Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 427653)

opium is tar isn't it? everytime I've bought what was claimed to be opium it was.

Originally Posted by Adder (Post 427631)

Just to try to makes things a bit more about me, here is my thinking about my planned Irish excursion. At the moment, there isn't really any reason not to make it a rather long trip, in particular because I can be quite flexible on flights due to familial pilot relationships.

I am in particular interested in specific recommendations of any lesser-known spots that are worth a visit (be that towns, sites, pubs or restaurants).

I was in Ireland once before while in college. That trip, however, was limited to sleeping on the floor of my friend's (who was there for a semester) flat near the St. James Gate Brewery, which happened to be the worst flat I have set foot in, taking buses to Galway and Belfast, and a minibus tour of the Connemara. I've already forgotten Ironweed's tips on football kit, but as I haven't got any I'll just try to remember that Shankill is unionist and the Falls ism Republican. Having read more than my fair share of books on the Troubles, that shouldn't be too hard.

This time my intent is to rent (the smallest and cheapest) available car for a few weeks and try to cover some of the more out of the way places. A few questions in particular:

1. Is there a strong reason to go to Waterford? I was planning to bypass it while more or less moving around most of the island's coast.

2. Am I crazy to skip the Ring of Kerry? I'm planning to spend some time exploring the peninsula's of Cork (one of my ancestral homelands) and the Dingle Peninsula (along with Sligo and Donegal), so I think I might have it covered and what I have read suggested that the Ring of Kerry may be over infested with tourists anyway.

3. I am also planning to skip Limerick. Any reason not to do so?

4. Anyone have any coastal island recommendations? At the moment I'm not sure any seem worthwhile, but if anyone thinks, e.g., that the Arran Islands are unmissable, I may reconsider.

Originally Posted by Adder (Post 427631)

Just to try to makes things a bit more about me, here is my thinking about my planned Irish excursion. At the moment, there isn't really any reason not to make it a rather long trip, in particular because I can be quite flexible on flights due to familial pilot relationships.

I am in particular interested in specific recommendations of any lesser-known spots that are worth a visit (be that towns, sites, pubs or restaurants).

I was in Ireland once before while in college. That trip, however, was limited to sleeping on the floor of my friend's (who was there for a semester) flat near the St. James Gate Brewery, which happened to be the worst flat I have set foot in, taking buses to Galway and Belfast, and a minibus tour of the Connemara. I've already forgotten Ironweed's tips on football kit, but as I haven't got any I'll just try to remember that Shankill is unionist and the Falls ism Republican. Having read more than my fair share of books on the Troubles, that shouldn't be too hard.

This time my intent is to rent (the smallest and cheapest) available car for a few weeks and try to cover some of the more out of the way places. A few questions in particular:

1. Is there a strong reason to go to Waterford? I was planning to bypass it while more or less moving around most of the island's coast.

2. Am I crazy to skip the Ring of Kerry? I'm planning to spend some time exploring the peninsula's of Cork (one of my ancestral homelands) and the Dingle Peninsula (along with Sligo and Donegal), so I think I might have it covered and what I have read suggested that the Ring of Kerry may be over infested with tourists anyway.

3. I am also planning to skip Limerick. Any reason not to do so?

4. Anyone have any coastal island recommendations? At the moment I'm not sure any seem worthwhile, but if anyone thinks, e.g., that the Arran Islands are unmissable, I may reconsider.

Originally Posted by Atticus Grinch (Post 427673)

1. There is a reason to go to Waterford if your family is from there, as mine is. If it isn't, you can afford to miss it. It was a pretty important town during the Viking period -- perhaps one of the most important places in Dark Ages Europe -- but they have one round tower to show for it. Also, the crystal factory tour is cool if you want to to see hand-blown crystal being made, but if you don't, stick to the smaller towns.

2. Not crazy. Dingle is very similar. But the benefit of Kerry is that the towns along the way are in tip-top shape for tourism. An example is the town of Sneem, which could have you believing you're in an Irish town in 1880, or 1940, or 1970. I was there in 1992 and the roads were better maintained etc. precisely because it was overinfested with tourists. But in terms of landscape, you'll do as well with Dingle as with Kerry.

3. No.

4. The Arran Islands are worth a day trip, if only for the tour of the island and the Stone Age forts. I wouldn't recommend staying the night there -- I think there's one hotel on the island, but it's for hard-core types who want to say they stayed after the tourists left. Um, you ARE the tourists. I wouldn't say "unmissable," but it's a glimpse of Irish life that was pretty unchanged until the 1980s when there was regular ferry service. I think it's about an hour by boat, and then you marvel that people made a living off this godforsaken rock, lugging seaweed from the beach to make the soil.

Other recommendations: Kinsale -- one of the prettiest places I've ever seen. The Cliffs of Moher. Blarney -- not for the stone, for the gardens. (If I go back, I'll look for the town where they filmed "Ballykissangel," just for the kicks.)

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower (Post 427620)

I had a bad mountain bike crash last summer and the folks in the ER were practically pushing Vicodin on me. I refused it in the ER and (Sebastian -- stop reading now) never filled my prescription, but I know that I would have just loved the stuff. You don't really need to rationalize a reason for staying on it. My wife's co-worker -- a nice, smart, mild-mannered, 60-ish woman -- became hooked after a surgery by taking less than the recommended dosage and had just an abysmal lost week of her life getting off the stuff.

Originally Posted by notcasesensitive (Post 427635)

I do not suggest the vicodin/adderall/xanax combo pack.

Originally Posted by Oliver_Wendell_Ramone (Post 427628)

The "or" should be an "and," but otherwise you've just described my annual beach weekend with my high school friends.

Originally Posted by barely_legal (Post 427675)

Vicodin is interesting. I have a prescription for Vicodin to treat back pain, but I rarely ever take it (maybe half a pill two or three times a month). Although I love the stuff when I'm in a lot of pain, I've discovered that taking it when I'm only in a little bit of pain makes me sick. Obviously it affects people differently but I'm pretty glad that I have no desire to take it unless I'm basically immobilized by pain.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 427676)

Whatever happened to good, honest buzzes like coke, mushrooms and dope?

Xanax is what you take the day after - when you can't stand the fidgetyness of being in your own over-exhausted, dehydrated, paranoid skin.

...Or when you can't stand the annoyance of being at work, staring at a brief that means nothing, watching idiots stress in the hallway and bitch and whine about details in things that mean nothing and having your secretary come into your office and bleat about her utterly fucked and utterly meaningless inability to maintain a relationship and need some blessed distraction from the endless repeating question:

"Why am I not on a compound somewhere, a million miles from this gargantuan waste of energy, and all the terrific wastes of plasma circle jerking themselves to early heart attacks in this pathetic, pointless Matrix we call a 'firm'? Why do plagues always hit poor countries? In a world of such elegant and irreducibly complex viruses, why can't one rip through this office tower and put the components of this disaster - this indefensibly malignant spectacle of talent gone to rot and terminal neuroses - out of their misery?"

That's when you need Xanax.

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 427653)

opium is tar isn't it? everytime I've bought what was claimed to be opium it was.

Originally Posted by Atticus Grinch (Post 427673)

1. There is a reason to go to Waterford if your family is from there, as mine is. If it isn't, you can afford to miss it. It was a pretty important town during the Viking period -- perhaps one of the most important places in Dark Ages Europe -- but they have one round tower to show for it. Also, the crystal factory tour is cool if you want to to see hand-blown crystal being made, but if you don't, stick to the smaller towns.

Originally Posted by barely_legal (Post 427675)

Vicodin is interesting. I have a prescription for Vicodin to treat back pain, but I rarely ever take it (maybe half a pill two or three times a month). Although I love the stuff when I'm in a lot of pain, I've discovered that taking it when I'm only in a little bit of pain makes me sick. Obviously it affects people differently but I'm pretty glad that I have no desire to take it unless I'm basically immobilized by pain.

Originally Posted by Sparklehorse (Post 427681)

The Waterford factory closed last year.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 427676)

Whatever happened to good, honest buzzes like coke, mushrooms and dope?

Xanax is what you take the day after - when you can't stand the fidgetyness of being in your own over-exhausted, dehydrated, paranoid skin.

...Or when you can't stand the annoyance of being at work, staring at a brief that means nothing, watching idiots stress in the hallway and bitch and whine about details in things that mean nothing and having your secretary come into your office and bleat about her utterly fucked and utterly meaningless inability to maintain a relationship and need some blessed distraction from the endless repeating question:

"Why am I not on a compound somewhere, a million miles from this gargantuan waste of energy, and all the terrific wastes of plasma circle jerking themselves to early heart attacks in this pathetic, pointless Matrix we call a 'firm'? Why do plagues always hit poor countries? In a world of such elegant and irreducibly complex viruses, why can't one rip through this office tower and put the components of this disaster - this indefensibly malignant spectacle of talent gone to rot and terminal neuroses - out of their misery?"

That's when you need Xanax.

Originally Posted by taxwonk (Post 427684)

When I go into the ER with chest pain, the first thing they do after they make sure I'm not actually having a heart attack is shoot me full of morphine.

I can understand why people become junkies.