Past Diatribes

First off: we're moving house!

Yes, the bungalow has been good to us. We've got a lot of great memories in this place: our first batch of homebrew, the time that Mo puked, the many evenings when we have brought the cast of Buffy into our front room for a Chinese takeaway feast and an evening of intelletual discourse. It's a great starter home, but we're ready to let it help someone else get their start.

It's sad, actually. there's not a room here that we haven't invested serious effort into fixing up. In this kitchen, for instance, we've installed a row of new cabinets, tiled the floor, put blinds on the windows, installed an outside light... Ah well.

My one regret: I never did get to finish off the grand designs for the lair.

Well... maybe two regrets. At the moment, we're living out of boxes. Heavy boxes. That we are, within the next couple of weeks, going to have to cart off to the new house and unpack! Can't wait until the deed is done and life gets back to normal in the new place.

Second major piece of news: Mo was over last Monday night, doing some research for her Leaving Cert exam on our computer while me bird and I sat in the front room watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. About 10:20 she came down. "Can you give me a lift home?" she asked. So we headed out the front. "Um, Mick.... where's your car?"

The answer is, either chopped up for parts or burnt-out by joyriders, in some lonely field.

The Guards have Bubs listed as missing in their database, but aren't making any visible efforts at recovering it. Car theft- especially of older cars- is apparently too common. They'll let us know if they find it, but don't hold our breath.

It's hard to believe that I'll never see The Bubble (Bubs) again. I was just working on it last weekend. Finally learned the trick of hooking the spring-wires that hold the headlight bulbs in their place. Got the dash electronics properly grounded so that I could turn the stereo up and rock along on my journey without a wave of static. Scumbags.

Bright side of all that? I've since been on my bike, for the commute to work. Between here and the office are all twists and bends of backroads that include features like Suicide Hill. Biked that route once last year: a near-death experience, I can tell you. But I took a good look at the map, after Bubs disappeared, and noticed that there's an old canal that runs most of the way. "Straight shot, no cars," I said to myself. "I'll give it a whirl."

Turned out to be magnificent. Serene waters, morning light, solitude at a time when every other commuter was competing in a rat race.... beautiful. With the old stone bridges, canal boats, and overarching trees forming a tunnel of green, it was exactly what people travel thousands of miles to Ireland to enjoy. I get to do it any sunny morning, for free.

Other craic? Some divil of a skanger has asked to post his restaurant reviews up on the site. Seeing as I'm a sad beggar who takes whatever he can get, I've agreed. Not without reservations, mind you, because they're pretty damn weird. Anyway, in the next couple of days, check out the Guide's Food & Drink section for some submissions by a lowlife called Ratboy and judge for yourself.

OK, onto the topic of computers... because, well, if you're reading this, you've got one. And every single PC out there has problems with it. Guaranteed.

There's a handy freeware tool that can fix some of those errors up. Checkout RegCleaner, available via a quick download from http://www.jv16.org. This program has several built-in tools for examining and fixing the Windows Registry. Best of all, it also does them automatically. Even if you could fit everything that you know about the Registry onto a floppy diskette (like I can), it can hunt and fix errors with the click of one button.

Definitely recommended.

Also recommended....

If you like good reading, splash out the princely sum of $5.00 for the new Issue 2 of NFG magazine. This is the second appearance of this small-press sensation, containing art, fiction, comics and poetry from North America, Europe, Africa and Australia. NFG is becoming more widely known, and the wider base of submissions is reflected in the even higher quality of its contents.

If you fancy that you have some good writing, please note that NFG is a paying market and is currently accepting submissions for future issues.

One event to mark on your calandar: the annual Dublin Writers' Festival is coming up in mid-June. I managed to sneak away from work early on night, last year, and attend the discusion by a panel of crime writers. Very interesting stuff, if you're a big reader like me! Got the chance to meet a couple of the authors, after, as well.

That's about it for this installment... if you have any news yourself, drop me a line!

Peace

Y F M H

mick @ dfaguide dot com