End

Hello again my old friends. Well I've decided I'm going to stop using Blogger and transfer over to Wordpress. I've already imported my posts from here, so now you'll find then, and me, at michael.family.blog.

This probably means I've lost all my views though. I had 22,000 odd. Ah well. Maybe I'll get more on WordPress. Go check it out anyway

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Things That Annoy Me

The title of the post says it all really. This is just a simple list of things that annoy me. Things people do, things that just happen in nature, anything really. The list WILL get longer as things enter my head. I won't be able to think of everything now. Here you go. In no particular order, other than the order that they come into my head as i write it

1. People who drive with their headlights on. Even in the sun, sometimes. Ok, it may be a bit cloudy and dull, but not to the point where having headlights on increases visibility for you
2. People who make no attempt to get out of the way when you're walking past them. No, it's ok, I'll move. I'll walk on the grass and mud. Every time.
3. When people don't indicate when you're trying to cross the road at a corner. Then make it look like it's your fault. If i'm crossing the road and someone tries to turn in my direction without indicating, they can wait for me. Not my problem, I can't mind read. If you hit me, it's only your fault.
4. The sun being low when the floor is wet. It's obviously blinding. And not in the cockney way. Because that means it's good. But this isn't. Although there isn't much I can do about nature. Maybe go out less.
5. Wooden floors. Especially in bedrooms. They're cold in winter! (Or British summers)
6. When jobs ask for people with experience. Which seems to be 'most every job in the 'verse (extra points if you get that reference). So obviously it's hard to get experience at it when they all want experience. Yeah, i know there's internships and junk.
7. Windows Update. More specifically, when you update Windows, and it prompts you to restart. I don't wanna restart right now, i'm doing something. I know i can postpone it for an hour, or 4 hours, but then it asks you again. Just piss off. That's why i try to use Linux. Linux rarely asks you, only when there's a kernel update, and even then you can click on "Restart later", and it's gone for good.
   
8. Free to Play games when you get something very useful, REALLY SLOWLY. For example, i play Star Trek Online. I sometimes get a lock box for killing enemies. To open the lock box (which is obviously locked, hence the name), i need a key. To get this key, it costs a currency called Zen. I need to buy Zen from an exchange with refined Dilithium, which i get from doing missions, getting from an asteroid near Deep Space 9, and things like sending crew members to do missions. It costs a lot of Dilithium to get a Zen, and a lot of Zen to get a key, or you can buy Zen with real money. So as you can imagine, it takes a long time to do. This is a long point!
9. When people (usually Americans) use times for their timezone for something the whole world uses. Let's use Star Trek Online again. Obviously it's an American company. Despite it being an MMO that countries around the world use, they mostly use their own timezone (PST) to give times for maintenance. People not in that time zone will have to work it out, which can be more difficult for non-Americans. They should just use GMT. Everyone knows the time difference from there to where they are. It's mostly 5 hours ahead, of the east coast of America. If that makes sense. Speaking of time, that brings me to another point.
10. Americans using doing the date the wrong way. It's DATE (like 22nd), MONTH (January), YEAR (2015). So that makes it 22/1/15. Americans do it 1/22/15. How does that even make sense. If they're going to screw things up, they might as well  do the time as 45:23:55. (11.45pm).
11. Religious people. "It says it in a book. That's proof it's true". Also "I don't like that bible quote, so I'll ignore it. Look at this one instead, it says the opposite."
12. When people reverse into driveways or parking spots. Wouldn't it be easier to drive forward into the small space, and reverse out into the large space? An exception would be if the boot (or trunk, as they say in 'murica) would need to face inwards.
13. Drawn on or fake eyebrows. What's the point? It doesn't EVER look natural or normal. Just stop it. You look ridiculous.
14. When people record videos holding they're camera vertically. That's not the natural orientation of videos. It makes videos look narrow when you play them. Except on a phone of course.
15. The word "homophobe". A phobia is a fear. They aren't scared of gay people. They're just judging bigots. Not like it's got anything to do with them anyway. Gay people should make a word for the fear of straight people. Heterophobe. "I'm scared of catching their heterosexuality".
16. Hackers, modders and cheats in games. They can't do good properly so they cheat their way victory. Especially in GTA 5 and Call of Duty.
17. When sellers don't categorize things right on eBay. It's going to be harder to find the item if it's not in the right place!
18. Minions and Frozen. I see that crap EVERYWHERE! Mothers go on about Frozen all the time. I'm fed up of seeing them. And minions are just overused on social media. They're used on quotes that they actually didn't say, and are nothing to do with them. Stop using them.
19. When people call Tesco "Tesco's". Tesco's what? Tesco's shop? No. It's just Tesco. you don't call Asda "Asda's", or the Pound shop "The Pound shop's". So stop it. It only seems to be with Tesco. No other shop that i can think of. Oh, Marks and Spencer! People call that Mark's and Spencer's. It's not actually called that.
20. When people take pictures of pictures to put on social media. Just scan it! it's much better quality! It wouldn't even be so bad if they actually made what they're taking a picture of take up the whole picture (if you know what i mean). But it's usually at an angle or at a distance, giving it a border so it's hard to see.
21. When you're queuing up at a checkout, there's people in front and behind, then another checkout opens and the people behind go to that checkout. YOU'VE JUST GOT HERE. WHY DO YOU GET TO GO TO THE NEW CHECKOUT? I've been here longer than you!
22. Over simplified versions of words. Like "thru" and "lite". Probably Apple's fault about the use of "lite". What they mean is "demo".
23. I see lots of shenanigans as a security guard. One thing (actually two) that annoys me that people do is take clothes off hangers, look at them or whatever, then throw them back into the clothes without putting them back onto the hanger. Or just take something, walk somewhere with it, then decide they don't want it and put it somewhere else. Although I'm occasionally guilty of that.
24. CYCLISTS THAT MAKE UP THEIR OWN ROAD LAWS! If you're going to ride your bike on the road, you obey road laws. I see them running red lights all the time, even when I'm crossing the road.
25. People that take up 2 seats on a bus. Either with a bag, by sitting on the inside seat, or with their elbows out, like the woman next to me right now (I guess you could say she's the inspiration for me adding this one in). They're just selfish people. If they won't move and there's no more seats, I'll tell them I'll just sit on their lap. I haven't needed to resort to this yet. YET.
26. While we're on the subject of buses, people who just get to bus stops, usually as the bus just arrives, and just jump ahead of everyone else. A bit like the checkout one.
27. Since becoming a security guard, I'm getting annoyed by more things. People who take an item of clothing off a rail, look at it or whatever, then throw it on top of the rail, usually without even putting it back on the hanger. 
28. People who come in with a drink or something that'll end up with rubbish when finished, then just putting it on a shelf. That's not where rubbish goes. Having said that, we could do with a customer bin.
29. "ATM machine". THE M IN "ATM" STANDS FOR MACHINE!

That's all I can think of right now. There's more here than I thought I would think of actually. I'll add more when i think of them, so it'll be updated occasionally, so keep checking back. For now, though , live long and prosper.

A Short Christmas Poem

As the time of year that everyone buys presents for everyone else, mostly because they feel they have to, I remember that when I was a kid, I had to write a poem for English class at school, for some competition or something. As christmas was approaching, I thought I'd theme it around that.

I lost the hard copy of the poem ages ago, but I'm going to whack it down here for you, as much as I can remember. I can't even remember what i called it. And yes, it IS supposed to be that shape. More or less. And this was made at a time when i actually liked christmas, and got excited about it.

I

put

up the

christmas

tree some time

in November. I just

can't wait till the 25th of

December. Lot's of presents 

under the tree, and half of them 

are just for me!

That's all i can remember. When it was complete, it was obviously in the shape of a christmas tree. It was so good, i was chosen to get published in some book for up and coming children poets or something. But i forgot to hand the form back in and it didn't get published. I don't know whether it was the content, or the fact it was christmas tree shaped, or both. Ah well. That's what blogger and other blogging sites are for i suppose.

Pokemon

When i was a kid, I used to watch the Pokemon cartoon (sorry, anime) before i left for school. I watched it for a long time, I saw most episodes of it's early days. In fact I think I saw every episode up until Charizard Chills, and just a few after that. It was only the cartoon I was interested in. I knew there was a card game but at the time that sounded too complex, and I wasn't interested in it. I didn't even know about the Gameboy games for a while.

Eventually I lost interest in Pokemon and stopped watching it for a long time. But recently, since discovering it on Netflix, I've got back into it. It also spurred me to start playing the games. Unfortunately I never had any Gameboy consoles until recently, when Tracey gave me a Gameboy Advance SP. But I still didn't have any Pokemon games for it. So i got my hands on some emulators and started playing games on them.

I have an emulator on my Galaxy Note (and laptop), and I've been playing Pokemon FireRed. Since I mostly watched the early series of Pokemon, involving the original 151, I went for the games based on the originals, and FireRed is the enhanced remake of Pokemon Red, which had the first generation 151. Although I do wanna work on the second generation, which had 100 more pokemon, and more moves and items. and had more features in the games.

So far in FireRed I've put in about 50 hours of gameplay and caught 60 and seen 97 pokemon. I dunno whether that's good or not. I just get some varied pokemon, work on leveling them up, and let them evolve naturally if I can, although there are some exceptions. Some can only evolve with special items or through trading, which is why i'm trying to get Tracey to play. If i get some good pokemon, i'll start levelling them up instead by going to my hometown and start fighting some pokemon.

Anyways, that's all for now. Toodles

Mork the Cat

For a few months now, me and Tracey (mainly Tracey) have been wanting a kitten. We'd been asking a few people if anyone had any kittens, but no-one did.

Then a couple of weeks ago, a kitten just came into the house while Tracey's mom was talking to a neighbour. We'd asked around to see if anyone owned him, but no-one did. So we kept him.

Eventually we named him Mork, after the death of Robin Williams, although i wanted to call him Mario because he has a moustache like the Italian plumber. But eventually i gave in and started calling him Mork as well.

So i suppose you all wanna see him. Fine. We're all suckers for cute cats on the Internet. I've made my Facebook cat album public, so click on this if you wanna see it. It'll open in a new tab. Or window if you have a crap web browser. In which case, get Chrome or Firefox.

I also made a couple of videos of him chasing his toys around and put them on YouTube.

Part 1 won't embed so watch it here

And part 2 is here

If for some reason part 2 won't play, the link is here.

Yep, he's cute, but he's a damn biter and scratcher when you try to move him while he's lying down, or weirdly, on the stairs. When he's curled up in a ball he looks like the Firefox logo.

So that's all for now, I think. In a while, crocodile.

UPDATE: A few days ago, we let Mork out, and he disappeared for a good few hours. Longer than he'd been out so far. Eventually, Tracey went out to look for him. Eventually she found out that he'd been picked up by his original owners. Turns out he'd been missing for about 8 weeks and they'd put up wanted posters and eventually given him up for dead.

Apparently, when Mork had seen the owners, her ran up to them and the kids cried, thinking he was dead. Anyways, we haven't seen the little blighter since. And now we have no cat and some cat stuff that's not being used so has been bagged up and put away. Although we heard that another neighbour's cat just had kittens but we haven't heard from them since. I'll keep you updated.

UPDATE 2 (7/8/14): We got new kittens today. Two. A black and white one and a tortoiseshell one. I'll put up pictures in a bit when i can be bothered. We've named them Sulu and Spock. Obviously they were scraed at first when they first came here, especially since Tracey's nephews are down here. And they're crazy and loud. I'm surprised the cats made it to the end of the day with them around.

Irish Words

Hello friends. I've been living in Ireland a few months now, and since I've been here, I've learned a few strange words or phrases that might have some weird meaning that English people aren't used to. So I'm going to list the ones i can think of right now and add any that occur to me later. Here we go:

That's gas: That's funny
Deadly: Awesome or cool
Your man/woman: A man or woman that is the subject of a conversation
Runners: Trainers (Sneakers in America)

Press: Cupboard 

Hot press: Airing cupboard. This:

Black: Busy. Example "it's black on the beach during the summer"
Skanger: Chav

Roar: shout

Giving out: having a go

Lashing: raining

Chipper: chippie (chip shop)

Scarlet: red faced, usually with embarrassment

Lashing: raining

Now in a sec/,ow in a minute: neither now, in a second, or in a minute. Usually in a few minutes, if you're lucky

Wrecking my head: annoying me

Kip: mess 

That's all I can think of for now. I'll add more at a later date as they come to me. I'll try not to leave it as long between blog posts. It's just a quick one to show you all I'm not dead.

Possible Book Plot?

Hello friends. I'd like to tell you about a dream I had a couple of nights ago. A plot for a book came to me. Well it didn't start off as a book, it was just a dream, but I thought it'd make a good book, and I developed it further in my mind when I woke up. Anyways, the story goes something like this:

An ex brain surgeon turned college professor (or some kind of teacher) rescues a girl who has been attacked, but her head has been badly damaged and she won't survive unless her brain is taken out and put somewhere else. So my weird dream thought it'd be a good idea to put this brain in a giant robot dog, a lot like a big Sony AIBO:

Sony AIBO

But the professor develops some kind of feelings for the girl brain/robot dog. Maybe love or a father/daughter relationship, and he decides he wants to put it in a human body. That's all I got to. I never thought about if/how he got a human body with no brain.

I also developed a bit of a back story about why he isn't a brain surgeon anymore. His wife got killed by some burglars or something, and later on, one of the killers is taken into surgery after a police shoot-out and the professor recognizes him and refuses to work on him, and he's the only brain surgeon that can save him, so he let's him die, and gets fired.

Soon after I did some thinking about the back story and starting thinking of more detailed plot points, i realized the story was stupid and gave up. Although, weirdly the story stayed in my mind for a while.

Anyway, that's all for now. Read this and get sharing to everyone. Toodles

Slum Life

Hello friends.

So as I mentioned in my last post, I am now living with my mom. But fortunately, i got paid on Saturday, so I've booked the ferry tickets to see +Tracey Ryan. And I damn well can't wait to get out of here. It's been horrible.

• There's no working vacuums
• The hot water takes ages to warm up
• Most parts of the house don't have a carpet
• You have to put money in the TV to watch it. Luckily i have my TV
• Nail clippers are very hard to find
• My bedroom (which used to be my sister's, so is pink and has glow in the dark fairies on the wall) is full of my sister's stuff. When i first got here, it had loads of junk, most of which was moved into the attic or thrown out. There's still some junk in there now
• No-one opens the curtains. I have to do it
• No-one closes doors behind them. I have to do it
• No-one does the washing up. It's always "someone else's turn". I usually end up doing it
• There's junk everywhere. Even before i brought my stuff here
• Pretty much everything is dirty. I'm literally scared to walk around in bare feet. I'm always in my slippers
• My sister is a lazy, stupid, uncaring git who only gives a damn about herself and whatever boyfriend she happens to be with at the time
• There's always stuff left around the floor for people to trip over. Mostly left by my sister
• When people finish off a toilet paper roll, no-one changes it. I have to
• There's no space for my few toiletries (razors and the like). They have LOADS of it
• They're both female smokers. They are constantly coughing. Especially mom with her "chest infection"

That's all I can think of right now, but I'm sure there's more i haven't thought of. I might add more later.

For a while there was no internet, but being the genius I am, i used a SIM that my mom uses in a "broadband" dongle, and put it in my phone and used it as a wi-fi hotspot, so now we all have internet instead of just one computer. Although obviously it's slow. And signal is usually quite bad, and sometimes didn't work at all. Another problem with the T-mobile/EE SIM is that they block content which they deem "adult", and when you go over the unfair fair usage policy (which isn't much), they also stop you watching YouTube, even when the videos are embedded on a website or something. Chances are, if you use YouTube a lot, you're going to get through that fair use policy very quickly.

I also didn't have any internet on my phone because I've used it all and it doesn't get renewed until 4th November. So for several days

Because of the lack of internet, I wasn't able to do much for job searching. I told them that at the job centre and they seemed to let me off. Especially since it's their fault. But eventually they paid me, and now i have a decent amount of money (for now). I'm going to try not to spend too much of it. I might buy a PlayStation Vita when the knobcentre pays me again on Monday, but other than that, not much else.

On an unrelated note, this my my 50th post. I think I've done pretty well. I've got over 13,700 views. To other people, that may not seem a lot, but it is to me. I'm sure there's more popular blogs out there by normal people like me, but ah well. I do seem to be getting several views every day. It's pretty consistent actually. Just today I've had 8, and yesterday I had 7. Last month i had 354!

Here's my latest stats for the past month:

Stats from the past month

And stats from all time:

Stats from all time

Anyway, that's all for now. Next time i blog, I'll be living in Ireland with my girlfriend. Until then, chums. Toodles

No Money, No Family

So i still don't have a job yet. And not only do i not have a job, i'm also not getting paid by the Jobcentre anymore because i didn't do enough to look for jobs one time. So they stopped paying me for "4 weeks". But they didn't start paying me again. I phoned them and they said that i need to send a form in that they didn't receive. So i sent it off again and they said it'd be processed and all that junk, by Monday (30th September). Now its 3rd October and i still haven't been paid. I'll be phoning them soon to find out what's going on. I have £37 in the bank and a bit in my wallet. Once that's gone, i have nothing.

I've been trying to sell some things but no-one will buy them. So because i have no money, i can't pay rent, so my dad is kicking me out soon. I'm going to have to live with my mom. And i don't get fed there at the best of times. And i don't even know if she has internet. My dad is also cutting off the internet. So that makes the computer (that i gave him) pretty useless. He cares more about his money than me. I'm just a big old burden to him. Well sorry that i have to buy food to stay alive. As if he doesn't make me feel useless enough. He points it out plenty. To everyone. Loudly. Including the cats, and i'm sure the neighbours know.

I had my phone cut off because i had to stop paying it. I've cancelled subscriptions to stuff like Netflix. Because of the Jobcentre's error, i have to try to sell stuff to survive. I essentially have no family. No support. Just me and my possessions and my girlfriend. She wishes she could help. I don't like asking for help. Anyone who knows me even fairly well knows that. But now i really do. I'm not asking you, the readers (although i won't turn down anything). I just need to get this off my chest.

Obviously the people who are supposed to be helping, the government, aren't doing anything. They don't care if i have money. I find that disgusting that they care about money more than treating humans good. But it IS the government. They've never done anything for the good of the country.

I badly want more than anything to move out and live with +Tracey Ryan. If i'd booked the ferry sooner, i would have been out of here weeks ago. And if i'd just done enough to look for jobs that one time, they would have kept paying me, and i'd be out of here as well. It's partly my fault. Only partly.

Anyway i'm going for a bath.

Hot and Fast

Hello again comrades.

As anyone in the UK (and in the USA so i hear) will know, it has been hot a lot recently. I know it's summer, but here in the UK, we don't usually get sun in summer. But this year, mother nature has made up for all the cold or mild summers we've had and has given us sun. Lots of sun. Seriously, we've had it for weeks now. My fan has been pretty much constantly on the whole time, even when i'm out. Problem is, i kind of prefer it to be cold. It's a lot easier to warm yourself up when it's cold, than it is to cool yourself down when it's warm. I've actually started drinking water instead of juice. And that's unusual for me.

Anyway, i can't remember what i previously blogged, but i had an alright graphics card in my now complete computer, but i wanted to upgrade it. So i did, i got a pretty decent graphics card for a pretty low price. Let me see what it was... It was a PowerColor Radeon AX4870. It looks like this:

My PowerColor Radeon AX4870 Graphics Card

Isn't it beautiful? It takes two PCI-E power cables, i only had one so i had to order a molex to PCI-E converter off eBay. No big deal, didn't cost much. But anyway, it's a pretty powerful beast. It can handle my games on almost the highest settings. Beautiful. My computer is how i want it now. Damn, i should have took a screenshot of my Windows performance rating. I might add it in later.

Edit: I screenshot my Windows performance thing. Here you go:

My Windows Performance Index

As you can see, the main thing restricting the base score is my slow ass hard drive. I should have installed Winblows to my SSD instead, then it'd be a hell of a lot higher. I've installed Ubuntu to the SSD and from the bootloader (where you select which OS to boot) and the login prompt, it takes less than 10 seconds. Pretty speedy, eh?

I've also been dong some Let's Play videos on YouTube. Mostly different games every time but I'll continue some. For those that don't know, my YouTube is here

Also, plans are in motion for moving to Ireland. I've got a rough estimate how much it'll cost, i just need to pack the stuff I'm taking, and for that i need boxes. It's going to be hard to find a box to fit my 32 inch TV. I don't have the one it came in anymore. But everything else should fit in boxes. Even my desktop should fit in one.

I've been thinking about selling my Galaxy Note and Nexus S. I do love both phones but the Note is too big and the Nexus is too slow. If i sell both phones i could get a Nexus 4, which I've been wanting for a while. I've been selling some old computer parts on Gumtree (unsuccessfully mostly), and my old HTC Hero. The little cute thing. I've actually been thinking of switch to my Nexus S for a while, just because it's better sized and it's more beautiful than my Note. I still might.

If you want to see my ads on Gumtree, click here. It'll open in a new tab.

Oh yeah, I've been playing The Simpsons: Tapped out on my Asus tablet, so if you have it, add micol25.

That's all for now I think. I'm going to watch Silent Running on Film4, then get some food. Toodles

Let's Play!

Hello me ole chums.

So guess what i did last night. Not that, you dirty bastards. I made a Let's Play! video on YouTube. As i type this up, it's currently processing. But when it's done, i'll have my first Let's Play video up. I've been thinking of doing one for a while. So there's my first one. Ooh, it's done! I'll paste it below for your viewing pleasure. And yes, that is my real voice

It's about 8 minutes long and it's in full HD, so if you're on mobile, it'll eat up your data and battery if you're not on wi-fi. I'm quite impressed with it. The sounds were a bit loud though, i should turn them down for next time.

On another note, i'm still unemployed. Employ me, someone. I'm quite good with computers. I think that's all I have to say for now. I mainly just wanted to tell you about my new video. So go watch it and let me know what you think.

Toodles

Comedy and Fun

So for the past few hours I've been on a bit of a comedy buzz. No reason, i just like it. It's obviously funny. So far I've watched some clips of Top Gear. Always funny. Them idiots, especially Clarkson. What else? I've seen the roasting of David Hasselhoff. That was funny. Just celebrities abusing each other basically. There's a William Shatner one i wanna watch. Now I'm watching Jim Carrey live in 1991. Hilarious. And i don't mean that sarcastically. It really is. With his rubber face. Oh man, classic. Now time for some Rowan Atkinson

Also, Tracey had been here for a couple of weeks up until a few days ago. We had an amazing time. It was a lot of fun. Lots of games, lots of films, mainly the Karate Kid films, lots of sex. Bit of shopping. Lots of pizza. I'm definitely going to move in with her.  I just need to arrange an international mover. I wanna get out of here as soon as possible and move in with my perfect partner.

Today and yesterday I went on a short course to help with making a professional looking CV. (That's a resume to you Americans). It was pretty interesting. But it could have been made a lot shorter (the course, not my CV. That needs to be longer). It was really stretched out. He could have just just gave us a booklet and that's it. But he had to make us work in groups didn't he. I hate that. But it did have a bit of useful information. There was good funny people there that made it better. I'm still unemployed by the way

My phone fell off the bed the other day and i pulled it up by the USB cable because it was charging off my laptop and my laptop was close. I think pulling it up by the cable may have damaged the phone or the cable. Why does this always happen to me? The next phone I get won't be charged by micro USB. It's just too easy to damage. I want some larger, stronger proprietary connection, like what the Galaxy Note 2 and Asus Transformer has. I'm getting very annoyed at the reliability of the Galaxy Note.

Oh, one more quick thing. Google sent me something saying if i spend £25 within a month on advertising, they'd give me another £75. So I spent £25 in about a week. And they gave me the £75. So now I'm getting quite a bit more views on my blog and YouTube. Oh my God, I've just realised I have over 9000 views, i can finally say "IT'S OVER 9000!!!!", and it'd be true. I don't like advertising. But I'm glad I'm paying a bit to have adverts show my stuff. It's earned me a good few views. Thanks Google. Always been a big fan. Employ me. Woah, who said that?

Anyway that's all for now. I'm getting in bed before i get attacked by moths. Toodles

Jobcentre, Star Trek, Moving, and Phones

Hello my children.

This is just a little update to what's happened. So I'm still unemployed. I went to the jobcentre the other day and signed up for jobseekers allowance. It all seemed to go well. Except they forgot to give me my passport back and i had to go back for it. Luckily i wasn't too far away. I have to go again on the 8th May. Woo

I got my redundancy pay and lieu of notice pay. It came to just over £2000. Not including my work pay. After deductions (tax and National Insurance), it totalled £2,504.48p. Not bad but not quite as much as I'd hoped.

Anyways, one of the first things i did with it, except pay rent and stuff, was buy a Star Trek Communicator badge off eBay  Actually 2. With the rank pips that go on the collar. That must be the geekiest thing I've ever bought. This is it:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/390528832938?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

It's beautiful. I can be Captain Picard and Tracey can be Captain Janeway. Good price as well considering how shiny they are. Ooh maybe i should buy a couple of phasers and give one to Tracey and we can have a phaser battle. Oh god, what am i saying? I'm 28.

I think the fact I've been playing a lot of Star Trek Online and watching a lot of Star Trek has got me in the mood for it. I never really got into Deep Space 9 before but it's actually pretty good. Next Generation was always my favourite though.

Hmm what else has happened? Well I've decided I'm going to move to Ireland. Probably this year, within the next few months. I should start looking for jobs in Ireland as well. That reminds me, i need to do some research into international movers. It's not like I'm moving my whole house, just a few things from my room. And it wouldn't need to be quick, I'm not in a rush to get my stuff.

I've also come to the conclusion that my Galaxy Note is too big. I think I'd be better suited to something about 4 inches. I want something fairly compact and powerful, like a Galaxy S4, but smaller. That's 5 inches as well. The S4 mini is supposed to be 4.3, maybe that'd be better but it's "only" quad core instead of octa core, like the big S4. But quad core should be enough. I'll do some research anyway. But i definitely want one about 4 inches.

I think that's all for now. I'll make another post when i have something else to say. So bye for now.

Still Unemployed

Yeah, it's been about 2 months since i did my last blog. I still don't have a new job and i lose this job in less than 2 weeks. And yes, i have been looking. I've applied to several places. Especially technology related places, like CarphoneWarehouse and Comet and stuff like that. So far no-one has accepted me. One company wanted me to go to an interview, but after a bit of research i discovered it's a scam company. Don't ever work for Skyline Marketing Ltd.

On the 26th April, i do get some redundancy and lieu of notice pay. This should come to about £2000 (on top of my £600 or so normal pay), but i want to save as much of it as i can. Looks like i'll have to start going to the crappy jobcentre. From what one of my Facebook friends say though, they're a load of crap. Which i believe. Let's face it, they are owned by the government. And we all know what governments are like.

I'm typing this blog up at work. I probably shouldn't be. If Omar knew (the IT man), he wouldn't be happy. I don't even know if he still works here though. We're allowed to look for jobs though, obviously. Although some sites are blocked, including a few i've needed, like when i tried to look for jobs at Codemasters or Aston University. I understand gaming being blocked but education is also blocked. Why would they block education? "We don't want you learning things, do we". Stupid.

On another subject, the computer i've been building has a slight problem. I've installed that Windows on too many computers, and now they've blocked me from using that CD key thing. Now i need a new one, or i'll keep getting an error message, it'll say the Windows version number in the bottom right corner, and it'll blank the background. The error more than anything is annoying, but i suppose i'll have to tolerate it. If anyone has a spare Windows 7 Home Premium CD key, feel free to let me know

First world problems, eh? Other than that, it runs good except the mid range graphics card and the slow main hard drive. But i do want a better graphics card. It can't even run Star Trek Online at maximum graphics settings properly. It's got some nice effects but nothing that should be too hard on the graphics card. Ah well, i'll get a better one soon enough.

That's all for today. Just wanted top update you all on the situation. If you care. Probably not. I'm surprised i get as many views as i do. I'm at exactly 7400 views right now. Not bad. Anyway, toodle pips old chap