Has been going on for the last few minutes, and was curious what it was about. I looked it up generally and see what special celebrations are on 31st Jan, and I initially found that it was National Gorilla suit day?!? Hmm, ok, that doesn't warrant Dublin to have fireworks, especially that woeful New Year's display (or lack thereof) on RTE, they had no fireworks. So what's the big deal, I found it (thanks to the internet). It's the GAA celebrating 125 years with Croker. Curiosity satisfied. :)
So, following on from my last post about them, I have something sort of positive. If I want to view a place, actually specify the date because normally I just enquire if I can view a property on weeknights and/or weekends. This time, the estate agent replied, wahoo.
The estate agent sounds kind of desperate as well, snips of the email:
If this suits you -please may I have your contact address.
Great, spamtastic via the mailbox now.
Here is the good part:
Also would you indicate if you are cash buyers, or indeed if you would have something to sell yourselves down the line.
And the finale:
Kind regards and await your confirmation
Await my confirmation, that was just too much. The estate agent is certainly, almost to nice to be true. Well, I will have to see when I meet the estate agent next weekend.
Hope all the rest are like that.
Found this in the Irish Times
The golden rules Shop on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday morning, when it’s quiet. Under its planning conditions the Dublin store cannot open before 11am on weekdays.
Avoid weekday afternoons if you are driving, as the Dublin Ikea has to charge for parking between 4pm and 8pm to limit congestion (another planning condition).
If you have a complicated purchase, such as a kitchen or wardrobe, do as much planning as you can online.
Get your list of items from the expert in the area as soon as you arrive and go straight to the warehouse to load them on a trolley.
If you want to browse, now is the time, but a bit of discipline is required to avoid the “I bought it because it was cheap” scenario.
When you get your stuff home read the instructions before trying to assemble it. When put together properly, the furniture is great – durable and solid.
If all of this sounds like hell in a flatpack then wait a year. The Dublin Ikea must provide an online ordering service within 12 months of opening. The service will probably be limited to larger items.
A Japanese apple grower manage to create apple logos on his apples using stickers to block out the sunlight before they matured.
(Source: Macworld)
Estate agents (EAs) whine on how the property crash is affecting them, their multi-million Euro houses are not selling as well as they hoped for their clients, well boo-hoo for them. Are they actually worth their salt? Given that I am actively looking for a house, I have contacted numourous EAs (as they seem to be the main ones updating daft.ie and myhome.ie) and apart fro the odd reply of someone getting in contact with you, that's about it really. I really don't want to drop into the EAs offices just so I can enquire about property which I just viewed online, and supposed handy services online to contact agents to avoid me dropping into them in the first place. What's the point? They are not doing their jobs. I was making excuses right up to Christmas for them, EAs are working fewer days, EAs were being let go, early holidays, etc. Now it's halfway through January, and there is no let up in disappointments on the lack of return calls.
I have to say, I'm not the only experiencing this EA-ignoring-potential-clients-just-because-of-their-cockiness, my father-in-law (apartment hunting) found that he would get promises of return calls, even when he rang them up. These were big name EAs like Lisney.
In this climate, I know people would not be sympathetic to us property hunting, in my circumstances, I have been scrimping and saving with my hubby to get to a stage where we have our own desposit for a house. We avoided the crazy you-must-be-on-the-property-ladder business the last few years. It just feels the right time for us, as finally, the wait is over.
The problem is, can we actually get any vendors or EAs to return our calls? I would have thought this would have been the lesser of two evils, the other one is talking to mortgage advisors.
He was one of the people who inspired me to draw (even though none of my pictures got picked out for the Hart Gallery). I loved Morph, even tried to make my own while I was in school, but it got all squished in the pencil case, what with all the pencils, rubbers, and whatnot in there. He first appeared in 1977, the year I was born, wow, that was a long time ago. And I really couldn't believe he was teaching kids how to draw on telly for 50 years.
(Source: BBC News Online)
UPDATE: Even Stephen Fry tweeted about it.
Joys of being married.... when husband says "I'm only out for a pint after work", it actually means "I won't be back for dinner even though I did not tell you, or will I ever either, I'll be enjoying myself with my friends with my many pints, so deal with it". Hmmm, I think I am so right on so many levels, that's what goes on in my head when I get promises of dinner together in the evenings. I think I hit a new level of being a wife, at least when I do have a kid, I have company in the evenings. /end rant
So retailers will have to clean footpath 50 metres on either side of their premises, and listen to this, "every one to two hours during opening times".
Retailers who serve take-away food are now also required to print their name and address on all packaging, and in the case of chains or franchises, specify the branch the packaging has come from.
Sure, if you can't teach the public to throw their own rubbish into the plathera of bins, put more pressure on retailers (i.e. pubs and places that sell takeaways). I think we should have a wall of bins along the footpath, because it's too much effort to walk a few feet to a bin... from what I observed of some ignorant people from all walks of life. *grumbles in much annoyance.
Source: RTE News Online - Litter bylaw 'nightmare' for Dublin retailers
I quite enjoyed the game, it's a pretty laid-back RPG-style game. Out of curiousity, I got a female NPC to fall in love with my female character, and they got married! Quite open, isn't it? Heh, I was curious if they can have children, but from a bit of google searching, nope, it's not possible, although some other people did the surrogate parents as a workaround. You can have as many partners but if they cross paths, you are in trouble. My character is a one-person gal, lol. The main character can get fat as well, but after careful and plentiful munching of fruit, control of weight can be established again. And even PETA loves Fable 2 because you can choose to be a veggie in the game.
Although they really have to fix that glitch where the furniture shop stops stocking goods when the town's economy is at its best. At the moment, it's either kill the shop owner and screw the economy to get the furniture back and slowly build up the economy again. That's a crappy workaround. I really hope they fix it though, purty please, Lionhead!
Great news for people who are looking to rent or buy a place. Owners need to assess their property on how energy efficient it is. More choice, and better sale/rent prices for us to choose from.
Saw this in breakingnews.ie.
Mega epic fail, 30GB Zunes simultaneously failed when 2009 rung in, or as they called it "Z2K". Mwuhahahaha.
Well, a quick search came with many hits. I just picked gizmodo.com's one cos it's a funny read. At the stage, M$ has no fix, but there is a DIY fix in the gizmodo post while folks wait for an update.