Jared busking on Cruises Street, the main pedestrian street of Limerick. With him is another Killaloe-native, Shelley.

This one’s from later on that evening, at Chris’ house. If memory serves, this was when he was playing “Mr. Brightside” by the Killers. I sang the melody line with Jared, Viv, and Colin providing their own harmonies.

“Eccleston was a tiger and Tennant was, well, Tigger. Smith [is] an uncoordinated housecat who pretends that he meant to do that after falling off a piece of furniture.” – Lynne M. Thomas

Good grief.

Reading the paper is totally something I should do more often, though. Like, actually read the paper — the New York Times app on the iPad doesn’t have the same nostalgic awesomeness.

It’s exactly a year since I had surgery in Minnesota. It was the start of 3 months of city-living, with days split between physio and homework. I became the true American Hipster, who’d find a different indie coffee-shop to study in each day (pro-tip: Espresso Royale is good on this count).

Some pics from my time there:

The metal in my leg

Treble-clef goodness

Patrick in his natural habitat

Great concert

I was so hilariously ill-prepared for the cold weather. Yes, those are converse.

Thanksgiving

The Skyway (a series of overground tunnels connecting almost all the buildings in the city; see one across the block) affords some cool shots.

Snow

More snow. That is, incidentally, the view from our apartment.

I miss seeing this on my iPhone.

More skyway.

I love how it was -20ºC and sunny. Best. Weather. Ever.

I visited the Life Café (featured in Jonathan Larson’s RENT) three times in the space of the week I spent in New York; seeing the RENT-head register and eating huevos rancheros and enjoying the chipper, personable staff.

I’m really glad that they say that they anticipate a rebirth of the café “sometime in the near future”.

As Kathy Life says, life is worth loving.

I recently met my friend Jared in the George Hotel in Limerick and got this passable picture looking straight up at the hail-storm. Sitting in the cosy interior, swapping stories about Limerick theatre and writing novels, it was a very pleasant morning, the likes of which I’d love to repeat soon.

There’s a lovely sense of camaraderie sitting in a café with an espresso and a good friend, counting the seconds between the lightning and the thunder.

Also, happy birthday Christian!

Then, from the XKCD Blag:

Holy crap. This strip’s been up for 800 seconds and it’s already the most controversial thing I’ve ever written … It turns out everyone and their mother has a fruit opinion, and every one of those opinions is now in my inbox.

As it turns out, people are much the same about pizza. Specifically, what ingredients should go on pizza and which shouldn’t.

Above, La Cucina’s “Con Tutto”, which is pretty damn great

Pineapple, it appears, is not for pizza. I fly in the face of that particular piece of public opinion. Sweetcorn is also an unpopular choice, which I don’t get at all. Cold sweetcorn sucks, but when it’s slightly warm and on pizza it’s pretty excellent, in my opinion.

Coming soon (I seem to be saying that a lot these days), a post on my Dad’s home-made pizza, which I’ve been meaning to do for literally years.

August 17th, 2011. Grafton St., Dublin.