It’s not often I post games here but I thought this little game was worth highlighting, perfect for those times you have 10 minutes to kill. (it’s works offline too if you can downlad it)
Leg 1: On the 24th August 2000, mid-afternoon, I finished packing the car and set off for Dun Laoghaire where I had to pick up a passenger before catching the late ferry to Holyhead. The trip across the Irish Sea was uneventful, and hardly worth mentioning.
Leg 2: We arrived in Holyhead shortly before midnight, checked our maps and set off for Newcastle [Google map]. This was the most dangerous leg of our journey as during the six hour trip I just couldn’t stay awake and almost veered off the roads umpteen times.
We arrived at the harbour in Newcastle at about six am and tried to get some kip. After just a few hours of shut-eye we went into Tynemouth for some grub and a look around.
Leg 3: We caught the ferry at three pm bound for Gothenburg via Kristiansand. It was a long trip, about twenty-six hours. Of course the sensible thing for me to do would have been to get some rest for the next leg of the journey, but no, I ended up on the piss with a truck driver from NI, a Swedish girl and her Norwegian boyfriend. I don’t remember going to bed but at least I woke up in the right cabin. We arrived in Gothenburg at six pm. Customs officers were stopping all British cars coming through but waved us on.
Leg 4: Next stage was to head for Stockholm which was a little over 300 miles. We made it in six hours or so, including petrol stops, piss & burger breaks. We arrived at some ferry terminal just after midnight, I suspect that it wasn’t the right terminal, or even close, but it mattered not as we decided to keep driving.
Leg 5: Sweden & Finland are joined at the shoulder so we said we’d see if we could make it to Tornio (Finnish city near the Swedish border) in a reasonable amount of time. After just a few hours of driving we opted for plan B, head to the town of Umeå (only about half way to Tornio but still around six hours of driving) and take a ferry for Finland. The east coast of Sweden is gorgeous, btw, and I recommend visiting at some stage. We had one seriously scary moment on the trip though, we were heading down a hill, admiring the scenery when in an instant every window on the car went completely white, as if someone had thrown a can of paint over the car. It was a temperature drop which caused it, and it certainly scared the bejaysus out of us.
We arrived in Umeå at about seven am and tried to get a couple of hours sleep before the terminal opened. We then got our tickets but had a few hours to wait for the ferry so went in to Umeå town for a look around, which didn’t take long!
Leg 6: The ferry to Vaasa took five hours, if I remember correctly, and this was where I dropped off my passenger who had plans to head north to Lapland while I had to head east.
Leg 7: I crossed Finland in six hours, completing the last leg of the journey in the wee hours of the morning.
This night, five years ago, I first arrived in Finland to start a new adventure.
What do you do when you get writers block? Ya know those days when you just can’t think of anything good to write about? The news is the same shite as always, there’s nothing exciting going on or you’re just so disinterested that anything that might be happening just doesn’t seem exciting enough to post about. Twenty has the solution.
I’m taking up UI’s challenge
Seven things I plan to do before I die
1) Have a daughter
2) Visit Australia & New Zealand & a few other places
3) Learn Irish to at least conversation level
4) Kenjutsu (or related art)
5) Go parachuting
6) [censored]
7) [definitely censored]
Seven things I can do
1) Make websites/programming
2) 3D modelling
3) Watch absolute crap on TV for hours on end
4) Waste time doing nothing
5) Make friends easily
6) Sleep all day
7) Strip an assault rifle in seconds
Seven things I can not do
1) Cook
2) Finish any 3D project that I start
3) Be less defensive/hold my temper
4) tell a joke
5) Speak another language fluently
6) play a sport non-competitively
7) sing
Seven things that I find really attractive about the opposite sex
1) Eyes
2) Smile
3) Confidence
4) Intelligence
5) Good sense of humour
6) Back side
7) Level headedness
voice/accent
Seven things I say the most
1) Alright sham?
2) What’s the craic?
3) Ai saatana (Finnish, not very nice)
4) Voi vittu (Again Finnish, not at all nice)
5) Jaysus i’m knackered
6) feck it anyway
7) ?
Seven books I love
1) Clear & Present Danger – Tom Clancy
2) Chickenhawk – Bob Mason
3) Once a Warrior King – David
Donovan
4) Progress in Irish – (it’s just a handy book for travelling)
5) nothing else comes to mind right now…
6) …
7) …
Seven people I would like to see take this quiz.
1) Twenty Major
2) Gerry O’Sullivan
3-4) work mates
5-7) Friends
Dropped in to the library last night. They have good libraries in Finland, well stocked, staffed and maintained. We used to visit the library fairly regularly in the past, i’d always go straight for the computer section and take out a bunch of books which would sit on my shelf for 6 weeks gathering dust before they were returned along with a fine for being late. The last books I got out were graphic design related. I wanted to learn some drawing principles so I could get a better understanding of how the human form is put together. Surprisingly enough (to me anyway) if you want to create something in 3D, like the human head, it’s important to know how the features of the face & head all flow together. There’s very precise “flow lines” (my term) to the human head which must be replicated in 3D to achieve realistic results, or so I believe. Anyway, the graphic books were returned last night with about an inch of dust and €17 in fines.
I decided to check the computer section again and remembered the reason I didn’t visit it the last few times … the age of the books. Most of the HTML books cover HTML 4 (released as a recommendation in 1997, 4.0.1 released in 1999) and should be used for toilet paper as even the current recommendations XHTML 1.0 was released as a recommendation in 2000 and XHTML 1.1 in 2001. Some may argue that HTML 4 can still be used, I reckon it should be consigned to the code grave yard.
Other books I spotted included Dreamweaver 3 & 4 (current version is MX2004 ver 7) and a guidebook for IE5 … hello!! Even IE6 is about 4 years old, which in web years makes it as old Twenty Major. There were actually a few newer books there but mainly on XML which I am too lazy to learn.
Anyway, somehow I ended up in an arty farty section and spotted a huge book on the art of ancient Ireland. I considered borrowing it but decided it was too big to sit on my shelf for 6 weeks so left empty handed. At least i’ll save some money this month.
Sin é. Good thing I named this blog “ráiméis”, eh?
One of the lads at work put me on to this. Google Talk Beta, Googles instant message & voice chat client, was released today! You need a Gmail account to use it but if you don’t have one I can give you one if you’d like to test it.
Update: Techdirt are not impressed with Google Talk … but inform us that Gmail is no longer invitation only, you can now sign up via mobile text message.
As reported recently the Gardaí are dropping their Irish language requirement for recruits from ethnic communities. Makes sense, Ireland is becoming more multi-cultural and should have a more representative police force. However, there has actually been an objection to the dropping of the requirement but not from where you’d expect. iMeasc, an organisation of Irish-speaking immigrants, have objected because the language would be marginalised if the requirement was dropped. They also say that it’s “crucial that immigrants be given equal treatment and at least the opportunity to obtain the same common cultural and social reference points as their Irish counterparts and that they not be shut out from the Irish-language because of their ethnic background.”
Morning Ireland did a feature on our new Irish speakers, you can listen to it here: Focus on ‘Gaeilge’: The new Irish-speaking Irish
Hat tip to Back Seat Drivers for this one.
Spotted on Gray Apple. Head to Google (in english), type in “failure” and hit the “I’m feeling lucky” button. Spot on Google!
Via Slugger, the very talented Newton Emerson is closing down The Portadown News after four and a half years on the go. Sad news as it has to be one of the best satirical sites out there. Hopefully Newton will at least keep the archives online.
Qualified exotic dancer with 8 yrs experience of scratching own testicles seeks employment in related field, requires exorbitant salary and minimum 6 weeks annual vacation. Tasty female colleagues desirable but not a must.
Our company is soon handing out 600 P45′s … bastards.
