Boardgames!

Mar03
by on March 3, 2014 at 1:03 pm
Posted In: blog

knavecon
Me (Pictured far right) gaming at Knavecon. (Photo Credit Muster Images)

I was at the Knavecon boardgame convention in Limerick over the weekend. It was my first time attending the con and I enjoyed it a lot and will definitely be back next year. Started out the day  at 10 am with a quick game of Love Letter (a game of risk, deduction, and luck for 2–4 players. Your goal is to get your love letter into Princess Annette’s hands while deflecting the letters from competing suitors) and finished the day late in the evening at 3.30 am with big game of Zombicide (a collaborative game in which players take the role of a survivor – each with unique abilities – and harness both their skills and the power of teamwork against the hordes of unthinking undead) Throughout the day my roles in games varied from commanding the Galactica as William Adama in the Battlestar Galactica board game to murdering a bunch of ladies as Jack the Ripper in Whitechapel. I also vaguely recall building a massive game winning railroad from Palermo in Sicily all the way up to Moscow in Russia in the brilliant ‘Ticket to Ride: Europe’ game.

Board games are something I’ve gotten interested in a lot over the past 2 years. There are some really interesting games today that are worlds away from games such as Cluedo and Monopoly that you may have played as a kid. Unfortunately you can end up spending a quite a bit of money collecting games but rarely get to chance to get people together to play them.

I set up the website boardgamesireland.com to try and keep track of any boardgame meet ups out there and to help promote them. We also run a weekly meet up group of our own which has been hugely successful. We currently meet up at Thomas Reads on the corner of Dame Street and Parliament Street each Tuesday evening and we’re currently seeing about 30-40 people in attendance each week. It’s a great opportunity to bring along your games and play them with a large number of people, you also get to try out new games that other people have brought along. An interesting trend at the meet ups I’ve noticed is people who have just moved to Ireland to work and are looking for an easy way to socialise and meet new people.

Ireland’s Oceans Part 2

Feb27
by on February 27, 2014 at 11:35 am
Posted In: blog

Part 2 of the marine science documentary I worked on.

Episode Two

Bull Island
North Bull Island Biodiversity Website: www.bullislandbirds.com

The Deep Sea
Andy Wheeler, UCC: publish.ucc.ie/researchprofiles/D026/awheeler

Mid Atlantic Ridge expedition: www.marine.ie/NR/exeres/84C6DFD2…EED4,frameless.htm

Marine Biodiscovery: www.marine.ie/home/research/Proj…e+Biodiscovery.htm

West Cork Whales
Whale Watch West Cork with Nic Slocum: www.whalewatchwestcork.com

 

Ireland’s Oceans

Jan22
by on January 22, 2014 at 3:16 pm
Posted In: blog

irelandsoceansSQ

This week I’ve been finishing up production on a new 2 part marine science documentary series called ‘Ireland’s Oceans’ These programmes are funded under the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland’s Sound and Vision scheme, which was established to provide funding in support of high quality programmes on Irish culture, heritage and experience, and programmes to improve adult literacy.

The series is essentially a spin off of the Scibernia podcast I worked on, which was an Irish science podcast that we ran for over a year. I worked on Ireland’s Oceans with  Scibernia contributors Lenny Antonelli and Triona O’Connell. (Triona’s Science is Delicious blog is well worth a read)

You can listen to part 1 of Ireland Ocean’s online now and you can hear part 2 next week after it’s broadcast on the 28th of Jan on Near FM 90.3 at 16.30.

Ireland has over 1400 km of coastline and 220 million acres of seabed, some of it as deep as 5km. Our seas have weathered our coastlines and shaped our climate. In the distant past the freezing of these oceans created the icecaps that sculpted our land. And when the ice melted, rising seas turned our fragment of north Atlantic rock into an island. Our oceans brought the first settlers to Ireland but later carried millions away.

Despite living on this small island out on the Atlantic we don’t really think of ourselves as an oceanic country and most of us have little connection with the sea. But today Ireland is leading the way in the study of the sea, and our scientists are starting to understand how our oceans work in ever more complex and exciting ways.

Join Lenny Antonelli in this 2 part programme as he follows our marine scientists onto beaches and boats and into the lab to learn about the science of Ireland’s oceans.

Below you will find more information on the research and organisations features in this programme.

Episode One

Dolphin surveying
Strategic Marine Alliance for Research and Training: http://www.smartseaschool.com/
Irish Whale & Dolphin Group: http://www.iwdg.ie/index.php
RV Celtic Mist: http://www.rvcelticmist.ie
Shannon Dolphin and Wildlife Foundation: http://www.shannondolphins.ie

Fish vocalisation
This research is funded by the Irish Research Council: http://www.research.ie

GMIT Marine and Freshwater Research Centre: https://www.gmit.ie/marine-and-freshwater-research-centre-mfrc

Malahide marina field laboratory
UCD Marine Biodiversity Ecology & Evolution Group: http://www.ucd.ie/marbee/
Malahide field laboratory: http://www.ucd.ie/marbee/malahide.html

Microplastics
Micrplastics in the Sea: http://smartseaschool.blogspot.ie/2013/02/microplastics-in-sea-amy-lusher.html

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A Painful Case

Jan19
by on January 19, 2014 at 10:03 am
Posted In: audio drama

Another dramatic adaptation of a James Joyce short story. ‘A Painful Case’ from his book ‘The Dubliners’  was produced as part of the Reading Together series on Near FM.

Mr. Duffy, a middle-aged bank cashier, deliberately lives in an isolated suburb of Dublin. He is characterized as very meticulous and ordered and has little social contact. At a concert one night, Duffy makes the acquaintance of Mrs. Emily Sinico, a married mother. They start up a relationship that is innocent enough to be condoned by Mrs. Sinico’s husband, who believes the two’s discussions revolve mostly around his daughter and the possibility of a relationship between her and Duffy. The two draw closer together, and one night Mrs. Sinico impulsively takes his hand and presses it to her cheek, but Duffy is not pleased at the development and ends their meetings. Four years later, he reads that Mrs. Sinico has been struck by a train and killed. The newspaper article, the title of which provides the title of the story, contains an account by her husband, who states that she began drinking two years ago. The details of the accident suggest that she may have committed suicide. He reacts at first with revulsion, concluding that some inherent weakness led to her drinking and the accident, but he slowly comes to believe that it was his rejection that condemned her to solitude and death. He reflects on his own loneliness: “No one wanted him; he was outcast from life’s feast.” The story ends with Duffy listening to the silence of the surrounding night atop a hill overlooking Dublin where he and Sinico used to sit down and talk, where he realizes just how lonely he really is.

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