Acceptable Usage Policies

While I dont usually talk about work, except to complain about it, I'm going to talk a little about it, while not giving the show away and getting fired.

The project I'm currently working on is pretty fecked. Its a computer application that we're developing. Its way behind schedule and is supposed to be ready by March 22nd! What a joke. I will eat my shorts if its ready by then. There are huge areas that arent done, but in true upbeat mode of my company, a "good effort" will see us through. Working late and weekends will get us through supposedly. If it is enough, it will be barely holding together. But I'm out the gap soon after, so I dont care if it falls over in a cloud of dust after I leave!

I got an e-mail today with the "Acceptable Usage Policy" of the company I'm currently working at. I'm not actually employed by them, so I dont really have to follow it entirely. You see, I'm basically a contractor working at a different company. I've highligted some of my favourite aspects of it, which I find ridiculous and hilarious. If you knew what a sham the company is, it would make more sense. But take my word for it, this company is a bit of a joke.

According to the AUP,

• "more than 5 non-business related e-mail items per day" is considered unacceptable use of the e-mail system
• you can only use the printers, faxes and photocopiers for "Business use only"
• "Personal mobile phones to be switched on or used during office hours except for absolute emergencies"

My personal favourite is the last one. If it was actually enforced, EVERYONE at work would be disciplined or fired for breaching, or "breeching" as was mentioned in the e-mail, the AUP. What fool dreamt up of that one, I wonder. The place is such a mess, there is about 1 phone for every 10 people, so the only way to actually carry out business related calls is to use your mobile.

Something else that made me laugh today, was they had this "crack team" of computer cleaners going around cleaning everyones PC's. They would have been better off cleaning the rest of the office, as there's crap thrown everywhere, so cleaning the computers didnt make much of a difference.

Thankfuly I did a search for blogs or blogging in the AUP, and there was no mention of it. I didnt expect it to be that up-to-date considering we're talking about a company that requires consultants to do even the simpliest of things!

I've outdone myself

Ok, for those of you who thought I've given up on blogging, then this SECOND blog in one day should dispel this rumour. The other thing that I've done today that I dont think I've ever done, was work for 12.5 hours in one day. I arrived into work today at about 9.15am and left at 9.45pm. I didnt take any lunch, except maybe 5 minutes to go out to the shop to buy something to eat at my desk.

Maybe now some of you will forgive me for not blogging regularly!

Blame my employer

I just wanted to post something quick to apologise for my complete lack of blogging for the past 11 days. But in my defence, I have been working 12 hours days since then. Believe me, its not fun, but if you're to blame anyone for my lack of blogging, blame my employer! (who shall remain nameless for now, at least until I finish on April 15th)

Speaking of which, I e-mailed HR yesterday telling them of my intention to resign, but I've heard nothing since. I mean, I'm resigning, and I dont even get a response! What reaction would I get if I had some serious HR issue? Seemingly, nothing. Resignation doesnt trigger any alarm bells in their heads, so its just as well I'm leaving. Before now I thought of them as pretty useless, but not hearing a peep from them after I tell them I'm leaving, I totally believe that they're useless! More to follow on this topic of me leaving soon...... I swear!

Its not that I'm not thinking of stuff to blog, I am, all the time, but I just literally dont have the time to type it out. I have a few posts started, but have never gotten around to finishing them. I PROMISE I will be better, especially for Seamus and Kellie who actually care if I blog or not. Thanks to my two regular readers for commenting by the way!

New Direction

I've been pretty quiet recently on the blogging front, mainly because I've been working a lot lately. And then this weekend, I was just recovering from it all.

It occurred to me over the weekend, that instead of trying to blog regularly about the latest news stories, I should give up on that front because there are a lot of blogs that do this really well. Instead, I'm going to stop blogging about interesting articles I read about and concentrate on blogging about my opinions on certain things that annoy me or that I find interesting. After all, I originally started blogging to do just this, so blogging about articles and current affairs is straying from my aim of blogging.

I'm constantly walking around and seeing all these things pop out at me as an idea for blogging. Hopefully I'll be able to remember all these things and write about them. With work going like it is, its getting harder to read blogs and blog at work. Thankfully I'm not the only one facing this problem as to when to blog.

While there have been many high profile cases of people getting fired for blogging about their employer and saying bad things against them, I wonder do many people get fired or even disciplined for blogging at work? Blogger.com is blocked at work for me, so the only way for me to blog is to e-mail my posts or else type them up at work, and then post them when I get home. Does this constitute misuse of e-mail or internet?

I'm also considering if I should use Movable Type or WordPress. Doing this would involve actually paying money for a hosting company and would involve more time in maintaining it. I'm not sure if I would have the time or the motivation to do this. I wonder what anyones experiences are with making the move from Blogger to MT or WP.

I've noticed that Blogger have also changed the comments. You no longer have to own a Blogger account to comment. And they did this just after I made the change to HaloScan. I'm not sure will I move back or stay where I am.

Well, that's me done for the day.

Selling My Soul

I've been working like a dog at work, (which will remain nameless for fear of dismissal, even though I've handed in my notice!) so I havent been able to stay up to date with the blogsphere. Having spent about 10 or 11 hours in front of a computer, spending another minute in front of one when I get home, blogging isnt high on my agenda!

I may not be the most frequent poster, but for these past few days, I havent even been reading some blogs. One that I have managed to read is United Irelander which is well worth a read. Hopefully I'll be able to catch up on my blog reading and posting over the weekend.....that is if I dont have to work Saturday!

The Superbowl!

I must admit, I dont follow the sports of your typical Irish person. In case you dont know me, I've compiled a little list to back up my argument.

• I played hockey and intend starting again
• I currently play volleyball
• I enjoy watching cricket and understand the rules
  
• Baseball is actually a good sport
• I have never played ANY GAA sport
• I dont usually watch a soccer match from start to finish (the hint there is that I call it soccer, not football. People tell me its a dead give away I dont follow "football" when I say soccer)
• I went to a rugby playing school all my life and never really got into rugby
• I've been to an ice hockey match
  
• And finally, I stayed up until after 3am Monday morning to watch Superbowl XXXIX

For those of you who arent in to American sports, I think you're missing out. The Superbowl at the weekend was good. It wasnt the best game EVER, but it was damm good watching. It was a shame that Philadelphia Eagles threw away the game, in my opinion, but it was still entertaining. The result was 24-21 in the end and the Eagles nearly clinched it at the end, but unfortunately the dynasty was too much.

If you think I'm crazy to be watching American sports, just look around you for examples. There is a message board dedicated to American Football on Boards.ie, the Portebello pub was absolutely packed Sunday night with people watching the Superbowl according to my friend and its on Sky Sports almost every weekend.

Boston has been enjoying its second parade in recent times, following the Boston Red Sox World Series win in October. But spare a thought for Philadelphia who hasnt won anything since 1983. In spite of being a big city, their sports teams have never really come anywhere, except for this year. But the Patriots ended those dreams.


I'm not really sure why I enjoy these sports, and not the typical Irish sports like hurling and gaelic football. I just dont find them as interesting or as exciting as some other sports that are out there. Dont get me wrong, hurling is a great sport to watch, but it still doesnt have me browsing the internet for hours reading articles or staying up until 3am.

Before the superbowl, I was chatting online to a friend from Boston. I was just chatting generally to him about how the AFC and the NFC (basically the rounds before, with the Superbowl as the final) were going. He was completely amazed at how much I knew and how much I loved the sports. He didnt think anyone in Ireland really cared for American Football. I must say I enjoyed talking about it more than I do about hurling.

There was an interesting article on Sky Sports before the superbowl with interesting facts about it. For some reason, I cant find it now, but on of the most interesting facts about it was that there are more toilets flushed at half-time of the Superbowl in America that any other time of the year. Another one, was that Superbowl weekend is the slowest weekends of the year for weddings! Weird eh? Or you may be thinking that I'm the weird one here!

Follow Up To J1 Blog

My blog about how the number of J1's is declining prompted a nice little debate when I posted it back in January. Following up from this, there is an interesting article in today's Irish Independent which gives some interesting facts about the J1 experience.

There are a number of heartening things said, pointing to a reversal in the decline of Irish students spending the summer in the USA. "However, the numbers taking part are expected to go back up this year with the active encouragement of the US embassy in Dublin." Since 1996, USIT have sent 150,000 students to the States. This is a huge figure, but doesnt include SAYIT who I went with in 2002, and are in my opinion much better. So I reckon the true figure is actually well over 200,000.

Of those that went, "97pc said they would recommend the J-1 Work and Travel programmes to future students." and that "Seven out of ten were in jobs within a fortnight of arrival". These statistics seems to dispel the rumours that going on a J1 is a difficult and not worthwhile. I would argue that the other 30% got jobs soon after, and it they didnt, then they must either have been extremely unlucky or completely non employable! Its also good to see that 82% went travelling for 2 weeks after finishing work. I went on 3 weeks travelling, which was amazing. Considering the programme is called "Work & Travel Programme" I suppose its not surprising people go travelling afterwards, although some people just go straight home, which is a pity.

When Is Easter?

When anyone ever asked me, when is Easter, I always told them I didnt have a clue. For some reason, it was one of those things that I didnt really care about. When Easter came about, I just accepted it. I never went out of my way to find out, and just waited until it came around, or someone told me to find out. However, thanks to the wonder of the internet, the reasons behind why it changes every year are at my fingertips!

There is an article in today's BBC explaining how the date for Easter is set and it makes some sense, but I'm couldnt be bothered to read it all in depth now. I get the gist of it, but I'm not that interested in Gregorian calendars and the like. But I felt that my massive audience might appreciate the answer to this critical decision!

I also found an article on the US Navy website of all places, which gives an equally in depth reason. For the computer scientists amongst you, it even gives an algorithm to allow you calculate the date for Easter each year! For those who dont know what an algorithm is, they have a handy list of when Easter falls up until 2024 so you can plan your Easter Egg buying.... I mean, so you can plan your celebration of the resurection of Christ!

Weird

I dont want to call it stealing, more "spreading the word" when I copy and paste the following blog from Penguins Rock. Its so cool, I couldnt resist posting it.

This is so funny that it will boggle your mind. And you will keep trying at least 50 more times to see if you can outsmart your foot, but you can’t.

1. While sitting at your desk, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles.

2. Now, while doing this, draw the number “6″ in the air with your right hand. Your foot will change direction……..And there’s nothing you can do about it!

Ode To Kellie

There once was a girl called Kellie,
Who some people thought was quite smelly,
But let the truth be told,
That when I'm old,
I hope that we'll still be friends.

Blue Feet

Either 1) I'm getting better at this blogging thing, 2) the BBC are writing better articles recently, 3) I dont have much work to do or 4) all the above, but whatever I'm going to post another blog similar to the last couple. I clicked on this article because it was titled " How MI5 plotted to trick Germans into painting one foot blue". Seemingly, the British intelligence services, gave dis-information to their double agents saying that British soldiers paint one foot blue. If German soldiers arrived with a blue foot, it would be easy to take them out! I wonder if the Germans arrived, would they actually have fell for that and painted their boots blue? You never know with those Germans!

The other thing mentioned in the article is that Eamon De Valera was "intrigued" by the idea of entering the war! Whats all that about?

Another Good Article

I seem to be in the mood to post loads of good articles today, so I'm going to continue with this one The weird thing is that the photograph in the article is of the coffee shop I go to everyday!Weird. Myself and my co-workers go pretty much everyday to West Coast Coffee on Duke Street, which is just off Grafton Street. The people who work there (One Dutch, One Italian and One Irish) are all really friendly and its a nice break from the office. Actually a few weeks back, the Irish girl (still dont know their names though) took our photograph as we were putting sugar in our coffee! Weird, but it actually turned out quite well. I dont look like a fool, like I do in most of the photographs on the right.

The article itself is actually pretty interesting as it gives an American view of Ireland these days, and how it has changed so much in recent years. Well worth a read, but the fact the photograph is from MY local coffee shop and its in the New York Times makes it all the better. (Just as I type this, a guy at work just walked in with his daily fix of West Coast Coffee. I'll have to go later!)

My First Blog On America (Well not really!)

Considering all the "hoo-hah" about Bush and America in the Irish media and so on, its surprising that I haven't blogged about America and my opinions on it. Unfortunately, I'm not going to do it now either, but rest assured I'm going to do it eventually, and when it is, it wont be a short quick one either. I actually have quite a bit to say about America and all that goes with it, but it will take a while to get all my thoughts together coherently.

What I am going to mention today however, is an article that Laura blogged about yesterday. I think it makes for very interesting reading and I would strongly recommend you reading it. Its about how the US might have to start drafting people into the Army because they're running out of people.

Uh-oh!

A furry animal has spoken! We're destined for another 6 weeks of wintery weather according to a groundhog. I'm kind of at a loss as to how exactly it happens, but if you're so inclined you can read all about it here All I want to know is why there were 2,000 people waiting at 3.30am for this to happen, when in fact it took place at 7.31am!

Italian Men Are Mummy Boys!

The BBC News website is one of the websites I look at everyday. When I came across this article I couldnt help but smile. You might think its really weird, but having lived with an Italian guy and know quite a few others, it doesnt surprise me. What does surprise me, is that it made the news.

I hope I can add to the article by giving my reasons why Italian guys live with their parents for so long. One of which is mentioned in the article relates to university. In Italy, you can be up to 6/7 years doing a degree. I've no idea why it takes so long, but generally, Italians go to college for longer than we do. My friend Peppe (who you can see in some of the photos) lives with his parents while at college. Not living away from home at college, makes him more dependent on his mother's cooking (which is absolutely amazing), making it harder for him to move out. By the time he's finished college he could be 26/27, and to make the transition to the real world would be tough.

Another reason I think is because the Italian culture for men puts their mother as #1. Peppe and I often joked about this. He would tell me that his mum comes first, then his family and then women. (And he, like most Italian guys love their women!) So even if Italian guys move out and get married, their wife will still only be their 2nd most important woman. I guess the reason why mothers are valued so much is because they make absolutely amazing food.

It is kind of sad that these grown men are living with their parents for so long. I pretty much moved out of home when I was 20, nearly 21. Since then I have only been at home for a handful of days in a row, usually around Christmas. I wonder how many Irish men in their 30's live with their parents?

What Did I Ever Do?

So, I'm just after getting the phone from one of my good friends who is working in Florida for 6 months. I havent talked with him in a couple of weeks, so it was good to catch up. Anyway, as you may know, I'm finishing my job in Dublin soon, so I will have a couple of months to go travelling. I will be finishing up in about a month or so giving me plenty of time to visit my friend.

Two other friends from school are going to visit him at the start of March for 10 days. He's taking a few days off to go travelling around with them, which would be cool to join in on. Although I will probably still be working, I could get off if I had to. I mentioned to him if I could go over too, to which he said, he wouldnt mind, but someone else might i.e. one of the lads going over. You see, for some reason, myself and this guy, lets call him Paul, never really got on. I'm not sure why, but we were never really good friends, even though we were in the same group of friends in school and kinda still are. Our other friends often joked about it, but we just passed it off as a joke because I support Spurs and he supports Newcastle, who dont get on anyway.

But when I asked, lets say David if I could join them, he basically said that there was no point in lying, but Paul had said that I cant come with them. I mean, I probably couldnt go then anyway, but even if I wanted to, I couldnt go because Paul wouldnt like it. It really pisses me off that he would feel that strongly. David said that its not my fault, and just his. I asked if there was any specific reason why he didnt like me, to which David said no.

I've never done anything to him and have actually made an effort to be friendly, but he just insists on saying as little as possible to me. And for him to actually stand in my way of going visiting David really annoys me. I shouldnt have to change my plans just because he's so ignorant and stubborn and not willing to get on.

This reminds me of an occasion when we were all out for a friends gig. Paul was driving and dropped David home. It was late in the morning and I didnt have the car, so I had no way home. Even though it would only have been about 15/20 minutes max out of his way, Paul didnt offer to drop me home and so I had to stay on David's floor that night, which I felt bad doing because it was such short notice. If the roles were reversed, I wouldnt have hesitated in dropping him home. What he did, or rather didnt do is just plain mean.

I could probably ramble on for a while longer, but I dont think I'd make any sense. It just really annoys and frustrates me that someone can actually consciously act like he does. Hopefully I wont be so pissed off in the morning after a good nights sleep. I wonder has anyone else had a similar situation with a "friend" who is cold and unfriendly for no obvious reason?

HaloScan

I've just updated my comments to HaloScan, but left the link to the Blogger comments for the meantime, so I can copy them over to HaloScan later. From now on, use the HaloScan link to post a comment. Hopefully more people will comment now as you dont have to be a Blogger member to do so now.

By the way, Green Day was amazing! I'm still on a high after it. I've also added a photo which I took last night. Hopefully it will give you a flavour of what it was like.

Green Day

So, in a word - amazing! I went to the Green Day concert last night in The Point and it was one of the best concerts I've ever been at. Not only was the music great, they also put on a really good show. The crowd were really up for it too. When we arrived, the crowd were singing along to the warm up music and laughing at the drunk pink bunny dancing on stage! I've never experienced that before.

Not surprisingly, they started off with American Idiot and the crowd just went mental (as I type, I just got the goosebumps thinking back to last night!) They played quite a number of songs from their new album American Idiot and the crowd were loving it. Even though we were quite a bit from the stage in the main section, and not the pit, the crowd were still going mental. The one great thing about the band is that they were always getting the crowd involved. I've been at Snow Patrol and Bell X1 and they didnt get the crowd in at all. Green Day put on a show that everyone loved, even if you werent the biggest die hard fan.

One of Green Day's trademarks at concerts is getting 3 audience members up on stage to start a band. They got up a drummer and bass guitarist no problem. They both really loved it and could play really well. Then it came to getting a lead guitarist. Some father on the upper balcony was shouting at Billy Joe saying his daughter could play. He agreed, so she came down. But it took so long for her to come down. He was just after starting to look for a new player, but she arrived. After all that waiting, which must have been 2-3 minutes, she froze! She couldnt play it, so they had to get someone else who could. They got another guy up and they all played really well. Then to top it off, Patrick, as he introduced himself, was given Billy Joe's guitar, which must be worth a fortune! What a lucky b*stard! That poor girl must have had nightmares about her screwing up last night! Stupid over-bearing father!


The lads I went with arent huge fans, so they were banking on them playing Basket Case and Time of Your Life. To please the lads, they duly obliged, with Time Of Your Life as the perfect final song. The stage was massive with a large screen at the back and explosions going off every now and then at particular points in songs. To concert ended in a massive explosion of confetti which covered the entire audience. It was absolutely amazing. Billy Joe then came back to sing Time Of Your Life and everyone was holding up lighters and mobile phones! Yes, mobile phones. One of the unintentional affects of the smoking ban, is that hardly anyone has lighters anymore. So everyone was holding up their phones with the lights on. It really looked cool, even if it was a little strange.

Another thing that I was really impressed with was that they stayed on for almost 2 hours including an encore. They barely left the stage, before coming back to do an encore of about 3 songs. And all this for €35! While U2 MIGHT be better in June in Dublin, for sheer value for money Green Day will win hands down. At least with Green Day, you dont have Bono spewing crap in between each song! Dont get me wrong, I love U2 and have seen them twice, but €70 is fairly steep for a ticket.

I could continue on saying how amazing they were forever, but I'm going to leave it at this. If anyone ever gets the chance to go to them, you should grab it with both hands.