Realm of the Mighty Red Pen

Update

2008-02-27T14:07:02Z

Hey all. Just got broadband installed to the house so yay me :) Is life without broadband a life worth living? Eh, I don't think I particularily want to be in a position to find out... *hugs broadband*

So, I am now officially living in Dundalk. Yes, the bright lights of Dundalk, the excitement and the glamour. I'm living in a house in Glenwood with 2 others. My housemates seem like nice peoples. Brian is a 3rd year student in DKIT and he's quiet enough - seems to spend most of his time in friends houses. Jessica is from Dundalk, working in a shop downtown and I think she's around 25 or so? Not too sure, I pretty much suck at judging people's ages! She's really nice though - very helpful. I think we will get on well. :)

Work... not so bad at all :) I only started a couple of days ago but so far so good. My team seem like a nice enough group (maybe one or two exceptions?) and the work is cool. Supposed to be going out to the pub tonight with a couple of the people I'm workin with too so should be fun! :)

Life, oh life

2008-02-27T13:53:51Z

'Start spreadin' the news, I'm leavin' today....'

Yep, that's right, I gots the Job!

I will be starting in my new position as a System Security Programmer. Doesn't that sound grand? :D

Headin' down to Dundalk today to look for a place to live. I have a couple of old school friends living around Dundalk and my friend Donna thinks there's a place around the corner from her that will suit me down to the ground :)

I'm kind of excited about the move. I'm nervous but I'm excited too, you know? I think it's good to be making a fresh start after everything that's gone on this summer. I miss my mam as well and it will be good to be nearer her. Also, the job sounds shit hot so that is deadly! And it's been a while since I've had to fend for myself --- it'll be.... character building!

... I hope?

Life, oh life

2008-02-27T13:30:31Z

Have a job interview tomorrow for some big security firm up in Dundalk. Never heard of them before but apparently they're pretty hot stuff in the SSL field. Sounds like my kind of job! Though I'm probably as interested in the idea of moving back down the country - It's not Newry but it's a lot closer to Newry than Belfast is :) Fingers crossed for me, guys?

In other news, me and Jason are no more :( We decided that we should see other people last week. It's hard but we just had to face reality - things weren't going to work with the way our lives were heading. Two different directions, you know? Doesn't stop it sucking like hell though -I miss him to bits. So yep, that's my life right now. It's all change change change....

Things You Wish You Could Say at Work...

2008-02-27T13:18:05Z

I can see your point, but I still think you're full of shit.
I have plenty of talent and vision. I just don't give a fuck.
How about "never"? Is "never" good for you?
It sounds like English, but I can't understand a word you're saying.
I see you've set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public.
Ahhh, I see the fuck-up fairy has visited us again.
You are validating my inherent mistrust of strangers.
I'm already visualizing the duct tape over your mouth.
The fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist.
Someday, we'll look back on this, laugh nervously and change the subject.
I will always cherish the initial misconceptions I had about you.
I don't know what your problem is, but I'll bet it's hard to pronounce.
Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.
I like you. You remind me of when I was young and stupid.
What am I? Flypaper for freaks!?
I'm not being rude. You're just insignificant.
Thank you. We're all refreshed and challenged by your unique point of view.
It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off.
Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.
No, my powers can only be used for good.
I'm really easy to get along with once people learn to worship me.
You sound reasonable.......time to up my medication.
I'll try being nicer if you'll try being smarter.
I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message.
I don't work here. I'm a consultant.
Who me! I just wander from room to room.
My toys! My toys! I can't do this job without my toys!!

Summer

2008-02-26T18:29:08Z

hey! I haven't written in a while so I thought I'd jot a note. :)

Hope everybody's having a good summer so far! I'm working in JR Technics as you know but I'm applying for ther jbs at the minute. - Boss issues... I get on really well with the rest of the staff so I'll miss them... Mad bastards!! But I'm sick of being treated like I haven't a clue what I'm at. Also thinkin of moving a little closer to home. I worry about my mom a bit.

Jason has moved to Hull for work and... not too sure whats going on there. I miss him but I don't think there's much chance of him moving back or me moving to ver there, which is a big issue at the minute... :(

Long term + long distance = not a good combination.

Family guy

2008-02-26T18:21:31Z

hey!!
if you like family guy check this out!!!

Which Family Guy character are you?

i got lois!!!

Big night out

2008-02-26T18:11:16Z

Had a lovely evening yesterday. Headed home to find that Jason had cooked my favorite meal - Ratatouille! Aaawwww bless!

It was lovely and I was very hungry so I ate it all ;) We headed off to the cinema were we met Maggie, Karen, Noel and (running a bit late) Lisa. I didnt understand what was going on with the film so i just kept asking Lisa to tell me what the hell was happening...which was funny. ( I think it may have been related to the bottle of wine me and J had over dinner?)

Afterwards we headed over to Lawlers we had a few drinks and watched a band...shall we say... jamming? i also bumped into my ex again which was a bit awkward since he and J really don't get on. It turned out he was playing at the end of the night though and was pretty good. At arond 1am we headed home.

Fancy Dress

2008-02-26T17:59:07Z

So.

Last wedensday I got a phone call from JR Technics asking me to come in for a job interview!

I said fuck it I'll go. I wasnt expecting that they'd hire me the next day! So now I'm working in in JR Technics - which is a bloody great job for me. I'm working some front end security at the minute but it's the sort of job that will go places.

Thursday night I went out to a fancy dress party.... decided to go as a cowgirl - but danm when I got out didn't I realised to my horror that not many people had dressed up and I just ended up feeling very self concious.

No worries, that that soon wore off and i ended up having a great night.... i got many compliments!!

weekend antics

2008-02-26T17:36:47Z

Had a good enough weekend, I guess.

Was at the Paintball games on Saturday. I got shot on the arm though when I was out being a marshall for the game. I still have a nasty bruise and it hurts to type :(

On saturday night i went out to a club but before that my bloody sister asked me to put fake tan on her, THEN I put some on me and NOW my hands are a lovely shade of orange!

nice.

mightyredpen @ 2006-12-10T17:26:00

2008-02-26T17:28:29Z

Ok check out this website...
Classsssss

http://www.badgerbadgerbadger.com/

and that is all.

Oklahoma & Freaks

2008-02-26T17:23:21Z

Sunday night i went to see Oklahoma with J and Mel. One of my mates from college was dancing in it so, you know, I had to go and laugh at him!!

haha... it had to be done, yeah?

oh yeah, I also got some mad text messages from some guy i don't know.....but he seems to know me. i quit texting him after 3 or 4 messages and then he started to ring me!!!

Neadless to say, I didn't answer!

...freak

Its been a while

2008-02-26T17:18:31Z

Another day, another blog from the crazy house of fun. How many times am I going to have to re-write this script before Jason is happy with it? If there's one problem with working with your boyfriend it's that they'll always tell you when they don't like it!!!

I love bees

2008-02-26T17:13:10Z

They are great. Oh yeah ;)

mightyredpen @ 2006-01-18T09:49:00

2006-01-18T09:50:29Z

I AM THE GOD OF HELLFIRE

...

..
And I bring you....

FIRE!!

OMGWTFBBQ!!_TM

Grrr argh

2005-10-24T09:07:40Z

I hate laptops. I've come to the conclusion that laptops just can't cope with the amount of graphics and videos that I run through them. My last one gave up the ghost completely on me one day pretty much out of the blue. My current one... well, I had a bit of a battle with it yesterday, and it doesn't look like it's over yet. Basically my hard drive is in bits.

Yesterday morning I was planning on being very good. I wanted to edit the program script slightly in line with the proper layout specs and then I was going to finish off my laundry. I got up at 11am full of good intentions and turned on my laptop leaving it to boot while I went downstairs to get some tea. (necessity, you know) Came back upstairs to find a bright blue screen and my laptop demanding a boot disk. Yes ladies and gentlemen, you guessed it. My Windows XP had crashed most spectacularily. To add insult to injury, the hard drive was in bad enough repair that it took the good part of 5 hours just to get a new (semi-working) windows installed.

But that's not the end. Oh no.

Despite the fact that there appeared to be 30gb on the hard drive and the disk inspector could read my files from the raw content of the disk (ie. could see they were there) I could not access them. Yay?

This was an all day experience of trying everything conceivable. I even called in the Godfather who attempted to bypass the OS security via dos but no luck. Eventually at about 11pm last night I managed to get the script off the computer. The whole thing is in bits. It's a desktop for me next time....

mightyredpen @ 2005-10-16T01:24:00

2005-10-16T00:27:28Z

Trying to get some work done over the weekend. Last night I typed up an agenda that Karen and I came up with for a dept. meeting which was fine. But I've spent pretty much the whole of today going through that crazy CSGS-P8 article for my CSP presentation and boy is it full of jargon. It's impossible to understand. After much searching on the internet and thereabouts I think I have manage to write a whole new something that's fairly coherent, mostly relevant, and importantly, written in the proper language! Guh.

And I was hoping to get some work done on designing the html project thingy too but I ended up not having time. I guess I'll turn my hand to it tomorrow for a while and see if I get any inspiration. I've got a few half formed ideas floating around in my head so hopefully they'll fall into something pretty wrkable.... er, not likely, but I can hope, right?

mightyredpen @ 2005-08-31T22:33:00

2005-08-31T21:35:39Z

Managed to dig up a preliminary Calendar for this academic year despite the colleges' apparent attempts to hide it from me :P

2005/2006

Term 1 – 2005

08 September Thursday Term Starts

13 September Tuesday Part Time Open Night

03 October Monday Part-Time Courses Begin

4/5 November Friday/Saturday Conferring

13 November Monday Science Week Begins

25 November Friday Open Day

15 December Thursday Semester 1 Examinations Begin

16 December Friday Term 1 Ends

21 December Wednesday Semester 1 Examinations End

Institute closes ½ day 22nd December 2005. Re-opens 05 January 2006

Term 2 – 2006

09 January Monday Term 2 Begins

17 January Tuesday Examination Board Meeting

18 January Wednesday Semester 2 Begins

13 February Monday Careers Awareness Week Begins

07 April Friday Term 2 Ends

Institute closes ½ day 13th April 2006. Re-opens 19th April 2006.

Term 3 – 2006

04 May Monday Term 3 Begins

29 April Thursday Examinations Begin

That's all, folks ;)

mightyredpen @ 2005-07-27T15:04:00

2005-07-27T14:08:58Z

Hey, how is everyone doing? Having a good summer? Anything exciting going on?

Met up with Lorcan yesterday in Town to look at a house to share with Mel and Karen. We really liked it. It's clean and there's a bedroom each, so that's pretty much what we were looking for. I'm going up there again this evening and hopefully by the time I leave the house will be ours, well, for the next college year at least:) Now I'm trying to work out what all the variables like ESB, line rental etc will cost us.

mightyredpen @ 2005-06-10T14:10:00

2005-06-10T13:20:04Z

That Crazy Frog is driving me crazy...

Who's bright idea was it to put that stupid ringtone on the radio?

In other news I've spent a very amusing morning looking through this site. Most of you have probably heard of it a while back like I did but this is the first time I've actually gotten araound to checking it out and it kept me amused for hours checking out all the ratings of my old teachers. :P The marks seem pretty accurate actually though some of the abismal teachers have gotten better marks than I would have expected (like, er, zero).

Went to see Sin City on Monday with Jason. I thought the movie was pretty good, not as good as I expected it to be. I thought it looked great and all the acting etc was fine, it just didn't seem to be terribly engaging and the three storylines didn't really seem to tie in well with each other which made me think it might have made a better mini-series. And I still haven't worked out what the Josh Hartnett Character had to do with anything...

Might go and see Mr and Mrs Smith this weekend. It looks pretty good. Noel was at it last night and said it was a fun movie.

mightyredpen @ 2005-06-10T02:00:00

2005-06-10T00:57:15Z

God Hates Stupid Homophobes!
Another rant from your neighborhood jesus_h_biscuit
click here

mightyredpen @ 2005-06-03T01:04:00

2005-06-03T00:03:38Z

Looks like our results are going to be e-mailed to us on the 13th of June... just so you know...

012

2005-04-19T20:02:35Z

Sitting in Lab. 08, though not for much longer, I suspect as it's almost 10pm so we'll likely be kicked out any minute now. Been trying to write the rest of my bloody thesis but I think I've resigned myself to the fact that it is going to take a year to write the whole thing out in it's completed form. Guess whatever I get written will just have to suffice cos it is, quite literally, physically impossible to get it all done properly before tomorrow morning. Gah. Oh well, at least i have done out my map of the layout and such. Not completely useless. Will have to go to the library in the mornin to print it out, too. Er, yay?

As for the band project, well, I have our website maybe... 70% done, the album is half done but I'm not sure I'm happy with it yet. We'll probably work on them tomorrow though, today is for the writing. Lots of writing but don't seem to be getting anywhere fast, I take a break to .. yes write in my blog. Well, whatever gets you through the day, right? I blame Mel. It was all her idea, I swear. And no, I don't mean everything, just the blogging. Even though I have nothing much to say. Hmmm.

Maybe I should just go then, yeah?

Sorry, this isn't very interesting now, is it?

011

2005-04-17T21:01:31Z

Every time I type a paragraph of my thesis it grows into areas that also have to be typed... It's like, the exponential thesis of doom.

Why didn't I pick something simple like... a trip to the zoo. Good evening Children. Would you like to go to see the monkeys or the lions today?

In other news, kids are good at making you feel guilty. Wel... maybe that's not news. Just got back from babysitting for the weekend and apparently they really don't like the lady that looks after them during the days now. And they had a right good bitching session too. And Bebhinn, the oldest girl has been having anxiety attacks since last September, which was a bit of a shock really, because she was never really a fretful kid. Let me tell you, calming someone down when they're having a panic attack? Not fun.

Other than that, status quo. It was like the last eight months had never happened. A bit eery really.

010

2005-04-14T20:47:32Z

Meh. I have a cold. I hate having the cold, it makes me feel antisocial and like I'm walking around in a bubble or something cos I can't hear properly or speak loudly or concentrate properly. And I got home to discover that the interior of most of my house has been painted and/or wallpapered since the weekend and all the fumes are everywhere. Not a happy ~~bunny~~ person.

I'm also supposed to be looking after the Hughes kids this weekend while their parents are out of the country. Worst thing about that is no broadband all weekend. They usually behave for me and we get on just fine most of the time. I was talking to Bebhinn, the oldest last week and she told me she had finished reading Lord of the Rings at last. I had encouraged her to read it and she was really chuffed with herself for having trawled her way through it. And Rebecca started school in September and I everytime I see her or talk to her I feel like she's grown up so much. It's amazing how quickly kids that age change.

Anyway, I think I need to take my laptop and my camera with me. I really need to start on my script for AWS and I haven't even decided what project I want to do.

Anyone done anything on this yet? At least they don't seem to be quite as abstract as the virtues...

Why has friday night tv gotten so dismal? I used to watch a few programmes on a Friday night and all I'm watching at the moment is 'Playing it Straight'. Yes, yes, I know, reality TV. But it's sort of interesting. I watch it with my brothers and we place bets on who's gay. But to be honest I think some of those 'straight' guys have got to be kidding themselves. The two that were eliminated last week were both flamingly camp and claiming hetero status. They were camper than any gay guy I've met, and I've known some very camp gay men.

And since y'all are ending your blogs with...insightful quotes...

"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." — Emily Dickinson

008

2005-04-03T16:09:37Z

Okay, so the pope died. I guess I'm supposed to be sad or something, since I'm, technically, a catholic. I'm told that you can't actually be 'unbaptised' so once a catholic, always a catholic. Not that I practice or anything.

The thing is though, the guy was old. Way worse things happen every day than some old, sick dude with a degenerative disease who isn't even afforded the luxury of retirement dying. There was a tsunami last week, over 500 people of all ages died, and the coverage of it was minimal compared to the pope dying.

Mostly I'm a bit bitter about the whole 'catholic experience'. For a religion that talks of tolerance and enlightenment it really doesn't practise what it preached. It ostracises people. It demonises whole communities. It has been instrumental in the spread of AIDS in third world countries. And I don’t really feel like paying lip service to someone, just because they’re dead.

The pope said in his book, "Homosexual marriages are part of a new ideology of evil that is insidiously threatening society." Excuse me, but when the hell are we going to have a proper separation between church and state? And how is it wrong and evil for two people who are in love to get married?

The pope was also highly vocal in his condemnation of the use of condoms, even in societies were AIDS is rampant. When people grow up in a community where there is little education and the main teaching power is the church they take his advise a lot more to heart than we do over here in Ireland where condom sales are high despite having a (statistical) population of which almost 95% is catholic. This attitude that the pope took towards STI prevention caused millions of people to die needlessly and millions of children are now growing up in underdeveloped and developing countries as orphans because of this.

So yes, the pope died. I don't see it changing much though. It's the same bunch of likeminded people who are going to elect the next one.