Another day, another bad driver

On my way in to work today a very fancy Jaguar did the old indicate and move trick. You know the one where you don't luck in your mirrors and try to bulldoze the person in the lane next to you.

Today it was me in that lane and I don't like the idea of a jaguar or any other car for that matter denting me.

I pointed out his folly :o) and drove on, only to be chased down the road at high speed and then overtaken.

I passed him perplexed at his behaviour.

Why do people have to be so aggressive on the road, normally I let this sort of incident pass with a shake of the head but the beeping and swearing, well they change the matter.

Lets all just take our time and calm down on the roads, being in the wrong lane isn't the end of the world, but moving without checking your mirrors may be the end of someone, so be careful.

New Toy

Tonight I am blogging from my new toy, a Dell Inspiron Mini. It is a little netbook. Excuse any typos. I'm going to have to go on a finger diet or maybe gnaw flesh of so that i have pointier fingers.

So far so good, the speed is ok, the display is cool. The keyboard is a little tricky, making the shift key on the right so small is a right pain but I shall overcome.

Fn + right arrow for end though, come on! End is for convenience, alas that is no more.

So now I'm going to test out the battery life and get browsing.

A little slip

I haven't posted in a week and normally that means I am being lazy, this time I have an excuse. I fell of my bike on the ice on tuesday, and somehow that made me lazier.

I served me right for using my brakes on the ice rink of a road. The bike seems ok, I think I've pulled a muscle or two in my shoulder so all in all another lucky escape!

10k

Operation Freeflow

I was riding home as usual this evening and the traffic was terrible around Liffey Valley and all the way up the exit at the Foxhunter. If you know the area, you will know what sort of bottle neck it is.

So I was making my way up the slip road, indicating that I'm turning left at the top, I'm starting to accellerate, about to zip past the stationery right turning traffic when a car pulls out in front of me. You know the type, indicate as you move, don't look around, "but he hit me officer" types.

Anyway, I avoided him and then as I approaced the top of the road I got a chance to pass him as he was waiting for a filter. He then veers towards me, I have to avoid and stop as he drives around the corner. All this because he was on his mobile.

All this under the watchful eyes of the Garda standing there at the traffic lights! He just stood their and looked as a guy driving erratically on a mobile phone went past!

I just don't get!!!

21k

I went for a long run on Saturday. I got out in the freezing fog and did about 21k, around a half marathon. It felt good until near the end when I sort of twisted my right knee (it's recovered completely now).

It felt pretty good out there except for the cold and the bit where I nearly killed myself when a squirrel ran in front of me. I would have been suing the Tufty Club had I gone over.

It's a couple of days later now and I feel fine. So it's just a matter of booking a marathon....

Arg

Has it been that long?

It been ages! I've been working away on some German translations of the Greendoor website. So now the Germans will know how cool a place it is to stay.

I've also added a new apartment to the alvehuset website, but that won't be live until tomorrow.

Yawn!

Nonsense

I had the misfortune of listening to the radio last night. I can't tell if it was 98 or fm104 but they were talking about Simon Cowell and his interview with his ex. The presenter said that she didn't think Simon Cowell was capable of a relationship!

WTF? Does she know him? Is she a pal, if she is why is she discussing his personal life with the radiowaves...

It's amazing what some people comment on. *

*Please note: I know the irony of commenting on commenting in a blog!

16k

I got out and did a 16k run at the weekend and it felt fine. It was tough at the end, all because of the steep hill that's right at the end of my run.

I think I might try and find a different route to avoid that hill although it's probably better for me.

I went to Lucan Demesne to run and I have to say it is a lovely place to run, no cars no fumes, trees fields the liffey, perfect.

Crisis, what crisis?

Bank of Ireland announced there profits for the last 6 months. The last 6 months were the world's banks went into meltdown. The news was grim, profits had fallen 32%.

Wait a minute... Profits, not losses... Well they couldn't have been that good. Think again! Only €650 Million. I wouldn't mind having a crisis like that myself!!!

Can you have any sympathy for the banks with this sort of nonsense coming out.

Please note: I have worked in detail in treasury finance so I am well aware of the issues that make up this crisis.

11k

I got out there on Sunday and did an 11k run, I went all over the place and it all felt good. It all felt a bit too easy until I got to a very steep hill and then I remembered how hard this running lark can be.

No real ill affects to report so I hope to do maybe a 15k at the weekend. I know that breaks the 10% rule but needs must.

My Brain

It's amazing, well at least my mother thinks so. Check out these amazing facts about your very own brain.

7kms

I got out on Sunday and did a 7k run. It was a muddy muddy day. I nearly lost my runners at a few points! I did it in a lesiurely 42 minutes. I had some twinges in my knee but nothing major. I cycled into work today, so that is 12k each way so that should keep the fitness levels up.

Hopefully I will get out for a 10k at the weekend and take it from there.

Media Domination

My Bro in Law, 6th, was on the radio today. He was on Today FM. National Radio no less. I was quite impressed, as always with his interview, he is always so cool.

I happened to flick onto RTE1 this evening, to the drivel that is "Off the Rails" and low and behold, what do I see in the background? Only 6th's bike!

Is he the new Rupert Murdoch???

The consensus...

From the 2 comments I got, I'm going to train old school. So watch out for me running up some steps in the snow near you!

Science or Hardwork?

I'm back doing a small bit of training. I'm trying to see if I would be able to do a marathon or perhaps a good half marathon next year.

I'm wondering how I should approach it? Should I be like Rocky and drag some tyres up a hill, run up some steps and punch the air, or should I be like Ivan Drago, using machines, computers and science (let's not even mention the drugs).

How much help will it be to me to know my VO2 max levels or my lactate thresholds, does that really make a difference to me?

Should I just go out and run, or should I do fartlek intervals, and tempo runs, temperatures, graphs, figures?

Or should I just go about building those "Hurting Bombs" by just getting out there and running.

I'm trying to think of a good set of stairs to run up, and the only ones that come to mind are the ones at the foot of the Central Bank in Dublin. I would be like some sort of anti-goth running up those stairs in my running gear!

I think I'm going to be old fashioned, not only because I don't have access to scientific equipment, but also because you can over analyse these things.

Sellotape X-rays

Sometimes science and it's application amazes me. This is truly amazing. Who needs an expensive MRI, I'm going to get the sticky tape out tonight.

Yeti - Update

From today's Guardian. A group of Japanese climbers have claimed to have found a footprint. This isn't the most compelling evidence but at least they are out there looking.

3k, it's a start

I got out last for a 3k run last night which is a nice start. I hope to get out for 5k on wednesday. It was about 18:30 when I went into the local park so I was very surprised to see a woman in a wedding dress standing in a muddy field having her picture taken.

It was dark, it was cold, it was mucky and it was weird!

The run was grand though, the cycling has really helped my fitness so my lungs felt comfortable all the way round.

CushyCMS

I've tried out a lot of CMS lately. Joomla, Drupal, CMSMadeSimple. Joomla and Drupal are too complicated for the small sites I want to use them on, even CMSMadeSimple which is by far the most simple (clever name eh?) is a bit too much.

I recently came across CushyCMS and it is a pleasure to work with so far. It is simple and easy to use and gives you all the functionality you need for small sites. The free option is so good, I'm tempted to go for the Pro version!

I would definitely recommend it for simple XHTML / CSS Sites

Brian Lenihan - Be a man

I was reading today that Brian Lenihan is blaming the Medical Cards Fiasco on Mary Harney.

Who is the Minister for Finance? Are you telling me that Mary Harney, a junior coalition party member, told the minister for finance what to do?

Surely each department were told to cut x budget and that's what came back.

Be a man Minister Lenihan, you can't be everybody's friend, especially when you take money from the poor and the elderly.

Budget Bull

I just read what Brian Lenihan had to say about yesterday's budget.

So the reason he had to increase VAT was to decrease the impact of people shopping in Northern Ireland. Do I need to say any more? The reason they shop in the north is down to high costs, so increasing them won't help and I'm not sure the yields make sense either.

But the best bit was that the €200 levy on car parking spacies is to encourage use of public transport. WTF? How about increasing public transport, or reducing the cost of public transport. More buses perhaps? Follow the Finnish model of subsidiased Public transport.

Use your brain and stop taxing people. That "levy" is not going to stem the traffic jams, it won't even make the tiniest dent. It's moronic.

And just because you call it a levy, doesn't mean it's not a tax.

Budget Day.

So you can get a tax free bike, 4 weeks after I bought a new one. Oh nuts!

Now everyone is paying tax, EVERYONE. Well PAYE workers anyway. I wonder will it hit Bono and Enya or the rest of the population of Killiney.

Over 70's don't get a medical card automatically. That's a cheap shot, at least you should treat the elderly right.

I don't mind paying my taxes as long as you see them in action. So I don't have to wait 5 years for an appointment in the local hospital.

Petrol will sot more as will everything else because of the hike in VAT. I particularly don't like the rise in VAT as it hits everyone including those on a fixed income. Is that really fair?

I'm not sure about this budget but I never really am!

The day before...

It's the night before the one day a year when politicians actually have an impact on people's lives. Of course it's budget day and tomorrow is expected to be a brutal one.

I'm looking forward to all sorts of misery, cuts here, tax hikes there, hopefully they will borrow some, and spare the regular PAYE worker, but I doubt it.

I wonder are they far enough away from an election to get away with a harsh budget?

Dublin Paranormal Convention - 4 days to go

There are only 4 more days to wait for the Dublin Paranormal Convention. The final preparations are being put in place.

I'm really looking forward to seeing Paul O'Connor, and hear what he has to say about remote viewing and hopefully give us a demonstration!!!

Driving Test

I've got my driving test tomorrow so keep of the roads between 3 and 4. I did a bit of practice tonight and it all seemed to go ok. Hopefully tomorrow will fall nicely into place and hopefully I won't make the silly schoolboy errors I made last time.

Wish me luck!

Picture of the Day - 4

This is a picture of the Cao Dai Place of worship in Tay Ninh in Vietnam. It is an an amazingly colourful place and these gargoyles gaurd the entrance.

Picture of the Day - 3

This is a Picture I took in Paris at the start of my honeymoon. It was an overcast day and this was taken just prior to a massive downpour.

I thing Paris is the most amazing city to look at and photograph.

Is there anything Google isn't doing?

Google is putting Microsoft to shame. It has launched it's latest strategy, reducing the US's dependency on oil in the next 22 years.

I think it's great that there are people and corporations out there being proactive, but I'm also a little bit scared of a corporation that is becoming so ubiquitous.

I'll not be cynical, if a company like Google come out with such initiatives, it will get people talking and no matter what, that is a good thing.

I'm glad commas don't cause global warming because that last sentence would personally do away with a few polar bears.

Picture of the Day - 2

This is a picture of Tower Bridge in London. It is a very impressive structure and if I had the money I would buy that bridge and have it shipped brick by brick to my back garden.

Picture of the Day - 1

This is a picture I took on a beautiful early spring day in 2006. It's in Montebello, which is a nice suburb of Oslo in Norway.

Banking

The world of banking has been capturing the headlines recently. The whole sorry mess is tumbling down like the house of cards, built on sand that it is.

The government have kindly guaranteed all the savings in Irish Banks. It doesn't really mean much as there is no issue with liquidity in Irish Banking. The astonishing move is to guarantee all the money borrowed by Irish banks. That is a much riskier move and it gives banks a get out of jail free card.

It would be pretty nice to make oodles of money creating bad debt and then having it all cancelled out by the man. Imagine it in any other industry?

Knee Update - MRI Results

I got the results of my MRI and it was strange. Good and bad news. The good news is there is no problem or injury showing up for my knee at all. According to the images I have a perfectly fine knee, no cysts, no tears.

Great news eh? Well not really. I have a pain in my knee and I want to know what is causing it. I think I am going to do my best to stretch a lot and built up my upper leg to support my knee better. So the cycling is helping, I will try a short run tomorrow to see how that goes.

RTE.ie becomes dating agency for it's stars.

I just read this article on RTE.ie. So Ryan Tubridy doesn't have a book lined back drop. Come to think of it, I saw him in town once and there were no books in site.

It's good of RTE, to try and help him find a lady. It must be hard for high earning, high profile to get themselves out there.

iPhone? Google Phone?

Can't I have both? I think the iPhone looks way cooler to be honest, but the Google one ain't bad. Hopefully it will have a good SDK and some free killer apps, ones that don't download your DNA and send them to the googleplex

New Bike

I finally got my new bike. It's a La Pierre RCR100, I got it in the cycle superstore in Tallaght. I've cycled home from Tallaght and then to and from work yesterday and it is amazing the difference a road bike makes to the journey.

I've done both trips on my mountain bike and it is quite hard work but on the new bike it just flew and I've done both journey's in record time.

If only there was a cycle lane all the way to the city centre like there is to Tallaght!

Bluetooth Headphones

I took my new SBH170's out for a run last night. After about a kilometre they came off so i think I will have to wear a hat or get a headband.

The sound is very good but it kept dropping the signal so it made the music jumpy. I hope it's down to the carge in the headphones. I will charge them properly and take them out again.

So far they are pretty good!

The Knee - Update

I went to a consultant about my knee, which hasn't been a problem, to have a firm diagnosis. I got a pretty firm diagnosis. My knees are in pretty good condition, my patella tendons seem fine but I do have either (or both) a meniscal tear or a meniscal cyst.

I'm going for an MRI later this week to get it confirmed and come up with a course of action.

I'm going to lay off the running while I await the results but I'll be in the gym and on the bike over the next few weeks. I want to keep my condition up, so I don't have to face the horror of getting fit from being completely out of shape.

The New Week

I've started the week like I mean it. I was in the gym at lunchtime. It's been ages since I've been in the gym and the first time in my new gym in the city centre.

I have to say it has great facilities.

I ran 3k on the treadmill overlooking the liffey, which was pretty sweet. Although if I can find a good city centre route I will run outdoors and shower in the gym.

I got my bluetooth headphone and the sound is good but I'm not sure they will be very stable on my ears, but I will try them out and hopefully they will be fine.

Now back to work for me.

It's Friday already

This week has flown by in a bit of a haze. It was my first week back at work after 2 weeks off so that is always strange, that and of course the new addition, so everything is very different.

I'm looking forward to a nice weekend, maybe a run, maybe watch the Man United game tomorrow.

I've been suffering from blogger's block lately. Imagine how bad it must be if I can't come up with anything to put in the blog!!!

Back Running

I'm making a concerted effort to get back running in the last week or so. I hope to do a few races in the new year, I'll do the rest of the year to get in shape.

I've done 3 runs in the last week, two 3k runs and one 5k run. Each run was pretty slow around 16 minutes for the 3k and 30 minutes for the 5k. I'll bring that down substantially over the next month or so.

I was out last night, in the dark, in the wind, in the rain and the conditions were tough but they were tougher than the run. I've been using my phone as a music player and it took some getting used to and it meant taping the earphones in my ears which was uncomfortable to remove.

I've ordered a pair of wireless bluetooth headphones, I'll review them when they arrive.

Why Lord Why?

RTE have reached a new low. You can chat to the Gorilla from the Cadbury's Ad.

Why Lord why?

I'm back

It's been ages. 17 whole days without blogging, I think I spent a month in Vietnam and blogged more.

So what have I been up to? Well, I've become a father!!!

My beautiful son was born 2 weeks ago, thanks to my amazing wife (thanks!). He's called Oliver and he is thriving.

Now I'll be blogging more over the next few days and weeks about all the usual stuff!

Now back to fatherhood.

Dublin Paranormal Convention - Update

I've moved the site to a new host (blacknight). I've put in a content management system (CMSMadeSimple). I've added a paypal function to sell tickets to the event. (Buy your tickets here).

I've also started a Google Adwords Campaign. It's been running nearly 2 days now and it's sent around 14 clicks over to the site, so that's not bad. It will be interesting to see if this will turn into ticket sales.

That's it for now!

More Running

I got out for a brief run tonight. I did a 3km run. It felt really comfortable and within myself. I was doing 5.30 kilometres which isn't particularly fast but it was good to go out and run and not struggle.

I put it down to the fact I have been out twice a week for the past 3 weeks, that really helps. Hopefully I can take it up a notch over the coming weeks and months.

I was running tonight, hooked up to my phone and not my iPod. I need to be contactable at all times at the moment, so I was listening to the radio on my phone. I think I might put some more music on it, because it is lighter than the iPod, so I can run with it in my pocket and I don't have to dig out my iPod armband.

I hope to get out tomorrow morning for a small run too. So I'm off to bed!

Things that happened on this date...

I was browsing wikipedia and I notice it is 4 years since The Scream by Edvard Munch was stolen at gunpoint.

It reminded me of a visit to Oslo back in 2005 / 6. I went to the the Tourist Information office (Traffiken) and asked how to get to the Munch Museum. They told me get the train to Toyen and there are signs all the way from there.

So I went and got on a train, got to Toyen, walked through the rain to the museum. When I got there I was soaked and not happy. I was not happy because the museum had been closed since 2004 because of the above robbery!!!!

Things they could have told me in the the Tourist Office. Did they think I wanted to look at the outside of the building!!!

I did get into the Museum in 2007 but I remember the first trip more vividly.

Olympics - Sprint King

The suits have been complaining about Usain Bolt's showboating. Come on!?!? That is sport and that is sprinting. I loved it and was astounded by the guys ability and if you are that good, you deserve to showboat!!!

Usain Bolt will make me tune into athletics again!!!

Firefox Rules

I was just checking the analytics for this blog and there were some surprising results. Firefox is the most popular browser for visitors of this site. Keep it up!

Most visitors come from the UK, so thanks Gary!

And I would like to thank whoever you are in Mexico, and India and most surprisingly Georgia (hope there is some peace for you soon).

Joomla

Yesterday it was Drupal, today it is Joomla.

Firstly I will say that I gave Joomla more time than I did Drupal but I think that was down to the interface and the fact I made some progress relatively quickly.

What I attempted to do was put a site up using a site I had designed and developed in XHTML and CSS. It took 4 or 5 hours to get the homepage up and running and I had to edit a random article that just kept appearing. It looks well but it is not ideal. Creating a template was not too difficult once I found a decent tutorial, but it all felt a little too complicated.

Let's compare results:

CMSMadeSimple: Setup took about an hour because I had to download, upload and install. Creating the site, template and css and all the pages took 30 minutes. It is simple. The downside is the interface isn't very jazzy, but it is easy to use.

Drupal: Setup was quick and easy because it is a built in application on my new blacknight hosting account. That's where the progress ended. Templates or themes are incomprehensible and just downright bizarre. I couldn't get a page up and running let alone the site.

Joomla: Set up was quick again because it is a built in application on my blacknight hosting. Creating a template was not straight forward but there was a decent tutorial. Shame I can't find a good list of the PHP functions associated with Joomla. I had the problem of a random article appearing and i couldn't figure out why. In the end I just edited it to be the content I wanted. It has a nice interface except that the menus are disabled once you are in any of the options so you spend a lot of time clicking close or cancel to get the menu back. I want to like it but it is just not user friendly enough and as with most open source software, there is a lot of documentation but not a lot of useful documentation.

I think I'm going to go with CMSMadeSimple for now and maybe personalise it a bit to suit my needs a bit better. If you have any other suggestions I would be glad to investigate further.

Olympics

There has been a lot of coverage of the Olympics, even with the strange time difference. The Great Britain Team have been doing great, well done to one and all, but today real magic happened! Ireland guaranteed themselves some medals!!!

Well done to Kenny Egan and Paddy Barnes! Hopefully they can win their next fights and get a silver or a gold!

And congratulations to Paul Hession who came really close to reaching the 200 metre final. It was a great effort!

Drupal... WTF?

I've been playing around with Drupal tonight and so far I could not recommend it to anyone. It is almost incomprehensible.

I am trying to add a new theme. So I copied one of the themes into a new folder and uploaded that. The "help" said it would be auto-detected. But oh no...

So I tried to edit a theme that was already there. Fine, the first edit made a difference to the site, but then all subsequent edits just didn't work. I'm giving up for tonight.

I think CMSMadeSimple stays ahead!

Headline of the year!

I just read a great headline in The Register. Check it out. Genius!

Ryanair Vs. The screen scrapers

Ryanair are cancelling flights booked through aggregator websites. These sites basically use the information made public on Ryanair's website and sell on the flights to their customers and i think they take a commission.

I'd love to know the reason why Ryanair object to this? Is it because they are protective of their customers? Hmmm, maybe not. Is it because they don't won't someone else squeezing more money out of the customers, money they could have squeezed out of them? Or is there something more to it?

I'd say the visitor stats on Ryanair's site would be enormous and this would presumably equate to lots of cross sales, hotel rooms, car hire, credit card products. By lots, I mean enough to cancel all the flights that have been booked through other sites.

I'm not sure which side of the fence I'd go for but I'm veering towards Ryanair and that is saying something. They are protecting their product and brand and their brand is so much more than just flights.

I'm agreeing with Ryanair, oh the shame!!!

Rainy Dublin

We are having a shocking summer here in Dublin. It just keeps raining. Check out my first upload to Youtube. Sad or what?

Global warming... I never want to hear it again.

Living in Ireland we here alot about global warming but I really want that term to be consigned to the recycle bin of life. Let's call it climate change. Global warming may be happening but climate change is what what effects us every day.

76mm of rain in 3 hours, in August in Dublin is a record breaker.

Fireworks about fireworks.

I just read about the fireworks at the Olympic ceremony, some of which were fake. Personally that doesn't bother me, i don't feel cheated but I am impressed that the graphic designers put in a camera shake to mimic the event being filmed from a helicopter. Now that is dedicated to deception!!!

Monkey Business

There were massive traffic jams on the N11 last night. There is nothing new about that but this time the reason was a bit different.

There was an escaped monkey loose on the road!

The AA thought there were a lot of crazy people ringing in last night, but no there was a real monkey on the loose.

If only all traffic jams were caused by monkies!!!

Website Updates

I just made some updates to my friend's website. It's for the Greendoor Accommodation in Drogheda. I added some new pictures of the outside of the house.

It's a great spot for a good session! Oh and you are close to all the tourist spots!!!

Dublin Paranormal Convention 2008

My bro-in-law 6th, is organizing a Paranormal Convention in Dublin. It's going to be on on October 11th in Clontarf Castle. It looks like it is shaping up to be a great event. There will be stands and there will be talks by some paranormal celebrities!!!

I wonder will the dead walk the earth and pay for some tickets?

Oh and you can even buy tickets online! How cool is that?

Leaping Lizards!

This lizard has just become a father at the age of 111. And I thought Julio Iglesias was old :o)

Cuil, not so cool yet!

You've probably heard the hype about Cuil, the new search engine to rival Google. It has somehow gotten into all the papers and even the television news, not to mention The Register.

I thought I would take a look and see if it was worth using and so far the answer is a big resounding no, not yet at least.

I did some random searches, one for Ruud Gullit and it comes up with his wikipedia entrance but beside it is a picture of a dog! Hmmm. The images they show with the results can be peculiar to say the least. A dog and Ruud Gullit, it's not as bad as Jonathon Grattage.

I did a search for "using xml with .net" and got no results about XML or .Net but lots of links to poker sites. I do like the alternative categories it gives you to the right of your results but that's about all I like.

I'm going to come back in a few weeks and see if it has indexed some technological websites and has sorted it's images out.

Busy

I've been really busy lately. There is still lots of painting and decorating to do but the end is in sight. I can't wait to have all rooms painting and ready for habitation.

I think painting and decorating is great excercise although i would much rather be out running!

Exciting Yeti news!

I love all things Yeti and news that there might be some hairs to examine is fantastic.

I don't think it's too much to belief that there are many large creatures we have yet to discover on this planet. Maybe it's best we never find the Yeti!

My poor poor stomach

Self inflicted pain is the worst kind (no tittering at the back). I was out from lunchtime with work for our summer night out. It started with lunch and then a poor tournament. It was a long long day and even though I won the pool tournament that was not enough to help my poor stomach this morning.

On a scale of 1 to ropey I was ropey. The worst thing about this was that I was playing pitch and putt in Tallaght at 1.30 and my bike was in town, and I was in no fit state to use it even if it had been on hand. So I lumbered onto the bus to Hueston Station (I took a picture of it on my phone but I have no idea how to get it from my phone to my computer!). Every stop had people, loads of people, all asking questions, all paying with a sock full of tuppences. The bus took ages despite there being little or know traffic.

I eventually got to Heuston and although my stomach felt rough, I thought a short trip on the luas to Tallaght wouldn't do me any harm. Well anyone who uses Luas and fast in a sentence without using not or isn't is mad. It was dismally slow and getting stopped at traffic lights on a tram is just plain stupid. So I got to Tallaght late and then had to walk, actually run to my destination.

Is it any wonder I played badly??

I've just done a small bit of DIY, and after I clean up that is me done for the night.

Zzzzzzz

Odd facts from Wikipedia

I love wikipedia and browse through it randomly most days. I come across some bizzare and random things.

I happened to be looking up Gerry Adams, to see if he was a sitting MP and I came across a wonderful nugget of information. Back in the 1980s there was a bizarre ban on the voice of Gerry Adams and 11 other leading republicans and loyalists. The voice was actually done by an actor called Paul Loughran, better known to you and I as Butch Dingle from Emmerdale.

Risk Equalisation

So the government lost it's case for bringing in Risk Equalisation in the Health insurance market and I think that is the right decision. If the health insurance market is open to private business then that business should be allowed to run as a regular industry would.

I also think there shouldn't be private health insurance. I think there should be one universal system that everyone pays into. Everyone treated equally, a system that is not built for profit but to help us and the health service.

Once again millions will be wasted when there are simple solutions to complex problems.

I think it's time for Mary Harney to have a good long think and make a bold move.

More work eh?

Just finished working on a site of mine. It's a simple little site that has been hacked constantly over the alst number of weeks. I've made the code secure but I think it's down to my host company at this stage.

It's a pain because you don't want people going to your site to be sent to dodgy hacker sites.

Anyway, enough is enough. I'm off to bed!

What a day!

I was lucky enough to be in front of the TV for today's stage. What a stage, amazing racing. Hardcore Cadel Evans took the yellow jersey from Kim Kirchen. The nearly man of today's stage was Frank Schlek, he was within 1 second of yellow.

Amazing work by Cadel Evans after yesterday's crash. But I think Frank should take heart.

Eamon Ryan, man of the people.

The economic downturn is all our fault according to Eamon Ryan, green man of the people. Over indulgence he says, more travelling, bigger houses, bigger cars, it's all our fault.

It's nothing to do with mishandling of lending by all financial institutes that ended up biting them on the ass. It's not down to the speculators making a fortune off oil and it's nothing to do with the government not putting in place a public transport infrastructure. It's not down to that. It's our own fault.

Thanks Eamon!

ESB - robbing Peter to pay Paul

The ESB are asking for a 30% increase in their prices. Times must be tough, but according to their annual report their profits almost doubled.

How can this be justified. Profits are up, you have no shareholders, you have to pay a dividend to the government. Times are tough, money is tight, how about you don't increase your prices this year and use that profit and cut the dividend to the government.

Alas, that's simplistic common sense thinking, something the ESB and government cannot be accused of.

Edit: The Chairman of ESB has said they will put aside 300 million against the price hikes, so they are not all bad. I take some of it back!

Tesco's Single Malt

I like my whiskies. I especially like Glenfiddich and Johnny Walker Blue, none of your cheap muck here but now I am thinking of going to Tesco's.

Nice and cheap just the way the hobos like it.

Bad Headlin alert

Life's a beach. I have always hated cliched headlines and life's a beach is one of my least favourite cliches.

Some wiseguys have put a beach in the Dockland area of dublin for the sun starved Dubliners. Seeing as Dublin is on the coast and there are beaches with about 20 minutes of the city centre, it's kind of pointless and having a big sandpit in the city centre won't make the rain go away will it?

Being an artist!

I think the most important thing about being an artist is having the "Kahunas" to pull it off. Check out this guy. This is Art. I wish I had come up with that!

I wonder if I had come up with that idea and pitched it to the Tate would I have been allowed in the door :o)

Another day, more painting

Today's painting was a lot harder than normal, but that was because of spending all day watching sports and drinking. I went to see the Dublin game, which they won, but were far from convincing.

Then we went and grabbed a bite to eat in Flanagan's on O'Connell St. It's kind of retro but the food is good so you can't complain, although it's like being in an office from 1981.

Then we proceeded to the Long Stone for a few pints to watch the Spain Vs Germany which was a cracking game.

Now before I nod off, I'm out of here!

Another Busy Day!

I don't know if I will get time to do anything this week. More work on websites tonight. Now I'm going to relax!

Busy Busy

Been working late tonight. Had to put some finishing touches to The Green Door Accommodation site.

I also had to touch up The Paranormal Investigation Guys website.

Now it't time to sleep.

More Running

I went out early this morning for a run. I thought since I had a hangover and it was lashing rain it would be the perfect thing to do. It turned out to be a very good idea.

I did a small amount of fartlek sprints which got rid of the hangover but the most amazing thing was that I was followed thoughout by a swallow. The bird looped around me as I ran, getting closer and closer and no matter where I ran the swallow follow.

It was an amazing experience. It was great to see the birds personality and playful nature.

Robbers!

I went into a chemist today to purchase some Gillette Mach 3 Turbo razor blades. €14.95!!! Sweet mother of the lord, I just checked ebay and i could get 8 delivered from England for about €9.

If I didn't need the blades tonight I would have walked. I will be using ebay from now on.

Let me know if you found really cheap or really deal razor blades. Lets start a campaign!

Facebook Outages

Have you ever noticed how Facebook has a lot of outages. For such a high profile site it's surprising. Unless of course it's something to do with Irish ISPs.

Firefox 3

I just downloaded Firefox 3 and so far so good. A really quick install and the new interface looks quite nice. I really like how the FavIcon is being displayed.

I wonder will will it actually set the download record today?

If it does, I want my name first in the Guinness Book of Records.

The Monday Mile

I'm going to title my posts about my running on monday's, the monday mile. Catchy, don't you think?

I said yesterday that I hoped for a 7.30 mile. That was wishful thinking. I did it in 7:53. Now that is an improvement of 28 seconds from last Monday, but it still falls short of where I wanted to be this week. So my aim for next week's Monday Mile will be sub 7.30.

How do I intend to achieve that? Well I hope to do 2 runs before then, 5 miles and 3 miles. That should get some stamina in the legs and lungs and I might go crazy and try to get in some fartlek sessions (yeah right!!!!).

As ever, wish me luck!

Go Honda!

Honda are starting commercial production of hydrogen cars. It's only 300 but it's a great start.

If anyone wants to donate a hydogen powered bike just send me a mail.

More Running

I got a 2 mile run in at the weekend, in between painting the nursery. It was a slow 2 miles but that was the plan, it was a kind of tempo run.

I'll be out tomorrow to do a mile to see what difference a week makes. I did 8.21 last week but I really hope to be around 7.30 tomorrow.

Wish me luck!

Pointless Politicians

You know me, always bitching and moaning about public representatives and what I read over on Michele's Blog has me angry. Check out what Eamon Ryan has to say about data retention.

I was never surprised in the past by politicians from the main two parties not caring but the Green Party? Come on, this is (more than likely) a once in a lifetime chance to actually make something happen and they sit back and wash their hands.

I'm still waiting for a reply Paul Gogarty!!!

I want free stuff.

I started blogging after reading about John Chow. He is a self made man about town, who earns a nice living from his blog. I don't, but I write it anyway. One day I will even write a good post.

Well there is a contest to win a goody bag, litreally from the good people at Market Leverage. Check it out.

So let lady luck shine on me and send me a bag of goodies.

Twas the night before Lisbon...

and all through the house nobody was sure which way to vote not even a mouse. I am still 50/50 which way to go. I understand what was sent out by the Referendum Commission. I understand that a more streamlined Europe is a beneficial thing.

What worries me is what is in the minutiae. The devil really is in the detail. The European defence agency? I understand Ireland can opt out, but we were not in the Iraq war, but who was coming and going through Shannon airport? Our government has gone against popular opinion before and it will again, sometimes that is justified but in this case it isn't.

I think our major parties chould be embarassed that between them they have struggled to convince their supporters. I think telling people to vote yes for no other reason than " just because" is folly.

I'll sleep on it.

Tom Boonen is out of the Tour

It's that time of year again when the fan starts getting hit with flying excrement. Tom Boonen is the first high profile casualty. He is going to miss the Tour because of a failed drugs test for cocaine. He was also caught driving drunk the other day, so all in all it's not a good time for Tom.

Lets hope he's given the chance to get hold of his demons and use them to become a better cyclist. We all know how good he is so let's hope we see him back sooner rather than later.

Normally I'm against drugs in sport but this case seems to more of a personal problem, rather than an attempt to cheat.

Good luck Tom

No, you are both losers.

The politicians are at it again. All the mainstream parties in Ireland are urging their supporters to vote yes. It is touch and go whether this will happen.

What really doesn't help their plight is John Gormley, the leader of the Green Party telling the other parties that a higher percentage of their supporters are going to vote yes. Fine Gael hit back, blah blah.

You are all losers, this sort of nonsense is the reason nothing gets done in this country. You are on the same side for once so play nice and get the job done instead of being idiots as usual.

Paranormal.ie

6th has another new website. It's Paranormal.ie. I must say it is looking pretty sharp!

More Running

I got out last night about 10 o'clock for a run. I only did a mile to check my fitness levels, and because it was late. I did a mile in 8:21 which was very disappointing. I would have expected to be under 8 minutes at least.

I'm going to do the same test next monday and see how much I can improve this week.

Even More Stuff

After golf last week, I went to see Billy Connolly in the Olympia in Dublin. It was pretty good. Some old jokes but all in all very entertaining.

Then on Friday we went to see Radiohead in Malahide Castle. It was absolutely fantastic. It is a great location. We just hopped on the DART and 20 minutes later we are in Malahide. About a 10 minute walk and we are in the grounds and ready for the gig.

The grounds were huge and there was loads of space to relax and enjoy the gig. They played a wonderful gig, I would pay to see them again tomorrow.

Then we walked out hopped on a DART and 20 minutes later we were back in the city centre.

The last week

It's been a very busy week. Well I turned 30. That was one major milestone. It was great to be honest, dinner, drinks, presents, I lived the dream. Litreally.

At the weekend I played football for the first time in years, since Peru, so nearly 2 years. It was great fun, but boy am I still aching now.

I did a 5 mile run and a 3 mile run. The fitness is coming back but I'm in the hard phase of building for almost scratch. Give it a few weeks and I should be over 10 miles.

And today I played golf. It was the first time I had stepped onto a golf course in about 7 years. I played better than expected and scored 95 on a championship course. Did I mention my old foe O'Malley beat me yet again. Another classic that went down to the very last putt where he held his nerve to win by a single stroke.

Now, it's time to rest.

Driving Test - Result

I won't keep you in suspense, I failed. I came a lot closer than I did the last time and got all my manoeuvres right.

I think it was nerves that was my undoing, because I made a lot of uncharacteristic mistakes. I will get out practicing immediately and I intend to pass with flying colours next time.

Driving test...

It's tomorrow! Yikes!!! Wish me luck and keep of the roads.

Nick Drake

I just came across Nick Drake singing the theme from Rainbow. It's a long way from Black-eyed Dog.

Alphabeat

Check out this video from Alphabeat. What a great song. This is what pop music used to be all about. Great songs and having fun. Keep up the good work. I'm even going to go out and buy the CD. Now that is something!!!

Straight Talking

I've become increasing ly impressed with Jimmy Carter over the past year or so. He seems to be the only high profile individual getting his hands dirty trying to arrange some sort of peace deal in the middle east.

I'm so impressed that he answers straight questions with straight answers like today when he spoke of Israel's Nuclear arsenal.

It's a real shame that active politicians can't be statemen in the same way. I think we need politicians to take a risk. It's not all about getting re-elected. It's about doing what's right.

Do we have any Irish Politicians that could fall into this category? Answer on a postcard...

Free Drugs!

The Japanese are giving out free drugs to air passengers. It is a scary story, it could end up like Midnight Run!

Over 36? Lke social networking?

Well shame on you! If you were a member of FaceParty and are over 36, you've just been deleted.

So if you are over 36 and like to network you are propably on some sort of register or should be. That seems to be the joined up thinking that's going on. It's like Logan's Run!

I wonder will people get around this by lying about their age. Nah, that's unpossible.

The Eurovision

I sadly watched as the Irish entry was roundly booed and was sent packing but there was one song that was so weird it confused me. Did I like it, was it the worst song I have every heard. I can't tell.

Take a listen to Belgium's Entry.



I think Bosnia & Herzegovina should win it.

Dublin Paranormal Convention

There is a Paranormal Convention coming to Dublin on October 11, 2008. How cool is that, and how cool is their website :o)

I'll let you know more news when I hear it.

A briefer history of time.

I finished listening to the audiobook of A Briefer History of Time this morning. It is definitely worth a listen although some of the concepts may try to break your brain.

Superstring theory? What the...?

Redpages.ie redux

Yet again am I trying to do something with Redpages. I tried using Joomla previously and got nowhere.

So now I am trying CMS Made Simple. Hopefully this will be simpler and allow me to harness the power of the internet :o)

Ok, hopefully it stops me getting lazy. I'll keep you posted.

If I were a painter...

A Francis Bacon painting sold for a staggering £43 Million Pounds. That sure is a lot of moolah. The painting that sold, "Triptych, 1976" somehow got me thinking about a Lucian Freud portrait I had seen years ago.

The portrait in question is called "The Painter Surprised by A Naked Admirer.". It is a zany picture of himself with a naked woman clutching his leg, it reminded me of stories that Francis Bacon would pay outstanding dates with a painting. What a life to live. What will me next work be? Ah yes, a naked woman clutching my leg as I look surprised. I think the surprise is he can get away with it.

I then came across this great interview with Freud from the Sunday Telegraph. The highlight for me is "I used to have a lot of fights. It wasn't because I liked fighting; it was really just that people said things to me to which I felt the only reply was to hit them." I'm having a very similar feeling right now :o)

Artists, a breed apart.

Aliens

The Vatican say aliens could exist. The vatican seems to becoming a bit more of an open-minded place. Long may it continue.

I could be cynical and say they just want to convert them before they discover Islam. (It's like the old days eh?)

The big push.

I've been in the top 2 million on technorati for a while now and while at first it was satisfying, the buzz has gone. I need to get a new fix and that is the top 1,000,000. Can you imagine it, being in the top 1,000,000 blogs in the world.

Sigh.

I'll be pulling out all the stops, using my hittail remorselessly and anything else I can think off. There will also be a lot more articles! So come back tomorrow and see what I've come up with!

Running with Music

I got out for a short run tonight. It was only a mile but with my schedule lately any running I can do is great.

I'm also going to try to get up and do a couple of miles before work tomorrow. Over the coming weeks I intend to do some gym work to build up strength in my thighs to avoid any patella tendonitis flare ups.

Tonight I chose some different music for my run. Check it out.

Please God sort out petrol prices.

I read this today and I was baffled. With all the stuff in the world going wrong, all the natural disasters and wars and general awfulness and they decide to pray for petrol prices to come down.

God will be displeased.

Ah Venice...

So you are in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, you have some cameras, what do you do? Of course you follow women around and try and take pictures up their skirts. There are some peculiar people out there!

Doesn't it look lovely

The design for Dublin's Metro were launched today. It all looks great, let's hope they get it done on time and on budget. That would be the most important thing!

How desperate...

would you have to be to do this. I wonder were the bank notes in dollar bills?

Ban the cars

The powers that be (whoever they are) are planning to ban cars in the city centre of Dublin within a year. Get the public transport right and I am all for it.

Let's hope they can get the extra buses on the road with having to go to the European Courts. They still haven't been able to roll out the new buses in Lucan because of legal action.

What do we want.... Better public transport! When do we want it... Now?

It's been ages.

I haven't posted since last Tuesday. That is down to a mixture of busyness and laziness. More laziness I'd say.

Since last week, I've gone to the gym for the first time in nearly 6 months. It was a very relaxing experience. There were not many people there and I did what I wanted to do and the drive back is incredibly scenic, although I had to put the visor down because of the number of insects about.

Then yesterday did a long walk around Lucan Demense, which is a a fabulous park between Lucan and Leixlip. It has a lot of fences up for pending water works but hopefully that won't take too long.

I hope to go train down there in the next few weeks.

The search is on...

Manchester United made it to the Champions league final. It was tense but they got there. So now the search is on for those golden tickets to Moscow.

Let me know if you have one spare and are feeling generous!!!

Facebook is useful - Shock.

Facebook was kind of pointless. I've said it before. It was like bad email. But they recently added a chat facility and now I am really impressed. It might be time to ditch MSN messenger and move it all over to facebook. One site, and I can chat with friends who are online from a browser and nothing else.

I'm getting old but i like this new hip thing.

Belfast

I was in Belfast yesterday paying a trip to IKEA. It is a mighty big shop but for some reason I thought it would be bigger.

I was checking my phone for messages and noticed that my background animation of Dublin's Ha'Penny bridge had been replaced by Big Ben and the Palace of Westminster. So my phone picks up the country and displays an animation depending on that. I have to go on holiday soon to see what my phone will display.

On the way back from Belfast to Dublin we had to drive through Belfast rush hour and I was suprised to find it is worse than Dublin.

A black cat crossed my path.

Unfortunately I was travelling at about 40kmph on my motorbike at the time. The cat ran out from under a moving car, so he'd lost 1 life there and then darted straight at my front wheel.

I jammed on as best I could, but i couldn't stop in time. Luckily however the cat jumped and however I jammed on he jumped right through the gap between my front and back wheel and ran out the other side. I saw him run off in my rear view.

He wasn't limping but boy did he get a fright. That cat was down to at least 7 lives!!!

About time...

Pope Benedict XVI is about to visit the US and he has spoken out about abuse in the Catholic Church in the US.

It is good to see that the Pope is speaking out about these things. He said he was deeply ashamed. Hopefully the fact the man at the top is taking notice, might mean that the people on the ground will sort this out, put checks and balances in place, make sure it doesn't happen and if it does that it is stamped out immediately and the full weight of the law is brought against the perpetrators.

That was a long sentence... I'm tired now.

Movie Review - Vantage Point

I saw Vantage Point last night and i wish i could view that 2 hours from another angle, a less boring and pointless angle.

It is about an assassination attempt on the American President and some other sub plots, yawn. It looked good on paper but in reality it was boring, cliched and just plain dull. I can't muster the energy to write any more about it, just this, do not go to see it.

Go watch something interesting. Something that might make you think for a few minutes. Or something that will entertain you!

What I've been up to...

Well tonight I've done some more DIY (destroy it yourself). I took down a load more tiles. It's all coming together. Then after that I sat down to do some web sites. I did some updates on Greendoor Ireland and on Alvehuset.

That's about it. And I have to say a big thank you to Emile Heskey and Wigan for drawing with Chelsea!

Go Man Utd! Go!

Olympics

There have been a lot of protests about the Olympics being in China. I can understand peoples anger but they could direct it a bit better.

Why attack a torch relay when they can simply boycott the sponsers of the Olympics. Radical eh? It all comes down to money and if the sponsers are unhappy, the IOC will be made unhappy!

That might make them think twice about where they hold the games in future.

Diana

There are some lunatics in this world and some very strange people. This 'Diana Super Fan' takes the biscuit for me.

He wouldn't be surprised if a portrait of himself was hanging in Kensington Palace in 100 years. I'd be surprised!!

So you are working late...

I'm sitting here at my laptop working away. I am trying to get through some websites I have outstanding and I am making good progress and what happens? The ftp connection to my servers is gone.

How frustrating is that?

I will have to change my set up to work offline!

Painting

I've spent the last 2 evenings painting. I finally have the kitchen and dining room ready to paint :o) The original olour is now been replaced with white ready for a new colour to go with our new kitchen.

Have you ever noticed how long it takes to clean out a roller. I think there was more paint in it that on the walls.

Now I've got to get back to my web work!

Yawn!

The Weekend

Yesterday we drove to Cork to visit friends. I actually drove most of the non motorway bits which was great practice. It's a shame all roads aren't traffic light free. I can drive in a straight line all day if you let me.

I saw a bit of Cork for the first time and St. Patrick's Hill, that is some hill. I wouldn't want to drop my apples at the top of that hill.

Had a nice dinner and then had a few drinks in a very republican pub. I had never heard the song, "My old man's a Provo" before, but everyone else seemed to knoe the words. All in all a good trip.

Now I am back in Dublin ready to go to sleep...

Yawn

Domain Names

Fancy some Pizza.com? If you have $2.6 million to spare (I just checked, I don't). Mental note, auction all the domains I have. I might get about a dollar each.

It's been a long week!

This has been one of the busiest weeks I've had. In work I have been working harder than ever and I have about 4 websites currently on the go not to mention my own stuff. All of that doesn't include housework and my actual life.

I must remember to do the lottery so I can retire early :o)

The Gardai!

Last night after finishing up some work (and my great blog entry about Bertie) I was heading to bed. I was setting the alarm when i heard a bang and our car was rolling down the driveway. Someone was trying to rob it.

I disturbed them so they only got to break the door and the window. I called the Gardai and they were there in 3 minutes. They took my details and went about their business. They passed by a few times during the night.

Roll on to today. We had a guy over to pick up the car to take it to be fixed (it's a classic you see). The Garda helicopter was above us (so I believe) and a minute later a Garda car turned up to check everything was ok. How great a service is that. It really makes you feel safe.

Well done and thanks to the Gardai.

Bye Bye Bertie

Bertie Ahern today announced that he will be stepping down as Taoiseach from May 6th 2008. It is a sad day for him but I think it had to be done.

I await the outcome of the Mahon Tribunal and wonder was Bertie just bad with money rather than something more suspicious cough cough.

I think it is good for the country now that the politicians have no excuses but to get back to work and try and improve this country of ours. Get the health service in order, plough money and expertise into education and for the love of all things holy get your finger out on public transport.

We all want to be able to get home quickly to our well educated healthy families, what more could we ask for.

Now Enda, and Eamonn "Mr Personality" Gilmore, please try to push things forward and be positive there is no need for negative tactics all the time and now the biggest personality in Irish politics is retiring you might have a chance at the next election!

Arsenal Vs Liverpool Part 1

I watched a bit of this match tonight and was lucky enough to catch the goals. Is Ryan Babel's full name, Ryan Babel's First Touch Has Let Him Down, because everytime I see a game with him playing it is said at least once :o)

Oh how cruel!

Now let's hope the can give us a draw at the weekend too.

Drugs in Irish Sport - Shock

Andrew Bree has failed a drugs test. It seems to be the same mistake Alain Baxter made. I'm disappointed that another athlete has made this mistake and it is very unfortunate.

The big question for me is why don't Vick's make an inhaler specifically for athletes. They could charge a bit more for peace of mind. When will the multinational medical companies realise that they can make money in their business, if only they have the right attitude :o)

Hopefully Andrew will be treated better than Alain was!

Working Away

Tonight I spent the evening working. I finally got around to putting The Pigs site together. It's 6th again and his Paranormal Ivestigation Guys. I've put together a CMS for that site too.

Then after that I went and did some updates on the Neptune Leisure website.

Then when you think there is no more to do I started updated the CathyMcCrone.com. I truly am way to busy for words.

I think it's time to hit the hay, for there is more work anon.

Weather

We went up to Newry today to do a bit of shopping. We got tiles and kitchen stuff. When we got back I waited a while to bring them in from the car. Big Mistake! I just brought them in and the rain is incessant! I got soaked and I had to dry and clean the floor too. My laziness does not like all that extra work!

This weekend's running

I was out and about on Saturday. I wanted to do a 10k but I only had time for a 5 mile run. I did it in 51.20ish which is an improvement of over a minute from last week so I am happy with that.

This week I intend to do some sprints and a tempo run of 3 or 4 miles and then try a 10k next weekend.

The cost of Calls

I had an issue with Paypal recently and had to spend some time on the phone with their support staff. It's all sorted now thankfully but I happened to check my phone bill online with O2. It turns out that the calls to Paypal had cost my around €12.

The issue is not with Paypal. They provide an 1890 number which is charged at the local rate no matter where you call from in Ireland. You can get a rough estimate of these charges from Eircom.

My O2 package is Active life 250 which gives me 250 anytime minutes a month. Minutes that I never fully use and this month was no different. It turns out that O2 anything minutes don't include locall 1890 numbers. That's a bit much but I suppose 5c a minute ain't so bad. But what is this? If you make any other calls over your 250 Active Life minutes you will be charged 25c a minute!!!!

Nice way to turn a profit O2. That is sly and I think unfair! So if you have a choice between a locall or local number take the local number it will probably be cheaper, and next time you are talking to o2 let them know what you think about this rip off.

Bottled water

I stumbled across this graphic today. It highlights what impact bottled water is having on the planet. With all the talk of carbon footprints, and global warming there is something easy we can do. Don't buy bottled water, use filters, drink tap water.

I am going to avoid it as much as I can and on the rare occasions I do have to buy some water I will go for the local supplier.

My Flickr account

I have finally put some pictures up on my flickr account. They are pictures from Pere Lachaise in Paris. They were taken in 2006, that's how big the backlog is.

I really have to get all my photos together and sorted but alas I am but one man.

Piclens

Pat in work, set me onto Piclens. It is a cool firefox plugin that lets you browse pictures in a really cool way. You can use it on a Google image search, on Flickr and on facebook anda few more places.

Try it out it's excellent.

24 hour Party Politicians

Some TDs are setting up a committee to see if it is worthwhile having a dedicated TV Channel for the Oireachtas.

I personally am in two minds about this. It is an extraordinary waste of tax payers money that could be better spent in a hundred different places but, there is always a but. If the politicians were being watched they might actually turn up and try to do something useful.

Let's think about this rationally, TDs in Ireland hardly spend any time actually debating issues, and in the last year or so no major laws have been passed so is there any point to showing this on a TV channel? The answer is no!

Start making things better and fighting for your constituents and then we might want to watch.

Paintballing

We went paintballing on Sunday in Skirmish in Roundwood. It was for Alex's birthday. He made sure we were all there on time by telling us it started an hour earlier than it actually did.

Once we got going and out there it was pretty badly organised, more resting than games and with people not obeying the rules some of the games were pretty boring. Alex did manage to fall into a river though, considering no one else even say a river that was inpressive.

There was a group of idiots with us and they were shooting people from point blank range between games and stealing paintballs, until they were thrown out. When will scumbags learn eh?

More Running

I was out running a couple of times this weekend. I did 5 miles in 52:31 and 2 miles in 18:06. It's coming back to me know. Hopefully I will try a 10k next week and see if I will be able to do the bupa 10k in 2 weeks time.

The things people do...

I was on my way to the shop tonight to pick up a bin tag (oh the exciting life I lead). I parked the bike, headed in and got what I wanted. On my way out a guy came around the roundabout outside the shops sideways, doing a handbraker (I haven't said that in years).

I thought it was going to be some loon, but the guy who got out after parking was a respectable looking man in his thirties. What sort of idiots are allowed drive cars???

I took it easy on the way home to avoid lunatics and was over taken at high speed around a corner but another mad man.

Is it just me who wants to get home safely from each journey?

A long long weekend.

I had a very long weekend. I had a confirmation on Friday and then a wedding in Cavan on Saturday. Me and my good friend, Jack Daniels, had a very late night.

Today I was back in work and I put in a long day getting back on track in this short week.

And since it's a mid term break the traffic is great! Hurrah!!!

Bebo

It just sold for stink loads of cash. Facebook is also worth a fortune, but do social networking sites actually make any money? Our social network sites the new .com bubble ready to burst when people realise they aren't money makers or am I completely missing their attraction.

I'm a member of facebook but I've never clicked an ad, I don't know anyone who has, so why do big companies shell out huge amounts of cash and spend so much on advertising?

Who knows eh?

25A this is what I would do

I was on the bus today again and on the way home the journey wasn't too bad. It took 40 minutes from town to my part of Lucan and with a few tweaks it could be nearer 30 maybe even under.

Why doesn't Chapelizod have it's own bus route so the 25A can go down the N4 bypassing Chapelizod. That would save nearly 10 minutes right there. And if the bus driver didn't have to take fares and the ticket machines didn't take in your card, rather you tag on and off like an Oyster card in London.

That would get the journey time around 30 minutes and that is not even considering traffic light sequences or the routes once the bus gets to Lucan.

It can be done with a bit of effort.

Paypal Issue

I had a bit of work done (some stylesheets) on the internet and I paid the guy through Paypal. I had to add a new credit card and the payment didn't go through a few times because of currency conversion problems. It finally went through and all was well or so I thought.

This afternoon I got an email from Paypal saying my account access had been limited because they thought a third party may have been trying to access my account. I called them up and checked and it reall was an email from Paypal.

I've got to jump through some hoops to allow the payment to go through but it's very good to see that they are checking these things. It's makes me feel even more secure using the web.

Go Paypal!

Give it up for me!

This is an old clip but it always makes me laugh. You don't have to be normal to run a large company and being a billionaire might send you cuckoo, but by god, it's funny.

It's been ages

I've only noticed how long it's been since I last posted, so what have I been up to in the interim? I've been out running twice, I even did a negative split for the first time in ages, although I am feeling it a bit today.

I took the bus today because of the forecast storms that never materialised (it's great when they get it wrong in a good way).

And again I've been working way too hard. Anyway, back to work!

Dick Pound Talks Sense

Dick Pound is the head of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). He has spoken out about Dwain Chambers and the BOA not allowing him to go to the Olympics.

He has said that he has served his time and people who serve their time should be allowed to rehabilitate themselves and he's also said that the BOA stance against Chambers wouldn't stand up in court.

Hopefully, he will be allowed to run and run clean in the Olympics. It would show that you can make it without drugs and that people can make mistakes and redeem themselves.

Brrrr

It was freezing today. Just when my bike finally started this morning it started to snow. I nearly lost my face to the elements before I got into work.

What was worse was the heating in work was on the fritz. I had to code with number hands and a numb brain.

Needless to say everything today took a lot longer than it should have.

Roll on tomorrow where I will bring my thermals to work, just in case

Is there any justice?

I was just reading what Victor Conte had to say about drug cheats. He was the man behind BALCO who invented the untraceable steroid THG.

Dwaine Chambers has served his ban and he is not allowed compete in the Olympics or on the main european circuit.

I've written about drugs a lot on here, but let people come back after their bans. Let them move on and redeem themselves. Look at the great work David Millar is doing in cycling.

A long and winding day...

Today was a long one. I just stopped working in the last few minutes. I'm very busy in my real job with WCF stuff (oh the pain) and in my personal work I am very very busy. I have 2 new sites on the go at the moment. One is for my bro-in-law 6th and another is for a style consultant. I will put up links to both when they are a bit nearer the finish line.

I had to meet my financial advisor today about life assurance and pensions and all that jazz, and on my way back I met my good friend Olav, he was in town sorting some stuff out. It was great to see him as always and I hear his book of short stories is going to be published (in norwegian), how cool is that?

Anyway, I'm off to chill!

Good Bus driver

I got the bus into work this morning, so I went like a chump to the bus stop. The bus came and I put my €2 in the slot and was told it was now €2.30 for a trip on the 25X. The bus driver was cool, he just gave me my ticket and said don't worry about it.

It took me an hour and ten minutes to get into work, door to door. That's about 35 minutes longer than if I took the bike or 10 minutes longer than if I cycled.

In Norway for 22 Kr (€2.80) you can get a ticket that lasts an hour to go on any mode of public transport, bus, train, tram, ferry. We are really being ripped off over here. The thing that really bugs me is the fact so many people sit there and accept it, like it's ok to spend 2.5 hours a day in traffic not enjoying themselves, not spending time with their families.

Come on people, more bikes, whether motor or push bikes. It's quicker!!!

The Wind

I was coming home from work in a gale today. I was nearly blown off the bike on more than one ocassion. Crosswinds are a nightmare on a bike especially with cars completely oblivious to the fact.

120kmph

I got out on the motorway tonight and got a chance to see what my bike could do. I gave her loads of accelation in 2nd and then 3rd and got well over 100kmph. I easily reached 120!

It was great to see but after I slowed down and tried to go up again she flatlined at 60.

I really don't know what the problem is.

Look, no mirrors!

I was on my way in to work this morning and I was passed out by a moped. He was buzzing around me like a bee and went by. I thought his mirrors must be small because I couldn't see them from behind him.

As I passed him further on down I noticed he had NO MIRRORS!! It was a 2 year old Vespa style moped with No mirrors! It's insane.

I hope he never has to change lanes!

Biking

I've been having a few troubles with my bike lately. After I was hit by a careless driver I went in for a service. The bike was still a bit sluggish afterwards but I got petrol for the first time since the service and she left the Esso garage like a bat out of hell.

I've been told to not let the petrol run completely out as it will drag all the dirt from your tank into your carbs. It turns out us bikes and cars without fuel injection need cleaner fuel, but the millionaire with their fuel injection don't!

go figure!!

New website

We've been working on a look for my friend Gavin's website. What do you think?

How pointless is the FAI?

Say for example you ran a company and you hired a guy to manage the palce. He nearly runs it off business. Then a generous mate gives you the money to hire someone else.

Do you really think that is worth a massive salary? If it is, I will become rubbish at my job and watch the big bucks come rolling in.

Tough old day

I had a long day today. Just finished up some work. I had dealings with the customer from hell today. One of those types who wants everything done immediately and then won't pay your for 3 months and then has the kahunas to shout at you down the phone when you ask to be paid!

Get a grip.

Now I going to chill...

Kent

I was over in Oslo at the weekend visiting Vavonia. We are both fans of Kent and he got me a copy of their latest album Tillbaka Till Samtiden.

I'm having my first listen now and it is very Depeche Mode.

You should check out Du & Jag Döden (You & I Death). It is in my top 10 albums of all time. I wonder will Tillbaka get in there...

Only time will tell.

Ouch, my leg!

I was on my way into work this morning when a woman decided to change lanes without looking and slammed into my leg and snapped off my gear lever.

I was in the middle of my lane at the time going quite slowly when it happened. There was a biker right behind me who stopped to check I was ok and to give me his card as a witness.

I got my bike repaired for free over at the New Gem (thanks guys!) and although I have a very sore leg I hope it will be ok in the morning, if not I will pop over to the doctors.

So to all drivers, CHECK YOUR MIRRORS!!!

Top 2 Million

I am back into the top two million over at technorati. I'm now at 1,644,723 all because of my post yesterday about 6th, and his plan to not post on boards.ie for lent.

He has lasted well so far. I think he will make it if he wants to.

Paper Planes

Remember in school you would make paper aeroplanes. There would always be one kid who made better plans then everyone else. Well that kid in Japan went one step further, a small step for him, but a huge step for mankind. They are going to launch paper planes in space.

This crazy Japanese plan may seem pointless and crazy but where would we be without the ingenius ideas that are dreamt up in Japan.

Keep up the crazy work!!! We love it.

Cyclists

I was on my way in to work this morning and I saw a cyclist being pulled over by a Garda on motorbike. I didn't see what he had done but I would love to know. How bad a cyclist do you have to be to have the gaurds pull you over.

Then again it could have been lord lucan on the bike.

Lent

I'm not giving up sweets like the olden days but 6th is giving up boards. I think he will get on grand but it will be harder than he thinks!

Day-o

I had a meeting today and it went on all day long. All day! Hopefully it was all worthwhile. I will let you know tomorrow!

Now it's time to watch Lost, I can't wait!

Another Run

I went out today for a run. I'd had a few drinks last night so I was feeling more tender than usual. I did about a kilometre before my head went numb. So I called it a day and went back to my warm and cosy house.

The evenings are getting slightly longer so I should be able to get a mid week run in this week.

The Oslo Debacle

I am supposed to be in Oslo right now but alas I am not. I left work early made my way to the airport on the airport bus. It went through the port tunnel which was pretty cool.

I checked in, got my duty free and waited to board. We boarded a bit late which is a pain because when the timing is right you can get a cheaper train than the Flytoget into Oslo S.

Then the captain tells us that a plane has slid off the runway in Oslo and the airport is shut. After 2 hours on the plane we are brough back to the terminal and told there will be news in about 2 hours. I was going for the weekend so I asked to exchange my flights for next week and they were cool with that.

Go SAS!

More Stamps

I have really gotten into stamps since Michele mentioned the James Bond Stamps recently. So I was over browsing on the US Postal Site and saw some cool Star Wars stamps, I joined up and tried to buy some but their credit card payment system is down at the moment. So that is a real bummer.

I've just been over to Michele blog only to see a post about the very same star wars stamps I was looking at. The internet is a small world!

Stamps

I got home this evening with a numb head. The cold had chilled me right through. I soon thawed out when I saw that my James Bond stamps have arrived!

They are cool!!!

So now I am eating a Yorkie and watching the famous Manchester United.

Nice

Tom Cruise Skit

Check out this Skit of the Tom Cruise Scientology Video. It's good clean fun.

Rich text edit controls!

I've spent the evening looking for a rich text editor for an online CMS I'm developing. Exactly like the one I am using here!

Does anyone know of one???

Smoking the weed.

If you want to smoke the weed you have to normally meet someone unsavoury and purchase the ganja but not in the lil ole U S of A. You can go to a vending machine!!! So in the country where you can do life for having small amounts of drugs, you can now get your medicinal ganja from a vending machine.

It's a great idea because getting drugs is difficult ;o)

Aurora Australis

I come along here and write my little heart out and then Gary drops me a mail and tells me he has an article on Wikipedia! Check it out, it's about the first book published and bound in the Antartic, Aurora Australis.

Nice work Gary, keep up the good work.

And your article has dragged this blog out of the gutter once again :o)

Today's Running

I went out today and did a relatively quick 3k run. By relative I mean quicker than I have been doing this year so far. I did it in 17 minutes, which is about 5.39 per km. I'd like to bring that under 5 for any 10ks I do.

Tomorrow I hope to get out and do a sub 30 minute 5k.

Driving Test - The result!

I had my pre-test and I was shocking it was like I was an alien who had never seen a primative wheeled vehicle before. I jumped and spluttered around the roads. It was a shambles.

I went in for the test and the tester really put me at ease. I was better than the pre-test but I wasn't great and I made a mess of reversing around a corner, which sealed the deal. I failed!

Next time I will pass because i know what to expect. All in all a good experience!

Goths

Check out the story about the Goths who were banned from the bus. I just don't know where to start on this one but being led around on a chain!!! Come on people!!!

Nikola Tesla

My sister send me a link to a past life application on the pointless Facebook site. I did it. And after it had duped me into coopting 15 of my friends into it I got the results and I am Nikola Tesla, so prepare to feel my wrath.

Now I have read about Tesla on many occassions and he seemed to be a mad scientist, but in a good way (ignore the death ray).

So I am proud that a random application has said I am Tesla, and I apologise to his family, I mean my family for not carrying on the Tesla legacy!

Driving Test

It is the night before the big day. Do you think I can past my test first time? I think I have a realistic chance of passing it, I'd give myself an 80% chance of passing it. I just need to drive like I have been driving and don't let the day phase me!

I will let you all know how I get on!

Urban Dictionary

The Urban Dictionary is a pretty cool site for looking up new terms that the kids are saying. I just got a mail from my good friend Bren Roche and he got himself an entry in the dictionary for Negative Listener.

Booyah Bren, you are now officially famous!

Misspell this!

I went to log into my blog and was accosted with some bible thumping Christianity!

I had slightly misspelled the name, don't make that mistake, unless you want a new bible!

Ingenius Idea

There are a lot of things going on in the world aimed at reducing our carbon footprint. A lot of these are quite negative, don't do this, tax that, etc. but some boffins have come up with an ingenius idea.

They are going to use a giant kite to help power ships around the world. I'd call it a sail, but they are the scientists! It is a great way of using old school technologies with new technological developments to help the world, congrats!

More Paypal

Spent tonight working on Paypal. Frustrating!!! Off to bed now!

More Running

I went out in horrible conditions on Saturday and did 3k. I did it in about 18 minutes. Not quick but it was wet and mucky and I nearly lost my shoe in a few puddles.

I went out and did 8k today. It didn't rain but it was very wet. I couldn't get my patella strap right for about 5k so that was uncomfortable. I also struggled with pains on both legs. I think it's the peroneus but I'm not a doctor. It did it in a very very slow 55 minutes. Aerobically it was easy but the muscle pains were off-putting.

I will hopefully get out this week to keep up the hard work

Comedy Gold!

I've always been a bit of an late bird and always watched lots of crap on latenight television. There was one show that I used to watch over 10 years ago that was actually worth waiting up for. It was called "In bed with Medinner".

I remember seeing a show about Disco Dancing and nearly dying with laughter. I recently got a link to that very show on youtube. And here it is for your viewing pleasure.

Another one of those days

Today I worked hard, and got a lot of work done. The WCF is coming together nicely.

I'm having accounatncy troubles at the moment. Why oh why do accountants and the rules of accountancy not make any sense?

Just make it simple!!!

Wordpress & windows

I installed Wordpress recently over on Redpages but then I went to go and update the theme. The problem is there is a known issue with it and I get a PHP violation error. I was told by my hosts that I need to run a linux server to have wordpress blog work properly.

So this sucks. I don't want to change to a linux host because I am a .Net developer. I'm not going back to PHP!!! Not without a fight anyway!

Cool Garda

I was on my way into work this morning and as I was filtering through traffic a Garda called me over. I went over thinking I had done something wrong.

He just said to me to use the bus lane, avoid filtering where you can, most drivers don't use their mirrors and it's all about self preservation for us bikers.

Cool Guy!

Apple do it again

Apple are at it again. Check out their new laptop. It is a superslim amazing looking piece of gadgetry. My old Dell here seems like something Fred Flintstone might use!

I think it is so cool I may even purchase a Mac!!!

One of those days.

Today was a long day by my standards. I was in work until after 7. I am working on a WCF Framework at the moment and it really is a pain in the backside. When a small problem strikes it takes the whole day to fix it. In today's case it took all day to not fix it.

I guess when it settles down it will all be worthwhile but I will definitely be putting together some good tutorials on WCF Services and .Net Framework 3.0 and N-Tier development, just because I couldn't find any.

No I'm off to play with Joomla.

Olafur Gottskalksson

What a strange Icelandic name. There is something stranger about his story though. He was a professional footballer with a decent career. He was even capped for Iceland. He was about 35 and playing second fiddle for Torquay United when the drug testers came.

His was the random player to be tested but he refused. He then asked to see the list of banned substances. He then ran away, he disappeared and left Torquay and his life and girlfriend behind.

Check him out on Wikipedia.

Northern Lights

After seeing the film The Golden Compass a few weeks back I decided to get the books and have a read. The film is based on the book Northern Lights by Philip Pullman.

Normally you expect some differences from the book to the film but in this case it's a whole different story. The story has a completely different point. It's up there with the Bourne Trilogy for films having little relation to the books.

If you liked the film, read the book, it's better, it's edgier and it's more rewarding.