C.E. Murphy's Blog, page 68

very slow progress

I’m making such slow progress with organizing/packing/whatever that I feel like I’m not doing anything at all. Still. Again. Whatever.

And again, it’s not true. Saturday a friend came over and watched Young Indiana for a few minutes while Ted and I ran out to get boxes-for-books from our local bookstore, who had very kindly set some aside for us. There is now a giant pile of (flat) boxes in the dining room, where they are depressing me by Taking Up Space. It’s only going to get worse when I s...

Love Conquers All

1.9 million people turned out to vote on Friday, a 60.5% turnout that saw the highest number of ballots ever cast in an Irish referendum.

1.2 million of those people voted for marriage equality.

It seemed pretty clear by half an hour into the count that it was trending heavily toward a win for equality, but everyone here remained on pins and needles through the morning, growing increasingly hopeful as it appeared the measure wasn’t just going to pass, but was heading rapidly toward a landsl...

Marriage Referendum

Ireland is going to the polls today to decide whether or not marriage is for everybody. It’s apparently the first time in the world that the question of marriage equality has been put to a national vote, so frankly, it’s going to be a huge fecking embarrassment if it fails.

I voted at about 11:30 this morning. The polling station said turnout was excellent so far. Last night in Dublin I walked by half a dozen people inside a block wearing YES! buttons, and a friend who works in city centre s...

TV on DVD: s3 Arrow

TV on DVD: s3 Arrow: If I were stronger, I would stop watching Arrow now.

It’s not that I don’t like it. I *do* like Arrow; I’ve liked it from the start. I have issues with all the secret-keeping (issues which paid off in spades this season, actually, especially at the end), but I really like it and normally I’d be happy to watch it through five seasons, which is as far as it should go even if it’s probably going to go a lot farther. I want to see what happens with Diggs, particularly, becaus...

How To Create An Exhaustive To-Do List

I’ve had several people ask me in the past few days, half-jokingly and perhaps half-not, if I could make them a major To Do list, or if I could come to their house and purge (I totally will, too. It’s way more fun to throw away other people’s stuff. The thing is, you have to let me…), or if I could give an example of my lists to draw from.

I can do that, sure. :) Let’s say you need to Do Something About Your Books. (I reckon this is a fairly understandable topic for those who read my blog. :)...

it’s the moving countdown

I’ve just spoken with the estate agent. The good news is that although the lease is up at the end of May, they do not expect us to be out of the house at the end of May.

Indeed, it appears we could continue to live here indefinitely until the house sells, with people coming in to look at it while we were living here. Which is not what we want to do, but it’s somewhat nice to know that if for some reason we can’t be out until August they’re not going to throw us onto the street (because even...

moving house as project management

Yesterday a friend was over and she saw my 20-point Thinks To Do list for the living room and wondered what it was. I explained it was the pre-move to-do list. Not the moving list, just the preparing-to-move list.

“…have you ever considered project management?” she wondered. :) (Later she said, “Seriously. All it lacked was timelines and assigned roles & responsibilities, and I could have put it in Microsoft Project.”)

Anyway, despite the project management levels of lists lying around I’m fe...

The Great Digital Move

I have just about completed ripping our CDs. This is a task that has been done in the past, but I’ve been unable to find the damn drive upon which the old rips were saved, and probably a new rip (10+ years later) is better quality anyway (it’s certainly faster), and because I have little need to own physical CDs, it will reduce our physical possessions by some percentage when I’m done. I’m trying hard to buy music digitally now, although mostly that means I just forget to buy it at all.

In ri...

So we have to move. Again.

So we have to move. Again.

Our landlord died and the people who inherited the house have decided to sell it. (Precisely the same thing is happening to my sister right now.)1qq We don’t know when exactly we have to be out, but we have to be out. We also don’t know where exactly we’re going to end up, because the median rent in Dublin is more than we’re currently paying, which is more than we can actually afford, which means: not Dublin. Ted’s job is north of Dublin, so unless circumstances cha...

Picoreview: Woman in Gold

Picoreview: Woman in Gold: well worth watching.

Woman in Gold is based on the true story of an Austrian Jew whose family artwork was stolen by the Nazi occupation, and her international legal battle, sixty years later, to get it back. Helen Mirren plays Maria Altmann and Ryan Reynolds plays her lawyer, Randol Schoenberg, who comes from a long line of highly distinguished Schoenbergs and who has thus far totally failed to make his mark.

And good god, Tatiana Maslany of Orphan Black plays the...