Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

Just a quick well wishes post, I’m sure everyone, wherever they are is celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in their own way - I know I’ll be celebrating it in true Irish fashion…getting drunk/pissed/bladdered. 

The streets of Dublin are coarsely filled with green wigs, Irish flags, whistles, and people generally having a good time. I suppose, you cannot beat St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland can you?

It’s my Dad’s birthday on Paddy’s Day (have a guess what his name is ), so it’s usually a big day in the family - meal, presents, and the odd uncle or two up for a visit. 41 today, which I suppose isn’t old if you’re a tree…or maybe a tortoise! 

I was supposed to go to Bray today with some friends, but having caught that blasted stomach flu that’s been doing the rounds I’ve duly grounded myself to the confines of the homestead. Although I’m over it, I don’t want to push myself, I’m off to Cork for a week tomorrow and don’t want to be sick/relapsed for that!

I know I said I wouldn’t be posting until the 27th, but I have been bored out of my skull the past three days! So I need something to take up the slack! Christmas so far has been good, as usual Christmas is boring as there is nothing to do, except sit at home, or perhaps visit some relatives. My family chose the sitting at home approach as this year we hosted Christmas dinner at our house.

Christmas Eve was spent cleaning (took me 3 hours to get through my room!), I did a small bit of work, and vegged out for the night. Went to bed around 3:00 (ish) on Chrtistmas morning, my sister was up at 3:30 eagerly awaiting her haul from the big fat man. I didn’t roost from the bed until 6:00, when I eventually got up, I found my way downstairs, opened my presents, gave out mine, shuffled around for a bit and went back to bed.

Got a decent haul this year I must say! I went all out this year too, so far I’ve received:

• The PC,
• Driving Lessons,
• iPod/FM Wirelsss Transmitter,
• Automatic Chess thing,
• A Car Airfreshner (from my sister :???: ),
• Usual Smellies,
• Vouchers, and around €300 in cash from Aunties, Uncles, Grannys, and Grandads!

Not a bad haul. My sister got so much stuff it would be impossible to list, althugh I’m very thankful to my uncle who got her an Electric Guitar…that coupled with a Karaoke machine…I’m in for a peaceful 2008…not likely!. I’m easy to buy for, either a voucher or cash . My Dad got a fair few bits - loads of Podge and Rodge stuff, Portable DVD player, Car CD Player, Recordable DVD Player, Ordinary DVD Player, Smellies, a good haul of CD’s and DVD’s. My Mam got a new phone, camera, perfumes, handbags, and a few other bits, I got her a few toiletries my Gran recommended.

Christmas Dinner was my favourite part by far! Turkey, Roast, and Ham with all the trimmings, polished it all off and made sure to save room for desert. I can’t remember much of Christmas night except watching my uncles camero on ‘Inside I’m Dancing’…he played the Vantastic driver who ‘delivered‘ the rebelious Rory, other than that I can’t remember much one minute I was on JD & Coke, the next I’m waiting up a 3pm on the 26th with a headache and writting this post - but I might do it again tonight, after all it is Christmas and you’re suppose to overindulge .

I’ll head out to the sales in the next day or two, pick up a few bargains. I’m in need of a new phone, desk and TV! Was considering the K800i as an upgrade for my present K750i, they’re pretty simular, except the K800i has a 3.2 MP camera, and more features. Along with a phone upgrade will be my port to Vodafone - O2 have been good to me, but Vodafone has better deals and prospects for me :evil: .

Well that’s my Christmas todate. Normal services shall resume soon. :idea:

It might seem a little premature - although not if we’re in ‘Tesco Time’, I should have wished you all a Merry Christmas back in October…. Anyway, I’m wishing you all a Merry Christmas this evening, as I am logging off for the festive holidays - Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and St. Stephens Day (Boxing Day).

Everyone deserves a holiday, I want a break away from the internet in general at Christmas. Of course I’ll login to check emails, and make sure the websites are ticking away nicely, but I won’t be making any posts until the 27th of December.

I’m just tying up loose ends on the website front, any jobs that needed doing I’ve been doing today - I did take 2 hours off to watch the Great Escape (such a brilliant film!), and making sure I’ve no overdue bills that could get me cut off over the festive period - although any hosting company that would cut you off on Christmas must be heartless money grabbing philistines!

I’m hoping that 2008 will indeed be prosperous, and present many lucrative business proposals and a nice stream of online revenue! I’m cutting down my present portfolio, with intentions to extend it - as regards time spent on individual websites. 10 websites could generate more revenue then that of 100 websites -if the time, and effort is spent on the 10 initially. So my target is to reduce my portfolio weight, but focus my time on the remaining websites and undeveloped domains. This blog is okay to tick along nicely by itself, but other websites need the intial push, as most websites take off by themselves pending they are marketed correctly and have an active presence for their first month.

So for the next three days I’m taking it easy. No thinking of a great website idea, and going straight online to register the domain then and there. I will simply write it down and do anything I have overdue from Christmas on the 27th and no earlier!

I’m not expecting any surprises on Christmas morning - it will probably be the last year my younger Sister will be in the ‘Santa’ phase, so this will be the last real ‘family Christmas’, as always there will be a big gathering. It’s usually in my Grandmothers house, but as she’s working on the nights of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day - yes, my granny is Airport Police!, so this year for a change it’s being held at my house - all 16 of us! Will be the first time Christmas dinner will be held in the new house, so should be fun.

I’ve already recevied my main present, which was Birthday / Christmas present - the new PC. I’m incredably difficult to buy presents for, I never need anything, nor want anything. My Dad is the same, and shopping for my Mam is the worst - I’m a male, she’s female. Men tend to run into the first shop they see in a panic, and pick up the first ‘girly’ thing they see, and then have a shop assitant help them (that’s how I do it…). So I’ve since told her to give me rough ideas of what she likes, and if she wants something specific - it’s better that way!

So have a Happy & Safe Christmas, and I’ll see you before the new year (hopefully!). Here’s a Christmas classic - Merry Christmas Mr. Bean.[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etUq95XKGiw[/youtube]

I’d just like to express my gratitude to everyone who’s emailed, texted, phoned, sent eCards etc… and wished me Happy Birthday. Kept it a quiet one this year - just family. Didn’t throw a party, or go out boozing…as I’ve finally gotten my hands on the new PC and wanted to set it up, and obviously play with it - I know I have geeky tendencies!

It’s better than expected - Vista I mean. I’ve heard reports that it’s full of bugs, sluggish, and has a confusing interface. But I find it contrary to fact. It’s pretty fast - except when restarting after an update, I’ve found it faster then my XP system and laptop - although it’s true colours will shine when I load it full of Music, Photos and of course the software - Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash, etc…

I know I’m only getting hyped over a new pc, but feck it - it’s my birthday and I’ll blog about what I want to!

I’m sure most of you will agree with me, that Christmas comes earlier (or so it seems to) every year. I’m sure you’ve all noticed that Tesco and other supermarkets are stocking up with the Bumper Christmas packs of food that could feed a small army, the smell of artificial trees fills the isles, and the sight of those ’selection boxes’ is tempting!

The advertisements are on the telly already, and the christmas ’sales’ are beginning already. But, nothing says Christmas to me, other than the Coca-Cola ad, with the trucks coming over the hills all lit up - it’s been on TV since I was knee-high, and it’s when that advert appears you know the festive season has truely begun. Incase you haven’t seen the ad I’m on about, here it is:

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=NRzqgmvcBzc[/youtube]

I’ve even had Christmas carolers at the door - two weeks after Halloween! They didn’t get a homely response from me, basically told them it was way too early and I’m not falling for it! Although, fair play to them for trying it on - it’s a good way to earn some money (considering most people are scrooges like me… :lol: ).

A bit premature perhaps…but Happy Holidays from madringo.com!

I’ve only managed to sit down, for once today - or should I say this morning! I took a day off from the buses today, give myself some breathing room, and allow myself to catch up on some stuff before I’m back (properly this time) on Monday coming.

Day started off well, didn’t roose from the leaba until around 2pm, got a full Irish breakfast in bed, grabbed a shower and fecked off to the gym for an hour.

Got home, noticed there was no floor, toilet or sink left in my bathroom  :???: , the noticed my cousin getting everything setup for some tiling of the floor in the bathroom - 5 minutes in he burst a pipe - god damn these new houses…pipes are too close to floorboards

We eventually got the situation sorted - shut off the water and investigated. Found that the burst pipe was the central heating main feed (not any fucking more!) :neutral: and it either needed replacing or a very good botch (I’m quite good at botching…) - we settled on a good botch, using some putty like sustance around the affected pipe which seals it after an hour or so. Grand - time for a cuppa!

I then parted company, as I hate tiling as much as plumbing - bad experiences in Building Construction and DIY classes in school

Began working on an old PC chassis I had lying around. I have loads of Linux CD’s so I decided to make a Linux box just for the craic. The PC was an old XP pile of junk (don’t ask me for specs…), took whatever needed cleaning off, cleaned it with the alcohol stuff and whatever else was required (you can tell I’m no good at this!), assembled it - installed 512MB of RAM, DVD RW, Card Reader, Pentium 4 processor, and some graphics card I got for a song on eBay.

All done, and reviewed, powered it on, put in the boot disk, booted fine - forgot how much of an arsehole Ubuntu is to install (for me anyways). Got it running eventually, decided after a while I didn’t want a Linux PC….and installed XP instead :lol:

Now after all this, it’s around 10pm, I end up starting to transfer the files for Irish Transport Forums onto the new server - gave up halfway! Helped reinstall my bathroom, noticed the tiling still isn’t done - the burst pipe incident took 3 hours to resolve, that and there were bi-hourly tea breaks :razz:

What a day off!

Bit of an unusual post, and a bit of an unusual sighting!

I was woken up this morning, by my sister in hysterics as she heard (not seen!) a bird in the living room. So I went down to investigate, sweeping brush in hand!

And there was the little fecker, perched on the curtain rail…shiting on the curtains and going mental in the corner of the room! So I opened the door into the kitchen and then the door out to the garden, gave the fooker a whack of the brush and he made his own way out (he knew his stay was unwelcome…I wish some guests would pick that up….maybe I should hit them with a brush  :twisted: )

It’s not the first time this has happened, it happened back in Februrary, when I was home for lunch. I was sitting there on the sofa, and a Magpie falls down the chimney and starts going mad!

So while he was still getting his bearings, I trapped him into a bucket and let him go outside!

Makes us consider fitting one of those little grates that goes on your chimnet stack to stop the likes from this happening! Not that it’s frightening…but it’s bloody messy! Bird shit, and soot everywhere!

I was dragged out of bed at 6am this morning, to go on a training day at Mondello (National Course), for some reason my Dad had booked it for 8am! I suppose that’s right to do, as there were very few people there ‘when’ we arrived!

I say ‘when’ as we got rather lost, not because we have a shite sense of direction (well I do anyway…), but because nothing was signposted!

If you’ve ever gone to Mondello park, from Dublin, you know to take the exit for Naas, continue into Naas, Head towards Carragh, once you reach Carragh it’s straight all the way to Mondello park.

But, the M50 exit (exit 10 I think), had no signpost, so we passed it. And didn’t realise until we reached Tallaght - we tried to go via the Belgard Road, but ended up chasing our tails. Back onto the M50, seen the exit for N7 Cork/Limerick - seen a signpost for Mondello, took it…and it brought us into Naas Village? So we knew our way from there…and were only a bit late for the briefing!

After the brief you get 4 laps as a passenger, as the intstructor takes you around in the Saloon (1.8 Rover 25), you then get 6 laps to yourself, then it’s chequered flag - time for a briefing for the Single seaters.

These beasts, are only 1.3, but as they’ve feck all bodywork, it’s just tubular steel, and light fibreglass paneling - and have a mind of their own as all the weight is in the rear, if you’re not careful you’ll easily write yourself off! There was only one crash in one, but the guy hit the tyre wall and it wasn’t too bad - damagewise…I’m sure he shit himself!

Below are some photos of the day - it’s well worth the money…just for the adreneline!

Car 6, coming in after instructor tutorial

Awaiting release!

Skidding around the hairpin

Either getting strapped in…or getting felt up while being given a lapdance!

Leading…of course!

See the Flickr set

Sorry for the lack of bloggings yesterday, I was recovering from a damn good night on Saturday (continued on until Sunday morning :lol: ).

Was my ‘close’ cousins 21st, so there was a modestly big family and friends gathering at the local GAA club - which we had decorated with photos with captions of him from a baby to well what he is now! Some embarassing pics for all concerned (some of my Dad with his ‘bono power mullet’, most people in the family had a photo with him, and of course many of just him…potty training :-D ).

Was a good  night,  I would have thought my uncles band Bog O’ the Loughs (do I get commission for the love link?) would have played, but I suppose they wanted to enjoy the night, so a DJ (fairly decent one) was hired for the night.

Night started out slow, with a dismal array of people on the dance floor, but once everyone had a drink in the bad moves came out - all I can remember is me and the Bee Gee’s… someone got videos…lets hope they don’t know how to use YouTube!

Met some faces haven’t seen in years, most have gotten fatter (and they’re only in their 20’s!), and couldn’t recognise them - once I got their name it all came back to me…although after a few drinks I lost it!

Place wasn’t packed, but was full enough, the queue for the bar wasn’t long usually 5 people in front of you, booze wasn’t bad - I stayed on bottles though…was on Coke while the grannys were there :-D - but once they got on the dance floor I had a ‘proper drink’!

I’m just about recovered, it’s been a while since I’ve had a good night out - didn’t even need to get a taxi home…my Dad wasn’t drinking!

I just recieved the sad news, that my old neighbour Tom had died last night. So I’ve decided to do a brief tribute on the blog for him.

He wasn’t too old, had only retired recently, but as life is died prematurely of a heart attack.

It may sound weird, but Tom was my ould pal. My mam was telling me when I was younger I’d saunter down to his house most days and ‘help’ him with the restoration of his many vintage ‘Mods’. (I think I was more of a burdan than a help, but he had the patience!)

He would explain the innards of an engine, give me some carpentry instruction etc… Although I was only around four and can’t really remember most of it, it’s a nice thought, that he was one of the men that helped me find my bearings in vintage vehicles. In fact, his wife was reminiscing of me in my younger days, knocking at the door asking if ‘Tom could come out’!

He was a quiet man, loved his family and kids, as well as had great time for the neighbourhood kids such as myself, and always had the remains of a ‘rollup’ hanging from the side of his mouth!

I just thought I’d put up a brief tribute to him on the blog, considering he was true gent and I had a lot of time for him.

R.I.P. Tom!