Gerry Gainford

They don't say eh so much.

2011-07-09T20:47:00.004+01:00

Instead the stereotypical Canadian can be spotted stopping in the middle of a roundabout to let some one in. Or to check the map to see how the roundabout works (or still roundabooot eh? to some).

So in a country where no one can figure out how to drive in a circle, what does BC's province run insurance monopoly spend it's money on?

Teaching people how to wave when you stop on a roundabout to let some one in. Don't worry about drunk drivers, stopping at red lights, which side of the road to drive on, no, worry more about how much of a wave to give.

Don't use a cell phone or even fart while driving as it might distract you, but do pause to open the sunroof and stand up to wave to the person behind you. It's important really.

Can I opt out of paying hiked up insurance rates to the idiots who spent a small fortune (definately more than my mortgage) on promoting these ads?

Is this blind-ist?

2011-06-23T02:12:00.003+01:00

Maybe it is... Anyway, since I'm the kind of guy who lurks round toilets with a camera... no, wait, em I happened to be in a restroom and.... ok I had a camera phone and I saw this.

It's a diaper / nappy / baby changing station. Which is fine. But down the bottom they have some brail. Now I could spend about, oh, let's see, fifteen seconds on Google and find out what it says but when you look at it there's a lot of brail there compared to the visual-type text. It obviously says more than Koala Kare on it. So what does it say?
I think it goes something like this;

Maybe you can't see this very well and we like to think there's lots of things you can do if you can't see.

Make love to a beautiful woman or an ugly one, like who knows?

Make love to yourself.

Drive badly.

Be Ray Charles.

But trust us on this one.

Please.

Changing a diaper is not something you want to do by touch.

And if you do, please wash your hands.

Closing a pay pal account is painful

2011-04-18T23:27:00.002+01:00

I'm not dealing with Paypal anymore. If anyone will only accept money via pay pal I will look elsewhere first for their competition who accept other forms of payment. Sending banknotes attached to carrier pigeons would be easier and faster. Paypal will be the last resort.

So I've managed to close my account. I had to confirm five separate times that yes I do want to do this. Each screen is the same;

"Pay pal rocks and we can help you but click on continue to close your account."
"You're an arsehole if you don't use paypal so click on continue to close your account if you are an idiot."
"Call us and go on hold for a few hours so we can sell you more shit services or click on continue if you're a fuckwit gimp and still want to close your account."
"What kind of dumb fuck are you? We're the greatest thing since sliced bread. Click continue to close your account it you hate freedom and kittens and like to masturbate in kiddie pools."
"Actually we're better than sliced bread. Sliced bread was a dumb invention compared to us. Click continue to close your account."

I can now symbolically vote

2011-02-09T15:08:00.002Z

There's a new website http://ballotbox.ie/ where I can cast a symbolic vote as a non resident? But should I? My vote is no.

Yeah if you're away for the week the election is on you should vote. If you don't live there then you shouldn't. If I'm not paying taxes in the country why should I have a say in how it's spent? (And I'd include any rock stars non resident for tax purposes in this). Basically the government manages the taxes and how it's spent, or in the case of Fianna Fail mismanages the taxes and how they're wasted.

There are too many people 'vote for the man, not the party' getting a shower of gobshites in power. Why are dirty politicians reelected after being caught avoiding taxes, taking bribes and being gobshites? Why was Healy-Rae allowed in after threatening EU grants unless Kerry was allowed in? Because politics are local.

Votes in a general election aren't for the good of the country, it's for what's right locally. And do you really want some one to get the millions of votes on the promise of doing great things in New York, in London and maybe Vancouver? They should do something at home instead, Mary Harney spent enough travelling as it is.

Am I the only one feeling cheated?

2011-01-24T02:15:00.002Z

So Bertie's fecked off and now Cowen resigned. Despite dragging it out with leadership struggles, denying there was a bail out coming, telling us the property boom would never end and having digout after expensive Parisian shirts the wankers that are Fianna Fail are finally leaving.
But where was the revolution? If the revolution will be televised all that was seen on Sky was bankers taking over the country and the Chinese buying the government (let's see how they handle pensions. Let's see the unions deal with a real sweatshop).
Where was the mass demonstrations, the riots, the toppling of statues we see everywhere else? You think the French would have a revolution as boring as this? Or any other country in the world? Not a single shot fired, no heads dropping in a guillotine and no burning down of the post office. Hell at least in 1916 a group took over a bakery. This time nothing.
A government overthrown so peacefully I'm confusing the Irish with Canadians. Very polite mutterings about politicians. I feel cheated. Heads should roll. Marches should happen. Bakerys should be overrun. And St James Gate invaded to power the party that Fianna Fail is gone. Though maybe everyone just sees the other crowd of wankers that will replace them and see there's nothing worth celebrating.
I still feel cheated. I'm invading and taking over a pack of Jaffa Cakes. My only part in the revolution.

Vote for Homer

2010-12-02T16:31:00.000Z

Default? Woo hoo! The two sweetest words in the English language: … De Fault, De Fault, De Fault.

Movember - 3 reasons

2010-11-06T01:05:00.003Z

I'm growing a moustache for Movember for 3 simple reasons.

1. Selfishness. Since as a man with a prostrate I'm at risk of this kind of cancer, this is like taking out insurance. Hopefully this will help cure it before I get it.

2. Moustaches are hot. Admit it ladies, Ned Flanders is scrumdiddlyumtious.

3. I get to look like this. If you think this is the hotdiddlyotness you want then click on the picture to go and donate to a great cause.

Top quality journalism

2010-11-01T01:29:00.002Z

I see the independent is in top form getting the greatest political minds of our age for analysis. The article (here) finds only the best to say it's time for Brian Cowen to go.
Celia Larkin? Really? Mrs Bertie? The whole Manchester dig out thing?
Ben Dunne? Really? Wannabe Mrs Charlie (pun intended). The whole Parisian shirt dig out thing?

They say Cowen needs to go? What's wrong? Is he drunk? Picking up the pieces Bertie left behind? Or god forbid, he hasn't took a dig out yet?

I've suddenly got this idea Brian Cowen may just be, just possibly, and this is only a maybe now, I'm not staking my reputation on this. He might just be an honest politician.

Ireland hasn't changed a bit

2010-10-02T13:28:00.003+01:00

I haven't been in Ireland since Christmas 2008 and not a thing has changed. Literally. I drove to Dublin this morning and to Heuston Station and back I counted a total of 9 cars registered in '09 and '10 (2 were '09 and 7 were '10. Looks like it's picking up slowly). Really, no one has bought a new car. No new businesses. The old ones aren't even boarded up, just the shutters down like they didn't bother to open up on a Saturday morning.

But maybe some stuff has changed. The whole traffic problem in Dublin is gone. Phibsboro was like a ghost town at 10am on a Saturday. More like I remembered it being at 6am on a Sunday as I staggered home from a pub.

This could have something to do with the €50 billion in debt the government is taking off the banks. How on earth did they go €50 billion under? This is €23,000 per household and it's something to do with over valued property market. But if people are still living in their houses, what does it matter how much the value dropped? Is it not only the empty houses belonging to the banks? So if the bank own €50 billion in unsold houses, or where the mortgages where defaulted, what is this, 100,000 houses valued at a half million each? Or are there a million houses in Ireland that they can't sell for 50 grand? Or is it some smart fucker decided to sell 50 houses to the gobshite of a finance minister at a nice billion euro each.

Can we trust a Finna Fail finance minister when he says €50 billion is the bill? The same finance minister who said none of this is his fault because he didn't know what the banks were doing? Apparently the minister for finance doesn't need to actually know anything about the economy. The same party who had a finance minister (Gobshite / taoiseach / dickwad Bertie Ahern) who as Finance minster didn't know he had to pay tax on a 'dig out'. Ministers for finance don't need to know about taxes either.

The drunk, the ignorant and the gobshites running the country make me think if I ever bother to get the vote in Canada I can feel safe and sound voting for Stephen Harper (spent a billion on holding a meeting) or Russ Hiebert (blows money on flights) or Gordon Campbell (just google HST).

Book review - Gerrt

2010-08-17T00:15:00.002+01:00

So I picked up this book from the library a while back since managing my time and everything else could use some work. Didn't get to read it. I wasn't organised enough.

Apple get some decent programmers

2010-06-30T17:11:00.002+01:00

Dear Steve

Apple, oh so proud of being better than anything on a PC should possibly consider hiring some PC programmers. Cause you just cant do it.
About 90% of the computers in the world are PCs, so that means a large number of your customers for iPods, iPhones and iTampons are going to be using a PC. Think it might be a good idea to get iTunes to work?
Your policy of just dont let it crash is great, but if iTunes uses 100% CPU for 10 minutes while it dicks about trying to decide if I plugged in an iPod or an iPhone then I'd prefer a blue screen. The crash would be less annoying. So you want to lock down everything, I have a 75 page agreeement before I can use the App store. So you limit what apps I can get. This I can cope with if the software would work.
I'm about to uninstall and reinstall iTunes and Mobile Me. Again. Why? Because your latest update has my computer not responding as your com.apple.DotMacSync.client.exe*32 is sitting at 95% CPU. Your upgrade process for your software which you keep pushing is shite.

Next phone will be an Android. And I shall call it Marvin.

Regards

My name is Gerry the pissed of and I'm a PC that would run Ubuntu when I dont need iTunes.

Naked in Toronto

2010-06-27T18:47:00.003+01:00

From the Globe and Mail this morning reading about the riots at the overpriced G20 meeting;

"About 70 people were arrested at a University of Toronto building near Russell Street and Spadina Avenue for wielding “street-type weaponry,” police said. Officers seized black clothing, bricks, bats, sharpened sticks and bottles containing fluid -- "items you don't need for a weekend in Toronto," Constable Rob McDonald said."

Black clothing is something " you don't need for a weekend in Toronto" and if you do wear it then it looks like the mounties will be stripping you. At this stage I'd like to encourage all supermodels to wear black in Toronto.

You might also want to go thirsty. If bottles containing fluid are now illegal on the streets then I think sales of Coke are about to plummet.

I do have to object to them confiscating sharpened sticks. That's going too far. As a long time fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer I don't travel anywhere without a stake. There are legions of the undead everywhere. In fact this may just be a whole scare mongering staged by the vamps to take the weapons out of the hands of their food.

Canada Vs Ireland - Bastard politicians

2010-06-27T06:05:00.003+01:00

Our local MP here Russ 'the family man' Hiebert has decided that to keep his family together he should fly his wife and kids out with him to Ottawa when ever he's going. Of course they have to fly first class to and sure why not, the tax payer is paying. Only $600,000 in expenses in a year. (Read more about it here).
Apology when caught : No, he's entitled to it and this is encouraged by his party.

In Ireland Ivor Calley claimed a holiday home in Cork as his primary residence so he could claim more expenses (more about it here and here). He's well behind Hiebert with only 80,000 euros on travel, but it's only 370km instead of a 4 hour flight and it's also well out of his constituency. Hiebert at least lives near his ~~suckers~~ voters.
Apology when caught : No, he needed it for personal reasons.

Result : They both get a point. And I'm running for parliment on the platform that I'll fly coach and leave Ursula at home.

Score : Canada 5 Ireland 6

Will you ever learn?

2010-06-25T16:16:00.003+01:00

Anyone else watch Hells Kitchen? Notice any repeats? The same thing happens every year. A new crowd of chefs / cooks / dish scrubbers arrive and the same thing happens. Ramsey throws a hissy fit because they fuck up the risotto. And the scallops.
If you were going on a reality tv show about cooking and last season the shit hit the fan when some one couldn't cook risotto or scallops and the same the season before that, and the one before that does that drop any hints?
Maybe anyone planning to apply for next year should learn to cook risotto and scallops. Just sayin' is all.
On another note the winner last season opened up a restaurant in Whistler. Should I go? Or should I learn from the tv show that my medium rare steak will be still alive, the mussels will be raw and some one will substitute crab for duck because they can't tell the difference?

Living Wellness Centre

2010-06-24T17:34:00.003+01:00

Some of our friends opened up Living Wellness Centre here in South Surrey so here's a blatent plug for if you need a chiropractor, acupuncturist, massage therapist, naturopath or a meditation class. And since it consumed our evenings and weekends, if you like the website then you can contact TekBusters.

I want to go sailing

2010-06-16T18:04:00.003+01:00

I was at a breakfast meeting at the beach this morning, overlooking the pier where the Lower Mainland Yacht Co-Op keeps their boats (I'm a member). Sun coming out and looking like it's going to be a beautiful day, flat calm water with clear visibility to the Gulf Islands and a nice breeze that looks like we could sail along nicely.
But I have to work. Sailing fail.

Lifeguard on duty

2010-05-31T16:54:00.002+01:00

As some people know, I cant swim. Even with the lessons I've been taking. But I've watched way too much Baywatch so lack of floatation wasn't going to stop me in a heroic rescue outside of Kingston Ontario last week.
We had gone to visit with Jeffy and Cheryl and they live right on a lake. Anyway, we got up to find the kids were already out on a tube thing with Cheryl watching. She needed to leave to help Ursula with some stuff and asked me to stay as a responsible adult. Ursula did try to point out that neither words applied to me. But of course I was left there to watch 3 kids, a tube full of air and a lot of water.
See where this is going yet?
Of course the youngest falls in and starts screaming (he was OK, Cheryl being both more responsible and adult than me had made sure he had a life jacket on) and without the aid of red shorts on one of those floating can things I jumped and in. Well waded. In far enough to get my nipples wet.
Next time I'll try a bit of swimming too, if my lessons get that far.

The Irish take over LA

2010-04-24T02:27:00.004+01:00

It looks like everyone I know is moving to the west coast these days and down in LA the Irish are ganging up to take over the world. Mike Got Spiked have just relased their latest album Live and Acoustic (on itunes), with Lorraine Maher joining for a song and mixed and mastered by Jason Donaghy in perfect sound studios. A very Irish album but with a big LA influence in the sound.
With a title like live and acoustic I was expecting a quiet departure from their usual mad in your face wall of rock stage show but it's very upbeat, very catchy and still very rocking. It slows down for Stop Thinking with Lorraine, who has an amazing voice and I'm really liking the catchy No Is Not An Answer and Sleeping With the Enemy. A lot of it puts me in mind of Sublime, I think some of the west coast has rubbed off here.
If you're not convinced yet check them out on myspace, they've got some songs streaming there and try before you buy.

Google sells organic listings

2010-03-30T19:14:00.002+01:00

I just finished reading Stephen King's Under the Dome (a great read) where the military call from a number with the area code 000. Not 5 minutes later I got a call from (000)-012-3456. Oh shit, it's the US army and I'm trapped in an invisible dome? The city of Surrey is locked in?
No, it was the other great power, Google, calling to offer me a business proposal. Now I'm flattered that such a company would want to work with me, after all TekBusters is a relatively small company but to have caught the eye of this search engine giant is a good sign.
Well they could, for one year get me on the first page of all the search results?
"Google, you'll put me top of the organic listings?" I was stunned. Probably because of here where it says "Advertising with Google won't have any effect on your site's presence in our search results. Google never accepts money to include or rank sites in our search results, and it costs nothing to appear in our organic search results"
"Oh yes," sayeth the great Google.
"Fuck off you scamming bastard," I said hanging up the phone.

They were even nice enough to call me back and leave a voicemail to tell me they could "improve the fucking ranking of your website". Oops, did I just piss of Google and lose my chance to be the number 1 on all searches?

3D HD TV

2010-03-25T20:49:00.002Z

Is this double D's? I just got to see the new 3D HD TVs in BestBuy (not cheap) with the special USB glasses (again not cheap, $250 for a pair of glasses).
Will it be worth it? Maybe.
What I liked about this type of 3D (as opposed to the one with the coloured glasses) was that it worked so well. In the IMAX I got to see a documentry on the building of the space station. Having this massive space station look like it was floating a metre from your face was amazing.
Some movies do great things with it, Journey to the Centre of the Earth while not a greta movie had a lot of fun with it. Other movies are a bit more blah. Since the TV is so small (50 inches) or so you don't have objects flying out towards you, it's all depth so there's not so much to play with.
Would I buy it for a TV? No. I'd rent out the normal versions of the movies instead of the 3D versions.
Then I walk to the other side of the store and they have it set up with I think an XBox. Oh hell yes. There was only a demo screen available, but instantly you can see where this is headed. 3D games where you go and blow the hell out of anything that moves. Think of multiplayer Goldeneye on the N64 and add 3D. It's got a bright future.

Though would I buy it? No. I'd go for the Vuzix Wrap 310 which are only $199, show 3D and give me a virtual 55 inch screen. Use it everywhere.

Does vegetarian count as cooking?

2010-03-20T18:42:00.007Z

I mean, there is no meat, so is it really food? Anyway Ursula got me a cooking lesson at the Dirty Apron for Christmas and I choose the Vegetarian class since all of my recipies dont work so well now I married a herbivore. What is so wrong with chicken, steaks and burgers?

I had a blast at the class. It was well run and went something like this.

The chef would demo how to make something and then we'd all go and make one with him and two assistants coming round to help. We started with a goats cheese and carmalised onion tart which looked something like this;

We then had to sit down and try it out of course. With a nice red wine.

We followed up that by making pasta from scratch which was easier than I thought. Then we prepared the chocolate lava cake to go in the fridge (by the way, this was not in any way the low calorie class).
While the pasta sat and did what pasta does while wrapped in cling film we prepared the sauce for it, a sultana and arthichoke creation. Then is was time to prepare the ricotta with lemon zest roll out the pasta. Again this part of pasta making was much easier than I thought. Roll up the ricotta in it and the tortellini looked something like this;

Mix all this with the sauce, stick it on a plate and try this out (with more wine naturally). It was damn good.

While we ate some one stuck the lava cakes in the oven so they were just ready as we were.

I'd recommend the class, the food was great but next time I'll bring Urs as she's now expecting me to cook it all again tonight.... oh well, just like at the Dirty Apron I'll be expecting some one else to clean up after me.

Canada Vs Ireland - Olympics

2010-02-23T22:38:00.003Z

So it's all going mad here round Vancouver for the 2010 winter games and who is doing better, Canada or Ireland?
In the medals we have,
Canada 6 gold, 4 silver, 1 bronze.
Ireand 0 gold, 0 silver, 0 bronze

But it's participation that counts? Right? At least that's what they tell kids here. Anyway, as I will never be an Olympic athlete then I don't think the medals are what we should be looking at. Let's look instead at the country showcases. Canada House VS Ireland House.

Ireland House : It's a pub. In a tent. Admittedly the tent is nice, it's got some fake stone walls, some bars, lots of tvs, live music and drink in plastic glasses. It's also getting the most complaints for late partying.
Queue to get in : About 10 minutes.
Atmosphere inside : Great. A perfect start to the Olympic pub crawl.
Cost : No idea, but I am guessing that they are raking it in. The place is packed all day and the pricy booze is flowing.

Canada House : Again a tent but without the pub. It's in Livecity Vancouver. Get your picture taken with a bobsled, with some Mounties (I'll post them later) or queue another 45 minutes to get your picture taken with an Olympic torch. Some interactive TVs for the kids but really there is nothing here.
Queue : About an hour into LiveCity Vancouver and another 45 minutes into Canada House.
Cost : Somewhere round 20 million. For a fricking tent. Some one charged $19 million for a sheet of canvas and fecked off to Barbados. Sure the tax payers will still be paying for it during the 2030 Olympics.
Atmoshpere : Disappointed. Lots of "Did I just queue for this long to see an expensive tent with nothing in it?"

Winner : Guess. Go on. Hint: They serve Guinness and people go there just beacuse of the complaints.

Score : Canada 4 Ireland 5

Paypal is a piece of shit

2010-02-11T18:55:00.003Z

Really. It sucks.

I signed up for paycrap so that I could accept credit cards for work. Nice and easy, online billing, low rates, it all sounds great.
The I go to a customer site and fix a computer and they want to pay by visa. 'No problem,' I think. I create them an invoice on no-paypal and they pay by credit card without creating a whatyouwanttogetpaidpal account. It's a one off payment, why bother creating an account?

A few days later I'm told the money is on hold because SuckPal think it is suspicous transaction. Can I prove I shipped the item? I explained it was a service, as it showed on the type of invoice I created. I was onsite, there was no shipping. Grand so, a week or so later I can claim the money.
Then yesterday (about another week on) they reverse the decision, refund the money to the customer and tell me I owe them the money back. I ask why and they tell me;

"After further examination, PayPal has now completed the investigation of this transaction. We would like to inform you that the suspicion was confirmed and we have therefore reversed the transaction back to the buyer. Unfortunately, due to data protection we cannot disclose any further information in relation to the investigation."

So they won't tell me why.
I called an eventually they admitted that since the customer did not create an account with FuckingUselessPal they thought it was suspicous. They emailed the customer to verify the transaction and since the customer did not respond they reversed the transaction.

Really?

How many spam emails do you get a week from a bank or PissOffPal claiming there is a problem with the security on your account and asking you to verify it? And they were surprised that they got no response.

So I call the customer and confirm that they never disputed the transaction, had no problem with it at all and will pop a cheque in the post. Ah cheques, much easier

My next million dollar idea

2010-01-31T01:44:00.003Z

Another great idea from the guy behind the already made shirt iron-er-thingey and the chocolate Monaghan man.
Recently on MyFace poeple are becoming fans of some thingey called

When-DRUNK-My-phone-should-say-Are-you-sure-you-want-to-send-this-text

So why not make this. An app say for an iPhone which replaces your texting option. This app would:

Create a score for your texting spelling and typing speed.
Average this score over your last say 50 texts.
If you have a sudden drop by say 35% it would not send the text for 20 hours, and only then after the phone beeped and asked you to confirm.

Millions, I will make millions. Any iPhone app programmers out there want to work for me? Writing the patent now.

Yet another blog

2010-01-07T02:16:00.001Z

How many blogs can one person have? Anyway I've started one for work now. It's about whatever I'm working on and any IT stuff that comes to mind. The TekBusters Blog. Now to change the template to match everything else. In blogs and websites is it important that collar and cuffs match?

You are here.

2010-01-05T03:54:00.003Z

How did you get here?

The very helpful Google Webmaster tools give you lots of stats on how your site is found and how Google sees it. From this I can now see how people find this blog. The top 10 search list looks like;

1	48%	travel pussy	5
2	7%	travelpussy	4
3	6%	gainford	9
4	4%	the mailbox recipient does not have a mailbox database	10
5	3%	garmin nuvi 670 updates	9
6	3%	gerry 5	10
7	2%	travelpussy.blogspot	4
8	2%	travel-pussy.de	5
9	2%	e250v	9
10	1%	"travel pussy"	4

So 60% of people find my blog while looking for, lets say relief while travelling. I knew the figure was high, just not that high. Perverts.

Dumb competitions

2010-01-03T07:56:00.001Z

M&Ms have a competition to win a trip to the winter olympics. All you have to do is find the golden M&M. Since I only really eat these at the cinema this is a little difficult to tell if you win or not. I went to see Sherlock Holmes (excellent movie) tonight and I'm pretty sure I swallowed a trip to Vancouver. Or maybe it was yellow. Or brown. Or even green.

2009 - The year of stupid nominations

2009-12-31T05:15:00.004Z

In 2009 it seems that anyone could and win anything. For instance;

In the middle of 2 wars and sitting on a big load of nuclear bombs Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
Following a global meltdown of the banking system Ben Bernanke wins Time Person of the Year.
Taylor Swift won best female video at the VMAs. Even Kanye disagreed.
Michelle Obama is named Most Interesting Person of 2009. Cause she has a dog or something.
Some one else won the Irish Blog awards that wasn't me.
A woman won the Man Booker Prize.
The popular vote won the election in the US.
And I won a tenner on the Lotto.

A new Paypal scam

2009-12-22T22:29:00.003Z

We're trying to sell our Beetle (nice, red, and yours for about $7500), so we put it on Craigslist and I got this email;

Hi there ,
I'm John Krugger from Calgary, i will like to make an offer of $7000 for this Vehicle,and please i can only pay using PayPal, and after payments has been made ,i will arrange for pick up of the car.Will more than appreciate your
reply. Thanks and God bless

N.B-please attach some pictures,if any.

John

Now, obviously this is a scam. Bad punctuation and wont appear in person. And the God Bless - if that doesn't assure me of an honest Christian then I don't know what will. And why ask for pictures, they're on the ad.
But...
But he's using paypal? Isn't that secure and stuff?
I wanted to find out how this worked, so I played dumb and emailed back.

Hello Gerry,
thanks for mailing back,i am an oceanographer and i am buying this Car for my dad, i am at sea right now,and I can only pay through Paypal and you can put the Paypal charges on me because as at present, i don't have access to my bank account online,but i have it attached to my Paypal account,and this is why i insisted on using Paypal to pay,all i will need is your paypal email address to make the payments,i have a pick up agent that will come for the pick up after payments has been sorted and will also handle the paper works. Be rest assured of a secured transaction because i am a serious buyer and i will only take the car after payments has been sorted out.Thanks and God bless. John

Ah, what a nice guy, buying the car for this dad. And I can `rest assured of a secured transaction because i am a serious buyer and i will only take the car after payments has been sorted out`.

Next email - oh no, there`s a problem.

Hi Gerry,

I was just about to make the payments when i had this little problem with the picking up of the car , I am currently on sea and i am buying the car for my Dad as i explained earlier on and i tried to book pick up with my pick up agent, but they asked me to pay first before they can make the booking, and they only accept Western Union Money Transfer for payments and they dont accept paypal or Bank transfer and I tried to send the money online but i couldnt and I am on sea and there is no way i can find a western union agent to make the transfer to my pick up agent, so i wanted to ask if it was ok for me to include my pick up agent's fees in the payments I am about to send through paypal, my pick up agent charged $650 plus insurance and all of that, please can i include their money in the payments I want to send then after i have made the payments you will help me forward the $650 to my pick up agent through western union money transfer ,this I would have done myself and not bother you but the for the fact that I am currently on sea, so after I have made the payments you will help me send $650 to my pick up agent through western union money transfer, I just wanted to seek your consent before going ahead with the payments,I will more than appreciate if you mail me back, and I will be making the payments shortly. Thanks and God bless. John

PS: the shipping company's Head quarters is in England and any pick up fees to be paid is sent to their head quarters by the payee, so the money for pick up will be sent to their head quarters in England through western union money transfer(this can be done from any post office) or you can do it online at www.westernunion.com

Ah, now I see. I send money via western union to your shipping company in England. And you can use paypal online `on sea` but not western union online. Good stuff. So I offered to drive the car to his dad in Calgary since I would be there anyway and save him the shipping cost. No, not possible. Or have my made up office in England go and pay his shipping company in cash. No, they don`t accept cash for security reasons. Ok I said, I`ll go for it.

So he sent a verification email from PayPal (well from a mail2pay.com address) to an email account (that`s not associated with any paypal account) for $7750. Paypal however wont relase such a large sum until I send the money to his shippers (via western union - the dodgiest method around).

So that`s how it works. You can scam people by buying stuff through paypal. I have replied with this, but have little faith in it working (and here I`m an honest Christian too);

Hi John

thanks for sending that. It sucks that Paypal wont release the money immediately.

As you can understand with the recession and Christmas cash flow is limited at the moment and without Paypal releasing the $650 I cannot send it on via western union. The lack of cash is the reason I am selling my car in the first place. Anyway I checked with my bank and I have $350 I can use to help you pay your shipping company. If you could send me the other $300 dollars either via paypal with the funds released, or via western union online then I can send the $650 to your shippers.

When they come to pick up the car I will then leave your $300 in cash locked in the cars glove compartment. I trust you will be able to help me with this and then you can have your new car.

God bless and merry christmas

Gerry

Update
John emailed me back to say that if I sent the $350 then paypal would release the cash and I could then send on the rest of the money. I sent him the confirmation code (a link to the nastiest virus ridden site I could find) but I haven't heard from him since.

56 bottles of beer on the wall

2009-12-20T22:15:00.005Z

I just finished bottling a batch of bitter so here's 56 bottles of beer on the wall. I can't take one down and pass it around just yet, but in about 2 weeks it should be good.

Before this I made a dark ale, so here's one I made earlier.

Of course not everything is put in nameless brown bottles. Urs arranged for me to spend a day in Dead Frog Brewry to get a chance to help make beer on a large scale. And the nice guys there sent on a sample of the results.

Cheers.

My new favourite Christmas song

2009-12-17T00:22:00.002Z

After I found I could stream radio via the internet on my iphone through an fm transmitter to my car radio I've been listening to a bit of TodayFM (havn't figured out LMFM yet). And thanks to Alison on Today FM there is Silent Night from Sweet Jane. I love the drums on this.

You can check out their blog here - > Sweet Jane
And listen to the song on myspace here -> Silent Night

Now to try and find them on itunes.

Just give in

2009-12-15T05:12:00.002Z

Maybe it's time for the government to just give up. At the moment CIE are among a number of unions threatening strike action if paycuts are mentioned. Maybe the government should give in, especially on the railways. Let's face it, the service has always been crap and overpriced and held to ransom by unions going on strike when ever some one wanted a day off.
Wash your hands of them, sell the company at a loss to whoever, sell it to the rail workers and the unions. Then open up the whole transport field to private companies. Let the unions run their own companies and face unemployment in the real world.
The country is not just falling apart, it has fallen apart. At least let the Irish Rail union be taken down along with the economy. See, every cloud can have a silver lining.

Still not getting it

2009-12-14T18:06:00.002Z

It seems that some people still aren't understanding the whole global recession thing. Irish tourism for one. I got these offers in my inbox this morning.

Mazatlan - 7 nights all inclusive 5 star accomadation including flights, $777
Mexican cruise - 11 nights, all inclusive though no flights, $689 (here)
Ireland - 10 day tour, some meals, no airfare, $2035 (here)

Hmm, now given the exchange rate, where should I go?
In fact given the exchange rate, where should the Irish go? Hint. The answer to both questions is a sunny place. Is it just me our is Irish tourism pricing itself way out of the game? 5 star all inclusive or horribly expensive bus tour? Not much of a choice really.

I'm dreaming of a warm Christmas

2009-12-09T18:45:00.002Z

The weather forecast is telling us it could snow at the weekend (here). It's bad enough that at 11 in the morning it's 3 degrees below but now I'll have to shovel the driveway.
I'm all for a white Christmas, but only when it starts snowing on the way home from the pub on Christmas eve and is gone by boxing day. It's nice to have it on the mountains so I can break many bones skiing (or trying to) but a few weeks with a snow shovel? Boo. Thank all the gods for a gas fire.

Christmas is for children

2009-12-08T04:42:00.002Z

Fattened up and popped in a hot oven for about 20 mins per pound. Bear in mind that you'll need0 a large oven and children can take over a day to cook, so you'll need to put them in Christmas eve. You should baste them in their own juices every hour or so as well.

OK, maybe not. But here gingerbread houses are a Christmas thing instead of a witch trying to cook Hansel and Gretel thing, so I went and made one. It's sickeningly sweet, just hardened sugar really.

Merry Christmas already

2009-12-05T05:00:00.004Z

I know I swore it would be Culchie Shopping Day (8th December) before I would put up the lights but we were starting to look like we were going to be the only house on the street without them so I went for it.
The tree went quite well, even if it is huge (about 8 feet though we only paid for 6 - 7).

The outside lights were more difficult. Never done this before and the hanging icicle things are hard to straighten out when you're trying to balance on the top step of a wobbly ladder. Also we were about 4m short on the line of lights. The lights on the tree out front are much brighter than anything else, but hell, I'll fix it tomorrow.

The Toy Show

2009-12-04T06:19:00.002Z

A million kudos, whuffies and cool points to JH for providing me with this. Fantastic show.
Since I wont be home this Christmas this was about the best bit of tv I'll see this season.

Not so fit - Part 2

2009-12-03T19:41:00.003Z

Mens Health recently had an article on 10 standards to assess your fitness. This isn't good news. I think I might pass 1, two if I'm lucky. If I get the chance I'll try others the next time I'm in the gym and have access to a 470lb weight to test. The 10 standards are:

1. Bench Press 1.5 times your body weight.
Nope. How about .5 times? Though as I guess this is a 1 rep thing I could probably go much higher, maybe my bodyweight, not 1.5.

2. Run 1.5 miles in 10 minutes.
9 miles an hour for 10 minutes? Are you fecking kidding me?

3. Touch the rim.
What kind of perverted fuc...? Oh you mean grab the hoop in basketball from a jump. Are trampolines allowed?

4. Leg press 2.25 times your own weight.
This one I think I could do, but then my own weight is pretty high. I'll need to get to a gym to try this one out since I don't have a 470lb barbell lying about.

5. Swim 700 yards in 12 minutes.
I'm a terrible swimmer. Last time I had to swim 200m (for a diving test) it took about 55 minutes. So no, 700 yards in 12 minutes is out.

6. Do 40 pushups.
Maybe. It might kill me. I know I can do 20 and if this was all I was doing that day maybe this is possible.

7. Measure up.
Yep, mine's bigger than yours. Oh you mean waist size. Yes, mine's bigger than yours there too, so this is a fail.

8. Run 300 yards sub 1 minute.
About 10.3mph? For a minute? Even 10 seconds. Feck off.

9. Touch your toes.
Maybe. On a good day. Yes.

10. Toss a basketball 75 ft kneeling.
I have no idea. You Americans have weird tests. Probably not.

So all in all I am not fit. Why isn't there a pill to fix this? It would sell almost as well as a H1N1 vaccine.

Not so fit - part 1

2009-12-03T19:26:00.004Z

So I've been working out a bit more lately. Almost regularly. Running, weights etc. I've stopped smoking and dont drink near as much as I did when I was in Ireland. I even eat a lot more vegetables. Comes from marrying a vegetarian.
So why am I not so fit?
From perusing my Fat Bastard Stats on this blog (here and here) my stats have gone like

August 04 - Weight 200lbs Body Fat 24.5%
March 2005 - Body Fat 20%
January 2006 - Weight 211lbs Body Fat 29%
December 2009 - Weight 211lbs Body Fat 31.5%

Which means while my weight has gone up I've also dropped about 5.5lbs of muscle. Or bone. Though I'm pretty sure most of my ribs are still here.

Maybe I just need 20 Malboro light and a crate or two of dutch gold.

Scientists are dumb

2009-12-02T16:24:00.001Z

It seems that scientists in Montreal were trying to find men in their 20's who hadn't watched porn. They couldn't find any (the story is here). Wow, they needed to go to university to find that out. For their next study I decided to help them save some money and time on research so here are the figures they're looking for.
99% of men masturbate, the other 1% are liars.

Windows 7

2009-11-29T23:10:00.001Z

I'm using Windows 7 more and more now and thank fuck it is so much better than Vista. I'm even going to go out on a limb and say I like it.
I've been running it on a netbook (since some apps need an upgrade before they'll run on Windows 7 and I dont want to buy the latest bug ridden Simply Accounting) and it's not bad at all.
I have found that removing Aero themes and stopping any unnecessary services takes about 15 seconds off the boot time. So I now boot in 45 seconds to a logon screen. Although i think I'll reenable Aero since it is kinda nice. If I want fast booting I can always use Ubuntu.

Urs is a Mac but I'm a PC and Windows 7 was some one elses idea.

Boo to RTE

2009-11-29T20:35:00.002Z

Finally they take The Plank off the Late Late show but at this stage I've left the country. Christmas wouldn't be Christmas though without the Toy Show so I try to watch it online. They go an geoblock it. Bastards.

I can understand this with the rugby or the all Ireland finals when they've sold overseas rights to Setanta but for the toy show that's not going to be available anywhere else? Come on RTE, I paid a tv license for years (maybe about 2), don't I deserve to see the Toy Show? Is getting more people to watch it (even with ads) not a good idea? Help to pay some of those huge wages for Gerry Ryan?

Search words?

2009-11-28T00:01:00.000Z

I have a question for anyone who reads this. I'm trying to get TekBusters website found easier search engines and would like to know what you search for.

So, if your computer was not working / had a virus / crashed / whatever and you were going to hire some one to repair it, what would you type and into what search engine?

Thanks.

Captchas

2009-11-27T11:15:00.000Z

Those annoying things that ask you to type in the word as you see above before commenting. You know, like this one;They're getting worse and worse. Facebook now asks for 2 words. And they only ever have 1 you can make out. It's just fucking with your mind. Hey hit refresh and you can see two new words but you can still only read one. It's trying to get to you. Hey think that 18 years of education was worthwhile? Well why can't you tell if this is a 0 an o or a B? Turns out it was a W all along.

Why not just ask?
Are you a spammer?
Are you selling anything to erect / lengthen / shorten / widen / colour my penis?

If the answer is no then go ahead and comment. It works for US immigration, are you a terrorist?

It was facebook in the study with a candlestick

2009-11-27T05:05:00.003Z

While waiting on a disk check to run today (1.5 hours) I started rereading my old blog entries (on an iphone so only got as far as May'05). Checking out the comments and who wrote them I realised that no one blogs any more (except Damien). Facebook has killed blogging.

Now instead of treasures like this we get to see that who-cares-I-actually-dont-remember-you-from-when-I-was-5 has just bought a t shirt.

I also realised that since most of the photos on my blog were hosted on a domain I let drop they've all gone.

That doesn't matter, but bring back blogging does. The Campaign to Bring Back Blogging (henceforth CBBB until I find a dirty acronym) starts here.

Wanna wave?

2009-11-26T06:50:00.002Z

I have some invites for Google wave in exchange for peace on earth and goodwill to mankind.

Windows 7 and Ubuntu

2009-11-21T02:19:00.002Z

Finally finished setting up my Eee to dual boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu (easypeasy). Sweet. Windows 7 is a bit slow to boot (about 60 seconds to useable) unless I hibernate it (20 seconds) and Ubuntu rocks (20 second boot). The SSD has halved the boot times, and I think more RAM will help even more.
They both run pretty well on the Atom processor and now with Windows I can tether my iPhone for mobile internet. Why oh why Apple won't you provide drivers for Linux for this.
Anyway, that's my little bit of geek (or tekbuster) for today.

Cure for H1N1 discovered

2009-11-20T04:20:00.001Z

Yes, put together by a mad chemist in a kicthen in BC, the cure for H1N1 has been discovered. No need for needles, tamiflu or any of that. Here's what you do.

1. Call in to work and tell them you're sick and will be off for 2 weeks.
2. Boil a kettle and fill a glass an inch or two with hot water. Swirl it around to warm the glass and dump it.
3. Put a cold spoon in the glass and pour in an inch or two of Irish whiskey.
4. Add 2 tsp of sugar, a slice of lemon and 6 whole cloves.
5. Pour on more hot water.
6. Drink.
7. Repeat steps 2 - 6 as required.

There you go, why worry about H1N1? It's 2 weeks off work in the warm glow of alcohol. Might want to get a few DVDs to go with it.

Samsung don't like the environment?

2009-11-19T00:46:00.000Z

Seems they don't care to recycle. I bought a CLP-310 printer for putting out some flyers but when I go to try and refill the toner I find I can't. Why? A design feature that saves space and energy makes this not possible? A better quality of print?
Nope, Samsung put a chip in the toner cartridges that keeps track of how much was printed from it and stops you using it even if there is ink left or you refill it. The chip is not writable so no one can refill these.
Time to do more environmental damage and dump this printer at the local recycling centre and buy something else. Something that a) I can refill and b) doesn't get a paper jam if you have more than 20 sheets in it.
Poor show Samsung.

Computer repair in Surrey, BC

2009-11-19T00:34:00.003Z

Given the price yellow pages are charging for listings I'm going to have to make my own. New website is up for Tekbusters, all done in Joomla which is a pretty nice system. So for computer repair in Surrey BC call Tekbusters.
We sell, install, maintain and repair all makes of computers with only qualified professionals working for us. From Microsoft servers to a Linux or Mac desktop we can set it up, fix it or keep it from breaking. We also offer grahpic and web design, network administration and setup.

Superbad

2009-11-08T07:12:00.001Z

Is on tv right now. Go McLovin.

Review of this movie : Fucking rocks.

Just for (Politically Correct) Laughs in Surrey

2009-11-04T21:48:00.003Z

Tommy Tiernan was to play a Just for Laughs tour around Canada, with it hitting Surrey (where I now live) on Novemeber 12th. Well out to support a fellow Irishman or just cause he's a funny fucker, off I went and bought 4 tickets.
Now he's not playing and the just for laughs site is not saying much;
Just For Laughs.

Tommy's website isn't saying anything other than he'll be in Nenagh;
Tommy Tiernan.

So I had to do a bit of searching and found it was due to racist comments;
The Province.

Come back Tommy, Canada needs less PCS (Politically Correct Shite).

Anyone want to buy four tickets to a nice clean family and PCS friendly show?

The Wedding

2009-10-20T21:33:00.001+01:00

For anyone who hasn't seen Ursula's profile on Facebook, there are pictures from our wedding here and of course there's always the video of that first dance.

Call from an agent

2009-10-14T17:15:00.002+01:00

I haven't done any extra work in ages since I was so busy, but I decided I would keep one day a week free from now on to be available for it. Mainly since it's interesting and I get paid to hang round, chat, eat food and drink coffee. Already in my first week back I got a call. I'm off to protest, against I think some aliens. More about it later.
And they said I only had a face for radio and a voice for mime.

What a cunt

2009-10-03T06:45:00.000+01:00

What else can I say
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/odonoghue-in-new-expenses-bombshell-1903376.html

An update

2009-09-28T06:12:00.002+01:00

Where have I been and what have I been doing? Well not blogging for one. In the last 6 weeks I've got married, moved out of our apartment and moved into a new house (about a month apart), worked lots, went on honeymoon (Vegas - go see O, very hot. Cruise - ate way too much too often), and worked to make up for the time I was taking off.

Also, well done to Conor on swimming the channel, (check it out here and feel free to donate).

Maybe as things settle down (I'll have nothing else to do now I have no wedding to plan or house moving to do) I'll blog some more.

Please drink

2009-08-25T17:28:00.002+01:00

Oh no, the Irish have stopped drinking and your local publican is crying into his pint. Where is the government to help them? (Story from the indo here). Let's cut VAT rates 15% to encourage more drunks on the streets.
But what else could we do to encourage people to drink more? Some random ideas that should work.

Fire or threaten everyone with job losses, you'll need a pint when you get that news.
Get a huge drop in the value of your house which you were promised would rise and rise in value. That should drive people to drink.
Increase taxes. When you need something to liven up a conversation in a pub there's nothing like bitching about taxes to get some serious drrunkenspiel started.

Em, maybe not. Though if people already aren't drinking more at this stage maybe the pubs need to lower their overinflated prices, clean their toilets, tell the bouncers not to be such cunts and let people in.

Reimage

2009-08-12T18:54:00.002+01:00

Something I've used now and again is Reimage. It's like wiping and reloading your PC without the wipe and reload. For me it's worked about 50% of the time and fixed the error / removed the virus etc. The good news is that if it doesn't work, they give you your money back and rest your PC to the way it was. A great idea and if it would only work 100% of the time I'd use nothing else. But worth a look to clean your computer
Reimage

5 days and counting

2009-08-12T16:56:00.000+01:00

Until W-day. Roll on Friday and the stag and anything that's not done by then just isn't getting done.

How to break some hearts in 4 easy steps

2009-08-11T19:26:00.007+01:00

Say a young couple want to buy a house and they ask you for a mortgage. Want to kill them? Easy, here are the steps;

1. Pre approve them for a large amount at a very low interest rate.
2. Wait until they sell their appartment and have an offer in on a house which is really good because of this very low rate. If they phone up to check, confirm the large amount and low rate.
3. As they're about to sign papers, change your mind and up the rate. Say a jump from 3.79% to 5.40.
4. Sit back and watch them crack.

Bought a house

2009-08-07T18:05:00.002+01:00

We've made an offer on a very nice house and it's been accepted. I'm going to meet the nice lady at the bank today and remind her she preapproved us at a ridicously low rate. Official move in date is September 25th. Unfortunately the offical move out date from here is August 30th.
At some stage in between (say August 17th about 3.30) I've got to get married. And I'm in the middle of an advertising blitz (well advertising start at least) for a new business. You know, I am going to be so bored in October. Nothing to do at all.

I am not a Nerd

2009-07-10T05:13:00.003+01:00

With more changes than Leonard Nimoy, now I am not a Nerd. I've decided instead to become a TekBuster. You can check us out here.
For all your IT needs in the Lower Mainland, computer sales, installation, repair and maintenance.

Perputal motion: solved

2009-07-06T05:38:00.004+01:00

Checking the independent today, this ad was on their homepage. Of course I had to look. Magniwork, it is;

A Zero point magnetic power generator is basically a Free Energy Generator. It uses magnets, and magnetic force to induce perpetual motion. It runs by itself, indefinitely without stopping, thus creating completely free electrical energy, which can fully power your home for free. A Perpetual motion device refers to a machine that runs perpetually i.e. indefinitely, and produces a larger amount of energy than it consumes. Thus, it produces free energy indefinitely, runs by itself, without having to need a third-party device or resource to power it.

Wow, perputal motion generating your electricity. I wonder could I put one in my car and run it for free too? And the instructions for building your own are on sale at the moment. I should just buy it and never pay for electricity again, save the planet and all that happy jazz.

What I really like about it is that if you google magniwork, they've worked hard to have all the top results tell you how good their product is.

Maybe the independent should vet their ads? When so many people are strapped for cash and might try anything to cut their bills. Or do they deserve all they get?

Yikes

2009-06-24T03:00:00.002+01:00

Yes, that was a yikes. It's less than 8 weeks to the wedding and yikes is the word to describe it.

News in just the right order

2009-06-24T02:52:00.001+01:00

From my iGoogle home page

LA Rock

2009-05-06T00:33:00.002+01:00

When Mike Got Spiked promise you a good time in LA, you'd better believe it. They were playing in Whiskey A GoGo, so I went down for a look see. First off, they rocked out.

And Buffy was at the gig. Now some of you may know I'm kinda a fan of Buffy, and she was there.

I managed to not cream myself / faint / get the shit beaten out of myself by bouncers after grabbing her ass.

Then there was the obligiatory all night after show party. With feck all sleep it was off to an Irish bar to meet their manager (after all, where else would you hold a business meeting but over a few pints / vodkas/ red bulls). Then to another party, this time at the house of a footballer / movie star, with more movie stars / directors etc all attending where I managed to not throw up in the pool (sorry about the floor of the van lads).

But there you go, when Mike Got Spiked promise you a good time, you'd better believe it.

Earth hour

2009-03-29T19:36:00.002+01:00

Did you switch off your light? Did you vote with your light switch? Did you do your part in saving the world? No idea what I'm talking about? Earth Hour. You didn't? Be ashamed. Be very ashamed. Global warming is now your fault.
Earth hour could save the planet, raise awareness...

It's all like Blah Blah Blah. What smart ass was behind this? Let's get people to think that if they switch off their lights for an hour it's actually a vote. That counts somewhere. Yes, I can just see it now in the Dail.
"Taoiseach, we have 1.2 million lights out but 1.4 million left on. I'm sorry Taoiseach, but the people have spoken. We need to increase global warming. Pollute more. There was too much snow this winter and we want a bloody good summer."
"Alright Tánaiste, let's lower taxes on petrol, cigarettes and coal. But before we do, buy me some shares in Benson & Hedges. Raise taxes on windfarms and close the station at Ardnacrusha. But sell my shares in windfarms first. Encourage people to smoke more, drive more, use more coal, burn anything they can. We'll turn Ireland into Ibiza yet. The people have spoken Tánaiste, and global warming is what they want."

Or maybe all those lights off saved enough CO₂ going into the atmosphere to make a difference. All those power stations shutting down? Of course you can turn off a power station for an hour. And restart a nuclear station in a few seconds when earth hour is over. Or the coal fired ones. Put out the fire at 8.31 and relight it at 9.29 and be back at full production within seconds. Wait, you can't? So you had all this power being generated and not used? Like you mean, wasted? And you changed to burning candles? You mean for earth hour we increased the amount of CO₂ going into the atmosphere? And printed millions of leaflets. Spennt millions on advertising that could have been used to buy some rain forest or something? But you cut it down to use for flyers?
Oops.
But you raised awareness, right? You now turn off your lights more often? No? You mean you did it for an hour so that's it for the year? The raised awareness wasn't your own awareness? But your sacrifice of light for one hour probably raised some one else's awareness? We can only hope.

I think we might be better ditching Earth Hour and looking at 1 million acts of green. Actually making a change instead of trying to make a statement.

Windows Small Business Server 2008

2009-01-22T17:00:00.002Z

If you're not installing this you might want to stop reading about now.

Windows Small Business Server 2008 is the latest all in one solution for Small Business, an all in one domain controller, exchnage server and whatever you might need. Sound good? No, don't. Don't go near it. At least not yet. It does have a host of promising features, but you should really wait until Service Pack 1 or 2, and definitely for the documentation to be finished. At the moment searching for support to say reinstall Exchange will tell you that this is on the second DVD but there's no documentation available on how to do this.
Searching for support on say, why did my Active Directory crap out on me get's Microsoft knows this is an issue, please contact the product support team. I guess they're no longer charging for these calls if your new server destroys your old domain, but I couldn't find the right person to call to get my free support.

So I did run into some issues, mainly with migration. The SBS has a migration install mode, to migrate from SBS 2003 to 2008 on new hardware. It's a load of shit. If you're installing a new server, just create a new domain and recreate all the accounts and mailboxes manually and transfer the data across the hard way. It will be much easier in the end.
Just in case you try the migtation, here are some of the issues I've encountered and what to do.

Problem : The server will not install in migration mode. It's like the answer file you've created isn't being read.
Solution : Check the answer file. By default it is set to use an unattended install (which doesn't work). Recreat the file without this checked. Strangely, none of the migration guides mention this.
Problem : With a failed migration, you've now fucked up your original Active Directory. Errors about Rid.Master.
Solution : No guarantees, but this worked for me. On your source server use ntdsutil to seize back the 5 FSMO roles, technet article here.
Problem : You need to move home directories.
Solution : Back them up using NTBackup on the source server. Download the NTBackup Restore utility for 2008 (you'll need it anyway if you have any other backups; the new backup software doesn't work with the old files). Download it here.
Problem : You moved your mailboxes and it all seems to be ok, but then you see that messages are not getting through and the Unreachable queue is full of messages. They show "Last Error" The mailbox recipient does not have a mailbox database."
Solution : Using AD Users and Computers, move the users to the MyBusiness - Users - SBSusers OU. Then retry the unreachable queue (from Exchange Manager shell run Retry-Queue -Identity "\Unreachable" -Resubmit $True)

Beer beer beer

2008-12-08T18:08:00.005Z

After making piss in college I've decided to give brewing another go. I currently have about 4 or 5 bottles of wine aging from an unknown grape that was growing in someones garden. Also tried a new beer kit (not the 5 gallons in just 7 day type). This is The Brew House's Premium All-Grain Beer Kit IPA.

This rather messy bucket was the result of primary fermentation

and after carbonation, some bottles popped open so I of course had to try one.

A bit rough at the moment, I'm meant to let it 'age' for another 2 weeks, but I have very high hopes for when I return in January.

I want one

2008-12-08T18:06:00.001Z

Seen this in Linens and Things closing down sale at half price. If only there was room in the appartment for it. 2 water slides, a water canon and all inflatable and folds into a box that would fit in the boot of a beetle

Playlist in my head

2008-12-08T06:22:00.004Z

Since I'm heading home in 7 days (yes, count em, 7) I've got a playlist stuck in my head. There's a bit of Chris Rea;

Im driving home for christmas
Oh, I cant wait to see those faces
Im driving home for christmas, yea
Well Im moving down that line
And its been so long
But I will be there
I sing this song
To pass the time away
Driving in my car
Driving home for christmas

A bit of Tori Amos;

Driving in my Saab
On my way to Ireland
It's been a long time
It's been a long time

But the song that's stuck there the most, for cheesiness and the fact that I'm really looking forward to this trip, is the Dusty Springfield version of Carole King's Goin' Back. Enjoy

Price of petrol

2008-12-04T18:26:00.002Z

It's time to get a huge motherfuckin' kick ass pickup.

That's about 47.25 cents in Euro.

Canada Vs Ireland - Supermarkets

2008-12-04T18:17:00.003Z

No arguing here at all, Canada has a bulk section, perhaps the greatest invention since the bread slicer (which the supermarkets have as well). Every time some one visits, I have to show them the bulk section. Basically it's big buckets of whatever and you fill a bag with as much as you need. Flour, sugar, baing soda, chocolate chips, sundried tomatoes, garlic powder, whatever. Recipe calling for a teaspoon of something? Don't want to buy a large can (smallest they have) of stuff that will go off within a week of opening it? Bulk section rocks.
Also, remember last Christmas? Those boxes of Quality Street? Left with a few of the coffee / nutty things no one likes? Pick what you want.

Ireland 4, Canada 4

Fame

2008-12-02T05:07:00.001Z

While you're sitting on the edge of your seat waiting for my movie debut, you can check out my other tv work, this commercial for Opel.

What do you mean you don't see me? Probably my excellent acting, I am so in the role it's amazing. Awards will be flooding in. Still can't see me? Ok, go to about 9 seconds in? See me there? Third guy on the left away from the tent? That's me freezing my balls off and trying to look interested after take 14.

Tings I'm looking forward to in Ireland

2008-12-02T05:00:00.003Z

1. Tings, trees and anything else where it's not necessary to pronounce a H with a TH. No more, "Oh, you're Irish, say three threes". Nine.
2. Smut, racist jokes and anything else not PC. The nearest Canadians can come to non PC is a Newfie joke (think Kerryman jokes). Other than that everything is uber clean and very very very politically correct. Roll on the twenty eight year olds punchline.
3. Chinese / Wagamamas. Ursula doesn't like Chinese food and anyway, the main problem with all the asian food over here is that it's cooked by asians in a city with a very large asian population. Tends to be very authentic. They have absolutely no idea what a long-tray-curry-chip-fried-rice is.
4. Not drinking Guinness. I never drank it in Ireland, but seem to have developed a taste for mainly badly poured pints here. Roll on the beer.

Dictating to a blog

2008-11-15T18:46:00.002Z

So I'm writing this blog without using a keyboard. I've plugged in my microphone from rock band and I'm using speech recognition software in Vista. It's a bit of a bitch to use and it takes a lot of correction, but it is possible to use.
On another note rock band for the wii pull the rocks.

Seymour Butts

2008-10-18T22:20:00.004+01:00

Meet the latest edition to the household, Seymour Butts.

Given my previous statements about cats and their relationship to satan you may think I've lost my mind. Too much of the BC bud and all. But I've been watching him. He may look all cute and stuff...

... but only this morning I caught him at this.

Look into my eyes, look deep in my eyes, you are feeling like you want to open all the tins of cat food in the house, lace them with catnip and line them up.

Never let your guard down.

Drop Box

2008-09-18T17:03:00.002+01:00

If you need to share files between two computers, especially in two locations, drop box might be what you're looking for. Or to just share files with friends, enemies, the pope, george bush, whoever. I'm still testing but it's pretty good so far. You can check out more about it here. And did I mention I have some invites available? After I use it more I'll possibly review it, but before you ask for an invite (and I have about 5 going) you might want to read the license agreement;

Consent to Access Your Files
BY UTILIZING THE SITE, CONTENT, SERVICES AND/OR YOUR FILES, YOU CONSENT TO ALLOW DROPBOX TO ACCESS YOUR COMPUTER AND/OR ANY FILES THAT ARE PLACED IN THE ‘MY DROPBOX,’AND/OR ‘DROPBOX’ FOLDERS. BY PLACING FILES IN YOUR SHARED AND/OR PUBLIC FOLDERS, YOU CONSENT TO SHARE ACCESS TO THE CONTENT OF THOSE FOLDERS WITH OTHER DROPBOX USERS AND/OR THE PUBLIC.

Your Files
“Your Files” or “User Files” as used in this Agreement means the information contained in the files that you or other users upload, download and access through the Site and Services.

While you own the content contained in Your Files, you hereby grant all other Dropbox users a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable, perpetual and irrevocable right and license to use and exploit Your Files in your public folder. In addition, you hereby grant Dropbox users who have been given access to your shared folder a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable, perpetual and irrevocable right and license to use and exploit Your Files in your shared folder. You represent and warrant that you own or have the necessary licenses, rights, consents and permissions to grant these licenses.

A secret patent

2008-08-10T18:37:00.004+01:00

Why patent something? Or is it better to keep it a trade secret? I started with WeightWatchers again online (cause I'm big boned, no really, I am, and will prove it in a later post).
Anyway, I wanted to drag nutritional info from the web into a spread sheet and have it calculate the points for me. This would make going to restaurants much easier, I'd have all the points from the menus on most chains already worked out. That or get there and ask for the information and try and work out the points using the website on my phone.
All good (what do you mean I sound like such a Nerd. Of course I do, I am a Nerd). Except for one thing, the formula for working out the points is a trade secret and WeightWatchers will not give it out to anyone. People have asked and been rebuffed.
The trouble is it's under patent. These are searchable. Say for instance this page.
So I don't know how, but my speadsheet ends up with

=ROUNDDOWN((B1/50)+(C1/12)-(MIN(4,D1)/5),0)
where
B1 = number of Calories
C1 = Total amount of fat
D1 = Total amount of fibre

A big Yay f0r freedom of information. Though this does mean that I'm not going to patent my anti-matter ray, just keep it a secret and use it in my bid to take over the world. Muhaahaaw.
Now I'm off to see if the Colonels secret recipe is under patent. It's finger lickin' good.

Canada Vs Ireland - Cereal

2008-08-10T18:34:00.003+01:00

Cereal? Well yes. Mainly the packaging. See Kelloggs in Canada uses different plastic for the bags of cereal, an easier to fall apart kind, and a different glue to keep them closed, mainly the will never ever tear kind. As a result, evey new box of cereal rips open all over the place and I have Vector (my new replacement for Special K) all over the floor.

Winner : Ireland for using cheap easy open glue.
Score : Ireland 4 Canada 3

Canada Vs Ireland - Tits

2008-08-10T07:25:00.000+01:00

Yes tits. Boobies, breasts, bejungas, whatever you may call them. They come up in this contest cause 1. I'm a guy and 2. Guys like the boobies.

Winner : Ireland. By a hand. A quick google tells us that the average in North America is a 34B and the Irish are top heavy at 36C. So Irish girls don't fall over do to the sixteen Bacardi Breezers they've just had, it's because they're badly designed for balance with a very high centre of gravity.

Score : Canada 3 Ireland 3

Canada Vs Ireland - The internet

2008-08-07T22:17:00.002+01:00

Winner : Canada
Score : Canada 3 Ireland 2

Maybe I should explain that. When you order high speed internet here some one comes and installs in the next day. In Ireland you wait for a line test, (or order a phone line first which takes a while), wait weeks for an install and then get an overpriced slow service. At the moment 5Mb down, 512kb up, with 60GB data transfer a month with Shaw is $40.95 (€25.36) a month, or $32 (€19.83) a month if you have any other service with them.

The Office

2008-08-07T22:14:00.002+01:00

A picture of my office that makes it look like I might actually be doing some work.

Looks can be deceiving.

Guitar hero has a lot to answer for

2008-08-02T00:56:00.002+01:00

So guitar hero has it's good points. It's fun at a party with a few beers. It's brought some old school rock back to main stream radio and as well as everything else, you get kudos for your air guitar skills. Even if I suck as badly as this as with a real guitar and can't get past amateur level.
What's wrong with it?
Well it ruins the songs. Really, try playing guitar hero and then listening to the song on the radio. You no longer hear the song in your head. Welcome to the Jungle is now ruined in my mind. When I hear it on the radio, all I can hear are the riffs from the game. When I hear Pearl Jam playing alive, all I can hear is Mike McCready hitting that whammy bar for bonus points. It's just not the same song anymore.
Boo.

Canada Vs Ireland - Ads

2008-08-01T23:27:00.000+01:00

So we've had TV, but what about the ads? Well most of the ads here are fairly boring. There seems to be a lack of creativity (think Guinness ads or Guinness inspired ads) over here. A whole lot of a picture of some crap place you don't want to shop with the owner telling you what a nice guy he is.
What Canada does have are some nice things on ads for drugs where they have to tell you all the side effects. Such as gambling. Increased Sexual Urges. Nausea. Death. Whatever.
Remember in Ireland there were a series of ads trying to convince people not to get a prescription for every single ache and pain? There's no need to go to the doctor for every sniffle and scrape? Here they do the opposite. They try to sell you every drug under the sun, but tell you what they'll do to you. Check out Requip if you have Restless Leg Syndrome (I kid you not).

Winner : Canada
Score : Canada 2 Ireland 2

Canada Vs Ireland - TV

2008-07-29T23:21:00.003+01:00

Yes, they have television in Ireland for all the Canadians reading this. And running water. But only in six houses. The rest of us draw lottery tickets to stand in the street and gape in the window at the marvels of modern technology. Running water, it's amazing what people will think of.
So TV. In Ireland you have a few basic channels and for anything more you need to get a satellite dish or cable. You then pay lots of money to have a million channels with nothing on.
In Canada you have no basic channels that I've found, so you get basic cable (about 50 channels) or digital cable or satellite and then you have a million channels with nothing on.
In both countries you can buy huge TV screens (not much use in Ireland unless you live in one of the six houses with electricity, but still). These are touted as the best thing ever for HDTV. In both countries there are feck all channels offering HDTV. In Canada it's about 8 or 9. Useful if you have a blue ray player, but otherwise, TV channels in both countries are letting down the side when it comes to home cinema.
All neck and neck so far, but what's this we have here? Advertisments. They suck on both sides of the Atlantic, but there are way more out west than in Ireland. Take the episode of the Simpsons I watched today. Roll credits - ad break - start the show - ad break - more show - ad break - finish show and show ads while the credits roll at the bottom of the screen. Come back Sky 1, all is forgiven.

Winner : Ireland
Score : Canada 1 Ireland 2

Canada Vs Ireland - Pubs

2008-07-29T17:11:00.004+01:00

Do we even have to do this? Can the great white north, home of the Moslen Canadian stand a chance?
Well lets try it. There are no pubs in Canada. There are restaurants that serve beer. But there are no pubs. No dirty little holes, with a fire blazing the corner and the only food on the menu a pack of out of date Tayto or a soggy cheese sandwich.
There's also no grumpy bastards behind the bar, ready to kick you out for using a mobile phone, the staff are usually young, good looking and relying on a tip so service tends to be better. Earls is a chain of restaurants seems to only hire young ladies who can't afford much clothing. Really, when myself and Urs went, neither of us knew where to look. It's one of those situations where you feel you should offer the hostess a jacket.
So do we have a winner. Yes, Ireland. No matter what Canada does, I'd rather be kicked out of the HiB for using a mobile / ordering something foreign like Smithwicks / being from Monaghan / breathing. I'd kill for a proper pint and a pack of Tayto. Hooters can't make up for the fact that Moslen is crap and you get 'looks' for ordering more than 2 pints.

Winner : Ireland
Score : Canada 1 Ireland 1

Canada Vs Ireland

2008-07-29T15:42:00.000+01:00

Why travel? Usually people blah on about experiencing new countries or some such shit, but in the age of todays fuel prices, why fly to Canada when you can experience it all right here. A special for the next few weeks, Canada Vs Ireland. The similarities, the differences. All right here so you can know all about the great white north as if you'd visited. Without having left the comfort of a real pub. If it has wireless.

So lets start with roadworks.
Ireland has great big chunks of road closed off to allow one person to paint a line somewhere off to the side of the road. Canada has the same. Massive chunks of roads closed off so someone can dig a small hole at the side of the road.
With 2010 olymmpics coming up in Whistler, we have the same kind of mess that was found near Naas when the Ryder cup was coming.
So they're both annoying, but do we have a winner? Yes
In Ireland we have some hairy arse crack leaning on a shovel directing traffic. Here in Canada they tend to hire young blonde (possibly from a bottle) ladies to direct the traffic. Much much prettier than a pair of low riding jeans on the arse of a 250 lb shovel holder.

Winner : Canada

Score : Canada 1 Ireland 0

Do not be touched on the muffler.....

2008-07-25T20:58:00.005+01:00

I got a new bike at last, there are too many sunny days and long roads in BC not to have one. It's a Hyosung GV650 and quite pretty. Looks something like.

It's a Korean make, and I really like the effort they went to in getting the manual translated. It's full of stuff like the warning sticker on the tank

Careful with the muffler now.

Corteo - Cirque du Soleil

2008-06-21T00:22:00.000+01:00

My God

and I can't even touch my toes

My Heart Failure Journal

2008-05-27T18:35:00.003+01:00

Well I seen this in the pharmacy section of London Drugs, and I just had to try it. Under the congestive heart failure section, My Heart Failure Journal. So here goes;

Monday:
Had a minor heart attack at breakfast. Dropped my shredded wheat all over the kitchen floor.
Mood : Shit. It's Monday, I have a hangover and I have shredded wheat all over the kitchen floor.

Tuesday:
Another heart attack, this one knocked me out for five minutes. Came round to Bill, the 400lb warehouse guy with halitosis giving me mouth to mouth.
Mood: Shit. There's just not enough toothpaste in the world.

Wednesday:
Mood:

Thursday:
I missed Wednesday because I blew an artery while brushing my teeth Tuesday night. Woke up this morning in intensive care. Had to sign myself out against the wishes of my doctor, since some stupid British Columbia law says I can't smoke in a hospital. Also, they have no burgers in there.
Mood : Better, no heart attack in 48 hours. Yahoo.

Friday :
Another heart attack. New temp girl in a mini skirt at the water cooler and I got a little excited. Next thing I'm clutching my chest and keeling over.
Mood : Disappointed. Instead of giving me the kiss of life, the new hottie knew CPR and grabbed the defibrillator and toasted my nipples.

Bicycles

2008-05-02T05:58:00.003+01:00

Did we really use these so much when we were young? I seem to remember riding these things both as a means of transportation and for fun. Those rose tinted shades recall carefree days of youth, coasting along sunny country roads. Piled with fishing gear and heading for a lake. The freedom of it all.
I got on a bike today for the first time in years.
3km later and I was out of breath and my arse was in bits. How did we ever survive? The 3km back were a torture, most of which was standing up.
Non motorised forms of transportation with small seats - I'm against them.

I'm a Nerd

2008-04-26T19:45:00.003+01:00

Well, an ENerd or EntrepreNerd.
Really I've been a Nerd since I was 7 or eight years old. After seeing War Games I thought computers were the coolest thing ever (I had yet to discover girls, motorbikes and Amsterdam, but computers are still up there and high on the list). I got my first computer when I was about 12 years old, an Amstrad CPC 464, with a whole 64k of memory and a built in Datacorder. I was a Nerd in Nerd Heaven.
Now I'm officially one, I joined Nerds On Site and have the red shirt and clients to prove it. Soon I'll get the Nerdmobile and it will be complete. Seems like the 464 programming has been upgraded to a whole career and business.
If anyone in the South Surrey / White Rock area needs a Nerd, well now you know where to look. Any IT work, home or business, large and small jobs.

Driving test wait times

2008-04-21T04:12:00.002+01:00

When in Ireland there were a few complaints about the waiting times to get a driving test. With so many provisional licenses out there, people blamed the 9 month queues to get a test. Think that's bad? Try BC.
On Wednesday I decided I should do the theory test. Showed up at the test centre with no appointment and I had to wait a good 45 seconds before some one took my details and put me at a computer.
Worse was to come.
On Thursday I decided I better book the road test. I called round 3pm and the next one available was the next morning at 11.15am. That's over 20 hours later. What a wait. Disgraceful. Whenever I get a vote I'll complain.
For all those complaining about test wait times elsewhere, quit, it could be worse, you could be in BC.

The earth stood still

2008-04-04T07:32:00.003+01:00

The 1951 movie The Day the Earth Stood Still is being remade, right here in Vancouver. It stars Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly, Kathy Bates and me. Yes, my first starring role in a feature film. Expect to see me at the Oscars next year. Or if it's not nominated, check the scene where a huge spaceship is coming to earth and one of those people legging it for safety is yours truly.
Movie extra was actually a whole lot of fun, I'd recommend it to anyone to try once. Though a night shoot at -2 degrees is fucking freezing. Really. Shirt, T shirt, cardigan, jumper, coat, hat, gloves and little chemical hand and toe warmers and I still froze my proverbials off.

It's shocking

2008-03-28T05:57:00.002Z

Canada, it's shocking over here. Everywhere I go it's shocking. On the streets, in the car, at home, everywhere I'm shocked. Fecking static electricity.
When I first arrived it was everything I touched, now it's only about ten times I day I get an electric shock from touching something. A car, a computer, a wall, a person, anything. Either I'm having some weird reaction to the Pacific or I'm developing my superpower. Who knows, maybe soon I'll be able to light my farts using my electrtic superpower instead of a lighter. Now there's a talent....

Good Friday TV

2008-03-22T02:27:00.004Z

I had planned to celebrate Good Friday by going to the pub for a pint. It's nice to live in a country where that's legal. Instead I got stuck doing something else. I went in to London Drugs to buy some deodorant (since I'm still a smelly fecker this side of the Atlantic - some things never change) and ended up making some other purchases.

Soon this;

changed to this;

42 inch LCD 1080p or whatever it means. Big, widescreen and big. I'm not leaving the house for a pint now.

Invention for St Patrick

2008-03-19T00:32:00.009Z

Here in Vancouver it seems that people want to celebrate St Partick's Day almost as much as the Irish. No one seems to appreciate the effort involved in doing it correctly though, so instead of just rolling into a pub and rolling back out some hours later, I spent some time inventing. Make getting drunk and disorderly that much easier. This is the result :

How to make your own:
1. Take one of the Heineken mini kegs.
2. Attach some straws or a length of rubber hose.
3. Thread the handle of the keg through your belt.
4. Pull the lever and hey presto, cool delicious beer.

See, why bother with all the spilling pints, having to queue at a bar, drinking your pint only to have to queue again. Why even waste good drinking energy lifting a heavy pint glass.
Now with the LaZyDrink (tm) you can carry 10 pints around with you on your belt. You dont even have to lift a pint glass, or even suck on the straw. Since the keg is pressurised you just pull the lever and the beer is poured into your mouth.
Yes, it's a great invention, but don't worry I wont be getting all big headed...

And if you don't like this invention and just want to celebrate a bit more quietly, well you can always have a green pint

and some ice cream cake.

HTC Touch, a review

2008-02-26T07:41:00.000Z

I'll admit I was after the iPhone, but it wasn't available in Canada so I got the HTC Touch from Bell instead.

This phone runs Windows Mobile 6, has a touch screen and a 2 megapixel camera crammed in. It also takes a MicroSD card, allowing up to 8GB of storage, so plenty of space for MP3s or movies.

What I really like about it is the plan I got it on. For an extra $7 a month you get unlimited internet and email with it. The data plan is really the best thing about this phone. Having Google to hand anywhere I go has come in very handy. Buying a car? Read reviews in the car lot. Buying a DVD player, check the cheapest model in the shop and see if it can be set to region free. Shopping and a recipe calls for Borlotti beans? A quick Google to find what on earth they are.

The interface is very good too. It comes with a stylus for internet browsing and email, and you have a choice of on screen keyboard or writing input. It's pretty good at recognizing handwriting, cursive or print, but does have issues with the letter 'k'.
It also has a larger interface for using your thumb, just slide your thumb up from the bottom of the screen and an easy menu appears, with favourite contacts or access to most used fucntions.

The sound from the MP3 player is fine, though the supplied headphones aren't the best. They do have a habit of falling out of your ears if you move.

The suite of programs it comes with is very handy, pocket word and excel, as well as the every important solataire.

Where does it fail then?
In hardware, the audio output is through the USB connection, so no using normal headphones unless you buy a converter.
In software it falls down on running Windows Mobile. This is the worst thing about it. With Windows Mobile you really are tied to Microsoft. It will only connect to your PC running Windows and ActiveSync. Unless you have a seperate memory card reader and take out the MicroSD card (you need to remove the battery cover to do this), you can't copy across files or folders unless you're running Windows. Not good for anyone that's moved to Ubuntu. From searching the web there are some programs to get round this, SynCE being one of them, but I found WM5torage to be the best so far. It allows you to use the phone as a USB mass storage device and access the MicroSD card much like a USB key.

I'll like this phone much better if I can find a Linux OS for it, but for now, it's a pretty cool phone.

Movie Reviews: Rambo Vs Juno

2008-02-26T05:11:00.003Z

Rambo
Stallone is back as Rambo, the full blooded combat veteran who just doesn't know when to stop. I would have possibly given this a miss, but the Rocky Balboa turned out to be such a good movie that I couldn't resist. Was it as good? No. But it's still good. Over the top action, Rambo takes on an entire army with a bow, an arrow and a rather large knife. Huge bullets chopping legs, arms and heads off the enemy.
In the last Rambo, he saved the heroic Taliban. So it's quite likely that the Karen rebels will be the axis of evil for the next US president.
Go on, you know you want to. 3/5

Juno
Words to describe this movie. Great, wonderful, warm, funny. The story revolves around Juno, who at 16 discovers that she is pregnant. She wants to give the kid up for adoption and the story follows her and the family she is offering the baby too. Jennifer Garner is brilliant as the want to be adoptive mother, really impressive in this role. This movie, just go see it. 5/5

In Rambo Vs Juno, Rambo kicks Juno's ass round the globe and blows her to bits. Blood and gore everywhere. Juno though is the much better movie.