The Irish Times website goes free-to-view

Not long after the online version of the Irish Times newspaper appeared, some years back, it went subscription-only. At 70 Euro per year (or whatever they were charging), it was just too expensive: I stopped reading it.  I get a sense that other people may have had the same reaction, as last year (I think it was) they changed over to some kind of  “premium subscription” model. But that seems not to have worked either.

So now they’ve gone free-to-view. Well, good. And about time. The IT isn’t a bad paper — many Irish people would consider it the “paper of record”, at the top of the local “broadsheet” league — and it’s nice to be able to get at its electronic version again without having to pay through the nose for the privilege.

Meanwhile, the IT’s old gateway page at Ireland.com, which was originally just a front end for the paper, seems to be being retooled as sort of a portal site now. Makes sense: Ireland is something of a brand in and of itself, and wasting the domain name on a site that was never much more than an introduction to the newspaper seems in retrospect pretty silly.

Should be interesting to see how this develops.

Tags: Ireland, Irish+Times, newspaper, news, ireland.com, Ireland, portal, retool

DD & PM at Con*Stellation 27: Huntsville AL, October 17-19, 2008

Here’s another 2008 convention gig I thought I’d post about here, since it hasn’t been mentioned on the blog previously, and this seems like a good way to get the word out.

The nice people at Con*Stellation 27 have asked me to come be their Guest of Honor in Hunstville AL over the weekend of October 17–19. Peter will be attending as well as a Special Guest to do assorted panel work, discourse on edged (and other) weaponry, and generally be his usual affable self (and I imagine there may be some testing of the local beers as well).    If any of you are located in the area and feel inclined to drop by, we’d love to see you.

Below is the map for those of you who want or need to know where the hotel is. (I’m told that LJ doesn’t care for frames, so you’ll need to click on the "View Larger Map" link to see the map.)

(BTW, here’s a link to the master appearances-and-signings list for 2008–2009.)

View Larger Map

 

Tags: convention, Huntsville, Alabama, Diane+Duane, Peter+Morwood, Con*Stellation, Constellation+27, Holiday+Inn+Express

I need this

It would have been perfect for the crumpets.

(via Clotilde at Chocolate and Zucchini)

Tags: food, cooking, batter, dough, whisk, kitchen, tools

Pic of the Day: Wolverine thanks his creator

Before introducing footage from the new Wolverine movie, Hugh Jackman jumps down off the stage to shake Len Wein’s hand.

What a super moment! And so very deserved. 

 

Once he was back on stage, Jackman gave a really heart-felt speech to Wein saying, “I waited a long time to thank you personally and I wanted to shake your hand, mate. It’s one of the best comic book characters ever created and as an actor, it’s a challenge to play and I’ve just done it for the fourth time, and I still feel there’s more to find out and that’s down to you, from your great mind and heart creating a great character.”

Yay!

 

Tags: Wolverine, Len+Wein, Comic+Con, San+Diego, comics, X-men, films, movie