Brian 1, lawnmower 0.

I think I mentioned we got a homelite petrol lawnmower (HLM140SP) recently from a big home/garden outlet? Anyway, I was trying to disconnect the sparkplug just to clean the deck, and didn't the HT lead boot come off and disconnect altogether? Unhappiness ensued. Outlet promised repair within 10 days. 10 days?

Anyway, if this happened to anyone else, here is what to do. You now have a lawnmower with a bare lead, a little metal connector widget to link the lead and the sparkplug, and a rubber elbow that goes over the widget. To do this fix, you need some washing up liquid, and maybe a pliers.

A tiny drop of the washing up liquid on the HT lead, then you need to straighten out the elbow as much as you can and push it back up the HT lead so that the bare wire comes right out the other end of the elbow. Then reconnect the connector widget by clamping it onto the rubber lead - make sure that the wire inner part of the lead touches the connector. Now slide the elbow/boot back down carefully so that the connector widget just sits in the corner of the elbow, with the open side facing out. Reconnect to spark plug and enjoy your mower!

Ah, comedy - refreshment for the soul!

We're just back from the Riverbank Theatre, Newbridge, where we'd been to see a comedy show. It was a Schnitzel comedy club night, with the Diet of Worms headlining. Who are the Diet of Worms, you ask?

Well, it's not this, which I remember from Junior Cert history, rather it's a fairly hilarious group of 5 comedians, and a puffincat. Highlights include Bovbov the puppet, the puffincat, and many other sketches. See them when you can, because you will enjoy it - they're excruciatingly funny!

Also causing much mirth and merriment was this chap, Gearoid Farrelly. Great entertainment altogether.

Pizza n books.

Barbecues with too many charcoal briquettes and pizza are not good friends, unless you want the pizza to be utterly nuked... It looked fine 2 minutes ago, honestly... Oh, I dunno. Not fun. I might try again, with less coals, but next pizza will be from the ordinary oven anyway.

So I've released 3 books today, trying to revive bookcrossing singlehandedly. Chat n chew coffee shop in Newbridge has a book swap shelf already, so that's the drop point of choice. It's kinda handy, though I had a look through some of the books and none of them had a bookcrossing ID, so maybe it's not caught on.

Belated Kinsale report

We went to Kinsale for a couple of nights last weekend - a beautiful part of the world which we'd visited before but always vowed we'd come back to. We stayed in The Blue Haven, a nice small hotel in the centre of town. Rates quite reasonable, but Kinsale is (bear in mind) a popular tourist spot, both for the scenic nature of the town and it's reputation for good food. Ordinary rooms are quite small (they're upfront about this on the phone when you book), so if you like a bit of space on your ovenight stay, either go elsewhere or get an upgrade. But it is very nice and cosy. Any music from the pub next door is finished by midnight!

We had dinner there on the first night - we were hugely impressed by this, and particular mention goes to the vanilla and raspberry cheesecake, which converted me from a non-cheesecake fan to someone who really enjoys vanilla and raspberry cheesecake from the blue haven. It was absolutely yummy!

Dino's chipper did us for the next evening. Seems to get quite poor reviews, but we thought it was tasty.

Dead nice to get away for a couple of days of course, and weather was fantastic for the 2 days, we even got as far as Schull for a spot of lunch (where you never know who you might meet...) West Cork makes you wonder why every town doesn't have all their houses painted bright yellows, blues etc, it's good for the soul! And Charles Fort is a great attraction, only €4 in, and it's a bigger spot than Edinburgh Castle (£15) with a real person to give you a tour (not a booklet/silly hold-to-your-ear thingy) - this country isn't as expensive as people make out.

Another site to lose yourself on...

Hey all, I discovered www.freesound.org today, it's a collection of sounds (as you might have thought) that people upload onto the site, and (I think) they're all free for users! Today I was listening to the bells of Santa Croce in Florence.

You might lose yourself there. You might not. Particularly if you don't look at it. But sure it might be of some use to you!

Browsers...

I'd been finding the internet experience a bit slow recently, or rather, choppy - occational stalls where nothing would happen for a moment or two. Used as I am to a smooth internet connection, I was wondering what it could have be. I tried Internet Explorer (gasp!) and found that it actually was working better than the newly updated Firefox browser (3.0.12), so I downloaded Google Chrome to see how it works. And boy does it work, it's quick, smooth, uncomplicated and nice. I'm going to stick with this for a while, at least until I can figure out how to fix Firefox (I did have some nice extensions, you know...)

Other than that, I await reports from Croke Park this evening, as I am looking forward to seeing "the claw" myself soon!

Phenonenal video!

I used to think that some motorsports are crazy. Now they are merely mad. Below is a 5 minute video from youtube showing the Pike's Peak hillclimb in the US. Enjoy!

Lawnmowers.

Lawnmowers. A curious subject. We started off with a small electric hover mower - this made cutting the grass a chore because it just wouldn't hack it, particularly if the grass got anyway long. Which it sometimes does...

So we went with internal combustion. Don't tell the Greens. I've just done my first cut with the Homelite this evening, and all is well! It's fairly light, so it's easily pushable, and it's got 7 height settings as well as the grass collector (which is maybe a little small...). Initial impressions are good, it feels solid so far and well put together, but we'll see how that works out as time goes by. Also, it's red and shiny.

Anyone else who's looking to buy one, they're 160 in the diy stores at the moment, and you should factor in another 20 quid or so to buy some engine oil (10W30) and petrol and can.

Space Gazing

Well, I saw the shuttle after take off last week as it flew over Ireland. That was some sight!

Anyway, now that the International Space Station is on the tip of everyone's tongue, my helpful hint is that you can find out when it's passing you by logging onto www.heavens-above.com and inputting your location - it will then spit out times for all the objects that pass over you! Enjoy.