Trust Tommy

Nah, this isn’t one of those silly Facebook quizzes, this is me pondering what my favourite one is.

It probably depends on my humour. Sometimes I’m feeling quiet (TrustTommy? Quiet? I must be dreaming!) so I might settle for something like Yo Yo Ma or the Vitamin String Quartet doing covers of famous rock song. (Their one of Clocks, by Coldplay is rather good)

But more often than not, I’d prefer something louder. Something with kickass drums and some fast-plucking electric guitars.

Because of that, I can never decide what my favourite instrument is when people ask me. Cellos sound lovely, but drums make me feel happy inside. Flutes make sweet music but electric guitars, well, rock!

Photo owned by Amanda M Hatfield (cc)

Am I a big fan of classical music?

Very select classical music. Ones that are just one instrument are okay, but I wouldn’t listen to it for a whole car journey up to Dublin because I’d get bored. Multiple instruments are okay too.

I think I like pretty much all classical music so long as it’s short. I don’t generally have a short attention span, even when it comes to music (I once listened to the same rock song on repeat for 6 hours. Overkill much?) but I still can’t stand one of those 8 minute pieces. Is a 4 minute song played *counts on fingers* 90 times any better than an 8 minute piece? Probably not, but the rock song was my favourite song ever. Like, ever ever ever

For that week, at least.

So, what’s your favourite musical instrument?

…Can be found here. I’ve updated it and made it timeless. I made it timeless by removing any bands I’d previously named as ‘favourites’. The problem is that my ‘favourite’ artist changes every week. Last week it was Louis Armstrong, this week it’s Anthony Rapp, next week it’ll probably be someone like Yo Yo Ma. I’m just that different.

Go check it out. New image too!

My Skullcandy earphones seem to be doing something funky, the sound sometimes only works in one headphones, fading out and about. Normally, that’s fine, but some of my songs feel the need to split the male and female vocals between earphones. For example, California Dreamin’ by the Mamas and the Papas,

Males: All the leaves are broooown
Females: All the leaves are broooown
Males: And the skyy is greyyyyy
Females: And the skyy is greyyyyy

But thanks to my banjaxed earphones, I get:

Males: All the leaves are broooown
(pause)
Males: And the skyy is greyyyyy

…Which doesn’t sound half as impressive, does it?

So, I’m asking you a favour, can you recommend a good pair of earphones to me? I’d like them to be in-ears, because outer ear ones don’t cancel enough music, therefore making them unsuitable to drumming. Price range? Let’s say 50 euro or less.

Thanking you in advance!

So, as my 8th month of not eating chocolate draws to a close, my mind is drawn to next year. I really don’t know whether I’ll go back on chocolate in 2010. I definitely don’t see myself counting down the seconds until January 1st and then cramming as much Cadbury’s into my mouth as possible.

The thing about my chocolate habits was that the only real time I ate it was at parties, there was never much chocolate around the house anyway. Okay, this December 2008 post disagrees, even saying I’d love to be able to say that it’s all because of Christmas, but we both know it’d be an utter lie... Hm, how do I explain my way out of this one? :-)

Giving up things is fun, and I’d totally be interested in giving up. Chocolate was the only substance that warrants giving up; I don’t drink, smoke or engage in wanton drunken debauchery, no matter what I tweet.

What I should do is I should take something up now to give it up January 1st.

Oxygene – Part IV – Jean-Michel Jarre

That’s this week’s music recommendation

…that new Apple laptops have that lovely smell about them, and new school books have one, yet one makes me happy and one doesn’t.

Photo owned by playerx (cc)

No more getting up at ridiculously late hours for me, unfortunately. It’ll be back to 7.55am starts from Wednesday.

Was it a good summer though?

Totally

Best summer ever?

Probably

From my two internships -the one in Dublin was especially cool because of the added independence that came with it- to going to France and America.

France was alright. The cycling was fantastic because the roads are fantastic, but camping is getting harder, probably because of my joints getting stiffer.

The USA totally rocked. Everything, from the night before the flight, having surprisingly deep and personal conversations with friends over MSN and listening to the same song for 6 hours straight, to coming home and trying not to fall asleep while getting my picture taken for the Sunday Times, was totally awesome.

And while I was actually *in* America, it was really cool too! :)

Photo owned by rkramer62 (cc)

The hotel was quite good, with wifi achievable even from our 7th floor bedroom. I bought my MarkCoat, which is totally awesome, and I’m considering getting a MarkScarf to go with it.

Seeing the hospital where they operated on me in 2004 brought all sorts of funny nostalgic memories. As in, the 5 days actually in a bed weren’t cool because they had tubes sticking into me every which way and I was all lethargic from being in bed all day (yes, I’m lazy, get over it).

Of course, the aftermath at the hotel and at home in Ireland was probably no better. Learning to walk twice in 10 years isn’t exactly a claim to fame, but there’s no doubt it was all worth it after I started walking better.

In 2004 in the US I was all over 007. I could name you 20 cast members from each film and even knew Q’s real name, with Mum going so far as to suggest I was confused as to who did the surgery, James Bond or James Gage. (Hint: it was the latter!)

Fast forward to 2009, Bond has fallen out of fashion with me. I can probably name you 10 cast members and Q’s last name if I pick my brains.

No matter, I’ve got other things to be addicted to, House M.D would spring to mind.

Photo owned by lviggiano (cc)

So, am I looking forward to school on Wednesday? Can’t say I’m exactly jumping up and down at the thought :)

I wanna be one of those people who observes life, as well as participating in it

I wanna record as much life as I live

I wanna see as much of life as I can

Photo owned by StewBl@ck (cc)

I wanna listen as much as I talk

I wanna give as much as I take

I wanna contribute something useful

I wanna

Disclaimer: I’m not talking about my own mother. Wouldn’t that be awful stupid? What with her blogging too? If you think you know who I’m talking about, you’re wrong. There’s a possibility you’re right, but assume you’re wrong :-). Let’s do an American military on it and don’t ask, don’t tell.

I’m going to be quite unspecific in this post, and I do apologize. :)

Parents are odd people. To describe them, I was going to use my fat ones, thin ones, ones that climb on rocks joke, but it’d make it the third time I’ve used that joke in a month, which just isn’t cool. They do, suffice to say, come in all shapes and sizes, all demeanors, personalities and parenting styles.

Not being a parent, it wouldn’t be my place to say style one is better. Let’s just say some parents are better at handling things than others. For example, my parents are good at handling my interests, like drumming or blogging. The second parents aren’t. Allow me to explain:

Mr. and Mrs. ET live in Dublin, with their offspring, ET Junior.

One day, the kid -as people often do- found out about my blog, and developed an interest in it. After a while, ET Junior asked me to set up a blog so that the kid could blog too. I obliged and the blog went up.

Then I discovered ET had had a discussion with his offspring in which a number of hard and fast rules were put down. I became a little uneasy about the blog’s success when I heard them, but didn’t say anything. I learnt later that one of these was that nothing could be published without ET and ET’s spouse seeing it.

Very communist China, don’t you think? They’re fond of censorship too.

ET junior decided he didn’t want to blog, surprise surprise, under these conditions.

If nothing else, the experience taught me two lessons: I appreciate my own ‘rents even more, and that blogging isn’t appreciated in all corners of the world. It is in Chéz Collison though, so we’re grand.

Last night I got an email from John, who’s gone over to Boston, saying that he’d got his Harvard address. Like his previous one, containing his new phone number. I didn’t pay too much heed to either email because I couldn’t see myself trying to contact him other than on MSN and via e-mail.

When the second email came in, I did notice something cool. A zip code!

When you order things off sites in America, you enter your shipping address, and you select Ireland instead of the default America. Now, the clever sites know that here in Ireland we don’t do things like zip codes, and removes the field, but others aren’t. They think Ireland engages in these things, which we don’t.

And because of that, I usually have to counteract this sillyness by entering a code of 0000. To thwart me, some sites have been taught that 0000 isn’t a valid code, and don’t allow it, forcing me to use something like 1111:

If anyone (especially anyone in Arizona, where my package originated) asks, Limerick’s zip code is 11, right?

But, now, thanks to John’s email, I won’t have to invent anything ever again!

According to American tshirt websites, I’m Tommy Collison of Limerick,Massachusetts. 7502

It’s good for conversation, it’s good for learning what Apple’s next move is (possibly) going to be, it’s good for 50 people watching a movie at the same time.

But it’s better for this:

15 responses later, I had traipsed up to John’s room and yoink!ed the 1GB USB memory stick off his desk.

The file is now safely on Mum’s laptop, ready for use. Woo! :)