After a very quiet Friday (which was the actual day itself), with just a trip down to the bar in TGI Friday’s in the Centre for some bar food, cocktails and watching the Dutch dump Brazil out of the World Cup; I met up with a few friends for most of the day on the Saturday, with some general hanging around and doing whatever came to mind. One thing of note was the odd trip to the Asian market grabbing some very cheap Pocky, which I unfortunately munched through rather damn quickly after getting him, seeing as it’s so damn addictive. I really need to make some plans to go get a crate of so of them and start stocking them up in the wardrobes before Eirtakon…

Speaking of that, I really need to go sort out my plans for Final Form Sora now that I have time – and money.

Dinner with family later on that night was a massive affair – sixteen of us in all squeezing into the restaurant part of Ho Wun here in Dunboyne. It was a great night, getting everybody together for a night out to celebrate not only me, but my aunt Paula as well (whose birthday was the day before mine!), before heading home for more drinks and cake. And unfortunately no dog seeing as a couple of my aunts have some issues with canines.

Felt great the next day after a great 24 hours prior to it – and maybe a little bit because of the “personal ATM” feeling I had in my wallet following it.

So, what’s left in the summer? Well, finding a damn Blackmagic Intensity Pro somewhere in this country would be a great start, as I want to get into streaming my 360 online and maybe doing a Let’s Play of something on it – specifically Naughty Bear, which I was given on my birthday itself and I haven’t yet played it because I want to LP it blind if I can…

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?

Wednesday

Trudge into Fermoy town and find the bus stops. Decipher which one is Cork-bound. Get bus to Cork bus station. Walk to Kent St. station. Train to Heuston. Walk (or if I’m lazy, get the LUAS part-way) to Stoneybatter. Bus to Dunboyne. Walk in door. Get glomped by sister.

Thursday

Sit at home. Complain that the Internet is making too much of a fuss over me. Delete all new e-mail. Turn off phone. Throw bear for planning something behind my back. Go out for a no-fuss dinner at someplace I can gorge myself on.

Friday

Find other members of extended family for extremely brief visit. Visit Komplett’s pick-up point to collect new hard drive. Repeat Wednesday travel arrangements in reverse order and in reverse direction.

And that’s pretty much it. I think my plans are still quite pliable at this stage based on whatever else is happening around town or wherever. You know of anything else I could do…?

I must admit that the latest batch of Avatar clothing – “Summer Wear” – did finally add a set an alright set of shorts that you could choose for your avatar to wear. Although I’d still prefer more options than what are currently available (you have 5 choices, otherwise it’s full-lengths for you!) it’s probably something my avatar is probably more comfortable in.

Now I just need to go find the nearby sporting goods store to reflect this in real life, since I have no idea where my other pair have gotten to. Probably still shoved in a wardrobe in Dunboyne somewhere.

I also love how epically pointless this entry is, although it might have something to do with my really odd disposition towards being extremely interested about what people are wearing on the lower half of their bodies to the point that I will actually stop and stare, or do a double-take…

My head – it is the oddest of places.

Tuesday

The main thing about this week had to have been the SU elections for next year. Unlike last year, there was quite a bit of a contest for most of the high-profile spots (i.e. the sabbaticals!) leading to a lot of canvassing. This meant campaign t-shirts for all those involved; the creation of posters, some with fancy Photoshop work (Andrew the “Anchorman”), some just plain and boring (humanities guy); the guillotine was overworked for the first time in forever, chopping up all the pages into leaflets; and an insane amount of lollipops, sweets and other things filled with sugar that would have made all the ladies from the health fair look on in disgust.

Not to mention the fact that I apparently wasn’t in the database this year and so wasn’t able to vote – thank you again, you fuckers in the Registry… :angry:

Wednesday

The second day of voting for the SU, thankfully saw the place quietening down a bit. Posters were already torn down and the place was turning back to normal. At least until Clubs and Socs days next year :S

The afternoon was one of the more hectic ones, with both Airsoft and Games Soc having their AGM’s on at the exact same time. After hanging around with Games Soc for a bit until after 2 (AGM hadn’t started as for the lack of quorum), so for a quick run down to the Airsoft one, take a few show of hands votes, give Ordinary Member a shot and not win, then leg it back up with everyone to the Games Soc one as nearly all of them are members.

AGM was brief enough. Every position bar two went uncontested, and the only reason those two were contested was because of our nooby first year meaning just a little too well. Needless to say he didn’t make it. Oh, and I’m Console Ents for next year. Woo. To quote Robby: I finally made it. I’m not going to delve into how badly our resident noob lost in both his attempts, but let’s say it was near-unanimous.

And Games Soc won Best Society and the Clubs and Socs Awards. Epic win

Thursday

Thursday was mainly spent recovering from the night before. Lab gaming was a very subdued affair seeing as how firstly very few people were there, but also as the lab would be closing way earlier than usual because of a scheduled power cut the following morning. No matter, there were SU election counts and recounts to enjoy.

There was a good bit of tension as the Education and Welfare candidates were all around for the results of a recount which increased the winning margin from 3 to 4 votes. Apparently a future recount increased it even more to 6 votes! It was one of the tighest elections ever. I wouldn’t like to have been one of the candidates for that. I would have had to take out all my stress on Super Smash Bros. which the guys set up in the Clubs and Socs office…

BTW, we finally unlocked Toon Link, and thus all characters on the Games Soc copy of Brawl

Friday

Sleep. That’s all I can say. Oh, and Elly’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy party. There were a lot of white mice eaten

Saturday

A1 qualifying is the main thing that kept me up on Saturday. Starting third and second bode very well for the championship with Switzerland starting last and third. Also, Man U barely winning was not nice, particularly with Ronaldo only playing 22 minutes and thus wasting my captaincy choice for the week in the Fantasy league. :angry:

Sunday

A1 racing, more footy. A1 stewards are a bunch of fags. Filipe Albuquerque cannot drive.

Plus, I was invited home to Dunboyne by Aoife so that we could spend Easter Sunday as a family for dinner. It was nice to be able to go back home legally for a while and see everyone again. Aoife was especially pleased. Also, I found out that my mom was heading out to the US for another business trip the following morning, which did lead to a hectic night of packing… I did get to stay the night, so yay for sleeping in a familiar bed with comfy sheets

I managed to bring some more of my stuff with me to Santry as well, and with a little bit of playing around, managed to get my 360 connected to Live via my computer, so yay for being back on Live presence again! Not sure if the connection is ideal enough for playing on, so maybe we could test it out in a few custom games on my new Halo 3 map I’ve been forging in Sandbox?

I have here a little snapshot of the area. Unfortunately the stupid Ordnance Survey guys don’t have an up-to-date map of Dunboyne including the estate and the school, so I had to get this from print screening an interactive map. It is a section of the Rooske Road including the entrance to the estate and the Gaelscoil.

A little explanation of the situation (excuse my shitty quality):

• The grey lines indicate the roads (obviously not to scale)
• The yellow lines indicate where footpaths are
• The orange bit is the entrance to the Gaelscoil
• The light green mess are trees, hedgerows and other things on the side of the road.
• The big red X’s are where residents of Dunboyne Castle have to cross the road to get to the school. The top one is where this mornings incident happened.

Now in the mornings the road is very busy. At times myself and Aoife have to wait about 2 minutes at both X’s to get across as there is almost never a break in the traffic. It’s not on the scale of rush-hour gridlock, but there just always happens to be a car coming along from either direction. The closest lollipop bearer is up the road at the small bridge which is practically at the library, which is not very helpful for those trying to go to the Gaelscoil.

When the school was originally going to be built there, the council went ahead and built the pathway along the left-hand side of the road from the school to the library up the road (not on the map), so that children and parents didn’t have to cross up near the library and again at the school. But they didn’t create a path coming from the school to the estate, and I’d guess because they didn’t want to bother removing the trees alongside. But after today, something will have to be done to stop this from happening again. I know that the child was from the estate as well, so they as well have had to cross twice every morning, and possibly afternoon to get to/from school.

I just hope that it hasn’t had to come to this to spur Meath County Council into action. Something so simple as a small bit of pathway is no substitute for the distraught of the parent, child, and driver of the car involved; and any injuries that might have occurred. I’m sure that Noel Leonard, a local county councillor who lives in Dunboyne will have something to say about it as well as me.

Now, of course €100M is an insane amount that you would never be able to spend, even in you tried your hardest – or you were completely fucking stupid on the stock market. Heck, you probably wouldn’t even manage to spend a tenth of it. But still, you have the spending power, so what would you do…

Housing

Step 1 for me would be to buy a place for myself. I know I’m not being particularly “fun” here, but I would remain in Dunboyne. First step for me would be to find out if one of those apartments here in the estate are still on sale, and then grab one of those. If not, then one of the two-storey terraced houses, or semi-detached around the area.

Why would I not head somewhere else in the country? Well, I’m already settled into Dunboyne. It’s a much nicer area than Blanchardstown was, which is one thing I can say for sure. It has the size to be a town, but also keeps the old village feel. You can easily walk down through the village and not have to worry about being jumped upon by teenagers (although they are still fucking annoying when they crowd around outside Spar…), all the while greeting people as you walk by, even if you don’t know them.

I would probably also find a place around DCU as well, as I’m not entirely sure I’d want to stick with the annoying commute in and out every morning and late night. This way I would be close to campus, so I can wake up at ten to nine and still be in for 9am lectures (it’s not five to nine as it was in on-campus accommodation, but it’s close enough!), and I can actually stay behind and take part in the really late society events like STOCS (I really can’t get used to calling it the "Traditional Gaming" branch of Games Soc), or Lab Gaming, or films etc. etc.

It also gives me the ability to put friends up for the night just in case. Last semester there was a special all-nighter arranged for the Mezz for Halloween, with 360 gaming, Internet access and films all night. And at around 11.45 someone from Security came around telling us to get the fuck out all because they apparently been properly informed (in reality, they were told and the guy who was told didn’t fucking bother to tell his superiors about it). Since there were no more buses into town for me to even think of being able to get the Nitelink back (back then we still had midweek Nitelinks!), some of my friends who lived in Shanowen were kind enough to loan me and a few others some floor space for the night. Having my own place around DCU would enable me to offer the same if such a situation were to arise again.

Gadgetry

What right techy and blogger wouldn’t trick themselves out with the latest stuff now that they have an unlimited budget? I would finally upgrade my phone to something half-decent, and make sure it has 3G so that I can actually utilise my N810 outside of using a wireless access point! (Anyone who suggests an iPhone is dead!)

I’ve been planning on buying a camcorder at some point, so I can attempt to make some better videos than what my current camera can take (640×480, 4:3, maximum of around 14 minutes), and this way I’d be able to go all out and get one of the best, top-of-the-line jobs rather than trying to find the cheapest one that has a mic input jack… While this doesn’t mean I’m going to be going into the amateur video arc, at least it means I can take some decent videos for once!

The biggest purchase in this area would have to be new computers. I can finally dump this current heap of… well it’s not even metal, more plastic methinks. On order would be an XPS M1730 and I’d also either go ahead and build my dream machine, or just go buy an XPS H₂C or an Alienware. Top of the line, with as much crap shoved inside it as possible. Nothing else would satisfy me

Charity

Obviously charity would be a big part of it. Most charities would have a standing order setup for them, but two I’d have to support even more would be Barretstown and the Jack and Jill Foundation. The support and activities they offer to children with special needs gives me great pride. That and the way they have helped other bloggers and their situations would definitely make me glad to donate whatever I can (within reason).

The next thing would be to give the Student’s Union enough to be able to buy out Trispace and start running the student bar. None of us want the whole "opening once a week" thing – especially as sometimes they don’t even open on said Tuesday… Plus a good bit would go each year to the RAG week charities, whichever they might happen to be. Although I may make the college do something funky for it

I can’t think of much else to do with it, although I’m sure if I really did have the money I’d see something I’d want and buy it instantly without thinking much. Soon I’d have to buy more and larger houses just to store all the crap. And I’d probably have to hire security to stop everyone hounding me treating me like an open ATM. I wouldn’t be that much of an ATM, although I would give the odd bit to people who needed it. Like Steef and his want of airsoft equipment

The Links

The main headline of the day is the release of the shortlists for the IBA’s. Speaking of the IBA’s, I should throw something up about them. Still need to check the train times…

The Adventuring Party, Episode 3.

Wow, I never noticed there was so much crap up on the web about the Dunboyne rail link. The main problem with it? Still not built yet…

The Pics

Holy crap, that’s worse than what you get in the Redbrick room…

The Vids

After the “Addicted to the Simpsons” app on Facebook spamming it’s userbase, promising the latest episode of the Simpsons (the first in HD), and being unable to deliver because it’s hosted on Hulu, I found this.

^ Not sure if that will work right… Dickheads seem to block hotlinking…

This is a definition of epic.

Last year’s protegé Vettel on the F1 rule changes for 2009 in some fancy CGI video. (via Joe)

Well, obviously the big thing they have done is cut way back on the Nitelink services, meaning no more buses after half eleven from Monday to Thursday. Also, they’ve culled half of the weekend Nitelinks, so you have even less of an opportunity to get home!

That’s bad for me as, especially with college starting again next week, I can be in very late for most of the week (STOCS Monday and Wednesday, Lab Gaming Thursday), so I have to get the 2320 bus back home. This latest change means that I absolutely under any circumstances CANNOT miss that bus, otherwise I’m having to find a hostel for the night.

But, I also don’t link their “sneakiness”. I went on to see if there was eventually any updates on the promised improved 70 services (which give the latest cuts probably won’t be happening anytime soon…), and I did notice a few subtle changes…

While they haven’t done anything to the times of the 70, they have eventually made it a little more clear that it does not service the Blanchardstown Centre, with the exception of the later buses midweek (as the 270 stops at seven). Also, they have finally gone ahead and expanded the 270 service on the weekends. How it’s taken them over a year and a half to add an extra bus onto the route for an hour or two is beyond me..

But the more annoying thing is how they’re claiming on the web timetable that the operative date of those changes is the7th October ’07. Are you fucking kidding me? There is absolutely no way they have been running like that for the past year and a half! 16 days at most, not 16 months!

Sneaky little gits…

What they’ve eventually added

Saturdays: From Dunboyne 0810, 0920. From Blanch 0730, 0850

Sundays: From Dunboyne 1000, 1100, 1200. From Blanch 0930, 1030, 1130, 1230.

So, I decided to take a couple crappy videos to “document” the occasion. This was when the snow first started to fall heavy-ish this afternoon:

While this is when I was walking down to pick up my sister from Irish dancing this evening, after it had really come down!

I’m just hoping it sticks and packs together to make a great scene tomorrow – good for taking piccies! While it’s not the best for those of you who have to work, oh well! I just wonder if it’ll be as good/bad as that evening after TeenCamp, when it really bucketed down in the time it took the bus to get from Ashtown to home…

Note: I am kicking myself for not taking pictures while waiting in the main street of the village after getting off the bus…

1027
1021
1024

Yea, it’s not much but hey, it was something!

Right, to make this more “beefy”, a few random tidbits of information:

• On the 26th of August, my 360 will have lasted 2 years since it’s manufacturing date (provided it does last, that is)
• Pokémon Adventures volume 27 arrived a couple of days ago. Still want the rest of the volumes to be translated quicker! I want to see Ruby and Sapphire again!
• And BTW, still haven’t got any scans for that “featured post” about Ruby… I really do need to do that soon…
• Not that any of you have seen my small Lego race car, but I’ve recently come up with a variant IndyCar style look. Looks a bit more streamlined, and like the real things has a stupidly long and thin nose
• The rain has also come back to Dunboyne today. There ends a long run of decent weather
• If any of you use the Forerunner WordPress theme, and are looking for a bbPress conversion, give me a shout. I might just share the conversion of the theme that I use on the RPWS forums
• I might go for a new “official personal pic” soon. That one over there is looking a bit dated and crappy >>>
• I’m getting back into Wikipedia editing again. Although not on the scale of that vandalism patrolling fetish I went through some while back.
• My RSS news feed backlog grows daily. No matter how quickly I read them, there’s always a load of them left unread by the end of the day…

I think that’s enough for now… Although I may add more as I think of it

It started out as another annoying shopping trip to fetch more stuff that we didn’t really need, only Elaine wanted. While Aoife and I were about to start heading back, I noticed that there was a lot of commotion going on in the field across the road from the shop. I noticed that there was another display from Dunboyne Motor Club, of different forms of racing cars either from Ireland, or driven by Irish drivers. I persuaded Aoife to come with and have a little look from afar, when I noticed that at the very end of the little park area… was the A1 Team Ireland car

After dumping the little one and the shopping back at home, and picking up my camera, I headed back down to the centre of the village, mainly to get a better look at the car and to get some good pics! Niall Quinn, A1 Team Ireland’s rookie/test/reserve driver was there, along with his family, as part of the event. The A1 car certainly seemed to be very popular – a good portion of the adult male population of Dunboyne were out in force to show their support. It turned out that it was actually a season two car rebuilt into a show car, which Michael Devaney had driven for real. It’s probably why it was missing the Celtic Tiger logo from the nose

A1 Team Ireland wasn’t the only attraction, there were plenty of rally cars, classic cars, and even a car from Formula Libre at the event. Not to mention all the buses that were at the terminus right behind the green space
Sadly, the A1 car didn’t hang around for all that long after I came back – it was being packed up quite early, perhaps around half seven or so (I really wasn’t sure of the time, I was too busy paying attention to cooler things ). Packing it up, however, was another sport in itself. Although it wasn’t a whole team of mechanics and race engineers putting it away, it was quite exciting to see them getting the car up on the jacks, onto the trolleys and then packing it away in the trailer

I managed to get a little chat with Niall near the end. It was fun talking to him, especially as he is sort-of an expert in the subject of A1 – he mentioned that the new A1 car looked a lot nicer than the current iteration, and is probably going to be around 8 seconds a lap quicker! Faster-paced racing is always a good thing! One more thing that he did mention to me, and this is a bit of exclusive insider info (or at least until Monday morning) – is that next season, 2008/9, there won’t be another trip back to Durban in South Africa. Instead, there will be a return to Beijing in China. When I heard that, I was very astounded especially after the disaster that was the previous race in Beijing in Season Two. However, he assured me that it would be taking place in a different part of the city, so with any luck this time there won’t be a very tight 180° corner that even when made wider, still can’t be traversed by a car even on full opposite lock!

All in all, it was very enjoyable hour (yes, it was only an hour from the time I arrived with my camera to the time I got back home) and I got plenty of pictures and videos, which I’ve uploaded as well into my Gallery. Hope you enjoy them!