Belfast Crew Land Dream Trip To Caribbean With Captain Morgan

Following a six week search, Captain Morgan has selected a team from Belfast as the most worthy crew to represent Ireland in The Captain’s Island 2011. The Belfast team is made up of three crew members: their leader Ross McDonald and his mates Calvin Holohan Doyle and Jonathan Haggarty. Winning out over 7,500 teams from across Ireland, the crew had to pit their skills in a series of tests and challenges.

The next stage will see the crew compete in an island adventure against 12 other countries from around the world. Their collective leadership, teamwork, bravado, clever thinking and masculinity will be put to the ultimate test in challenges laid out by Captain Morgan himself.

The Captain’s Island 2011 Challenge will be hosted over three days (October 10th-13th) and take place at a secret location in the Caribbean. Actress Mena Suvari will be on hand on The Captain’s Island to report back on the adventures, interviewing the crew along the way.

Captain Morgan commented: “I only want the best crews from around the world on my island and so far the guys who will represent Ireland look to have all the attributes I’d be looking for. However, they’ve only just got over the first challenge – which frankly wasn’t that difficult – so let’s see how they fare when I really put them through their paces on my Island. I’m not going to give my £13,000 bounty to just anyone so they better show they’ve got what it takes to impress the Captain.”

Competition winner Ross McDonald stated, “It’s an incredible honour to represent Ireland on The Captain’s Island. The Irish lads from last year’s Captain’s Cup team won the overall prize in South Africa so it has made us even more determined to bring the £13,000 bounty home to Ireland!’

To follow all of their adventures visit Captain Morgan’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/CaptainMorganIreland for exclusive pictures, commentary and videos of the challenge on The Captain’s Island.

Samsung Central Station

Loving this brand new video to promote Samsung's new Central Station range of USB hub monitors. It's a stop motion film featuring the perils of messy cables.

The monitors themselves include a wireless USB 2.0 dongle that you connect to your laptop. The monitor then ‘comes alive’ when your computer is within 3 feet of the ‘Central Station’. In addition you can plug all your desktop peripherals into it to be ready to go when you need them.

Credits
Client: Samsung Electronics
Director / Animator: Jey Mal
Production: The Viral Factory

Kildare Village 'Fill Your Suitcase'

Kildare Village have just launched a brand new campaign inviting their Facebook fans to watch a video and enter their details to be in with a chance to win a series of gift cards or luxury breaks. The Facebook promotion is a tee-up to their new 'Fill Your Suitcase' campaign. Over the next five weeks, five lucky winners will each receive a €100 gift card to shop the luxurious Village boutiques. The competition will then culminate with a €500 gift card or one of two weekend breaks in luxury Irish hotels.

Kildare Village boosts more than sixty luxury boutiques selling everything from daywear, eveningwear and leisurewear, to accessories, beauty products and homewards. The village is open seven days a week and has late night shopping on Thursday, Friday and Saturday until 7pm.

For more information about Kildare Village visit www.KildareVillage.com or check out the Kildare Village Facebook Page for the latest updates.

Saba Celebrates Their 5th Birthday

Pictured at the fifth birthday celebrations of Thai restaurant Saba on Clarendon Street are Thai Buddhist monks, Phrakruprabasdhammavites Phramaha, Sangthong Dhammacaro and Phramaha Chai Sutamedhi.

As you may have guessed from my first Saba post, I'm a huge fan. I absolutely love their food and was delighted to hear about their latest offering. This September sees Saba turn five, and to celebrate there will be a host of activities in store for customers. To kick off their celebrations Saba flew in some very special guests from Thailand for the occasion, to host a special ceremony in which they blessed Saba, the staff and their patrons.

As part of the celebrations, Saba will be hosting it’s “lobsterfest” for the third year running. This shellfish shindig is sure to please all half shelled and lobster hedonists. Diners can enjoy exquisite lobster fresh from the waters of Inisboffin or freshly shucked Carlingford Lough oysters to sip, slurp and sup!

Make a reservation today and get your claws into our delicious lobster inspired specials including seared lobster tail salad for €14.95 or steamed whole lobster with a Thai twist for €26.95. To wash down these tasty delights, Saba has teamed up with Veuve Clicquot Champagne and will be serving a glass of demi sec and lobster canapé for €14.95. Demi Sec is a real treat and is excellent with Thai cuisine. There will also be a French wine sale to tickle your tastebuds.

Saba, 26-28 Clarendon Street, Dublin 2, is open seven days a week from 12 noon. See their menu here and call 01 679 2000 to make a booking.

ESB Electric Ireland Appliance Calculator App

Today, Monday 12th September, ESB Electric Ireland announced the launch of Ireland’s first Appliance Calculator App for Smartphones. The Appliance Calculator App allows customers to calculate how much their various home appliances are costing them to run. You just select your appliances and indicate their typical usage to pin point the energy guzzlers in your home and see their cost.

The Appliance Calculator App works with a range of over 130 different home appliances and enables customers to compare the cost of using those appliances in different ways. This could be washing clothes at 40°C versus 60°C or using a small ring on stovetop versus a larger one. They can then see the positive impact of using their appliances wisely. They can also estimate a complete breakdown of their energy bills by creating a full list of all their home appliances. In addition, the App includes a search function where a comprehensive list of individual gas and electric appliances from games consoles to hair straighteners, kettles to fridge freezers can be found.

The App is available to download for all Smartphones. For iPhones simply search “Appliance Calculator” on the iTunes App Store and for Androids, search “Appliance Calculator” in the Android Market.

Ken McKervey, Commercial Manager, ESB Electric Ireland commented, “The ESB Electric Ireland Appliance Calculator App is a fantastic tool to help control costs in your home to make much needed savings. The Appliance Calculator is already a popular tool on our website, but given 600,000 Irish people own a Smartphone, we wanted to bring the App to Android and iPhones.”

Ken continued, “The App will give users an understanding of how their appliances use energy, and how they can reduce their energy costs by making some small adjustments, For example by reducing their electric shower running time by just a couple of minutes per day they can make a significant saving on their bill.”

Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Project

Back in August I wrote about Smirnoff Night Life Exchange partnering up with Madonna, and yesterday the rest of the story finally unfolded. Smirnoff announced that this years Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Project will be taking place on 12th November and will see Ireland exchanging a night out with Thailand.

As with last year's very awesome Argentina night out, party-goers should expect delicious drinks, tasty Thai food and an experience that will, in no doubt, be one of the best they've ever had. Irish Australian dance superstars the Potbelleez will be rocking the dancefloor with help from Fourplay DJ’s (Ray Shah, Killian O’Sullivan, Steven Cooper and Rory Lyna) and DJ Gordo.

For full information check out the Smirnoff Facebook Page and see my posts from the previous Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange activity.

As I previously posted, this year's Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Project will see Madonna partnering with Smirnoff to hold a global dance competition. As part of this, Smirnoff have revealed that Madonna will be attending the New York celebration to help handpick the overall global winner of a dance competition alongside her choreographers Rich + Tone. Smirnoff fans can win tickets to the New York finale at the Smirnoff Facebook Page.

“This year’s Nightlife Exchange Project is triple the size of last year’s, has bigger global names and more local original ideas,” said Simon Burch, Global Brand Director for The Smirnoff Co. “We’re going to enjoy it with our fans. We are inviting our Facebook fans to share with us their one-of-a-kind nightlife experiences so we can create them on 12th November.”

Smirnoff is inviting fans to share their ideas and suggestions on the most original aspects of nightlife in their country. Fans with the most original ideas winning an invite to the Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Project in their city or abroad. Nearly 10,000 ideas have been submitted thus far including local cocktail recipes, new dance styles, types of music and city fashion trends.

The pairings for the 18 countries taking part in the nightlife swap are:
Great Britain with Jamaica
Ireland with Thailand
Brazil with Germany
Australia with Italy
Canada with Vietnam
USA with Netherlands
Lebanon with Mexico
Venezuela with Cyprus
Argentina with Turkey

Carlsberg: JC Jacobsen's Bicentenary

Today, 2nd September 2011, marks the 200th anniversary of Carlsberg's founder JC Jacobsen. Born in Copenhagen in 1811, it wasn't until he was 24 that Jacob Christian Jacobsen inherited his father brewery and became head of what would unquestionably become the most influential beer brewery in the world.

Jacobsen was well known for his explorative mind and entrepreneurial approach to things. And while he had no formal academic or scientific training, he believed that the production of beer had to be based on scientific methods and to be industrialised. In short, Jacobsen wanted to eliminate the element of chance when brewing beer caused by variable yeast quality.

In 1876, Jacobsen took on Emil Hansen to work at the Carlsberg laboratory. There, Hansen dicsovered that yeast was not a homogeneous substance but could be broken down into a number of strains, of which only a few were right for brewing. By 1883 he had isolated and propagated single-strain yeasts for the first time, to finally allow brewers the control over the fermentation process to guarantee a consistent product, brew after brew. Lager yeast is still known as sacharromyces carlsbergensis in Hansen and Jacobsen’s honour.

Dawn Allison, Brand Manager, Carlsberg commented; "Carlsberg is the world's original lager and JC Jacobsen was relentless in his efforts to create perfect beer. He revolutionised beer brewing and selflessly shared his discovery of pure yeast with other brewers so today, there is a little bit of Carlsberg in every lager beer! The brewers at Carlsberg work to live up to Jacobsen's golden words: 'To develop the art of making beer to the greatest possible degree of perfection'. Today is a very special day for the Carlsberg brand as we pay tribute to its founder, JC Jacobsen 200 years after his birth."