Recent Updates

Unknown's avatar Michael Collins 10:37 pm on 08/04/2023
Tags: autism, Carroll's, Darndale, dirt bike, , Noonan, , ps5, psvr, psvr2, scumbag, ,   

Oh hi

Oh, hi there. It’s been a minute. So let’s catch up. Again.

I no longer work for Noonan. I still do security, but now it’s for a retail company instead of a security company. I work for a gift shop called Carroll’s Irish Gifts. I chose it herbage it pays better. Noonan was minimum security wage, which I believe is €11.65 per hour. When I got started they’re, I got €13 an hour. A few months ago i applied for another security job that paid €14. When Carroll’s found out, they offered me more money. Not €14, but 13.50. I accepted it for 2 reasons. Familiarity, and the job I applied for would have been working in Dealz (basically the Irish version of PoundLand in the UK). So yeah, I still work in Carroll’s. Although I am still looking for other jobs that aren’t security. I have made some good friends there though. Some of the best I’ve had since I moved to Ireland. They feel like a real family.

What else? Errm, I still have a kid. He’s 7 now. Officially diagnosed with autism. I can’t remember if he was when I last posted. Think he was all but diagnosed officially. He has sensory processing disorder and speech delay. He doesn’t speak as well as he should be, and he has trouble handling his emotions. Loud noises can upset him, which is unfortunate in Darndale because scumbags ride around on dirt bikes everywhere, including places you’re not supposed to. I hate Dublin.

I still have a girlfriend. She still hasn’t left me yet, somehow. I’m sure she’ll see sense one day. But it’s been 12 years so far.

OK, what else is there? I have a PS4 Pro AND a PS5. Lucky me, eh? But it did cost. A LOT. I really want a PSVR2 though. But it costs a bit more than an actual PS5. I do have the first PSVR, but I don’t really have the room to use it much.

I can’t think of anything else and I’ve just finished a 9 hour shift, and I’m tired. So bye

Unknown's avatar Michael Collins 10:22 pm on 17/10/2020
Tags: Boris, Corona, covid, , Donald, dunnes, Johnson, lockdown, Penney's, politics, trump, virus   

2020

Soooo… 2020, eh? What a mess. Coronavirus. Fires. Donald FUCKING Trump. Boris FUCKING Johnson. Racism. Fire. Let’s start with world news.

World News

Politics

You have to be pretty dumb to vote for Teresa May AND THEN Boris Johnson. Teresa May, of the Conservative party, messed the country up pretty bad. So people voted for the same damn party. And why? Brexit.

It’s been over a year since I posted something, so I can’t remember if I said this already, but people are using Brexit as an excuse to keep immigrants out. Of course, what they mean is they want brown people out. I doubt they’d care if it was French people wanting to emigrate to the UK, they just don’t want the brown people, from Yemen and Afghanistan, and all the countries that the UK are bombing or selling weapons to. Because that’s what they’re doing. That was when Teresa May was in power.

Then Boris Johnson. Also Conservative. He’s always been a slightly racist buffoon. They had the chance to vote for someone who has been trying to get equality for people in the UK for DECADES, Jeremy Corbynof the Labour Party. BUT NO. Let’s have the floppy haired idiot instead. And they still don’t have Brexit because the EU won’t agree to the crap Johnson comes up with 🤷‍♂️, so it hasn’t happened yet. And it shouldn’t.

Of course, both May and Johnson wanted to privatise the free health service, the National Health Service (NHS). So that’d mean paying loads of money for medical stuff.

Also Donald Trump. The lying, racist rapist. I still wonder how he’s still president. Surely even presidents are susceptible to the law? I just don’t get what’s happening in the USA. Why he’s gotten away with so much, despite evidence. And the Trump supporters. They just don’t care! They don’t care about anyone. What do they even want to happen?

There’s a vote about to happen against Joe Biden. He’s bad. But he isn’t Donald Trump bad. Not many people are. If Trump wins the election again, it’s just going to get worse for everyone. Including the Trump supporters. Is there anything more selfish than people who would make themselves suffer just to see people you don’t like (for no reason other than they’re damn bigots) also suffering? No.

Other Stuff

OK, that’s enough about politics for now. FIRES! A family (American, obviously) did a gender reveal party. I think during a drought. Near a forest or something. With fireworks. So they set half the state on fire. I think they got arrested or something. But Jesus Christ. I mean, how dumb…? Oh yeah, it made the sky red. And smoky, obviously. It IS fire 🔥

Coronavirus. Also known as COVID-19. It’s literally taken over almost every country and city and town in the world. It’s been PROVEN that wearing face masks and sanitising your hands and stuff slows the spread of it. But people are humans. So obviously wearing masks is limiting their freedom. Obviously they don’t care that their family members get it and die from it. And it’s been happening. Especially in churches. And ESPECIALLY in… You guessed it. America 🇺🇸. But I think we all know the story for that by now. Its been around since last year in China, and since I think February in Ireland.

Personal

OK, time for something closer to home. I haven’t posted in a while, so y’all (I’ve been saying that a bit recently) don’t know that last year, on Father’s Day, my dad died. Honestly, he wasn’t in a good state. For the last few months he’d just been in a hospital bed. He had loads of things wrong with him, including liver problems and foot problems, as well as other stuff.

I did get to see him a couple of weeks before he died. Good timing. I would have regretted not seeing him. I was at work when my sister told me. I had to take the rest of the day off.

So, how has coronavirus affected me, I hear none of you ask? Well when Ireland first went into lockdown, the Penney’s I was working in in Swords closed down. I had to ask the guy who gives me my shifts to find be another place to work. He put me in a Dunnes I’d worked in before for a while. Actually I moved between a few Dunnes for a few months, until Penney’s reopened again.

And when it opened, the queue was HUGE. They had to hire extra security to manage it. It was chaos. Anyway I was there for a few months, but they kept cutting the security hours and eventually I stopped working there, and I asked to be moved to a specific Dunnes.

So that’s where I am now. I like working there, but I don’t get a lot of hours, so I haven’t been getting paid a lot. But it’s all good.

Oh yeah, I guess I have Instagram now. I saw a lot of people were using it so I thought I saw should get it. Its http://Instagram.com/Micolps4. Anyway it’s getting late so I’m going to bed. Peace out, homies

Unknown's avatar Michael Collins 9:55 am on 24/02/2019  

Goodbye Dublin Town

Oh, hello peeps. Shortly after I posted about having fixed hours at Dunnes, it closed down. We was given just two weeks notice 

So the guy who does my hours a Noonan looked for a new place for me, and now I’m working in Penney’s in Swords, so I’ll need to go into town a lot less often!

Its not bad. I have a bit more responsibility than I did in dunnes, like opening and locking up the shop, and there have been some long hours. In two weeks I’ve had three 13 hour shifts.

It’s been tiring. Especially since Daniel has been ill and waking up several times through the night. He’s alright now though. He’s back to just waking up around 6, so back to normal 

I don’t mind working late, but there’s one problem. I can’t drive, so I get the bus. In the morning, that’s fine, but when I close the shop, it delays me just enough for me to miss my bus. And I’d have to wait an hour for the nest one. But I get a taxi instead. Unfortunately this costs me about €18 a trip, but it’s either that or wait nearly an hour for the next one. 

At least the longer hours gives me more money! Just not enough to cover a taxi ride!

Unknown's avatar Michael Collins 1:02 pm on 25/01/2019  

Testing it out

Oh, hello, my friends. I just thought I’d give the WordPress app a try. Looks alright. Doesn’t seem too complicated. I like the way you can 

Add quotes

I’m not seeing a way to underline though. Not like I would. It’s a lot like the app I started using for Blogger just before I stopped using it, Blogger Pro. The official Blogger app hadn’t been updated since 2016!

On both apps though, I’m not seeing any options to add tags. Like keywords. The official Blogger app could do that but I don’t see it on here or on Blogger Pro. Oh well. 

Already, that’s all I wanted to do. This isn’t a review of anything, I was just trying it out. So toodles.

Unknown's avatar Michael Collins 8:02 am on 14/01/2019  

An even Fresher Update

Hello again, folks.

So let’s see. I’m still a security guard at Noonan. I’ve been there a couple of years now. I’ve been made permanent at the store I’ve been working in for a while now, Dunnes Stores in the Ilac Centre, and I now work the same 9 hours every day since Dunnes got an extra 10 security hours a week.
Daniel is a big boy now, always wanting to run and walk everywhere. His speech has improved A LOT and he can have partial conversations and tell you what he wants. It’s actually very cute. But then he always is. He’s been at creche for a while. He started off just going in the afternoon but that was usually his nap time so we moved him into the morning, so he sometimes naps on the way home, but usually doesn’t at all, annoyingly.
I won’t be there to take him to and from creche now I’m working longer hours, except on Tuesday which is one of my days off, so I get up with him then.
Hmm, what else? Well I have a new phone. Again. I had that Timmy M9 for quite a while, then I got a Sony M4 Aqua. Eventually the screen broke and it stopped charging. Although I quite liked the phone, it didn’t have a lot of storage. Sony phones were bad for that. Also, I couldn’t root it, which I like to do with my phones. 
And now I have a BlackBerry Priv. I wanted a phone with a physical keyboard, and found that the Priv is a decent one, and I can get it relatively cheap. It has a nice big screen, and the keyboard slides away, like an Oasis song 
As always happens with my phones, I eventually cracked the screen. It’s pretty bad, but doesn’t usually get in the way. It also has two lines down the screen, a pink one and a green one. The green one started today, actually. I don’t know how. I’m thinking of getting a new phone, probably a BlackBerry KeyOne, of I can get it cheap enough. I think I saw it for about €230, just €50 more than the Priv. Only thing is, they keyboard on that one doesn’t slide or fold away, so it has less screen space. Decisions… 
OK, what else? Oh there’s one final thing that I’ve been thinking about working on. There’s been ideas flying around my head for it. But I’ll keep it quiet until it comes to fruition. If it ever does. 
Catch ya later

Unknown's avatar Michael Collins 11:46 pm on 02/12/2017
Tags: , , , , , l, , ,   

A fresh new update

Oh, hello. It’s actually been over a year since I last posted a blog. But now here I am.

Baby Daniel is bigger. Time does that. He loves running all about the place. He loves climbing things. He loves throwing things. He loves blabbering random sounds. He’s in creche now, for 4 hours a day. A slight relief five days a week for Tracey, and one day a week for me.

So. Work. I got a security job, the one where the office is in Swords. They started by putting me in different places, mostly in the city centre. Penney’s, Dunnes, Northside shopping centre, H. Samuels, sometimes even Croke Park, the Gaelic games stadium. But now I’m permanently in Dunnes in the Ilac centre in town. So come see me if you’re around. I work most days except Wednesday and Sunday.

With the decent money I get from work (€11.05 an hour), I managed to get myself a PS4. A white Destiny one. Not a pro though. Not yet. And a Vita. I’ve also been getting upgrades for my Amiga 1200. I have an ACA1221EC accelerator, a gotek floppy disk emulator, and a little adapter that goes in a slot at the back so I can plug in a compact flash card. But I think I broke something and it doesn’t come on. So I’m devastated. I might have a look tomorrow.

What else? Oh, I have Elite: Dangerous on PS4 now. I’ve been waiting ages for it, and I love it. I have a HOTAS flight stick to go with it. It’s a lot more immersive with one. Official PlayStation magazine also gave away a unique paintjob for the Cobra Mk III, which I obviously got.

Oh and I also have a new phone. New as in a couple of years old, but still the best one I’ve had so far, even better than the decent Timmy M9. It’s a Sony Xperia M4 Aqua. Only problem is the lack of storage, like Sony tend to do.

Anyway it’s late and I haven’t been getting much sleep these past few weeks thanks to Mr Wake-up-at-5am. That’s Daniel.

So toodles

Unknown's avatar Michael Collins 3:56 pm on 16/11/2016
Tags: , , , ,   

Some more changes

As usual, it’s been a while since I did a blog post. I know I keep saying I’ll do them more often, but stuff happens.

So, the work subject. After the short trial thing I had at McDonald’s, they let me go. So I’m currently unemployed. Again. So I started handing out CVs.

I gave one in to a cinema down the road, and left. And the security guard dude came running out after us (Tracey was with me) and asked if I considered a job in security. I did once, but I didn’t get the job for reasons I’ll explain in a minute. I told him I applied for a security job before but didn’t get it. He then told me I could do a security course and if I passed, he could get me a job in security, and gave me some details about it.

So I did the security course. It took up a few days over a couple of weeks and cost me €250. I passed. I actually got a much higher mark than I thought I’d get. Anyway, long story short, I’m now a qualified, soon to be licensed security guard. Minimum pay for it is €10.75 an hour. McDonald’s was €9.20. I didn’t know that the security guards at McDonald’s were making more than us, more than the managers I think.

I already have 2 jobs lined up. One is fairly close in Swords, the other is across the city in a place I can’t remember the name of. Well them are the places I’d be trained in anyway, they’d put me in a store or something in a different place.

So yeah, that’s good. I just have to wait to get my license to work for the close place, but the across-the-city one got in contact with the governing body of security, the PSA and asked them to make an exception for me, with a letter that lets me work for 90 days without a physical license, but only with that company. But my license shouldn’t be too long anyway. I’m hoping to work with the close one of course.

That’s enough work talk for now. I’ve got a new phone. Well, newish. I’ve had it for a few weeks and it’s been around since last year, but you know what I mean. It was really cheap as well, because it’s actually a Chinese phone. It’s called a Timmy M9. It has good performance for it’s price. It was €45 I think, and has 1GB of RAM, a 1.3GHZ quad core processor and an 8 megapixel, 1080p camera. Not bad for €45! It’s a surprisingly good phone. It even comes pre-rooted, so that’s saved me the job.
Of course a new phone is going to be one of the first things I buy when I’m working, after a computer, a phone for Tracey, a PS3 for Tracey and a PS4 for me. And I’m sure I’ll be getting baby Daniel lots of toys and stuff. The spoilt git.

Anyway that’s enough for now. I’m trying to get the baby to sleep. Toodles

Unknown's avatar Michael Collins 8:26 pm on 27/07/2016
Tags: , , , , flight, , joystick, lesbian, , megan, news, niece, simulator,   

Lots of News

I hath returned, my fellow heathens. As you can imagine, looking after a lil bub takes up quite a bit of time. That’s what I’ve been doing a lot of these past 6 (well, 7) months. So I’ll update you on how baby Daniel is doing.

He’s still a big, hairy baby. He used to have hair on his legs, but that’s gone now. Now he just has hair on his back and at the top of his bum. It’s quite cute and funny. He has the power in his legs to stand up. He just can’t balance. But then he’s not supposed to at 7 months. He also still has lots of hair on his head. In fact he’s scheduled for a haircut on Saturday.

He can kind of crawl. Just not in the direction he wants. Actually, the exact opposite direction. He goes backwards. He can turn fine. He can roll over fine. He just cant go forwards. He’s also strong. He can lift himself onto all fours nicely. Even make an arch sometimes.

As for sleeping, he’ll generally sleep the whole night, although the past couple of weeks he’s been waking up a couple of times, just crying for what seems like no reason. I usually just change his nappy, feed him, and he goes back to sleep. He often moves around in his cot as well. We’ve found him with his head where his feet should be.

Overall though, he’s a very easy to handle, quiet, fun baby. He is also super cute, has a super cute smile and laugh, and loves eevryone. Although the cats don’t love him as much. He likes to pull on their tails. Spock nearly scratches him because of it. Spock, for no reason at all, bit his head once. I think it was because he wanted to eat his hair.

Thats enough about the baby. I have some other news. On 10th August, I officially start a job! It’s at McDonald’s. May not be too glam, but right now, I’d scrub crap off a floor with a toothbrush if i got paid.  I have an “orientation” tomorrow. I don’t know what that is. Presumably I get a tour of the restaurant, get told about health and safety stuff, stuff like that. It’s full time, and is only a short bus ride towards town.

It looks like i’ll be working with someone i know as well. Tracey’s niece, Megan. Brill. She’s talkative and loud and gossipy. But she’s nice. And single! And a lesbian. So if you’re a young lesbian in Dublin, she’s your girl. She’s also the one that helped me get the job, so thanks Megan!

Also, for Father’s Day, Tracey got me a HOTAS (hands on throttle and stick) joystick, I’ve been after one for a while, mainly for the open source game, Oolite, which is a modern remake of the legendary 80’s game, Elite. There was also a sale on Steam recently, naturally i bought Elite:Dangerous, another game i can use the joystick with. I’ve also been raiding computer game shops for flight sims, like Flight Simulator X.

Anyway, that’s all for now. I’m goingto bed early because I have to be up early for the orientation thing tomorrow. I’ll be in bed watching Enterprise with Tracey for a bit. So see you net time. I’ll try not to leave it months next time.

Unknown's avatar Michael Collins 2:58 pm on 15/01/2016
Tags: , collins, , louie   

The New Baby

28th December 2015. After a total of about 44 hours of labour, my girlfriend gave birth to my son, whom we named Daniel Louie Collins. He weighed 8lbs 15oz.

At first, the contractions were infrequent and weak, and when we went into hospital early on 27th December, we were told to go back home and wait until the contractions are 5 minutes apart. So we did.

The next day, it wasn’t much closer, but we was due to go in for an induction anyway, so that’s when we went in. Her waters didn’t break, so they broke them with a hook thing. She eventually had to go on a drug to make her get proper contractions.

Eventually, they tried to make her give birth, but after an hour or so of pushing, he wouldn’t come out. He wasn’t even far down enough to come out. so they took her in to try and get him out with forceps, although they knew he wouldn’t come out with them. Which he didn’t. So they had to do an emergency caesarean. I was with her for most of the caesarean but they wouldn’t let me in during the forceps.

At 21.18, baby Daniel was born. But he’d swallowed some poo in the womb and he had trouble breathing, so they kept an eye on him for a while, and Tracey as taken into recovery, and he was put into neonatal intensive care (NICU). Tracey also managed to get a fever and wasn’t able to see him until the next day, and couldn’t come home for a couple of days. Then it went. then came back again.

Fortunately i got to see him later that first night, in his little incubator thing (which was actually called giraffe incubators or something. Giraffes everyfreakingwhere). And the next day i got to feed him. Unfortunately, because he had to be separated from us, and bottle fed, he’s got used to it and he refuses to be breastfed, which is what we wanted. Now he’s stuck on bottles.

Anyway, he’s fine now. Tracey is ok but is still a bit sore from the c-section. When i’m on the laptop (i’m on the tablet now), i’ll try and put some pictures up. There’s loads on my Facebook anyway, so go have a look if you have me on there

Unknown's avatar Michael Collins 12:07 am on 04/08/2015
Tags: , , interview, , , son,   

Baby and other Stuff

Damn son, I haven’t blogged in 6 months! Well i blog when i have something to say, and can be bothered. That’s now. Although I’ve had something to say for a few months now.

So some good news. My one and only love muffin, +Tracey Ryan , is pregnant. 4 months so far. We get to find out the gender at the next scan, which is this Friday. I’ll let you know what it is. (It’s a baby).

When we went to the first scan, it looked like the baby was lying back, very relaxed. Tracey said she could almost see it smoking a joint. Almost. It wasn’t.

Here’s a picture of the first scan (It’s big. The picture, not the baby):

First Baby Scan

She’s due on with December, but they say with the first baby, it could be up to a couple of weeks later, so we’re expecting a Christmas baby. We just hope it doesn’t interfere with the Doctor Who Christmas specia. 😉

EDIT: We’ve found out it’s boy, and it looks like we’re naming it Daniel. Although this may change.

In other news, I went for a job interview a couple of months ago, at HMV. I thought it went well. They never called me back.
Then about a week ago, I got a call from 3, the mobile network, asking me to go for a job interview. So it got set up, then the night before the interview, they cancelled it and said they;d set up another one. So far, they haven’t. WHY DON’T PEOPLE WANT ME?!

Anyways, that’s all for now I think. See you all soon, whenever i have something to post. Toodle pip