Oh well. Such is life. I spent two days at the Cork City and County Archive and have about 7 pages worth of typed notes to show for it. None of which is very meaty. I did get an idea for another project based on one of the sources there, but that does me little good for the current undertaking. Instead of wasting more time at the CCCA, I'm moving on and by moving on I mean going back to newspapers.
This time I'll head to the Cork County Library because I can get more time on the microfilm readers. It's about a 15-20 minute walk from where I'm staying, so it's probably a little bit closer than the city library. Plus you don't have to pay to use their computers there. What library makes people pay to use their computers? Isn't that the point of the library, to get those basic services for free? (Ok, so libraries serve a much broader and significant purpose, but you know what I mean.)On the bright side, the weather here in Cork was much improved over yesterday when all it did was rain whenever I set foot outside with 20mph winds to boot. I think tomorrow is going to be crappy too, but I believe things should shape up a bit on Saturday when I go see Christy Moore perform. Now THAT will definitely be a good time.
I've got the remainder of this week to do research here and next week as well. I have a feeling that unless I find a real gold mine next week when I go to the Boole Library, I won't need to come back to Cork in the future - at least for research purposes. It's a shame. It's a nice city. I like it much better than Dublin. I'd rather work here, but the sources, or lack thereof I should say, makes such a proposition unrealistic.
On to another subject: sports. I've never really been a soccer fan. It's been growing on me since the last World Cup, but I can only get into "good" games. Some soccer games are like watching the 1995 New Jersey Devils, and that's just plain painful. Yes they won the Cup, but they set the NHL back 10 years in the process. See, nothing good comes from New Jersey. Anyway, like I mentioned before the European Cup, or Euro 2008, or whatever it's called is going on now. I've watched a handful of games and the number one thing that stick out to me are the announcers. It's no secret that I hate most sports announcers in the States. Outside of Mickey Redmond, I'm hard pressed to find someone I actually like. CBC is good for hockey because the commentators don't talk over the entire game. The same is true of soccer in Europe. The commentators basically tell you who has the ball. That's it. There is NO discussion of players' personal history, trade history, or any other hogwash your typical American commentator spouts off. There are no stupid graphics or sound clips of the player shown simultaneously with the game. No. It's just the game. The commentators respect the audience enough to let them watch in peace. It's a welcome change to the CONSTANT banter of sports commentary in the States. Since I watch a lot of hockey, I can say that the various teams on Versus are atrocious. The same is true of ESPN's coverage of lacrosse - professional and college. Most of that is due to the verbal vomiting of Quint Kessenich. For lax, I understand why they do it - not a lot of people are familiar with the sport and the players. But for those that ARE familiar, it's like running your ears over a cheese grater. Sportscasters pandering to the lowest common denominator gets really old, really quickly.
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