Bloggies - 2005

The Bloggies 2005 (site down due to bandwith) recently published their list of finalists. The list of finalists can be seen via weblogwannabe.

I was intrigued to see the finalists selected in the category "Best British or Irish Weblog". All British no less! Kind of a pointless category if your not going to give any Irishblogs even so much as a mention. Surely there are Irishblogs out there of sufficient quality to warrant at least a last five place? I'm certain there are. Perhaps the category should be changed to "Best British (No Irish Please) Weblog", or maybe a preliminary Irish version of the awards is warranted to select the Irish nominations that should be put forward by all. Irish bloggers can then hop off the bloggies site to ensure a listing for at least one irish blog in the last five.

Either way, it all smacks a bit of Your a Star!!

Tax Time

A lot has been made recently of reports that the Revenue Commissioners have not being paying their dues to the tax paying public. It would appear that the Revenue Commissioners have been withholding a lot of taxpayer’s money and not refunding those who may have overpaid their taxes. Now to my mind this makes the Revenue Commissioners no better than former TD Ray Burke who was sentenced to 6 months in Arbour Hill prison on Monday last.

The crime is the same. Ray Burke avoided paying taxes; the Revenue Commissioners are avoiding repaying taxes.

It would appear that there are a number of areas where the PAYE paying public is not reaping the benefits of a taxation system that is designed to confuse and is seriously lacking in transparency. Areas where rebates or additional tax credits can be claimed are wide and varied. These include, but are not limited to the following most popular examples;

Medical Expenses (Including Prescription Drugs)
Non-routine Dental Treatment
Non-routine Optical Treatment
Refuse Charges
Third Level Fees

Also, in addition to these hot topics, a large number of people end up overpaying their taxes in any given tax year. Rather than reimburse the individuals concerned, the Revenue in their infinite wisdom just keeps these over payments until such time as the individual makes a claim for these.

In an effort to see what if any benefits owing to me were outstanding, I rang my local tax office help line this afternoon. It would appear that they are very busy and their IVR said as much asking me to call back later. Now that’s helpful.

Get It While You Can

Only 7 more days to get your Cultured Langers Journal 2005.......

The're selling like hot cakes, so secure one while you can!

Observations

1. I hate Mondays, but today is made more bearable by the fact that I get paid tomorrow after what seems like the longest January in years! Note: I'm starting saving money this month to take the sting out of next January!

2. Too much drink gives you a really bad hangover. Take Saturday night for example, beer followed by Whiskey in large quantities means your head will be in a sling on Sunday.

3. One of the best cures for a hangover is walking the dog on a sunny, cold and windy Sunday on the beach. He doesn't care if your hungover, he just wants to play, run in the sand and chase the waves as they come in and out along the shoreline.

4. The moon looks beautiful reflecting off the ocean at dusk!

Gay Bomb

Matt Cooper interviewed Jon Ronson on The Last Word shortly before Christmas. Ronson is the author of The Men Who Stare At Goats, a book that deals with the US military experiments to see if they could kill Goats just by staring at them. The experiments were focused on developing this skill so that it might be used on humans in times of war. It may sound whacky, but it was only one in a whole host of these type of weird experiments.

Last week Cooper again interviewed Ronson after it came to light in news that US Army Officials had been working on developing a Gay Bomb. The theory behind this bomb was that when dropped, it would make enemy soldiers “sexually irresistible” to each other.

It is believed that when the Bush administration learned of this, they began planning to invade San Francisco in the search for weapons of mass affection.

Tag! Your it!

Technorati have introduced tags, which essentially allow bloggers to categorise their blogs and posts based on tags. Chief bottle washer at Technorati, Derek Powazek explains here.

So I'm tagging this as irishblogs.

Maybe bloggers should be called taggers?

Inauguration 2005

I heard someone say that at $40 million this inauguration was the most expensive house warming party ever!

Job Update

Just got an update on the job saga. I didn't get it again! Now if that aint a PFO then I don't know what is. One word; Gutted!

Inaugural Ceremonies

Thursday, January 20th, sees the Inauguration of George W. Bush to his second term as President of the United Sates. A large number of events are planned to celebrate this occasion which it is estimated will cost $40 million, almost $10 million more than either former Presidents Bill Clinton or George Bush Senior spent on their respective inaugurations. The money has been donated in large part by corporations who support the Bush administration and who as a result of the Campaign Finance Bill were restricted in the manner in which and amount of money they could donate to the Bush campaign during the elections.

The maximum that any corporation or individual could donate to the Inauguration fund was $250,000. However, many firms have circumvented this with donations in the order of the maximum $250,000 coming in from parent and subsidiary companies alike.

The schedule of events for Thursday is as follows;

Thursday, January 20, 2005
St. John’s Church Service
Oath of Office Ceremony
Inaugural Parade
Constitution Ball
Freedom Ball
Independence Ball
Texas Wyoming Ball
Liberty Ball
Democracy Ball
Patriot Ball
Stars and Stripes Ball
Commander-In-Chief Ball

The theme of the inaugural ceremonies is “Celebrating Freedom, Honoring Service”.

The M50 Carpark

If, like me you spend at least 2 hours a day sitting on the M50 carpark, sorry, motorway then you might be interested to hear about a campaign being fronted by Senator Shane Ross in relation to the West Link Toll Bridge.

A recent price hike has resulted in a negative reaction from the public who use the bridge on a daily basis travelling North to South of Dublin and vice versa. On January 3rd of this year, the toll was increased from €1.50 to €1.80 for no good reason whatsoever other than to help pay for the recent development and widening of the West Link Bridge. This following a similar price hike in 2001 from £1.00 to €1.30 for rounding up purposes. (The actual changeover should have been €1.27). Another hike followed not even 12 months later when NTR decided along with the support of NRA that another price hike from €1.30 to €1.50 was required.

A little know fact in the entire issue is the portion of the toll that the Irish Government collects. It would appear that the Government gets somewhere in the region of a whopping €1.00 per transaction carried out. Now, that in any mans language is a cash cow when you consider there are 90,000 cars per day using this bridge.

Over at the discussion forum on Ask About Money, one user received a response via e-mail from NTR in relation the following questions;

1. Why are the rates going up?

2. Why are they going up at over twice the rate of inflation?

3. Why aren’t the rates on your Internet sites?

4. Do EazyPass customers pay less and if so why is this not detailed?

The response was as follows;

Sorry, your e-mail took a long time to reach me.We operate the East-link toll bridge in partnership with Dublin City Council & Dublin Port. Our agreement with them sets a base toll rate which is inflated annually by the construction CPI.Toll increases are rounded to the nearest 5 cent.Toll increases are set by that agreement and approved by the two bodies mentioned.

West link is similar except we operate under license from the NRA.Again there is an agreed formula under the license agreement for annual increases to the toll rate which are approved by the NRA.The NRA can alter the agreement as in the last 3 years to provide funding for the second West-Link Bridge. It total between license fees, vat & rates we estimate the total public sector benefits accruing from West-Link to be in excess of € 40 million in 2005.

East-Link celebrates its 20th anniversary this year and the concession agreement ends in 2015 at which time the infrastructure reverts to DCC.

The West-Link concession runs until 2020 when the bridges will pass to state ownership. Net present value of the bridges is around € 110 million.

We are currently in discussion with the NRA in relation to discounts at West-Link in order to promote electronic tolling. Commercial customers receive and ongoing discount and at the Drogheda Toll Plaza Eazy Pass customers enjoy an ongoing 20% discount. Both web sites should have been amended to advertise the new rates and I apologise for that but we took the opportunity to advertise at Plaza level as soon as the rates were confirmed.

There are a total of 11 toll roads planned under the National Development Plan. Tolling is now seen by government as an efficient mechanism to fund infrastructural development. West-Link will deliver over €40 million in public sector benefits in 2005.

I hope that addresses the points you raised and thank you for your query.

Gareth Brown

General Manager

Funny

I found this piece on Planet Potato via The blog and I. What I thought was funny was the description of the type of man in question. I know a guy just like this down in our local in Cork. He never made it to the city though preferring to keep to the boreens in and around Mitchelstown where he owns a bit of land and a few head of cattle. (Rough Translation: He's fucking minted!!).

Anyway, PJ has recently moved to the area with his new bride. They got married in the summer last year and PJ decided he'd buy a house in our park while he was waiting for the home place to be built. "I'm not in any hurry, and besides I have a couple of chickens in the front rooom of the house up at the homeplace at the minute", he casually told me over a pint recently.

Anyway, myself and G met PJ in the pub the night after St. Stephen's night. I asked him how he got on over the Christmas.

"Mighty", he said.

G asked him, "Did you get anything nice for Christmas?"

He said, "Er, I got a couple of shirts and a jumper".

"Very nice", G said.

"What did ye get herself?" I asked.

"Er, we were in town there in November doing a bit of shopping for the Christmas and she wanted a box of perfume, so I got her that and gave it to her then", he said.

"Oh, lovely", says G.

"What else did you get her?" says G.

"What do ye mean what else did I get her?" says PJ, "Didn't I get her the perfume, first Christmas together, ye can't have her gettin used to too much or she'll always expect it".


As God is my witness, this was what PJ got his wife for their first Christmas together as Mr. & Mrs. PJ a box of perfume in November.

The Roller Coaster Week

Talk about a roller coaster of a week. Last Friday I rang the recruitment agency that I was going through for the job in Cork. The conversation went like this;

ME: “So, Bob any news for me?”

BOB: “Yeah, how’s it going DB. They’re making a decision on the position today, so I should be back to you this afternoon”

ME: “That’s great, how do you think it’s looking?”

BOB: “Well, I put it to you this way, it’s down to you and one other guy, so you’re into the last two”

ME: “Any idea who the other candidate is?”

BOB: “Not sure, I think it’s a guy from XXXXX”

ME: “Okay, let me know when you hear this afternoon, I’ll talk to you later”

BOB: “Okay, speak to you then”

Friday evening not having heard anything back, I rang again.

ME: “Bob, DB here, any news?”

BOB: “I haven’t heard anything back, but at this stage it isn’t looking good”

ME: “Ah well, I kind of figured when hadn’t heard back”

BOB: “I’ll try them again there and get back to you”

ME: “Fair enough”

I didn’t hear anything back from them on Friday evening and spent the entire weekend wondering if I had gotten the job or not. First thing Monday morning I rang again

ME: “Bob, DB here, any news?”

BOB: “Yeah, I spoke to them this morning and unfortunately you didn’t get it”

ME: “That’s disappointing but sure that’s the way it goes”

BOB: “Yeah, it’s disappointing but, sometimes your better off. I’ll keep an eye out you did a good interview so I’d have no problem putting you forward for another position.”

At this point I was thinking "better off, what sort of comment is that!"

ME: “Sure give me a call if something comes up”.

Today I received a phone call from Bob’s colleague, Bill. Apparently, the other candidate pulled out. It turns out his partner wouldn’t re-locate to Cork and the position is now open again. Bill asked me if I was still interested. I said yes. A decision is to be made by the middle of next week. I won't get my hopes up, but it would be nice...

From hope to disappointment to hope again, its been a roller coaster of a week.

Fireworks!

Saturday evening last was spent in Cork City watching the awakening ceremony for the Capital of Culture 2005. To be fair the fireworks were better than I expected. Despite not having a ticket for the any of the quays overlooking the actual display in the river, we got a good spot up on Anderson's Quay, next to Jury's Inn. It turned out that this was actually a great location to be. From where we were standing we had a perfect view of fireworks taking off from Collin's Barracks and also form the Cork Port. While our view of the river proceedings wasn't great, we were able to nip in and out of the bar in Jury's Inn to watch the television for a view of what was going on in the river itself.

If this is a sign of things to come in the year ahead, I look forward to it.

One Long Month

I’ve been keeping busy these last few days. January is one long month, which requires me to keep my head down and be as frugal and thrifty as possible. My wallet took one serious hammering over the Christmas period, something I hadn’t planned on happening this year. So in order to avoid being in the same predicament this time next year, that is financially embarrassed, I’m starting saving for Christmas ’05 this month.

I’ve taken to walking these past few evenings after dinner. This is in an effort to control my ever-expanding waistline. My walk consists of a 40-minute trek around one of the local walks in my neighbourhood and given that its three years since I have done any exercise of any description, I’m amazed to see just how popular walking has become. It would seem that walking is the new fad. People of all shapes and sizes are at it. You pass the regulars each evening and you receive a knowing nod. “Ah, yes, I see you’re out again this evening”, is the thought that runs through my mind as I pass what are now becoming familiar faces. It is unbelievable just how unfit I have become. After the first few nights of this walk, my legs ached the following morning. Then it was my lungs. Slowly but surely, I am coming around and it would appear that my body is now getting used to the little exercise I am giving it. Call it a New Years resolution of sorts.

One of my other resolutions is to pack in smoking cigarettes. I smoke a packet day and with a history or respiratory illness along with cancer in my family, I figure its time to kick the habit. Aside from which, with a packet now costing €6.00 x 365days I’ll be saving €2,190 a year. That should cover the cost of two holidays.

I don’t normally make New Years resolutions, well with the exception of these, which with the exception of the fishing piece fell by the wayside. Perhaps this year I’ll have a little more success.

Cork European Capital of Culture

Cork is the European Capital of Culture for 2005. The festivities get underway this Saturday the 8th Jan in the City Centre with street entertainment in and around the top of the South Mall, Grand Parade and Pana. Later that evening there will be a fireworks display in the Lee ( I ask ye, a fireworks display in a River, only in Ireland). This is a ticketed event to stop half the county and city trying to cram into the quays area like they did for the Red Bull Soap Box race during the summer. Tickets are no longer available having been handed out by local pols in brown envelopes to all their cronies like snuff at a wake over the New Year. But sure, can't ye watch it on RTE or from up at the Airport.

Anyway, to celebrate this momentous occasion, DaBerries are making available for a limited time a commemorative Cultured Langers Journal 2005, after all, culture is not just for them feens and beours visiting the Opera house from Kinsale. Culture yourself! Collect your thoughts on jaggin, gettin a fifty, bushin, sloggin apples and the likes! Chances are you'll be that tanked with all the drinkin to be done this year, you'll need something to remember the year by.

Happy New Year

And we’re back! Happy New Year to all! Christmas seems like an alcohol infused fleeting memory. It was nice to just be out of work for more than a couple of days and the bellies of all at DaBerries household were filled with fine food and plenty of drink on many an occasion over the last two weeks. It truly was a Merry Christmas.

Got a couple of fantastic gifts, amongst them CD’s I wanted, yes, yes despite the advent of the iPod and MP3 player, I’m still a sucker for the CD. If its good you just have to have something touchy feely in the CD collection. I also got a couple of books I was looking for. Three cookbooks, the best of which is Hugh Fearnley – Whittingstalls “River Cottage Cookbook”, a cracking good read if all things culinary jangle your bells. That said, its not just a cookbook, it’s a lifestyle guide to growing your own vegetables, raising your own animals for the table and living free off the land, yes, straightened times demand straightened measures. The other book I got that has been on my Amazon wishlist for some time is, “The Dark Side of Camelot”. Haven’t gotten to it yet but, I’m looking forward to it.

On the job front, I rang the agency that I was dealing with in relation to a job I interviewed for before Christmas. I wasn’t too happy at being left hanging on over the Christmas to know my fate. Turns out the company have yet to make a decision and one is due shortly. Here’s hoping 2005 will bring a fresh start in a new job.

I hope 2005 sees all of your pipe dreams come true and pigs flying!