road trip

Just home from our Road Trip. Last week we decided we had nothing to do for the weekend and beyond, so the most logical thing to do is go on a Road Trip!

You can download see the Route with Google Earth with this file: File [right click, save as]

We started here in Cork, went to towards Sligo, The Giant's Causeway next and then back to Kerry and then home! Over the 4 days, according to the GPS which i had on when traveling, we covered 1444km, just under 24hours moving and nearly 8 hours stopped. Max speed was 140km/h and average moving speed of 61.7km/h!!

Here are some of the Photos!

Bunratty Castle!Gayest Pose EVER!!!!

Welcome to Lovely Leitrim!I don't like Conor!!

The Giant's Causeway!

Welcome to Muff!!!!

Bow Chicka Bow Wow!

new images of castlegregory

Following my post last summer of the location of castlegregory i have been looking at google Earth and notice that the satalite imagry of the place where we stayed has been updated! You can now see the whole beach and town. Oh the memories. Who knows what kind of summer is in store!!
See it here on Google Maps!

radio shake up

RTɉ have announced yesterday about the new autumn cabinet re-shuffle. Big changes coming to both Radio One and 2fm (I'm still refusing to call it RTÉ 2fm) I'm not surprised considering the recent news about the drop in listener ship figures.

So what does this mean to 2fm? (I really couldn't care less about Radio One, I'm not that old yet)

Current state of 2fm: Old man Dave Fanning is on for about an hour and a half at 6, followed by NewsBeat for half an hour and then one of those Nikki Hayes for 2 hours and then Rick O'Shea for 2 hours till Mid-Night. Its all very confusing and feels rushed.

Basically they made their evening and night time programmes more simpler.

New line up: What they will be doing from now on is 2 DJ's, Rick from 6to9 and Damien Farrelly 9to12. Rick O'Shea seem happy about this news, altho he is being moved again from his night time play what he likes to a more main stream post drive time slot. Nikki then replaces Damien in the afternoon.

So they got rid of Dave Fanning. I think think they might be onto something here. Altho I still see the fact that Marty Dry Arse Whlean is still on in the morning. I don't like that man. Maybe suited to 2fm in the 80's, but not now. Worst Breakfast Show EVER.

towel day

Today is Towel Day: A Tribute to Douglas Adams!

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels. A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value—you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you—daft as a brush, but very, very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag [non-hitch hiker] discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have 'lost'. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with."
(The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Chapter Three)

So today, in honour of Douglas Adams, everyone should always have a towel on them! Any kind of towel will do i guess. A beach towel, a bath towel, a hand towel or a tea towel!

momentum

Its hard to build up momentum to blog, after such a break and few weeks of study and such & such. Today i didn't know what to do with my self... but I'm sure I'll slip out of this happy phase soon enough!

start of the rest of my life

Ok, so here I am. I had my last exam this morning and that's it. Finished college. Its the start of the rest of my life. What am I going to do with it, who knows, but I'm sure I'll keep you up to date from now on!!

archery town

A well deserved break from study, and Taidy is home, an excellent excuse to play in archery town! You can see the target in the right. They then wanted to see if they could jump the puddle...

And the Video!

study

You gotta love how productive you get as an exam gets closer!

And the Video!

123456

Check out the time!
I couldn't leave it pass without saying something!!

01:02:03 04/05/06

taxes and charges

I was looking for flights to Dublin and the two airlines that fly from Cork to Dublin are AerArann and RyanAir. As the good consumer that i am, or maybe it was the poor student inside me, i checked out both websites. The AerArann flights are €10 base price with taxes and charges added on later. The RyanAir flight was €0.01 base price with taxes and charges added on later.

Score one RyanAir.

Then when it came to adding on the taxes and fees, you'd think that because both airlines are flying out of the same airport going to the same airport at about the same time, the taxes and charges would be the same. Altho maybe the RyanAir one would be more to make up for the fact that the actual price is 1cent.

It turns out that they are not the same, AerArann charges €19.99 where as RyanAir is only €9.98 which is €10.01 in the difference! That's the price of another AerArann and another RyanAir flight to Dublin!!

Score one RyanAir.

Going further into the booking process you realise RyanAir charge you to check on a bag, €3.50 which AerArann does not charge for.

Score one AerArann. [null]

Finally there is a handling Fee for booking with a Credit Card and with my MasterCard, AerArann would of charged me €6 and RyanAir Charges €2.50.

Score one RyanAir. [null]

So looking back at the process the only advantage AerArann has over RyanAir is that it doesn't charge you to check in luggage. But the little fee of €3.50 would balance out the handling fee making both companies charge €6. So if you Null those two to even out the playing field, RyanAir still has 2 up on AerArann.

Total cost for a flight from Cork to Dublin booked with MasterCard with 1 Bag checked on:
AerArann: €35.99
RyanAir: €15.99
Difference: €20.00
(which would pay for my flight back with RyanAir!)

All that aside the real question is why are Taxes, Fees and Charges completely different for the two airlines!?

AerArann Taxes and Fees

RyanAir Taxes, Fees & Charges

help win this bet

This guy bet his girlfriend that any old website could get 2million hits. If he wins he gets a threesome with another girl and if he looses, he is just called an idiot. Win Win situation!

Check it out and tell everyone else you know!!

www.HelpWinThisBet.com

UPDATE: I just noticed that the website has already gotten 28million hits. Ha!

i still care

It may look like I only post once a week, but believe me, I'd be posting every odd day if I could.

You get into a flow of posting if you keep it up regularly, where you can come up with newer and better and way more interesting things to talk about than just giving out about things you notice and say to yourself "I'm going to have to blog about that". But if you leave it slide, it gets harder to jump back in.

I'm going to be swamped for the next 3ish week, my exams are coming up, and even tho its a 4 year degree, the last 3 years mean NOTHING when it comes to the type of degree I get. It all boils down to these last 6 subjects and exams. And these subjects aren't a continuation of previously studied ones, they are fresh and new! Like all the other years!

Anyway, just a post to let you know I care, all my random and strange readers, esp the guy from Ireland who keeps getting here by having to type langers blog into Google! Why not subscribe to my feed burner, which still says 0 readers, even tho I know I subscribed :oS

census 2006

It's that time of the how ever long it is between Censuses!! Tonight every single person in the country is registered and accounted for. One of the Scout Parents I know is one of the Enumerators and it sounds like a pretty interesting job. Tonight she is on call and has to make a trip to the port in Ringaskiddy to ask the ships that are docked to fill out those forms!!

They get 30cent for each delivered form, and 30cent for each form collected, then months later if the form is processed correctly, she gets 3.50euro or something for each form. Onto that there is about 150euro for the room that you have to use for storage, travel expenses and other things like that. There was over 500 applicants for the 11 Enumerator places in my area. Then a interview process to cut down the list as well is the test at the start if you could fill in the application form correctly and completely!!

It's all fascinating stuff, who knows in another 4 years or so, I might apply myself!! Last Census I remember filling it out, and the education section all I have completed was Primary School or my Junior Cert even tho I was about to just sit my Leaving Cert in 2 months! This time around, after nearly 4 years of college I am only allowed to tick the Leaving Cert part of the education details, because there is just about 1 month left in college until I finally get my degree!!!

poker

Were getting into playing poker, Texas hold'em to be exact. The problem i have is that i keep forgetting what cards i have, so i started taking pictures of them. I think i went all in with this hand...

edgar

While I'm here... 24 on Sky last night (Sunday)... What a show!!! And killing off Edgar, what a tear jerker, it really had you caring for the character. Man that sucks that he died. Jack is so class, as is Chloe and Kim lost some hottness... but you will get over that.

CTU, what a building... Still tho... did Edgar need to die, no, of course not, some clever writing could of fixed that and had him in the room when they were evacuating!! But yeah, rating puller and I'll sure as eggs be watching it next week to see the next episode!!

The only problem was that i saw it coming, i accidentally read it online a few weeks back. So wished i didn't read it before hand!! I might of broken down and cried...

Another problem was that Footise didn't watch it yet so i had no one to talk to about it!! JERK!!

ryan, the gobshite

I'm sitting here, listening to 2fm, and its Gerry Ryan.. AGAIN. I dont mind the fact he is on the air at all, the problem is that this is the 3rd time i'm hearing him!! This is no Joke.

Since i was off all week i was listening to him sleeply in the mornings. Then again i heard him on Saturday Morning with the "Weekly Ryan", which isn't too bad, but still, i've heard all the pieces before. It is a handy show when i'm in college or last year in work to hear some intresting things. Now the problem is that i'm sitting here, its late and i want to listen to some music. I turn on the radio and that bastard is on again, saying the exact same thing, listening to the same stories for the 3rd time. The worse thing is that i'm pretty sure that i'm going to listen to it over another night during the week.

I'm so tired and i have to listen to that fat fuck. Comon 2fm, put some music on.

*UPDATE* The News just finished, and i thought so did Gerry Ryan, but the Weekly Ryan just started after it. I'm hearing another hour of him.... AHHHH.....

oh how i hate ye

USIT. For those of you luckily enough not to of heard about these Bastards before, they are one of the Student, Youth and Independent Travel companies here in Ireland. They have the monopoly for issuing the Canadian Visa's this year, and the only way of getting a visa is going through them. This includes a nice fat fee of €€379 just for the visa. And then you must fork out between €€600 and €€775 for a flight to Canada, which I must pay for in full by tomorrow, even though I'm going till November.

So I decided to ring the call centre today to book the flights. Today being Good Friday, and NOT A PUBLIC HOLIDAY so they have no right closing up shop. I've been ringing and ringing all morning and pressing 1 to book a new flight, as well as all the other options, but my call just keeps on getting dropped. I then decided to try the rest of the offices around the country. Each one no answer. I tried the North Office and got through straight away. They are open, and she said the South is closed because of Good Friday. BASTARDS. Grrrr!!

But they will be open tomorrow, so I can book my flight tomorrow, and bitch to them some more.

Man, I am so angry at this joke company. They treat you like shit and you can't do anything, not one thing about it.

calendar update

Ok, shakey start, but I'll get over it. Its all good now. I signed out and signed back in and it set me up again. I've painstakingly added all the birthday's and changed each one to repeat each year, and good ol' Google will probably add a birthday feature soon anyway!!

But anyway, give it a go, what is there to loose!?

calendar

Google Calendar launched today, and i jumped right in. I wanted to add all the birthdays for all my friends, and i went to all the trouble finding out the correct format of an MS Outlook CSV file and formatting everything so they could easily import all the dates. That was all well and good, except i had their birthdates in there, meaning i had to go back 20 or 30 years to view the birthday. Ok, start again and put in 2006 and 2007 in as the dates, but first delete the 119 entries i already imported.

It now looks like i deleted my Google Calendar account, and i can't get it back.
I'll give it an hour or so and check it again!

got me a writely

I'm talking to you from writely! Best online "word" ever!!

Its a funny story about Writely... i saw the website on a review about web office suites. I didn't bother signing up when i saw the website, probably thinking at the time, sure i can always sign up later. Then about a week later, Google buy it out! And sure enough, they have to close its doors to the mass of people now wishing to try out Google's new toy!! Myself included. I'm not going to deny the fact i love when Google take another step in taking over the world! I want to be part of it!!

So that's it. I found the invite online easily enough, way easier than the oukut invite!! So if you wanna try it out, send me an email and i'll send over an invitation to writely for ya on the double!!

This message was brought to you from writely!