My Blog Has Moved!

From now on I won't be posting on this blog, instead I'll be putting everything up on my new blog: BinaryPixie.blogspot.com!

Check out my cool header, right?!

My new blog will pretty much be similiar to this one, just updates about my life in Dublin, Ireland and things I'm interested in such as technology, current affairs, celebrities, food and false nails!

Don't forget! BinaryPixie.blogspot.com!

Fashion Haul!

Here's what I've bought lately!

Gym Leggings! These were only €11 and are really comfy and a perfect fit!

Jeans!

Hello Kitty t-shirt!!

Fun coloured socks!

Two exfoliating mits and self-tan wipes. 

Some new false nails! I've had them before except for the leopard print ones. Can't wait to try them!

Gangnam Style? Surely you mean Harlem Shake!!

I found these in Penneys...

Gangnam Style Socks

PSY Shirt

So last year! Don't they know it's all about the Harlem Shake now... And even that grew old very quickly!

Hehehe...

Kathryn Thomas wears Penneys shamrock nails!!

So I spotted something in the middle page of the Irish Independent's Weekend Review:

I don't know why this is flipping upside down

Zoom in on Kathryn Thomas' nails here: 

Do they look familiar??

Well they should- They're the same ones I wore on St. Patrick's Day!

I find it so funny when semi-celebrities like Kathryn Thomas wear such cheap stuff! Is it a sign of how stingy RTE is? Was there really no better nails they could find? There was no one available to do a better manicure? It intrigues me... These nails cost €1.50 for flip's sake!

Ireland versus Austria (Group C World Cup Qualifier)

I went to the Aviva stadium on Landsdowne Road last night to the Republic of Ireland versus Austria football match. It was a qualifying match for the 2014 World Cup which will take place in Brazil (Road To Rio).

The band ready for the teams to arrive on the pitch for the anthems.

I was very lucky because I got 2 tickets very cheap! My mobile phone network 3 (Three Ireland) sponsors the national football team so they do a special 2 for 1 special offer for tickets to home matches. It's first come, first served and the number of seats available on this offer are extremely limited so I made sure to buy the seats quickly. It was a huge bargain in the end, two tickets were 17.50 each so my whole bill came to around €38.50 altogether including booking fee! I thought this was a great price- Imagine my surprise when I checked the actual price of seats in the section I bought in and found them to be €45! Each! So many thanks to Three for such a great deal!

There's Trap himself in his suit! (We were sooo far from the halfway line!!)

We were seated in section 116, my friend who was seated in 114 (The 'singing section') said that there's be a lot of atmosphere where we were and he was right! The seats were perfect- Really close to the pitch, close enough to the lads starting all the chants but yet far enough away that we weren't getting annoyed by them. 

I'm glad I painted my face because I was so bundled up I didn't look like an Irish fan at all apart from it!

Sub-zero temperatures and still smiling! (Some of us)

Austria scored an early goal which was disheartening but Ireland were soon awarded a penalty and Walters made it 1 all. Ireland scored again to go in winning at half time, it was a pity that all those goals were scored at completely the other end of the pitch than we were sitting :(  In the second half there was one more goal, scored by Austria (in the 3rd minute of injury time) and this was once again at the other end of the pitch. Of well. 

I was a bit disappointed that we didn't win. It was a draw that felt like a loss. Although I admit that the equaliser goal seemed inevitable throughout the whole second half and we definitely were not the better team, I'm really not sure where the referee got 3 minutes of extra time from?! He only gave one in the first half and there was a lot more stoppages during the first half!

Shane Long there, number 9, we saw a lot of him in the second half.

McLean ready to take a corner (The camera got very excited and was shaking!!)

One thing I found from being present in the stadium was that I really got carried away with the whole crowd mentality. At home when watching the match on tv you only really get excited over really good play. In the stadium you cheer for everything! The goalkeeper catches the ball... "Whoop whoop!" The other team make a bad pass... "Come On Ireland!!!" I even found myself nearly booing when the ref made decisions against Ireland! I was constantly jumping to my feet and clapping and chanting. It was great! There was so much energy. 

I thoroughly enjoyed my night and will definitely be attending every home match from now on- Especially since I get the tickets so cheap! I'd love to go to an away match also, unfortunately it looks unlikely that I will not have the money and time for this during the current campaign. I'll definitely plan a trip to see Ireland play away during the next Euro qualifiers though!

A break from Java coding for some logo designing!

Finally, something I enjoyed in college! Our group project required a logo to be designed so I immediately put myself forward as the person to do it. Yay! Here it is, what I've come up with. Basic, yes, but I've a lot more important stuff to be doing so the other group members wouldn't have been too happy if I spend too much time on it. I decided to incorporate the Ericsson logo with our group number (Seven!).

Voila!

Liz On Top Of The World (Pride And Prejudice Soundtrack Cover)

I've posted some of my covers on here before but this one is one of my favorite songs in the whole world. It's from the soundtrack to Pride and Prejudice (The 2005 Keira Knightley one, not the BBC production with the lovely Colin Firth unfortunately). The score was written by an Italian composer named Dario Marionelli and some of the pieces are absolutely divine. Most of the pretty ones would require much too much effort for me to learn to play but I think I've got this one down in my own sort of way. I don't really play classical music any more and I really struggle to read music so the fact that I learnt this is a admirable feat for me!

Bear in mind that the sound quality is awful and I have an awful habit of wearing false nails that are highly inappropriate for playing the piano!

.

I love film music- It really stirs the emotions! I find it incredible that what one person can struggle to describe in words another person can portray so finely without words at all, just melodies! I especially love the Pride and Prejudice soundtrack because it has quite a modern, romantic feel to it.

My favorite track on the CD I have is Darcy's Letter. I love the story of Pride and Prejudice and I thought this piece captured the moment perfectly when Lizzie realises the huge mistake she has made about Darcy due to her pride.

 I do love the part in the movie during the Netherfield ball when, during the dance, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy suddenly appear to be dancing in a ballroom all alone. It thought it was a superb piece of cinematography! You can watch the scene here:

Ben & Jerry's: Clever Cookie Ice Cream

There was what seemed to be a new Ben & Jerry's flavour in my local Superquinn during the week and at €3 it was also half price. How could I not pick it up (Purely for reviewing on my blog of course!). I've struggled for quite some time to find a flavour that I can enjoy in Ireland as a substitute to Half Baked- It's not available here!! I love the bits of cookie dough in the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough variety but the icecream is vanilla so it's a bit bland. I also love the brownies and chocolate so I do tend to buy Chocolate Fudge Brownie. Half baked is such a luxurious mixture of the two together!


So, I happened upon Clever Cookies and decided to try it as, although it is vanilla icecream, it contains chocolate cookie swirls. It also has vanilla and chocolate cookies and chocolate chip cookies within.

Wow, when I opened it, it definitely didn't look vanilla!

The chocolate swirls were omnipresent and tasted great!

The cookies were really big and tasty (Not like real cookies, but as ice cream toppings go they were divine ) I would definitely buy this flavour again- So chocolatey!

Cannibalism, Cancer and Chemotherapy (Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute)

I went to a talk last night in the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute. The title was "Cannibalism, Cancer and Chemotherapy". This was quite a misleading title- And the speaker admitted to this first thing, it was a catchy  headline in an attempt to get a larger audience to attend. 

It was quite in-depth and some of it went over my head. It was hard, for example, to keep track of all the oncogenes he was mention (I have a degree in Biology but the only cancers I ever studied was breast cancer so I wasn't familiar with most of the genes he was working on). It was so  nice for once to sit in a lecture where I was actually interested and learning something.

It really made me miss doing science in college. I'm currently not really enjoying my Msc in software technology. It's above my ability level and the I don't find the lectures consuming whatsoever. I'm also slightly clashing with one of my lecturers so I'm admittedly not enjoying myself.

I'm crossing off the days until I finish my course. After today I have two weeks of lectures for mid-term and once I'm back I have four academic weeks left. That's 16 days of lectures. The sooner its over the better.  

On y more positive note: It's Thursday which can mean only one thing- Three hours of 2 for 1 cocktails in Capitol Bar!

Pity party for rapists.

I normally keep my blog lighthearted but this is something I feel that I feel I need to voice my opinion about. The case of the girl who was raped in Steubenville is all over the headlines currently as two 16 year olds were found guilty and sentenced to at least one year in juvenile prison. What horrifies me is the backlash that this victim has received and also the fact that many mainstream news agencies are actually sympathizing with the convicted!

First Fox news named the victim which resulted in an onslaught of Tweets and Facebook posts including death threats aimed at the victim. Next, instead of focusing on how the victims life is ruined, CNN, Fox and others have decided to sympathize with the rapists: They were such gifted footballers! I read about this case a few months ago on Reddit- If it weren't for the group Anonymous leaking the information then there is a high chance that this whole incident could have been covered up.

Poppy Harlow in this video talking about watching the boys' "life fall apart". 

Not one mention of the victim!

Trent May's apology (from 2.35) sounded like the most scripted and insincere apology ever. Note also how he apologizes for distributing the picture but not for raping. He also apologizes to his own family and community. At 3.08 Malik bursts into tears: Are we supposed to feel sorry for this guy? If you don't want to be labelled as a sex offender then you shouldn't rape anyone! His apology also seemed a bit skewed: "I never meant for any of this to happen"- What exactly is he referring to here. He never meant to get caught? Never meant to be trialed? 

These boys made a very wrong decision which will affect them for the rest of their lives- All humans make these decisions though. They made a choice to rape, most men don't. That is the difference. I pity the fact that they probably weren't brought up with proper morals, I pity the fact that the football culture in America means that they got away with most of their misdemeanors up until this point making them think they were immune to the law. I pity the fact that modern day technology allowed for such easy sharing of the images of the victim. I do not, however, pity Ma'lik or Trent Mays.

Many people claim that the victim was dressed inappropriately or that she shouldn't have gotten so drunk, it's her own fault. Tell me this, if someone is shot do we make excuses saying they were asking for it? Is it their own fault? Why in rape cases do people think it's ok to blame the victim? What I have learned in the last few days really saddens me and it is that we live in a time where #RapeCulture is not only rampant but accepted. It's deplorable. 

It's like The Onion is now real life...

St. Patrick's Day Photos!

Here's some documentation of how I spent my Paddy's Day in Dublin, Ireland

Check out my cute shamrock nails!

Harry nursing his Guiness

Irish nails and Irish Guiness!

Happy Hour

Amy

iPose

Moi!