Raiméis

I recently got a ‘new’ computer in work, it included this cool toy, a spaceball. Even the name is cool. I just have to figure out how to use it now.

It’s with a heavy heart I announce the demise of a grand old gal, Serena, my 1990 Nissan Sunny, the only car I have ever owned. She got a bad case of heart burn over the Christmas, the anti-freeze froze and her engine over heated and melted, unfortunately she’ll require a heart transplant if she is to ever run again. It’s a shame since the engine was only 5 years old and had only run for about 70K miles, there was a lot of life left in her. That’ll teach me to check the anti-freeze more often, an expensive lesson.
I should mention that her meltdown left us stranded in the middle of nowhere 300 miles from home, in darkness and in temperatures approaching -20 deg C, but thankfully we weren’t that far from our point of departure so help came quickly enough.
Anyway this delayed my return somewhat. We got home Thursday night but I wasn’t in the mood for blogging till now. On Friday we started the search for a new car. We did a web search around lunchtime, spotted something we liked (i.e. could afford) and drove it home from the showroom 2.5 hours later … there’s some things I like done quick ya see, it eases the pain.

Anyway, twas an interesting and expensive end to 2005, hopefully 2006 will see me winning the lotto and moving to warmer climes. Happy new year to yiz all!

Beidh aistear fada romhainn amárach, tógfaidh sé sé uair an chloig sa charr, ar a laghad. Rachaidh muid ó thuaidh go dtí teach mháthair mo bhanchara. Beidh mé ar ais ar líne ar an gCéadaoin seo chugainn, go dtí sin tugaigí aire daoibh féin agus tóg bog é! Tá súil agam go mbeidh Nollaig deas agaibh agus go mbéarfaidh Daidí na Nollag neart bronntanais daoibhse!
(droch Ghaeilge srl…) (Edit: Buíochas le Panu)

Quare dodgy translation:
Long journey tomorrow. Heading to the better half’s homeplace. It’s normally a 6 hour drive but with the treacherous roads and the traffic it’ll probably take 7-8 hours. It’s a killer journey in this weather.
I’ll be back online Wednesday or so, not getting much time off work. Until then stay safe and take it easy. I hope ye have a nice Christmas and that Santa brings ye lots of prezzies.

Until then, slán!

… is what some are calling it. I’m referring to the IDA’s policy of attracting foreign investment by dropping corporate tax to a mere 12.5% (compared to 35% in the US). This issue has been covered a number of times on Techdirt, they looked at both Microsoft & Google who have set up here for the tax savings. The issue is on Techdirt yet again today with the news that the Microsoft subsidiary Round Island One, the tiny Microsoft company that licenses software for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, is the most profitable company in Ireland making a profit of €3.2 billion for the year to June 30, 2004.
Of course Google and Microsoft are only two of the big US names which have set up here over the years, the IDA policy is obviously paying dividends. And as reported yesterday the unemployment rate in Ireland is now the lowest in the EU!

It’s sort of a milestone today for Raiméis (or Ráiméis if you’re posh). Since I started tracking my blog stats back in August of this year I have received 10,000 visitors! I’m quite pleased with that considering I put so little effort into promoting my blog. So thanks for visiting, I hope you didn’t suffer any adverse side effects.

And while i’m at it Happy Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanza/… and all the best for 2006!!

This is what I have been missing, a wordpress blogging extension for Firefox!  “Performancing” works with a number of blog types which are easy to set-up (at least it was with wordpress), it’s key or icon activated and opens up a nice blog editor right in the firefox window.  Deadly handy!
There’s nothing stopping me now … apart from time, energy, motivation, just the usual.
GRMA to Donncha O’Caoimh.

Bhuel, after getting tagged by both UI & Fi I guess I better show you just how “weird” I am.

• I ‘air drum’, sad I know. But not to Europe or any groovy bands like that, usually Audioslave or U2.
• I sing when driving in a very high pitched dreadfully off key voice which has been known to cause motorway pile-ups
• I square things off, I like everything on my table to be all squared away at nice neat 90° angles, no screwball 37°, 45° or 68° angles for me
• I pace when i’m on the phone, usually all over the house.
• I blog. very weird habit, I write my inane musings on a website which for some unknown reason other bloggers torture themselves by actually reading.

Sin an méid.
And the 5 I choose …

Joblog, The NI Magyar, Most Sincerely Folks, Ah Sure Ya Know Yerself, Winds & Breezes

I just had to laugh.
“Drivers were warned today to beware of chickens crossing the road in Cavan.”
Why, were they armed? Were they targeting civilian vehicles? Perhaps they were the armed wing of the chicken resistance group, Cairde na nÉan? Or maybe a viscious splinter group, An Briogáid Eireog?
The response by the Gardaí was “We don’t do chickens”. Too busy swallowing burgers in Supermacs I suppose.

Apologies for the lack of activity here recently, especially with responses to your posts, i’ve been a bit preoccupied. To make up for it it’ll give you one incident from my list of “Potentially Embarrassing Moments”.

PEM #43: A couple of years ago I was working on a development project with a fairly high profile US firm. Much of the communication was done via conference calls, you dial the automatic operator, enter your pass codes and are redirected to the meeting.
On one particular call they had just installed a new system and I was having some difficulty connecting to the conference, so I muttered to myself in frustration “how the fuck does this piece of shit work” not realising that the new system records your voice …

Automatic operator: *beep* ‘how the fuck does this piece of shit work’ has just joined the conference *beep*

Luckily for me I was the first one on the conference or it would be on my Most Embarrassing Moments list.

I’m having a bit of a tussle with my internet supplier, I was wondering if anyone had some advice. I currently have a 2Mb ADSL connection which I changed to recently. Anytime I do a bandwidth speed test with a number of different websites (most US based but usually this one) I get a result of approx 1.2mb/s so I complained to our supplier. They gave me the URL for their speed test and the result was 1.7Mb/s which they claim is perfectly normal for a 2Mb connection. Thing is, when I previously had a 1Mb connection with the same company and did a speed test with the same US based sites I was getting over 0.95Mb/s. Have I grounds for complaint do you think?