“And I got such a long way to go. To make it to the border of Mexico…”

And got his in response from Paddy Dunne. Love. It.

Join me in the Guinness Storehouse for more amazing earworming tunes of the 80s on Paddy’s Day when Spring Break take to the stage. It’s going to rawk!

The main fun will be happening in Meeting House Square where they’ll be rolling out the green carpet (yes, the grassy sort!) so bring your picnic blanket and your shades (no harm being optimistic!) and get ready for :

• Mr Balloonatic & Face Painting
• Leprechaun Storytelling
• The National Concert Hall’s ‘Blow the Dust Orchestra’
• Yodel
• The Electro Acoustic Journey of the Joculator
• Dublin Gospel Choir
• Ottoni Brass Ensemble

It’s going to be a brilliant day. See you in there

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!

YouTube link (can’t embed it, sorry).

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‘.

The common man’s games, Paddy Games founding principle is taking silliness very seriously.

Events include Retro Running (i.e. Backwards running), Irish Dancing Hurdles and Mobile Phone throwing.

Fancy free entry to this year’s Electric Picnic in exchange with raising some cash for Temple Street Children’s Hospital? Check out the ‘Tour de Picnic‘ – essentially it’s a 90km charity cycle from Dublin to EP in Stradbally, Co. Laois. Raise €500 and you’re in. Info is available here.

The text shadow is becoming the glossy button effect of old in the web design world at the moment. More and more designers and developers are dabbling in the visual gems that CSS 3 affords despite the fact that CSS 2.1 spec has yet to be signed off. An article on A List Apart today highlights the dangers of ‘forking’ that this adoption of these proposes and offers the solution of a new JavaScript library called eCSStender.

I don’t know how I feel about this. While I agree that forking isn’t ideal I don’t think that loading pages with yet more JS libraries is the acceptable path to take either. What do you think? Will you be using eCSStender? Are you using CSS 2.1 and 3.0 properties yet?

I wasn’t sure what to expect but after seeing and hearing Mike Scott & Co give the work of Yeats musical treatment earlier this year I had a hunch it could be pretty good. It was that. That and more.

Cerys was armed with a huge and long love of Yeats, Burns and Thomas and an amazing ability to deliver a ballad. I was hooked from the first few bars of her opening ballad. Her gorgeous delivery of Spancil Hill brought me back to my own childhood – in scary vivid fashion – to when I would play a set of traditional tunes for my grandmother (by request) on my keyboard. I think it was second or third song on my playlist and I can’t wait to get home to have a look for my little setlist and handwritten sheet music.

Anyway, back to the gig. Having the memory of a goldfish at times I sadly can’t recall names of songs of the setlist, most of all the beautiful Welsh hymn and traditional songs she treated us to in between affectionate readings of her favourite poems. The Welsh ballads brought me back to my home turf in Ballyvaughan, Co.Clare where an impromptu “Welsh weekend of music” has been taking place every Spring for years. I wonder could the travelling songlovers bring her with them in 2011?

Something magical happens when a singer takes up a song that means something to them. They don’t sing it from the throat, it comes from the centre of their being, almost like they expend part of their soul in the expression and delivery. It’s powerful feel, it’s powerful to hear and it was there in bucketloads tonight.

I could have listened to her for hours. Thanks Cerys.

The Absolut Gay Theatre Festival Dublin is on until May 16th. I saw an amazing production last night at The New Theatre called Whore Works which runs until the 8th. Check out the programme here.

Innocent Drinks Consumer Cam.

iPhone and Android app builder and CMS that integrates with YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and Twitter in one neat looking package – MobileRoadie.

Jeremy Keith’s HTML5 for Web Designers looks tasty.

Solsbury Hill gets the Scala treatment in Cork:

I enjoyed the festival so much last year I decided to get stuck in and volunteer this year. If you can’t make it down to catch any of the live music you might like to keep track of things including results of the various national and international competitions via these channels:

• Cork International Choral Festival page on Facebook
• YouTube channel
• Blog on Posterous
• On Twitter at @corkchoralfest

Here’s one of the most amazing performances I’ve seen so far – really looking forward to hearing them again later on this weekend. The University of Santo Tomas Singers from the Philippines:

I’ll be down there until Monday morning and getting as much of the festival in as possible. Thankfully, I have access to a much better camera than last year and will hopefully get some video clips up over the next few days as the performances roll on .

Will I see you there?