Taking some time out. Suspended from Twitter. Laughing hard

This was too good not to blog, despite my self imposed break from it while I contribute to Culch.ie, the new Boards blog and the drain and source of energy and creativity that is the wonderful twitter.

But about 20 minutes ago...



I've been suspended from Twitter. Yep, my crimes of bad jokes, being anti-spam, anti BS and general mischivousness has finally caught up with me.


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I swear, I haven't laughed so hard for ages, simply because I had been marking spammers as spam, ranting about retweeting and telling the usual very bad jokes.

How do all my followers react? Same way I did. Laughing hard!


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So it's over to the Contesting account suspension page on twitter.com with me to fill in the details.

From the email I received:

If you are suspended, it's most likely for one or more of these reasons::

• User Abuse
• a large number of people block the profile or write in with spam complaints
• aggressive following
• imbalanced ratio: the number of followers is small compared to number of people following
• misuse of the reply feature
• updates consist of duplicate links and/or text
• updates consist mainly of links and not personal updates
• updates consist of updates poached from others' timelines, passed off as one's own
• Technical Abuse
• updates consist of links pointing to phishing sites, malware, or other harmful material
• a large number of accounts is created in a short amount of time
• an account is identified as belonging to a spam cluster

When this happens, we suspend the account for investigation and hide the contents from the public view in order to remove the cause of complaint.

Anyways, I *will* be back to blogging here soon. Promise. Got some stories for you. Stuff that's in my head, my notebooks and my soul.


EDIT: I'm back... http://www.twitter.com/darraghdoyle - that was quick!

US expert in M.E, C.F.S and Fibromyalgia speaks in Dublin this Thursday

Via the comments:

The Irish ME/CFS Association is delighted to announce that US ME Expert, Dr Derek Enlander, has agreed to speak in Dublin.

Title of talk: "Current treatment of ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome".

Venue: Mount Herbert Hotel, Herbert Road, Dublin 4

Time and date: 7.45pm, Thursday June 18

Admission: €5. All are welcome.

Dr Enlander grew up in Northern Ireland and studied medicine in Dublin in the 1960s before obtaining a fellowship to Stanford University; he has lived and worked in the US ever since.

Dr Enlander’s practice in New York is devoted to ME/CFS and Fibromyalgia. He has co-authored numerous research papers on the illness and is principal investigator of a US$900,000 study investigating the use of hyperbaric oxygen in ME/CFS.

Around 12,000 people in Ireland are thought to suffer from ME, now often diagnosed under the name Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). The exact cause of ME/CFS remains unknown, but most patients experience a flu-like illness before the onset of ME/CFS.

Patients experience symptoms such as sore throats, concentration problems, sleep problems, muscle pain, and flu-like weakness and exhaustion especially after activity. There is no known cure at the moment, though some sufferers do improve over time.

Further details and a free information pack can be obtained from the Irish ME/CFS Association, PO Box 3075, Dublin 2.

E-mail: info@irishmecfs.org
Tel: 01-235 0965

I'll certainly be there. Suffering badly at the moment.

"I'm going to twitter!!" - the #darraghchute movie

Well, I did it. €2129.99 so far.

Niamh and I made a very cheesy video of the day, which is below. Will try to do a higher quality version later. Also used footage from the Irish Parachute Club.

I was nervous. VERY nervous. Of course it wasn't "the first live tweet ever from an aircraft". I love the "I'm GOING TO TWITTER" yell!

There's so many DO NOT WANT expressions on my face, especially as the parachute opens, and basically, I was in bits for a while afterwards.

But I did it.

Once again, thanks to everyone who donated, blogged, tweeted and wished me well. As embarrassing as this video is, this one is for you :)



There's a far more professional documentary about the day right here:

What you've done

Here's what you've done.

You've put a smile on their faces:



The lady on the left? 102 years old. Beside her? Her Carelocal volunteer.

You've got this woman up singing with a band:



She lives in a nursing home. Loves to sing - sang all the time to her family as she got them ready for work and school, went out with her friends to dances and gigs and sang along with the band. Her voice may not be as strong but she still loves getting up and blasting out a bit of Joe Dolan.

You've got these people up dancing:



They don't get out as much as they used to. Either stuck in their houses or the nursing home, they haven't been out for a good dance in ages. Quite the Hucklebuckers in their day, they love having the chance to get up and have a bit of fun, or being worried about how they're going to get home safely.

You've got these people talking:



They don't get to talk to others that much any more. It's lonely at home waiting for someone to call, if they do. In the nursing home they're looked aftr, but people are busy, some get more visitors than most and quite often it's easier just to switch off the mind and watch TV. Sometimes you don't feel up to date or know what to talk about. Sometimes you don't feel relevant.

You've entertained all these people:



They're all over in Finnstown House Hotel, having had a great, free meal served to them, having a laugh along with the entertainment and the band. They've been driven to the door, welcomed, fed, watered and looked after for the first time in ages.



That's what your donations to Carelocal will have done for these people - helped an outing like this for Summer 2009 happen. As I write, the donations are up to €1733.33, which is fantastic.

Fair play to you all. All I'm doing is getting someone else carrying me to jump out of a plane...

Thank you. Sincerely. You rock.

Where the bad jokes come from...

Bill had been getting progressively more bald at a very young age, and it was depressing him quite a bit.

Eventually, he decided to get a wig, and the following evening he came into the pub looking 10 years younger, with a full head of jet black hair. The locals admired his new look, and complimented him on how realistic it looked.

Eventually, Joe asked him for a closer look, and, though slightly embarrassed, he slipped the wig off and handed it over.

However, as soon as Joe took the wig, he began to complain about everything: the weather, his job, the quality of the pint, anything and everything you could think of.

Puzzled by this irresistable urge to moan, he handed the wig to Tom to give back to Bill, and suddenly his normal good humour re-asserted itself.

Tom, however, even in the few seconds he had the wig in his hands, had already announced to the pub that his wife was useless: couldn't cook, and was ferociously dirty around the house, but not, unfortunately, when she got to bed. Again, as soon as he had handed the wig back to Bill, the torrent of complaints dried up, and he was his old cheerful self again.

The three friends, completely confused and puzzled, were starting to discuss what on earth had happened, when the barman leant across the counter towards them, and told them not to worry about it.

"Why?" they asked.

"Ah, 'tis perfectly natural, lads!" he said. "Sure doesn't everybody complain when they have Bill's toupee?"

Have a look at the Boards.ie Pun appreciation thread. There's loads there. The whole humour forum is a gold mine!

• Energizer Bunny arrested; charged with battery.
• A man's home is his castle, in a manor of speaking.
• A pessimist's blood type is always b-negative.
• My wife really likes to make pottery, but to me it's just kiln time.
• Dijon vu: the same mustard as before.
• Practice safe eating: always use condiments.
• I fired my masseuse today. She just rubbed me the wrong way.
• A Freudian slip is when you say one thing but mean your mother.
• Shotgun wedding: A case of wife or death.
• I used to work in a blanket factory, but it folded.
• I used to be a lumberjack, but I just couldn't hack it, so they gave me the ax.
• If electricity comes from electrons, does that mean that morality comes from morons?
• A man needs a mistress just to break the monogamy.
• Marriage is the mourning after the knot before.
• A hangover is the wrath of grapes.
• Corduroy pillows are making headlines.
• Is a book on voyeurism a peeping tome.
• Dancing cheek-to-cheek is really a form of floor play.
• Banning the bra was a big flop.
• Sea captains don't like crew cuts.
• Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
• A successful diet is the triumph of mind over platter.
• Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
• A gossip is someone with a great sense of rumor.
• Without geometry, life is pointless.
• When you dream in color, it's a pigment of your imagination.
• Condoms should be used on every conceivable occasion.
• Reading whilst sunbathing makes you well-red.
• When two egotists meet, it's an I for an I.

Where your skydive donation is going: Carelocal say thanks

Thank you so much to everyone who has donated money, awareness and good wishes to the Skydive for Carelocal.ie

I visited the office yesterday to say hello and find out more about them. Sheila Desmond, the Volunteer Coordinator is in a unique position with the charity, as she meets all the older people they help and also all the volunteers that work with them.

Brazenly, I stuck the camera in front of poor Sheila and asked her to tell you where the money you have donated is going and what the difference your help will make to the charity and to the life of an older person. It's a rough and ready take but was loads of fun to do:

Interviewed by Cian and Liz from ViewFromTheQuad.com

Cian and Liz have had me on the brilliant podcast that is View From the Quad - a podcast about technology, sci-fi and life. I think I fall into the latter category, though listening to it, I'm not sure where it sits.

The 30 minute interview is about the skydive, about Boards.ie, about twitter, about Star Trek, downloading files in 1997, bloggers, newspapers vs blogs and twitter, about Irish politics and politicians online, about Schwarzenegger, about the 4DayMovie project, about English muggings, about being from Kilkenny, about a manga messiah, Wallace and Gromit, Neil Gaiman, bad jokes and loads of stuff. We talked lots.

You can hear the podcast over on View from the Quad.

There's a lot of me rambling, a lot of me sucking air through my teeth (sorry!), of Cian and Liz waiting politely for me to stop talking (bless you) and random chatter. We recorded it in a city centre studio on Friday afternoon after a long day of work so excuse the waffle. It was a great chat though, so thanks to them both for the plug :)

How many switches are in the Bord Gáis ad? Win €200!

Bord Gais are running a competition through twitter and IGO people:

If you can spot all the switches in our new TV ad then you could win a €200 shopping voucher.



All you have to do is submit your guess on here or on twitter (making sure to @TheBigSwitchIRL so we pick it up). All correct answers will be entered in to a draw for the first prize of €200!!

First correct answer drawn will win a €200 shopping voucher but we also have a runners up prize of a €50 shopping voucher for the the next 4 correct answers to drawn!!

Closing date is this Friday the 22nd of May at 12:00 noon.

How many are there? Well, let's count:

1:



2:



3:



4, 5 and 6:



7 and 8:



9, 10, 11, 12 and 12 and a half or 13...



Assuming the half switch counts as one, here's 14, 15 and 16



and then not counting duplicates, here's another 7 bringing it up to 23 (or 22 and a half)...



Get your answer in quick!! Just tweet Eoin at @TheBigSwitchIRL - best of luck!