New Week, New Layout

Today I’ve busied myself with upgrading feckthat and adding some nice new features(i.e. arcade). But besides that the main other news is that I’ve started to finally get the blog into some shape and form that I actually like. So let’s see if it will encourage me to post more frequently.

Nothing too crazy happening here in Munich, except that Yahoo! Weather thinks that we are going to have around 3° C for the rest of the week. And they even hint at snow. This seems funny as so far to date this winter we’ve only had 4 days of snow, compared with 6 months of the white stuff in 2005-2006 winter.

Anyway time to make dinner !
again … if you read .. please comment

Back with a Bang and some sound !

apple iPod

The last time I posted, I mentioned that I had gotten an iPod Shuffle 2G from L for Christmas. It’s great, easy to use and long battery life. But, here’s the crux, it’s too easy to misplace ! For the last 2 weeks or so I’ve been looking around the apartment trying to find the little fellow. But because of it’s size it really makes it a challenge to find it. Thankfully I found it this morning in a pair of cords and now I am able to drown out the sound of German people in the morning 😉 It’s not like a mobile phone,where you can give it a quick ring when you misplace it. Maybe that would be an idea for Apple, maybe they should integrate some sort of phone home feature for people like me !

In other news I updated the blog here. It’s a new style/new version of wordpress, so all that is left for me to do is to add some more posts in here ! And of course if you read, please (please) leave a comment !

Backward Thinking, no really.

Irish rail are in the news a fair bit these days, with their price hikes and the roll out of so many new carriages which is supposedly making them the fastest growing network in Ireland (oops, I mean Europe). Well I guess there is a fair bit that we have to do to be on a par with Germany or France and they don’t really need to improve as much as we do. And the other day I was reading via mulley.net about one guys problem getting the Cobh train out of Kent Station. So is anyone happy with public transport in Ireland ?
So I present today’s nugget of fine thinking, the LUAS guys are going to introduce a levy, yes you read right, a levy on travelling at peak times. Should it be cheaper, who wants to pay a premium for having to stand, squashed like a sardine for your journey ? In case you can’t be bothered reading the report….

“The higher fare will operate between 7.45am and 9.30am from Monday to Friday.

The LUAS operators say it is designed to alleviate rush hour congestion by encouraging people to use the service at different times.”

The mind boggles, really it does !

Time to go back :'(

After a few short days I am back in Dublin Airport (stealing electricity & free WiFi). The last time I was here there was a multitude of fog, but now the skies are a bit clearer up here 8 days later. So it was a hectic week and a day, meeting people, spending quality time with the parents, and trying to find that special Christmas gift for L. Also factor in some pretty heavy nights of boozing (I’ve had G&T for the first time in my life), enjoying the Beamish & the Guinness (I also tried the Guinness North Star special brew, which is a little more spicy, like cinnamon and nutmeg tasting), so it’s been all go. Last night was great fun, with the annual Noel Doherty Stir Fry, kudos to him for putting up with us again ! This hectic social life has left me pretty tired and looking forward to being in Munich and resting.

It was great to see everyone for the first time in a year. Thankfully I got to see everyone at some stage.

Funny it always seems that when I travel back to Ireland I’ve got some kind of illness, and currently there is nice green stuff being coughed up and my throat feels like I’ve eaten barbed wire. I guess that is due to the intensive partying.

Now it’s time to check in them bags !

Declaring a Republic of Connaught

Looking around the net today I came across this : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Connaught. Apparently in 1798 the Republic of Connaught was declared with with French military support during the Irish Rebellion.

Republic of Connaught

So just imagine if it had been successful and grew even larger, we could been speaking French instead. From Wikipedia “The republic was proclaimed following the victory of French and Irish forces at the Battle of Castlebar under the leadership of French General Humbert. The president of the Republic of Connaught was John Moore”.
But sadly “Ultimately defeated by Cornwallis at the Battle of Ballinamuck the republic ceased to exist and the Kingdom of Ireland was absorbed into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801”. 🙁 Other countries that could have been can been seen here, like poor Lajtabánság that existed for 32 days.

New Years Resolutions 2007

Just trying to get 5 things that I am going to do next year

  1. Call the landlord and explain to him that he needs to fix the mould and the windows. I’ve been procrastinating this for the past year or so.
  2. Learn to ruffle shuffle properly, and play some more poker.
  3. Finish the website and think of doing a few more, with wordpress & phpbb and other nice things.
  4. Take more photos and post them up here.
  5. Buy a German newspaper at least once a week and aim to read most of it.
  6. Spinning twice a week and gym at least one other day. Time to get some abs 😉
  7. visit my friends and family in the UK
    1. more to come once I mull over them…