Rebirth

Not sure what I can say about this.
Sometimes life is strange.

Some Facts from todays Irish Star

Conor pay close attention to fact 4

Comments

It appears blogextra is screwed, so all your incise comments are consigned to history. Oh Well.

Blogger comments now enabled. Really, Really, Really must move to my own domain and start using wordpress. Soon my pretties.

I Respond

Michael,

Thanks for your reply. Apologies for my mail yesterday, it was unreasonably rude.

In general I have an issue with additional charges for public services. I think that this will become a headache for Irish Rail, and people will go back to local estates/roadside to park. Perhaps you have been working with local councils on this, because disc parking/double yellows will be the only way to stop it. People are cheap.

Allowing for 48 working weeks at €5, €240 a year is a lot of money to add on to the €980 that I pay for my annual ticket. Perhaps the parking charges can be added to your taxsaver.ie program?

Still, it's coming in to summer and I have a bike. Maybe I should get off my fat ass and use it.

Regards,
Conor

Irish Rail Responds

Dear Conor,

I refer to you comment logged with on our website yesterday in relation to our new car park in Leixlip (Louisa Bridge). Our intention is to charge €5 per week for or €2 per day as you mention. This means that daily commuter will have to pay €1 per day for parking.

We have discussed this proposal with local representative groups and they agree that it is a reasonable charge for parking beside the station. As I am sure you will appreciate we need to generate some revenue from such a facility to cover the costs of its ongoing management and maintenance.

I believe that most customers will agree that this car park will make public transport more attractive to them and suspect that it won’t be long before it becomes very popular.

Yours sincerely,


Service Planning Manager
Northern & Eastern

We Sixty

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Well chaps, the Wii wasn’t enough. [STOP]
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No games you see. [STOP]
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And I am an impatient man. [STOP]
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The red mist of consumerism came down and I was forced to buy an x360. [STOP]
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Gosh it’s heavy. [STOP]
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Gosh it’s loud. [STOP]
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Come join me online. ConRehn is my name. [STOP]
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Raw V Smackdown, Top Spin 2, Gears of War and (especially) Table Tennis are my games. [STOP]
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Fellow Wii owners will have to wait, no online games available yet you see. [STOP]
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PS3 can suck my balls. [STOP]
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Communication ends

Letter to Irish Rail

Sent this off to Irish Rail today:

Hi,

A new car park has been built in Leixlip Louisa Bridge. You are going to charge €2 a day to use it and have converted your existing free car park to pay-per-use also.
Presumably the car park was built to stop people parking on the road and neighbouring housing estates. A straw-poll on the platform this morning revealed that’s where people will continue to park because of an effective doubling of their train fare.

Making public transport that little bit less usable, you short-sighted monkeys.

I am not a crank,
Your etc.,
Conor

Phychic pyschic

Sinéad and I went a psychic fair in the Westgrove Hotel in Clane. It is not the first time we’ve been, I doubt it will be the last.

It was chock full of women (chick full?), with the odd (and I mean odd) guy hanging about. Taffeta-clad behemoths and beardos everywhere. Like last time, I avoided the scientologists who all looked like child molesters. I did like the look of their stress tester though, retro in a 1950’s science fiction kind of way. Sin got her fortune told. Her neural APIs either have their ports closed or her psychic is not hooking into them with the right psychic code, so all she got was the normal garbage. The psychic did say I was “a good man” so at least she got something right. I went off to leaf through a book on Tantric sex and put it back without buying it.

I picked up this card and will give Madam Moira a plug here. Visit her, she’s the phychic’s pyschic.

A bleak sestina about work

Haven't been blogging for a while, but here is a sestina. A highly stylised form of 12th century poetry. Not only am I blogging again, but a poem as well! Feel free to send me a sestina and I'll post it. I have foregone Iambic pentameter, because it's hard and I'm lazy.

Going to Work?

Today I arrived at the train station
And cursed the right-handed ticket machine
One of life's less subtle jokes
A sinister cross to bear
I can't allow a feeling of persecution
Because that way leads madness

Maybe I should give way to madness?
Reject my place in life's station
Embrace a state of persecution
Should you be talking to me, Machine?
I find it hard to bear
Your overly technical jokes.

Kidnap victims make jokes
To keep out the madness
Like a sanity Teddy Bear
I have found my station
In front of my tired machine
My own lesser persecution

It's a phantom persecution
Like bad Scooby-Doo jokes
010000010110110100100000010010010010000001100001 Machine?
Roll on, roll on everyday madness
Last stop crazy station
I ate your porridge, bear.

Little dipper you are a bear
Free from any earthly persecution
Shining in your heavenly station
The butt of big dipper's jokes
Do you reflect my madness
Stuck in my corporeal machine?

Being used like a machine
Is a situation I can bear
It leads to a bland madness
With little or no persecution
No more bad jokes
Numbly, I accept my station

Do I station myself to act like a machine?
Relating to life like bad jokes that I cannot bear.
Do I prefer boredom to persecution and madness?

Books 2K6

Here is a (mostly complete) list of books I read in 2006. I don't include any comic collections which I may post later in a gigantic cloud of anal retention. Also, free of charge, a very very short review.

One Hundred Great Books In Haiku
David Bader

Not sure this counts. It's fine.


Does Anything Eat Wasps?: And 101 Other Questions
New Scientist

As above. Sinéad and I both bought each other this for Christmas. The sequel is out this Christmas, "Why don't penguins get cold feet?"


The Traveller
John Twelve Hawks

At last! A book! Enjoyed this crappy conspiracy drivel. John Twelve Hawks (The author) lives "off the grid" apparently. "Off the planet" may be a better description.


The Call Of The Weird
Louis Theroux

Hmm. Funny. Y'know, OK.


Bringing Down The House: How Six Students Took Vegas For Millions
Ben Mezrich

True story of those wacky kids in MIT screwing Vegas. Entertaining.


Atomised
Michel Houellebecq

Porny filth. Make sure that a nun isn't reading over your shoulder. Good Stuff.


The Sacred Stone
Clive Cussler

Bollocks. Absolute shit. Clive Cussler: The man who flushed his name down the toilet.


No1 Ladies Detective Agency
Alexander McCall Smith

Good Fun.


The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald

It's a classic, isn't it? Hated it in school, enjoyed it now.


Tears Of The Giraffe
Alexander McCall Smith

More of the same.


Silent Bob Speaks
Kevin Smith

Ok. Essays and stuff. Self indulgent, but expected that


Flow My Tears The Policemen Said
Philip K Dick

Mad obviously.


Morality For Beautiful Girls
Alexander McCall Smith

More o' the same.


Seven Ancient Wonders
Matthew Reilly

Ah Matt! Got to love this. Please don't read if you like: English, Physics, Plot, Originality or punctuation. Still, its a pleasure to read.


Hell Island
Matthew Reilly

Novella. Drivel. But it's Matt Reilly so that's OK.


Prisoner's Dilemma: John Von Neumann, Game Theory And The Puzzle Of The Bomb
William Poundstone

Eh? More real life stuff on game theory. Good stuff.


A Darkness More Than Night
Michael Connelly

Can't remember a word of this.


Polar Shift
Clive Cussler

Better then Sacred Stone, and better then the Clive and Son novels. That is a pretty low bar right there.


Otis Lee Crenshaw: I Blame Society
Rich Hall

Fun.


How To Lose Friends And Alienate People
Toby Young

Slight stuff, albeit a couple of real gems here.


A Study In Scarlett
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Brilliant.


The Sign Of Four
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Brilliant.


HP Lovecraft: Against the World Against Life
Michel Houellebecq

Uh, weird combination. Good all the same.


Dress Your Family In Corduroy And Denim
David Sedaris

Remember enjoying this. Please don't ask me what it was about.


Century Rain
Alastair Reynolds

Good Hard Sci-Fi.


The Well Of Lost Plots
Jasper Fforde

J Fforde is guilty of some serious literary wankiness. I really enjoy these books.


Something Rotten
Jasper Fforde

As Above.


Ubik
Philip K Dick

Another by Mad Mac McMad the Madman.


Breakfast Of Champions
Kurt Vonnegut

Yawn.


Modesty Blaise
Peter O'Donnell

Got this for a €1. It was great.


Northern Lights
Philip Pullman

The Subtle Knife
Philip Pullman

The Amber Spyglass
Philip Pullman

These books were brilliant. A must read. Hollywood are in the process of fucking it up.


The Best Thing That Can Happen To A Croissant
Pablo Tusset

Great. There is a movie of this in Spanish. Not sure there is a subtitled version. I'd like to see it, but would perfer not to have to learn spanish to do it.


Digital Fortress
Dan Brown

S-H-I-T. Avoid like the plague.


Porterhouse Blue
Tom Sharpe

Good dirty fun.


A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
Marina Lewycka

Entertaining.


Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Haruki Murakami

I am biased here. Brilliant, obviously.


Haruki Murakami and The Music of Words
Jay Rubin

Dipped in and out of this. Unreadable unless your a fan of Murakami, then it has some amusing insights.


Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
Suzanna Clarke

Great stuff. It is a real talent to write a 1,000 page novel where nothing much happens and make it capivating.


Dr. Bloodmoney
Philip K Dick

Lunacy.


Second Burial for a Black Prince
Andrew Nugent

Not bad.


Fragile Things
Neil Gaiman

Really enjoyed the first story: "A study in emerald." Some of the rest of it hit and miss. Above average.


N.B I haven't included "The Poe Shadow" by Matthew Pearl. I got halfway through and stopped. Talk about a book trying to put you off reading for ever.