Just a quick update before I turn in to grind out another blissful Monday morning.

Firstly, a thanks to Scoby, for keeping his word. He set himself a challenge of earning $200 online in the month of April, and if he failed, one person who’d commented his blog would win $20. Sadly (for him anyway) he failed. With my good luck lately, was there any doubt that I’d win the fecking thing? So cheers to Declan for that, would have been easy for him to lie and save himself $20.

I’ve been keeping an eye on my backlinks lately, and noticed another new one in there two days ago. I was led to this post. The author had seen a piece of mine in the Irish Times, and referred to me as an eloquent blogger. So, having looked around his blog for quite a while, I grew to really enjoy his writing, so I was pretty glad to have received a link and some approval from this guy, known on there only as Primal Sneeze. I had a look at the links in his sidebar, and found some really great Irish blogs that I’d never seen before. My own blog used to revolve around my online money making, and while I plan to get back into that after my exams, I probably prefer my more general posting or ranting. I read very few “Make Money Online” type blogs these days, and the links I found from Primal Sneeze will certainly be filling that void. This one in particular caught my attention. A columnist with the Times, her standard of writing is just excellent. Being a fairly confident writer myself, it’s rare I’ll be humbled by the quality of someone else’s writing, particularly on a blog, but this one did just that. I’ll stop my ass kissing now.

Any nerds reading this will probably relate to this next part. On Friday I signed up for a RapidShare account for one month, at a cost of €7. Basically this opens up a whole new galaxy of downloading at good speeds.

I can honestly say I have no idea what I’d been doing with my life for those miserable, wasteful 18 years before I bought a RapidShare account. This must be how people felt when they discovered the wheel, or fire.

Oh, congrats to the Man Utd fans out there, you deserved it.

Firstly, I had Monday and Tuesday off school, and just a half day today. The weather has been fantastic, which is really a rarity for Ireland, and I’ve been enjoying it by trying to do my study out in the back garden while soaking up some rays. My celtic skin can only burn however, never tan.

Yesterday I was mentioned in the Irish Times (no tabloid junk, thank you very much!) for the second time in two weeks, so I’m certainly not complaining there. They actually took a snippet (the first paragraph) of this post and left my name and website address. Funnily enough, yesterday evening while walking, enjoying the beautiful weather, I actually saw one of the teachers I was referring to in that post. I smiled and said hello and quickly walked on hoping she didn’t know I had made reference to her in a national newspaper that day.

Then today, I logged in to make this post, and noticed some strange backlinks to this blog. I investigated and noticed that Retire At 21 (a website that’s quite well known in the world of online money making) had included me in their list of the top 30 bloggers under the age of 21! This was complete with a link to my blog. Several others made a post about the list, so I’ve been getting a few links around the place and not even realising! Here’s the full post, read it and be happy for me.

I must admit I was very proud to have made the list (albeit at number 30!), especially considering I haven’t been working online much of late. While I may currently not be earning as much online as the others, my alexa rank and technorati rank aren’t bad at all (I hadn’t realised my site stats had improved so much), and I’m still younger than a good few of the people who are higher up than me. So little old walsho.net is holding it’s own.

And a huge thanks to Michael for considering me for the list, it really made my day!

While we’re on the online side of things, those lovable sods down at Google have decided to pick me back up from the gutter and give me back my PageRank. The site is once again a Google PageRank 2. Google you old softies!
Also, yesterday I bought some revision books for my exams, and realised later I’d been overcharged. Today I went in and as soon as she saw me, the girl apologised and took out a little bundle she’d put by for me with my money in it. Didn’t even have to ask!

So, a nice few days. I can only hope now that this continues until the end of my Leaving Cert, which is only four weeks away.

Fortunately, that came to pass last Tuesday.

A journalist from the Irish Times (Ireland’s best paper, none of that tabloid rubbish!) contacted me around the start of April, and got me to review a couple of Leaving Cert websites. It was this very website that enabled her to find and contact me.

Last Tuesday, April 22nd, my work appeared in the paper along with some pieces from Aaron Donohoe, or Madringo as some may know him, and the crew at Leaving-Cert. Congrats to them too

It was nice seeing my name in print in that paper, along with a mention of this blog. That small link to this site even got me a few extra hits that day, so I was definitely happy to have done it (The link given was actually Walsho.com, but thankfully I had that domain already, and made it redirect to here, Walsho.net). I was also happy to give theleavingcert.com a mention in it, as that’s owned by Smemon, an online friend of mine. You’re welcome man!

So, a thanks to Gráinne Faller from the Irish Times for giving me the chance to help out, and also my English teacher, who was delighted with the appearance and even made an announcement to the class about it!

As we all know, Brian Cowen is going to be the new Taoiseach of Ireland, after Bertie’s resignation. While Brian seems great for the job and all, we should really be asking ourselves - Do we really want one of the world’s most unphotogenic men as our leader?

As I flicked through the paper I noticed that sadly the camera doesn’t do Mr. Cowen any favours. (I apologise for the low quality of some of the photos!)

Firstly, what’s supposed to be a display of affection with his wife, well it just doesn’t turn out too well, and gives the impression Brian’s been eating a little too much garlic before his press conference.

Next we have Brian’s suberb imitation of his goldfish.

And what have we here? Our new Taoiseach’s feeling saucy! Check out Brian’s seductive lip licking.

Oh Brian, just ravish me!

And as for these final ones, I just don’t know what to say. A picture speaks a thousand words, enjoy!

Has anyone else noticed how in general the daughters of famous people are nearly always rather attractive? I asssure any fellow adolescent males reading this that Mr. Cowen’s daughter is no exception. I shan’t post a picture of her however, as that’d just be too weird. You’ll usually catch a glimpse of her in the papers next to her father anyway. (Sinead Cowen : Call me!)

After the success of my French oral last week, I had my Irish one to worry about on Monday. It wasn’t quite as good as the French one, but it went fine really, the examiner was a little awkward though.

Today I was in Trinity College for a maths revision course (as I was last Saturday also). Pretty tiring, but it was pretty useful in the end, since we basically revised the entire higher level maths course over two weekends. And during lunch today I walked into the wrong shop (the one beside the shop I thought I was heading for), and for fear of looking like an idiot by walking back out immediately, I look around. Thankfully I was surrounded by dvd’s and cd’s, not some weird sex toys or something. Then I glance at the top shelf and see a Redneck Manifesto cd I’d been wanting for ages but hadn’t been able to locate. Second-hand. €10 . Fuck yes.

We also saw Dave McSavage around town, doing his little thing. While admittely I did laugh at some of the stuff he was at, I really just wanted him to shut the fuck up and get off the streets. You can tell his material is just the same stuff over and over, and he’s just irritating. I can’t quite explain it. It’s like he thinks he’s far funnier than he really is. When it comes down to it, there’s a reason why he’s selling his dvds out of a bag on the street rather than in shops. Personally I despise the whole “PC brigade” type of thing these days, but he was pretty insulting to some people, and usually I’d be pretty easy-going with that sort of thing. Moral of the story? Dave McSavage : Shut up man, you’re not that good.

On the website side of things, this blog finally reached 40 RSS subscribers. Finally! You bastards had me peaked at 39 for ages. The number tends to fluctuate, but had hit 40 a few times now, so I thank all my subscribers, and apologise for calling you bastards in the previous sentence.

Tune in on Tuesday when I’m hoping to get a decent post (or two) up here, hopefully to coincide with some exposure the site might be getting. More on that to come my friends!

I produced an answer for every question, so I was happy that I didn’t resort to the “Je ne sais pas” or “Ca ne m’intresse pas” type of answers to get yourself out of jail.

The orals are in my opinion, the worst type of exam you can do. They’re so difficult to study for and very nerve-wracking. I was sitting outside waiting to be called in for ages. Then the guy comes out and tells me he’s going to get a cup of coffee and will be back in a few minutes. At this stage you really just want to go in there and get it all over with. I’d also been over-dosing on Rescue Remedy (a dropper type thing that supposedly keeps you calm) to keep the nerves at bay. I’m not too panicky usually, but when I found that stuff in the house the night before, I thought I may as well bring it in.

When I was in there the nerves didn’t affect me very much at all, I knew I was getting on well, and the examiner was a nice guy that seemed all to willing to help if I had needed.

Also, there’s been some exciting news for me of late involving a national newspaper, but I’ll keep it all under wraps for now at the risk of looking like a fool if it doesn’t all go through.

Next week I have my Irish oral, just four days after the French, boo-urns to you State Examinations Commission. There was an incident in my school with the german orals actually. The german oral examiner for our school was in a car accident and the exams had to be postponed. The thoughtful Examinations Commission suggested doing the german orals the following week (the same week as the Irish orals). Thankfully my school had enough sense to say no and do them the week after. It’s times like this I’m grateful for being a dirty, smelly, arrogant French student rather than a hardened beer guzzling German student.

Good luck to any fellow leaving certers with the orals this week and next week. Remember, your examiner is just another teacher, they want to see you do well.

Personally I liked Bertie Ahern. I’m not too into politics but he seemed decent enough, and I once met him him a local shopping centre when I was way younger (I’d say nine or ten years of age) and he was very polite, even to me, a young child at the time, despite the fact that he was surrounded by a ton of people trying to talk to him. I asked him “What’s it like being known everywhere you go?” I basically just wanted to ask him something for the sake of talking to the Taoiseach. He answered that it had some advantages and disadvantages, but then some middle-aged bitch interrupted with “I’m a teacher and I’m very upset” and I decided it was time to leave the man alone, I’d gotten my wee chat with him, I was happy.

Whether he took brown envelopes or not, I liked him, and he seemed to be doing a decent enough job. What’s so bad about brown envelopes anyway?

Finally, I can attend clubs and pubs without having to borrow an ID off someone that looks like me. Finally I can go buy beer without having to worry about getting asked for ID and having to shamefully admit that I don’t have it, and then face the horrible walk of shame. My mate Warren always had the hilarious idea of heading into an off-licence on the day of your 18th birthday, wearing only a nappie (diaper), baseball cap, and holding a giant lollipop. And you can proudly produce that identification card that proves you can purchase alcohol despite you wearing the attire of a two year old.

Unfortunately, I’ll never again get to experience the thrill of getting served alcohol or getting into an over-18s club when technically you’re not supposed to. Perhaps that was even the best part?

Posts like this really show my Irish-ness don’t they?

For my birthday I’m getting mostly money, because quite simply, I need it! I’ve had to buy a new laptop though, as over the weekend I broke my old one. I’ll post about this in detail soon, I hope!

The laptop partly explains the lack of posting on here lately, but mainly it’s due to exams. I have Leaving Cert oral exams coming up on the 7th (French) and the 14th (Irish). Two orals exams in such close proximity is quite unfair in my opinion, as it’s so easy to mix up both languages. Today I had a practice  French oral, which went quite swimmingly! My teacher was hard enough on me too, allowing me very little chance to talk about the basics or stuff I had learned off, but instead challenged me by asking about the economy and stuff like that. She was very pleased overall, so perhaps sacrificing my blogging time has paid off a little!

Because of the afore-mentioned exams, I wont be doing anything for my birthday. I’m not happy about this, but when it’s sacrificing two weekends for the sake of my Leaving Cert oral exams, I think it’s a wise decision. A nerdy decision, but a wise one.

June 16th is the day I finish my Leaving Cert folks, and I promise you walsho.net will be back with regular posting from then on!

In the meantime, feel free to get me to buy your under-age friends, relatives, or general acquaintances alcohol or cigarettes. Why? Because I can. And it makes me feel like a big man.

Your Gphone Blog was set up by me a few months ago, and during the time I owned it I made only three posts on the site. In fairness it had still managed to get decent enough rankings in Google, but there was no way in hell I’d have time to take advantage of that or try to improve it.

So I made a sale thread for it yesterday, with an ambitious Buy It Now price of $60. The thread died fairly quickly, it just got buried, but one guy did PM me saying he’d pay $30 for it right there and then, and the offer was just handy so I accepted.

$30 and less clutter on my server, I’m happy.

All this selling the websites I no longer have time for is like a digital detox for me or something, I’m loving it.

For ages Wikipedia stood between me and that coveted number one spot on the Google search results for “Mark Walsh”.

I wanted to make this more boastful, but unfortunately Wiki is still ahead of me in the search results for “Irish Hero”, so I cannot yet declare that the number one online encyclopedia can suck my balls.

Apologies if that last remark was a bit vulgar, I’m currently planning a website based around life’s vulgarities. I would tell you that there’ll be more on that to come soon, but we all know there probably wont be. In fact, I find so little time to work online lately that it’s almost unlikely that I’ll get to a) make the new site and b) blog about it afterwards.

I’ve managed to put up my proxy site again, 4getschool.com. It was down for a while when my proxy host kicked me off for not paying the bill. Their goddamn site was down! When they emailed saying my bill was due, I went to pay and the site was down. So then after a few days they inform me they have taken my site down because of my failure to pay my bills. Again I try to pay and the billing option isn’t working. So after sending them a classic sarcastic response I decide that maybe they’re not the right proxy host for me! I’m currently testing out another one, so let’s hope it’s slightly better.