This is the forth and I hope final installment in relation to my experiences using a green cone in my home, the previous installments can be read here.
To sum things up I had to abandon all previous plans as the green cone just kept flooding and in the end during May 2009 I had to stop using it completely so I could re-install it.
So to reinstall it I first had to remove it and what an awful fun job that was, the basket at the end was full of sludge and smelled awful. Once this was taken out I then refilled the hole that the green cone was in and I made sure to have the greencone completely above ground,.
Now the green cone instructions say that a bucket of water should train away within a max of 30min, since the redesign its draining within seconds so all is good so far.
Here’s the finished re-design in all its glory…lets hope this is the last time I do this 
For those who aren’t aware back in March I restarted barrysomers.com as a photoblog website, please visit it in all its glory and feel free to leave comments
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So Bord Gais have starting selling Electricity in Ireland to compete against ESB and Airtricity, you can view details on https://www.thebigswitch.ie
Bord Gais promise upto 14% off what ESB charge their customers and if we take Urban 24 Hour is breaks down as follows:
Take Urban 24 Hour Tariff
- Bord Gais = General Units kWh 16.38 (with DD option only)
- ESB = General units kWh 18.61
- Airtricity = General Units kWh 17.12 (DD option only)
Click on the company names for full tariff details from the company website, all prices include VAT at 13.5%.
So all in All Bord Gais is cheapest at present, I may be switching I’ll see how things work out
After using my new safety razor for awhile I’ve found that the original badger brush I bought is pretty poor and also I could do with better shaving cream so I’ve bought a few items which include pre-shave gel, shaving cream, blades and a much better quality brush.
After two days of usage I have to say the brush was well worth it, it holds water much better then the previous cheap brush I bought as such it creates and hydrates the lather much quicker and better too.
For anyone currently looking at buying a shaving brush I can’t stress enough that it is well worth investing in a good quality brush don’t opt for a cheap budget brush.
I’d imagine this selection which I bought from shaving-shack.com should last me a long long time
For those who know me you’ll know that I used to cycle to work everyday before I moved house, in fact I used to average about 12-16knm a day which I sadly miss now that I have to drive to work. 
Anyway back at the beginning of December I brought my Trek 7.1 FX in from the yard to give it a clean and service as I thought it was time I got back in the saddle, I started by taking off the wheels and when I attempted to remove the back wheel the frame came away with it.
At this stage I’m pretty pissed off as the frame is broken but I’m not too worried as the frame as a lifetime warranty so I get on to the bike shop where I bought it back in October 2006 and they agree to send it back to Trek, of course its December so I’m not worried about it be sorted out fast due to the Christmas rush.
Anyway earlier this week I gave the bike shop a call and much to my surprise and delight it turns out Trek decided they’d replace my old bike with a new one and better still the bike shop wouldn’t charge me for building it.
Here it is in all its glory!!
All in all I’m very happy with both Trek and Altitude Bike shop in Waterford who did a brilliant job at customer service.
Following on from the recent announcement that the Department of Communications has given the National Broadband Scheme to Three instead of Eircom its worth remembering that Three’s “Mobile Broadband” is not actual Broadband despite what the government says. (This deal has now been signed!)
This doesn’t just apply to Three it also applys to O2, Vodafone and Meteor who also tend to refer to their services as “Mobile Broadband” when infact they should be called something else.
So going off the back of a recently created Midband sub-forum on the Broadband forum on boards.ie all these services would be better referred to as Midband.
What is Midband you may ask, well it is…
“Midband” is defined as Mostly On systems that are not billed by time and deliver on average better than the max of Dialup which is 2x B ch ISDN of 128k, but
:: on average less than 1Mbps (1)
or
:: more than 100ms Latency (2)
or
:: connection is not ensured (3).
Providers of “Midband” services include, Three, O2, Vodafone & Meteor as well as Satellite, Irish Broadband Ripwave and Clearwire.
Services provided by these providers are totally unsuitable for
- On-Line Gaming
- Video Conferencing
- VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol)
So why am I ranting about Three, well what annoys me is that it is called Broadband when it is clearly not the same thing as a 1MB ADSL or Cable line and can never provide the same quality of service to its users.
This isn’t Three’s fault this is purely down to the technology being used but my problem is the fact that Three, O2, Vodafone etc and the Department of Communications are lying to people by calling it Broadband!
So I posted awhile back about switching from a Gillette Fusion to a Safety Razor namely a Merkur 570 Chrome “Progress”, so after a week of use and some initial problems I have to say I’m very impressed with it.
At first I started off using the shaving soap I bought with the razor but this dried out my skin like crazy and didn’t lather very well so I ended up cutting myself about 5-6 times which was fun, I’ve since switched back to my normal King Of Shaves shaving gel and all is well. Although I’m going to try some different brands as suggested on some websites.
The shave is far closer then my old Fusion (even when compared with the first shave with a new fusion blade), also it takes about the same amount of time to shave.
Overall I’m happy with the switch over
I think this sums things up nicely!
So for years I’ve been using the standard Gillette razors such as Mach3 and more recently the Gillette Fusion, their fine and all but I still suffer from razor burn and skin irritation due to the way that Mach3′s and Fusions work.
Basically these cassettes loaded razors use whats referred to as hysterisis, basically the razor pulls the hair out and hacks it off. This is fine and all but it also irritates the skin a fair bit. In addition if you lather up your skin properly your razor should not need to pull out your hair.
So yesterday I took the plunge and bought myself my first Safety Razor a Merkur 570 Chrome “Progress” from theshaving-shack.cm, initially its kinda expensive but when you compare that a single blade for a Gillette Fusion costs about 3.50e and a single blade for a Safety Razor costs 50e and does a better job its worth it.
There is however an important thing to remember, using a Safety Razor is more of “art” then using a normal bog standard razer it is worth watching videos by the Shave Tutor on youtube to get an idea of whats involved.
However if the media were to be believed you’d think that I’m stepping back in time to using a device that is inferior just because it doesn’t come with a “shaving system” or some sort and cost a fortune to use. More and more people are getting pissed off with these “systems” and there is a growing numbers of people on the internet switching to safety razors due to the reasons outlined above.
