap out of me over 9k rpm and can spin the wheel in 3rd when accelerating hard. Two different Ducati mechanics told me that The 749 is a great bike as you can give it a bit of a thrashing – whereas it’s bigger brother the 999 ‘tends to run away with you’. The front brakes are fantastic – it seems to defy gravity when you throw down the anchor. (The rear brake not so much though). The steering is also brilliant, it goes exactly where you want to put it. Despite revving to 13k rpm it’s surprisingly grunty in low revs – that’s the twin engine for you. Mine has an open clutch and a racefit exhaust so it sounds incredible (see video below) but it still sounds good with standard exhaust. It’s an absolutely stunning looking bike which has really stood the test of time. I read when it came out a lot of people did not like it – maybe ahead of its time but 8 years on and most people still think its a brand new bike and cannot believe how little I paid for it considering how much you get overall.
The Bad
The most annoying thing for me is when riding in the city on a hot day, your ass gets absolutely roasted as the exhaust pipes come up under the seat. I’m told there is little you can do about this but if anyone knows please let me know in the comments. Comfort wise on very long journeys on windy roads like this, your wrists and arms hurt. But it’s fine at higher speeds with the wind to take some of the slack. The fuel tank is too small – well under 100 miles per tank. Mpg’s aren’t great either – here is mine tracked on Fuelly. The rear brake is next to useless. Reliability wise it was been ok for me, but for some reason it occasionally loses charge in the battery. Not sure why but apart from that I have had no problems with it. Mine I’m sure some think is too loud, it’s a bit obnoxious but I quickly grew to love it – here is a video:
I hope this helps if you are considering buying one. Leave any comments with your thoughts.
Everyone in the world should be made to watch this video
Everything you could ever want to know about HubSpot (Dublin)
HubSpot opened it’s first ever international office in Dublin at the beginning of January – and they have some pretty ambitious growth plans, hoping to grow to 150 people by the end of 2013. I thought I’d throw together everything you could possibly want to know about HubSpot on one page in terms of Links, Video’s, Articles and some fun stuff too.
If you are top of your game in Sales, Marketing or Support, passionate about Inbound Marketing and Social Media, and want to join the best team around – please drop me a mail for an introduction and referral to “DubSpot”.
Main Links & Videos
Website for HubSpot’s new Dublin office: http://international.hubspot.com/ – videos, descriptions, job links and more.
Announcement of the new HubSpot office in Dublin
What is HubSpot?
What it’s like to work for HubSpot?
The HubSpot Vision:
The HubSpot Culture Code: (360,000 views on Slideshare)
Main Website Links:
Main Website: http://www.hubspot.com/
What Is HubSpot: http://www.hubspot.com/products
What is Inbound Marketing: http://www.hubspot.com/products/inbound-marketing/
Online Marketing Blog: http://blog.hubspot.com
Social Media
Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/hubspot
Twitter: https://twitter.com/HubSpot
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/hubspot
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/hubspot
Some great articles about HubSpot
The HubSpot Culture Code: http://www.culturecode.com
The Science of building scalable sales teams: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/07/the_science_of_building_a_scal.html
HubSpot’s best practices for Managing SaaS Inside Sales Teams: http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/hubspot-saas-inside-sales/
Product Demo’s and Overviews:
3 Minute Overview Demo of HubSpot 3.0 Software:
Full Demo of the HubSpot Software
Others
The science of Inbound Marketing Webcast
Sales Performance (work.com)
How HubSpot use IdeasPaint
They even make funny videos, parodies to existing tracks… Incredibly cheesy but you have to hand it to them, they are dam funny!
HubSpot Chair Dance
Gangham Style:
What you aughta know about inbound marketing:
More on the way…
How to be Brilliant Every Day
Google now is kicking Siri’s ass
This is Google’s version of Siri and I’m pretty impressed with all the cool stuff it can do! I have not really used it up until now, but I just realised that if I put a shortcut on my homescreen for the app “Voice Search” which is in the app drawer, I can with just one touch, search for anything and get answer to questions. It’s really handy. My favourite is by saying “Note to self” it will add whatever i say next to my Google Tasks which I use all the time. Brilliant.
Business Insider Article: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-use-google-now-2013-2