Smoking Ban & A Result

Finally got a result on the new mattress front. I rang the builder today and he's going to cover the cost of a new mattress. Only one week after I sent my letter. So I got a quote for a similar mattress €540. Anyone I said it to keeps saying stick it him for a bundle of money, but I think that's what has the country in the state it's in. A buddy of mine maintains that everyone is out to screw you, it just how badly is the difference between a good price and a crappy price. Fair point I suppose.

The smoking ban in bars came into effect yesterday. Apparently all eyes from the media were on Ireland to see the effects of the ban. I don't think it will make much difference. It'll just bring drinking out onto the streets. I'm a smoker so I'm pro choice. I don't think it's my right to smoke, because as far as I'm concerned "Rights" per say are legislated for. However, I do believe I should have the freedom to choose, and I don't think the non-smokers freedom to choose should be given a legal priority over mine! This business of saying you can or can't smoke here or there just doesn't stack up. Non-smokers maintain that passive smoking damages their health, I maintain that standing out in the pissing rain on a Friday night in the winter because I can't smoke in a bar damages my health. Who should get priority?

At the end of the day it boils down to this...... non smokers die every day! Period.

Rubyhorse and a Triple Crown

Great weekend, Ireland win the Triple Crown and I went to see Rubyhorse play in Dolans Warehouse in Limerick. Fantastic band. They started slow on Saturday night, but once they got into their stride the place lit up. These guy's play wth an energy that is seldom seen in acts doing the rounds these days. Must have something to do with being back from Boston and playing in Ireland...

Seriously, if you haven't seen these guy's, take my advice GO SEE THEM!!! Their new album "Goodbye to All That" is out and is well worth a listen. Photo's of Saturday to follow soon.....

I'm off to my pit to try and sleep off the effects of living a life of excess, too much booze is bad for you apparently, christ I must have drank enough for 10 men at the weekend, because I was as sick as a small hospital on Sunday....

Green with Envy

My brother is of to LA in the morning. I'm green with envy. The jammy git is heading away for 14 days over to his girlfriend who is studying at Irvine this year. Wish I was had 14 days of sunshine to look forward to....

I tried rolling myself up into a ball to see if I could fit in his suitcase. Think I'll need to lose some weight first though.

My other brother is coming to Cork with me this weekend. Looking forward to watching Ireland win the triple crown on Saturday afternoon followed by a trip to Limerick to see RubyHorse. If you haven't checked this band out yet your missing out big time!

Georgie Boys Visit & The Builder

I wonder what this person does for a living. It seems he has bundles of time to take photos attend marches, parades, and weddings and get involved with groups and issues of the day? I think I'll have to re-evaluate my use of time? All joking aside, Derek M Powazek's site is one of the most interesting I've come across and remains a daily favourite read of mine. The site has recently undergone what the author calls it's annual face lift and remains slick!

On another note, George W Bush is all set to visit Ireland (Henceforth to be known as the US Aircraft Carrier Emerald, following it's recent strategic use as a stop over for US Armed Forces on their way to the Gulf) in June. Our Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell has stated that US Secret Service agents, carrying out their duty of protecting the President, may shoot anyone they like and they will not face prosecution. Bizarre! Commentators here in Ireland maintain that the visit, which it has transpired will last approximately 12 hours, is an election stunt aimed at trying to capture some of the considerable Irish votes in the US. Doesn't George realise most of us are over there illegally?

The saga with the builder continues, I wrote him a letter today… I await his reply, but don't think I should hold my breath.

Disastrous Days Off…

It seems trouble follows me lately. My much anticipated, badly needed, few days off were an unmitigated disaster. Wednesday last started 5 days of R&R and was spent out on the rip for St. Patrick's Day. We went over to G's friend's apartment in Cork City for a few beers and a bowl of Vodka Jelly, mmm tasty, then out on the town for the night. Much porter was sunk. The day was capped with a win in the lottery, 4 numbers on a bank holiday gets you €100. (Yipee) We stayed in G's Mothers house that night as neither of us was sober enough to drive home.

Thursday morning and the little man in my head was playing death metal at a painfully loud volume. Spent Thursday afternoon nursing a hangover before we finally got home early in the evening. A quick shower and a good helping of junk food later we were settling in to watch the final episode of Sex & the City. I decided I needed cigarettes and went upstairs to the bedroom to get my jacket to pop down to the shop. I walked in the bedroom door and there was water pissing down through the light fixture in the centre of the room, all over our new bedsheets, right the way through our new mattress until it formed a puddle in the centre of our new floor under our new bed. G ran across the road to our new neighbour. He's a plumber and I figured that if anyone could sort this out he could. We ended up punching holes in our new ceiling to let 2 inches of water that had gathered in the attic flow down into buckets placed under the holes. Needless to say I'm pissed off.

Friday morning and I rang the builder at 8am as soon as they get on site and read the riot act to him. Since then I've been chasing him to try get the whole mess sorted out. Looks like I'm going to have a hard time getting any satisfaction out of him, this is what happens when it's a sellers market. You and I, the small fry of this world are ducked!

Spent Friday afternoon driving back to Dublin for a good friend of mines fathers funeral. I never knew his Dad, but if he was anything like his son I'm sure he was a truly great guy. May he rest in peace…

Saturday afternoon we drove back down to Cork because G had a night out with the folks she works with planned. This involved dinner at the dog track, a nice few pints and a bit of a flutter on the races. Good fun, we ended up down €18 between us. Not bad considering neither of us had a clue what we were at.

Sunday night I drove back to Dublin for work on Monday. I'm glad I'm back in work I need the rest.

Human Resources

Now this is a funny piece on the art of Human Resources

A Few Days Off...

Only tomorrow left in work and then I have a full 5 days holiday to look forward to. Wohoo! Can't wait. We're hoping to use the time to finish unpacking. I know, weeks after we have finally moved in. But when you only have the weekends at home, it can be hard to motivate yourself to do much in the way of those necessary jobs that need to be done when you move into a brand, spanking new house.

Of course all of this is planned around a couple of good nights out on the town. Being Irish, we plan on going out for a right few drinks on Paddy's Day. The session is due to start in Cork City around 4.pm. and will last for as long as we can stay standing. (Should be at home in bed by 9.30, I'm out of practice and can't drink soup these days). Gone are the halcyon days of drinking from 12.00 noon to 2 a.m. How I used to do it is beyond me. To think we used to hire a bus to take us around the country drinking. The day would start with a rendezvous in some local drinking constabulary around noon. Travel itineraries would be distributed to all members of the party outlining the route for the day. The aim of the game was fifteen minutes a bar, last man onto the bus paid a £1.00 fine, souvenirs of any and preferably all bars were welcomed and would be put into the booty bag or bucket to be counted and scored accordingly later the following morning. The true sign of success was making it into a nightclub at around 10.0p.m. that night. Some memorable days out were had.

I wonder at what point we grew out of this phase?

Attempting that Techie Thingy...

I am attempting to update this space to make it a little more appealing. My limited skills and relative newness to this thing make me no more than a tinkerer of things tecnological......I'll struggle on nonetheless

The Pressure Mounts

Looks like that time of year is coming around again. Semester 2 project work time. It's 4-5 weeks of pressure to get continuous assessments and project work done for the six subjects I have this year. Can't wait to finish college in May. The end of 4 years of hard work and approx 48 seperate exams (Winter & Summer Semesters) will be behind me and fingers crossed I'll have a degree.

Its funny, you start each semester with the best of intentions, yet it always ends up the same, 4-5 weeks of pressure to get work handed up, and then 2 weeks of cramming with a friend of mine to get through the exams. Its a winning formula that hasn't failed me yet, but probably isn't great for my health.

I'm beginning to wonder why I took this whole degree thing on. Well I know why I took it on. I wanted to get on in work and make the ever elusive "more money". A couple of years ago a friend of mine living in Northampton in the UK at the time gave me some advice. I should really take it. He said, "when are you earning enough money?" It's a good question isn't it? Because when your earning 15k you live a 15k lifestyle and probably then some. When your earning 25k you live a 25k lifestyle and then some more. When your earning 40k you probably live a 50k lifestyle. So when is enough money enough money? One of the financial lecturers in college tonight mantains that if Bill Gates dropped $1,000 on the ground it would cost him too much money in terms of the wasted effort to pick it up. Is that enough money?

My own advice is as follows, if your debt free and can afford enough for a packet of cigarettes, good coffee and good conversation your earning enough money. Wish I could learn to take my own advice.....

One of THOSE Days...

It started out bad and went rapidly downhill from there on in. The guy with "small man syndrome" decided too late that what I was working on wouldn't cut the mustard. Back to the drawing board at 12:00 noon today. This needs to be delivered by 12:00 noon tomorrow. I asked for it to be reviewed when I originally completed it last week. Turns out there are other things that are more important going on last week and whats important this week i.e. what I wanted to review last week, just won't cut the mustard. This is very important you know. Only important this week not last week! Don't you just hate small man syndrome. Some day all of these small men will develop personalities, become human, realise that at the end of the day, just because you have a process, it doesn not mean you have a means to an end, just a process as an aid in geting to the end.

It's been one of those days where you wish you were 5 years old again and your older sister was tying your mothers saucepans onto you so that you could be the saucepan man from Enid Blytons "Faraway Tree" and she could be the fairy. One of those days when you wonder when it all got so complicated and important. One of those days where you wish you could be 5 again where the only deadline you knew was the deadball line in a ball game. But I suppose tomorrow will be better because it certainly couldn't be any worse than today......

Nothing Unites The Rugby World More Than.....

Beating the English! England 13 - Ireland 19 read the scoreline in yesterdays Royal Bank of Scotland Six Nations match at Twickenham. The wheels came off the chariot in superb fashion as the underdogs Ireland, beat the World Champions in emphatic style, in what can only be described as one of the sweetest victories I've ever had the pleasure to witness.

A combination of unusually ill disciplined English play and solid Irish defending, meant that the World Champions home coming was somewhat spoiled by the Irish raiders who travelled to London with a fire in their bellys. The Irish pack dominated the line out and their set pieces set the platform for Gordon Darcy to run at the English defense. Girvan Dempsey's try landed the killer blow in the second half which would see the chariot lose it's wheels. With no sign of the Royal Automobile Club to mend the battered chariot whose chasis really was swinging low with the arse out of it, England had to resign themselves to their first loss since becoming World Champions.

Arise Sir Clive from that!!

You Just Sat There Counting Crows And Time!!

I’m just sitting here watching the Meteor Music Awards. The Counting Crows are performing at the minute. Where have I been? I didn’t realise they were playing in Ireland this week. Turns out they are playing in the Olympia with performances last night, tonight and again tomorrow night. I’ll get in touch with the box office tomorrow and see if I can get tickets for G and I for tomorrow night. One of my top five bands is in town and I’m home watching a performance recorded two nights ago. I need to slow down a bit, trying to juggle 16 hours of college, 39 hours of work and some semblance of a social life in each and every week is proving to be difficult at the best of times.

A thought struck me today. It is almost one year since Mam was diagnosed with cancer. How time flies! When I look back on the year it’s been filled with difficult times and small victories that make the tradition of marking time in calendar days, weeks and years worthwhile. Since that time I’ve made it through the whole serious illness of a parent thing, bought my first house, been promoted at work and graduated from my third year of college at night with a Diploma. An achievement no? I like to think so….

Election Engineering

Is it just me or does the word electioneering not strike anyone else as being almost identical to engineering. Now the Oxford English dictionary defines engineering as "the application of science for control and use of power.." Maybe all of this hullabaloo over electronic voting in Ireland is not a sign of the times or even an effort on our Governments part to bring the Irish public kicking and screaming into the e-sphere. Instead perhaps it is an attempt to meddle with the good intentions of the Irish public. Maybe the use of electronic voting is in fact an exercise in electioneering or engineering, call it what you will, but an attempt nonetheless to apply science for control and use of power. Anyway besides all that is it not my constitutional right to vote how I please? If so does this mean I must vote for a political party? Do I not have a constitutional right to purposely spoil my vote and where is the spoil button on this new fandangled jiggery pokery voting contraption?