Ciaran's Blog

There Isn't Enough Time

2006-01-09T21:25:00.000Z

I dunno, but I never seem to have enough time to get things done. For the last while, I've been really busy, even though I'm not that busy, if you get me. Even though I think I don't have that much to do, I still can't get around to doing it all.

A perfect example of me not being able to do everything I want to do, is keeping my blog up to date. When I come home from work, the last thing I want to do is spend another while browsing around and blogging. I get home from work at about 6pm or so, and stay awake until at least 12am, sometime even as late as 2am, but I still can't do everything I want.

I guess the biggest thing that I'm not getting done is reading. I have a big problem when it comes to books. I CANT go to a bookshop without buying a new book. Even though I know I have about 15 books at home ready to be read, I still buy more. And I'm not even making a significant dent in the books I already have.

I'm actually joining the gym at work tomorrow. When I first started work in July, I had a month where I could join with no joining fee. I didnt join then because I knew I wouldnt have anytime with hockey and all. And since then it's been £100 to join, on top of £22/month for off-peak membership. So as it's New Year's resolution's time and the gym recently changed management, I figured that there is probably some deal to encourage more people to join. Last Friday I enquired about the fees, and what do you know, the joining fee has been waived until this coming Friday. Am I a genius or what?

I've made a health screening appointment tomorrow for 3.30pm, so as of then, I'm a member. It's handy because I can join with a months notice. If I find myself not using it, I can just quit. It'll be nice to be able to go for a swim or hop in the jacuzzi during work if things are getting a bit much. I work on the 2nd floor and the gym is on the ground floor, so it's really convenient.

I also want to do some weights on top of my fitness I get through hockey. And I can try my hand at squash too. The lads I live with and those at work all play it, so I can now play. The courts are free to members.

Anyway, I am confident of making a go of the gym. While there are loads of people joining the gym around now as part of their new healthier lifestyle, I am not one of those to pack it in after a week.

So it remains to be seen how I fit in the gym too, but I should be able to work it in.

Its Almost Christmas

2005-12-23T13:50:00.000Z

T-2 days (or so) Things here at work are really slow. Firstly, there's practically nobody around. Most of the people on my team are on holidays or are working from home. Of the few of us around, we're just waiting out the clock until it's time to go home. It's the first time I've been around an office on the last working day before Christmas, so I'm not sure when I can take off.

The stock exchange is already closed, meaning that a huge chunk of people are already gone home. It just feels like everybody here is already on holidays, except they're physically at work. Added to this holiday (as in time off, not in a "Happy Holidays" sense) atmosphere, it was the Children's Christmas Party today at work. Loads of people brought in their children and had them running around the office. This totally made me do no work.

Anyway, just researching the best way to Stansted airport tomorrow. I'm going to get the DLR to Stratford and then a bus to Stansted. I'll have to be leaving my apartment at 8.15am tomorrow to make the 9am bus, which will get me there for about 9.45am or so. My flight isn't in until leaving until 11.30am, but there's no way I'm missing my flight home for Christmas (unlike my diaster going to Chicago, which I still have to blog about). Stansted is probably going to be mental, so its a good idea to get there early and relax. Based on my experience with airports recently, something is bound to go wrong!

So Merry Christmas to all my readers. I'm probably not that sad to blog on Christmas Day, but you never know! (Depending on how long I'm at work today, I may blog again)

I already know my New Year's Resolution: Blog more frequently!

The rest of Chicago

2005-12-19T17:27:00.000Z

My holiday to Chicago was really good. I had a great time there, even if it was freezing everyday. Seemingly it was one of the coldest starts to December Chicago has had in quite a while. Funny thing is you actually get used to it. Just put on about 3 layers, a scarf, gloves, a hat, a jacket, a good pair of waterproof shoes and you're laughing. The killer is when it's snowing and driving into your face, but other than that, it's all good.

On my way home, instead of sleeping as I should have, I thought about the things that stood out from the week. Things I noticed in Chicago and the holiday in general are as follows:

ATM machines in Chicago say "Sure" and "No, Thanks" instead of Yes and No
The Chicago Bulls are a crap team now
Ice Hockey fans are great fun and love shouting abuse at players
Chicago is cold (did I mention that?)
The Museum of Contemporary Art is worthless and not even worth the $1 donation I made
Penny's Noodles is a probably the best take-away I've ever had (I recommend the Red Curry and Chicken Satay)
American Airlines can be real idiots at times (more later)
My hockey team don't really need me (they won both games while I was away)
I sat next to a really nice guy on the way home, who is a full-time bingo caller!
I bought more presents for myself than everyone else combined
Ice-skating is quite different to rollerblading
The architecture in Chicago is amazing
No one recycles in Chicago
I saw Dublin city from 37,000 feet on my way home, which was cool

Overall, I had a great week with my friend Kellie in spite of the cold. I'd highly recommend going to Chicago, but going in summer is probably a good idea!

It's Happening Again

2005-12-19T17:17:00.000Z

I'm letting my blog slip. Its been quite a while, almost 2 weeks since I've updated my blog, so I'm going to try and bring you up to date by posting a few smaller blogs, instead of one huge one. Maintaining a blog is actually requires some discipline, which I seem to be lacking recently.

Well, its true!

2005-12-07T21:11:00.000Z

Chicago in the winter time is cold! Well, let me rephrase, bloody freezing actually! I don't think I've ever experienced such severe coldness in my life ever! Bolivia came close, but considering I was at my coldest in Bolivia at 5am and 5,000m up and Chicago is just as cold, if not more so during the middle of sunny day, Chicago wins it on the coldness front.

Besides the weather, which has supposedly been one of Chicago's coldest starts to December, I'm having a great time. I've done some touristy things and went to a Chicago Bulls game against the Detroit Pistons (which was actually a little disappointing as there was no atmosphere). But I'm having a great time here in Chicago with my friend Kellie. I'm off to an ice-hockey game tonight, so that should be good.

I'll post more when I have time.

Where Do I Begin?

2005-12-02T13:59:00.000Z

It's been a while since I've posted here, so apologies to my regulars who've missed my cutting humour, excellent journalism and all round great blog!

Since I last posted, things have been really busy. On the hockey front, I've played 2 matches and won 2, so cant complain. In our game on the 19th against the bottom of the league team, we won, but did it the hard way. We were 3-0 up at half time. But due to some "questionable" umpring, their 1st and 3rd goal shouldn't have been allowed. So 3-3 with about 10 minutes to go, but thankfully we pulled it out of the bag.

Our game this past weekend, we also won 3-1 which I was very happy about. We only had a bare 11 players for this game that was played in sub-zero (well close anyway) temperatures. It was a bit of a trek away to the game, but it had to be done. I was hoping that it would be postponed so we could re-schedule and play with a full strength team. But we didn't need it. One of our player's girlfriends came along to watch and was "encouraged" (read forced) to umpire for us. We all played excellently and won comfortably. We should have won by more, but a win is a win.

As most of you know I play volleyball (well not currently). I've played with UCC Volleyball Club for a number of years and even though I'm in London, I still stay in touch with everyone. Since I joined the club in 2000 I have been to 5 intervarsities, which is the main tournament in Ireland for all the university volleyball clubs. They run from Thursday to Saturday in mid to end of November. They're always great fun.

A few weeks ago, I got an e-mail from the club captain asking was I going to the intervarsities this year in Galway. I told him I couldn't as I was playing a hockey match that weekend, and as I'm going to Chicago tomorrow for a week and missing 2 hockey matches, I couldn't afford to leave my team down. So with great pain I told him I couldn't go.

But it doesn't finish there. Because they're so much fun and I know so many people from the universities, who themselves are leaving university this year, I began to think about why I should go. It'd be a great night in Galway and I could say hello to everyone in UCC and the other universities. I'm good friends with the organiser in Galway so also wanted to see what he pulled off.

So Thursday morning I texted 2 friends in the club saying that if they could spot me a few pints and a bed, I'd fly in for the Saturday night. I could fly from London Luton to Galway with Aer Arann and out of Shannon Airport to London Gatwick with EasyJet. It'd cost a chunk of change, but not too much. They called me back and it didn't take much convincing of me to say I'd go. So I booked the flights and all was good.

However, the game I was playing was up by Stansted airport which would have been really handy, but I had to go back to my apartment, get my gear, drop the goalkeepers gear back to the club and get a train to the airport. My flight was at 7.25pm and I needed to get a 6.03pm train fom Kings Cross. I got there at about 6.03pm, got my ticket, and ran to the train. Thankfully the train was a few minutes late so I ran on. It didn't end there though. When I got to the train station, I had to get a taxi to the terminal. But I didn't have any money. So I had to run into the terminal and get money and run back in. (I did the exact same thing in Miami when I was rushing for my flight to San Francisco which I also nearly missed)

When I got into the terminal, there was no one at the check in desk for the flight to Galway. Now I knew that they close the check-in 30 minutes before the departure, but it was only 6.52pm when I got there. So I found someone and they got someone to come down and check me in. I didn't relaxe until I was on the plane.

Things got better from there though. Once on the plane I relaxed (even if it was a propellor plane). We arrived into Galway 25 minutes ahead of time into probably the world's smallest airport with a shopping conveyor belt as the luggage carousel. I called people who were at the hotel for the big dinner as part of the intervarsities, and the thing was only starting.

So a quick beer in the car on the way to the hotel and things were very much looking up. I arrived with a few minutes to spare before the main course was served. I was greeted by loads of friendly faces and immediately someone was dispatched to the bar to get me a pint! Talk about service with a smile.

I also was in time for the awards cermony. I even got a thank you from John, the tournament organiser, (a good friend of mine) for travelling all the way over from London for tonight. It was really nice even if half the people there didn't know who I was. But the people I came to see did, which was fine.

Unforutnately neither of our teams won anything, although our ladies team lost the cup final to UCD by 2 points in the tie-breaker. That made it 5 in a row for UCD ladies and the 3rd time of those 5 that were against us. As before, our ladies got a bigger cheer from the other universities than the winners. Guess people don't like to see that domination, but you have to appreciate a good team.

Also as part of the tournament, they announce the Most Valuable Players (MVP's). They give an award to best setter and best hitter for men and women. The UCD setter won the best setter (for the 3/4th time in the last 5 years), even though everyone on our team said that our setter deserved it. Tough to topple someone who's won it for the last few years.

But UCC had our time. Another Megan on our team won the best hitter award. When I heard it, I actually jumped out and left out a big "YESSSS!" Thankfully everyone else in the club joined it (0.5 seconds later) For 0.25 of those seconds, I thought I had made a fool out of myself by being the only one to shout out, but I was safe.

Afterwards we had a great night and left the hotel at 2am and went back to the hostel. I hadn't a bed, but just walked straight past the reception, no questions asked. I ended up going to bed for 6am and woke up at 10am. Nice!

So without wanting to write a book on the weekend, I'll fast forward to Sunday afternoon. My flight was from Shannon at 8.20pm and I got dropped by the team at 3pm on their way back to Cork. Usually the team would go to the beach for a bit of a drive, but everyone was so tired, they jsut wanted to go home. So I had to amuse myself for 5 hours before I left. Bought myself some duty free. It wasn't too bad actually.

I got home to my apartment at about 11.30pm and collapsed in bed. The end of an amazingly busy weekend, but it was totally worth it.

Now roll on Chicago! I'll do my best to keep you posted.

Can't Beat A Bit Of Friendly Banter!

2005-11-18T16:19:00.000Z

Banter is an essential part of any sports club, and my club, Wapping Hockey Club is no exception. A perfect example is what happened recently after my last hockey match.

Last Saturday, my team, Men's 6ths, of which I am captain played against the Men's 5ths of Wapping Hockey Club. Both of us are in the same division, so it was a very big intra club match. The M5 were pretty confident of a victory. They even brought a stereo to play "Eye of the Tiger" as they warmed up before the game. Compare this against us, the M6's who were playing in only our 3rd game together. The M5's haven't lost a game in over a year.

To cut a long story short, it was a big game and it ended 2-2. We were winning 2-1, but they pulled it back. It was a very good result for us, even though we should/could have won it. In the pub afterwards, everyone was in great form, all taking part in a good bit of banter. I guess 2-2 was the best result, as both teams can hold their heads high.

During the week, I posted a match report here giving my biased view of the game, purely just to stir things up. And it worked. The M5's posted this report completely trying to mock us. Even if you don't know any of the background, they're worth a quick look.

I especially like this bit:

Side effects may include overconfidence, an Irish accent, and an inability to clearly remember things that happened on Saturdays.

It's better reading the M6 report first, followed by the M5 report. Hope you enjoy! I did.

I Love My Company

2005-11-15T15:50:00.000Z

I got an e-mail yesterday, which was sent to the entire company telling me that I can take a half day to go Christmas shopping! I can take it anytime from now until December 16th. Talk about a sweet deal! And then today, my manager who's in NY for the week, e-mailed me encouraging me to book the half day soon!

So it's a long weekend for me 16th December. I'm taking the Friday afternoon off. But obviously I'm going to go shopping.....online shopping from my bed that is!

It Pays To Complain!

2005-11-15T11:15:00.000Z

A few months ago I set up a bank account with my flat mates to pay bills and stuff. They got their debit card within a week, but it took about 2 months to get mine. It took so long because of a load of mess ups on the bank's part.

I wasn't just going to let this one slide, without finding out why. So I wrote them a long letter telling them how they had screwed up, and if they didn't give me a valid explanation, I would "re-consider my relationship" with the bank. I got a letter back from them a few days later saying they would look into it and get back to me soon. But they never did.

However, when I logged into my account last week, I was nicely surprised to see an entry for £50 with a description of "Compensation"! I still haven't received a letter from them explaining it, but I'm assuming they gave me £50 for my troubles!

Nice eh? I guess it does literally pay to complain!

Sport yet again......

2005-11-09T17:38:00.000Z

Most of my blogs recently have been about sport, and this one is no different. On Tuesday I played yet more cricket with people from work. It's a great way to hang out with people from work outside of the work setting. There were 4 teams of 7, so we had a little tournament.

Anyway, if you've read my previous posts about indoor cricket, you'll know we've always lost and at times gotten beaten really badly! But all changed on Tuesday. We won both matches quite comfortable, scoring 180 runs and conceding about 60 runs in total between the 2 games.

In the first game, we managed to win in spite of the umpire's best attempts to completely and utterly screw up the scores and also his changing of the rules for our fielders to try and even the game. On a few occasions, we had the batsmen out, but because we hadn't thrown or caught it with our left hand, he didn't give it out!

The second game was much better. We scored 98 runs, almost our first century, but we just missed out. The best thing about the second game was when were fielding. Towards the end of the game I tried to make a catch, but it only deflected off my hand. But Ben a team-mate caught it. A few balls later, the exact same thing happened, except Simon caught it. This was beginning to get weird, but got even worse when I did it again and Ben caught my deflected catch.

I just started laughing when it happened the 3rd time. It has never happened me, and then within about 3 minutes, it happened 3 times! Even the opposition even clapped us for that play. I had calls of "Butter fingers" thrown in my direction, but I feel I actually pulled those catches out of the bag and deflected them upwards for a team mate to make an easy catch!

Billy, my flat mate was playing against me in the second game, so anytime we played agains teach other, the play had extra meaning. It was all good fun though. Afterwards we went for a few beers with the other 3 teams. A great evening all around, and more importantly we banished our cricket demons!

We Kicked Ass

2005-11-06T13:29:00.000Z

What goes around, comes around as the saying goes. It was never more true than yesterday, when my hockey team dished out a fair beating to Romford Hockey Club, by beating their 4th team 6-1! We hockeyed them off the pitch, you could say, a total turnaround from last week.

In what was essentially our first real game (because last week we only scraped together 5 players), it was critical that we play well. And thank God we did. We scored early in the first half, but only went into half time 1-0 up. We had a hatful of chances, but couldnt finish them. I had two real chances, one of which shaved a layer of paint off the goalpost. I really should have scored. Next week maybe!

In a vast improvement from last week, we had 14 players, so we had a good squad to choose from. We did have the graveyard shift, playing at 4pm meaning it was dark by the time we finished. Yesterday it is was Guy Fawkes day so there was loads of fireworks going off which was cool. But, I think the fireworks going off around the pitch were actually celebrating our victory!

Not surprised really!

2005-11-05T02:25:00.000Z

He just seems to attract attention no matter where he goes. Ol' W himself is in Argentina these days trying to set up the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) but is meeting resistance from all quarters, including Maradona!

I'm not going to get into a political debate about it all, but I'm following the story quite closely, mainly because I've been in Argentina and enjoy reading about the wonderful country. From my travelling around there, it comes as no surprise that they're protesting. When I was in Buenos Aires, there was a protest every second night. My grasp of Spanish isnt the best so I could never make out what they were protesting about, but they sure as hell made enough noise.

It must be a hobby at this stage for some people: "what are you doing tonight?", "oh, I'm going on a protest march again tonight" Nice way to spend the evening I guess. Out walking in the fresh air! The only downside of this hobby is the tear gas and batons of the police, but I guess that adds to the enjoyment of the hobby!

Argentines (or Argentinians, never sure which) have had a rough time of it recently. I was reading the country profile on The Economist and it makes interesting reading. The countries history is quite interesting and the article on Wikipedia is worth a read if you get a chance. The map of the Argentine territory includes the Falkland Islands and part of Antartica. Which reminds me of something else I need to add to my wishlist of things to do: go to Antartica. I can do it after my trip from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego!

Hockeyed at Hockey

2005-10-31T19:04:00.000Z

For the regular readers amonst you, you will probably remember my Hockeyed at cricket blog a while back. In case you don't understand the expression hockeyed, it basically means getting the crap kicked out of you at a sport. I surprisingly found definitions of it on the internet here and here.

Anyway, I recently became captain of the new 6th team at Wapping Hockey Club. They decided to enter an extra team in the league because there are so many extra players in the club. And they asked me to captain it, to which I said yes.

So our first game was away to Clacton 2, in Clacton-On-Sea, Essex, about a 2 hour drive from London. Not an ideal place to start your campaign. Nor was it ideal that we only had 5 players available, in spite of our squad supposedly being 19 strong. The club in general was short players this past weekend, which had a knock on effect on us. So we borrowed some players from the 5th team to make up the difference.

The game itself was pretty uneventful, except for us conceding 2 fast goals, before we drew level, before we conceded yet another goal. And all this before half time. They got 3 more lucky goals in the second half before we got one goal back near the end. Ended up 6-3, even though I thought it was only 5-3.

There was one funny bit though. There was this little kid, about 15 who was quite handy and managed to score a few goals. I was doing a bit of defending and ended up marking him. Just to let him know I was there, I walked next to him, and kind of got my legs tangled up in his. He didnt fall, just stumbled a bit. He wasnt too happy about that, but nothing major.

Two seconds later he got the ball and I tackled him, putting the ball out over the sideline. Straight away, he flipped. I thought it was hilarious, this 15 year old getting annoyed and trying to stand up to me! I just walked away, knowing I had done my job: piss him off! He got spoken to the referee for retaliating, which was a bonus.

At this stage we were losing 6-2, so I started to amuse myself other ways. And yes, I chose to pick on a little boy. But it was fun! I had to amuse myself somehow to take my mind off the score!

After the game, he didn't shake my hand, but I annoyed him even more, by going out of my way to shake his hand and prove that I am an honest sportsman!

I need to keep my trap shut

2005-10-24T20:29:00.000+01:00

My last post was about the consultancy industry and about my ex-employer who is in this industry. Following my last post, I've received a few comments and an e-mail about the content of my post. I had another post about them too, which wasn't all praise.

So, I would just like to set a few things straight. Thing is, I was only working for them for about 6 months and left because I got a better offer. I was happy staying on working for them for the forseeable future. An opportunity that I couldn't pass up came my way. I didn't leave for any other reason.

They (I wont say who. This is for the benefit of people who read the last post, when it had the company name in it) are actually a really good company and I enjoyed my time there. I don't want to bad mouth an ex-employer because I don't usually say bad things about anything.

I would like to say though, that consultancy isn't for everyone, me included. A number of the comments that I've received have come from recent graduates thinking of working with them. If you are interested in working in the consultancy industry, then they are one of the best companies going. They are really good at what they do (well, to a certain degree!), they pay you well and everyone there is really nice. I had a great time working with really nice people. They do have their problems, but so does every company. It is the consultancy industry in general that I don't like.

If you like what you see, then go for it. I wouldn't like to be reason for anyone to decide not to work with them.

Well that's it. You can ignore this post if you haven't a clue what I'm on about. But I think a few people will make sense of it.

What A Ripoff!

2005-10-19T17:40:00.000+01:00

When I was back home, my Dad showed me this book, which he was reading. Its called "Rip-off!: The Scandalous Inside Story of the Management Consulting Money Machine" I'm going to read it after him.

I was talking to him last night and he mentioned the controversy about the HSE project which is after costing upwards of €165 million, €50 million of which has gone on consultancy fees. I hadn't heard about it, but when I searched for it, I found loads of articles (here, here, here and here) Turns out it was Deloitte that is ripping off people, but I wouldn't have been surprised if it was my beloved ex-employer, another consultancy firm.

Having worked in consulting, and didn't think very highly of it, I can totally understand what happened though. I heard that my ex-employer were charging about €2,000/day for my services. Now I can assure you, I wasn't earning anywhere near that. It's crazy that a recent graduate can command that cost, considering I knew crap all.

My Dad was saying that people were earning that same amount a day, so God knows how much they were charging the company for their services.

It's projects like this that give IT a bad name. When really it's just stupidity of the project owners in not realising what the consultants are charging for. Consultants are very good at exploiting weaknesses in the companies and telling them how great the result will be, and then leaving them very short of what they said.

In my one project at the consultancy firm, it was about 3/4 weeks late, when the total project was only about 5 months. I could explain in great depth why it was a total sham, but I won't. I'd be here all day. It was just one of the reasons I left the industry. The money is great there, but I couldnt sleep well knowing my work was a complete joke.

P.S. I love my ex-employer, and I think their legal department is one of the finest in the world. But hopefully I won't get a call from them!

Ever wondered.....

2005-10-19T14:40:00.000+01:00

....why when a lift arrives at a floor it "dings" once for going up and twice for going down? Did all the lift manufacturers of the world sit at a table and make this decision?

Next is a car!

2005-10-19T14:26:00.000+01:00

Recently I bought a pair of rollerblades, which is great when it's dry and sunny, but as we head towards winter, it's becoming an increasingly dodgy proposition. The slightest bit of dampness on the footpath is enough to send you flying.

So, in order to get to hockey I bought myself a new bike at the weekend. I love it. It's a really nice bike, but man it's expensive. And then you have to add accessories on top of that. But I think it's worth it. Its a great bike and should last me for years (assuming it doesn't get nicked, but I got insurance just in case!)

I have a number of forms of transport, so all I'm missing now is a car, but I think it'll be a while before I get one of those!

Things To Do In My Lifetime

2005-10-10T18:13:00.000+01:00

Ok, this is something I've been meaning to do for a while. I've seen a couple of books that tell you what you should do before you die, but I think it's better if I figure them out for myself. I'm going to start the list now and add to it as I go along. If I manage to complete any one of them, then I'll let you know.

So here goes:

Go into Space, or at least 20km up, which is lower space and you can still see the curvature of the earth, possibly with Space Adventures or Virgin Galactic

Travel the length of the Americas, starting in Alaska and going all the day down until I get to Tierra del Fuego, Argentina by the Cape Horn

Go on a expedition to Antartica

NYTimes Do it again

2005-10-10T17:40:00.000+01:00

I must say, the New York Times is one of the best, if not the best newspaper around. Today I read an excellent article about the melting of the ice caps in the Artic Circle. It's a long article, but very well written and very informative. There are actually some positives from the melting of the ice caps, including opening up new and shorter shipping routes.

I'd highly recommend reading, not only this article, but registering with the NYTimes and reading it everyday. Thing is, they're after introducing Times Select which is a subscription for some of their content, which is annoying. But you still get a number of good article for free.

Ikea & Swiss Army Knives

2005-10-08T20:14:00.000+01:00

So, for anyone who doesn't know me (which is probably most!), I recently moved into a new unfurnished apartment. This meant that I had to buy all my furniture, and where else would I go, but Ikea. It was really expensive, but you have to hand it to them, they really do good quality stuff and they have such a range. I've been to Ikea before in New Jersey when I had to furnish my apartment there too, so I knew what to expect. But I still can't get over the scale of it. The amount of money they must make is amazing. When I went most recently, it even prompted me to research the history of the company to see where it came from. It's worth a read if you have some time.

Sidetracking a bit, before I went off on my holidays to South America I bought a Swiss Army Knife from Victorinox. It was probably one of the handiest things I brought with me. Myself and my flat mates also make good use of it when we first moved in and didn't have any bread knife (we still dont, but we got a really sharp knife Ikea one that does the trick). The Swiss Army Knife is so handy, I gotta hand it to the person who invented it.

So, back to the present where the Swedish and Swiss combined forces to allow me finish building my chest of drawers. I was going to bring them back to Ikea, but turns out I have so much clothes I actually need it. But when I went to build it on Thursday night, I didn't have any tools with me. The ones I used to build everything else were taken back by my flatmates brother. So, I turned to my Swiss Army Knife to get me through it. And low and behold, the ease of assembling an Ikea item and the genius of Swiss Army Knife allowed me build the thing really easily. I was missing a hammer though, and as great as the Swiss Army Knife is, it was no substitute. I had to improvise.

In summary my point is, you gotta love Ikea and the Swiss Army Knife. Just goes to show Sweden isn't just good for it's good looking women and Switzerland isn't just known for stashing money and gold to avoid the tax man!

Hockeyed at Cricket

2005-10-05T15:50:00.000+01:00

As I've said before, cricket is actually good fun. Well, it's also bloody hard. The actual cricket tournament was on last night and we were blown away. We played quite well last week amongst ourselves, but playing against the other teams was a different story!

I was batting first in our first game, which I didn't mind. I didn't know at the time, but opening batsmen usually face the best bowlers, so they bowling team can try and get a few early wickets. My God, were these guys good. They were bowling at an incredible speed. Luckily, we didn't manage to go into negative figures (as our team did later for a time before we went positive again!) so it wasn't too bad. They were just so much better.

We ended up losing both games by quite a decent margin both times, but it was good fun. Most other teams had a number of people who regularly play cricket, so we were at a huge disadvantage when we had one guy who played a few years ago! He was still our best player though.

It was a fairly good indication of how good the team was, by the number of people wearing cricket whites! We had none, so my my theory, we were crap. And we were. So therefore, my theory holds true.

Even though we were well beaten, we all enjoyed ourselves. We stayed behind after and had a few pints, so all's good. We would have won an award for most spirited team (if there was one!)

Downright Weird

2005-10-03T19:55:00.000+01:00

You know the way, you can never remember any dreams you have. Well last night I had a really weird dream: that a Concorde crashed outside my home in Ireland and I saw the whole thing happening. It all felt really weird, but very real and couldn't believe it was happening.... that is until I woke up!

Now that's just downright weird! Not sure what it's mean to mean. Prize for the best explanation left in the comments!

My name catches the world attention....yet again!

2005-09-30T16:21:00.000+01:00

It's amazing what comes out of blogs. A while back my blog ALMOST got me a mention on CNN This time, something just as weird. Within the last week, I have got 2 e-mails as a result of my blog asking questions about my name. The first one was someone who had seen some actor who's first name was Ciaran, and she wanted to know how it is pronounced. But last night, I got another email from a couple who are expecting a son and want to call him Ciaran, but were unsure of how to pronounce it. They're from the USA and so didn't want to call their son Ciaran, if they didn't know how a "real Irish person" pronounces Ciaran!

I e-mailed them back, and it kind of feels they're naming him after me, but they're not at all. It just happens to be the same name as mine. But Ciaran is a rare name so I feel some attachement! If you type"Ciaran" in Google, my blog comes up as the 9th result, which is kind of cool!

I just looked at my blog stats on StatCounter.com and turns out the couple searched for "pronouce Ciaran", which came up as the second result (because of the CNN post, see above link) The funny thing is, that that actor dude comes up as the first result (see here) with this quote included

"Does anyone know how to pronounce Ciaran?"

and

"Anyone for a Ciaran fan club? No, seriously. He's so tremendously cool."

Unfortunately, it refers to Ciaran Hinds the actor, not me :( But I could have a fan club....somewhere!

On a side note, I'm up to 8,844 hits on my blog. Cool!

Gaelic Football for the PS2

2005-09-30T15:07:00.000+01:00

I normally hate getting e-mail forwards because usually they are just stupid chain letters, but this one I just have to share. It was a link to an ad for a new Playstation 2 game; "Gaelic Football" I find it hilarious that they're making a GAA game for the PS2.

Anyway, the ad is a classic and can be seen here If you're Irish, then you'll totally understand the ad, but if you don't know about the GAA, then it might be lost on you a bit, but you should appreciate the genius of it!

There's quite a bit of stuff about the game online too, on ElectricNews.net and Irish Abroad. Turns out, the software company, IR Gurus Interactive that made it, based it on an Aussie rules game made previously. Still good to see the game being made though.

Cricket is actually fun!

2005-09-30T10:44:00.000+01:00

Last night I went playing indoor cricket with some people from work. There is a company wide tournament on next week in Lords so we went down last night for some practice on how to to play the game and actually allow me hit a cricket ball, something I've never done before! The rules are a little different too, so it was good to try it out.

So, myself and another guy went batting first. I could try explaining the rules, but they're all here But basically, 8 people on a team. 4 sets of 2 batters and each set of batters face 4 overs (6 or 8 balls in an over) Lee and I scored 30 runs which we thought was quite good. So everyone else went to bat, and our total score was 26! So the next 6 batters managed to score a total of -4! Quite funny really, but I enjoyed it. The real thing happens on Tuesday.

We also got challenged to a a match by another team at work, so that should be fun! I'm not sure is it because England won the Ashes recently that there are loads of people playing cricket now, but all 5 courts last night at the venue were all cricket. Last time I was there, it was all soccer. Typical of the English to jump on the bandwagon!

Story behind the story

2005-09-30T09:53:00.000+01:00

We get bombarded by the media everyday about different stories, the biggest of which recently was Hurricane Katrina. While it's good to read stories of the

actual news, I always love reading stories behind the news. Today on BBC News there was an excellent article about the clean up of the Superdome in New Orleans after the people took refuge in it.

I would like to point out one particularly beautiful and descriptive piece of the article: "The toilets had faeces three inches above the seat. The bowl was full and it was sitting atop that like ice cream" In fairness, the journalist must have witnessed this because I don't think there's any other way to say that, without seeing it. It's not an expression you dream up!

So on that wonderful image, I will finish up!

Good News

2005-09-26T17:26:00.000+01:00

Its good to hear that the IRA have finally decommissioned their arms. Hopefully it will help move things along in Northern Ireland, but not anytime soon I reckon if the Unionists have something to do with it.

I was looking around for the actual report that they released for most of today, but couldnt find it until now. The report which was much shorter than I expected can be found here.

Is it worth it?

2005-09-26T17:05:00.000+01:00

Seriously, is drinking actually worth it? I went out Saturday night on a pub crawl with my new hockey club and ended up going to a house party afterwards. I ended up getting home for about 7.30am, so you could say it was a fairly crazy night!

Thing is, I woke up Sunday morning, or rather afternoon and had a pretty nasty headache. Nothing terrible, but still annoying. I dont usually get hangovers, but considering what I drank, then its not surprising. I dont usually go out drinking very heavily very often and get bad hangovers, but I did this weekend. The headache went away soon after, but my questions, is one night out worth losing an entire day of my life? I pretty much slept all day Sunday, and only woke up at about 8pm for a few hours before going back to bed for the night. Admittedly, I was awake until 7.30am, but I think all the drinking make things much worse.

While I can say now I'm never going to drink as much again, chances are I will, but I can tell you that I won't be doing it anytime soon. I had a great night, and didn't expect/want to go on a really heavy night, it turned out that way.

Plastic Bags

2005-09-22T16:49:00.000+01:00

Ok, so things are a little slow here these days. I've no major news so I've been forced to talk about plastic bags. You accumulate a HUGE amount of them. It's something I've noticed about living in the UK. In Ireland the government put a 15c tax on plastic shopping bags to reduce the number ending up on landfill sites. It's been a huge success, but it's a shame it hasn't started over here yet. They give you bags for everything, even if its just one small item. In our apartment we gathered loads of them, just for them to be thrown out again.

So in my bid to help out, I don't bother with them anymore and just say no thanks. Some people find it a little strange, but I guess they're used to just putting everything in bags. Hopefully they'll catch on here soon enough as it really is a terrible waste.

Thank You!

2005-09-15T10:28:00.000+01:00

Just a quick one to thank readers of my blog who still have faith! I didn't expect anyone to be still checking back, but I can assure you, I'm back and reporting for duty! I actually missed it when I wasn't blogging, but it was outside my control. I was living in turbulent times (without internet)

I'm in London now, so I'll be giving my perspective of life in the big city! Stay tuned!

It really annoys me when....

2005-09-14T17:58:00.000+01:00

.... people ask for a drink of water! Weird you might say, but let me explain. I was at hockey (of the field variety) last Saturday for a match. I've recently joined Wapping Hockey Club and am really enjoying it. For the last few weeks, its been really hot and humid while playing hockey, so much so, everyone is sweating and getting dehydrated pretty fast.

So to offset this, I always bring a bottle of water for during and after the match. While I was standing around after the game recovering and drinking water, the goalkeeper asked me for a drink. I'm like, tough job you got with all the gear, so have a drink. He was in the middle of taking off the gear, so its fair enough not to make him get his own water. He only took a small drink which was fine. I know the goalkeeper so thats cool, he can have some water. But then this other guy who I've never met before walks up and asks for a drink. I can hardly say no, so I give him a drink. The langer just drank and drank. In fact he finished it. He must have drunk about 1/3 of my water. He was drinking and drinking while I just stood there as he drank my water, that I had carried all the way from my apartment!

When he finished, he just handed it back to me and walked away! I was soooo annoyed. I mean, fair enough, I sometimes ask for a drink to wet my mouth, but I don't gulp down and finish someone's water!

It was weird that this happened, because while I was off during the game on the bench, another guy mentioned that he always notices his 1 litre of water disappears and he hardly gets any himself.

So, basically my question is this: why do people playing sports in hot weather and have suffered the effects of this, still insist on not brining their own? I guess you could talk about similar things in other parts of life, but this one recently affected me and it really annoyed me!

End of rant!

Guess Who's Back?

2005-09-09T12:21:00.000+01:00

So, I've decided after quite a long wait to actually update my blog. God knows how many visitors I've actually lost by my lack of discipline in updating this, but what the hell.

Things have been really busy here in London. I started work here on July 18th and have been kept busy every since. I only got internet access about 2/3 weeks ago, so even if I wanted to, it would have been really difficult to update this blog. But anyway, I'm not going to make excuses, merely update you on my goings on.

I've started back playing hockey with Wapping Hockey club and have been going once a week for the past 3 weeks. I had trials last Saturday with them, which absolutely wrecked me. It was about 25C at 10am with no breeze. Running around for about 3 hours in this, isnt good for you. Not surprisingly, I passed out asleep when I got home at 4pm. It didn't help that I was out until about 1am the previous night and played a hockey match the previous evening.

The other big news is that I bought some inline skates. I splashed out abotu 2 weeks ago and have been getting back into it slowly but surely. The first few times were a little wobbly, but the more I do it, the better I become (funninly enough!) I've been using them going to and from hockey training. What takes about 30 minutes walking, takes only about 10 on skates. Well the last time I timed myself it took 13 minutes, but last night I shaved off 2 minutes (even if I did fall, only for my 2nd time!) Its such a great way to travel. If you have a good head of speed and on a good flat surface, then you just whizz by lowly pedestrians!

But alas, I won't be using them much in the winter. If it rains, then they become lethal. So I'm in the market for a bike. I'm thinking about this one but its expensive enough - £300. But before I hang up the skates for the winter season, I'm going to try out some skating around London. There a number of groups that go around the streets of London every week just for the fun of it. I reckon I might try either the Rollerstroll or Easy Peasy Skate or London Skate this week.

Well, that it from me. I'll be updating it as often as I can, which will hopefully be about once a week, if not more.

Sorry

2005-07-26T21:36:00.000+01:00

Sorry for not posting here but in spite of working in Canary Wharf with thousands of computers all around me in the offices, I have failed to update this. I dont have access at home yet and dont want to blog at work really. I couldnt if I wanted to as Im training all day, but I think Ill avoid blogging while working.

Normal service should be restored by the end of next week but Im making no promises! It takes ages to get a phone line and broadband here. Thanks for stopping by if you still do. Ill be back on track as soon as Ican.

Terrorist Attacks On London

2005-07-07T22:22:00.000+01:00

While not wanting to report on the terrible tragedy of what happened in Central London today, as its reported extensively everywhere on the internet, I want to add my own personal view from London, where I currently am.

I came to London on Wednesday evening to find a place to stay for when I start my new job in Canary Wharf on 18th July. The house hunting is going well, but came to a stop today as all the appointments that we had arranged for today (we being Billy, a friend who was travelling with me) were cancelled. I dont have much to say because I was no where near the incidents and also asleep when they happened, but it certainly makes me glad that we're looking for an apartment within walking distance of work.

We decided to look for a place near work so that we can avoid the sweaty underground in the summer but also not to have to spend over an our everyday getting to and from work. But after the terrible events of today, I'm delighted that I dont have to go around in the daily fear of a terrorist attack as I go to and from work. Admittedly I am working in one of the two main target areas, the City being the other, but I'm confident in the security measures in place.

I lived and worked in New York with my office actually being across the road from the World Trade Center and my daily commute involving walking all along the massive hole that its destruction left behind. That in a way has made me realise that you have to just continue going about your business in a normal way and not stop doing things because of what might happen.

If I didnt believe that, I wouldnt have flown all around North and South America for 2 months. Living in the fear of what might happen, be it a bus, train or airplane accident is stupid and prevents anyone from enjoying life. Sure, it might be you, but the chances of it are so small versus the rewards of living a full life, its common sense to move on.

Back In Action

2005-07-06T19:51:00.000+01:00

I'm back in the Emerald Isle and absolutely "loving it" (replace with hating it) I wouldnt mind if we were having the fantastic weather my parents told me of when I called home, but its crap now.

For anyone who was reading my other blog for the past 2 months I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for reading, but I'll be posting on this again from now on. I may post once more on my other blog to recap on life without travelling, but unfortunately I wont have any need to post there anytime soon.

I'm not sure how many readers I've lost by not posting here, but hopefully readers will come back in their droves! Spread the word, Ciaran's Blog is back in action!

Adios

2005-05-04T02:09:00.000+01:00

I'm off on my travels tomorrow, so I won't be posting here until after June 27th, when I get back.

In the meantime, I will be keeping a travel blog, which can be found at My Misguided Travels. Feel free to check it out and see how I'm getting on. Hopefully I'll keep it update it regularly, not unless crap internet gets in my way.

Its a tough life, but some has got to do it!

Now This Is Frustrating!

2005-04-29T12:45:00.000+01:00

Requires Flash Player

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

2005-04-27T18:53:00.000+01:00

..... 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

2005-04-27T14:46:00.000+01:00

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....

2005-04-22T19:06:00.000+01:00

.... 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

2005-04-21T01:41:00.000+01:00

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

2005-04-21T01:05:00.000+01:00

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

2005-04-19T00:42:00.000+01:00

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

2005-04-19T00:31:00.000+01:00

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!

2005-04-15T02:16:00.000+01:00

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

2005-04-11T00:23:00.000+01:00

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

2005-04-10T02:16:00.000+01:00

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

2005-04-09T01:19:00.000+01:00

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!

2005-04-08T13:52:00.000+01:00

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

2005-04-08T13:45:00.000+01:00

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

2005-04-08T05:04:00.000+01:00

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

2005-04-08T03:26:00.000+01:00

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

2005-04-07T01:29:00.000+01:00

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

2005-04-06T23:32:00.000+01:00

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?

2005-04-05T20:07:00.000+01:00

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!

2005-04-02T23:19:00.000+01:00

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

2005-04-01T11:30:00.000+01:00

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.

Almost There!

2005-03-30T22:50:00.000+01:00

I've only 2 days of work left! Woo hoo! And I dont think those final 2 days will be too taxing either. I'm going out for pints with my work gang tomorrow night and Friday night too. I'm going out tomorrow night with my start group, who are mostly just out of college like me. While on Friday, I'm going a bit up market with the people I work with on a daily basis. Or should that read "worked" with?

So, you my avid blog reader may be wondering what I'm going to do once I finish work? Well, I'm going to go travelling silly. The plan is to go to Florida, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile and California for almost 2 months. Well thats the plan anyway. I've been pricing flights and they come to about €1350, which isn't bad for 21,690 miles or 49 hours and 31 minutes flying time! Thats almost as many miles as a round the world trip, and it costs less! I'm hopefully going to get things tied down pretty soon so I can start booking. When I get that sorted, I'll unveil my grand itinerary!

I'm also planning to keep a travel blog, with as many photos as possible. I'm actually thinking of migrating my blog to LivingDot.com as I'd like to have my name up in lights - ciaranmartin.com sounds good! Feel free to leave a comment if you have any suggestions where I could host my site. You see, I could sign up to Flickr but thats $4/month, whereas LivingDot is $10 but I can put anything else on there too.

......oh ya, I apologise for not updating my blog in ages and I promise to update it everyday from now on! (It gets a bit repetitive doesn't it?)

Rate My Teacher

2005-03-22T14:52:00.000Z

Someone at work told me about the website RateMyTeacher they heard about on the radio this morning. Its a website where students and ex-students go to rate their teachers. I just had a look at it and it brought all the memories back. I read the reviews of some of our teachers, and even though I left in 2000, the teachers haven't changed one bit, still using the same catchphrases and so on. Its funny to look back and see how somethings never really change.

My school, Christian Brothers College is the most rated school in the country, which is kind of cool. All of the teachers in my school are listed here so you can view students comments on each of them. I really enjoyed going to school there, and this website is making me smile and giggle spontaneously today!

You should check out your school. If you're like me, it will bring back all the good memories!

I'm Rich!

2005-03-22T12:01:00.000Z

I always knew my blog was priceless, but according to BlogShares my website is worth $3000.98, with the current share price of $63.30 and a high of $162.78. Impressive eh?

I just came across it last night by accident. It reminds me of Celebdaq which is basically a stock market for celebrities. BlogShares is pretty much the same thing for blogs. I've already signed up and done a few trades and I reckon it could get quite addictive. It works on the idea that the more links into and out of a blog indicate its value. This combined with trading sets the share price. When I found this website, I discovered that LoopDiLoop had bought 2,500 shares of mine, for half nothing, meaning that its going to be expensive for me to get 50% of my own blog.

Thing is, I wish I could cash in my blog value, but unfortunately, its all fantasy.

Just a regular Saturday

2005-03-21T15:10:00.000Z

On Saturday, I was helping out at the Irish Volleyball Association Cup Finals being held in UCD Sports Centre. In case you didn't know, I play volleyball with UCD Volleyball Club having played with UCC Volleyball Club before that. I got roped into helping out, but I didn't really mind as it was a fantastic day of very high level volleyball.

The day began at 11am with the school girls final involving Claremorris and Naas. I must say, I was incredibly impressed at the level from the school girls. Some of them can even play better than me! Well not quite! I am pretty good!! :) My official title for the day was "Awards Co-ordinator" which I find quite funny. Basically my job was to organise the awards cermony after each of the matches. For the schools final, Pat Hickey from the Olympic Council Of Ireland presented the awards, so I got to meet him. Hopefully when you might even see me on the TV as I pass the medals to Pat Hickey when it is shown on Setanta Sports next Monday at 9.50pm (TBC).

Anyway, after that UCD were playing Newbridge Volleyball Club in the women's cup final. While UCD were expected to retain their tropy without too much effort, I am glad to say that it was an excellent match, with UCD only winning by 3 points in the 5th set. It was a very exciting game, with some amazing attacks and defence by both teams. In the end, the better team probably won. You see, as a player with UCD you'd imagine I would love for them to win, but having played with UCC before, a rival of UCD, my heart was torn. Besides, the UCD women's team have dominated at both university and national league level, so for the sake of volleyball, I wanted a close game.

After that, there was the men's cup final with DCU Volleyball Club playing Aer Lingus Volleyball Club. It was a shame that it clashed with the Wales - Ireland Six Nations rubgy match, but looking back, people may have been better off watching the volleyball instead. There were quite a few people watching this match, but not as many as the other matches. In the end, DCU won by 3 sets to 0, but it was actually quite a close match, with DCU only winning each set by a few points.

Overall, it was an excellent day, and the night out afterwards where everyone had to wear a stupid hat, was good fun too. Not having a stupid hat, I just wore an afro wig with a baseball hat, which I suppose was quite good. Shame I forgot my camera though. I'll put up some of the photos tonight hopefully on the UCC Volleyball Club Gallery. Anyway, it won me a pitcher of Fosters, which I forgot to cash in. Woops!

Blogspot - v- NYTimes

2005-03-21T12:41:00.000Z

Without wanting to rip off the entire MicroPersuasion blog, I found this blog interesting. It says that the all the blogs on blogspot.com are collectively more popular that the NYTimes. As a daily NYTimes reader and a blogger, I find it interesting that one of the biggest newspapers around today, is being overshadowed by the new revolution in the media world.

The NYTimes have written about blogs before, but they dont include blogs as part of their news coverage, unlike the Guardian News Blog

Another interesting blog is the An Eight Step Program for Blog Addiction, which is well worth a read. I think I might start doing step 2, "Post in the morning", as I dont get any work then anyway!

Who's More Propular?

2005-03-21T12:09:00.000Z

I came across Preople on the interesting blog MicroPersuasion last night. Its a weird little thing that searches for your name on a few different search engines, and gives you a popularity rating. I got a rating of 241, which put in context of the top 5 is poor.

The Global top 5 makes for interesting reading:

Britney Spears 11,200,000
Madonna 11,200,000
Harry Potter 10,600,000
George W Bush 9,320,000
Michael Jackson 7,260,000

How a fictitious character makes it into the top 5 is kind of weird, but I guess not surprising.

So, are my readers more popular than I am? Surely not. Feel free to leave a comment with your "Preople Rating".

Crappy St Patricks Day

2005-03-17T16:17:00.000Z

That should read Happy St. Patricks Day, but its not really a happy one for me as I'm in work. I mean come on, its the Irish national holiday, but I was still asked to work. Does my employer (I'll reveal who they are if anyone cares, once I've finished work on April 1st) and managers not have any heart or national pride whatsoever?

I only rolled out of bed at about 11.15am this morning because I was in no mood to get up early and work on St. Patricks Day. When I got on the Luas at about 12pm, it was absolutely packed. Its been busy before, but my God was it full today. It doesnt even come close to morning rush hour. It must have been over the limit of about 350 easly.

Anyway, unsurprisingly, there were loads of Americans around Dublin today, including at the Luas stop. They were joking around about how they're going to push their way on. As to how the quite large guy expected to get on, is really beyond me. Even the smallest person in the group would have had difficulty getting on. After a litle bit of manoeuvering on the platform, I lined myself up to where I always wait - right by one of the doors. They opened and I saw my opportunity - about 5cm square of floor space just inside the door. I got on and knew that the doors closing would shove me inwards, and safely on board. Which is exactly what happened. I was the only one to get on board at that door.

But the doors opened again because someone was obviously standing in the door elsewhere, I heard this gang of Americans say "How did he get on?" in reference to me. If I was faster, I could have cracked some joke, like "Luck of the Irish, I guess" or something. You see, that always happens me. I always think of something funny after the opportunity has long since gone. And when I thought of this, the opportunity was about 2km back down the track!

On my 2 minute break from the office earlier to get some lunch, I saw so many non-Irish people. Its good to see so many tourists, but honestly, all I heard was foreign voices. One guy had a shamrock painted on his face with the words "Kiss me I'm Polish" written on it, which I found funny.

So you must forgive me, but my experience of St. Patricks Day 2005 has been pretty poor really. I would have loved to walk around Dublin today in the nice weather wearing my obligatory green item of clothing and watch the young scumbags get drunk and make a nuisance of themselves, but instead I'm at work, not doing any work!

The Finer Points Of International Politics

2005-03-15T18:22:00.000Z

I don't think George W. & Co will be too happy about what these boys are doing!

I dont have an opinion on the situation, but I think the sheer audacity of the Iranians is hilarious!

Now who said that international politics is boring?

New York, Craigslist & Starbucks

2005-03-15T14:16:00.000Z

For those of you that know me, I spent 6 months working in New York City in 2003. I absolutely loved it, and while I was there, I lived by 2 websites: NYTimes and Craigslist. I checked these websites everyday, and still do. Craigslist not so much now because its kinda pointless when you're not living there, but NYTimes is an excellent website. When I do read Craigslist, I always read their best of.

For those of you that haven't heard of Craigslist is one of the best free ads website around. It has everything from jobs, apartments, personals. Basically anything you can imagine. I'd strongly recommend reading the best of. Some of them are truly hilarious. There's actually a Dublin version of Craigslist, but hardly anyone uses it.

The reason I'm talking about this, is because this article in the NYTimes today, reminded me about a rant that made the Craigslist Best Of where the person gave out about ordering a "venti-semi-skimmed-tall-mocha-crappacino" (or something similar). I actually just found it here so you can enjoy it in its full glory instead of me giving a crap and completely unfunny re-hash of it.

I found the article really funny and I can completely identify with the author. I actually go to West Coast Coffee almost everyday for a "grande mocha". I want to order a large chocolate flavoured coffee, but social etiquette forces me to say the above.

While searching for a link to West Coast Coffee, I came across this article which details how Starbucks is coming to Ireland. Looks like the McDonalds of the coffee industry is on the way. It was inevitable really.

So, I gotta get back to work. I might take a break later and go get myself a "grande mocha"!

Le weekend!

2005-03-14T17:32:00.000Z

It wasnt a good weekend for me in sporting terms: Ireland lose to France in the Six Nations and then Spurs lose to Newcastle in the FA Cup Quarter final! Not good!

But on a brighter note, I've confirmed my final day at work - April 1st! No joke, I'm finishing work in Dublin in 12 days time, and not a moment too soon! I've put my room on Daft and the replies have been coming thick and fast. I didnt expect there to be any problem renting the room, but I reckon I could rent it for €50 more if I wanted to. I've had 9 enquiries so far, with each of them very interested. The others in the house will probably prefer a single person, so that rules out 4 people straight away. A shame really, as one Spanish couple seemed really excited about it. But 2 couples in the apartment would probabaly be too much. If any blogger is interested in my room, then preferential treatment may be given! But I reckon, the first person to dole over the cash and give me a deposit gets the room. Thats how I got the place originally - first person to give a deposit.

You may wonder why I'm bothering as I'm leaving so soon, but I collected my eircom broadband modem from the post office today. I got a 2 month free trial, but I'll be lucky to get 3 weeks out of it. I dont care though, its free. I should have got it ages ago, but their sheer incompetence quickly scuppered that one.

I was told I was going to be switched on March 9th, last Wednesday, with my modem to arrive a few days before. On Tuesday, it still hadn't arrived, so I called them up. I was told, they "forgot" to send me a modem! I mean come on! They eventually sent it out, and in fairness, they tried to deliver it Friday, but I wasn't at home. I had ordered a wireless modem, but they have ran out. When I called up Tuesday, my line was actually activated on March 4th, 5 days early! Wow, eircom, early?

So hopefully, my next blog will be from the comfort of my own home using the super dooper eircom broadband (which pales in comparison to DSL in the UK which will soon run at 8MB)

Do they ever learn?

2005-03-08T19:40:00.000Z

I'm just after reading this article and am completely disgusted and horrified. The IRA offered the McCartney family to murder those involved in the shooting of Robert McCartney. It seems that they never seem to learn. I dont really get Sinn Féin/IRA. After all they've done recently, you think they'd have a bit of sense. In the past they've shown themselves to be quite smart in how they've approached things, but this is the completely wrong thing to say. I hope that things change, but it seems that they haven't really moved on that much.

I'm A Loser

2005-03-07T11:18:00.000Z

For the 2nd week in a row, I've lost a cup final. Last weekend, my team lost the GMIT mixed tournament, and this weekend, the men's team lost in the Munster Cup final being hosted in WIT. Its good that we're getting this far, but why aren't we winning it?

But it was a great weekend overall. The women won the cup pretty easily, which makes up for our loss. One of the main reasons I wanted to go was to have a weekend in Waterford. But I also went because, otherwise I would have had to work the weekend - both Saturday and Sunday which I obviously didnt want. I was looking forward to going out in Waterford to check it out. Its a nice city and I had fun on Saturday night, but I wouldnt be in mad rush back there. Gimme Galway anyday. There were a few dodgy characters in the club and pub, and the place was full of dudes! Not what you want really. Although there was a little bit of eye candy, but not much!

I had intended getting back home early yesterday, but that didnt work out as I only got the 6.30pm train home. I havent slept properly, done laundry, or lazed about in weeks and was looking forward to doing it yesterday, but I only got home at 10pm last night. Ah well!

I reckon I have another long week ahead of me, which I'm not looking forward to, but I only have 5 weeks of work left here!

A Legend

2005-03-02T09:55:00.000Z

Yesterday morning I woke up to My Lovely Horse on the radio. (I couldnt stop singing it all day!) It was being played because it is Dermot Morgan's birthday tomorrow. He was responsible for that now infamous comedy series Father Ted.

For anyone who knows Father Ted and Dermot Morgan, they will agree with me in saying that is is a legend.

May He Rest In Peace

Acceptable Usage Policies

2005-02-25T14:57:00.000Z

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

2005-02-24T22:59:00.000Z

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

2005-02-24T18:46:00.000Z

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

2005-02-13T23:03:00.000Z

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

2005-02-10T23:55:00.000Z

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!

2005-02-08T23:15:00.000Z

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

2005-02-08T19:11:00.000Z

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?

2005-02-08T18:48:00.000Z

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

2005-02-08T01:07:00.000Z

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

2005-02-07T23:07:00.000Z

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

2005-02-04T14:02:00.000Z

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

2005-02-03T15:18:00.000Z

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!)

2005-02-03T13:53:00.000Z

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!

2005-02-02T16:13:00.000Z

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!

2005-02-02T13:56:00.000Z

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?

2005-02-02T00:13:00.000Z

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

2005-02-01T22:39:00.000Z

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

2005-02-01T13:30:00.000Z

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.

Sad Day For Me

2005-01-28T14:24:00.000Z

I know I said I would only be back on Monday, but I lied! I came across the 2005 Bloggies last night and it kinda hit home how small and insignificant my blog is. Looking at some of these websites and the size of them and the traffic to them, put "Ciaran's Blog" in perspective. I may have recently broken the 1,000 hits on my counter, but this pales in comparison to some websites. Even Birding Babylon gets more hits than me and even had an article written about it! I mean, its about a guy who talks about the birds he sees while on duty in Iraq. Not wanting to belittle his hobby, but honestly, how is he getting all this traffic?

Another blog I came across was Gooner UK which is about a student in Kings College in London talking about getting drunk and the fact he's still a virgin. He has been mentioned in an article too. Its a blog about the everyday life of a student. You wouldnt think it could be so popular, but it is. Strange world we live in!

I would be betraying myself if I changed my blogging style just to get myself more hits and be written about in an article. I started this blog back in November 2004 to express myself to the world. I have been surprised by how many people actually read my blog, but I dont think its that much worse than some of these amazingly popular blogs. I think which blogs become massive is all down to luck. Maybe a journalist comes across it and writes about it, which then gets fired around the world through the media machine. It then becomes exponentially popular.

I just express myself and if people like it, then they'll read it, and if not, then so be it, I've expressed myself, which is what I wanted to do. But it would be nice to have some bit of a regular audience!

My Ugly Mug

2005-01-27T21:25:00.000Z

So, here you have it. I've eventually got around to uploading all the photos that I want to display on my blog. Man, dial up is so annoying. The beauty of my fancy new photo is that it magically plucks a random photo out of fresh air each time you load the page. The obvious benefit to you is that you dont have to stare at the same stupid photo of me all the time. The benefit of it to me, is that you will keep refreshing to see the next photo, sending my hit counter through the roof! I haven't said which person I am in the photos, but if you cant figure it out, just hit F5 a couple of times and you should be able to spot the link!

I've tried making up excuses for only blogging every so often, but I'm not sure if they stand up to much scrutiny. I mean I could blog if I went completely out of my way, but thats just too much hassle. With a crap internet connection, life is just drained out of you and the will to say something interesting or funny is taken away from you by the "internet devil".

In my frustration at not being able to blog as much as I want to, I've reached a conclusion about blogging. The quality of your blogging is directly proportional to the quality of your internet connection. If you have a crap one, like me both at work and at home, its impossible to maintain a decent blog. Firstly you cant browse the net easily and quickly for things to blog about. And when you come across something that you want to share with the blogosphere, it takes ages to actually post it up. Researching the article or whatever so you can put in useful links is a nightmare, so readers have to do with just text.

I have a load of things that I've been meaning to blog about, but I just havent gotten around to it. From the start of next week, I promise to resume feeding you all with my high quality blogging.

In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy my weekend with everyone at the UCC Volleyball Club who are coming up to Dublin this weekend to play in the UCD Blitz. Its a mixed volleyball tournament taking place in UCD all weekend and it promises to be an amazing weekend. Its not so much a test of who can play the best volleyball, but a test of volleyball while hungover and looking foward to the next night out all at the same time.

So, I wont be online at all over the weekend, but hopefully I will still be alive on Monday and I will give you the low-down on the weekend as well as starting my new "healthier blogging lifestyle" (which means I will actually blog about something!)

In the meantime, have fun laughing at my photographs. I could have just picked one good one, thats not embarrasing or stupid, but whats the fun in that? Also, people may start to think of me differently and hence thing my blogs are a load of crap after seeing my photo. But hopefully people will look past that and see my blogs for what they really are......... sheer quality!! (Anyone else agree?)

Neglecting My Duties

2005-01-25T10:30:00.000Z

I must apologise for my terrible maintenance of my blog. I was just reading it there and noticed the big gaps in it. I would have liked to blog at least every two days, but it hasnt worked out that way. You see, it goes back to the place I work. For some reason they've blocked www.blogger.com which prevents me posting directly, but also to posting comments to those who have taken the time to comment on my blog (for which I'm grateful). The strange thing is that www.blogspot.com is available, so at least I can read some blogs. I may have complained about how slow the internet is here at work, but the funny thing is, it seems to be faster when I'm using Firefox. I think it has a faster way of rendering pages. You see, another perfect reason why you should ditch Internet Explorer!

Considering, I'm not really blogging about anything except my blog, I may as well get this over with. I'm in the process of adding my photo to my blog. You see, I dont have any one good photo that I want to upload, so instead I'm doing a little bit of javascript to display a random photo from about the 20 or so I select, each time you load the page. Nifty eh? I have it working, but now have to trawl through the thousands of photos I have to pick out some good ones.

The one annoying thing about Blogger is that for someone to comment, they must either be a Blogger blogger, or they can post anonomously. Considering Google have an open and non-proprietary air to them (in my opinion), they seem to be closing up Blogger pretty fast meaning you're either a Blogger blogger or an "everything-else" blogger. I'm considering HaloScan, but the damm thing about that, is that that too is also blocked at work, so I wont be able to comment then either! Anyone have a comment on Haloscan?

Hopefully if I get a chance, I'll do these two things in the next few days. I know ALL of you cant wait that long to see how beautiful I am, but unfortunately, this beautiful person is busy! :)

What ever next?!

2005-01-23T02:37:00.000Z

I just came across this article (registration requried) on the NY Times in their technology section, which I read everyday and think is excellent.

The article is about the new phenomenon whereby a new facet of the "iPod economy" has emerged. Firstly, I didnt realise there was an iPod economy, but I also didnt realise jobs were growing in this economy. Seemingly, new businesses are being set up to load peoples' music collections onto their iPods. Hot shot lawyers dont have time to rip CD's, so college students get paid to rip these CD's while doing other stuff, like surfing online or playing the Xbox.

Feed My Pod is the example given in the article, but there are probably loads of them out there. A quick search for "iPod Loading" on Google throws up iRip, LoadPod and another article on it. According to the article, most of these "businesses" are just small time operations and are usually just one person doing it for friends, instead of large operations.

I'd be curious to know if people are actually selling their iPod music collection to transfer on to other peoples iPods? This new thing involves the customers actually owning the CDs. I imagine it does. If not, I should start it!

I just wonder, where will the iPod's influence end? Its already created a whole sub-culture and now its own little economy. Who thought a small white box could be so powerful?

Things I've noticed

2005-01-23T01:02:00.000Z

So, some of my regular readers, of which there are quite a few (according to the links and number of hits, thank you everyone!) may have been wondering where I was for the past few days. I was in London for a reason I'd prefer not to reveal at the moment because ANYONE can read your blog.

Well, here are a few quick things I've noticed during my trip in London

The London Underground is hot the year round, and not just the summer.
I've never seen anyone on a plane use those sick bags, so why are they there? Could you not use the toilet instead?
Continuing on the plane theme, what does the beep that everyone hears in the cabin about 30 seconds after take off actually mean?
There are as many annoying tourists in London as during the summer as in the winter
You'd be surprised who actually reads your blog. Someone who I didnt know, who I met in London has read my blog
A packed Luas is a dream compared to a packed underground
There are incredible amount of good looking women in London
London isnt that much more expensive than Dublin

I'll add some more if I think of them, but I think thats about it.

J1 Visa Numbers in Decline

2005-01-18T23:09:00.000Z

I guess I'm somewhat surprised by the article below, taken from the Irish Times, but not overly so. I mean, when I went to Boston in the summer of 2002, there were a lot of people there. The after effects of 9/11 on travel and security hadn't really kicked in yet,so all was hunky dory to a certain degree. There was a noticeable downturn in the economy with Irish students finding it hard to find jobs. Two of the twelve people I was living with barely worked a week all summer. And two others had to travel about 90 minutes each way to work. But this was nothing extremely out of the ordinary. Some J1 summers are good, some are a little tough. At the time, I didnt realise that the shine on doing a J1 was wearing off right before my eyes.

Over the years following my summer in Boston, numbers doing the J1 were falling as the security measures went up. I did an internship in New York in the summer of 2003 for 6 months. I had to go to the US Embassy in Dublin for an interview. I wasnt really surprised or bothered as I was working for longer than a J1 does, so I didnt see the measures as too much. J1's going in 2003 didnt have to attend the embassy. But in 2004 all J1's had to attend the embassy which is a complete pain in the ass for some student wanting to get drunk and have fun in the states. For me, my internship was part of my degree, I was getting paid a lot of money and it was more important to me than a J1 summer. So I didnt mind jumping through some hoops.

But as it turns out,J1 students now face a completely different situation. They are fingerprinted on entry, they have to attend an interview, which takes a full day to do if you're not from Dublin, they have to tell the US authorities exactly where they are at all times and yada yada yada. Basically, they have about 20 more hoops to jump through than I did for my internship and about 50 more than when I went on my J1 only 2 years previously.

So to hear that numbers for last year fell from 6,500 to 2,800 is amazing, but not entirely surprising. This was the first year people had to go to Dublin for an interview. When I went, I booked my flights, handed in my passport and got it sent back to me with a visa about 2 weeks later. Making fun-loving students complete these not so fun tasks completely dulled the J1 trophy. Why would someone bother doing all this, when they can go somewhere in Europe or stay at home and actually make money? I went to Boston with the intention of having fun, and not making money. I made some, but spent quite a bit. Thankfully I didnt have to make money as if my life depended on it, but some students do. When they do, they just ignored the J1 experience. Right after I came home, I would have strongly encourage anyone to do it, but I'm not so sure now. It is a great experience and I would still recommend it, but it has become soooo much more difficult to have an amazing summer. It is still possible, but seemingly the lazy students of Ireland couldnt be bothered putting in any effort, and instead have decided not to go.

US envoy tries to reverse decline in J1 student visas
John Downes

In an unprecedented attempt to reverse a dramatic decline in the numbers of Irish students taking part in the J1 summer visa programme, the American ambassador to Ireland is to address information seminars for students here.

Describing the decline in the programme's popularity as a "hugely important issue for us", Mr James C. Kenny said it allows students to learn that the US is not "what they just see on the front page of the headlines every day".

Under the J1 programme, Irish students can legally work and live in the US for a maximum of four months over the summer.

However, last year The Irish Times revealed that applications for the programme received by the student travel agency, USIT, had fallen from 6,500 to 2,800.

Mr Kenny said he was aware that there was some anti-US sentiment among students as a result of the war in Iraq, but he believed there were a number of other factors which had contributed to the decrease in applications for the programme.

These include the increased popularity of other countries such as Australia, the strong economy here - meaning students can easily find summer jobs at home - and tighter controls on entry procedures.

The J1 programme has long been seen as a traditional "rites of passage" by generations of Irish students. But students have been put off by tighter security controls since the September 11th attacks.

For the first time last year, any student wanting to participate in the programme was required to attend an interview in the US embassy in Dublin. This means students, from outside Dublin in particular, can be faced with significant additional travel expenses to attend the five-minute interview - which costs €100 through USIT.

Participants also face mandatory fingerprinting at airports, and must agree to register with the US authorities so that they can be tracked while in the country. A restriction on final-year students enrolling on the programme has also affected participation rates.

"By the end of the J1 season [last year], we were pretty disappointed," Mr Kenny said. "What we hope to do is get the numbers back up to where they were previously to 2004. I hope that we can . . . make it easier and more welcoming for people to come experience [the US]. Because I'm telling you it is a hugely important issue for us in America to be that way."

Mr Kenny added that he was prepared to miss this week's presidential inauguration, which takes place on Thursday, to focus on the new J1 recruitment drive. The information seminars will be held in TCD and UCC later today and tomorrow.

He ruled out any relaxation of the new procedures, and said the focus would be on making the process more streamlined.

To think that the US Ambassador to Ireland would go around the country and speak at events to encourage students to go to America is unprecented. When I went to a similar event in UCC in 2002, there was just one representative from USIT. It even made the main evening news on RTE. The following is taken from the USIT J1 website, which just goes to show the effort the US authorities are going to, to reverse this trend.

Letter from U.S Ambassador

Make 2005 Your Year to Visit America!
For many young men and women across Ireland, thoughts are already turning to next summer and plans are being made on how to spend it. If you are one of those people, I have a suggestion for you - come to America!

Under the J-1 Summer Work Travel visa program, thousands of young Irish will be able to live, work and travel in the United States next summer for up to four months. Not only will you be able to experience America's vibrant culture and make new friends, but you will also be able to teach us about Ireland and Europe. We believe you will come away with good impressions of our country and people, and we are confident you will give us a better understanding of Ireland and the rest of Europe.

The "visa season" starts in January and we are determined this year to make this process as smooth and easy as possible for you. We work with a number of organisations that recruit students for summer exchanges and we urge you to work through them to find the best possible opportunities for your "summer in the States."

So if you've been thinking about spending the summer of '05 in America, now is the time to start applying! We look forward to hosting thousands of young Irish in the United States this year and I personally hope YOU are one of them!

James C. Kenny
U.S. Ambassador to Ireland

If you ask me, they've brought it on themselves. They're making life difficult for students that want everything the easy way. Its a shame that its happening, and hopefully the efforts of James C. Kenny & Co will reverse this trend.

My Moment Of Glory

2005-01-17T23:36:00.000Z

This morning as I got ready to go to work (I was running a little late, as usual) I was listening to the Ian Dempsey Breakfast Show on Today FM, as I always do. There was a news item on the 8.30am news bulletin that the salads in Pizza Express in the UK are very high in calories, something to the tune of being equivalent to 2 Big Macs. The newscaster said that thankfully they arent in Ireland, which I immediately saw as incorrect.

So, I texted into the show saying that they do exist, but that they are called Milano. After the sports news, my text was read out by Ian Dempsey! He never called out my name though :( They were all really surprised. Thanks to me, Ian Dempsey and his gang as well as all his listeners now know that Pizza Express are called Milano in Ireland.

Anyone who has been to both (as I have) will immediately notice the similarities. I've no idea why they changed the name in Ireland, but they did! Did anyone actually hear that this morning? Probably not. But I'm happy. The world listened to me as I pointed something terribly wrong with the world.

I guess, Milanos will be seeing a drop off in Irish people buying salads! And its all thanks to me!

Good News For Africa

2005-01-14T15:29:00.000Z

It has just been announced that the British Government will pay 10% of Africa's debt so they can spend that money on things like health, education and welfare. He points out that work at the IMF and World Bank level still needs to be done however. Not surprising really.

E-mails

2005-01-14T14:22:00.000Z

I read this article the other day and it put me thinking. While I can commend Yahoo's privacy policy, and their willingness to stick by it in even the most extreme circumstances, I still think they should give the family access to their dead son's e-mail account before it gets deleted after not being used for 30 days. While this is being resolved, I hope Yahoo have at least made a backup of the e-mails because it would be terrible for it to be deleted before they resolve the situaion.

Having had experience of losing a family member, I can understand fully how being denied access to your loved one's final thoughts would be really upsetting.

Donation to Charity

2005-01-14T11:20:00.000Z

So, I'm just after donating some money to Trocaire, an Irish aid agency that is heavily involved in giving aid to Africa. It is also part of the Irish aid mission to the tsunami victims in Asia. I donated to them for a number of reasons. They're an Irish aid agency, but also they gave me the option when I'm donating as to where I want my money to go to. I chose Sudan because Africa is a place that will always need money, whereas areas affected in Asia will recover in time.

Bob Geldof was recently quoted in an article on the BBC website as saying the following regarding the tsunami. He has called on people to not forget about Africa. I think this quote sums things up very well

"The tsunami must be dealt with. It is an act of God, an act of nature, Africa is an act of man. Millions die every year completely unnecessarily. That can be adjusted, we can actually resolve that issue. I don't think we can resolve problems like earthquakes and tidal waves. We can be warned against them."

I agree with him as I think people are getting caught up in the moment and media hysteria surrounding the tsunami, while completely ignoring other terrible diasters. Another person voicing these concerns is Lord Hurd, so it seems Bob Geldof is not alone.

"Former Foreign Secretary Lord Hurd has voiced concerns the focus on the Asian tsunami disaster will divert funds away from aid to Africa."

Tsunami In Asia

2005-01-12T01:21:00.000Z

Firstly, let me set a few things straight. I fully agree that the tsunamis caused by the earthquake in the Indian Ocean that affeced many countries and led to the immediate death of about 150,000+ people is horrific. I haven't been, but from reading the news and watching the tv, it is beyond belief how terrible it is.

But, (and so begins my probably controversial blog), aren't things like this happening all over the world everyday? I vaguely remembering a comparison between the tsunami and hunger and starvation in Africa. It went along the lines that the same number of people are dying through lacking basic food in Africa on a regular basis, as that died in the tsunami.

It seems to me that the main reason why the entire world has come to the aid of the countries in Asia is because of the large number of foriegners who have died. I think at last count, there are 450 British people confirmed dead, and probably up to 2000 (thankfully, only Ireland's second death was confirmed today). Western countries have an interest in this tragedy because their own citizens were directly affected. When countries are out helping to look for their own citizens, it would be rude not to help out the locals a bit!

You see, the way I see it, not many foriegners travel to Africa, so even if such a tragedy happened there, chances are, the reaction to it would largely be lip service, with token gestures of aid been sent. What made this so real and in your face is the fact that it was one single (well, you know what I mean) event that occurred without notice and one that was caught on tape for the world's media to show 24/7. It has been said many times, that 9/11 may have not even happened if the terrorists knew that the attacks wouldnt get shown on live tv because it wouldnt have such a big impact.

Anyway, back to the tsunami. This whole blog was prompted by my flatmate Paul just a while ago. He said that its amazing that everyone is giving this massive amount of money (with Irish people donating up to €40million. €40million, thats a HUGE amount of money) when there are many things that this money could be spent on in Ireland, but even Africa or other terribly hit places. Companies seem to be falling over each other in dontating money to the diaster fund (and taking some nice publicity on the way). After talking with Paul, I had a shower and was thinking about what he said, which prompted me to write this.

I've been meaning to donate myself. My initial reaction, was that even though I dont usually donate large amounts of money to charity, this seems to be the perfect opportunity to change that. But I think I'm not going to donate to the tsunami diaster fund. And here's why. Billions of dollars (on a side note, why use US dollars as the denomination for the total amount of money donated. The US aren't even the largest contributors) has been pledged already, so my couple of euros wont make much of a difference. My main reason for not contributing directly to the diaster fund if because I want it to be part of a political gesture acknowledging that there are many diasters occuring all around the world, that because the West doesnt have any direct connection with, gets ignored.

Before you all slate me for not donating to the fund, I will actually be donating to it. You see, as part of my company's "Corporate Citizenship" and them trying to give the impression they actually care about things other than money, they are offering to match the contributions of their employees, up to a measly $500,000 on a global scale. Thats only $5 per employee. Put in context, the company that I work for had annual profits of $690million last year. I can simply fill in an online form on the intranet saying I've donated €X and they'll match it. However, I can imagine that by now, other employees have donated up over $500,000 and my donation, that actually isnt going to the diaster fund, will not actually be matched by the company.

Having recently finished Globalisation and its discontents by Joseph Stiglitz, I think my reaction to the actions of the Western governments has been tainted and treated with a degree of suspicion. The World Trade Organisation have donated $250million towards the diaster fund and kindly frozen the repayments on the loans with huge interest, which they shouldnt have given to these countries, but did anyway because they seem to know whats best, even though they know little about how their country reall works. It was this interfering by the WTO that led to these countries melting down a few years ago and prevented them from recovering. I wonder why the WTO doesnt freeze the loans of poor African nations who are crippled by loan repayments of up to 50% of GDP, when these countries suffer from massive droughts? It goes back to the fact that African countries are basically used by the West and raped for all they're worth. To give a quick example, the WTO wants to improve poor countries opening up their markets to western imports, but prevents these countries from exporting into the western markets. Why? Because their products are much cheaper and wouldnt be good "nice". Trying to rectify is basically whats being "talked" about, but not acted upon in the latest WTO round of trade talks in Doha.

I havent yet decided who I'm going to donate for, but I will soon. This diaster might actually be a good thing because it will give the aid agencies a chance to highlight the ongoing diasters occuring in the world this very second. I heard some head of an aid agency on the tv the other night say how this outpouring of generosity should be harnessed into political power which can be used to pressure national governments. However, I reckon once the next big tv item happens (which will allow Sky News butcher it to death and have 24/7 coverage), the world will have forgotten about the ..... "whats the japanese sounding word for a big wave again?!"

Firefox

2005-01-09T23:07:00.000Z

I recently changed over to Firefox as my internet browser. I had already downloaded the beta version a while back and liked it, but a few things annoyed me about it so I just continued to use Internet Explorer. However, they've now released version 1.0 so a few things have been fixed. I downloaded it the other night and I've only been using this. Its very similar to IE, but it has a few cool things such as integrated search facilities for a load of search engines, it uses tabbed browsing which I find handy and a couple of other things. I love all the extra extensions you can get such as a download manager and gmail notifier.

I do have one thing against Firefox. There's a little bug when I'm adding a posting in my blog. From the Create Posting screen, I can press "CRTL + S" to publish the post. However, CRTL + S is also the shortcut to save the page. So when I use the shortcut, it pops up the save as box before publishing the post. Only a little thing that I should get over. Other than that, I love it.

I'd strongly recommend using is so spread the word and donwload it. This is the kind of thing that has spread totally on word of mouth. Also, from reading other blogs, it seems that a high proportion of bloggers use it.

I just checked my blog and it seems that 14% of users have Firefox, with 82% using IE. Quite a good statistic. I'm not sure how many of that 14% is down to me, but still and good statistic none the less.