I’m in a band that I haven’t talked on my blog before. The name is “The Pirates” – which we decided to call our selves as some people disliked our original, unofficial, name “Pot Smokin Pirates”. Anyway we recorded an EP, at the moment it’s the untitled EP, last Saturday with Mark Clerkin. Keith Corbet and Mark mixed the tracks for us since then. And now it’s finally ready!

The Pirates are actually the first band that I ever joined. We went through various name changes since our formation three years ago, JesusMcGhee and the upstairs tomato tribute band, the eggsersizers, coke addix, farolite, pot smokin’ pirates…. I could go on! So basically I never ever want to change the name of the band again, it is now and will always be The Pirates. In fact I joined The Dominican Affair through being in this band! For a long time I have to admit that The Pirates were a joke, but this year in particular we have picked up and begun to get serious about it. Last year we ditched all of our originals except two, Mind Trix and Uthenasia, in order to have a fresh start. Usually we throw the things out but since then we have only written two songs, which are the two on the EP, “Cheesecake” (formerly “Boner on a Cheesecake”) and “Funk in My Toast”.

We have gone through various genres. Our older songs are all Punk Rock while our new ones on the EP are very funky. Well I should stop talking now! You can download the album or listen to it on our bebo page.

Download || Listen on Bebo

Any feedback is good feedback!

edit: It might not be on bebo for another few days after this post…

My Macbook

A few weeks ago I saw a bargin mac on ebay – link. After careful (spur of the moment) consideration I bought the thing. It arrived about a week later from Spain.

At first it seemed alright and I began configuring. Then I noticed that there was something wrong with the battery. It would only last for about ten minutes and then it would run out – even though the icon on OSX said that it was at 100%. Turns out that the battery is worn out and won’t charge properly. I contacted the company i bought it off and they told me that they would send me a new one. A week later it hasn’t arrived – but I trust that they will send it. It’s not a major set back as I can still work with the computer plugged in.

On the first night I got the machine I downloaded a combo software update, to upgrade from 10.5.4 to 10.5.7. When I restarted to complete installation I was greeted with the infamous macbook blue screen. Anyway what happened was I fell victim to a fault only affecting spcefic macbooks with this specific update. So, not much of a problem. Just stick in the installation disks and either repair the OS or re-install it. Oh shit, I have no installation disks. The feckin fella forgot to package them. I got in contact with him and asked for him to send them out.

When the disks arrived I stuck them in, then realised that they were Tiger install disks, not Leopard – which is a completley different OS. Adding to that the disks wouldn’t even install because they were built for a a different model! At this stage I got sick of waiting and went to a local mac guru to fix it. He re-installed Leopard for me and fixed it. A few days later I got the blue screen again!! I was so angry. I rang Apple for help and they asked me to pay them €50 for phone support. Not a chance. Then I tried to obtain a copy of OSX Leopard and was asked to pay $130. Not a chance.

After trying about every trouble shooting option available I gave in and began searching for somewhere to download Leopard. About 10 days, 3 Disks and 2 Bottles of Whisky later the 8GB disk was downloaded, let’s just say that I didn’t pay €130! Burnt it and installed. Works a charm! Finally, hopefully the problem won’t recurr again!

I like OSX generally. Web development works well with Mac as well. I can have the best of both worlds – Windows and Linux. I can have Adobe CS4, which I am downloading atm, and xampp at the same time. Pretty sweet! Anyway now I can enjoy the world of Mac and stability and all that…!