Some cherry-picked musical highlights of the day:

Play with Music at The Contemporary Music Centre

The CMC are hosting a range of installations by multimedia students from around Ireland. Bring the little ones (of 4+) and get creative with the sounds, sights and gadgets at CMC between 1 and 4pm. More info available here.

A Musical Menu at The Queen of Tarts

A delicious slice of cake in one of the yummiest places in town with a string trio on the side? Fancy that? Well then head for The Queen of Tarts on Cow’s Lane at 3pm.

Julie Feeney & Tarab at Meeting House Square

The gorgeous poppy sounds of Galway girl Julie Feeney followed by a lively mix of jazz and traditional music from across Europe in the form of Tarab at Meeting House Square at 7pm. It’s free but you better book your tickets here quickly!

Dirty Dancing – Movies on the Square

What better way to round up a musical day in Temple Bar than with this 80′s classic. Get ready to dance in the aisles (well, the street I guess) and sing along. Tickets are going faster than you can say “no-one leaves Baby in the corner” so get in touch with TBCT now! Starts at 10.30pm.

See you there!

FullCodePress

Absolutely love the idea of FullCodePress. Get a team together and build a website for a charity in 24 hours for free. If I don’t do something like that between now and this time next year, I’ll certainly get involved next June. Progress pics here. Thanks Stu.

Congrats to the team from my beloved BSc in Multimedia in DCU who scooped the overall prize at the Digital Hub’s ‘Best in Show‘ competition with their series of short films for the Pashli charity.

Come along and join the Pride Parade on Saturday at 2 from the Garden of Remembrance – it’s always spectacular!

Or if your more enticed by things of a dead nature there’s a zombie walk happening at the same time from Stephen’s Green. Get the full info here.

Console’s annual benefit gig is on at the NCH next weekend. Jack L, Maynooth Gospel Choir and Acabella doing the honours. What’s stopping you?!

Apple-loving Stephen Fry on iPhone 4. Blog post entitled ‘A Welcome and a Warning‘.

JDIFF

The festival programme boasts over 120 movie screenings between February 18th and 28th including a special selection of films under the umbrella of ‘Michael Dwyer Season‘ as a tribute to the late co-founder of the festival. Other special highlights include a Kristin Scott Thomas Tribute, a Kenneth Anger Retrospective, the 2nd Annual Library Film Quiz, Celebrating VooDooDog and the Volta Awards.

It’s quite a hectic schedule but nicely laid out in their day-by-day programme on page 9 of the supplement which you can grab here.

Here’s a selection of the stuff that tickled my fancy:

• La Dolce Vita – (Sat 20th, 2pm)
• One Hundred Mornings (Sat 20th, 4.30pm)
• New York, I Love You (Sun 21st, 8.45pm)
• Nino Rota: Film Music (Mon 22nd, 7.30pm)
• I Love You, Phillip Morris (Thurs 25th, 6.30pm)
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Sat 27th, 11am)
• Alice in Wonderland 3D (Sun 28th, 2pm)

I was delighted to see that Moore Street Masala is included in the Irish Film Board shorts screenings – my 30 seconds of Bollywood fame from a most gorgeous April morning last year rides again

Tickets are getting snapped up very quickly so hot foot it to the ticket office at Curved St, Temple Bar, buzz the ticket sales people on 016877974 or get them online at www.jdiff.com to sort your fix.

Here’s the list of screenings:

• Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (today)
• Hollywood Cowboy (Hearts of the West) – Sat 13th
• TRON (Wed 17th)
• The Fabulous Baker Boys (Thurs 18th)
• Jagged Edge (Fri 19th)
• Cutter’s Way (Mon 22nd)
• The Fisher King (Thurs 25th)
• The Big Lebowski (Sun 228th)

One of my favourite geeky movies of all time is TRON. As often with the geeky genre it’s not so much the script or storyline that puts it on the favourites list but the visual treats and cooing at old-school CGI.

A full list of times for all the screenings is available here. Looking forward to catching plenty more movies at the newly revamped IFI this year – it’s looking fantastic and the addition of the third screen will no doubt spice things up even more.

Haiti - despite the media and online coverage, we still have no concept of how awful things are in Haiti at the moment. Help out my donating to Goal online – they’re out there on the ground with The Haven Project.

Via Mashable – the UN have an opening for a Social Media Editor (Internship).

Want to see a screening of Lemonade happen in Dublin? Then stick your name in the comments. What’s it about? Here’s a shpiel:

“What do people who were once paid to be creative for a living do when they’re laid off? They get creative with their own lives. Lemonade is an inspirational film about 16 advertising professionals who lost their jobs and found their calling, encouraging people to listen to that little voice inside their head that asks, “What if?”

Tom Dunne of Newstalk and Something Happens fame is on Twitter since yesterday thanks to encouragement by Graham Linehan. Check out @tomhappens on the interpipes.

Ryan Carson is over at ThinkVitamin wondering what you would like to see in an online conference. Think CSS, Frameworks, Rails, iPhone development etc. Have your say here.

Trailer

I honestly have no idea what to expect but of course can’t wait to see how the Bollywood routine at the end works out! It was heaps of fun to be involved in and I would definitely be up for doing more.

Where can you see it?

This Saturday October 10th at the Lighthouse cinema at 1.30 as part of the Darklight ‘Exposure’ event. It’s also being shown at the IFI as part of the New Irish Film Board Shorts on Tuesday 13th at 6.30 pm.

The official site (under construction) is here. Thanks D for the heads up (once again)!

Admittedly, I’m not a huge fan of animated movies but I absolutely loved Up.

While at times I did wonder if some of the story elements were a little too grown-up for the mainly booster-seated audience, it’s a really gorgeous little movie that will have you leaving the cinema with a smile in your heart and probably one on your face too.

Up

The basics

Meet Carl & Ellie, childhood friends and “adventure enthusiasts” who grow up and spend the rest of their lives together. After Ellie passes away, Carl decides to satisfy a long-held pipe dream of his darling Ellie – to move to Paradise Falls in South America. And so the tale unfolds of how Carl and his young scout recruit Russel move house (literally) to South America and the adventures and characters they meet along the way.

• It’s visually stunning – it is Pixar after all and while living up to their usual high standard and the 3D adds a nice gloss overall
• It’s moving – although Ellie the “living” character is only on screen for minutes, she is a huge presence for the rest of the movie – suffice to say I shed a tear or two!
• It’s entertaining – at heart, it’s an adventure movie and there’s plenty of gasps & laughs all the way
• It’s positive – you would have to be made of stone not to leave the movie happy and smiling.

It was actually so good I’m finding it hard to get that across so check out what others have said on Culch.ie and Movies.ie

Up is on general release from 16 Oct 2009, check your local cinema for preview dates. The official site has some lovely images & snippets here.

I popped in briefly to the launch of the Dublin Fringe Festival 09 last evening – my was it a lively event! Still sifting through the packed programme of events to see what I might get to see but first impressions are awesome. Check the site for all the info you need and keep an eye on culch.ie for extra nuggets.

Autumn is creeping upon us ever gradually and with it comes the usual flux of awards events for the design world. While it’s a little quieter this year with the IIA Net Visionaries moved to the month of May as of this year, there’s still plenty opportunity to try your hand at getting something tasty for over the fireplace. The IDI Awards and Irish Web Awards are accepting nominations till the end of the month. The Golden unmentionables are taking place also and still charging ridiculous amounts for seats at the awards ceremony (€300 per head) and a saucy €150 per nomination. Stick with either of the previous I think.

The entire event was streamed live from Dawson St and you can catch up on the presentations and discussions of the day via the U-Stream channel page or clicking on the videos below. If you want to hit on a specific part of the day, check out the schedule here. For information on the film competition being run by Darklight & the EU, check out www.darklight.ie/democracy.