Tommy Collison

This Thursday, the school is having a concert, starring all the students of the school who do music. Yours truly is playing drums for them. For the first part, which is a melody of songs on recorder, I’m playing an African Drum, and for two GreenDay (probably not my choice of song, but whatever) songs: Holiday and Time of Your Life. For the GD songs, I’m playing my own kit, which is a DXP kit I’ve all changed around to suit myself. I decided to buy a cheap kit and upgrade, rather than buy a big huge expensive fancy one for two reasons: 1) If I found out drumming wasn’t my thing, I hadn’t invested huge amounts of money and 2) Buying cheap and upgrading gave me more choice.

And upgrade I did. None of the cymbals that came with my DXP are there any more. I have hihats and two crash cymbals. One an alchemy and the other a zildjian (bless you). The hihats are zildjian (gesundheit) too. The drums themselves are largely the same. I have all the heads replaced, the first two because they snapped out of wear, the second two because I knew the same fate would befall them before too long. In fact, the bass drum is the only one that’s really been untouched, unless you count the fact there’s 7 Apple stickers on them.

Oh, yes, that’s another thing. You know the way when you buy any Apple product, like an iPod or a Mighty Mouse? You get a few stickers with them, like in the picture. I raided all our old Apple boxes and stole them. I now have 10 that plaster my drum kit, although one is on my iPhone’s cover. In total, there’s 9 stickers hugging my drums, making them iDrums, (hyuk hyuk!) and one on my phone. Yes. As John says, I’m an odd child.

Underneath the Apple sticker is one saying “Ardteististiméireacht Gnáthleibheal: Leaving Certificate Ordinary Level

Above it is one for CARI, and their hotline. I’ve no idea what CARI is, but I guessed that if it was a hotline, it’s to be called, and where better to keep hotlines than affixed to your phone?

EDIT ~ 16:53 After receiving a wee email, I now know CARI is the ‘children at risk in ireland’ foundation. It’s for kids harmed by sexual abuse. Scary stuff