The war sure threw a wrench into my writing style. I was trying to publish post per day for at least five years in a row. Mostly about my hobbies: videogames, emulation, sometimes movies.
But then the war happened.
First, I lost respect for most of my Russian speaking readers. And second, it felt wrong writing post a day about something as trivial as a videogames or movies as the war in Ukraine rages.
Although the war still occupies most of my thoughts, I do manage to escape them from time to time. But I’ve found that writing once I complete something, be it a game or a series loses the context of time. Instead of reading about my progression, I now read just the final snapshot of it. And I don’t enjoy it as much.
So, I plan to start writing notes as I did in the past, as they come. But also publish them now right away, without caring about readers retention at all, since there were never many readers to begin with.
Author: TheAleosha
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Back to Windows 10
Spend the weekend going back to Windows 10.
Unlike upgrades, which are quite straightforward and preserve everything, downgrades are hard.
Had to install it from scratch, first time in maybe 10 years. Until now, I was always just upgrading, from Windows 7 to Windows 10, then to Windows 11, preserving all of that junk. It migrated probably between a few HDDs and SSDs. Not anymore.
What broke me was strange UI freezes, as if it was trying to read something from a slow disk. Couldn’t find anything concrete about that problem: Internet is full of “7 ways to fix your Windows”, with suggestions to reinstall mouse drivers 🤦♂️
Also smaller things: no previews on folders, dumb taskbar and useless websearch instead of working local search.
As part of the migration, I also moved from Opera to Firefox. I was on Opera by inertia, really. Same as I was on this copy of Windows.
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Pyrolytic cleaning
Pyrolytic oven from Miele does wonders. Had some drips of fat at the bottom of the oven. Turned on the pyrolytic function, and the oven is almost as clean as new. The only part that you need to clean yourself is the glass.
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Dublin, Saturday
Walked out of our apartment right into a bunch of homeless junkies arguing about when a shop will open, to get some food or booze more likely. What’s not to love about this city?
The bus to the airport is cheap, but takes only coins. Had to miss one and get change in a coffee shop.
The airport is packed and quite chaotic. You drop your baggage on one end, then go all the way back for security. Security was long. Even my laptop got checked, which never happened before. Not sure what they were looking there.
Some cafes at the airport are running out of food. We literally got the last two toasts. No more porridge as well.
Ryanair is late by an hour. Again. We decided that it would be a shame to visit Dublin and never taste Guiness, so we ended up sharing half a pint at 12PM in the airport.
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Dublin, Friday
Guiness is all around Dublin.
As well as social housing projects we’re familiar with from the UK.
Visited Henrieta 14 museum. It’s a Georgian mansion turned into a horrible tenement building, and reclaimed only some 40 years ago.
Surprised to learned that the first owner of the mansion remarried when he was 62, and his young wife gave him 8 children, which means he managed to stay somewhat sexually active until his seventies at least.
Also, while the family moved to their summer residence, some servants stayed behind to clear the cesspit in the garden, that accumulated shit from September to May.
After 1850 or so the mansion went into disrepair, and each room was divided into smaller rooms to accommodate a whole family.
Life was very hard in those tenements with some 7 to 15 children. Oh, I don’t know. Have you tried having less children maybe?
In general, it seems it’s the same tale everywhere. Urbanization of the 20th century created slums, and living in slums sucked big time.
The old lady that left the housing last actually had it alright, because she had the whole apartment for herself. If we forget about the fact that she didn’t have nor bath, nor working toilet in the building.
We then went to the Little Dublin Museum, which is just a few rooms. Again, the tour was packed, some 30 people. But this time most of them were from the UK. Almost local tourists.
The interesting bit of history was that the park in from of the museum was once a private park, and only the rich people living I the mansions around it had the keys. Reminds me of present day Edinburgh and some parts of London.
Had a farewell dinner in a nice local restaurant recommended by our host. At first we got a table by the toilets again, despite me making a reservation ahead of time. But after we asked nicely, they moved us to another table.
The food was delicious. Enjoyed every bit of it.
Taxis in Dublin work “sometimes”. There’s Uber, Bolt, Free Now. But sometimes you would get a taxi that is 15 minutes away. Sometimes you wouldn’t be able to get one for 15 minutes at all.
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Dublin, Thursday
Today we went on a hike from Howth. It’s just some 30 minutes from Dublin on a local train.
It was cloudly, so we didn’t get any sunburn. The trail along the cliffs was very well developed.
Saw a huge hairy caterpillar, maybe a Woolly Bear.
When we went through the heath, path became slightly less obvious. Saw something like a legless lizard, or maybe just simply a fat lizard, but didn’t have time to photo it.
On the way back from a train saw two foxes. One was just sleeping there in the bushes, despite the train. Another was unfortunately dead, probably hit by one of the trains.
Back in the city, hit a couple of local cafes before we managed to find one still serving brunch. One turned out to be more of a restaurant, and they had only a table for us by the toilets, while the other was serving brunch only on weekends, and just some focaccias on regular days.
It would be a shame to visit Dublin and not to try out a good Irish coffee. We went back to Irish Whiskey Museum for that. They serve it with Power’s Three Swallows. And it’s a good one, very warming.
Again three girls from the States sitting the in the bar. Barman asked one of them which whisky did she like the most, and she said “the sweeter one”.
Busses in Dublin are somewhat finicky. Had to wait for the right one for maybe fifteen minutes. It would be faster to actually walk, but we had enough walking for the day.
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Dublin, Wednesday
The traffic lights in Dublin is absolutely horrible. It’s easier to just cross and hope for the best than to wait. Otherwise, you can wait for a couple of minutes easily.
We went on a Historical Walking Tour, with a real history professor.
Learned that Temple Bar is not a temple, nor a bar. It’s named after Temple’s barrier, Temples being a wealthy trading family, and a barrier is the one used to dry parts of a river.
Also learned that there was an actual war between England and Ireland between 1919-1921.
The tragedy of Irish language is that it’s a spokenanguage that has remained only a written language.
I didn’t like Dublin streets that much. No trees, just rows of those four-story buildings:
Had a fantastic coffee:
Then we went on a tour of the Irish Whiskey Museum. It was packed, some 20 people, most of them from the States. It was so full, in fact, that during tastings they had to move us around just for everyone to fit in, as there was not enough place at the bar.
Tasted The Irishman, Powers and some Castle (Knappogue Castle), which turns out to be Bushmills in disguise. Nothing particularly blew me away as Aberfeldy did a couple of years back, though.
The stories they tell on the tour are completely false, though. “Dead ringer” has nothing to do with drunk people being buried alive, nor “saved by the bell”.
After that we went back to the apartment to rest. There is GBK in Dublin as well, so we ordered some burgers for dinner.
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Dublin, Tuesday
I love midday flights. They allow me to sleep well.
On the way to Gatwick seen two foxes. One was simply walking along the railway, and another peacefully sleeping despite the trains passing by.
Arrived at 11:10. Despite warnings to come early, we got past the security by 11:45, and that’s with just a single attendant handling the baggage. No self dropoff on Ryanair. Departure got delayed some 30 minutes at first, then 30 more.
Rynair seats are weird. The look like some garden chair, made of cheap blue plastic. There isn’t event a holder. So even if you take the magazine, you have nowhere to put it. Luckily, the flight is just an hour.
The Dublin apartment has the tiniest bathroom I can remember. I can hardly turn in it.
Dublin is full of gypsies. Not sure if those relocated here after UK made it less monetary attractive, or they were always living there and only going to the UK for “work”.
Everything feels a bit like the UK. Same language, same time zone, same type G sockets, same double decker busses.
Most of the restaurants in Dublin are closed Monday and Tuesday. Found a nice French restaurant that is open, though, called Pichet.
