Mystery Shopping

Mystery shopping is one of those things that people hear being advertised sometimes and are not fully sure if it's legitimate or not. It seems an unusual idea that a company would pay someone to pretend to be a paying customer and spy on their own staff. When you think about it a bit further though it's actually not that unusual at all.

I have experience personally of working for a market research company carrying out phone surveys. Before I did that job I thought there was some ulterior motive to the types of calls that you sometimes get asking you what your favourite brand of soup is for example. In fact market surveys are a legitimate form of research which help to improve the products and services that we use.

Mystery shopping approaches market research from a different angle. Rather than asking a consumer what their reactions are some time after they have used their service companies hire a mystery shopping service such as Bestmark.com to send shoppers in and test them out and report back when the experience is still fresh in their mind.

The feedback is helpful in finding out if the high standards that a company sets itself are being followed all the way to ground level where customers have first hand experience of it.

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Rainbow George, Dustin the Turkey and Barrack Obama

I'd love it if this were true! It was reported in the Irish Independent today that a group was trying to persuade Dustin the Turkey to enter the race for Mayor of London which takes place on May 1. Dustin has been an unofficial protest candidate in Ireland for 18 years but this would be his first appearance as a protest vote outside of Ireland. It follows his success in being nominated as Irelands entry to the Eurovision Song Contest.

The group proposing Dustin is The Rainbow Revolution whose leader is Rainbow George. The best quote by Rainbow George in the article: "To be frank, the momentum around him at the moment brings to mind the sort of hype that Barrack Obama has going for him in the US." Dustin will probably be too busy practicing for the Eurovision to have time to enter the race but it would be interesting if he did!

I looked up The Rainbow Revolution on the web. After reading the web-site I'm still at a loss. It describes itself as Londons Brand Spanking New Party. The first question in the FAQ section is: "Is Rainbow George barking mad ?" The answer: "You decide."

There's a petition on the site for Russell Brand to stand as Mayor of London and in the Irish Independent article Rainbow George says they were going to run Ronnie Carroll but he fell ill at the last minute. I don't know how Dustin would react to being at least the third choice.

According to Wikipedia 'Rainbow' George Weiss has funded his political career from the sale of a house he was squatting in. He had lived in the house since 1969 and stopped paying rent on it in 1984. He was granted ownership of the property in 2004 and made £714,000 profit from its sale. By February of last year he said he had less than £50,000 left. He stood in 13 constituences in the 2005 British General Election.

His political promises include turning the M25 into a "wonderwall" and London into "the party capital of the world", Interesting fellow!

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Garden Furniture for Summer

The weather hasn't quite begun to seem very Spring-like yet. On the other hand it won't be long before Summer comes around again. Therefore it might be the time to start considering changing or replacing your Garden Furniture. The Online-Garden-Centre.com are now promoting their summer range of garden and patio furniture. They also do free delivery within England, Scotland and Wales. Here's hoping for the weather to enjoy it!

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I’ve Joined the Freeconomy

The news of the attempted walk to India inspired me to join the Freeconomy, which was the philosophy that was being promoted by Mark Boyle aka Saoirse. The basics of the system is simple: An economy where people exchange skills and services without the use of currency.

I joined a similar Local Economic Trading System (LETS) in Dublin over ten years ago. At the time I believe there were a couple of LETS operating in Dublin. I don't know if there still are any. Each LETS established it's own currency which people would use as either full or partial exchange for services. When I joined I submitted my details and what (few) skills I had. My details were included in a directory which listed the available skills on offer within the LETS.

A common failure of LETS type economies is that the skills on offer are usually of the more esoteric variety. You tend to find aromatherapists and face painters in abundance and a shortage of plumbers or electricians. I can't remember what skills I advertised in the LETS. I remember one of them was as a bicycle courier. The rest were even less skilled than that.

The LETS never got off the ground for me. Firstly no-one contacted me to ask me for my services and secondly the couple of people I contacted wanted most of their payment in hard cash rather than in the LETS currency.

The Freeconomy is similar to the LETS that I joined with the difference that it doesn't have a currency and asking for money is against the rules. Obviously there is a difficulty here that without exchanging a credit of some kind you can't be sure that you're going to get the same value from someone else in exchange for your service. It is based on the very idealistic belief that you should give without the expectation of receiving.

More practically the web-site, which serves as the directory of available services includes a profile on each member and a space to give a personal testimonial. If the person who you are providing a service to doesn't have something to barter in return they can at least write you a testimonial which will help to improve your reputation within the Freeconomy. This means that once the system were put into use it would be possible to establish the track record and gain some level of trust in the participants.

The Freeconomy web-site makes use of Google maps to show the location of the members. By clicking on their geo marker you can see what skills they offer. You can also search by key-word.

Because the Freeconomy is intended to function at a local community level you are only shown those members within a 10-mile radius of your location. Presently there are 4,223 members spread throughout 82 countries with 984 skills available. At the moment 50 of those members are in the Dublin area.

The Freeconomy is experiencing a good rate of growth at the moment. When I joined on February 26 I was member 4195 so 28 people have joined since me. Of course it is likely that not all, or perhaps even the majority of those members are not active, but time will tell.

Joining the Freeconomy has also brought home to me how few skills I really have! From the huge list of possible skills all I could pick out were: Letter writer, Leaflet/Poster Design, Graphic Designer, Image Editor, Internet Surf Searcher, Seed Saver, Data Inputter, Public Relations, Food Shopper for Elderly, Friend, Nice Person, CV / Resume Writer, Help with official letters, Journalist, Proof Reader, Typist, Web Content Writer.

If you live in Dublin and you're looking for any of those services join the Freeconomy and get in touch!

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Holidays in Alaska

Since my trip away last week I’ve gotten more of a taste for travelling. I was thinking today of different places I’d like to visit. One of these is Alaska.

No doubt things are not going to be quite the same in Alaska as they were portrayed to me in Northern Exposure! That is the first glimpse I got of the US state and the strangeness of the programme appealed to me. There still is plenty to see there though. Lots of wild nature. Mountains and glaciers.

TravelStore, Inc is one company you can contact to arrange an Alaska cruise tour. Their site is well laid out with information on the cruises to Alaska. They do vacations to places all around the world too.

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Duckman Ranting

We all have days like this. This clip from Duckman sums up the misery of the human condition in 1 min, 33 sec.


Duckman on the Movie Industry

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The Man Who Tried to Walk to India and Turned Back at France

I read a story in the Sunday Tribune on February 24 that I found to be quite inspirational. It was about a Donegalman called Saoirse, who was planning to walk from England to India without any money. He had set aside two years of his life to carry out this journey. His plan was that everything he needed along the way would be bartered for by carrying out odd jobs and the kindness of strangers.

The first thought I had as I read it was of a story I heard on the radio last month about another Irishman who was about to head off on an adventure holiday in which he was going to travel from Ireland to Australia by bus. When I had heard of the Ireland to Australia journey first I thought it sounded like a real adventure; until I read up a bit about it and it turned out to be a package holiday (Ozbus). While it is still a fantastic trip the fact of it being a package took away the adventurous feel of it for me.

So when I heard this story about someone who was going to genuinely rough it and spend two years walking from England to India without touching money it caught my attention. As I read I saw that this adventure was not being done simply for the thrill of it either. It was being done to promote a philosophy that he called Freeconomics, basically a world without money.


I’m still enough of an idealist to be interested by something like that so I went onto the Internet and looked up their web-site and went to Saoirse’s blog to see how the walk was getting on.

Saoirse is a wordy blogger and it took a while to read down through the post as he recounted the recent events. The mission to travel free ran into a hitch straight away at Dover as no ferry company was prepared to bring Saoirse and his fellow pilgrim, Eric, to France for free. I’d never have considered it an option in the first place to ask a ferry company for a free ride but apparently they are willing to do it under limited circumstances.

A solution of sorts came when a third pilgrim, Katie, joined them and her mother offered to pay for their tickets. They accepted the offer and were off to France.

The glorious adventure failed very quickly afterwards. None of the pilgrims could speak the language and since the French people they encountered couldn’t or wouldn’t speak English they had a difficulty in explaining their purpose to people.

I understood the problem immediately. To be honest if I was approached by a new-age-traveller-type who asked me if I wanted any odd jobs done and who said they’d work for food or a bed for the night I’d politely decline the offer. My inbuilt suspicion would be that there was something wrong with them. This obstacle was multiplied by a factor of many times in another country where they couldn’t speak the language.

It was suggested to them that they would get a better reception in Belgium where people would be more willing to speak English but they didn’t have enough food to last them for the journey through France. Eric decided to turn back. Katie, who was only accompanying them for a part of the journey anyway also decided to turn back at this point and offered to get Eric and Saoirse tickets home.

So the effort to walk from England to India failed. I was genuinely sad to read this so soon after hearing about it for the first time!

Saoirse now plans to build up to another attempt to walk to India by first of all walking around Britain spreading the message there first. His hope is to build up enough of a movement and publicity that it will be possible to carry the message ahead of him the next time he tries the international walk.

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Telnet Compatibility with Vista

My transition to Vista continues. Up until now, one Windows operating system was as good as another to me and I transferred from 95 to 98 without a problem. Moving from Windows 98 to 2000 felt fine. My next new computer ran on XP and, once again, this felt fine.

Maybe it's because I liked XP better than any of the rest but I'm still not happy with Vista. It still does odd things, like tell me that my "requested operation requires elevation" and helpfully offer to erase all the files on my MP3 player when I plug it in. Still though, the transition continues and more and more applications are now fully compatible with Vista.

Users of Telnet will be interested to hear that Pragma Telnet Server and FortressSSH have now become certified for Windows Vista. Pragma's software is already used by a majority of the Fortune 500 companies in the USA. In all there are some 2,200 companies in some 65 countries around the world using Pragma now. This adds up to millions of licensed nodes.

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Douze Points! - Lyrics to Irelands Eurovision Song Contest Entry: Irlande Douze Pointe

Irelande Douze Pointe

Oh I come, from a nation
What knows how to write a song...
Oh Europe, where o where did it all go wrong....?

COME ON!!!!!!

Irelande douze pointe

Drag acts and bad acts and Terry Wogan's wig
Mad acts and sad acts, it was Johnny Logan's gig

Shake your feathers and pop your beak
Shake em to the west and to the east
Wave euro hands and euro feet
Wiggle to the edge of the turkey beat

Irelande douze pointe
Irelande douze pointe
Irelande douze pointe
Do the funky beat

D O E double B L E Yeah

Hello Abba, hello Bono, hello Helsinki
Ola Prague, hello sailor, se la vie
Alvida sein Mama Mia, and God save the Queen
Bon joir Serbia, good day Austria
You know what I mean?

Shake your feathers and pop your beak
Shake em to the west and to the east
Wave euro hands and euro feet
Wiggle to the edge of the turkey beat

Shake your feathers and pop your beak
Shake em to the west and to the east
Wave euro hands and euro feet
Wiggle to the edge of the turkey beat

Irelande douze pointe
Irelande douze pointe
Irelande douze pointe
(and fart!)
Irelande douze pointe
Irelande douze pointe
Irelande douze pointe
Do the funky beat
COME ON!!

Give us another chance, we're sorry for riverdance
Sure Flatley he's a yank
And the Danube flows through France
Block vote, shock vote
Give your 12 today
You're all invited to Dublin, Ireland
And we'll party the Shamrock way

Irelande douze pointe
Irelande douze pointe
Irelande douze pointe
Irelande douze pointe
Irelande douze pointe
Do the funky beat
COME ON!!

Irelande douze pointe
Irelande douze pointe

Eastern Europe we love you
Do you like Irish stew?
Or goulash as it is to you?

Shake your feathers

Listen Bulgaria we love you
Belarus, Georgia, Montenegro,
Moldavia, Albania, Croatia,
Poland, Russia, Ukraine,
Macedonia, Love you Turkey
Hungary, Estonia, Slovakia,
Armenia, Bosnia Herzegovina
And don't forget the Swiss!


Dustin the Turkey Candidate Hits the Mainstream

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Eurovision 2008 - Dustin the Turkey Candidate Hits the Mainstream

Dustin the Turkey has been a joke candidate for all types of elections since I was a teenager. He made his debut as a puppet on Dempseys Den on Network 2 childrens television as a back-up to Zig and Zag in 1990.

The half turkey, half vulture puppet had a harder satirical edge to his humour than the other puppets. His character was of a dodgy builder who was prepared to cut corners and take back handers. This was before the whole political corruption thing started coming into the open.

In the same year as his debut on Dempseys Den he also made his entry into politics. Dustin declared that he was running as a candidate in that years Presidential Election. It was just a part of the show but it has led to a tendency in that and subsequent elections for people to spoil their vote by writing 'Dustin' across their ballot paper.

Parallel to his career as an unofficial joke candidate in elections, Dustin has also had a fairly successful time in the novelty song industry.

Now the two have come together and Dustin is Irelands official joke candidate for the Eurovision Song Contest this year. He was selected last night. I heard the song for the first time today and I have to admit that it's grown on me already. Wish him luck!





Lyrics to Irelande Douze Pointe

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Removal Companies in the US

The idea of moving has been on my mind for some time now. I still haven’t quite gotten around to it. When I finally do it’s not as if I’ll be needing the help of moving services for the sake of the small flat full of possessions that I have in order to move from one part of this small island to another part of it.

My recent holiday helped to bring home to me what a small world this now is and how people frequently have to make the decision to move large distances, such as from one US state to another or even to another country.

This got me started thinking about removal services and how it is even possible to move your possessions across such large distances.

Once such service I found in the US was relocation.com. You can get a free quote for their moving services by visiting their web-site and filling out the details. They provide quotes ranging from a partial house removal (500-1,000lbs), to a small studio (1500lbs) to four large bedrooms (12,000lbs) and over.

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Take That Confused Look Off My Face!

I was transferring my holiday pictures from my camera to my laptop this morning and having another look through them at the same time. I noticed in many of the pictures of me that I was wearing a less than desirable expression: eyes wide open and eyebrows raised in a look of mild surprise, mixed with confusion and topped off with imbecility. No! There’s no point trying to be kind. The picture is here to prove it.

It just goes to show that our self-image can be quite different to how others see us. In fact Michelle was kind enough to tell me that I usually look like this! Combined with the discovery of my first grey hair last week this is certainly helping to shake my self confidence.

Still, at least I took one or two decent pics too, which helps to cheer me up again!

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Handmade Italian Leather Handbags

Men are often surprised at the amount that women are prepared to spend on a handbag. We shouldn’t be really. As well as being functional a handbag also has an obvious use as a fashion accessory.

Bolzano is a brand name which is starting to become known internationally. It is already being sold in Europe, Asia, Central and South America. The selection of hand-made authentic Italian leather bags on display on their web-site are both beautiful and simple in their design.

It’s not only all about the ladies either. There is also a fabulous selection of mens wallets, money clips, belts and other leather accessories available on the site.

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Initial Reactions to Barcelona

I'm back one day from Barcelona now and missing it already. Unfortunately we didn't get good weather for our stay. With excellent timing the weather in Ireland started improving a couple of days before we left for Barcelona and stayed reasonably good for the few days we were away, before turning again just in time to greet us with a dark, cloudy, stormy day for our return to Dublin airport yesterday.

With equally good timing the weather in Barcelona remained overcast with some heavy showers for our stay until that is our last morning there when, naturally enough, conditions improved. My last glimpse of Barcelona was through the window of the airplane as we took off. It was of a city basking in the glory of a beautiful sunny day!

We didn't go there to lie on a beach anyway but it would still have been nice to have nice sunny weather to talk about when we got home.

The weather aside, the holiday was wonderful. Before I went there people who had been to Barcelona talked about what a beautiful city it was and went on about architects and the buildings they designed. I didn't understand what the great interest in architecture was about until I got there myself.

I haven't travelled greatly but Barcelona is definitely the most beautiful city I have seen so far. The whole of the city centre seems to have been planned and built at one time. It wasn't but that is the effect that is created. The city is organised into blocks with each junction offering a fantastic view of the length of the street, often tree-lined with some eye-catching feature in the far-off distance.



The star of the citys architects is Gaudi. Others are mentioned in the guide-books but Gaudi gets the top ranking. It's not surprising once you see some of the fabulous buildings he created. His architectural taste was strange. Some of his buildings look more as if they were conceived and constructed in a dreamworld rather than built and as I walked through the entrance to Guell Park I felt as if I was entering a fantasy land.

If we were doing the holiday again we would try to learn at least a few phrases of Spanish before we went. Michelle can speak some Italian and French, while I myself can barely speak English. Neither of us knew any Spanish. We were able to get by without it. Since it is a city which is well used to tourists people working in the service sector can speak English and many of the restaurants have English language menus.

While we able to survive without Spanish there were drawbacks. The first example occurred on our first day at the airport. We went out to the front of the airport and got into a taxi. The only way we could communicate with the driver was to show him the e-mail with the name of the hotel on it. Once he saw this he knew where he was going – and also that we didn't!

The taxi journey itself was fine and the driver was friendly. Even though we didn't have a language in common he was still able to communicate with us in sign language which he did very well. The e-mail from the hotel had included among it's additional information that a taxi from the airport would cost about €20 so when we arrived outside the hotel and the meter read €22 everything was looking fine. Fine that is until the taxi driver then turned off the meter and took out a pen and paper. He wrote down on the first line the €22 fare. Then he added on something like €1.50 for luggage and €7.00 for airport pick-up. This brought the fare to just over €30. The whole thing felt wrong and if we could have spoken even a little Spanish we would have been able to argue but we couldn’t so we just paid it.

Similarly shops and street traders were able to tell by looking at us that we were tourists and therefore tried to sell us anything they could. In one souvenir shop Michelle was passing time looking at some small statues while I picked out a baseball cap.

One of the statues she was looking at was marked €12 but the shop assistant on the floor offered to sell it to her for €10. She wasn't interested so he knocked it down to €9. She still wasn't interested. I bought my baseball cap and as we were both walking out of the shop the other assistant who had been dealing with me then offered to sell her the statue for €7. Meanwhile I had just paid €15 for the baseball cap, which was the first price he had asked!

I've never learned the art of haggling so if I had Spanish it probably wouldn't have made any difference.

On one occasion we were approached by a local on the street as we stood outside a restaurant and tried to read the menu. He came up and started chatting to us in a way that was just too friendly. I don't know where that approach would have ended up for we decided to go into the restaurant and leave him outside but it seemed to be directed at us because we were tourists.

Homelessness and begging was much less visible than in Dublin but the homeless that we did see seemed to be truly down and out. As we toured around the city it seemed to be hard to believe that anyone could be unhappy living in a place like this but the sight of a mattress underneath a bridge showed that some things are just tucked out of sight. There was also some politically-oriented graffiti which seemed to be left-wing.

I loved the city and I want to go back again. Everything stays open late and it just felt European to be strolling out to a restaurant at 10pm.

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How to Build a Computer

The idea of trying to build a PC will surely seem daunting to many people but it is not such an impossible idea. It is a way of making good use of your money to develop your own machine by assembling the parts yourself and creating something that is more powerful than what you could have otherwise afforded. The other advantage is that since the computer is tailor-made to your requirements you are getting exactly what it is that you want.

I know people who have done this and have even taken things to the next level by turning it into a hobby and then into a business. The thing to bear in mind if you are doing it as a small business though is that you will be relying mainly on word of mouth and recommendations from your existing customers. As a result you must be ready to provide excellent back-up and support to your customers which is very time-consuming.

Easyasmypc.com is a US web-site which sells you all the parts needed to build your own PC. They also provide the instructions on how to self-assemble them. The web-site claims that “if you can use a screw-driver you can save hundreds of dollars on a computer”.

The package that Easyasmypc sells includes the parts, assembly instructions and online support. They say that support requests are usually answered within two days.

The parts are covered directly by the manufacturers warranty. This means that if a part malfunctions you will need to contact the manufacturer directly which support will give you help doing.

As a business idea this is an interesting half-way house between buying a PC and building your own. It is useful for a beginner to have all the parts provided together but I think it’s fair to say that as well as a screwdriver you’ll need a lot of confidence if you decide to try this at home!

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Anti-Smoking Poacher Turned Gamekeeper

I am so much the reformed smoker now.

As a child I used to torment my mother any time she tried to put her feet up and have a smoke. In fact I was so anti-smoking as a child that it was almost inevitable that I would eventually take it up as a teenager.

Anyone who says that television doesn't have an influence on people might want to look away now: I was encouraged to smoke by Blackadder! I remember a scene from the series of Blackadder set in World War I where a French nurse tells one of the characters how he should smoke because it gives a man a lovely deep, sexy voice.

At the time I was 14 and my voice was still crackly so I thought that if an attractive French nurse thought it was a good idea then maybe I should give it a go. Maybe I'm just more suggestible than most people but that was enough to get me started.

By the time the smoking ban was applied here in Ireland I was ready to accept it as a good thing that would help people to cut down. I had always found that I smoked more when I drank; so much so that the two were associated in my mind and I found it hard to think of being able to have a drink in a pub without having a cigarette. Therefore I welcomed the smoking ban because it helped to break the association between smoking and drinking.

I finally gave up smoking last year because my new girlfriend didn't smoke. She didn't say anything but I started to become self-conscious about the smell of tobacco on me when we were close.

Anyone who says that advertising doesn't work might want to look away now: One morning I was walking past a chemists shop and I saw the display for nicorette patches in the window. It must have just been the right time for me. I hadn't planned it but I decided on the spot that I was going to quit and I went in and got my first pack of patches. Once I got over the first couple of months I stopped having even the slightest craving for cigarettes and I am quite sure now that I won't smoke again.

I have now gotten to the stage as a non-smoker where I can't even stand the smell of cigarette smoke in the open air. I surely am grateful for the smoking ban in indoor public places. I would even welcome its extension to outdoor public places too.

This idea came to me yesterday while queuing at an ATM. The man in front of me lit a cigarette and started smoking. The smell of the smoke wafting over me was almost enough for me to step out of the queue. It may have been outside in the open air but I was still being forced to inhale tobacco smoke.

Maybe it's not too far-fetched to suggest that in time the only place where it will be ok to light up will be in the privacy of your own home?

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The Joy of Cheap Flights

My trip to Barcelona is only two days away now! All the signs for the trip are looking good so far. Everyone I’ve spoken to who has been there has loved it. The weather at this time of year is similar to a good Irish summer which will be warm but not too hot for my pale skin.

We got cheap flights from Aer Lingus, €15 each way. The total cost of the trip to us for flights and accomodation is $340 for two people.

The spur that encouraged us to take this break was the cheap flights which we booked directly off the Aer Lingus web-site. We went onto the site and checked what offers were available. From that we made a short-list of what city we’d like to visit and, because I’d heard such good reviews of it from everyone who’s been there, we picked Barcelona. Once that was done we then went to another web-site to book the hotel.

If it wasn’t for the particular offer from Aer Lingus on this occasion, a more convenient way to make the booking would have been to get the flights and accommodation from the same site. One such site where you can do this is TravelHero.com

I checked out TravelHero.com today. From this single site you can compare prices between different airlines for the route and date that you’re interested in, you can make your hotels reservation and also hire a car.

I was curious to see how much a trip such as the one we’ve just organised to Barcelona would cost on TravelHero. I went to the site and selected the ‘packages’ option. Here you can check prices for ‘flight+hotel’ or ‘flight+hotel+car’ among other options. I selected ‘flight+hotel’ and then searched for flights from Dublin and accommodation in Barcelona between the 18th and 21st. Obviously short notice bookings are more expensive so the package would have costed €589.

Of course this wasn’t a fair comparison because our package was booked well over a month ago so I searched again for the same package from the March 24th to March 27th. The best price then came to €777. This was more than double what we had paid.

I was beginning to congratulate myself for getting such a bargain but then I repeated the search for two weeks later, April 7th to 10th and I got a best price for flights and accommodation of €335!.

The great benefit of using sites like this is that it searches flights from all available carriers and it turned out that Swiss International Air Lines gave the best price on the dates in question.

It’s a tempting thought that if we like Barcelona lots there’s at least the possibility that we could go again for the same price in another few weeks!

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Getting a Job and or Money in Second Life

I think I may need to go back for orientation. I’m still not done! I have found my first day in Second Life to be extremely frustrating. After a day of seeking work my currency balance still stands at L$0.

I started off by checking the classifieds in the search function. Most of the jobs on offer seem to be completing surveys. Apart from that the main source of unskilled employment in SL is camping. This is where you are simply paid to be present on a sim. I don’t understand the economics of it yet but I’m sure it’ll come to me in time.

The first assignment I tried to accept simply involved sitting on a park bench. I immediately teleported to it but sitting down turned out to be harder than I thought it would be. I found the bench I was supposed to sit on. There were two red balls hovering over it. These are called pose balls.

To start camping what I thought you were supposed to do was right-click on one of them and select the option to sit. I did this but a message then told me that I needed to put on a VIP tag before I could start camping. I didn’t know where to find one of these and none of the other campers were talking so no-one was there to help me. Lights on, nobody home.

I went back to the classifieds and tried teleporting to another few camping jobs but the ones I visited I either couldn’t find where to go to find the camping jobs or the available slots were already taken.


Things continued like this with me wandering around forlornly until I found a camping job in the classifieds for Kanari Shopping District. I went there and quickly found a ladder which I sat on. This immediately animated Tumbledown and put me to work as a window cleaner for L$1 per 15 minutes. After completing a couple of sessions which added up to about L$12 I moved on.

The L$12 still hasn’t been credited to my account and I don’t know if it will. Since I obviously don’t know what I’m doing yet and I’m finding it hard enough to make contact with SL residents who are able or willing to help me I think I’ll have to go back to orientation.

Another way I tried to get some currency was from an ad I saw on Chino Yray’s website http://www.chinoyray.com/ for Earn2Life. I signed up with Earn2Life and installed their toolbar. The instructions were pretty clear.

When you’re signed up with Earn2Life they pay you L$ to sign up with other companies who presumably pay them US$. Once you’ve completed the steps required of you to sign up with the other company you click complete on the Earn2Life toolbar and you are then credited with the Lindens.

I did this but I made the innocent noobie mistake of clicking twice when nothing seemed to happen the first time. My account was immediately blocked for attempting to game the system. I haven’t tried contacting them yet to see if I can get this fixed. I may try that later today.

Anyway I’m heading off to Barcelona for a few days on Monday so tomorrow will mostly be about me getting ready for that. I’ll return to my adventures in Second Life after that.

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Unlock A UK iPhone

The iPhone continues to be the must-have gadget of the moment. It's desirability for me lies in the fact that it combines all the gadgets that I love. Firstly, it is a mobile phone - you'd nearly forget that. It also plays music and videos. You can turn the screen sideways for a better view. It has e-mail and a web browser with WiFi capability. The great thing is that with all of these features it can multi-task so you can make a phone call while surfing the web over a WiFi connection at the same time!

A drawback about new technology like this is that the early adapters get hammered on the price. In another year we'll be able to buy three or four iPhones for the price of one today. If you’d like an iPhone but can’t wait or don’t want to be tied into a contract you could always get into iphone unlocking.

I was looking at one site, iPhoneUnlockUK, which provides the do-it-yourself software to unlock any UK, German or French iPhone for £39.00. Alternatively you can get it done instore for £69.99. Personally I’ve gotten to the stage where I’m willing to wait for a year until it’s more affordable but I know many people who can’t wait that long.

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Second Life: The Adventures of Tumbledown Bashly

Well so far no great adventure. I signed up on Second Life last night. I’ve heard a little about SL but I never really paid much attention to it. However when you consider the fact that it’s an alternative virtual world populated by tens of thousands of people it might be worth paying attention to!

The first thing you do upon joining is to choose your name. Your name is made up of a first name completely of your own choosing. You also choose your own last name but you can only choose from a given list. Some of the last names are ordinary types of names that you would hear everyday. Others are from TV programmes or fantasy novels.

Since McGoldrick wasn’t among the list of last names I decided to go for completely made up. That’s how my Second Life character came to be called Tumbledown Bashly. The name is starting to grow on me and I may consider a deed poll in the real world!

After you’ve chosen your name you are dropped into Second Life at one of the orientation points where you learn basic skills, such as dressing yourself, walking, talking etc.

Your 3D character that represents you as you move around in Second Life is called your Avatar. The avatars that I am familiar with from internet forums and from social media sites are simply 2D pictures but since Second Life is a 3D virtual world your avatar is you and therefore lots of detail goes into the creation of the virtual body.

So far I have only managed to make minor modifications to Tumbledowns avatar. I’ve messed around a bit with the hair and I seem to have two developed little bald patches at the back.



The main difficulty I have with Second Life is that my wireless broadband connection is barely able to cope. The gap in time between me pressing the directional arrow that I want to walk in and Tumbledowns feet starting to move is frustratingly slow. Since my real world life is practically stress-free at the moment it seems a bit stupid to launch myself into a virtual world where my inability to move my legs winds me up so much! It’s hardly escapism; it’s more like breaking into a prison!

After I learned to dress myself and lurch around I teleported myself to Second Life Dublin. So far I’ve wandered around College Green which is blissfully free of traffic and been into a couple of the pubs but I still have a long way to go before I work out what the hell is going on in Second Life!

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How To Make Irish Boxty Pancakes

I've updated my post about boxty below but I'm posting here as well because I'd hate to think that anyone would miss this. Here it is. Broadcast from the heart of flatland in Phibsboro, Dublin - Secrets of a Culchie Revealed - My How To Make Boxty YouTube cookery class.

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Duckman to be Released on DVD in 2008

I've started watching Duckman from the beginning again last night. Duckman - full title 'Private Dick, Family Man' - was released in 1994 and ran for four seasons before being cancelled. The star of the show, Eric Tiberius Duckman, voiced by Jason Alexander (George from Seinfeld), is a rude, obnoxious, unsuccessful loud mouth duck detective who's trying to give up smoking. It never got the mass popularity of The Simpsons and, later on, South Park but it had its own loyal following.

Duckman was released the year that I left home. For me it brings back memories of sitting up late into the night in my own flat at college watching a sophisticated adult cartoon and feeling really grown up. Re-watching it now I still appreciate the humour of it. It's not laugh-out-loud funny but there is plenty of dry wit in it.

In the end I think it was the late night slot that killed it. It cost something like $600,000 per episode to make and there just weren't enough people up so late to watch it for it to make enough money.

An unusual thing about Duckman was that since it was cancelled it has never been officially released on DVD. Boxed sets of any popular or cult TV series you can think of are available except for Duckman. This is not for lack of demand. There are petitions on the internet with thousands of signatures calling for its release.

I don't know the reason why it hasn't been released to date. I've heard speculation that it's tied up in the Frank Zappa family trust since Frank wrote the theme song and a fair portion of the music from season one but I really don't know.

Whatever the reason for the delay it seems that the problems have been sorted out. Ken Ross (DVD Executive VP and General Manager) from CBS announced in a statement in January that Duckman would be released on DVD sometime this year. No date has been finalised.

I already have all 70 episodes anyway but I'll be interested to see what kind of extras are included in the DVD set w