Thomil's Random Ramblings

For as long as I can think, I’ve loved music. From merely listening to it in the beginning, this matured into a love of singing that led me to join first several school choirs before spending ten years at a choir in Germany, eventually branching out into solo work on stage musicals, even managing to squeeze in an operetta for good measure. In fact, some of my earliest blog posts over on my German blog chronicle some of my experiences with a production of Fiddler on the Roof. So I’ve got a pretty good appreciation for music from the 13th century to today, and I generally like hearing music particularly live music. Given the current ongoing lockdown, one of the best and only places to hear any type of live performance is the city centre of Cork, which has always attracted buskers of all shapes and sizes. That in itself isn’t much of an issue. In general, street musicians have been a fact of life all over the world for probably as long as there have been streets and musical instruments, a...

When you don’t know what to write about, write about writing. Yep, it’s that time again, time to lift the veil about my working methods as a blogger, as I’m running low on ideas at the moment. When it comes to blogging, writing a blog post is only part of the process and one could actually argue that it's one of the easiest parts of the entire blogging process. Deep in their hearts, all bloggers have a certain self-presentation neurosis, a certain narcissistic streak, so of course, they'll want their musings to be read by as large an audience possible. Now all major blogging platforms offer powerful tagging and SEO options, and you’d think that blogger.com in particular, being owned by Alphabet and closely integrated into the Google ecosystem, is leading the pack, making it easy for your blog to be discovered and read. Unfortunately, given the sheer number of blogs out there, not to mention the questionable nature of some of them, this is not the case by a long shot. Which mean...

No, I won’t apologise for that pun in the title. And yes, it’s time to talk about coffee again. I’ve long had an appreciation for it, whether at home or on the road. In fact, one of the first reviews over on my German blog dealt with my first coffee pod machine, a Philips Senseo, back when I still lived on the outskirts of Frankfurt. So yes, I have a bit of form when it comes to this topic, and have kept this up even here in Ireland, though I did have to switch to a more traditional portafilter machine, as Senseo is not available in Ireland from what I could see. This portafilter espresso machine, which has served me well for eight years, has recently been showing signs of aging, with both the filter holder and steam wand leaking profusely whenever the machine is at operating temperature. At the same time, working from home had completely changed my coffee drinking habits. Spending well upwards of five minutes grinding the coffee beans, brewing the coffee and steaming up milk might b...

Ah yes, work. You don’t really want it, but you can’t live without it! For most of my working life, I’ve been involved in the IT industry to one degree or another, whether that’s as a Tier 1 Tech Support guy, a business development rep or, in my current role, as an analyst. My blogs have been running in parallel to that for most of that period, with my German blog starting back in September 2009 and this one following two years later. Through all this time, my output has waxed and waned, and yet, I’ve always had that feeling that I could be more productive, produce more articles. Now, this drive to self-improvement is of course innate to most of us, at least those out there who actually produce content. Yet for some reason, a feeling began to take hold over the last few years that this creative output was being held back by my job, by the industry that I’m working in. Granted, my current employer can be a harsh mistress, but is it really an issue, or has my mind been playing tricks on ...