You can find this sign on every DART station:
The sign tells us to keep behind the yellow line, that’s fine. We all know that behind is opposite to in front of, right?
Now, I would like to present you an algorithm of finding the correct side of the yellow line:
An engineer from Google was supposed to call me on Tuesday but he didn’t. Recruitment coordinator apologized and rescheduled the call to Friday. On the scheduled time I’ve sat by the table gripping firmly my fountain pen and staring at my mobile phone’s display. The phone kept silent. After a quarter I’ve e-mailed the coordinator telling her I’m ready and waiting. The mobile rang few minutes later and I got grilled.
Blogging in English seems to be closely correlated with using English. Despite living in Ireland, I don’t use as much English as I wish to. Luckily, it is getting better. Every single coffee break with Irish people makes a difference.
There’s one word which has started to annoy me lately: “should”.
“This should go there.”
“One should do this.”
“You should avoid that.”
The word itself seems to be innocent; the annoying thing is the way it’s being used. Especially, when the information that “something should” is the only thing one has been told, without explanation of any reasons behind it or a chance to express one’s views on the matter.
The latest poll taken by the Government asked people who live in Ireland if they think Polish immigration is a serious problem:
23% of respondents answered: Yes, it is a serious problem.
77% of respondents answered: Absolutnie żaden. To nie jest poważna kwestia.
Personally, I think that it in fact is a major problem, but not for Ireland. It is a major problem for Poland.
Lenina was laughing at me when I mentioned that I was going to find a place in Dublin for throwing a boomerang. Somehow, there’s a perfect place just on my way to work! Every morning, if the wind is not too strong, I just can’t resist taking my boomerang out from my bag and giving it few rounds over the sports ground.
Too bad my photo camera (Canon G3) makes only 15 frames per second. I have also found out that those 15 frames are not distributed evenly; if you take a closer look the cars in the beginning, you will notice that they repeatedly “accelerate” and “decelerate”.
I’m thinking about buying three more boomerangs:
The note at the bottom of Challenger’s page warns about the alternative, expert throwing technique that this boomerang requires. I wonder what that might be. Since I don’t know anybody who knows how to throw a boomerang, I’ll have to find out by trial and error.
I moved in to a new flat about 2 weeks ago, but I still didn’t get an Internet connection. There’s only one Internet provider available in this area, which is eircom (usually typed in lowercase), the biggest Irish telecom.
They have three broadband packages in their offer: 1Mbit, 2Mbit and 3Mbit. I usually try to compare the packages. With internet connection, I usually make a chart with bandwidth and price. Here’s a chart for eircom:
Difference between first and second package is: twice as much bandwidth, €5 more monthly fee. This surely makes people prefer 2Mbit over 1Mbit.
Their next package, 3Mbit should be constructed in such a way that at least some people would prefer to get 3Mbit instead of 2. So, what’s the difference? Well, it’s 50% more bandwidth and 60% more expensive.
Those prices make no sense. I wonder who sets them and why.
Maciej Bliziński 