Spiders

Posted on March 13, 2010 by Val

I HATE spiders – would never kill one,that’s just asking for bad luck. It doesn’t matter what size they are – small, medium, large or gigantic – I hate them.So while pottering in the garden yesterday I went into the shed to look for something and was ambushed by THE most ENORMOUS  Irish “tarantula” ever seen!! Steve tells me it was probably just the ordinary  female garden variety. He wasn’t held hostage by the damn thing! It looked at me and I looked at it. Now I   do have a humane spider catcher, but it was  in the house – not a lot of help. Eventually I decided I couldn’t stay there till Steve came home, so taking my courage in my (thankfully)gloved hands, I tried to coax it on to a spade -difficult to do when you have your eyes screwed up to avoid looking at it. Was I successful? No. It scuttled away and it is WAITING for me.

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The top 10 klingon programming tips

Posted on March 12, 2010 by Steve McDonagh

A friend of mine sent me this.. I dont have the links as to where it comes from so if you are out there WELL DONE

  1. Specifications are for the weak and timid!
  2. You question the worthiness of my code? I should kill you where you stand!
  3. Indentation?! – I will show you how to indent when I indent your skull!
  4. What is this talk of ‘release’? Klingons do not make software ‘releases’. Our software ‘escapes’ leaving a bloody trail of designers and quality assurance people in its wake.
  5. Klingon function calls do not have ‘parameters’ – they have ‘arguments’ – and they ALWAYS WIN THEM.
  6. Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak.
  7. A TRUE Klingon Warrior does not comment on his code!
  8. Klingon software does NOT have BUGS. It has FEATURES, and those features are too sophisticated for a Romulan pig like you to understand.
  9. You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert unless you’ve read it in the original Klingon.
  10. Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!

I am going to put #8 in a pop up dialog behind the HELP ME! button on our intranet it is perfect!

Posted in Funny | 1 Comment

PhD in DIM

Posted on March 12, 2010 by Val

Well here I am again, reclining gracefully on the sofa sharing my life with the world. Having just carefully packed away my wings and rolled up my blackbelt, it is now time to dust off my PhD in DIM. For those of you not familiar with this – think of it as the advanced form of DIY –do it myself. I am wrestling with the sticky problem of a knackered garden tap which needs replacing. Now in my innocence I had assumed that a tap is a tap is a tap-WRONG! There are taps with widgets, taps with doofers, taps with thingummyjigs etc etc etc. Do I know which one I need ? No not yet, but give me time.

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For my chum Eileen Fitzgerald

Posted on March 12, 2010 by Steve McDonagh

Sorry Eileen , I will buy you lots of drinkies at the next LUG but when I saw this I though of you.

Damn good idea too..   Point users at this address  http://oo00.eu/ when you want to warn of impending spleen

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Managing Steve

Posted on March 11, 2010 by Val

Thanks to those of you who have welcomed me to the madness of  “Doolally”. For  those who haven’t met me  – I’m five foot one and a bit (if I stand up really straight) and as we say here in Ireland , wee and wicked!! As for keeping Steve in line –well I taught seven and eight year olds for years, so it’s not really very much different, with one exception – Steve STILL can’t spell.

Posted in Blogging | 3 Comments

Ironing fairy indeed!!

Posted on March 11, 2010 by Val

Hi this is Val, aka, the ironing fairy.  Just thought I would say hello to all Steve’s friends on our very own web site. As for his comment about Black belts in gardening – he will be punished most severely at the weekend!! No, not what you are all thinking – only a trip to B&Q DIY store for such sundry delights as garden, hose pipe, spray gun, brackets,compost etc etc etc. He is already salivating at the thought  – NOT!

Posted in Blogging | 5 Comments

I so want one of these

Posted on March 11, 2010 by Steve McDonagh
Wave Bed

A really really really really cool bed

.. although i have a feeling I will have to fight Niall for i! !  Perhaps I should get 2?

Posted in Gadgets | Leave a comment

Parenting Skills

Posted on March 11, 2010 by Steve McDonagh

Some chums and I where having a bit of a deep philosophical type chin wag the other day. We are all of an age where we have been there, done that,  got the tee shirt vis a vis parenthood. After much deep and careful consideration the following list of the top 10 parenting phrases that should be taught in every parent-to-be’s ante-natal classes.  Life without them would be impossible and the sooner you get up to speed on their correct delivery the sooner you will have be able to cope that much better.

  1. NO!
  2. Careful you will have someone’s eye out with that!
  3. When two people REALLY love each other*
  4. For goodness sake pull your trousers up**
  5. If you  don’t stop ____________ i will take way your PS3 / xBox / iPhone (delete as appropriate) ***
  6. Remember to set your alarm to get you out of bed before supper
  7. And what you you need £500 for? (See option (1) and consider repeating until they go away)
  8. I dont care if  Marky Bumsthwaith has a ___________ you are not getting one (use with repeated 1’s)
  9. Nose piercings make your snot fly out sideways when you have a cold you know ****
  10. So I can take it that your position is that you want to spend your entire life on the naughty step? *****

* Be careful using this one in conversations about Bankers, Estate agents or  porcupines
** Equally useful when potty training AND when they get into south-central LA baggy jeans
*** Care should be taken with this, as it will lead to the wee dears being out and about more in the general population of the household.
**** Try not and loose your place and use this in a conversation about sex
***** This does not work with the over 5’s!

Posted in Old Git Wisdom | Leave a comment

Whats with your site name?

Posted on March 11, 2010 by Steve McDonagh

It was posited by some colleagues that whilst apt the domain name I chose for this blog/website does not “sell” The concept of McDonaghism to the world … well they did not say exactly that … well not in those words but that was the general drift of their query.

During the time of the British Raj there was a transit camp called Deolali in India. This camp was used as a waiting area for soldiers who had caught malaria or who had accompanied mad dogs out in the midday sun, prior to their return to blighty.

I am reliably informed that “Deolali Tap” is a colloquial urdu phase meaning “fever” or “feverish”. Now unbeknownst to most of you I am not the world’s best sun worshipper as I burn under a 40 watt bulb. Valerie on the other hand loves it. She is the sunbathing equivalent to a surfer except she is endless seeking the “perfect tan” Now being the dutiful husband etc I accompany her on the annual McDonagh European tour and it was on one of these trips early in our courtship that I spent perhaps a minute or two too long in the hot Corfu Sun.

Later that evening when Valerie was attending to whatever it is that ladies do in the shower after a day of being on a sun bed slowly rotating so that every possible inch of skin gets that lustrous tan.Whatever it is , it does take a certain amount of work so I was usefully engaged in having a bit of a lie down.

I must have dosed off for I remember none of this and have to rely on the testimony of Valerie that this is true and I see no reason to doubt her 😉 She reports that my gentle snoring was rudely interrupted by a gasp and then a cry ” of DOORS! PLASTIC DOORS …. AND HORSESHOE CRABS! ” Needless to say this made her somewhat concerned and she laid about me with her towel in a brisk and teacher like manner in an effort to rouse me from my troubled dream … that worked and the thankfully the evening proceeded as normal.

Ever since then i have had a “Plastic Door Event Horizon” and when in a sunny clime I still mutter as I move into the shade.. “Plastic doors” and Val knows exactly what I mean.

So as you can see there is a reason why we called our blog “slightly doolally” and odd as it may seem it makes sense

🙂

Steve

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Welcome one welcome all!

Posted on March 11, 2010 by Steve McDonagh

Welcome to the Slightly Doolally blog!

This is the repository of thoughts,  poems,  stories,  rants,  recollections  (both real and imagined),  photos, and  paintings that we the McDonaghs want to share with the rest of the world.

Stephen, Valerie and Niall McDonagh will be the main contributors to this blog.

Stephen has been many things, few of them make sense now but made perfect sense at the time. Currently he is 25 years into trying to be a professional geek for a large Japanese/American electronics firm. He has been blogging for several years on a blog called Dominoyesmaybe and has achieved some infamy for the unexpected levels of inventive profanity he can muster when in full rant mode.

Valerie is the lady of the house and is occasionally referred to as  SWMBO (but only when not in “withering gaze” range). Apart from being a woman of remarkable good taste in men and having the patience of an entire hagiography of saints she has a black belt in gardening, is the Da Vinci of  skirting board paintingsh and works part time as an “Ironing fairy”.  Having just taken possesion of her first computer recently she may participate with a post from time to time.

Niall the youngest of the McDonagh clan is a geek like his father and may drop in to get fed, get his laundry done, borrow money and not get up until 5pm. The likely hood of him participating in this blog are remote but not totally out of the question.

This is our blog, read, enjoy and leave comments.
🙂
Steve

Posted in About Us, Blogging | 7 Comments