First in the F1, Massa had his win robbed by his team, forcing him to pull over and let Alonso through.
Then in the NASCAR, Montoya had his win robbed from him when an invisibris caution occured, bunching the field up, dropping him down the order and then his car becoming way loose in traffic and hitting the wall.
And just now, the final straw, Castroneves had his win robbed from him by a very shit blocking call on a restart when he barley moved from his line on a fucking airport runway to make the first turn.

Motor sport officiating has gone to shit today, I can tell you that.

Now I really hate the annoying YouTube “10 minute” time limit – which is actually more of an 11 minute limit – because it means anyone with longer videos either has to edit them down to that length, or split them into parts. What makes it even more annoying is the way that partners have no time limits, yet it’s practically impossible to become one. And even more annoying is the fact that old Director account from back in 2006 still have unlimited time uploads because of the grandfather clause from back then – and if I had known this back in 2006 I would have tried getting it…

So either way, to avoid too much fancy editing and whatnot, I just decided to take the circa 160 minutes of footage and split it at every eleven minute mark, before spending the entire day rendering them before uploading them. The results are seen in this video below:

Seriously, fuck that. I edit them to the exact frame (and yes, I had the quantize to frames setting on, so it really was to the exact damn frame!) and YouTube’s processing thinks it’s 11:01, and rejects the video for that. Go fuck right off…

I really wish that I could just pack up and move to another video sharing service, but the problems with other places are also prevalent. Vimeo doesn’t allow gaming videos and has upload limits I’d surpass in a single video unless you pay them, for example. Plus, I’d have to re-establish myself there, even though I already have a bunch-load of subscribers, comments and views on YouTube.

I wish the engineers or admins behind the scenes would actually get up off their asses, look into the community and take note that many people wouldn’t mind being burdened by stupid restrictions such as these. Sure they upped the file size limit to 2GB, but I’d never use that in 11 minutes even if I tried. Recording on my camcorder at full 1080p with maxed settings – I still get over two hours of footage onto my 16GB card, which is about 15 minutes for two gigs.

Well OK, one major exception to this would have to be raw FRAPS footage. That eats up four gigs every two minutes or so…

But still, I’m rather pissed off at how I’ve lost an entire day rendering only for it to be made useless by a processing bug. Fuck this shit. Now I have to spend the entirety of today re-rendering everything, and I can’t play any games while doing so because Vegas takes up nearly all my CPU…

You may call be a Jimmie Johnson hater or something like that, but I was absolutely thrilled to see him crash out live as it happened. Why? Well, the guy is just too damn good. He seems to win every other damn race, and he makes the sport boring to watch. If we know JJ is going to win, why bother watching? While I’m not annoyed when someone other than Montoya wins (which is every damn race), I am annoyed when someone who was only won four championships because of NASCAR’s silly playoff system wins every other time.

It’s like when Schumacher was winning every race in Formula 1, it made the sport boring. Now though, after being gone for several years, he’s back and he’s shit. Now it’s fun again to watch a race with Schumi in it!

I just hope that a GIF of this crash turns up sooner or later…

Usually I don’t mind being under the weather, but what with recently been trying to make more gaming videos, and this massive coughing fit rendering me completely incapable of doing so, lest my commentary be broken off every minute or so as I feel yet another tickle in my throat.

Another reason for groaning is after noticing how packed up my calendar is looking over the next few months, which is likely to get worse as more things are arranged over the next few weeks. Especially all the few weeks leading from mid-June through July…
If you really want to, the public view of my calendar (encompassing college, gaming, and selected public events – but only showing my free/busy status of personal events) is viewable on the contact page. And then you too can groan with me…

At least you don’t have to see my view of my calendar, which also shows public holidays, Facebook events, Facebook birthdays, sporting events…

So, last Thursday morning (the one with the random snow) I was heading in towards college, hitching a life with my mom who at the time was going… well, somewhere. Half expecting to get off somewhere in Blanch and get a bus to town, firstly I realised the time, and then the fact that she was going via Carpenterstown. So I then decided to give the train a shot, since it would get me into Drumcondra much quicker than a bus into town and then back out would have.

Walking up into the station, fumbling around trying to figure out which pocket I had my pass in. As I’m going by the side windows of the ticket office, I see them shut, which I find to be quite odd, as it’s only 9.20. Round the corner – and the main shutters of the office are closed as well. Well, that’s just fucking brilliant…

The one annoying thing about train travel with the Free Travel Pass, is the absolute need for a manned ticket office to be open in order to get a ticket, as there’s no way otherwise to get through the ticket barriers onto the platform (well, except for hopping them of course). It’s also annoying how the ticket vending machines have no option for people with their pass to get their ticket from it. It’s as if Irish Rail haven’t put any thought into designing their system for passholders.

So I did a little searching around to try and piece together some things. Unfortunately, Google doesn’t seem to have a decent enough result for "irish rail free travel pass ticket office closed", and rather annoyingly has links to the Irish Rail website which just says "Free Travel Pass". However, I did find some half-decent links out there with regards to others in a similar situation.

• Firstly, a link to Irish Rail’s "Guide for Rail Passengers with Disabilites" (PDF). On page 4 (really page 5…), it states:
  

  Free Travel Passes must be produced at the ticket office in order to receive a valid ticket to travel on the train.

  Fat lot of fucking help when there’s no open ticket office.
  The same sort of thing is repeated on the passenger charter.

• A link to a thread on RailUsers.ie, detailing how Irish Rail were forced to pay compensation to a visually impaired man in possession of a Free Travel Pass as well as review their policies on the matter – because of the fact they don’t provide social welfare tickets for any day other than the one you’re getting the ticket on.
• A link to a report on the accessibility of public transport in Ireland for people with disabilities. On page 14, section 2.2.2:
  

  All People with disabilities in Ireland have a free travel pass but must get a ticket for travelling on both long distance and intercity trains. Ticket vending machines are not accessible for disabled people.

  Nail on the head right there.

• And finally, the least "on topic" of all of these, a link to a thread in the Commuting and Transport forum on Boards from three years ago. While not necessarily about the Free Travel Pass, it still highlights the fact that passengers might not have a choice in the matter when there’s no way to get a ticket at the station, either by the office being closed or vending machines being out or the like; and how staff at Irish Rail react to such a situation.

All in all, stuff giving out shit about this.

Oh, in the end I ended up just buying a single ticket from the vending machine there, as I wasn’t going to try "fare-dodge" and risk getting caught – which I wouldn’t have by the way. Thankfully I actually had enough change in my wallet to be able to buy the €2 ticket…

And on a related note, I see Dublin Bus are still sticking with the whole "you need the photo ID, period" sort of attitude after another ticket inspector on the 70 recently; all despite the fact that it is specifically mentions living in Dublin, not Meath. They really should get it changed to say something along the lines of "In order to utilise Dublin Bus services, and Bus Eireann city services in (whatever the other cities are), you need this photo ID". Although at least the inspector was a bit more passé about it and just kindly mentioned to me that I "only have to go to O’Connell St. It’ll take 3 minutes." Rather than the situation of the driver almost not letting me get the last bus back home from town one night.

When what seems like every second blog post I read, every fifth tweet, and every radio new bulletin I listen to mention Haiti, it’s more a case of jumping on the bandwagon rather than genuine concern. Now I can deal with that no problem (I just ignore you…), but what irks me is that the majority of these things also involve somewhere an attempt to get you to go donate money to some random charitable organisation that claim they are going there to use that money to help rebuild and rescue and whatnot.

Bullshit.

And it’s made an absolute fuckton worse when every third e-mail I get is from some random site I’m on sending a circular to all members bugging them to go donate.

I can deal with this thing poisoning my feed inbox, infiltrating my Seesmic, and being blared out by my clock radio beside my bed – but when it starts to get shoved down my throat in my inbox, now that’s just crossing the damn line. If I was going to donate to this crisis, I’d do it of my own accord out of the goodness of my heart. But when you’re agonisingly bugging me – almost to the extent of shunning me when I do nothing – then I don’t see the point in bothering, when all I’m going to end up doing is jumping on this bandwagon.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few? How about everyone else on earth living their life as normal, versus a country that doesn’t seem to have prepared for this sort of situation, despite being located practically right next to the edge of the Caribbean Plate, which has had a fair few quakes over the past few decades? (Provided these images on Wikipedia are anything to believe.)

I’m sick of it. All of you bugging me about it have caused me to close my wallet back up and put it back into my pocket. Well done.

I’ll wait.

…

Back? Good. Now I can talk as if you know what I mean

So, after originally starting out with that fairly shit compared to current standards, major battles of Japanese Pokémon Platinum thing, which at the time was recorded with my regular normal Sony DSC-W35 at a resolution of 640×480 with the sound having to be recorded as it came from the DS speakers meaning I had to shut the fuck up, and edited using Windows Movie Maker; I got a couple of fans. Nothing major really, although at this stage I’m still astounded as to how my Elite Four battle video against Cynthia has garnered 1700+ views in little over a year (obviously the kids were really stuck!).

After that, I was originally going to start the new American Platinum full LP – as in full game coverage and commentary – with that shitty camera, when I acquired my current camcorder, my Canon HF100; and at the same time, came across Sony Vegas 9.^† Sure, full HD may be overkill, but then again it gives me room for error before I edit it down to 720p for uploading. But most importantly, it does have that microphone input jack so I can actually have decent quality game sound. That style of proper LP’ing brought in a few more subs.

But I must say it wasn’t until SoulSilver was released in Japan, and I started that LP that I’ve really started to "take off" in regular viewers. Sure it’s not by much, but at least I know I have people out there that do look forward to what I upload – well, I hope. With a new game, new blind running, and new commentary style, I do kinda feel like I’ve got this thing well and truly sorted.

And now thanks to TheAlmightyBear (aka my gaming machine!) and with a little help from Fraps ($37 well spent tbh!), I now have my other side of LP’ing in what is currently Borderlands – as well as the possibility of some other random PC gaming videos. While this itself does need some work to perfect, I think I have this down as well. At least, I know I do now that I’ve figured out a setting to turn off in Vegas to properly line up the Fraps clips, which are unfortunately limited to 3.9GB each, meaning each particular video is actually about seven or eight files mashed into one. And I hope I’ve fixed the sound level problems for the future as well. Since I thought I could reduce the game volume by reducing the general speaker volume – and that not working – I’ve now gone ahead and turned down the volume for Stereo Mix specifically. At least next time I’m running a sound test I can be sure that’s working.

Agh, gone off the point…

Anyway, I’m probably getting way too ahead of myself here, but I’m actually starting to think about what I need to do when if I get popular. Will I need to start setting up fan pages on places? Official fan groups? An official fan forum? Sure, I’d like it and all, but I just hope that people won’t get too ahead of themselves…

…

Actually, I hope none of my subscribers are reading this…

* looks around *

* legs it *

^† Don’t ask what I mean by "came across", alright?

I’m not sure if I really get all the hype over a new year. It’s just a number ticking over the next one because the cycle has ended. If we celebrate a new year, then why don’t we celebrate every new month, day, hour, minute or even second? HAPPY NEW SECOND! And again, HAPPY NEW SECOND! Get over it.

But since when it comes to statistics purposes, a new year is a fresh start, so a few things that I’m saying now that I’m going to do and probably won’t:

• Write something half-decent at least twice a week
• Either write an article on behalf of the bear, or make a bear comic at least every other week
• Do a video rant (well, more of an audio rant) at least every month.
• Bring those game review things I tried back, as well as doing a proper review of them on Shoryuken if not already done there.
• Not change little cosmetic aspects of my site every week. Do it up once, and then just leave it.

Also, one more good thing about this year is that I turn 21.

I’m a little worried about that, not because of the actual age itself, but more the fact that I have four distinct groups of people that I feel I "belong to" that will likely want to celebrate with me. If that means four parties in one week, then woo-hoo!

If your first instinct right now is to scroll right down to that comments box and ask me “Why?”, I’m just going to say right now “Why not?”. There’s not much different to a normal fancy dress or costume party (especially when it’s one of Elly’s!) – you’re just being someone from anime, manga, video games etc.. It’s along the same lines as LARPing (Live Action Role Playing games, for those of you who are uneducated), just not with a game in mind, only fun. So I’d like to see you turn around and tell me it’s not normal.

I’ve already started planning for next year’s anime convention schedule, so that I can hopefully go as part of a cosplaying pair or group, and possibly even have skits prepared for some of the more major cons. Why start planning so early? Well, everyone else seems to be doing so as well. Plus, the more time I have available, the more time I have to actually get something made for it, and that doesn’t look like crap. Or so I can just continually go on about how much time I have left, only to procrastinate and realise two weeks before the con that I’m royally fucked. The latter option is very likely to happen, unless those who I’m cosplaying with start beating me with sticks to get me to get stuff done.

I would start arguing about why should things like this be limited to conventions, but the main thing about that is the point of view of the public, who may not exactly consider this sort of thing to be normal or acceptable behaviour. Yes, this is something probably best kept to group meetings with like-minded people who are actually into this sort of thing. Doesn’t mean that meetings can’t be arranged though. Several times throughout the year I hear of cosplay photoshoots wanting to be held, that would interest me, again if I was actually half-decent at costume creation so that I’d look good on camera – and if that one decent picture of me I found from Eirta this year is anything to go by, I sure as hell don’t!

And if you think I’m already off my rocker with all this, I’m probably going to make me sound even more insane to you right now – I’m even thinking about having a cosplay party for my 21st. Yes, consider me sad if you will, but I would certainly enjoy a party where everybody is in a character not them. Sure it’d probably alienate a fair few of my friends and would probably be just eirtaku peeps attending, but all I’d say to that is that anyone not being there would be missing out big time.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off back to deviantArt to go gawp at people…

So, seeing as I had to leave very quickly this morning and wasn’t able to clean up the kitchen downstairs before I left, I told myself I’d go back home much earlier than normal tonight and get it done, as well as maybe making something for dinner with the random crap lying around in the fridge or freezer. With the aim and intention of getting the 1950 to be home by around nine, I left at around a quarter past seven.

Now while services from DCU to town are plentiful and regular, they still tend to come in a clump. And when those clumps generally mean that you only have twenty minutes to get into town and you have no idea how bad the traffic and/or demand for the bus will be, you have the hard choice of risking it in town, or going through Phibsborough and then hopping on one from there to Cabra where you can meet with the bus you actually want. Which is what I did, since I wanted to actually get back home.

So, I arrive in town at just before a quarter to eight, and check the timetable for the 38, which shows one having left town at 1940. Grand so, it’ll be here in about ten minutes, and I can be up at Cabra Cross within another five, meaning I’d only have about a ten minute wait for my 70. Ten to eight – no sign. Probably just slow out. Five to eight – nothing. Eight o’clock – still nothing. OK, maybe he’s just around the corner and I can’t see him and it’s been a torrid night getting out. Five minutes past fucking eight (actually 8:04 to be precise) and he shows up, not even half-full. Right, let’s get on and get the fuck up to the top of the road already. If I’d have known it would have taken so long, I probably would have gotten the 122 that went by about ten minutes ago.

A very slow drive to the top of the road, not helped by a bunch of old ladies (obviously a bingo party) getting on halfway, and we reach Cabra Cross – only to see a bus coming from Stoneybatter-way and going ahead. As I was near the back of the bus, I couldn’t make out the number on the back too well (from far away 39 and 70 do look alike), and was seriously hoping that it was the one I didn’t need.
A minute later when we got close to the back – fuckit. It was my 70. The 38 lost those ten minutes to the 70 somehow for some unknown fucking reason on the way to Phibsborough. At least I was hoping that we’d eventually catch up to it while stopped somewhere, or even overtaking it.

Well, that plan got off to a high when the 70 stopped at the next stop up, outside the Navan Road entrance to Coláiste Mhuire (where I used to get on/off the bus to and from Blanchardstown every morning for the last three years of my secondary education) – and was scuppered almost immediately when the guy who got off it flagged down the 38. And it was only made worse and worse, so that by the time the 70 had arrived at the last possible stop I could have changed at – the stop outside St. Brigids GAA Club on the dual-carriageway – we were stuck down the other end, passing by the Phoenix Park racecourse apartments.

So I give the parent a ring asking if she can drop down and pick me up since I’ve no chance of getting back soon – and I get a response saying there’s not a chance of it happening as the place was left in a state and that I should probably just get a taxi back.

Which destined me to at least an hour and a bit wandering around Blanchardstown while I waited for the next 70 to come, which leaves town at twenty past fucking nine. After wandering for said time frame, including getting dinner in KFC since I knew I’d be home late. So, I sit down at the stop at the Blanchardstown Centre at about nine-forty and wait for him to come.

And wait.

And wait some more.

Until at ten past ten, me and two others who had been waiting on it, give up resigned to the fact that the driver was a lazy ass and decided not to to through the Centre, despite that fact that every normal 70 after seven is supposed to go through it since the fucking 270 stops service at seven for some unknown fucking reason, even though it runs all the way through to midnight on Sundays! – and end up splitting a taxi home, which I could have just gotten myself originally, as despite the fact it was split with one of the others in the car, as the other one was only going to Clonee, I ended up paying him full price anyway since myself and the driver were both having a bad night with the maths.

This shit really pisses me off. Really.

Dublin Bus need to get their fucking act together, before I have to write another letter of complaint…

Here’s a copy of my e-mail of complaint which I have just sent off to the Dublin Bus e-mail that they provide on their website, if you want to have a read at all. It’d be a fucking miracle if they actually respond to it though, let alone do anything about it.

Dear Sir/Madam,

I wish to make a formal complaint to Dublin Bus for the treatment I received from the driver of the 2320hrs departure of the Route 70 bus from Hawkins St. to Dunboyne on the 28th October 2009.

I have a mental disability, and am receiving Disability Allowance, and as such I have received a Free Travel Pass, which entitles me to free travel on your services. On the aforementioned journey, when I attempted to board the bus at Dame St. Ulster Bank stop, I showed my Travel Pass to the driver, ensuring that he noticed it and I proceeded to sit down, when I was called back and asked for my photo pass, which I do not have. After answering that I did not have one because I did not need one, I was told that I was “not going back [to Dunboyne] on this bus you’re not”. After attempting to explain to the driver that the documents that arrived with my Travel Pass specifically stated that I did not need one, I was also told that the pass “is useless without the card”. Only after I briefly showed my Social Welfare card and was rummaging through my wallet to pay the cash fare, I was informed “I said you can go on”.

This experience was distressing and embarrassing for myself, as I have almost never had any issues with utilising my Free Travel Pass on any service from Dublin Bus, Bus Éireann, or Iarnród Éireann for the length of time I have had the Pass; and I was also worried that if I was refused travel on the bus, that I would be stuck in town for the night as that particular service is the last service to Dunboyne during the evenings.

After arriving home, I went and searched information regarding the Photo ID for the Free Travel Pass, and I came across the following: http://www.welfare.ie/EN/Publications/SW40/Pages/9DoIneedtoshowevidenceofmyidentity.aspx

In addition, if you live in Dublin, Cork city, Waterford city, Limerick city or Galway city you must also produce a Free Travel Photo ID

As Dunboyne, and thus my address is in Co. Meath, therefore I am not required to possess a Photo ID.

An incident similar to this also occurred within the last month, when a bus inspector boarded the bus I was on and proceeded to check tickets, when I showed him my bus pass, I was also asked for the Photo ID, to which I did also reply that as I am from Co. Meath, I do not require the Photo ID. Only on production of another form of Photo ID was the inspector satisfied.

If the condition is supposed to mean that anyone who lives in the catchment area of Dublin Bus or Bus Éireann city services, then why it is not explicitly mentioned in the condition? Also, why are your members of staff not informed of this fact that passengers from outside of Dublin may not necessarily have Photo IDs for their Free Travel Passes when they don’t need one, and that undue hassle over not having one is unnecessary?

Regards,

Chris Daly

I really don’t want to have any of this shit from them, it’s bad enough that the bus service back in the evenings is a load of shite…

Although tbh, there’s not really much to talk about. Monday was spent sitting around while the Registry fished me out of the lake somewhere somehow. Tuesday figuring out what I need to do in order to get enough credits to be able to officially complete second year. Wednesday abusing the LapLan. Thursday actually going to an actual lecture. Friday hanging at home since I had nothing. I feel just like a CA1 with the Fridays off, but then again like so much more since I’m a CASE2 and I technically have Tuesdays and Wednesdays free

Although Wednesday is the big technically, since it’s my job to be in college setting up the consoles, seeing as I am Console Ents for the year. I’m just hoping that we eventually manage to sort out a room, after whatever Slowpokes moved the Mezz into the seminar room, thus forcing us to look elsewhere. Made even worse by the fact that at this point in time, all that’s there is a bunch load of spare tables, the center area installed, and a bunch-load more crap just stored there. If you weren’t going to complete it in time, why’d you even fucking start

The Dunboyne motor festival took place last weekend, which I went to for a little bit. I briefly presented myself at the barbeque Saturday night before heading back with Chinese food instead, seeing as I was there by myself in a crowd of about four hundred people enjoying themselves together (since when could you fit so many into Brady’s backyard?!?!), feeling a little awkward and out of place. I missed the bike run on Sunday as I left the house quite late (damn you F1 re-run!), but made it in time for the car run. Managed to record all the cars as they went around Mulvaney’s corner and I really should actually go make that into a video, but that’s for another time when I’m not so busy.
Oh, and the bear got a snap with Niall. I’ll definitely have to upload that soon

This week has been really tiring and busy so far. From discovering that the main teacher of Languages and Computability really had said in the first lecture: "I’m your teacher, but I’m a lazy ass, and as such I’m forcing these postgrad slaves to teach you instead while I go sit in my office and torrent the entire Internet while playing Spider Solitaire", or something along those lines, and that one of your teachers is a Chinese postgrad who can barely speak English (snore-fest tbh – needed an insane amount of Lucozade to keep me awake…), and then the madness that were Clubs and Socs days (that’s for another post!), I’m absolutely wrecked. A 10am lecture in the morning doesn’t help, especially as that means I need to be up at about half seven and out on the 8.15am 70A to even have a remote chance of making it.

Also, I want to take this opportunity to bitch about the lack of 70 from town between the 2120 and 2320 each night. I want to be home at a reasonable hour after traditional gaming (and maybe some other stuff) in the evenings, and although the 2120 gets me home around ten, I would prefer a 2220 service to get me home around eleven. While I may not necessarily get it on trad gaming nights, it would be brilliant for lab gaming, film nights or anime nights so I don’t have to up and leave in the middle of something epic… Sake, Dublin Bus, do you ever think of the people in Dunboyne rather than just your profits?

Just after arriving in town this morning on the 0830 70A, I walked down to Westmoreland Street to catch the next bus towards Glasnevin. As I was walking down I began to hear a lot of car horns coming from the road from Stephen’s Green, and seeing that it came from taxis, some of which had their taxi thing on top turned lengthways rather than widthways. The honking continued down Westmoreland Street for a couple of minutes before my 19A arrived. Proceeding down O’Connell Street, there was then a bit of a backlog. It could have been attributed as a normal jam, except that the honking was still just as fast as ever, we hadn’t moved in several minutes, and some of the taxi drivers in the main lane had stepped out of their cars.

Seems that they had blocked all three lanes of traffic up at the last junction before Parnell Square, including the bus lane. Now I don’t have any problems with the mindless slobs blocking everyone who shouldn’t really even be driving around all alone in their cars in the city centre, but blocking hundreds of innocent people who are trying to get somewhere on public transport is just a fucking dick move. If we weren’t so far down the street (and our driver wasn’t a dick, not letting anyone off even while we were sitting there not moving), I would have got out and forced whoever it was who was blocking the bus lane to move it. Even if it meant hijacking his car. Seriously, don’t care what you do to piss off the general car drivers in the city, but don’t even dare delaying the buses. I, and many many others need them to get around everywhere, unlike you asses who use your own cars for work. Seriously.

And a good few of them were holding banners and placards mentioning that taxi drivers were against Lisbon. I’m fucking sick of all these demonstrations over a vote. At this rate, I’m now leaning more towards the "write-in" option. So if you are counting the Meath votes and you see one for "I don’t fucking give a shit", that’s probably mine.

While beforehand, and for the majority of the start of the show, I was still seeing Tubridy as a tosser; it subsided quite quickly during the intense grilling of Biffo (aka Brian Cowen aka an Taoiseach aka He Who Is Supposed To Be In Charge Around Here), before fading completely when Saoirse Ronan was on. I must say, he really does fit the role very well, a lot better than the Plank (i.e. Pat Kenny) used to.

So, after clearing the high bar set by the Pl- no, sorry by Gay Byrne that the Plank never managed to clear – how consistent will Tubridy be? He better hope for the life of him that he manages to keep the nation satisfied with the show, otherwise I think the flash mobs will be all over him. Or we’ll have to start gatecrashing the show again.

Hey, I actually managed to find some decent videos on YouTube. Only took about half an hour of mixing around keywords…

Now, how’s he going to handle the Toy Show…?

• Which of the articles of clothing you brought along is able to hold the most water whilst still keeping you feeling dry, and which can’t.
• That Starbucks is expensive merely because those particular shops are in Ireland.
• That you are physically much closer in distance to a certain YouTube celebrity you follow, yet you know they will never respond on Twitter when you want to try and meet up with them.
• That T-Mobile’s signal is shit, while O2′s and Vodafone’s are good. Not helpful when you get the best value roaming with them.
• That the Jelly Bean Factory, despite being an Irish company (with their head office located not far away from you..), can really only be found in British gift and sweet shops.
• That while flights with Ryanair aren’t all that bad, the overall package is shit. Also, they seem very full of themselves when they play that "fanfare" once you land claiming that your flight was on-time, along with the other 90% of punctual service.
• That when you specifically tell your mother that the bag she and your sister packed is really heavy and is probably too heavy for the flight, it’s in fact 7kg overweight and she has to pay almost as much as you paid for the flights both ways total, just for the one bag.
• That British "A-roads" would never get an A grade in an NRA exam.
• That free Wi-Fi doesn’t necessarily mean fast Wi-Fi.
• When they say they want you out by 10am, they really do mean 10am, since the mass of cleaners get deployed the second the clock ticks over.
• Never let your parent walk home on their own if you are the only one who knows how to get around the place, as they will walk around for an hour and a half in the rain before they give up and ring you when your phone finally manages to find signal again.
• That passport control in Dublin Airport is a little over-strict. Queues of 20 minutes in Dublin. No queues – actually, more like no guards checking things – in Bristol.
• Why grown old men, generally fathers in their 40s of several young children not even 10, really repulse you when they head around the… I keep thinking the word "campus" for some reason… in heavy jackets, heavy jumpers, and some of the skimpiest shorts a man can get away with.

  Whilst cycling.

  With their family.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go burn those images out of my head.

Then again, bringing the G15 around mightn’t be so bad, since I can show off a bit. Although the size would be a pain…

Those two paragraphs originally came out like this:

This n/is n/really just a quick post n/to n/try and prove to yu people bhow fucking n/annoying my laptop’s in-built n/keyboard n/is bbeing bto me n/bthese bdays. It bstarted bseveral months n/ago n/and bseems to bbe bgettin/ g bprogressively worse bto n/bthe n/n/point bwhere I’ll bprobably n/have n/to bn/end n/up bbuying ba n/new bkeyboard and bdoing byet n/another bhack band bslash job to n/fit bit bin n/and once bagain bbe n/able bto properly ype stuff bon n/the n/go.

Then n/again, bringing bthe bG15 baround n/mighn’t be bso n/sad, bsince/ I can n/show n/off a bbit. n/Although bthe bsize bwould n/be a bpain…n

Fuck. Sake.

*throws bear across room*

So, there are a few things that I want to do, and hopefully get as many of them done before Sunday, which is the final day of me being in this country for a while. I probably haven’t yet mentioned it (mainly because it’s not exactly the most interesting of things for you guys ), but we’re – and that means me, my sister, and my mom – are heading to Center Parcs in Longleat for a week starting this Monday. It was a good deal, she pay for the stay, and I pay for the flights and car given that I do have an income and I’m not exactly still living at home anymore.

Except that in order for the car company to charge me, I had to have been the one driving it. Oh well, it’s such a shame I didn’t have to pay for that(!) Although quite frankly, Ryanair were a fucking rip-off. As we were going to be staying Monday-Monday, we have flights for Monday morning. At 6:35am to be precise. It was either that or 2pm, but flying in the afternoon means we’ve wasted our first day, and given how expensive the stay is, it’s better to be tired on the first morning, rather than arriving fresh as a just-delivered pizza yet everyone being closed owing to it being so late.

Anyway, for the flights for the three of us there (Dublin – Britsol): €33. Flights back the week after: €3. That made me think “Oh!” when I saw how cheap it would be. Then came the annoying extras. Two checked in bags – one for me and one for the parent with Aoife splitting her stuff between the suitcases – €40. Fuck sake. If I wasn’t going with my mother I’d probably have been able to get away with my laptop bag with one change of clothes stuffed into it. But I can’t, because generally I’m not allowed to live like that in her company. *sigh*

Then came the next big bombshell – handling fee. Also known as the “charge for trying to pay with anything other than a Visa debit card”. Thirty fucking Euros, you sonuvabitch. And then to top it all off, I was asked to get priority boarding as well. Eighteen more euros. What originally started as pocket change (in my terms) now became a fully fledged shopping list (in my terms – although even then that’s only a week/week and a half long shop). Fuck. You. Extortionate. Bastards.

So yea, heading up to Dublin… hopefully tomorrow. Was originally going to be today, except I kinda went to bed at 6am after a long night of web space related bleh, being in my usual Americanized personal time zone, and the general lack of having anything ready. Which is why today I’ll be getting stuff ready and heading back tomorrow. Or if all else fails, heading back on the 8am bus Saturday morning, going straight into meeting up with the Eirtaku folk and tagging along to the next cosplay photoshoot – and then to Dunboyne.

While I’m on that subject, this Saturday afternoon is yet another cosplay photoshoot. I say yet another in the way that they’ve been happening about every two weeks now. I would have gone to the first, which fell quite conveniently on my birthday which meant I would have had even less of a day to put up with an over-enthusiastic sister (sorry!), only it was cancelled due to the bad weather. The second one fell on the exact same day as the worldwide photowalks, plus I would have had to get said 8am bus. And now there’s this one. If bad weather strikes again, I swear to fuck… *throws bear across room*

I also really need to go record some more footage for my Platinum LP as well. If I do end up doing it, it’ll probably be tonight and then I’ll spend most of Sunday, when not getting ready to leave, editing it into a few videos and then uploading them all very early Monday morning. It’s the editing part I’m worried about, what with it generally taking one and a half hours apiece. Uploading won’t be an issue thanks to 9.6Mb upload (when I last tested it) on Magnet’s fibre network. Hell yes, seven minute video upload as opposed to four fucking agonisingly slow hours. And then at the end of those aforementioned hours, it decided to come up with an unknown error and make me start over again. Fix your shit YouTube. And while you’re at it, either remove the 10:59 limit, or gimme to capability to upload more seeing as I joined back in 2006 when the Director function gave you unlimited uploads which you then revoked and now only give to partners, but all the oldies still keep their functionality! *sharp inhale*

Related to that, I have a new server roommate Samantha. I blame raocow for introducing us. To cut to the point, Sam had no money to renew her webspace soon, and I had webspace available in spades. Seriously, I’m only using about 1.5GB of my disk, and never anymore than 4GB of my monthly bandwidth – so sharing some of my Minimus excess is pretty simple. Once I get shit figured out that is…

And lastly I wanted to start doing vlogs at least once every… well, I say week now, but it’ll very likely end up becoming two months based on a combination of laziness and nothing to talk about. But we’ll see. It’ll have to wait until I get back from holidays because starting it now is probably a bad idea. Plus I’ll probably have a bunch of video content taken while over there, and maybe at the cosplay photoshoot, to edit once I get back. How everything eventually falls back to some common factor.

Wow, I could talk.

Directly quoted:

Here’s the timeline on the thing that ruined my life.

April 9th 2007; I meet Sabrina Larkin, we become a couple.

May 18th 2007; I propose to Sabrina, she accepts.

June 2007; We decide to try and have a Baby, thinking we’re ready and that we’ll be fine.

Jully / August 2007; Sabrina’s Pregnant.

September ’07; I start ” Childcare ” in ” Liberties College “. All’s going well.

November 2007; I start worrying about Money and not being able to provide for my Child and Partner and decide to leave College and work Full Time in ” Dunnes Stores “, I ask for extra Hours from the Human Resource Manager.

December 2007; Day I’m suppose to start my extra Hours I arrive late ( didn’t know I got the extra hours ) and was given my Notice Two Weeks before Christmas. I then decide to take a break and think about what I was going to do in the New Year.

January 2008; I get a place in ” C. A. S. Pr. ” ( ” The Community After School’s Project ), really enjoy what I’m doing.

Febuary 2008; Aisling is born and I’m so proud of both her and Sabrina. We spend a good bit of time fighting about me taking Aisling over night to give Sabrina a break. She thinks I’m trying to take the Baby off her and so on.

All was good for us for a few months.

May 28th 2008; While on my Laptop I get a Text from Sabrina in the very early hours of the morning saying she heard I shoock Aisling and that I wasn’t to do it again. My Mam got the same text but she was away. I totally and positivly denied and refuted the alagations saying that I did no such thing.

May 30th 2008; After completing ” Child Protection ” I recieve a call from the Social Worker, Tara O Connor notifing me that it was aledged I shoock Aisling, she asked me up to dicuss the issue. I gladly agree and she tells me that Sabrina, her Father ( Robert Larkin ) and her Mother ( Carmel Larkin ) were accusing me of shaking the Baby. I told her exactly the same thing I told Sabrina, that I DEFINATLY didn’t do anything of the sort. The story was that Aisling drank a Bottle, Sabrina had trouble getting Aisling’s Wind up, so she gave her over to me and went into the Kichen to make herself a Cup of Tea. I had trouble too and she wouldn’t stop crying so I got stressed out by her crying and shook her and then gave her to Sabrina’s Father. Her Father pulled me up over it and his shouts were that loud that Sabrina heard from the Kitchen, came in to see what was going on and when she found out did the same thing, eat the head off me. The Social Worker informed me that for the Child’s safetyI wasn’t to see her untill the investigation was complete, which I was happy to comply with as I was innocent even though I didn’t know when I’d see my Daughter again.. I later fond out that the Family Practice ( Fairview Strand Health Clinic ) was informed ( Doctor Ronan McCorrican was the Doctor’s name ).

June 3rd 2008; I inform my employers of the situation ( rightly in my mind, even if I wasn’t legally obliged to do it as I thought it was in the best interest of the Children in the Afterschool’s Project ) and I was temporarilly suspended only to be placed on cleaning duties two weeks later.

As time went on I found out more information, like the Doctor was informed A WEEK AFTER the incident was suppose to have happened and then the Social Worker was informed a Week AFTER THAT!!!!! I found this strange as you would inform the proper people of any type of Child Abuse you new of straight away. I then found out that the Doctor DIDN’T carry out a Medical Examination for signs of Physical Abuse when he was informed or after and that the Social Worker thought it wasn’t nessesary when she found out either.

The Summer Project starts in the After School’s and I was unable to partake in the activities, including the Trip to Cavan which I was REALLY looking forward to. When I was told I couldn’t go it killed me.

September 2008; The Social Worker’s so called ” Finding’s “: I shook Aisling but didn’t mean to do it, that I did it out of fustration because she was crying. So she agreed with Sabrina’s Father because THAT’S EXACTLY what he said happened.

Ever since shortly after the accusation was made it’s left me severly depressed and suicidal. Prior to it I could deal with these fellings and thoughts but after it it all got overwhelming.

We moved in together and her Family were in here alot. I couldn’t deal with it and we had a fight about it. In the end I told her I could deal with them being in the Apartment once a week but anything after that was asking too much of me. and the Week before Christmas Week her Father sent ” Dublin City Council ” a letter stating that Sabrina was living with her Partner, the Council forwarded a copy of the Letter to the Department Of Social & Family Affairs, we were informed about the Letter Christmas Week when the Rent’e Inspector called out to the Apartment. This lost Sabrina her Lone Parent’s Payment and the Rent Allowence that we needed to remain in the Apartment. The Day we found out about the letter we confroned him about it and he denied it was him. He pointed the finger at Sabrina’s Mother and said that he could easily type up a Letter, Print it out and Post it, that was as good as a confession for me so I lost the head and went for him. I got him in a Headlock and pulled him around a bit, he claims I punched him and put his head through a pane of glass in a door which left him a bloody mess. Again I did no such thing. He was all for getting me charged for assault and I didn’t care, all I cared about was why I didn’t finish him off for what he did to both of us. Sabrina’s Family were all banned from the Apartment. That night himself, Sabrina’s Mother, the Mother’s Partner and Sabrina’s Brother were alll down in the Family Home having what I can only describe as a War Council, discussing how best to deal with me. I found out Sabrina’s Brother was more then happy to beat the shit out of me so he enlisted to ” services ” of His and Sabrina’s Cousin to do the job. My Mother rang Sabrina’s Father to ask why he did such a thing and his excuse was that we were breaking the Law by Sabrina falsly claiming to be a Lone Parent and that he was right to inform the Council. He didn’t care that his Daughter and Granddaughter were going to be homeless and when my Mother asked if he would he be prepared to take both of them back if she took me back his exact response was that he wouldn’t have the Baby in the House again and that he had his own life to live now and he didn’t apologise for what he did to his Daughter. Sabrina fell into a severe depression over the issue and said it was her worst Christmas ever.

Then New Year’s Eve came and Sabrina text me while she was down in the Family Home and I was in Town asking for her Bebo Password, I found this strange as I knew they DIDN’T have a working Modem down thier so I asked her why she wanted it. She told me she was on the Internet and I then quized her about the Modem. When she described it as mine I told her to take it back and I would verify it as mine, I rang Customer Care to verify it was being used and they told me it was being used as I was on the phone to them. I got them to suspend the Modem and told them I would unsusspend it when it was back in my posession. When I got home I did just that the minute I got in, the Serial Number on the Modem she brought up and on my Modem’s Box matched EXACTLY so I new it was mine, not that I needed to check it because I knew it was mine. The Story was that Sabrina’s Sister ( Vanessa ) robbed it on me but I think it was her Brother who robbed it, but as I have no proof to back up my theory I have to go by what they told me. I told Sabrina there and then that I didn’t want ANY member of her Family in the Apartment because of it ( our Landlord said that after the Letter but I told Sabrina I would ask about two of the Sisters and her Grandmother I talked about getting her Sister charged with theft and her Fammily then talked about getting me charged with assault for what I did to Sabrina’s Father. Sabrina’s Mother’s Partner rang me to tell me that she was too young to be getting charged and I told him she was old enough to commit the crime so she was old enough to have charged for it. I also asked him if he or Sabrina’s Mother pulled her Father up for what he did to Sabrina and he told me that he didn’t. So I told him not to be lecturing me then. Sabrina couldn’t see why I was so upset and when I was asking if she’d be supporting me her EXACT words were ” this is my Family you want me to go against “, I just lost it then. I told her that if it was my Sister who robbed her Pink G. H. D which I paid €179 for as her Christmas Present then I would be pushing her to get her charged for theft just like I was planning to do with her Sister After them all accusing me of shaking Aisling, after her Father writng the letter and her Sister robbing my Modem she STILL was picking them over me so I finished it with her. The next Day we both moved back home and I didn’t see Aisling fornearly a Week. All of Sabrina’s Family continued to insult me behind my back, even though Sabrina has told them she didn’t like it and niether did I. She asked them to stop it and they didn’t stop. We had yet ANOTHER fight over it. I told Sabrina that she either stopped them and unconditionally supported me or there was no possible chance for us. She promised to support me but I told her I didn’t believe her because she said it all before.

The whole accusation episode has left me severly depressed, suicidal, skipping food for days on end, losing sleep and felling worthless. I know it’s wrong but part of me can logically argue that Aisling is to blame, and it kills me to think like that, I mean she was only three or four Months Old when it happened but I’m left asking myself would it have happened if she wasn’t born, I think not. Take last Week for example, more meals missed then I have digits, three nights were I couldn’t sleep and ended up crying and feeling so depressed suicidal that I nearly killed myself.

Now I know some people might think what I’ve said about Sabrina’s Family was mean and uncalled for or other things but I would urge them to put themeselves in my position and ask themselves how they’d react if it happened to them.

I’m very concerned about this whole situation. I know that situations like this do happen every day, but when it does happen to one of your best friends – well, that’s when things really do start to affect you…

If anyone has any advice or tips that I can forward onto him, please let me know! Otherwise, even just spreading the word out is greatly appreciated. I don’t like this whole debacle very much, any help I can give him would make me feel better

Baby Bear for US president.

That is all.

If you were seriously expecting something worthwhile to appear here, then I’m afraid you are sorely mistaken. I don’t give much of a crap about the election, I wouldn’t care if it happened completely in the background. But unfortunately everyone seems to be going on about it, and as such my head is over inflated with all this crap, and so I have to deal with it until it gets to the point where I have to vent my feelings about the situation.

Hence the rant.

Or half rant, or whatever it is.

Now go out, and don’t vote for your Democrat or your Republican, vote for your Fluffy and help get Baby Bear into office

The biggest nagging issue of all is that of registration. I have the repeat form filled out, and the permission from the programme chair to repeat – now I just have to go over to fees, so they can process it, give me my fee liability, and then once it’s paid it’ll go through the Registry and stuff. All I need to do is print off both the form and the e-mail. Enter counter-nag number one. I can’t print them off, because my computer is on the wireless network and the printer in on the lab network. Counter-nag number two. Because I’m not registered, I can’t log in to the lab computers, so I can’t get access to the printer. Counter-nag three. I can’t register without the forms printed and fees paid. And continue in a never-ending cycle.

Second nagging issue is that of money. A couple of days ago I moved around three grand from my online savings (which has been taking half my weekly income and storing it away from me) into my current account, so I could use it, whatever it needed to be used for. First step was to get the nagging bitch off my back and pay her the money that I was refunded from on-campus accommodation last year for the deposits and stuff. Since it was made out to me, only I could lodge it into my account. I then had bills to pay and needed that money. Ever since then I’ve been nagged constantly for it back. So I went, took out lots from the ATM (and the fucking thing gave it to me all in twenties >:( ), and left it on the table at home for her to “peruse”. Now that has to get her off my ba… wtf is that? Sorry, I think Kat just walked in with purple hair instead of her usual bleach white…

Final nagging thing (for now at least), is that computer I’ve wanted for ages. Well, based on how things go with Fees and stuff (i.e. if I can get the loan I may need to pay the fees, then I’ll have the cash available), I should be able to buy it soon. But enter another nagging thing – the build costs around €2k (excluding delivery – anything from €45 to €330), and my card only has a limit of €600. And they won’t take a debit card. So I’ll need to make a pre-payment onto my card. Enter nagging thing number… whatever. I can’t make a pre-payment because I can’t add the bill to my online banking account, because I use eStatements and they don’t provide a bill number. So I need to go ring the Phone part of Phone and Internet banking, or drop into the branch (probably while doing registration) and get that sorted.

Here’s how the build stands right now (barring any more discontinuations that are bound to happen, as they have al over the summer…)

Case: Thermaltake Armor Black, Aluminium Front , 25 cm Fan, Super tower (Without PSU)
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower 850W, Modular, 8xSATA, ATX/EPS, 4xPCI-E, 20/24pin
Motherboard: Asus Striker II NSE, nForce-790i SLI, Socket-775, DDR3, 3xPCI-Ex(2.0)16
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz Socket LGA775, 8MB, BOXED w/fan
Memory: Corsair TWIN3X 1600MHz DDR3, 4GB, DHX, Kit w/two 2GB XMS3 modules, CL7-7-7-20
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB SATA2 16MB 7200RPM x2
Graphics: XFX GeForce 9800GTX 760M 512MB BLACK, PCI-Express 2.0, 2xDVI,Assassins Creed
OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 English OEM DVD 64bit
Monitor: LG 24″ Wide W2452T-PF, 1920×1200, 2ms, 10000:1
Optical Drives: LG DVD±RW burner, GH22LP20, 22x, LightScribe, SecureDisc, Black and White
Keyboard: Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard <- Purchased
Mouse: Logitech G9 Laser Mouse <- Purchased
Mousemat: SteelSeries QCK heavy mousemat, Professional gaming <- Purchased

I’ll give odds of 3:1 that at least one of those parts will be discontinued by the time I get to order it.