ssia

5 years down, and now it's d-day...

My SSIA Matures Today!!!

Yay me!

vote cork

Click Here to Vote for Cork!

Roscommon seem to currently be in the top spot. But the other place that we should aim for is #9, St. Stephens Green which is the most landed on spot!!

Spread the word, tell the entire county, and vote every day!! Vote Cork!

rss in plain english

I found a great video to explain RSS and that that big orange button does in Plain English!

Click Play to Watch.

bank of ireland

I'm just sitting here, waiting and watching the clock. I'm waiting for 1am to come around.

I need to contact my Bank. Bank of Ireland in Carrigaline. The problem with being here in Canada is that to get in touch with any business at home requires you to stay up until the wee hours of the morning.

I just checked out the Bank of Ireland Website and it turns out my branch isn't open until 10am (2am Canada time)! Just brilliant! Banks in Ireland are really a joke. How come they manage to stay stuck in the stone age. This is 2007. Take this for example:

Earlier this year I wanted to change my billing address to Canada so I could buy stuff on-line and get it sent to my billing address here in Canada. Like buying iPods or other things off websites. My branch told me that I had to submit this request in writing. An email wouldn't do. A fax wouldn't do. I had to write the request in a letter and post it. Taking the 2 weeks for it to get to Ireland and another 2 weeks to process it, I felt it wasn't worth it. Especially since I'll only be changing it back about now.

Another example: My friends are with AIB. They offer their on-line customers the ability to transfer funds to an international account, so they could send themselves money over the web, no worries. Bank of Ireland on the other hand... "Sorry, we don't do things like that on-line". The request has to be written and posted into the branch. They can then transfer the amount once they confirm that it is you making the request (this process made harder considerably as I'm about 7,000Km away). Repeat as necessary for each transaction.

Why is the Irish banking sector so power happy and feel they can do what they want? They have banking 365, but all their operators seem to like referring me to my branch to answer questions. So going back to the opening times; they are open 36 out of 168 hours a week (21% of the week)! Opening at 10am gives all their employees a lovely lie-in and they can avoid the rush-hour traffic. Then closing at 4pm must really cut into their drinking time down the pub, after all they don't have to be back at work until 10am the next morning!

When I get home I'll be considering moving my SSIA money to anywhere else but there! Not a happy camper here.

Thankfully I have my new addiction to Desktop Tower Defence to keep me company for the next hour thanks to Ambrand... ya bastard!

start of telus

It is the start of the Telus World Ski & Snowboard Festival here in Whistler. This comic was in the Question this week, and it sums up the feeling of nearly everyone here. We did get 22cm on Saturday tho!

This is also my first Post via Flickr...

scouting ireland news feed

I think I've gone mad with feeds...

The Scouting Ireland Website is great. There is loads of information on it for all sections and the chat forum is a great source for news and information that can't be found anywhere else on the website.

Unfortunately it's still shite. There is no RSS feed for the news page or any page for that fact! So those of us looking for updates have to guess when they post something new and then go to the website to check it out!

It got me thinking, is there a service or website that can take a page on the Internet and update me, via a feed, when there is some new news. After a bit of searching I found FeedYes.com

So I have created a feed for the news section of the Scouting Ireland website! If you want to keep up to date with the news, add this feed to your reader!

Feed: Scouting Ireland News

turning canadian

You know you’re turning ‘Canadian’ when...

• You understand the phrase "Could you pass me a serviette, I just dropped my poutine, on the chesterfield."
• You eat chocolate bars, not candy bars.
• You drink Pop, not Soda.
• You know that a Mickey and 2-4's mean, "party at the camp, eh!!!"
• You know that a pike is a type of fish, not part of a highway.
• You drive on a highway, not a freeway.
• You have Canadian Tire money in your kitchen drawers.
• You know that Casey and Finnegan were not part of a Celtic musical group.
• You get excited whenever an American television show mentions Canada.
• You brag to Americans that: Shania Twain, Jim Carrey, Celine Dion, Michael J. Fox, John Candy, William Shatner, Tom Green, Matthew Perry, Mike Myers, Neve Campbell, Pamela Anderson Lee & many more are Canadians.
• You know that the CEO of American Airlines is a Canadian.
• You design your Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.
• You know that the last letter of the English alphabet is always pronounced "Zed".
• Your local newspaper covers national news on 2 pages, but requires 6 pages for hockey.
• You know that the four seasons mean: almost winter, winter, still winter, and road work.
• You know that when it's 25 °F (-4°C) outside, it's a warm day.
• You understand the Labatt Blue commercials.
• You know how to pronounce and spell "Saskatchewan".
• You perk up when you hear the theme song from 'Hockey Night in Canada'.
• You are in grade 12, not the 12th grade.
• "Eh?" is a very important part of your vocabulary, and is more polite than, "Huh?"
• You say "aboot" instead of "about"
• Your Beer Case handles Are Big Enough To Fit Your Mitts
• You froze your tongue to something metal and survived to tell about it.
• You know that we don't all live in igloos and ride polar bears to work

via the SWAP E-Bulletin 2 April 2007

firefox

Comon... this year 55% of people here on my blog are using Internet Explorer. Only 36% use Firefox. Get those numbers higher!

Watch it on YouTube

GetFirefox.com

changes to my blog

A new month, some new changed to the blog!

First thing you may or may not notice is the address. I purchased LangersBlog.com, for the mess, to check out Google Apps for your Domain. I then wanted at see if I could then use that domain for Bloggers 'Custom Domain' hosting option! With a bit of messing around and a email to the hosting company sorted that out! Now everything is up and running on the new address: LangersBlog.com [which then forwards to blog.langersblog.com :-) ]

I have also added a few more subscribing/feed options. Under the regular feed button (the huge orange thing on the bottom right of the page) there are two more options for you:

• - You can subscribe to my comment feed.

And for all you technophobes:

• - You can subscribe to receive updates directly into email inbox.

To Sum Up: You can update your bookmarks or whatever, or not, it doesn't matter! Everything is the same and continue to work as normal! So what changes?!

P.S. For those Twitter fans... check out the twitter of the blog: twitter.com/LangersBlog

team geared up - march

1st - Google Image Update

10th - N!ergy Tent - Camping With Power

10th - The Storm Whistle