Nerdvana : Must have iPhone cookies

I, like the big blue furry fella on Sesame Street, love cookies. I also love my iPhone. So when I saw these iPhone shaped cookies I instantly wanted to go to Japan, visit the Green Gables shop, and just go nuts.

An American bakery called SugarBeez also produces some of their own, in the more traditional black. Either way I’m hungry.

Clear out

I’ve moved all the movie related stuff to scannain.com so that I can keep this blog for more personal things.

Gaming Garage – Final Fantasy XIII Box Art Unveiled

Square Enix have unveiled the new box art for one of 2010’s most anticipated videogame release, Final Fantasy XIII.

Euro 2012 – A preview of the draw

So now that Henrygate is over, after FIFA ruled out all possibility of a replay, it’s time to focus on qualification for Euro 2012.

Henrygate – A reaction to France – Ireland

As the waves of Henrygate reverberate around the web it’s time to sit back and look at what’s actually happening here. The principal clamour from fans appears to be in the direction of staging a one-off replay of the game.

Giovanni Trappatoni in his press conference this afternoon ruled out the replay idea as “impossible”, but that hasn’t stopped the FAI from launching an official complaint with FIFA. There is some merit to the notion of a replay as one has been sanctioned before. FIFA sanctioned a replay of the Uzbekistan-Bahrain after ruling that the referee erred in the first leg by disallowing a penalty scored by Uzbekistan’s Server Djeparov in the September 3rd, 2005 match because defender Timur Kapadze invaded the box before the penalty was taken.

In this instance however all the pleading in the world is unlikely to make FIFA sanction a replay. It’s just not in their interest. France are one of the largest footballing nations in the world. Ireland aren’t. Neither were Uzbekistan or Bahrain. Not having a team the calibre of France in the World Cup would diminish the contest from an advertising stand-point and Ireland, no matter how enthusiastic our supporters are, are not going to make up that revenue stream.

In the end it all comes down to money and the World Cup is principally a business first and a competition second. The draw in Paris is said to have cost the Irish economy millions and that is easy to see. World Cup fever encourages people to spend, to go out to pubs to buy merchandise, flags etc. When England failed to qualify for Euro 2008 Sports Direct, Britain’s largest sports retailer, was forced to issue a profit warning. Football is that big a business.

Yes Ireland were cheated out of a chance to go to South Africa, but it was a chance only. There were still 15 minutes to play before the lottery of a penalty shoot-out would have begun. We cannot know what would have happened in those 15 minutes and it is pointless to speculate. What we need to do as individuals and as a nation is rally behind our team, support them and congratulate them. They’ve done us proud and no-one, not even Monsieur Henry can take that away from us.

Henry had his chance last night to become one of the greats in the modern game and admit to the referee that he handled the ball. Instead he did what most of us would do in his situation and let things be. The biggest problem that I have with Henry’s actions was not the handball or cover-up. It was the excessive celebrations and mile-wide grin that accompanied them. He knew he’d done wrong, his conversation with a dejected Richard Dunne at the end of the game said as much, but yet he celebrated wildly. It sends a dangerous precedent which flies in the eye of the saying “cheaters never prosper”. France cheated and now they’re going to the World Cup.

The saddest thing about all of it was something a friend said to me this morning. His 10 year-old son was watching the game with him and afterwards asked his father why Ireland didn’t cheat too. His father told him that it was because Ireland were the good guys and that cheating was wrong. His son then told him yes but France cheated and they won. Henry who is a huge role model to kids these days has just told an entire generation that it’s okay to cheat as long as you win.

A salute to the boys in Green

Last night in the wake of Ireland’s cruel exit from World Cup 2010 at the hands of the French I wanted to express my feelings. A combination of tiredness and wisdom told me to wait until the morning and approach the subject with a clear head.

The result left me saddened and angered that such a travesty of injustice could be imposed on people who gave it their all in pursuit of victory. We all know now of the circumstances that led to our exit, by way of the hand of a Frenchman who once was a model for integrity in the modern game. Tomes and songs will be written about that “goal” and I don’t want the game to remembered for just that.

Gamers Garage – Mass Effect 2

Bioware has unveiled the final box art for their forthcoming role playing science fiction sequel Mass Effect 2.

Cinema Magic – Screen, Dublin

I love the cinema going experience. It’s one of my true pleasures in life. The red seats, the over-sized drinks, the smell and rustle of pop-corn and most of all the dark room with the big screen. I’m a man of simple pleasures and I sometimes feel that the quest for new, huge, shiny multiplexes has taken us away from the very experience that made attending the movies such an event.

In tech news…

Apple have not given up in their seemingly pointless effort to stop jailbreaking on the iPhone. Apple has begun shipping 3GS iPhones with an updated bootrom (iBoot-359.3.2) that effectively blocks the current 24kpwn jailbreak exploit. Now this will only slow down the jailbreaking community rather than stop it as customers do not wish to be tied to only one network provider or to only one source for applications. The I-Dev team which has so successfully pwned the iPhone in the past is sure to be investigating techniques to bypass the security even now.

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There’s a new Blackberry on the market with RIM’s development of a sucessor to it’s best-selling Storm, the Storm 2. Not much has changed from a physical standpoint but internally there’s a new chipset which should make the whole device a lot faster (which was the biggest gripe with the old one). The new case is much slicker than before. The metal battery cover fits absolutely snugly, and the physical buttons have been merged into the display. The Storm 2 packs Wi-Fi along with 3G, and a 3.2MP camera. Expect to see it launched on the Vodafone network in the coming weeks.

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Sky and Microsoft have confirmed that Sky Player on Xbox 360 will officially kick off on 27 October. The service will allow you to watch up to 22 live channels directly through your Xbox 360. Sky is sketchy on the details but do say that you’ll be able to avail of the offer even if you’re not an existing Sky customer. To get the service you will need to be subscribed to Xbox Live gold and pay an additional charge. Actual pricing, however, hasn’t been announced yet. No word on availabilty in Ireland so I’m assuming it’s not going to be.

You can check out the Sky website for more details.

A little bit of Culchure

I have the amazing honour of writing for Culch.ie, a great Irish website dedicated to informing the masses about the latest pop cultural happening on our fair isle. This site is run by the exemplary Darren Byrne and has a great line-up of authors, who are truly wonderful people as well as being extraordinarily well-informed and funny. I try to post my best work there, that is to say what I consider my best work not that it’s actually any good but I’d like to think that some people enjoy it and I’m not completely wasting my time.

I have a regular column for movies showing each week called The Friday Feeling as well as a semi-regular column called Cool but Ultimately Pointless. CBUP is about new technology or innovations that are really interesting but will never amount to anything (in my opinion). The most recent CBUP was about Sony’s latest gizmo the PSP Go. There are numerous reason’s why this is pointless and I covered most of them in the post. I also try to review movies that I have been privileged to see before their Irish release date including Up and Adventureland.

Recently I’ve posted news stories about Doctor Who, the new International Amazon Kindle, He-Man and Barbie movies, the 61st Emmys, Monopoly City Stories, Facebook Lite, the A-Team movie cast as well as tributes to the late Keith Floyd and Patrick Swayze. I’ve also examined the modern obsession with 3D cinema as well as doing a feature on TV Bars.

I love Disney/Pixar and for Culch.ie I have posted about their forthcoming 2D feature The Princess and the Frog (twice) in addition to the review of Up. I’ve also examined the impact of the Marvel-Disney/Pixar merger.

I plan on writing a lot more and ideas are always buzzing around in my head. I’ve created this blog to post them all and weed out the good ones for a place I hope they’ll be appreciated, Culch.ie.