Feckoff.net

Today I got my first ever puncture. It would be a bank holiday weekend that it happens on

My car (07 Honda Civic) doesn’t actually come with a spare wheel, but fortunately the space saver spare from my father’s Accord is a perfect match so I’ve got that fitted at the moment.

First thing I do after I get the tyre repaired is put an order in with my Honda dealer for the spare tyre kit. I can’t be arsed with their crappy can-of-gunk-and-compressor solution that will get you home and also make the tyre impossible to repair. This means I lose a convenient storage space in the boot but gain the ability to get the fuck home next time this happens.

Read more »

Extreme Pizza recently opened their first branch outside of the US here in Kilkenny. I’m just after having their “Ragin’ Rooster” pizza and it was absolutely bloody delicious! I’m not usually one for pimping businesses but credit where credit is due.
The ragin’ rooster consists of chicken marinated in barbecue sauce, red onions, coriander, cheddar and mozzarella and it rocks. Hopefully this chain expands across Ireland in the future.
Read more »

So its almost Christmas. All the prezzies have been bought. I finish up in work tomorrow, thanks to using up a few of my remaining days of leave so I won’t have to be back there till the 31st. I’ve been really busy with work and stuff recently, hence the lack of posting here.
The new ring road extension in Kilkenny opened today after about 3 years of excruciatingly slow road works. I think it will be of great benefit and should make the Castlecomer road into town much quieter now that every bit of traffic coming to Kilkenny from the north doesn’t have to travel straight into the centre of town on it.
The road out to my house now forms a flyover on the new road. I think I’ll have to head down there some evening and try some long exposure cliche shenanigans with the camera

Speaking of which, anyone got a second hand Nikon D80 to offload? I need a bigger, brighter viewfinder!

Read more »

Got back home from China (again) late last night. The 12 hour flight from Shanghai was fine except for the fact that I was stuck sitting beside the smelliest, most ingorant bollix I’ve ever had to endure that kind of time with in my life. I also had several hours to kill in the dump that is Heathrow terminal 1. I arrived in Shannon at around 9 last night. Got out to the long term car park at around 9.30 to find my car’s battery completely dead I really did not need that after being on the go for 24 hours between travelling and airport hanging about!
Fortunately the airport has a jump start service and they arrived after about 10 minutes and got me going.

Here’s a photo of Shanghai at night. I took this last Sunday night. Forgot to change the time on my camera so the EXIF data will have the GMT timestamp on it. I was very busy with work this time around and ended up taking bugger all photos.

Click it for the flickr page and larger sizes.
Read more »

Going back to China bright and early tomorrow morning. Back in about a week’s time. Seeya!

Read more »

… Car insurance has finally started to become more affordable.

FBD and Allianz are now quoting me less than a grand to comprehensively cover my Civic 1.8! They wouldn’t quote me last year, nor would Hibernian. Hibernian are looking for a little more, but since their website wouldn’t let my specify that my car is an i-VTEC (just “Honda”, 1.8) they might tell me to fuck off. I don’t want to give that shower of wankers my money anyways. Axa also lack an online quote system, ergo they suck.

Read more »

Here are some photos I took in Shanghai on Friday, over on my flickr

A sample:

Read more »

Anywhere that gives you free wifi that will happily download stuff at over 500KB/sec is worth a positive mention! This airport is a very slick operation - I got straight off my flight from Shanghai to walk pretty much directly from the jetway to a flight connections desk that got me checked in for my onward flight to Heathrow within 5 minutes. Security check was quick and painless. Heathrow, please learn from Hong Kong’s example.

The duty free’s pretty cheap too!

Read more »

Here are some photos I took as I strolled around Suzhou last night. All at ISO1600 (it was pretty dark) with my trusty cheap nifty fifty Nikkor lens.

Here’s a sample:

Read more »

I’ve been here in Suzhou since Sunday now, and I must say I’m pleasantly surprised by the whole experience. Suzhou is a city of some 6 million people, and while its been around for thousands of years, most of it was constructed in the last 12 years or so. Its about a 2 hour drive from the airport in Shanghai.

The city looks absolutely amazing at night, as most of the buildings are very well lit with bright neon. Its full of high-rise towers and great architecture. I haven’t gotten any photos yet - my camera stuff got locked in an office at work yesterday!

The hotel I’m staying in is fabulous and would be utterly unaffordable if it was in Europe. It is situated beside a beautiful park that is very well lit at night and contains a massive amphitheatre in its centre.

The roads are absolutely fantastic, and the drivers absolutely terrifyingly awful! 6 lane highways all over the place, wide cycle/pedestrian lanes separated from traffic by grass verges, etc. I’ve seen so many newly manufactured cars here that have been long ago discontinued in the west, many of them based on an old Seat Toledo design. Lots of Volkswagens and Buicks around here. the Buicks here are mostly rebadged Korean models like the Chevrolet/Daewoo Lacetti, known here as the “Buick Excelle”. I haven’t seen many of the Chinese marques with their poor reputations around, besides a single Landwind which looks suspiciously like the ancient Opel Frontera.

I haven’t had any free time from work to do any real sightseeing yet - we’ve had a lot of setbacks and time wasting caused by cock ups on the part of the Chinese builders.

I’ll be back with more later!
Read more »