Trust Tommy

Yesterday, I stayed at home because I was feeling crappy. I was kept company by Rick O’Shea’s dulcet tones coming from my phone. No, he didn’t call me — I was availing of 2FM’s radio app.

From my phone — yeah. Anywhere in Ireland I have mobile signal I can now listen to pretty much any national radio station.

In The Simpsons episode entitled “Lisa’s Wedding”, which originally aired March 19, 1995, Lisa goes to a fortune teller who predicts Lisa’s true love – in 2010. It shows many popular stereotypes of what the future was going to be like — a flickering hologram of an oak with a plaque that reads “in memory of a real tree”, robots clattering past (although we later see they’re simply walking towards auditions for the Wizard of Oz) and cars hovering.

Of course, we still have trees and cars still need to touch the ground, but that totally doesn’t mean we’re not evolving.

Look at iPods as a prime example — launched in October 2001, see how much smaller they’ve become in just over 8 years.

I think that this is the way technology’s going — smaller and more intelligent. Our phones can now find us anywhere on the planet as well as acting as cookbooks, gaming devices and wheelchair remotes. We can receive SMS updates for just about anything nowadays and even control things like Sky+ with just a quick message.

While I’m sure that we will see some new inventions, I think that a lot of it will be improvements on what we already have.

To quote XKCD — The future’s pretty cool!

Right now, there’s almost a sense of… ‘how’d I manage that?’. Seriously, an entire year without chocolate. 365 days. 8,760 hours. 525,600 minutes.

Was it easy? Yes and no. When undertaking this, how easy you find it is directly proportional to how much chocolate you eat. I ate relatively little – we never stocked that much of it at home so my intake was mainly at parties and the like. That made it easier than if chocolate was always kept in the house and I dipped into that cupboard regularly.

The hardest part was when you were with people and they offer you some. As I’ve mentioned before, people can’t seem to get their head around that you’re not doing this for a specific reason. Explaining “well I was just wondering if I could go without it for a year” doesn’t seem to satisfy them, insatiable things…

Even when Mom’d make nice desserts I wouldn’t feel too great a pang, unless I really liked what she was making, such as toffee shortbread.

Up until about July, I always maintained that I wouldn’t be hovering over a chocolate bar on 1/1/10 at 00:01AM but now I think I just might. My parents getting me chocolate for Christmas may have influenced this decision.

What about next year? I jokingly suggested staying off it for another year; a notion greeted without enthusiasm in most corners. I don’t drink, so I can’t give that up, nor smoke.

Oh the conundrums I have to deal with…

Pity it isn’t at the end of the millennium – that’d be perfect.

Going over on my own (‘being posted’ is Mom’s phrasing) for four days to visit John and Patrick.

Yes, Olivia, I will bring you back some snow. :)

or, A brief history of TimeTommy, erm, TrustTommy

Not quite, it’s actually tomorrow, Sunday, but since the actual Web Awards is on tonight, this post is still valid.

As I tell folks, this blog started in April of last year. I still remember it.. reading the blogs of two hilarious UK friends who are unfortunately no longer blogging, late one Saturday night. I had a blog before that. In fact, I’d had several. They were daily blogs too but I could never do it properly. Having to start every post with ’sorry I haven’t blogged in y days’ got annoying after a while, especially when those around you (not literally, he was in MIT at the time) are emailing you asking where that new blogpost you promised was. Are promises that you make just to shut someone up still binding?

The blog I set up that Saturday night, I decided, was going to be different. Posting dates would be decided by me, no matter how many one line emails a certain US college IP address sent. Thus, TrustTommy was brought into existance, hosted on the lovingly-fragile Blogger.com servers. I believe posting frequency averaged about once every 2-3 days, and life was good.

That August, I got busy doing real-life stuff, as teenagers tend to do, right? The blog was neglected, almost to the point of a week. I was downstairs one night when I saw an @ reply on Twitter.

@TrustTommy Update your blog.. it’s beginning to smell

Can’t you just imagine the

With love, darling brother Patrick

that followed?

Heh, no. Needless to say I was annoyed. Look who’s talking, Mr. I-never-update-my-own-blog-and-when-I-do-it’s-with-odd-streams-of-*breath*-code-that-you-claim-makes-sense-but-probably-don’t. I replied to his tweet saying that, or something of equal indignation, and then something feverish clicked.

Right, you want personal blogging? Hmm? You want daily blogging? Right! I’ll show you I can do it! I’ll blog daily from now on, then will you be satisfied, eh?

A slightly odd thought process, but I was 14.. and we’re not renouned for crystal clear thinking, are we?

And so I began daily blogging from August 2008.

****

From August to October the blog grew. I used Twitter to meet new friends and having other, non-family people reading me meant that quitting would be much harder.

A blustery September was just rolling into an equally dreary October when I found about the Irish Web Awards. Not having a website, per sé, (there’s also the Irish Blog Awards for folks like me) I’d just be using such an evening to put faces to blog authors and Twitter folks. This was perfect.

So, October 11th 2008 came round, I went to drama class as normal and arrived home, wanting to get a definite answer as to whether I could go or not. Going on my own was, naturally, and understandably, out of the question, and John was reluctant to go. Eventually though, myself and Dad convinced John to bring me and I found myself on one of the old commuter trains to Limerick Junction, headed for the Radisson SAS, listening to The Dresden Dolls on John’s iPhone. They’re a great band, that I discovered that day. Told ya it was a good day.

Now, with a high (300ish, I believe, but I could be wrong.. It was a year ago and I was kinda drunk that night*) concentration of bloggers, twitterers, er ers and other assorted web folks meant that we couldn’t be the only web people on a train bound for Dublin that night. This was before I had my iPhone, so it was up to John to whip out his one and search nearby tweets. And who’d we see?

Conn Ó Muíneacháin! :)

We got a taxi to the hotel and thus began a great night. I met a load of big bloggers and was so impressed at them that as we left, I said to John that I wanted to be like them – and blog properly. My blog was daily, but there was (and I’m allowed to say this, I’m the author) an awful lot of crap on it. I know there’s at least 4 people who would say it’s full of crap recently too – but this was different.

I also decided to move off lovingly-yet-still-really-annoyingly-fragile Blogger. It started with getting my domain and finally I jumped (no, not the shark) onto Wordpress. So much better. If we’ve any Blogger folk in the audience, move to WP now :)

So, this is the one-year anniversary of sorts of Trust Tommy starting properly.

Do I get cake?

* Kidding Mom, please drop the saucepan raised in anger.

Disclaimer: Image is not mine. I take no credit. It’s Ken McGuire’s

Cóir, the social Catholic, conservative Eurosceptics who campaigned so hard for a No vote, released this message to their supporters yesterday:

Dear

Just a quick update to thank you all and to give a few important messages.

- Firstly, from everyone in Cóir, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the magnificent effort you put into making the second battle against Lisbon such a truly inspired campaign. You’ve been a brilliant, wonderful team. God Bless you all. We’ll be sending a full report later this week.

- This is a grubby win for the elite, driven by fear and bullying. In the three days before the vote, the people were subjected to a media onslaught of Yes propaganda threatening ruin and isolation if people voted No. It was unprecedented and utterly disgusting.

- We succeeded, however, in raising several crucial issues, including, of course, the right to life, and the increased profile given to those issues in Lisbon 1 and 2 will make a big difference to our work going forward.

- In the next five days we need to make sure that every Cóir poster is taken down or we will face VERY stiff fines that we can’t pay! Can you ensure that EVERY poster you put up is taken down please? If you see a poster which you can’t take down please call us on 01 8746858 and we’ll get onto it.

- We’re looking to have a special Cóir meeting on November 1st and will contact you with further details shortly.

God bless

Niamh

Oh dearie me. Whatever about the rest, point 2 stinks of sour grapes – much like the fact that it’s only those who do badly in the Junior and Leaving Cert that bitch how it’s a crap system that puts too much pressure on the students. Lads, if one guy can do well, you all can.

But this isn’t about students – is it? Nah, it’s about Cóir.. big eejits.
_
Found via Suzy – Great comment from Rosemary by the way

Before I answer the knock on the door from the angry, pitchfork-weilding maniacs who despise anyone mentioning Christmas before it’s December, I’m not actually talking about that – well, not exactly.

December in our house has, since 2004 (is it really 5 years this C****mas?) been lovingly intertwined with the Young Scientist, save for the gap between the time Patrick won it and I reached Secondary School.

Photo owned by kretyen (cc)

For new readers, this isn’t my first Young Scientist. In my first year, I entered it with my project of ‘What are the Issues faced by Children with Cerebral Palsy in Mainstream Education”. It was pretty topical for me because I was a wee little first year in a sea of 1,200 other people. Trust Tommy, which was beginning to gather speed, was used to tell the folks who’d be coming to the Exhibition to pop round to Stand #403 or #404 (can’t remember which now) and also to keep a quasi-running commentary about what was going on, the highlight of which was when I nabbed the helium balloon from the girl in the stand next to me (doing a very interesting project about how Wii Sport Tennis compares to Real World Tennis, by the way) and did a sound recording of me squealing: Hiiiiii! This is Tommmyyyyy Collisonnnn of TrustTommmmy.com.. reporting on…… HELIUM!!

The blog is only bigger today than it was last January, so I can only imagine that it’ll be much the same this time round – people who’d be coming to the RDS anyway, find out that their friendly neighborhood blogger is one of the entrants and pop round to my stand. They get to see what are the issues faced by children with CP and I get to put a face to a name or an 140×140px avatar. Win-win!

Right, 300 words later, I’ve yet to chat about what my project this year is. I’ve obviously still to be approved, but we’ll be optimistic and all superstitious and talk about it anyhow. :)

It’s a bloggie project, of course. :) I had an epic phone call with Bernie Goldbach earlier and have another one lined up for tomorrow.

In short, this will rock :)

Photo owned by WizPip (cc)

providing I get through :)

Preab san Ól, the song I talked about yesterday, tries to tell us to spend all our money on drink because ‘we can’t take it to the grave’. While we perhaps shouldn’t go that far, I think it has a point. Actually it doesn’t, but it’s not a bad sentiment.

The truth is, people are becoming too uptight. Yes, I know we’re in a recession and all that ‘tightening our belts’ malarkey, but I honestly think people take things too seriously.

The biggest danger I run into with this post is sounding like some brainless person who’ll never work an honest day in his life – too busy partying.

Photo owned by worak (cc)

Now, there are totally times when one should be serious and stop and think about things, but I think we do that a bit too much.

I read so many angsty blogposts about people lamenting lost opportunities – as college-party-animal as if sounds, life’s all about throwing yourself into the fray. I didn’t much think about singing in Music yesterday, and I’m totally glad I didn’t. If you stop and think about things for too long, opportunities slip away.

When I talk about jumping into the fray, I don’t mean taking stupid risks – but non-stupid risks (they totally exist) are cool, and encouraged. Would Auctomatic have got so far had people just sat around drinking endless frappachinos and mochas and mochachinos? Well, OK, I’m sure a lot of thinking went into Auctomatic, but a lot of doing did too – and I’m sure Patrick and John and Harj and Kul would be able to tell you which did more – thinking stuff through or getting stuff done!

Photo owned by virtually_supine (still catching up – not well) (cc)

Maybe that’s what you should take from this. Like practically everything in life, a balance is required. Doing is as important as thinking. Doing without thinking is only bad when you end up doing a bad thing :P

The old phrase ‘Success results from 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration’ or ‘paralysis from analysis’ back up my point exactly. If you’ve got a good idea, run with it and work out the finer points while you’re working. Better to be scolded for not thinking something through then to sit on your ass all day working every little detail out.

So, don’t think too deep :)

I was asked in the comments of my previous post about my thoughts on the Lisbon Treaty.

That’s two guys putting up No posters on a flyover near to my house. Just two guys in a Ford Transit park on a bridge, hop out and affix the posters either side of the bridge and drive off, presumably to their next spot. I stopped to watch them for a while and saw one of the guys actually hop over the barrier onto the little foot-wide space to tie the zip-tie thing. I’m not that scared of heights but the thought of nothing in the war of a barrier between me and a motor way scares me somewhat.

As for the actual voting, I would vote Yes were I able to vote. The problem is I don’t actually know all that much about Lisbon itself. I probably shouldn’t even be blogging out this because it’s such a massive can of worms.

Wikipedia has an article but that’s confusing me more. Writing this post really has opened my mind about how little I know about it all. I know that the naysayers think our neutrality would be challenged but the Yes folk says that’s not a problem. I really don’t know, and this post is becoming shockingly rambly. Shame on me

On another note, the local primary school (well, one of them, we have two) is totally everything I associate with voting on stuff. Elections and Lisbon 1.0 were voted upon there and (I imagine) Lisbon 2.0 will be done the same way. I didn’t go to that particular primary school (went to the other local one) so my view of it is purely going through the big red door, turn the corner and into room 18, polling station 1. It was the same when we lived in Tipperary – the other local primary school was the ‘election place’.

So, 310 words later, you know I’d vote Yes, but I’m not sure why

what the post title’s alluding to

My first full week back at school has been rather good. Like I’ve said, I miss waking up at 12:30 (got up at 08:30, shock horror) but perhaps that’s for the best. I’m back at school, where our work is being geared toward the Big Scary Thing In June 2011.

Colloquially, it’s known as the Junior Cert. My name is better.

I won’t do the usual angst-y teen thing of going on about how it’s an incredibly flawed system and so on and so on because I’m not a very good angst-y teen.

That, and I don’t really have much experience with it, or the Leaving Cert. Patrick never did the latter and I was away in Tipperary intern-ing for most of John’s.

The Leaving Cert was that thing you did in between coffee in La Cucina. For this reason, state examinations and fruit tarts are forever intertwined, in my mind at least. I rather like this fact.

In other news, I’m in the process of jailbreaking my mom’s iPhone. It’s going swimmingly. By swimmingly, I mean.. OK. There are two main steps to what I’m doing:

Upgrading her to 3.0 and then re-jailbreaking her from there. I’ve done the first, leaving me with a rather expensive paperweight, which I’m trying to convert into something that can call, text and tweet.

Update ~ 17:51 Managed to fix her iPhone. Not before wiping her personal contacts/text messages though. I fail sometimes

Yes I’ve defaced the cheque til it’s unrecognizable. But, you can still make out it’s a cheque!

From the ‘Times. This is going straight into Saturday’s let’s-go-to-the-zoo fund :)

Maybe I could bribe the weather not to suck!