Check out the opening of Arrival an installation by Brendan Earley at Pallas Heights -30 Sean Tracey House, Buckingham St Dublin (near Connolly Dart Station) this Friday 24th. This is a great alternative venue in a derelict block of Corporation flats awaiting demolition and is well worth checking out.
Full information from the Pallas site.

Olafur Eliasson’s Weather Project at Tate Modern looks pretty damn impressive
A nice piece about the writers of Elite, probably the first computer game I was addicted to if you don’t count the arcade games. Take a trip down memory lane and download it here the C64 emulator here and here’s some original design scans, ah they don’t make ‘em like that anymore.
The Nike Ground.com event? – I’d call it a scam but that implies that it works to some degree from 01010101..org. I’m a fan of their other work but they really don’t seem to be trying anymore, I mean nike it’s a bit like shooting fish in a barrel isn’t it?

I’ve been driven demented recently by a single spam containing a virus which is almost 400k in size, originating from oceanfree.net servers (now owned by ESAT). ESAT of course refuse to accept any responsibility which hardly surprises me – I used to be an ESAT customer and it was that kind of there is no problem attitude that made me switch service providers.
Anyway I have virus scanners which deal with the virus but only after it’s downloaded and as somedays I get it 10 times it’s a real pain! But today I solved the problem with a nice bit of freeware called mail box despatcher which lets you preview and delete mail before you have to download it, highly recommended.

Back from Philadelphia where I was best man at my brothers wedding – I even made a speech AND everyone laughed at the right moments – it was a great weekend. They didn’t have the internet there so I couldn’t blog.
Philadelphia seems like a pretty nice place in as much as you can judge in a flying visit but everywhere we went my wife got yelled at out of car windows by the local yokels, it was really really odd.

Michael Moore sticks it to Bush in extracts from his forthcoming book Dude, where’s my country?
Seamus Heaney glances over the Encyclopaedia of Ireland and says dude, that’s my country?

Some art related blogs I’ve been checking out recently
Wooster Collective street art
Greg.org art and film making
Dublog
Jim Punks’s blog as net art
Muteblog blogging without words
Art blog the trials of a working artist
Modern Art Notes more traditional arts
Artrift

After all my talk about black choppers I’ve got to admit that I’ve never really been a believer but then it happened… Sunday I was going for a walk on Killiney beach, it was wet and windy and the beach was fairly empty when a helicopter flew very slowly – almost hovering but not quite – up the beach toward me. It flew past at barely more then a walking pace, turned and came back toward me hovering directly over my head at a height of about 20 feet, there was a strong gusting crosswind and you could see it rocking in the wind. It was a dark colour with no discernable markings, to my untrained eye it looked like a Huey of Apocalypse Now vintage with obligatory side door open. After hovering for a few minutes it then turned out to sea and circled very slowly about 50 feet offshore at the same low altitude as before proceeding slowly down the beach again. Off course I didn’t have a camera with me so no proof.
If it happens again I will be converted to fulltime conspiracy theorist, I have already thought a little about who would send the black choppers after me and I always come around to IMMA they’re a dangerous crowd to mess with.

The Bloody Sunday Inquiry gets to the heart of the matter as the soldiers who murdered 14 people in 1972 take the stand. Full transcripts on their site which make chilling reading.

You may have noticed the pink shipping containers around Dublin, they’re an exhibition part of the Fringe Festival. Two on O’Connell St – Mark Cullen’s is particularly good – two at Dublin Castle and a few more scattered around.
Also check out Mannix Flynn’s State Meant

If you’ve been missing Dublin’s favourite pirate they’re returning on October 18th (weekends only) on a temporary license on 97.3 Mhz. Lets hope it’s permanent.