Trust Tommy

Every time I wake up at 7am, I’m convinced I just won’t make it through the day. C’est impossible! said the stereotypical French wino. By jove, it’s mathematical certainty, old boy! said the quintessential university Maths lecturer, complete with tweed patches on his leather jacket. Not really stopping to think about why these people are in my head, I agree with him, and roll over, back to sleep. Luckily for me, I guess, Mom isn’t gonna take no for answer, especially not today, and woke me up again.

My brain, I’ve come to learn, has certain presets. There’s the ones for talking to boring people (*mildly interested look* Yeah.. mm. really?), acting (pull the plug on the nervousness, engage the line-learning section and before you know it, you’re taking your bows) and of course, the morning routine. The legs walk, the toothbrush cleans, the hand (just about) manages to complete the mammoth tasks like opening doors and closing buttons.

And so the morning preset took over and next thing I knew, I was dressed and trying to think of what to pack. Luckily, all the Young Scientist was already in the car, so after that nothing was terribly important. My laptop never really leaves my side, so that’s a given, but I’ll need headphones, my Flip! camera and my wallet. Once all that’s in a bag and the zips manage to close, it’s time to hop in the car and leave.

The journey is spent listening to Adam Pascal’s new album and mentally plotting drum rhythms. Recently, I’ve been trying not just to keep up with the song rhythmically, adding in my own tricks and fills along the way, but also to actually try and replicate what the song’s drummer is doing.

The other project from Castletroy College, entitled What’s wrong with man’s best friend?, is ahead of us and thankfully keeps us updated on traffic and weather conditions. Without incident, we arrive at the RDS and register.

In a climate where nobody will give you so much as the time of day, it’s nice that they provide helpful stuff to help you set up your stand. The handy stuff like scissors and blutack and people in red jackets are invaluable for people coming who’ve been solely focusing on what goes on the display, as opposed to how to get it up. Once again I’m glad for getting my display printed on A0 because it cuts the setup time quite wonderfully, instead of having A4 sheets that require gluing together.

It’s all a bit of an anti-climax really because once you’ve set up everything and said hi to your neighbours, there isn’t a whole lot to do. The internet, the world’s number one distraction/time-waster (wait, I’m supposed to be advocating it.. *coughs* Go blogosphere!) comes in handy for killing time. The problem is that on Wednesday, it ain’t open to the public, so nobody’s around to engage in idle banter with – on the subject of your project or otherwise, that all changes from tomorrow though.

There were a few people who came round and looked at it, including one who thought blogs were ‘a complete waste of time’. I tried pointing out how since my brothers don’t live at home, it’s nice being able to read what they’re upto. (This was completely in the hypothetical sense because my real brothers are too fail to actually write blogs…). “Ah well that’s different so” says she, and moves on.

The opening ceremony is next. Yer man from that show on RTE 2, The Café is the new co-presenter of the Young Scientist – I can’t say I watch it much but he’s quite good.

Next, disaster (sorta) struck, because I couldn’t find one of my locks for my Kensington lock – a wee chain which locks the laptop to my stand. I still have one, though, so all isn’t lost.

However, there were more people milling round, which meant I was happy because it was people to talk to. The judge came along, and I felt it went well, apart from the fact I was conscious of speaking too quickly.

Roll on day 2, in any case. If anyone’s around, I’m stand 3114, in the blue Social & Behavioural Sciences section. I’ll also be tweeting stuff like judging times if you wanna follow that.

I’m Tommy Collison on the floor of the RDS in Dublin, back to you in the studio.

I recently sat down at my drums and didn’t get up for 90 minutes. My hands, which’d been holding the sticks for such a long period of time, were in pieces and needed a good stretch because they’d been holding the drumsticks for so long.

I thought it was only long spells of typing that did your hands in?

Wait, between my two hobbies, I’m doomed, aren’t I?!

and

will be my downfall

Via Pat

If you see a post between this one and my Beatles one, or above this one, know that I didn’t publish it and my blog has been hacked.

It’s a server issue and outside of my control. I’m working on fixing it.

Hi.. I’m Tommy, and I’ve got a problem. It’s me, not you.

I don’t like the Beatles.

Photo owned by xemilysoo (cc)

No really, I’m not just going against the grain for the sake of it. They’re ok, but nothing sensational. I’m not one of those people who sat in their living room with the gramophone playing Yellow Submarine at the age of 12… I was in front of the iMac in John’s bedroom playing Blink 182.

Not that Blink 182 are sensational. Their drummer is something else though. Anyway, enough tangents.

I genuinely don’t get why people fawn over them. In my opinion, their songs were good – their singing? Not so much. Songs like When I’m 64 are quite good lyric wise, but their delivery style left something to be desired. What exactly? My fingers are itching to write ‘quality’ but I better not let them.

Oops, too late.

But that’s just my opinion – My kind of music involves crashing drums and killer guitar riffs (first 20 seconds), which, in my own opinion, is exactly what the Beatles need.

Am I alone? Am I a heathen who deserves to be burnt at the stake? Will I wake up tomorrow morning to a knock on the door from an angry mob wielding burning pitchforks and sharpened torches.

Wait, other way round, but same point.

This was found in a thread on a forum I joined a few years back, but I rarely post these days. The post was found in a thread asking what was wrong with today’s youth:

It’s good to see unconditional love so strong.

Speaking of unconditional love, do we think it exists? I mean, this person obviously doesn’t, or else they wouldn’t feel so strongly about keeping them on a path that they approve of.

Disclaimer: my parents both love me, and all that, it’s just that like all teenagers, I’m interested to see if that love has boundaries. I could rob a bank and see if they still loved me, but that’d require, well, robbing a bank. Trust me, it’s way easier just to muse about it on your website.

You’d think Apple would teach Safari these sort of words, wouldn’t you?

Or maybe since the browser dictionary is most likely based off the inbuilt dictionary on the computer, couldn’t Apple sneakily slide the Apple words (iPod, iPhone etc.) into that book?

Why does cycling rock more than, say, walking or jogging?

Cycling rocks purely because you cover more ground. Yesterday, myself and Dad went for a cycle around the back roads of nowhere. A nice round trip by Abbington and Barringtonsbridge for an hour and a quarter.

But what’s the appeal of cycling?

Photo owned by philippe.charles9 (cc)

For one, it doesn’t matter whether it’s raining. If you were simply standing outside having a smoke, you’d be complaining, but when you’re in the saddle, it feels oddly refreshing and cools you off. The only bad thing is when you wear glasses (like me) because it gets harder to see. Ah well. What’s that Harry Potter spell that makes glasses immune to getting wet? Impervius, that’s it. Remind me to try it next time I’m going out.

The second cool thing about cycling is that you do indeed go places. When walking, you see a hill up ahead but it never seems to get closer, while with bikes you see it and a minute later, you’re at the top, ready to go whizzing down the downhill.

…which brings me onto the third point: for every uphill, there’s a downhill, and I’m coming to the stage where I can’t decide which one I like more. Downhills are cool because you go fast and you have a chance to stretch your legs, while uphills provide a challenge and requires a burst of faster peddling.

It’s all good, chief!

Video games have pretty much always been embroiled in all sorts of controversy about what they’re encouraging our kids to do. Specifically, the Grand Theft Auto series have come under a lot of controversy for all sorts of reasons.

Photo owned by superkas83 (cc)

Reading through that Wikipedia article..

…New York City officials were appalled with the choice of their city as the inspiration for the setting of Grand Theft Auto IV, that a game like GTA does not represent the city’s crime levels accurately. A spokesperson for Mayor Michael Bloomberg said:

“The mayor does not support any video game where you earn points for injuring or killing police officers.”

As a response, Jason Della Rocca, executive director of the International Game Developers Association, accused New York City officials of double standards, for criticising video games but not other forms of entertainment, such as books, films and television shows, which use New York City as the setting.

This strikes me as a little odd. Della Rocca’s rebuttal isn’t entirely valid. Video games are completely different from books, films and TV shows, because you’re playing the game. You read/watch the others, but video games require a much higher level of participation. For this reason, I’d consider video games a hell of a lot more influential on kids than books or films. Della Rocca’s claim about books being as much trouble as such games is plain stupid.

When I did my CTYI Saturday morning course on debating, one of the motions we debated was how influential violent video games are on today’s youth.

I think the games are only dangerous as long as the line between right and wrong are blurred. So long as some teenager can play it knowing that this isn’t an acceptable way to behave in normal society, then there’s no problem?

But what do you think? Are we sheep, that if we see our character throw someone out of a car and drive off, that we have an urge to do same? Or are we smarter than sheep, able to make our own decisions?

I’m thankful for something today. Something big.

My Sunday Times piece reminded me that I still have no idea what I want to do once I wrap up secondary school and college. Yes, I do have some vague notions, but nothing concrete.

So, what exactly are you thankful for?

Like every kid (don’t deny it, you did it too. And you! and you and you and you and especially you!), I have gone through more career ideas than there are fish in the sea. I won’t bore you listing off all the different ones, they ranged from train-driver to closed captionist (you know your subtitles on DVDs? Closed captionists are the folks who write them.)

Wait, so what are you actually thankful for?

Oh, yeah, I should probably explain. In pretty much all of these career choices, I’ve thought:

This is indeed my final answer, let’s speed up time and start working!

Photo owned by Daquella manera (cc)

And there hasn’t been a job yet I’m glad that my wish hasn’t come true because I’ve yet to settle on a real job.

But hey, I have 4 years of secondary school left before any concrete decision is required.

I have time.