I got some energy for 2010…
There must be something fundamentally wrong with me; as a human being and I put on this planet for just a flicker of a moment and I behave like this…
There was I, all alone on the top deck of a double decker bus, on new years eve afternoon. I sat in the very front seat when all of a sudden a friendly girl, just a few years older than me, with an accent hard to define, sat in the other front seat opposite me.
She smiled at me as she took her seat and I half smiled back. When she settled into her seat, she kinda leaned over and said “this is beautiful isn’t it?” she could hardly contain her excitement… It kinda took me by surprise.
I looked out and saw grey buildings towering over me, traffic everywhere, people zig-zaging on the pavement. I tried to see the beauty, I replied “its a nice view from up here”, she agreed and her whole persona was poised for a fully fledged conversation. It was at that point, I reached in to my bag and pulled out my Ipod…
I could feel her watching me and I continued to plug my ears despite this innate feeling that it was the most ignorant, ugly thing any human could do in a moment like that.
With my ipod clogging up my ears, I couldn’t shake off this feeling of self disgust, so i put my ipod away and angled for a chin wag.
By that time she had a magazine open on her lap; I noticed it was called “voyage”.
I broke the ice and we had a loose, on & off chat for the duration of the journey across London. She was so excited to be here and had only just arrived from Paris. I told her that I too felt like that when I first came here, but now I’m sort of like a horse with blinders;
She said she feels that way about Paris. We agreed that things always look better when you’re just passing through… and I said “Yep, a rolling stone gathers no moss…”
I then thought to myself how cool it would be to be a rolling stone again, a wanderer, just roaming around from place to place and settling for a while, then moving off when the time felt right.
Imagine if we just followed our every whim and we never settled down… Like if I just went home now, packed my bags and walked out on all that’s familiar and just headed off, just headed off and just went where ever the wind blew me…
Anyway, she got off the bus when we got down south of the river and I said, “Happy new year to you”. She said it to me too. I said I hope its a good one and I really did mean it. She told me that it has already got off to a great start as she has just received the best news ever. She was beaming. I said I hope some of that energy passes over onto me, she raised her two hands over me in jest and said, “I’ll give you some of that energy now!”…
We both laughed and that was the end of our encounter.
I am kind of excited about 2010 now and waiting for my good news…
Short Eared Owl
I was woken up at about 5am this morning by the strangest sounding creature. It was an eerie sound to hear in the dead of night, in the middle of the country (I was at home in Ireland) – I wasn’t sure if it was a fox or an owl, but I just had a look online now and I found out what it was:
The Short-Eared Owl…
I heard a male AND a female. The female kinda sounded like a scratchy ol’ fox.
Click here to hear what the male sounded like…
And here is what the female sounds like.
I have been reading all about Owls today and fantasising about living in the country again….
When I first meet someone…
I sometimes find myself having a conversation with someone, but while they’re talking, I drift away from the conversation -but only if its safe to do so. You can always tell when the time is right to start drifting, you know yourself.
Some people like to talk and talkers will always find listeners. More often than not, I prefer to listen than to talk, yera, I wouldn’t be much of a talker really…
Some random people talking... or are they?
When I meet someone for the first time, or the first few times, I like when they talk because it allows me to ‘take them in’. I’d say they think I am listening to them and sometimes I am, but sometimes I am not! …and they are fooled, because I go through the appropriate motions; I am still nodding and responding and laughing and smiling in all the right places.
Things get a little difficult when I meet a like minded creature and when I do, I start talking – only because I feel as though there would be silence if I didn’t, so I am somewhat forced into the talking role, which feels uncomfortable at first but once I get into it, I’m capable of a bit of waffling. I will talk about anything when I am in those situations. Anything to fill that gap.
Today I was in a three way conversation. They are the best for this kind of thing because you can easily slip out of the conversation to have a little ’sniff around’. Dogs have been doing this ever since they were dogs and they do it much more openly; there are no social graces with dogs and that’s why I love them. When a dog encounters another dog, they have a good ol’ sniff.
Having a good ol' sniff...
They fill up their senses and gather all the information they need. They then make a judgement based on this and don’t have any qualms about it; they will either hump the other dog or lay into him
I make those judgements too, but in more subtle ways. I have to do it the human way, I wait until the person is in full flow and then I look at their eyes and how their face moves as they talk, their hair, their clothes, their shoes, their hands…the list is endless but I make a judgement as snappy as a dog.
Anyway, this particular conversation I was having today was with a tall skinny man and a swarthy twenty something girl. The girl was rabbiting on and I took to studying the tall skinny man, keeping the twenty year old girl for another time. The tall skinny man will probably be in my life for a while, in fact both of them will be if things go according to how I think they’ll go, but you can never tell – I could be knocked down by a bus tomorrow, but anyway, this man, he had an unusual shaped head. It was attached to his neck where you wouldn’t imagine it to be attached. Who ever made him, must have been distracted just as they were positioning his head onto his neck. While he was talking to me, I was imagining how I would re-position his head given the chance… Isn’t that awful?
Time for a new song…
You have to be prepared for those occasions where you find yourself in the midst of a impromtu music session…
The last one I stumbled upon, was a couple of months ago at the Galway Bay Hotel out in Salthill. We went in for a night cap there towards midnight, strolled into the lounge area and there was a big circle of Dublin men, with their fists around their pints and they blashting out some great songs….
Since then I’ve been thinking that I should brush up on my own repertoire. I decided to learn a brand new song…
I wanted to pick a local song, so I thought I’d learn “Skibbereen”, also known as “Dear Old Skibbereen”. It’s an old rebel song in the style of a conversation of a father telling his son about how the famine ruined his farm in Skibbereen, and killed his wife.
A lot of people do a cover of it; Sinéad O’Connor and The Wolfe Tones to name but a couple, but I like Ronnie Drew’s version best, here it is on youtube:
For those of you who never heard of Skibbereen, it’s a small town in West Cork and if you get to know it well, you can call it Skibb for short:
The Lyrics of Skibbereen:
O, father dear and I often hear you speak of Eireann’s Isle
Her lofty scenes, her valleys green, her mountains rude and wild
They say it is a lovely land wherein a prince might dwell
Then why did you abandon it, oh, the reason to me tell
My son, I loved my native land with energy and pride
Then a blight came over all my crops and my sheep and cattle died
The rents and taxes were to pay and I could not them redeem
And that’s the cruel reason I left old Skibbereen
‘Tis well I do remember the bleak November day
When the bailiff and the landlord came to drive us all away
They set the roof on fire with their cursed English spleen
And that’s another reason I left old Skibbereen
Your mother, too, God rest her soul, lay on the snowy ground
She fainted in her anguishing seeing the desolation round
She never rose, but passed away from life to immortal dreams
And that’s another reason I left old Skibbereen
Oh you were only two years old and feeble was your frame
I could not leave you with my friends for you bore your father’s name
I wrapped you in my cóta mór at the dead of night unseen
And I heaved a sigh and I said goodbye to dear old Skibereen
Oh father dear, the day will come when on vengeance we will call
And Irishmen both stout and tall will rally unto the call
I’ll be the man to lead the van beneath the flag of green
And loud and high we’ll raise the cry, Revenge for Skibbereen
The Irish Coffees that bombed…
Irish coffees have always been my forte. I make them so well that when people see me coming, they start seeing visual images of Irish coffees and begin to salivate.
At Christmas time, I usually make a batch after dinner for all the clan to enjoy. It had become a bit of a ritual by 2006, but unfortunately that year there was a little eh, ‘mishap’ that jeopardised my position as Champion Irish Coffee Maker and since then… well, I haven’t been asked to make them again. That year there was no cream you see and I had to improvise…
I found some whipped white stuff in a bowl in the fridge that looked just like whipped cream and looking back, I suppose I just wanted to believe it was cream…
I went so far as sticking the tip of my index finger into the mixture for the purposes of taking a sample. It tasted ok, it was mild enough to do the trick and looking back, I suppose I just wanted to believe it was cream.
Functionally, it worked a charm. It sat in beautiful dollops on the dark coffee underneath and when I came around the corner with the tray of Irish coffees, it was like the climax of the evening… there were ‘ooooohs’ and ‘aaaaahs’ and ‘mmmms’ and enormous smiles – My mother nearly ruined the moment by asking me where I got the cream. I think I must have convinced myself she didn’t ask me that and proceeded to hand everyone their drinks.
Everyone started sipping and supping and gulping… then there was a sort of silence that grew… I don’t know, the atmosphere just started to change and my imaginary bubble began to sag. People started to spit and cough and make faces and push the coffees away.
My mother then started to home in on the ‘cream’ side of things. I felt like I was in a courthouse. She was badgering me on what I used for the cream especially when she didn’t buy any. I finally confessed that I had used the ‘mixture in the fridge’ and they jeered at me when my mother revealed that it was marscapone cheese.
I drank all mine as they laughed and pointed. I thought it tasted lovely…
I don’t know…Looking back, I suppose I just wanted to believe it was cream.
That’s it! I am Boycotting SONY…
Right, I am going to have an unmerciful rant now…
My head is bursting, my veins are pulsating and my brain is pounding away like a caged bull inside my skull.
I don’t care if nobody reads this but I am going to put it out there anyway for the following reasons:
1. It will make me feel good to bitch about SONY.
2. I hope people will read this and think twice about buying SONY laptops, especially the following models: VGN-AR1xx, VGN-AR2xx, VGN-AR3xx, VGN-FZ1xx, VGN-FZ2xx, VGN-FZ3xx, VGN-FZ4xx, VGC-LT1xx, VGC-LT2xx because they have been manufactured with faulty NVIDIA Graphics chips!!!
In December 2007 I purchased a Sony Vaio laptop from Micro Anvika. I spent £1300 on the floggin’ thing. It was my pride and joy and I used to skip home every night to use it.
13 months later the graphics went bananas and it never worked again…
Click here for blog on symptoms…
That’s £1300 for a laptop that only worked for 13 months.
I rang Micro Anvika (the shop where I purchased this piece of Junk) and was told that because it was out with my 1 year store warranty, they couldn’t do anything for me; “I’m very sorry” – eh, no you’re not, you don’t give a damn so shut up.
I did a little bit of research online (with my new cheap laptop that I had to buy) and found that a lot of people were complaining about the same problem, so much so, that Sony themselves were forced to release a statement about it on 08/03/09.
The Statement can be read here:
http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/news-item.pl?mdl=VGNFZ190N&news_id=349
In a nutshell, they were acknowledging the fault with the NVIDIA Graphics card and were offering to repair faulty laptops.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, I decided to contact Consumer Direct and ask them what rights I have as a consumer in this situation.
http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/
They told me that I should write a letter to Micro Anvika and quote The Sale of Goods Act 1979 as amended.
According to this Act, it states that goods should be of satisfactory quality and free from minor defects, have good appearance and finish and are durable, safe and fit for all the purposes for which such goods are commonly supplied.
My laptop had a fault and was definitely not durable.
I came off the phone feeling like I would like to take this further.
I sent the letter to them by registered delivery. That cost me £5, they should receive it today.
This morning I decided to phone Sony to see where I stand with them.
I called 0905 031 0006 which cost 35p a minute. I got talking to a nice chap. I explained the situation and without delay he assigned a case number to me and told me that DHL will pick up my laptop tomorrow for repair.
It all felt too good to be true.
It was.
An hour later, I had a phone call from someone who was very, very difficult to understand . I had to embarrass myself and her by constantly having to ask her to repeat herself and on some occasions to spell words so I could get the information I needed. It was near impossible to decipher what she was saying. It was almost comedy, if I felt like laughing, but I was so far from laughing about this. I was frothing at the mouth with bubbling anger…she proceeded to tell me she was from SONY and would like to ‘discuss fees with me’.
This pushed me to the edge of the cliff that overlooks raving madness…
Just an hour earlier the other fella acknowledged the fault and told me it was a problem with the NVIDIA chip and knew all about it. Now this girl was saying that I had to pay.
I went into rant mode with her and relayed the conversation I had earlier with the fella. She said “Ooh I don’t know why he would say those things”… She said she would check with the technician to see if there is a known fault of this nature. She said she would call me back but “couldn’t guarantee it would be today”. She said that line so many times I thought I was going to have a breakdown.
In hindsight, I should have asked to talk to her supervisor although I imagine he would probably be programmed to speak complete gibberish…
Moments later, I got a blank email from Sony quoting a different case number to the one that the original guy gave me; so are they going to pick up my laptop tomorrow or not!?!? I don’t know as they don’t have the courtesy to call me back today.
I have two case numbers now; one says I have to pay, the other says I don’t. One says I am having my laptop picked up tomorrow, the other says I am not.
This is it.
Me against SONY.
I suppose this is why we as dissatisfied consumers don’t like to go down this road. It’s a pain in the brain and their ’system’ is designed to make you go baloobas so you’ll give up trying.
You phone one number and talk to a moron, they give you another number, which costs 35p/min and after a half an hour wait, you get talking to someone you can’t understand…. You call the shop, they blame the Manufacturer, you call the Manufacturer, they blame the shop… round and round you go until you give up in the end and then they win. They take your thousand pounds with their greedy mits and laugh all the way to the bank.
Dirty animals.
Thieves and robbers and bullies.
It’s disgusting… I hate the way our world is going.
Evil… pure evil.
An aborted meeting…
I was in Starbucks this afternoon to fulfill an internal hankering for a Latte.
Standing behind me in the queue was a peculiar man with a pair of interesting looking Winkle Pickers. They were similiar to these ones:
He looked like he was from another era.
He also wore tweed pedal pushers and had a handle bar mustache.
We collected our coffees at the same time and brought them over to the special counter where you put your sugar in your coffee and get those wooden poky things to stir it with.
We stood side by side and did our business; tearing sugar sachets, pulling out napkins, licking foam from the stirring sticks and readjusting our coffee lids.
All of a sudden I felt compelled to turn to him and ask:
“Do you think we will ever stand side by side again?”…
Dublin City Marathon 2009 – Under my belt!
I was shooting for a 4hour finish in the Dublin City Marathon on Monday, but I somehow managed to do better than that… I completed it in 3.44 – not bad at all for my first Marathon!
It was the most amazing experience ever and I enjoyed every single millisecond of it.
It was a lot easier than I was anticipating actually and that surprised me. I didn’t get hung up on mileage, I just knew I had to sustain a decent pace for about 4 hours and I focussed on that. The weather was perfect; sun shining down for the duration of it, yet it was crisp enough that you didn’t overheat. I felt like a wild monkey at times because children were feeding me jellies from the sidelines on little plates. When I ran past them, I grabbed such handfuls that their plates toppled and the remainder of their jellies fell onto the ground, as I stomped away stuffing them in my mouth… the people standing at the sidelines cheering us all on really makes the world of difference. I found I ran faster in the designated cheering zones than anywhere else and it’s cuz they were shouting encouraging things and making us feel good about ourselves. Encouragement does wonderful things for the psyche begorrah…
Whilst I was limping to the airport like an old woman, I got an email from my friend Tom, who informed me that I might qualify for automatic entry to the London Marathon, based on my time, sex and age. Without further ado, I looked into it and it looks like I just might… The cut off time was 3.45 and I did it in 3.44 and 54 seconds. If I finished another 6 seconds later I wouldn’t qualify! I then remembered the point where I was running through a cheering zone and I got an almerciful burst of energy; with 2.2 miles to go, I just started sprinting like a madwoman thinking I could sustain that until the end. I heard people say “Jeeze yer wan is flying it!” ha! I managed to keep it up for 2 minutes and then I went back to my usual pace, feeling a bit wobbly. I think if I didn’t do that then, I would have come in later than 3.45
I am confused about one thing though and that’s the times. Mine are as follows:
My results
I started my own watch timer as I crossed the black mat (the official starting point). When I finished, my watch said: 3.43, the Marathon Timer Clock said 3.47.
The race website said my finish time was 3.44 and my chip time was 3.47. Surely they have the chip time and the finish time mixed up, do they? How could your chip time be higher than your finish time? I can’t get my head ’round it at all…
Anyway, well done to all of you who ran…
Goodbye Galway…
Ah Jeezis, Galway was beautiful yesterday morning as I was leaving it. Why is it that you can only appreciate something intensely in the moments just before it’s out of your grasp?
The streets had that Sunday morning air of abandonment, a stark contrast to the night before, where throngs of drunken, belligerent, scantily clad females paraded around with gaping pizza boxes and mouths full of chips and curry sauce…
I was desperately trying to stop time and stay in the moment but as soon as you realise you’re clinging, you’ve already suffocated it and I was soon on my way to the airport. It was too late then, i had to let go; the scenery was already whizzing past the car window and everything started to speed up.
The delightful Corrib River…
