i forgot how much fun it is to update this...

So this website below has a great list of mash ups going with the theme of underage pop stars check out the mash up of miley and notorius b.i.g......with a little work i think it could be epic. (listening greg?)

http://www.earmilk.com/2009/10/19/mashup-monday-it-has-begun/

anyway yesterday was a a pretty great day...rode my bike to the financial district to sell an extra girl talk ticket and that was a totally crazy experience. welcome to cube city. suit city my friends. saw a chiliean bbq place which was cool.

got an expensive lunch with kringer which was great. nice to go out for lunch and not have to steal food from the cafeteria or eat a peanut butter and jelly. had a great chicken sandwich and garlic fries and a smithwicks. skipped my first class all semester to play some frisbee on the beautiful day. totally worth it but i might miss that mid term review we went over.

made myself a steak and cheese for dinner while watching the celtics dominate the cavs. lebron is a freak of nature though....just a blast to watch...

then went to see where the wild things are with a great throwback trip to the drumstudio before the movie. great times.


then we had a little visit from loNDonToWN!!!


check out this book i read yesterday at Trident on newbury....

http://www.amazon.com/Woodstock-Three-Days-Rocked-World/dp/1402766238/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1256226865&sr=8-1







annnnndddddd check out myspace.com/redbullwitchhunt

that will be a wild awesome time!!!!

i waited this long for a really important post...

I had to tell someone this and I thought a facebook update would be excessive. so naturally this is a better outlet right. sure.

Why is this Miley Cyrus song so catchy? why am i afraid mike is going to hear me listening to it? why is it so good? why?




and if your into other music i enjoy check out this new website called 22Tracks.

http://22tracks.com/

its basically a 22 song playlist of streaming songs that this guy that has good taste in music makes every week or so. a list for whatever mood your in. not much else to say about it but its definitely pretty awesome. made me listen to Jemina Pearl....you probably don't recognize the name but its the old lead singer of BeYourOwnPET. good stuff. shes pretty awesome so check her out.


tomorrow night (technically today) monday football we all are gonna root for denver. or for more than 48 points. either way would be great.

cue the bagpipes. tell mel to put his kilt on.

Edinburgh
So Lisa and I started our travels at about 5 am. Luckily I kept my skype on because my alarm didn’t go off and Lisa had to wake me up. The flight to Endinburgh was nice and short and only took about 45 minutes or so. When we got into the city center we amazingly found our hostel unbelievably easily. We just made our way to the giant castle and then right in front of our noses was the Castle Rock Hostel. Awesome! The name of my room as the underwear room and my bed name was Thong. That’s a nice little side point. After we got their we went out to explore the city. About halfway down the main street, the Royal Mile, we found a cigar store and decided it would be awesome to buy Ryan a nice Cuban cigar to smoke for his birthday. We bought him two, a Monte Cristo 3 and a Cohiba.

After the cigar store within a few minutes we walked by an overzealous tour guide encouraging us to join his free tour that afternoon. It was a walking tour and would take about 3 or3.5 hours to complete. While at first we weren’t sure if we were going to do it, by the end of the tour we were really glad that we had. Doug told us pretty much anything that we would have wanted to know about Edinburgh and even more. He was a fantastic story teller. Apparently Edinburgh is also a very haunted tour and the second half of our tour (after our lunch at an irish pub with a deal for tours) focused a lot on these haunting and all the stuff that happened in past history. Some crazy prison hauntings that have even been reported as recently as 2003. After our tour we went back to the hostel for a much needed nap. Since Lisa and I were in separate rooms we decided to just meet in the main room around 6ish. When I woke up from my nap though there was a guy named Allen who said that he was goin to go for a hike up this hill to watch the sunrise. Sounded pretty cool to me and I figured I would join him. The only problem was that Lisa was no where to be found and I had no way to call her or get into her room. So I left her a note and went for a walk with Allen and two other dudes from South Africa. I forget the name of the hill but it was at the very end of the Royal Mile next to the Parliament building. It looked steep but it didn’t take too long to get up to and the view was incredible. You could see the entire city and it was really awesome. It was also cool to talk to the guys because they were from such different places. (allen was actually a high school teacher in London but is from Australlia) On our walk back we went by a place that sold deep fried mars bars. Sounded interesting enough so we split one for the 3 of us. (one guy had given up chocolate for lent) It was a very interesting taste. I wouldn’t mind trying it again someday.

Anyway once I got back Lisa was hanging out in the main room and so we decided to walk down to the store and get some dinner. I told her all about the place we had just been and how we definitely had to take Ryan there and that it would be the perfect place to smoke his cigars. For dinner we were able to get some really cheap sandwiches from the grocery store and I decided that my beer of choice would be a Newcastle. Seemed fitting. We enjoyed some dinner and then decided to go to some clubs to see what the music scene was like. We went down to the main road where all the clubs are on and we made our first decision based on Doiiugs recommendation for a nice open mic night. I forget the name of the place now but it was like Colonel something or others. It was like 3 stories underground and smelt horrible and damp and was easily the dirtiest place I’ve ever been to for a drink but that just added everything to the atmosphere. It wasn’t that crowded when we got there and there were probably only like 10 or 15 people there but then after a little bit a tour group came in or a pub crawl or something and it picked up considerably. After that bar we decided to check out something a little bit different. We decided to go to ….. it was a pretty cool place and an indie band had just finished polkaying when we got there. The next group to go on looked like a total metal band but theyactually played cover songs and were actually really good. Theo only thing that they were bad at was that they played like crazy happy dance songs and then would play a slow not dancing song so it was pretty poor planning. Still really good though. We stayed there for an hour or so and then headed next door where there was a mates of state-ish band playing with a guy and a girl and a piano and guitar. That was pretty cool but ended not to long after we got there. On our walk back we got a little bit lost but luckily eidburg is pretty tiny so it didn’t take us long to right ourselves. AND we got some fries from some place called the pizza palace. A massive order of them that we ate all the way up until walking into our hostel. A great decision. We had had an awesome first night in Edinburgh and the next morning Ryan was due into the city for his one day trip to Edinburg for his birthday. Sweet.



So the day that Ryan got here we started out with a tour of the castle. A little pricey but something you have to do in the city. There were some cool views of stuff in their and a lot of the stuff was pretty self guided so it was nice. They showed you the prisons and the barracks and the meeting rooms etc. After the castle we grabbed a quick lunch at the hostel before making our way to the top of the hill. Before we got to the hill we took a nice little pit stop at the coffe shop where J.K. ROwling wrote harry potter. that was pretty epic. she had a great seat and you can see the castle that was the influence in the background.




We took our time walking over their and showed Ryan some of the highlights from our tour the day before. When we got up the hill the sun was out and the weather was perfect for an afternoon of chillin. At one point Ryan something along the lines of man it would be awesome if we had a few beers or something to do up here. Almost on cue, Lisa pulled out some Bullmer as I took out the box with his gift in it. He was pumped about the cigars and I think he really really enjoyed them. We hung out up there and smoked the cigars for close to an hour before we had to put them out and we all took a great nap. Once the sun went down we all got up pretty much at the same time and continued to just talk until we started walking down the hill. I thought it was a pretty good idea to roll down the hill and I think one of the two got it on video. So that should be fun to watch. After the hill I got Ryan and Lisa to try the fried Mars bar too before Ryan got on his 35 bus to go to the airport. I think he had a pretty sweet birthday. Definitely a great memory.





For dinner that night I made myself some awesome Paela from Lidl. Really really really great tasting dinner for myself and it only cost like 2 pounds. I definelty have to find that here in Dublin. That night we went to a few places for music but nothing was too special. At the end of the night though we ended up at a dance club called Caberet Voltiare. It was another really cool underground club that played some great house music. We left around 1or 2ish and didn’t stay till the end.

The next morning Lisa hadn’t met in the main room when we were supposed to so after I waited for an hour or so I just decided to go off on my own and meet up with her later. (Turns out she had woken up earlier, laid down to rest and didn’t wake up for a long time) Anyway I wandered on my own and some of the first places that I went were a few music shops. The first one I went in told me about a really cool skatepark about 20 minutes away that I though seriously about going to but I didn’t have my camera and I didn’t have any clothes that would be good to wear if I felt like renting a bmx. She also told me about a really sweet drum and bass group that was playing that night at a club. Even though it was a 6pound cover this girl made it sound totally worth it and I definitely was very interested in it. The next place that I went to was a record shop actually and the people there were also really really cool. I must have listened to 10 or 15 different cds trying to figure out which one to buy because I knew I wanted something to remember the store from. It was totally worth it and I ened up getting a double disc by a house dj called Dj Hell. Ive been listening to it for the last few days and I think it might be my new paper writing tracks. Anyway I kept wandering around and the next thing that I saw was the Sir. Walter Scott monument and that was basically a giant tower structure in the middle of Old and New Town dedicated to the author from Scotland.






I also found the coolest little cd store. It is pretty much like a newbury comics or the virgin store in new York with tons of music, movies, and books about music. Everyrthng was REALLY cheap and I immediately wanted to spend hundreds of dollars on awesome U.K. music and some cool books. I decided not buy anything but that I would come back and pickup a record or two before I went back to the hostel for dinner. My wandering also took me to the top of the first public park in Scotland called Canton Hill, where I was able to hang out and write some stuff down and read some of the free music magazines that I had picked up. After Canton hill I continued to explore and get myself lost only to refind myself time and again. I even checked out the Scotland Museum that had a special presentation on hands on science. That was fun to go to a science museum with interactive activities perfect for a 5th grader. I didn’t care that I was playing all the games and activities by myself. I loved it. Ha! After that I grabbed some lunch at a little deli where I also wrote some post cards finally and sent them on their way. About time I did that. Before going back to the hostel I was torn between going to the cd store or trying to get lisa to check it out too but I luckily decided to go first because I wasn’t sure if she would be home and I also wasn’t sure if I would want to walk all the way back after sitting on the fantastically comfortable couches they have at the hostel. When I got to the cd store it was awesome. They were playing the new YeahYEAHYeah’s cd that didn’t come out for a couple days over the pa and I was totally content to just sit on the floor reading magazines and books and listening to the perfection that is Karen O’s voice. The moment the cd ended the store began to close so I grabbed a few cds that interested me and checked out. I got a 2Many Djs album, an arctic monkeys Alex Turner side project, a book on 60’s history in Britain, and a book called …..

When I got back to the hostel Lisa was chillin and told me about her great day she had too. I cooked up the last of my dinner from yesterday and I started reading my …. Book. Right from the start I was hooked. Mark my words this book will be a movie someday. Every page I read I could imagine a scene directly out of my high school experience or something that I could easily relate to. While I couldn’t relate to everything I am positive I know people who could and I also can imagine certain actors playing the parts perfectly well. Some indie favorites. Think like Juno or Nick and Norah or Accepted types of actors. Those would be perfect. Anyway, I got so into the book that I didn’t even go out that night. I sat on the giant leather couch and read the entire thing, nearly 300 pages of it and loved every minute of it. I don’t even remotely regret staying in and I figure ill just see a drum n bass group another time. While I was reading the book it was one of the hostel employees last day in the hostel so all the workers or whatever had a nice little party together and were singing and dancing so that was a pretty entertaining side show. When I finally finished my book I rented an alarm clock and got ready for my 6 am wake up to get back to Dublin.

Overal I had a really really really awesome time in Edinburgh. I loved every minute of being there and would love love to go back. The music scene was incredible and supposedly Glasgow is the same way. I seriously am thinking about spending my week after school ends in Scotland and the U.K. It could be great. Seems silly to go back to a place I have already been though so ill probably stick with the Poland or Germany deal instead. Ahh it’s a rough life. Also I need a good peace out line like Eggy has…im influenced by his get into it. Im up for suggestions. It could be great.

So its a sunday morning and Uconn lost in the final four last night....tough loss. I watched the game on super slow internet but luckily I could catch the basic drift of the game on cbs sportsline. I am just back from my whirlwind of traveling, from rome back to dublin for a day and then to Edinburgh and now I am finally "home". First time ive slept in my bed for more than a few hours in like 2 weeks. Pretty nice without an alarm and my own bathroom a few feet away.

Anyway today I am going to try and write some stuff about my travels. I bought a really sweet notebook in edinburgh and I am going to try and type some of the stuff I wrote in it. Tons of pictures to organize but I have to try and get the good ones because Im sure no one wants to look at 600 pictures from Rome and the Vatican.

With that I will leave you with a nice little youtube nugget.

Its the can't-eat, can't-sleep, reach-for-the-stars, over- the-ocean, going to Rome in hours kind of stuff...

I want this picture to hang on my wall. So awesome.




(a little is cut off the sides for some reason....makes it not even.....)
.



My 10 year old self would want me to post this one.....




its pretty catchy...incredibly strange grouping of artists but whatever.




a good one to change up the pace.....these guys are great. obviously.




and then we can end with something that ashely sent me that has been on one of my tabs for the last couple of days..... ultra catchy though...be careful if you dont want this stuck in your head for the next day or so...dont say i didnt warn you.




(sorry I cant sleep because i leave for Rome in a few hours. and i dont want to pack. so this is my best option. )

side notes.
kenny bell thank you for making me listen to weezy.
listening to my itunes on shuffle has been blowing my mind lately. thank you for that. you get all the credit.

21 (an epic post about a beyond epic day)

So Friday afternoon I didn’t really do much because we had a pretty good time on Thursday night because that was Arnauds last night here before going to Paris. Didn’t do to much but I did get to use Katharina’s bike and she showed me where the infamous Aldi that I have not been able to find is located. Way cheaper than Tesco and a better cheap beer section. Sold. That was cool and she showed me her house down the street. She lives with a crazy Chinesse roommate who does nothing but whine and cook horrible smelling Chinese food that stinks up the house. ( Im sure my Main Street Flushing buddies would love that….:) After I got back home I found out that, at the last minute Katie kind of went weak sauce on me and said she couldn’t go to the concert because she had to wake up early for her flight to Spain. Maybe somewhat valid but she still owes me a good party to make up for it. When I went to ask Ryan if he wanted to go he was in no shape to party and go to a concert because he was sick in bed with a fever. His roommate though, Cian, was totally down for the show though even though he had never heard of Girl Talk. I was extremely extremely pumped that he wanted to go because he’s wicked fun and I knew we would all have a blast together. (marielle, lisa, emma, sarah, and the two of us. )
We did a little bit of pregaming at Ryan and Cians while playing COD and listening to some music. Definitely fun times. We headed out, feeling fantastic around 10ish. Ryan made me rip a little bit of his everclear before we left which didn’t end as well as it should have but whatever, “that that don’t kill you only makes you stronger”….yeah…that’s it….
When we finally got to the show, one can only imagine how beyond excited I was to be there at that moment. Similar to Dropkick on St. Paddys, or Big D on Halloween or pretty much anytime I’ve ever seen GirlTalk. I was amped. Even at Andrews Lane theater it was cool to meet so many other Americans who were there but had never seen Girl Talk. I even met a few people from my American and the Wider World class who recognized me as “THE BOY FROM BOSTON THAT THE TEACHER ALWAYS TALKS TO!!” I’m telling you I get more recognition from that class than anything else by a massive amount. Haha I love it though and it was great. The place was relatively empty when we got there but after the two opening acts went on I realized how full it had got and how crammed in we all were. When Greg finally came out on stage my life was perfect. He went on after midnight so it was officially my birthday when play your part came on. Damn. I freakin love girl talk. I helped boost marielle on stage and when I got on I was immediately by Gregs side with not a care in the world and no where else I would even remotely want to be at that moment. Literally. I probably could not come up with a better situation. After the show when I told him it was my birthday I got a high five and a hug along with his red hoodie he wore out to the stage. The man of the hour from Pittsburgh knew how awesome his life was and I like to think he knew how epic and legendary he made my 21st birthday. When we finally got home we were completely completely covered in sweat and disgusting. Luckilly Ryan was waiting for us with some cold drinks and some more COD before bed. Absolutely unbelievably beyond awesome and fantastic. I will obviously never forget how overwhelmingly fantastic it was and I still had a huge day on Saturday to go. Man life was good. God Bless America baby. I love college.







As well, I obviously survived my 21st birthday. It really was a fantastic fantastic day. Besides the fact that I’ve now been around for 21 years, Ireland played rugby against Wales for the championship of the 6 Nations tournament. Most people that read this wont really comprehend how big a deal this is, but Ireland has not won the 6 nations Grand Slam since 1948. That’s 61 years. Considering there are only 5 teams they compete against, the significance of the game was enormous. The bar on campus had set up some giant t.v.s and was playing all the days games leading up to the final match at 5.30. That morning I watched the France match with GShlan and Julia and Camille in Julias apartment. For no real reason what so ever, I got up off the couch near the end of the match and as i looked outside i saw someone standing by our window below. Standing there looking into the window was none other than Ty and his girlfriend, back form Galway!!! It was really really awesome to see him and meet his girlfriend and i am totally pumped he was here to celebrate the day with us. Before he left to go park his car at the B&B down the street he told me to come to the car with him where he had a little birthday present for me. As he leaned in the car he handed me a completely full case of Stella pints! (With a few Carlsbergs and Guiness thrown in for some color!) AWESOME!!!







What a great start to the day!!!

Before we headed over to the old bar I was able to talk to everybody back home on Skype and they all had good wishes etc etc.

By the time we got to the old bar with Ryan, lisa, emma and marielle, (everyone else was meeting us there) my day was already off to a great start. Ryan bought me my first drink, something I’ve never had before called a Paulner Weissenbeir or something. pretty good, strong, but kind of a fruity taste. We luckily secured a couch and kind of took it over from the people that were sitting next to us, but i dont think they cared too much. they were really cool. (shout out to Mary...hope your massive paper is going well after the celebration)

The game was epic and everyone in the place was going crazy the entire time. At the beginning of the game actually I bet 5e that one guy, Fitzgerald, would score the first try. (10-1 odds) About midway through the first half, Ireland seemed to score and the place went absolutely bizerk. I went even crazier when I saw that my man, number 11 had been the one to score! MY excitement was sadly short lived though because when they reviewed it, the ball had been passed forward. O well. The money went to charity and it was only 5 bucks. and that minute of excitement was close to worth it. ha ha.

Anyway, By the second half all my French friends had gotten there, Amparo, Katha and their group, along with Ty and his girl so we had quite a crew. The last four minutes of the game were absolutely insane, with 2 different lead changes, the last one when Irelands O'Ghara (face of the team pretty much) scored a drop with a 2 minutes to go to put Ireland up by 2. Everything was going great and every irish fan watching was counting down the seconds until the game would end. Then, with less than 30 second left on the clock, someone from Ireland committed a penalty. From the 49 meter mark, It was down to one final kick from a Wales player. If he made it, Wales would win. If he missed, 61 years of dreaming would alas become a reality.

A few seconds later, grown men began to cry. shouts of joy could be heard throughout Ireland. many a pint of Guinness were spilt on the floor, and the fields of athenry were sung countrywide by men and women alike linking arms and singing their favorite victory song. The waiting was over and Ireland were the champions!






After the game everyone was super excited and full of energy. Camille made dinner for us and he made his specialty which is pretty much just pasta and meat,onion sauce, but he does it really really well and its probably my favorite thing to eat here. It was Cam, G, Ty and Sarah for dinner so that was fun to all hang out before the people came over for the party to start. Right after dinner as I was getting something from the cupboard the lights went out and Jenny and Julia walked in with a cake with candles on it for me. It was really really really really great and I was totally surprised. I’m pretty sure there were 21 candles on it too.






Everyone was hanging out and luckily the French speaking was kept to a pretty low does. ha ha. I guess nothing to ridiculous happened at night, until we started playing Kings later on but I definetly think that everyone was there had a blast. Even sarah and Amparo and their german friends came for while in the beginning with ANOTHER cake for me! Katha was the only one to stay late though…that other group went into the city to celebrate someone else’s birthday and go to a club. ( I was plenty content to stay at home) Lisa was obviously there with her margaritas, Camille helped me with the bottle of Jamesons, Tomas and his girlfriend took some of my beers, Ryan manned up against whatever it is that has had him sick and drank his Everclear, Jenny and Julia were infatuated with each other, and Cyril and G watched us all make fools of ourselves….. so for the most part it was business as usual....haha... there should be some pictures online soon. Well maybe not all of them. Sorry Ger.

In all, my 21st birthday was pretty epic. Pictures to arrive soon.



right now it is Monday afternoon around 2.30. I just got back from a nice little constructive excursion where I picked up some food for dinner tonight. I am going over to my host families house and I am making them dinner so i went and picked up all the ingredients I would need for some hopefully fantastic chicken parmigana. I’m excited.
I also set up my bank account because my card finally came in the mail. sweet. and i saw my favorite bank teller there who wished me a happy belated birthday. shes great.

Katharina let me use her bike while she is in Cork so that was pretty awesome to be able to ride that to Tesco as opposed to walking too.

And now I’m going to go and cook like a crazy man. Cheers! Tomorrow at this time I will drinking wine with the two best American girls in Italy!

Get Into It.

So tomorrow is my 21st birthday. It is also the Ireland Championship Rugby Match against Wales. (literally i can barely type this right now) Tonight will be Girl Talk. This is epic. Ireland has not won the 6 nations title in something like 60 years so this will be MASSIVE. People here are planning on going nuts for it.


I am literally more excited than you can imagine. nate just sent me a message saying hes doing good, play your part just came on my playlist. my roomate just let me borrow 20 bucks to go buy drinks. shit this is awesome.











its a celebration.