In just 2 weeks time i’ll be heading off to London for 3 nights.
It was supposed to be a trip centered around a Michael Jackson concert, but we all know it won’t be taking place now!
photo credit: TW-Production
Today, i got a full £540 refund back from the package deal i had booked and due to fluctuations in exchange rates, i actually got an extra €40 back.
I March, when i booked the trip back in March, i paid €595.52 (equal to £540 at the time). Today, i got back €641.64 
Anyway, i’m now staying at two hilton hotels. Tower Bridge for one night & Canary Wharf for two nights. Both are ranked in the top 25 london hotels in tripadvisor (out of over 1100 hotels). I seem to be staying in hilton hotels all the time on my trips away but it’s not a conscious decision – i do price around and investigate before i pick a hotel and hilton hotels usually come out on top in reviews and value for money.
I’ve got tickets to see ‘grease’ (the musical) in the west end but apart from that, not much else planned so it should be much more relaxing than my last couple of trips to london.
Right now, i’m don’t think i can call myself ‘lazy’ and i’m pretty sure not many others would either 
But by surrounding myself with loads of new and exciting projects, if i get bored with one or two or three, i can switch to others and start working on them instead.
iwantideas.com has become a nice time killer for me… if i’m bored, lazy or have a bit of free time i’ll submit ideas to it. So that lazy time is in fact, very productive time… first of all, my brain is still working so that’s good. Then there’s the fact i own the site, so i’m adding value to it by adding content… then there’s the chance other people will comment on the idea or get spin off ideas and post them… that in turn gives me more ideas…
So although i may be just killing time initially, it could actually be extremely productive in the long run.
Other things i do when i’m feling lazy is to login to twitter with one of my many accounts… it could be theleavingcert, wifimapper, newmovies, iwantideas, my own account…. it doesn’t matter.
Let’s say i login to theleavingcert’s twitter account. I’ll search twitter for tweets relating to ‘leaving cert’. If i see people talking about the leaving cert, i’ll follow them. That ultimately gives the site exposure and helps me to connect on a one on one basis to my target audience. I might start chatting to some of them – that’s not time wasted in my eyes, it’s helping me to connect with my users and it’s helping the entire ‘machine’ to grow.
So i’ve created a highly efficient time-wasting policy where instead of watching TV or watching video on youtube, i’m connecting with people, adding value to my sites and helping to promote them.
It means that there is no distinction between work and play for me online – it’s all ultimately work, yet it’s not all taxing and boring – i enjoy it all.
June 2009 has been one of my best months yet online.
Earlier in the month, i launched iwantideas.com. It was followed closely by newmovies.ie. Chromeguide.com & facearse.com both got facelifts.
On June 10th, i got confirmation that i passed all my year 2 exams at college which means i’m clear to go through to year 3.
Several improvements were made to this blog such as a ‘popular posts’ section in the sidebar and a new design page.
I finally became a flickr pro user and since becoming one i’ve uploaded many photos and created several new albums – expect lots more to come.
I also took on a total of 4 paid jobs, some of which i’m still working on.
On the downside, Michael Jackson died and i had booked tickets to see one of his concerts in london. Yesterday, however, i got confirmation i’m receiving a full £540 refund though which will leave me about €300 better off than i expected.
So June has been a really busy month and July should continue that trend…
AEG, the company behind Michael Jackson’s 50 date sell out london tours are obviously in pretty big trouble now that the king of pop is dead.
Apparently they had the first 10 concerts insured, but for the rest… nothing. AEG president Randy Phillips said just a few weeks ago when questioned on Jackson’s fitness;
“I would trade my body for his tomorrow. He’s in fantastic shape.”
The same guy also said he wasn’t worried about getting insurance and that his company would be prepared to insure the concerts themselves if need be. Needless to say AEG is now facing millions in lost sales, refunds, payouts for staff, venue etc….
Here is their plan to limit their losses – issuing souvenir tickets OR offering a full refund.
Since he loved his fans in life, it is incumbent upon us to treat them with the same reverence and respect after his death
I’m taking the refund myself. I booked my tickets as part of a package deal so a full refund for me means £540. I can then use it to book a hotel in london for two nights which should cost about £240, so i’ll actually be ‘up’ £300 even though it’s my money anyway… i just wasn’t expecting to see it again.
Anyway, charging people full whack for an official ticket for an event which will never take place is not showing ‘reverence’ or ‘repect’ to either Jackson or his fans. It’s a blatent attempt by AEG to limit their losses. If they really cared, they’d issue a full refund AND the ticket.
These tickets will not go to the real fans either. As i pointed out when tickets first went on sale, many ended up in the wrong hands and now, things are gonna get worse for real fans, better for those touts who managed to get tickets originally.
Let’s see how much these sell for on ebay and how many sell on ebay…
This article appeared on the frontpage of digg today; Don’t get that college degree!
It’s an interesting read and i’ve asked myself this question time and time again…
As I write this, Google is putting every book ever written online. Apple is offering video college lectures for free download through its iTunes software. Skype allows free videoconferencing anywhere in the world. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and many other schools have made course materials available for free on their Web sites. Tutors cost as little as $15 an hour. Today’s student who decides to learn at 1 a.m. should be doing it by 1:30. A process that makes him wait 18 months is not an education system. It’s a barrier to education….
…..The system must change before students are made poorer, society grows less equal, the bright are left ignorant and “college” comes to mean a four-year pajama party intruded upon by the occasional group discussion on gender studies.
photo credit: Lower Columbia College
Although this article is aimed at the US and their top universities, the same questions can be applied here (in Ireland). I often wonder what would i have done or what would i be doing had i chosen not to go to college and wing it on my own.
Because i’m self motivated most of the time, i wouldn’t be doing nothing – that’s for sure. I would probably be making more of an effort to start up my own business. But i weighed all of that up before i applied for college and college was the ’safe’ option. The sensible option.
I suppose time will tell whether or not it’s been a wise move for me.
