Blurred Keys

High-speed rail coming to Ireland?

According to the Irish Independent (vie Boards.ie) there are plans for high-speed train route between Dublin to Cork.

The infrastructure plans would see 200kmh adopted in the link between Clondalkin, Co Dublin and Limerick Junction, over 62pc of the route distance….

Barry Kenny, Iarnrod Eireann spokesperson, said yesterday: "The Cork-Dublin route is our flagship Intercity route, with almost 4,000,000 passenger journeys annually today."

The high-speed of 200kmh/125mmph in question is that achieved by the UK in 1990. However, it’s a positive move all the same…

"A two-hour city centre to city centre journey time would simply be impossible for any other transport mode in this country to even come close to matching," he said.

Projection: Dublin rail map

This network map is something Blurred Keys is messing with at the moment...

Click here to open the image so you can scroll down.

New Irish Intercity trains

One of the new Iarnród Éireann Intercity trains, well a photo of a photo from the current ad been run by IE in Irish newspapers, the first photo was taken while it was on test somewhere on the network...

Personal highs and lows of 2005

My highs and lows of 2005, from a post on boards...

Highs

• in LA for E3 again, then including Shanghai making it around the world before home
• back to the US for 24 hours of NYC, then to DC for a wedding in Maryland
• a few weeks ago, I move out of the family home (22, so it's was about time)
• finally getting a credit card
• getting broadband before the end of the year (thank you Eircom)
• Cycling to work every day
• ALSO: Electric Picnic
  

Lows

• moving out, so...
• bills soon to come...
• trips around the world will hurt the pocket a good bit
• thinking about the extra bills soon to come!
• heating currently only working in the living room/kitchen part of my apartment

Photos: NYC & DC

These are from a short trip to the east coast of the

US in August. Blurred Keys was literally was in New York for 24 hours, from getting a taxi in from JFK to the hotel, to crossing the road from the hotel to Amtrak’s underground Pen station for the Acela express to DC.

An underground inter-city station is somewhat strange.

New York’s skyline pales in comparison to Shanghai - with the Chinese city’s endless stream of high-rises.

From the Empire State Building

The reason for this visit was my cousin’s wedding in Rockville, a city just outside DC, in Maryland (which some-how isn’t pronounced ‘Mary-land’). Although my camera stayed in the Courtyard hotel in Rockville.

 

The photographs of the Whitehouse (front and back), the Washington monument etc were all taken on the way to the airport, all taken in the company of a large backpack. The Whitehouse’s snipers probably had me in their sites, but anyone who has received this story stated that ‘redheads don’t fit the profile’.

Hanafin warns about post-exam holidays?

For some strange reason on Saturday the Irish Times ran a story on the front page about the minister of Education “warning” about the dangers of secondary school students going on post-exam holidays. The piece was one of many of what makes up the IT’s sick amount of coverage given to the summer schools.

Hanafin insists that she is not referring to the dangers being caught up in a terrorist attack, but the dangers of “male rape”, assault, and most likely unspeakable acts in “locations such as Ibiza”.

She goes on to suggest that instead the students should “give their time voluntarily to do something for others", in places like, err… a “South African township”, err, what’s that?... South African is safer then Ibiza? Yeah? Really?

Going into other topics at the summer school, Hanafin states "Do we really need a situation in some schools in Dublin where we are running out of car-parking spaces because the students are driving in?" Well, she could do worse then to put that question to the government of which she is a Minister; she could ask them why don’t they spend more on public transport. Why shouldn’t any students who are lawfully allowed to drive not be allowed to do so when the government has such pro car policies?

 

Talking about an experience a friend once had she said "The clothes his daughter wore going into the disco were not the clothes she was wearing coming out of the disco,"… Minister, please, tell us when this happen. Was it ten years ago? More?

Shanghai & LA - Holiday pics (May 2005)

Finally, I’ve got around to putting up my photographs from Shanghai, and the few non-E3 images from LA.

I'm popping off to the east coast of the US next month for a wedding, so I thought it was best to get these up before a back log builds up.

Computer games related pics which have been up for a while now, are the photo albums from the Nintendo, and Sony, pre-E3 events, as well as from the E3 floor show.

Blurred maps

Outside North America, Google’s maps are only of any great detail in the Ireland, and UK - while the satellite images where Blurred Keys lives isn’t too detailed at the moment. The city centres of Dublin, London etc are a little more detailed, but compared with places like Newport Beach in California, London and Dublin really do look a a lot glummer.

If the few city blocks level of satellite imagery on Google is so interesting to us normal people, Burred Keys would love to know if the controllers at any military satellites have ever just had a bit of fun looking around, but we guess that’s one that will continue to elude us.