Stupid Firefox

Just turned it on. It wouldn’t work so I closed it. Reopen it and all my settings/bookmarks and so on and so forth are gone. Grrrr… I should be able to recover most of them - its just the annoyance…. Screw this though, weathers good so I’m going outside….

Update: Call me suspicious, but I suspect that its the Google Toolbar - when things went weird yesterday that had appeared. I put it off and yet it came back when I just restarted the computer now… And all my information is gone again.

I hate my broadband provider and other bits and pieces…

Got an email last night from my broadband provider telling me that I had exceeded my broadband limit for the month and was going to be charged extra for any more usage this month.

This despite the fact that in the last 12 months with them this has never happened bofore and its only midway through the month. Yet for the other 12 months I’ve used the internet much more and this hasn’t happened before. And to add to this, its the 13th today, for their explanation to work, I would have had to have used my monthly allowance (which I’ve never been able to do before) in 12 days - 3 of which I was not at home for and the other 9 of which I was working during the daytime. I use the internet a good bit but not that much!

At the moment I can only think of three possible explanations - here they are in order of (what I feel) probability;

1)They’re trying to rob me. After all the hassle I’ve given them lately regarding their terrible service, the fact that my router was faulty and needed replacement and so on someone there has decided to start charging me extra or something. Also, I do find it rather coincedental that this happened for the first time right after the new router was delivered.

2)Someone has tapped into my signal. Well this leaves about 4 possible neighbours. Two of whom don’t have a computer, the other of whom has told me he dosen’t even get my signal and the fourth I doubt would rob me. And I imagine I’d have noticed someone camping on my lawn with a laptop downloading free movies..

3)Its a genuine mistake. (Har har, one mistake too many is no longer a mistake you know?)

So, anyone out there want to recommend to me a good internet provider?

In other news, I’m heading up to Cork for the weekend for a mate’s birthday - those of you around Cork, let me know if your free - I’ll be in the pub most of the weekend anyway!

I know most people have seen the ‘Sopranos’ finale already on the internet but is it just me or has this last season just been … well, boring?

Update(not that most of you care but…): I got on to one of the company’s eventually. The people I need to talk to are not available until Monday, but there was something resembling a plausible answer (strangely enough option number 3). Now my main problem for the night is whether to watch March of the Penguins or Howl’s Moving Castle?

Ozzy Osborne, July 3rd the point theatre and my two days in the big schmoke…

Hmmmm, I don’t really know how I’m going to get into writing this. There’s a part of me that is inclined to do this is a bullet point way but sure to hell with it, I’m going to do it in bits and pieces.

The gig itself was only ok to be honest. I’ve been to 4 gigs so far and this was definitely the worst. I’ve also been right by the barrier at every one of the gigs I was ever at and that was the first one where I actually had to leave from there because of the crowd. I mean, its two days later and I’m noticing that my back and my ribs still hurt.

The music itself wasn’t that bad though. The opening act were some guys called ‘X-Space’? I’m not sure of the spelling or if thats even the right name of the band - they were greeted with cries of ‘who are you?’ and the lead singers attempts to impress by threatening members of the audience who were taking the piss just made him look like an ass. Also, while I know that no singer can remember all the songs by the band, if you can’t do a 20 minute set without having to look at the prompter at your feet every few lines of the song … well your in the wrong business.

Following them we had the ‘Black Label Society’. They were really the highlight of the gig for me - they were really into the music and the crowd were very into them. The only thing was that the problems I had with the crowd began here - most of us were shoulder-to-shoulder and ass-to-front crammed together, yet there was a good few people who insisted on moving and jumping like there was loads of room! I’m not a small person but when I’m being knocked over by a very fat 16 year-old (least I think he was 16, I couldn’t really tell) there is something very wrong. The band did about a 45 minute set which was cool.

The first 20-odd minutes of Ozzy Osborne I don’t really remember. This was becuase of the fact that after what happened while BLS were on-stage my friend and I decided to move somewhat back towards the barriers - which were for some reason like the kind of things horses jump over spaced randomly across the floor nearest the stage. I think they were supposed to stop mosh pits forming. Well they were absolute failures. But anyway. If I thought that the crowd were bad for BLS they were even worse for Ozzy. We had our backs to the barriers and we actually still couldn’t move. What I think happened is that even more people pushed forward from the back because thats the only explanation that makes sense. And again, with the ‘many people at this gig were stupid/cunts or both’ some guy and I, who were using the railing-thing in order to, you know stop falling down in the middle of a mosh pit were bitched at by some tart over her not being able to put her hands on the barrier as comfortably. After the two of us told her where to go and used the barriers, she started pushing against us. I’m fairly sure I caught her in the face with my elbow though so it’s all good…. But after the 20 minutes of this I just couldn’t take anymore. I mean, when your not a big fan of a band and your starting to feel like your ribs are being crushed. Well, that’s when I say enough is enough. I watched the rest of the gig from the seating area. About Ozzy himself, well he’s much more energetic than one would think onstage. Also, more of his music sounded like rock-ballads than I expected. And his set lasted and hour and 40 minutes which isn’t bad.

To be honest the highlight of my weekend was the visiting of the various bookshops around Dublin. At the moment I’m trying not to think of how much I spent on books over the five days I was off in Cork and Dublin. It’s rather depressing.

On the other hand, I finally completed my collection of the final issue of ‘Wildcats: Version 3.0′ that I was missing.
(Is it bad that finding this comic made me very happy?)

I also picked up several issues of the old 2000ad spinoff comic ‘Crisis’ which is actually very good. Beyond that, it was mainly just books that I was already interested in like the ‘Grendel’ hardcover by Matt Wagner collecting the early issues of his very excellent series. The latest ‘Fables’ book from Bill Willingham was a treat as usual and I got the second ‘Showcase; House of Mystery’ book - here’s hoping its as good as the last one…I was also quite interested to see that in Neil Gaiman’s career as a big novelist these days they’re collecting his old work for the masses too… I ended up with a bloomsbury edition of ‘Signal to Noise’ by himself and the always interesting Dave Mckaen as well as the fact that ‘Mr Punch’ by the same duo is also available from this crowd… I do wonder how exactly this works, as the amazon.com listings say that Dark Horse comics are bringing out the next edition stateside, so I suppose it must be a UK deal. Still though, if you come across a copy get it - I haven’t even read it myself but thats how much faith I have in these guys. I loved ‘Violent Cases’ by them so… And also, for the comic fan out there trying to convince a friend that comics aren’t just superheroes in stupid costumes, these guys are a very good place to start.

Also, the funniest thing I’ve heard in a while was two Dublin knackers and their mother(?) arguing over whether 80 and 60 = 140… I assume they were talking about change but still… Idiots.

And speaking of idiocy, my friend insisted that we get the train which cost 30€ -18€ more than the bus (I think, at least 15€). As it turns out, the train is so crowded that you have more legroom on the train and seeing as you have air-conditioning on the bus that you control, your also more comfortable on than on the train where you have no control at all. And to add insult to injury, the tickets on the way back were never checked so I’m rightly pissed.

Still though, a nice few days away. And I’ve just realised that this is probably the longest post I’ve ever written. So, if you read the whole thing, thanks!

Ok now I’m angry…

My internet is completely fucked. My provider have been giving me the runaround for the last year, but seeing as we were stuck in a contract for the year we couldn’t do much. However, of late the service which was never the best has become even worse. And it all boils down to the wireless router box we were given. After numerous checks and the like I now know that it is this fucking thing that is the root cause of my aggravation. However. I have to wait until they don’t ring me back at 11.30 tomorrow morning (I know better than to believe them at this stage) before I can truly get to the screaming. Sorry about the lack of posting the last few days but the uselessness of my connection has prevented me doing much (and after writing a long post this evening on the Ozzy gig which was somewhat lost when the connection disappeared last time I’m somewhat disinclined to write a post again). Maybe later if it stays.

In other news I renewed the domain name for here today. For the next 9 years. So it looks like I’ll be here a while… Now if only I had something to write about…..

Not quite sure if this qualifies as irony or not but…

…Walking between two rooms with ‘have I got news for you in one room’ and ‘Questions and Answers’ with Michael Martín speaking trying to defend Beverly Flynn and I hear audience laughter… Wasn’t too sure which show it was coming from..

Exam results

Passed everything. Did surprisingly well despite my belief that I had done pretty bad in some exams. So all in all *yay*.

The weekend in Cork was good fun too - picked up Paramore’s new CD (review coming soon I swear) a good few comics (including two Hellboy graphic novels for cheap in the fabulous Vibes and Scribes in Patrick’s Hill) though I am somewhat worse for wear financially after it all! And now seeing as I’m heading to Ozzy Osborne tomorrow and probably to Forbidden Planet and the bookshops in Temple Bar on Wednesday what money I have left is probably all going to be gone fairly soon.

In the slightly more important world here’s a clip from Keith Olbermann talking about the recent ‘terrorist plot’ in London. While his guest is a bit too ‘on the same page’ (it feels to me like he was handed certain buzzwords to mention, ya know?) at the same time he has some credibility for what his job was. Anyway.

Sabu Vs The Sandman - ECW ‘98

Been fairly busy lately - have at the moment got 6 or 7 posts that are mainly half written (and probably won’t be worth the wait) to do and finishing work late enough means relaxing time is kind of important. But I’m going to try and get back to some sort of regular pattern of posting. At least my traffics back up!

I got the two days off work I needed for Ozzy Osborne - hopefully the gig will be worth it, especially as it’s the last one I plan to be going to for a bit. Also, I want to head up to Cork for the weekend, so all you Corkonians I know, let me know if your around.

The reading list I have is not getting too well read through - especially because I keep getting books from the library. At the moment, I’m reading Norman Davies ‘Europe;East and West’. I’ll do a review once I’m finished it but long story short: It’s very good (if pricey).

The video here is an ECW match from one of its Pay Per Views in 1998 - for those who mock pro wrestling completely its worth a look to see how much damage these two guys go through to put on a show, in fact I’m fairly sure Sabu fractured his jaw in this match….

Faithless: Live at the Marquee 20/6/2007

Went to see Faithless yesterday in Cork, had a fairly enjoyable day in Cork wandering around. The gig itself was quite fun. Stevie G (I think that was his name and I think he’s from RedFM but…) played the opening act, he only did a 45 minute set and it was fairly ‘bleh’ but it got the crowd nicely in the mood so…

The main act got onstage at 9pm and got straight into things with a version of ‘insomnia’, which was followed up with ‘god is a DJ’ and ‘Mass Destruction’ over the next hour. The band did a pretty consistent 90minute set - including the encore, which never really let up in quality. On the bad side of things, I did feel (and the guy I went to the gig with said the same unprompted) that the sound quality for the vocals weren’t great - i.e. that it was hard to actually hear the lyrics for the songs. Though, in fairness the songs also weren’t exactly the ‘album versions’ and we were in the first rows right at the barrier so….

The crowd were also a lot more ‘peaceable’ than I thought - though I knew the like of my landlady in UCC was going, when I was waiting outside to go in what struck me were how rough-looking many of the people in the que looked - however, my fears proved groundless as the only bit of agro I saw was on the way out of the gig. I also saw surprisingly few people who were blatantly on drugs - though one of the people I went to the gig with wanted some but couldn’t get any, while another friend of mine was offered pretty much everything. There was one girl though who was blatantly gone who looked only about 12 who wasn’t in great condition, in fact I’m fairly sure she gave me a kiss for catching her from falling into a mosh pit near the barriers but I’m not sure if it was the same girl….

The worst thing I can say about the gig in fact was that the band were perhaps a bit too professional - while the music was well done and they didn’t feel like they were just phoning it in - like I felt muse were when I saw them, I didn’t feel that they were quite as into it say as Metallica were when I saw them last summer. But they are a very good band live and I would advise any fan of theirs to go see them before they eventually retire…..

Faithless

Heading to the Marquee tomorrow to see Faithless play - hope the weather is ok,I don’t feel like being stuck in flooded roads all the way up to Cork. I’ll do some sort of a review of them after I get back.

Like Cian, I am kind of wondering where all my traffic has gone - if it doesn’t get better I may not even bother to renew the site ownership at this rate…..

Hmmmm

Apparently I have an entire ‘Bran Van 3000′ album on my computer I didn’t know existed.