http://rubberbucket.com The personal website of Cormac Bracken Sun, 29 Nov 2009 13:09:17 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I was woken by a banging on the hotel room door. "Please, open the door!" "Just a minute..." But the banging continued as I struggled into my trousers. I opened the door to the same guy that had given me the room the previous night without payment or paperwork. ... http://rubberbucket.com/uncategorized/arrival-in-mumbai The next day I took my paper icecreams and spent a third of a week's wages on a train ticket to King's Lynn. In Devon people had that familiar good-natured chat between strangers, but it only highlighted the clichéd coldness of the Home Counties. Lara met me at the station, ... http://rubberbucket.com/uncategorized/kings-lynn The final train to Barnstaple reminded me of the oddly commuter-like trains that go to Killarney, with low seat backs and a general impression that everyone recognises everyone else. The reality of Killarney is in fact traffic jams and urban sprawl, and similarly Barnstaple was not the sleepy village that ... http://rubberbucket.com/uncategorized/devon The crossing was in the grand old tradition of Irish sea crossings. A severe gale was blowing. The few passengers gathered around the tv for the match and pints, or stretched out and slept randomly in corridors, or briefly emerged on deck for a cigarette in the rain and the ... http://rubberbucket.com/travelogue/leaving-dublin The embassy's public office was in the basement. The waiting room had last been wallpapered and carpeted in the 1970s. It contained numerous bookcases of faded books, but nowhere to wait, so the queue trailed out the hallway instead. I was stressed from work, from getting the visa application together, ... http://rubberbucket.com/travelogue/first-contact I hate remotes. I hate that they have far too many buttons; that the buttons are labelled with indecipherable hieroglyphics; that despite the fact that manufacturers conform to a vaguely standard layout (numbers on top, cluster of directional keys in the middle, primary colours below and then "others"), they don't ... http://rubberbucket.com/uncategorized/table-top-remote-control A while back, I read an article in which a smoothie vendor in Dublin complained that business was rather seasonal. Given that Irish summers are short to non-existent, smoothie bars apparently struggle for trade for most of the year (hence the extortionate prices). The interviewee couldn't think of much in ... http://rubberbucket.com/rubber-buckets/lemsip-cafe This is a bit of a late rubber bucket, as I'm only pointing out that I had the idea, at the point when it's starting to come true (maybe). Virtual worlds, such as Second Life, are far too important to be left up to monopolies playing with vendor lock-ins. Second ... http://rubberbucket.com/rubber-buckets/the-internet-of-virtual-worlds According to the US Treasury, the statutory limit on their public debt is $8.965 trillion. According to the same source, as of last Friday, the actual public debt was $8,968,607,956,049.61. Oops. I've searched news sources for an hour, and all I can find is comments that the debt ceiling was expected to ... http://rubberbucket.com/witterings/sssh-us-exceeds-overdraft-limit The worst-named pub in Dublin is O'Donoghue's. Since few people will recognise the name, I'll give another hint: Thing Mote. Ah yes, that place. I'm not sure when Thing Mote changed hands and was renamed O'Donoghue's. I can say that in the last 18 months that I've been back in ... http://rubberbucket.com/witterings/the-worst-named-pub-in-dublin