Now This Is Frustrating!

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It Gives Me Great Pleasure To Announce.....

..... that someone has taken up blogging directly as a result of me hassling them to do so! I've been trying (and have failed... so far) with Ashley (you know who you are) but she refuses to budge. I think I was also partially responsible for speading some blogging love to Kellie.

Anyway, I present to you Dan vs The World. He's a good friend that I played volleyball with in 2001 with UCC Volleyball Club. We've kept it touch a good bit, and he actually visited me on his road trip back from Minnesota or somewhere in New Jersey when I was over there doing an internship in the summer of 2003.

I was chatting to him online and was telling him about my blog. I told him he should set up his own one, but he said that no one would be interested in what he does. He's a white American guy living in the land of cultural opposites: Japan, teaching English. And from reading his blog so far, its actually very interesting - reading about his struggles with the Japanese culture.

Not wanting to forget anyone in the shout outs, I want to mention Laura's blog. She actually first introduced me to blogs. Thing is, I've never met her, but I came across her when I was searching for internet cafes in Dublin and came across this post about how she ended up in an internet cafe, instead of going out enjoying Dublin. It gave me the idea to start my own blog. 6 months later here I am, with 2 (almost 3 - Ashley, I'll break you yet) blog referrals under my belt!

If you can, you should take a swing by either Dan's, Kellie's or Laura's blog. Tell them I said hello.

Something Handy

While, I'm using Gmail as my main e-mail provider, I still have my Hotmail address because a lot of people still use that one to contact me. Anyway, my friend told me the other night, that there's some hack that allows you upgrade your account to 25MB storage and 10MB attachements. After a month it get increased to 250MB storage. Firstly, its not really a hack, as Hotmail give it to all US accounts. You basically have to change your profile to an American address. And secondly, its still way shorter than Gmail's 2GB and counting (currently at: 2137.104076MB)

I somewhat cautiously tried the hack on my 2nd Hotmail account first should anything go wrong. It went perfect, so still with a little uneasyness I upgraded my main account. It worked a treat! No problems whatsoever. There are number of different sites with the hack here and here which both say exactly the same thing but are reassuring with all the comments.

To think you can buy Hotmail Plus for €19.99 a month for about as much as this free hack, it doesn't make sense to buy it. Anyway, its something handy, so you might as well do it.

I Don't Usually Do This....

.... but I am. I'm going to beg! You see, the nice people at Flickr are after giving existing pro account holders 2 free pro accounts to give away.

Now as you know I'm after starting my travel blog (My Misguided Travels) and having a Flickr Pro account would be really handy. I mean, my travels are completely misguided and who wouldnt want to see photographs of my mishaps? It wouldnt be a great blog if I didnt have photos on it, now would it?

So, if any of my readers have a spare Flickr Pro account to give away and would like to give it to me, I would really appreciate it. You can e-mail me the details of the free account. In return, I will be forever grateful to you, and you never know, if you're lucky, I might send you a postcard from my travels!

Having a Flickr Pro account, I could then use it to post photos from my travels in South America and the United States which will be then put up on the My Misguided Travels blog.

Well, any takers? Don't all rush at once!

Habemus Papum

While not having a major opinion on the election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as the 265th Pope, I would like to recommend the New York Times for coverage of it. I think the NYTimes is an excellent newspaper and this is shown by their excellent interactive graphic which explains pretty much everything you need to know about the election of the of Pope Benedict XVI. It is well worth reading as I found it very useful having not paid very clost attention to the news coverage of it recently.

I hope he will be an excellent Pope and carry on what the late Pope John Paul II did. I suspect he will though, as he was John Paul's right hand man for a lot of things.

Wonderful Ireland

My last few posts may have suggested that I've had enough of Ireland, with the dependence of Irish society on alcohol. Certainly my travels to South America and my quitting of my Dublin job to take one in London all indicate that. However, Ireland is a wonderful place. And to prove it, I want to recount a pretty small and insignificant story.

Earlier this evening, I ran out of petrol while cutting the lawn. I usually hate cutting the lawn, but considering I haven't done it in at least a year, I didnt mind. Having only cut half the lawn, I had to walk to the local petrol station, just 500m down the road to fill up the petrol can. On my way back after getting my €5 of petrol, I was stopped by a man in the car going my direction. He asked me if I had run out of petrol and did I want a lift back to the car. I thanked him, but just told him it was for the lawnmower and I was nearly home. While a couple of cars drove right past me, this man thought it necessary to stop the car and ask me if I was in trouble. Funninly enough, just as I left the petrol station to walk home, I thought to myself how nice it would be to get a lift home, as it was pretty cold, and I was feeling lazy.

So, even though people are saying that Irish people are passing themselves out in the rat race, trampling over each other to get ahead, I think that we still haven't lost out friendliness and goodwill towards each other.

I found it a bit funny when he stopped me and I told him it was just for the lawnmower, but it was good because it reconfirmed my belief that Ireland is a great country, in spite of all its trivial failings like a crap road network!

My Misguided Travels

So, as planned, I've started another blog which I will update on my travels around the United States and more importantly South America. I've called it "My Misguided Travels" and it can be found at: http://misguidedtravels.blogspot.com/ I've already posted to it and I intend posting to it quite a bit more before I leave.

I've been told internet access is quite good in South America, so hopefully I will be able to post regularly as I travel around, ideally at least every second day. I'm also hoping to be able to post photos as I go along, but I'm not sure about being able to download the photos from my camera in some internet cafes. But hopefully I will, as I think photos will tell you more about my travels than any amount of words.

So, bookmark this new blog and hopefully you'll enjoy reading about my travels. It might even encourage you to follow suit and travel around South America. Its only 2 weeks away, and I can't wait to go!

It's Tough Being Unemployed

In spite of my unemployment, I'm still pretty poor at this blogging business. Not having broadband directly connected to me via a drip is an issue. I'm suffering from withdrawl symptoms I think.

Well, I'm not really. Being unemployed is great. I'm enjoying sleeping in until noon everyday and having nothing in particular to do. The fact I'm still getting paid (I had 2 weeks overtime and 1 weeks holidays due to me) makes it even sweeter. I was jokingly thinking of drawing the dole, but I don't think I would stand much chance of getting it because I think you have to prove you've searched for a job. If they looked up my record and saw I quit a good job, it wouldnt look to good.

I went out in Cork at the weekend with some friends, which was good fun. It was nice actually having a life and enjoying myself, rather than having to sell my soul and work crazy hours. Cork is good fun to go out in, and the fact I haven't done it in a while made it great fun. But too much of it is a bad thing. One of my friends said that he's looking forward to a break from Cork too, and I agree with him. Its not the kind of city I could live in long term. Its just too small.

I've actually said the same thing about Dublin, but I think thats because Dublin is full of Cork people. Honestly, every second person from Accenture was from Cork. There was even a joke in the company about it being taken over by the Cork Mafia! My travels in South America will be a welcome break from Ireland. And moving to London will be great. I can't wait actually. Good new job, big city, good money, meeting new people.

I'm Loaded!

Today, for some reason, probably to keep my mind occupied during my days of unemployment, I went into Permanent TSB and Ulster Bank and closed my accounts. For some reason, I opened these accounts when I was young, probably to get some free thing. I never actually used them afterwards. But every so often, I get bank statements from them telling them what pathetic amount of money I have, and the even more pathetic amount of interest I have earned.

So, in a bid to organise my life a bit, I felt I could do without these two accounts. Armed with my passport, as I hadn't a clue of the account numbers and had long since lost the cards, I went into the banks. After much filling out of forms and getting managers authorisation, I eventually closed my accounts. It turns out my Permanent TSB account had actually gone dormant, while my Ulster Bank was considered "inoperative".

After about 30 minutes of queueing up and filling out forms, I walked away a cool €3.23 richer!! Sweet eh? €2.38 from Permanent TSB and the princely sum of 55c from Ulster Bank.

All in all, a very productive day I think!

Google Maps

In the past week or so, there have been quite a number who have mentioned Google Maps and the fact it now has satellite maps. Its a pretty cool idea, but the fact it only covers North America kinda sucks, but its still good none the less. I wouldn't have bothered blogging about it, except I came across Google Sightseeing by reading Jeffrey Veen's blog (through Caoimhe's Blog). Google Sightseeing is a collection of cool satellite photos picked up on Google Maps. Definitely worth a look I think.

Its actually very similar to Yann Arthus-Bertrand's photography, and specifically "Earth From Above". His photography is simply amazing and persuaded me to carry this massive book all the way home from New York because you couldn't get it in Ireland at the time. It weighed an absolute tonne, but it was worth it. His photography is simply breath-taking.

Dublin - Capital of Drinking

If Cork is the European Capital Of Culture, then I think Dublin should be awarded the European Capital Of Drinking. As this weekend is my last weekend in Dublin, I decided to head out with a few people from volleyball. There was supposed to be some big club night out in a pub, but when I turned up, there was nobody there. To be honest, I wasn't that pushed on going. I just wanted to show my face, it being my last weekend in Dublin.

Walking down Grafton Street, it's amazing the amount of people who were around most on a big night out in Dublin. I imagine if I headed to Temple Bar, it would have been busier. It got me thinking, if you want to do something at the weekend, is the only real option the pub? Worringly, I think it is. There is the cinema, of which Ireland has the second highest level of attendance in Europe, but thats it. It was quite early when I was around, so there were only a few drunks wandering around, but I imagine things are a lot worse now, early in the morning.

Having just read this article by Markham Nolan who is going off drink for a year, and is blogging the entire thing here, I couldn't but totally agree with him. He puts it much better in his excellent article, but its true, everything in Ireland revolves around the pub. Even my aunt, who is now living in Dublin, when I meet her asks me about what pubs I go to. Does this question determine my level of enjoyment in Dublin? I enjoyed my time here in Dublin. I really enjoyed playing volleyball with UCD and the people I worked with were good fun, and yes we did have some good nights out in pubs, but honestly, what else were we to do? In fact, my last 2 days of work were spent mostly in the pub. Put simply, someone in the company cut a cable that ended up shutting down the entire company for one day and prevented anyone doing anything useful for another.

So, while I'm sad to be leaving Dublin, in reality, I'm not that sad leaving behind the society where the pub and getting drunk is the commonly accepted way of enjoying oneself. Granted, London and British society isn't much different, but in my time there last summer, I had a great time, and it wasn't in the pubs. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy going out and getting drunk as much as the next person and making a complete fool out of myself. Or having a nice cold pint of Murphys in a nice quiet pub with some good friends.

But what I don't like is, as Markham puts it

Spend five days a week waiting for the weekend; then for two days, gather as a group and drink to forget; spend five days recovering; drink to forget…

Its the mentality and acceptance of drinking that gets to me. Many people have opinions on the Irish culture of drinking. Isnt it sad that our National Holiday is effectively an excuse to get hammered and do stupid things? Why do plane loads of tourists come to Ireland for "St. Patty's Day" (as Americans like to call it) other than to have some "craic" (loosely translates as get out of your mind drunk for 14 hours). There's nothing wrong with having a good time, but when Americans tell me I could drink them under the table because I was raised as a drinking machine, then you know its too much. You can only laugh it off once or twice. But we need to look at how we are perceived when the joke of the the drunken Irish even makes it into The Simpsons.

I Knew My Name Would Cost Me My Moment of Glory on CNN

As you've probably guessed from the title of my blog, my name is Ciaran. If this is a surprise to you, then I think you're beyond help! You see, I spell my name the Irish way. Other ways of spelling it are: Kieran, Kyron, Kieron, Kiaran and Kiran. Definitions of my name here and here are interesting. Ciaran seems to mean "little dark one" which doesn't seem match me, but anyway.

Almost everytime I order something or give my name, they always end up spelling it incorrectly. The USA was a big problem. I was frequently greeted with "Could you repeat that Sir?" or "I beg your pardon Sir" (best read in an American accent!) and ended up getting called Siarnan or Siran. Things aren't much better in Ireland either and I frequently get called Kieran. I used to get annoyed, but I've decided not to worry any longer. Its pointless.

So when I got an e-mail asking how I pronounce my name, I wasn't too surprised. But when it came from CNN I sat up in my chair. This is the e-mail I was sent, just to prove I'm not pulling your leg:

Hi Ciaran,
Taking a stab that you might be online at this late hour. It's Jacki from CNN's Inside the Blogs.

We may use your blog on the air today, and I just want to make sure I pronounce your name correctly. My best guess is that it sounds like Kirin (like the beer), but please correct me if I am wrong. (or then forgive me if I mispronounce it should this email not reach you in time.

Thank you,
Jacki Schechner
CNN Blog Reporter

My blog was picked up by Jacki who does the "Inside The Blogs" segment on the programme Inside Politics. As the Pope's funeral is the hot topic at the moment, she gave a rundown of blogs referring to the Pope as can be seen in the transcript of the show. Having checked my blog at StatCounter, I've figured out that she was looking at my blog "Camera Phones & The Pope". She was probably going to mention how technology has impacted on one of the most tech savvy Popes. But she didnt! The fact she couldn't pronounce my name, undoubtedly cost me my moment of glory on CNN and was probably replaced by this blog, SuperMum.

Ah well, maybe I'll have better luck next time. Still, to be even considered for a mention on CNN is way cool. I never expected my blog to reach those dizzy heights. But to miss out on it because someone doesn't have a clue how to pronounce my name, is a kick in the teeth!

Update:

Seems like there is quite a bit out there about blogs getting mentioned on CNN's Inside Politics. Some examples here and here with some articles on the topic here, here and here.

They're watching me!

Like a lot of blogs, I have the True Fresco list of referring link pages. So when I saw: http://atom.pubsub.com/5d/c5/d175c7a41bc0afb961b6a16611, I was very curious. Turns out its a website that monitors all blog references to a particular keyword, or in their own terms PubSub is the world's first Internet-scale matching engine.... I wasn't really surprised when it turned out to be Accenture, but still a little freaked out by it.

I guess not revealing what company I worked for until I left, was a good idea. I'm assuming its monitored by someone in Accenture, so if I had said anything bad about the company, I might have had a little word in my ear from my manager!

Blogger Code

For the observant amongst you, I've added my Blogger Code to the bottom of the page. My code is: B2 d- t k+ s u- f- i o+ x e+ l- c. If its not obvious what that is, then click here to have it decoded.

Its an interesting old survey that tells you what kind of blogger you are. Pretty nifty I think, and a complete waste of your time, if thats what you want!

I Should Really Go To Sleep

Ok, as the trusty old clock will say, its 4:47am here and I'm still awake. You might ask, how come? Why havent you fallen asleep? Well, I was about to go to sleep at about 12:00am, but a friend came online. I was going to bed again at about 1:30am, but I ended up searching for a reason why Blogger wasn't working. But then I came across w.bloggar which works, even when the website doesn't. Its actually a great little application that you can use to post plogs to a whole host of different blogs. And to stop me from going to bed then, I came across a plug-in that I could use with w.bloggar and Media Monkey (my new mp3 player of choice, which is excellent and much better than WinAmp or Windows Media Player) that allows you to insert what you're listening to when you post. Cool eh?

So if you want to do what I just did, but do it without having to stay awake until 4:55am (as it is now!) download w.bloggar here, MediaMonkey here and the plug-in here. I think all of them are excellent and make life so much easier for the music-listening blogger!

So, I'm just posting to see if staying up this late has been worth is, and it all works correctly! Its obvious I don't have to get up early and go to work! Man I love being unemployed!

If you download any of these, leave a comment. I'd be curious to know.

[Listening to: Lucky And Unhappy - Air - 10000 Hz Legend]

Camera Phones & The Pope

While the Pope has been considered very media savy and was behind setting up of the Vatican Website, I don't think he would approve of people taking photographs on his final journey during the funeral. I noticed a lot of people taking photos with their camera phones, and thought it was a little much.

When asked why people are going to the Vatican, some reply saying that they just want to be there and be part of it, even if they never see the Pope or the funeral. Why people want to take photos with their relatively poor quality camera phones, doesn't make sense. There are plenty of good quality photos of the Pope that people can use to remember the Pope by. Just being there is enough for some people, and their memories of being there will be better than any photo captured on a camera phone.

So when I found this article on the BBC, I read it with interest. It noted that

"Taking pictures or filming a pope on his sick bed were banned and anyone taking pictures after death must have permission of the chamberlain and show the body only in pontifical vestments"

I think that this is a good thing because associating the Pope, who is God's highest representative on Earth with any gadgets suggest a tiny bit of tackyness, which I think is wrong. While I don't think anyone who took a photo with a camera or phone committed a sin. Far from it. They made the journey to the Vatican to pay their respects. What I do think, is that their presence there should have been enough and that there is no need to take photos.

While I never considered going to the Vatican to see the Pope, I would feel very uncomfortable taking a photo of him. It suggest to me that it is just something for our entertainment, like animals in a zoo.

Well, I'll let you make up your opinions on the subject, but I just wanted to highlight the article and the whole topic. Feel free to leave comments if you agree or disagree with me.

Planet Of The Blogs

Just realised that Boards.ie have an Irish blog aggregator called Planet Of The Blogs and I'm on it. Its weird how my blog is getting picked up by these random website without even knowing it. Reckon its courtesy to include their link on my blog.

Nearing The End

I have lived in Dublin for only 211 days, and have only 5 left. You see, I came up to Dublin as a somewhat innocent student just out of college, to start working for what is probably one of the best companies in Ireland. Or so I thought. You see, I did the graduate programme with Accenture. I know its bad to mention employers, but I no longer work for them and don't intend to do so in the future again. Besides, what I am about to say is known to them. I've told them how I feel. The only thing I haven't told them is that I'm blogging about it.

I have lived all my life in Cork, including going to UCC. I don't regret going to UCC as its a great college, but now that I'm done, I realise that I must move on and out of Cork. During my final year of BIS, I applied to about 15-20 London based companies. e.g. Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank etc. I got interviews for most of them and spent half my time in London interviewing, but didn't get a job. So I applied to Accenture, the only Irish company I applied to. And low and behold, I got a job. I had heard many good things about them, namely they're massive and the money is as good as it gets for an Irish graduate.

But I was wrong. They grind you to the bone, expecting you to sign away your life working god awful hours. For the past 2 months, I was working from about 9am to at least 8pm, if not 10pm. And if you left early, they made you feel guilty. The people I worked there were nice, but man, the conditions were crap.

Luckily for me, all these applications in London actually got me something - an internship with Credit Suisse First Boston. I got on amazing last summer, and a few months ago, they offered me a full time job starting in July. While Accenture was a good job by Irish and Dublin standards, compared to CSFB, it was rubbish. Everything about the job was better - working hours, offices, money, benefits and most importantly, it was in London, somewhere I wanted to go straight out of college. Unfortunately, that didnt work out, but I did get to experience Dublin and the consulting lifestyle. I thought it would be great travelling around working for different clients everywhere, but it soon wore off. So when the London job offer came through, it was an easy decision. I didnt enjoy leaving the job and the people, but it is such a better opportunity.

So, this new job of mine starts in July, and having finished with Accenture on Friday last, this leaves me with almost 4 months free time. And man am I going to take advantage of it.

The plan (which I think I've already mentioned here) is to go to Orlando, Florida, then onto Buenos Aires, Argentina, then into Brazil, then Bolivia and then back into Argentina. After that, I'm off to Santiago, Chile and back to Miami, Florida to meet some more friends. Then its across the States to San Francisco, California to visit yet another friend for about a week. Then I'm flying back home to Cork.

All in all, its about 8 weeks long, costing about €1,400 for flights, but I think completely worth it! I'm going to set up a new blog just for my travels, so you can all keep up-to-date.

I'm currently in Dublin just bumming around, sorting stuff out, but the clock is ticking. I've enjoyed my time here, but London calls! Its a shame I didnt get a chance to experience Dublin more because of my ridiculuous hours, but hey, its an experience!

Can we not just mourn?

Or do we need a day off to mourn properly? There has been quite a bit of debate here and here, so I wont attempt to rehash these debates. I'm amazed that people are still going on about why Ireland isnt having an official National Day Of Mourning. Ok, it hasnt been called one, but by international standards, we are having one. Italy, one of the 2 most affected countries I think, after Poland is having 3 days of national mourning, but everything is staying open.

Why Irish people are "outraged" that we aren't having a day off to mourn is ridiculuous. Businesses are being told to be flexible to employees who want to attend mass or watch the funeral. If its that important to you, there's nothing stopping them taking a normal day off.

I had the misfortune of listening to Neil Prenderville on 96FM this morning. I normally NEVER listen to him, but I'm down in Cork in my parents house after finishing work in Dublin last Friday. It was on this morning as my Mum was listening to it. Every caller was "ashamed to be Irish" because we weren't having a National Day Of Mourning. Their arguments were so ridiculuous, they made me ashamed to be Irish instead.

One of the main arguments against having a NDOM is because the overall cost to the country is just too much. Besides, the arrangements for Friday are the same the last time a Pope died and we are following international protocol on it. Except calling it a "National Day Of Mourning". Do people need that title to be able to mourn properly? If we had one, a huge amount would just see it as 3 long weekends in about a month and another excuse to go on a session for the weekend. Isnt it sad that thats what most Irish people would do? Go to the pub and get hammered given the smallest excuse?

So I hope Irish people can just get over the fact they have to go to work Friday and actually start to mourn the death of Pope John Paul II and remember him for the great man that he was.

Pimp My Ride, Cork Style!

I just burst out laughing when I was told about "Sort Me Wheels" on RedFM, a local radio station in Cork. Its a total rip off of Pimp My Ride, from MTV but this is just more ridiculuous. The finalists are a mix of two girls, a middle aged woman, and two old men. But like Evonne, they all would love a an "outrageous sound system, big exhaust, body kit and alloys so that the boy racers wont laugh at her!" I mean, dear God, this is just so sad! Fair enough, have some young knackers wanting their Civic souped up, but having old crusties trying to have their wheels sorted, is just downright stupid!

Dont get me wrong, I like a nice car, such as the BMW 3 Series, with a nice set of alloys or something like that. But why some people would spend about 10 times the value of the car on trying to disguise the fact they're driving a piece of crap is beyond me! Sad sad people.

While researching for this post, I found the Pimped or Wimped section on the MTV Pimp My Ride site. You rate each "ride" based on how cool it is. Its basically the car version of HotOrNot.com. Its hilarious!

I wonder what Xzibit would think of his idea being ripped off? If he was dead, he'd turn in his grave!

Only In Dublin

I just came across this website where people post stupid things they've overheard. Its called Overheard In Dublin. Most of the things were overheard on a bus or at bus stops, so as a Luas user I'm seemingly missing out big time. Well worth a read if you're bored at work and it helps to understand Dublin knacker humour too. I'm not sure will this website travel well as its kind of Dublin humour for Dublin people.