What's That? Irish Blogging *Not* Dead?

Well. Did you have a nice weekend?

I got the hair fixed on Friday (went back to the salon who had done the blondifying, they were all very nice about it) and then headed wesht for the 2010 Irish Blog Awards in Galway on Saturday night. 

Proceedings kicked off with the Longlex Ladies' Wine Tea Party, organised by Ms. Sabrina Dent and hosted in the swanktastic Linda Evangelista suite of the G Hotel where it was mirrored sliding salon doors and mirrored walls and super lavish opulence and zebra heads (well, just the one, really) a go-go. Ciara rocked some fab teal eyeliner that made her blue eyes go "bing!" Elly got herself some deadly neon pink nails. Jennifer reckoned the zebra was giving me and my stripes the gladeye. Myself and Martha wondered how the zebra would look with a hat. And maybe some sunglasses.

Then it was on to the Radisson for the awards themselves. Now, this blog didn't make the final cut for Best Personal (ultimately won by Xbox4NappyRash, congrats!) but Beaut.ie was up for and won Best Beauty/Fashion Blog for Kirstie and Aisling, yay... 

... aaand then went on to take the Grand Prix overall Best Blog gong!

Myself and Aisling were literally stuck to our seats with a mixture of shock and delight when that last Gong of Gongs was announced, but as the designated hardware collector I had to shake myself and head back up to the stage for another what we'll loosely call "speech". Mostly I opened and closed my mouth and assorted noises came out. Jesus. I have no real recollection of what I said, perhaps mercifully, but I'm fairly certain that I forgot to thank SpinnakerPro and WHPR for generously sponsoring the categories (Best Beauty/Fashion and Grand Prix respectively).

So, apologies and thanks!

Once all the heavy lifting was dispensed with (seriously, that Grand Prix trophy weighs a shagging ton) it was time for cocktail sausages and deep fried prawn yokies and assorted dips and chats with Darragh and Rosemary and The Internet's David Maybury and his lovely missus and waving at White Rabbit NI and admiring her excellent bunny badge and then more chats with more assorted but universally lovely blog folk and their mates. 

After that, the plans to retire to the lounge in the G and be vay refined and quaff some champagne fell by the wayside as I er sort of accidentally got involved in dancing the rest of the night away.

 

Pic is Eolaí's

"Cos this is Thriller, Thriller night... Badum dum dum duh dum..."

All in all, a most excellent evening. Cheers again to Damien for putting the whole shebang together!


All pix are via Rymus unless otherwise stated.

News from the 2010 Irish Blog Awards. *Faint.*

I was offline most of yesterday evening, entertaining Mam and the little sister since it was her birthday yesterday. I was also busy making her birthday card, because both she and Mam are into cards in a big way.

They're the sort of people who will spend ages reading the verses inside of birthday/anniversary/Christmas/congratulations on your new hip cards in Easons or wherever, choosing a card with just the right message for other people, and genuinely appreciate a handmade card. I also had to make her present, which was a voucher that entitles the bearer to one (1) Micky Bubbles ticket since I don't have a printer that would have enabled me to simply print the feckin' Ticketmaster confirmation email.

And I made the envelope for said voucher. Oh, I'm fancy alright.

Anyway the upshot of all this make and do and having visitors was that it was very late last night when I spotted this tweet from Babaduck:

Turns out http://bit.ly/b9L5fM is a shortened URL linky to the Irish Blog Awards (not so) Shortlists... where Lyndar The Merciless has made the first cut for Best Personal Blog!

Wowza. 

I'm beyond chuffed to be appearing in such illustrious company - famous and much-visited blogs of lovely ladies that I recognise immediately among the 25 "short"listees include Fatmammycat, who I have a bit of a girl crush on, Grannymar, and Sabrina Dent. And the impossibly gorgeous Blanaid is on there too. Eeeexcellent.

So again, a big thank you to whoever nominated me, to those who read this blog of tangents and meanderings, and to everyone who follows or subscribes to it or leaves comments to let me know you stopped by.

I'm off for a lie-down in a cool darkened room until the shock abates a bit.

The 2010 Irish Blog Awards take place on March 27th in Galway.

I'd like to thank my Mom... and Jesus... and my agent...

Looking through the longlist of nominees for the 2010 Irish Blog Awards this morning and earmarking some new-to-me blogs for perusal at a later date, I noticed a familiar little website address in the Best Personal Blogs category.

This one!

While I don't expect to make the shortlist, I am absolutely chuffed that someone took the time and effort to nominate this little blog for the IBAs, the Oscars of the Irish blogging community. Thank you so much.

I've been to the Evint before, reprezentin' for Beaut.ie at the 2009 and 2008 awards, where we picked up gongs for Best Beauty/Fashion Blog and Best Group Blog respectively (having scooped both Best Newcomer and Best Designed Blog in 2007) but it really gave me a warm fuzzy feeling to see my longstanding personal hobby of an effort listed, as well as spot the three nominations for Beaut.ie. Reminded me of the sensation you might get after a particularly lovely cup of tae.

Or a late night should-really-have-headed-home-an-hour-ago shot of Sambuca.

If you're looking for some new online reads, why not take a trip through the nominees - congratulations to one and all. And big thanks to Damien The Blogfather and everyone who does such a great job organising the whole shebang every year, as well as to (deep breath) Microsoft Ireland’s Developer and Platform Group, who are sponsoring Best Personal Blog.

I can haz Microsoft Surface now, yes?

The 2010 Irish Blog Awards take place on March 27th in Galway.

More Blog Awardz Newiz

Sweet merciful hour.

There are photos.

Lots and lots and lots of them.

http://pix.ie/search?find=iba09

I'd better go snaffle some Shrove Tuesday stylee pancakes sharpish to help steady me nerves.

Blog Awardz Newiz

Myself and Aisling and Aisling's sister Shauna and Shauna's OH Joan took ourselves off to Cork for the weekend to reprezent Beaut.ie, yo, at the Irish Blog Awards held on Saturday night in the Cork International Airport Hotel. Which is a deadly hotel, outside which the sun seems to shine non-stop from an azure blue sky ('cept when it's night, like) and inside which there's non-stop '80s music and very cool public spaces (complete with giant disco balls and Dyson hand driers and LED faucet light temperature sensitive bathroom taps) and seriously great rooms with a thoughtful mirror and lighting on the desk to aid make-up-ing.

Wildly limited mobile phone reception, though. Probably for fear that news of music post Total Eclipse of The Heart might filter through.

Anywayz, I'm still not quite recovered from the (day and) night and actually have a funny twitch in my right eye thanks to the tiredness, but sure you're only young-ish once.

We kicked off in a decidedly civilised fashion with the Ladies Tea Party, organised by Sabrina, where I met lots of lovely lady bloggers/ledgebags like Ciara (who managed to dye her hair during proceedings, well impressed!), Maz (you may remember her from such blogs as Style Treaty), Claire, Shauneen, Elly, Grannymar, Sharon, Lorraine, Linzi, Pauline, and Nicola.

Organised by Blogfather/King Of The Known Internet/fellow specs wearer Mr. Damien Mulley and hosted by a be-whiskered Rick O'Shea, the awards Evint itself was another roaring success, with some of my favourites like Annie Rhiannon, Rapture Ponies, and Pursued by A Bear all picking up well-deserved gongs. The Beaut.ie contingent was shockaroo gobsmacked and then delirah to pick up some trophy-stylee hardware (and a styrofoam "Winners" courtesy of Made In Hollywood and a magnum of Heineken courtesy of, well, Heineken), taking Best Fashion Blog. Big thanks to sponsors SpinnakerPro! You should go off now when you're done here and have a read of the other great blogs that were shortlisted in our category - namely The Sexy Pedestrian, Dublin Streets, Dress Junkie, and Wow.ie. I had to do the collection and get the hug from Rick - and make the speech, so mortified apologies to all for that. Then we fell in with Twenty Major and his bevvy of beauties, Arlene, the peeps from Cheap Eats, Fiona McCann and her OH David, and sure it was drinkies and Hunky Dories a go-go.

Until, strangely, the bar shut down for nearly an hour, only to re-open at 2.20am (I was feckin' hanging for a vodka and Diet Coke, so I was) to a roar of "FREEDOM!!!" and a great surge of bodies to the frontline.

Needless to say, the tay and toast went down well on Sunday morning.

Irish Blog Awards 2008

Two photees of the 2008 Blog Awards via Rymus. Top pic is Kirstie [left] & monself [middle] with the category sponsor after collecting the gong for Best Group Blog for Beaut.ie [missing from pic is Aisling, the other Beautsketeer], and the bottom one is all the happy winners with their trophies.

Now I need to put my head down for a little nap. Can't believe how shattered I am after the night out! Truly, I am getting old.