Damn you vista!!!!

Why oh why did Microsoft ever create vista? It is the most rubbish operating system in the world! I bought a new laptop in August from Dell and unfortunately didn't have the choice to choose XP (which I would have) when I bought it. Instead I was stuck with the doomed vista. It has been going wrong since Christmas with everything breaking like the time, sound etc etc and yesterday it wouldn't even let me log on.

I spent 45 mins PEAK time calling Dell's technical support from my land line in the Philippines via the UK then a call centre in India. You can only imagine the conversation between me; an angry, fast talking Irish girl and some poor confused Indian lad. The communication problems were coupled with a delay on the line which meant that we were either waiting for each other to answer or we were talking at the same time :-(

When I eventually was able to log on again, I backed up my data and done a factory restore. All this took 4.5 hours! boo what a waste of my time. At one point the technical support dude said "you know that this is a vista problem you really should be speaking to Microsoft" I nearly lost the plot and lectured the poor fella on how if Dell had allowed me to purchase XP instead I wouldn't be wasting my time and money calling him at all! It was OK though I don't think he could understand me anyway.

So hopefully everything is OK now and skype is working again!! Which is the main thing. Not looking forward to sorting out my files and itunes etc later today but at least it seems to be working for now.

France 26 - Ireland 21 Dreams of a straight 6 nations win stolen yet again....

Winning is everything for Ireland
10 February 2008, 2:29 pm
By PA Sport

Ronan O'Gara feels Ireland have regained some credibility with their agonising 26-21 RBS 6 Nations defeat by France - but he refuses to celebrate failure.

A stunning fightback inspired by their pack and assisted by some strange substitutions from Les Bleus swept the Irish to the brink of victory.O'Gara stroked over a penalty with two minutes to go and their unstoppable momentum put Ireland in position to land the decisive blow, but the ball ran dead.Had there been just a fraction more time on the clock, they would surely have been celebrating only their second triumph in Paris since 1972.The reputation of Irish rugby has taken a fearful battering since their meltdown after last year's RBS 6 Nations, a slump that reached its nadir at the World Cup.O'Gara, who according to skipper Brian O'Driscoll delivered a stirring team speech on the eve of the match, believes the performance has restored some pride in the national side.But the Munster fly-half, who finished with 11 points, insists any satisfaction is muted by the outcome."I have to keep some things private in terms of what I said by way of motivation," he said."We've been trying to get credibility back in the Irish team and we hadn't managed to do that."Against France we took a step in the right direction but this team needs a win. It's been a long time since Ireland have produced a satisfying performance like that."I asked the players to be honest and I thought we were honest yesterday. But now we need to kick on."At Munster I'm used to winning and I expected to beat France. We're sore at the result and a few of us are very disappointed."The fellas aren't happy - we were beaten again in Paris and that was the bottom line. We did perform but I'm not content with a morale-boosting performance - I play sport to win."We're our own worst enemies at times because we need to start believing in ourselves."There are some quality players in the team. The potential is there, we just need to start believing in ourselves and kick on."Ireland looked finished by the 52nd minute when Cedric Heymans raced over for a fortuitous converted try that sent France 26-6 ahead.Vincent Clerc had done the telling damage by plundering a blistering first-half hat-trick that underlined his status as the most dangerous back in Europe.

Indonesia pictures!!! Couldn't be bothered to write captions...

Weekend in Manila :-(

I was supposed to go to Boracay with the girlies this weekend.....but instead I get to stay at home :-( Boo! This wedding better be worth it!

At least I wasn't Syler!

Ok so this post has been blatantly stolen from Meredith's blog but i loved it so much I had to steal it!

Which character from Heroes are you?

5 down, 7102 to go!

Puerto Galera was great! Me and Jo H headed off straight after school with a colleague called Mike Helmsley in his car and Heidi and Phil went in theirs. It took forevvver to get to Batangas where we had to catch our boat.

Bangka boat

I thought we were catching the public boat with the rest of the public. But Heidi had booked us a private bangka boat to take us straight to the hotel's own getty. It was fantastic having just the five of us on the boat at night drinking some beers. We all sat on one side to enjoy the moonlight view over Mindoro as we approached. (well....we were avoiding the view as we passed the giant Shell oil plant on the other side!)

Mike

Heidi and Phil

Jo H

It was so nice to get out of the city for the weekend, and I can tick another island off my list

Island of Mindoro

Islands in the Philippines I have visited

1. Luzon (well I do live there)



2. Cebu



3. Panay



4. Boracay



5. Mindoro
   

Only 7102 to go!

El Galleon resort was lovely we got a 20% discount for being teachers from Manila and another 5% for paying in cash. We had nice pool view rooms.

Beach at Puerta Galera

We went on two dives on Saturday. I was a bit nervous on the first one as it was first since my Padi Open Water Course. The second one was amazing. We visited 3 underwater wrecks and at the first wreck we were surrounded by a school of overly friendly batfish. They swam all around us in circles, right up to our faces and through our arms and legs. When it came to moving on they swam with us for about 50m to the next wreck. It was amazing!

Picture of batfish

Dive sites around PG

The Point bar at the hotel is where we started off after dinner in the evenings. Its actually the bar where Heidi and Phil celebrated their engagement before Christmas. There is a big bell in the bar and if you ring it you have to buy everyone a shot!

We headed into Sebang trying to see the rugby but the satelite wasn't working so we hit a few bars then ended up in a wierd karoke place. Sebang is one of the seediest places I have been in the Philippines. It is a lovely place but filled with western white guys with really young Filipino girls/hookers all over them. There are loads of "discos" that are curtained off where the local girls strip to music and aren't even paid by the clubs! They want to find a western guy so badly to take them away they will literally strip for free to try and pull one! But it was a good night with loads of craic!