Yipee! I got an offer for a brand new house in a housing estate and although I don't have a clue what the house is like on the inside, I have to be ready for a move in about 4 weeks!
This is typically like my life: once again, I am moving along with the flow; I have never really struggled in life (well, there was that part when my ex started to physically abuse me, but I just ditched the loser which I had wanted to leave for a while anyway!); I am being offered an opportunity (a reasonable one that is) and I am taking it, simple as that.
So what's the risk in moving into a house that I have only been able to see from the outside? Who knows? What could be wrong with a brand-new house that I get to furnish myself (with a bit of input from the kids and hopefully not too much pink!) and that I can at last call Home?
I guess I could have the neighbours from hell but I won't know that until after I move in as the estate is empty for now and even if I do get the neighbours from hell, I suppose that could be an inspiration for my next posts!
Anyway, I was just writing to say that I'll be very busy and might not get too much time to post here for a while, especially since I'm also going on holidays for 2 weeks in the middle of this 4-week gap; enough to turn anyone crazy, but hopefully I won't be typing my next post from the looney bin!
Friday, March 27, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Fashion Crimes Regularly Committed in Galway
I just knew I would find a few interesting things at my local St Patrick's parade last week but before I start, let me show you what I found a few weeks ago:
I was once again waiting for the doors of my daughter's school to open when I caught sight of a man's socks (his pants were a tiny bit too short for him too):
These are actually my own daughter's socks and that guy (who looked to be in his forties) was wearing the exact same pair! I guess accidents can happen and maybe he has no clean socks of his own that day; maybe his daughter used up all his socks to make sock puppets of something.
I can excuse a guy who wears his kid's socks (as long as it doesn't happen too often) but I don't think there is any excuse for this:
This is Galway, Ireland, for goodness' sake, not an lapdancing bar featuring teenage girls. If you dress like this in broad daylight around here, you're only gonna get horny old Irish men drooling all over you. To the girl wearing the white pants: Yes, this makes your butt look fat!
This was a more appropriate way to dress on St Patrick's Day:
Notice the Winnie the Poo beach bucket on these 2 pictures; I wonder is this the new "must-have" fashion accessory for Spring 2009?
I was once again waiting for the doors of my daughter's school to open when I caught sight of a man's socks (his pants were a tiny bit too short for him too):
These are actually my own daughter's socks and that guy (who looked to be in his forties) was wearing the exact same pair! I guess accidents can happen and maybe he has no clean socks of his own that day; maybe his daughter used up all his socks to make sock puppets of something.I can excuse a guy who wears his kid's socks (as long as it doesn't happen too often) but I don't think there is any excuse for this:
This is Galway, Ireland, for goodness' sake, not an lapdancing bar featuring teenage girls. If you dress like this in broad daylight around here, you're only gonna get horny old Irish men drooling all over you. To the girl wearing the white pants: Yes, this makes your butt look fat!This was a more appropriate way to dress on St Patrick's Day:
Notice the Winnie the Poo beach bucket on these 2 pictures; I wonder is this the new "must-have" fashion accessory for Spring 2009?
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Dishonest Paying Machine in Hynes' Car-Park
During the week I went into town and parked in a car-park I'll never return to (well, except if they pay me for it of course, that's how shallow I am!).
The first thing that struck me at first upon entering the Hynes car-park in Galway, was that, even though we are in a country where we are supposed to drive on the left (except if you're very drunk, but then you shouldn't be driving; do the Galway taxi-drivers a favour and hire their services instead), as soon as you get into it, you have to drive on the right side!
And if that's not crazy enough, they also have dishonest pay-machines: this is a car park where you get a ticket from a machine so that the gates will let you in and then you have to keep the ticket with you and pay at a vending-machine-lookalike machine. When I put my ticket in there to pay the due fee (a steep €4.40 because my car stayed there between 1 and 2 hours), I was relieved to see that my purse contained the right change; so I put in my 2 €2 coins and 4 10cent coins but then, I noticed that the cheeky machine was asking me for a further €2! I was sure that I put 2 €2 coins in there and I didn't have enough coins anymore to make up the remaining €2 so I pressed the cancel button, half hoping that the machine would give me back my €4.40 but it only gave me €2.40!
I didn't really have time to call for help as I had to get home in time to eat my lunch and pick up the kids from school so, prepared to take my loss, I put in a ten euro note in there, as it was one of those machines that make change (a bit like Obama, ha ha!).
You will never guess what change the machine gave me back: €6.40! Now, if I'm not mistaken, 10 - 4.40 = 5.60 and not 6.60. I counted my change twice as I was very puzzled, then I took my ticket back and ran, thinking there must be something wrong about the way this machine was programmed. Perhaps the person who programmed/installed it was just very drunk (well, this is Ireland after all!), unless it's a secret measure taken by the Irish Government to try and fill the hole in the public finances.
I will probably never know (unless someone in the Hynes public car-park in Galway reads this and decides to sue me for diffamation or something, but that's very unlikely as they are probably just too drunk to read anything, with St Patrick's Day coming up on Tuesday and all!).
Anyway, my loss was now only €1 so I guess I'll just not give any spare change to any of those annoying charities always begging in the streets of Galway (I never do anyway!). Talking about which, some guy giving out Curly Whirlies accosted me in the street to give me a business card about some church and the second time I passed him, he was giving out lollipops (I had sort of expected to get another Curly Whirly instead), so maybe my trip to town only costed me the fare of the car-park after all (plus the stuff I bought, but that's not your business, as I don't have anything weird or funny to write about that: naa-na-na-na-naa!)
I'm too busy (or too lazy) to write more than once a week at the moment so in case I don't see you before Tuesday (which is very likely!), Hpappy Sanit Ptraick's Dya!
PS. Spelling mistakes are voluntary, it's for the Irish Leprechauns who are going to be too drunk to read correctly-spelled words.
The first thing that struck me at first upon entering the Hynes car-park in Galway, was that, even though we are in a country where we are supposed to drive on the left (except if you're very drunk, but then you shouldn't be driving; do the Galway taxi-drivers a favour and hire their services instead), as soon as you get into it, you have to drive on the right side!
And if that's not crazy enough, they also have dishonest pay-machines: this is a car park where you get a ticket from a machine so that the gates will let you in and then you have to keep the ticket with you and pay at a vending-machine-lookalike machine. When I put my ticket in there to pay the due fee (a steep €4.40 because my car stayed there between 1 and 2 hours), I was relieved to see that my purse contained the right change; so I put in my 2 €2 coins and 4 10cent coins but then, I noticed that the cheeky machine was asking me for a further €2! I was sure that I put 2 €2 coins in there and I didn't have enough coins anymore to make up the remaining €2 so I pressed the cancel button, half hoping that the machine would give me back my €4.40 but it only gave me €2.40!
I didn't really have time to call for help as I had to get home in time to eat my lunch and pick up the kids from school so, prepared to take my loss, I put in a ten euro note in there, as it was one of those machines that make change (a bit like Obama, ha ha!).
You will never guess what change the machine gave me back: €6.40! Now, if I'm not mistaken, 10 - 4.40 = 5.60 and not 6.60. I counted my change twice as I was very puzzled, then I took my ticket back and ran, thinking there must be something wrong about the way this machine was programmed. Perhaps the person who programmed/installed it was just very drunk (well, this is Ireland after all!), unless it's a secret measure taken by the Irish Government to try and fill the hole in the public finances.
I will probably never know (unless someone in the Hynes public car-park in Galway reads this and decides to sue me for diffamation or something, but that's very unlikely as they are probably just too drunk to read anything, with St Patrick's Day coming up on Tuesday and all!).
Anyway, my loss was now only €1 so I guess I'll just not give any spare change to any of those annoying charities always begging in the streets of Galway (I never do anyway!). Talking about which, some guy giving out Curly Whirlies accosted me in the street to give me a business card about some church and the second time I passed him, he was giving out lollipops (I had sort of expected to get another Curly Whirly instead), so maybe my trip to town only costed me the fare of the car-park after all (plus the stuff I bought, but that's not your business, as I don't have anything weird or funny to write about that: naa-na-na-na-naa!)
I'm too busy (or too lazy) to write more than once a week at the moment so in case I don't see you before Tuesday (which is very likely!), Hpappy Sanit Ptraick's Dya!
PS. Spelling mistakes are voluntary, it's for the Irish Leprechauns who are going to be too drunk to read correctly-spelled words.
Monday, March 9, 2009
No More Jail Penalty for Non-Payers of Irish TV Licence
A staggering 54 people were jailed last year for not paying fines related to the non payment of their TV licence.
The TV licence in Ireland costs about €160 for one year and when you think of the cost of bringing people to court and jailing them being priced at €90,000 according to the Irish Times, it really does not make any sense for the Irish Government to spend so much money in comparison to the €160 fee, especially given the fact that non-payment of a TV licence is a minor offence, only likely to offend a small number of overpaid TV and Radio presenters. This is why under a new legislation, TV licence offenders will not be brought to jail anymore (Yippee!)
With the new legislation, if you get a fine for not paying your licence to watch rubbish on the telly, I know you're not going to go to jail for not paying the fine, but remember that the Irish Government still needs your fine money just so they can sit around all day talking about how they could raise your taxes. No, seriously, they do!
The TV licence in Ireland costs about €160 for one year and when you think of the cost of bringing people to court and jailing them being priced at €90,000 according to the Irish Times, it really does not make any sense for the Irish Government to spend so much money in comparison to the €160 fee, especially given the fact that non-payment of a TV licence is a minor offence, only likely to offend a small number of overpaid TV and Radio presenters. This is why under a new legislation, TV licence offenders will not be brought to jail anymore (Yippee!)
With the new legislation, if you get a fine for not paying your licence to watch rubbish on the telly, I know you're not going to go to jail for not paying the fine, but remember that the Irish Government still needs your fine money just so they can sit around all day talking about how they could raise your taxes. No, seriously, they do!
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