Since we have moved into our new apartments we have to take out trash to the back of the building and dump it in one of the four council bins. From day one you could tell we have some lazy people who just drop the bags beside the bins instead of in them, so when ever I go down after bin day I normal push the two bins aside to encourage people to use the back two bins first (as they normally fill the front two, and then its blocked). Well 4 weeks ago I went to put the trash out and noticed the 4 bins was not there. So I placed my rubbish where they should be in hope when the bin men return the bins they might put our bags in for us. Well a week passed and I went down to put in our weekly junk, and once again.. no bins, apart from the pile of rubbish had grown.

Its now a month later and Jo went to put the rubbish out today when our neighbour said he would take it out for her as its “really bad” outside. She asked why we had no bins and he told us the council said that are sick of picking up bags so they are no longer giving us a bin or taking out trash away. This is crazy, Instead of sending a letter to the 24 people who live here or putting up a warning sign, they have just stopped picking up the trash. Yes some people are lazy but why punish everyone for it. We are lucky, we live on the other side from the bins, but some ones poor balcony open onto the bins and it stinks. The bins have a large area with a roof to stop rain getting in but that is now full and spilling out into the walk way.

Does the council think it can get away with this. We pay out council tax to have trash taken away. So at some point they will have to bend and pick up the trash again. And at that point its going to be a right mess for the bin men. So I give it about a week until we have rats. Thank god I live on the second floor.

There was a lovely sunset and a giant rainbow in the sky when I left work today. So I thought instead of taking the quick but busy road home, I would go the long way by the river. I was happy as pie contemplating what I could get up to this Friday night and then BAM, I hit a fucking Dog mine. I looked down and saw a big orange clump stuck to my front wheel that I couldn’t shake off (even when riding in puddles and grass). It instantly pissed me off. Yes dogs don’t know right and wrong places to shit, but the fucking owner does. And the answer is NOWHERE, so pick the fucking mess up and bin it. Once I hit his evil orange mess, I had to ride home at 7mph with my gloves on and face mask up as I knew any minute the shit would fly up and hit my in the face. It was like Speed, but in reveres.

I couldn’t go over 10mph or the shit bomb would blow up and hit my in the eyes sending me blind and right into traffic coursing a pile up and which in turn would have taken out all the school kids. The School bus would then exploding taking out half of the NG8 post code. Then BBC would interrupt Jo’s showing of X factor to bring a “breaking news bulletin”. Then from there all hell would break loose.

A few weeks ago I was walking home when I slipped in some dog poo. I did the normal scrape your foot in the grass while walking when I hit another sack of shit. It pisses me off. If you own a dog and you feed it, its going to make a drop off every day. So just pick it up. If I knew where that owner lived I would have gone to there house and squeezed one off on the door step.

Also I cant tell you how many times I’ve gone to play football at our local sports area and had to come off the grass and had to play on concrete due to the turd’s left by owners who don’t give a shit. There are signs all around saying fines of up to £1000 for “dog fowling” left behind. Well I’ve never head of anyone getting done for it. Instead the old bill rather wait around for a 6 year to drop 2 cm’s of a sausage roll, and then fine the mum (yes its happened) even though a bird would have nabbed it before he could even walk her to the ATM. Well next time I see a dog “fowl” and the owner not pick it up, I’m going to do a running slide and fucking fowl them in the spine!

Man Toast has had yet another update. Comments, that’s right. So if you read one of my Blog posts and want to leave some feedback then just hit the “write a comment” button in the bottom right of each post to let me your views.

On Friday night (Halloween) we went to a friends birthday party over at hooters, around 9:30 Grant, Jo and myself left to go for a few cocktails at salt water. After having a few godfathers we thought we should try our hand at the casino under the corner house. After about 15 minutes of waiting to sign up we got a pint, and then had a walk around to eye up the tables, and check the minimum bids when we came across a roulette table. It was a real roulette table but with electronic bidding. Grant sat down and place his money into the machine and then just hit nothing but the number 7. I then went over to the table to watch it spin, and it fucking landed on 7. So he got a 35 to 1 pay out first time around. Then grant asked me to pick a number witch I did, and just as we went to bet grant knocked his beer into the computer and it locked the screen stopping the bet being placed, but even worse stopping him from collecting his winnings.

We tried to clean the beer up with our sleeves, but most of it had been drank by the computer screen. At this point we had missed about 5 rounds, and all the time our screen was locked. Then for some reason it came back to life and bet the number we chose 5 rounds ago and bloody won Straight Up again (35 to 1). From there he took his winnings and we ran back up stairs to enjoy some rounds of Sailor Jerry…. Well done grant, you Jammy Bastard

See, good things do come drinking. I was out with a good friend this weekend down my local pub and he was telling me how he has joined the open university to study at night as well as doing his normal job, and I’ve been doing web design for some time now, but have no qualifications to show for it. I did go to college for 2 years to study computers but have learnt more from reading books then I have ever done at college. I was saying to my friend I would like to get a real Certificate to show on my portfolio and to aid me if I ever did leave my current job (not that I would at the moment as I’m happy with my job, hours and wage) but it never hurts to be prepared. So I’ve looked into it and have found a course I think I would like to do, it’s a Certificate in Web Applications Development. It’s a 6 part course covering:

Web basics: design, development and management
The client-side of application development
The server-side of application development
Databases within website design
Open source development tools
Web server management, performance and tuning

Each course will cost me £210 bringing it to a grand total of £1,260. I can also build on this Certificate. So it looks like for 2009 I will be classed as a student again. So like I said at the start of this post. Good things do come from going to the pub.

We have all seen the adverts on at the movies “don’t get pirated copies , come to the cinema to get the real deal” well fuck that. I’ve had enough of paying to go to the cinemas to find the quality of the movie I’m watching is just piss poor so say its 2008 and every TV now a days is high Definition. When is this quality coming to the big screen? When I went to watch Wall-e the image was jumping from left to right really fast, that fast Jo didn’t even notice it until I pointed it out, and when we watched a movie that had subtitles a few months back half the words was chopped off at the bottom of the screen, And If I see that fucking dancing hair on the screen one more time I will burn the place down. Also another thing that does my head in is when we go in one of the big screens they always keep the lights on, so Jo asked them to turn them off and we was told its in case some one falls down the stairs? So that’s it, I’m out. I’m no longer spending £12 for two tickets followed by £6 on popcorn. I’m not one to promote copied movies, but the movies have taken £100’s off of me now, and I think I’ve paid my way to last me a life time.

At last I’ve got the gallery up and running, well a basic version of it. Once I’ve got my head around action script programming I will have a nice swish flash gallery, but until then here is a basic html one. I’ve only got 3 galleries online at the moment, but every night this week I will be adding more. The next thing on my to do list is to get the videos page up, but at the moment I have over 50 more hours to capture before I can edit the DVD, so for now I will upload little bits of gold to man toast for you all to see. So what you waiting for, click the “Photos” button at the top and have a look.

Last night I was watching TV and like normal when the adverts come on I go to get a drink, or check some online forums. As I was talking from one room to another I saw an advert for some new e4 / big brother show so my brain turned off, but thank god my zomdar was listening, the advert turned from big brother to zombies running all over, so I jumped back on the sofa, my face was lit up like a kid at Christmas. After only seeing 15 seconds of the advert I went online and looked into “e4 zombie” in Google and found “Dead Set” and read the following about it.

“Britain has a big problem. The dead are returning to life and attacking the living. The people they kill get up and kill – and it’s spreading like wildfire. Curiously, there are a few people left in Britain who aren’t worried about any of this – that’s because they’re the remaining contestants in Big Brother. Cocooned in the safety of the Big Brother house, they’re blissfully unaware of the horrific events unfolding outside. Until an eviction night when all hell breaks loose.

Kelly, (Jaime Winstone) the production runner working on Big Brother finds herself caught in the impossible position of trying to fend off the walking dead alongside the remaining housemates, Davina herself, a host of former Big Brother housemates, her producer boss Patrick (Andy Nyman) and boyfriend Riq (Riz Ahmed).

Over the ensuing days, in a cruel reflection of the game show they thought they were entering, the contestants fall victim, one by one, to the hungry masses outside. Staying alive requires teamwork – which is tricky when you’re a group specifically selected by TV producers to wind each other up.”

It’s a 6 part show and looks amazing. I cant wait to see this, I’m I super fan of the undead and have been telling all my friends about this show. So don’t just talk my words for it Click here to view the website and trailers.

Now Jo has started working my days of clean apartment and food ready when I get home have gone. I now have to do half the house work, but this sad tail does have a silver lining and that’s cooking. I’ve never cooked before and I love it. I can only do a hand full of things at the moment, and pizza is one of them. I cant stop making them. The photo above is of my first creation but I’ve been out and brought a round baking tray so I can go with the traditional circular pizza.

Jo’s now got in on the pizza action and started making huge topping pizzas, or as I like to call them pizza pies. I’ve also mastered the omelette. I was told I could put the pan in the oven to make the top cook, but I felt like it was cheating so I’ve been flipping them. The first time I got it to flip without exploding in the air made me do a little man cheer.

Well at last I’ve pulled my finger out and got my portfolio up and running, I’ve decided to call my self “atom multimedia” the original idea was atom design, (a tom design) but the domain was taken so I’ve gone with multimedia. I’ve sadly lost ALL of my sites I’ve done in the past so I’ve only got a few crappy images online at the moment but it’s a start. I’ve already got a contract to do Thomas & Sons construction website, and have one for a film production company in the pipe line. I cant wait to get into town this week and have a look around for some new customers. Its great to be doing web work again, and I’ve got myself a load of programming books to get my head into and learn some new languages.

If you want to check out my portfolio shoot over to http://www.atommultimedia.com

After Living with the agony of people knowing my true Identity for the past few years now. I thought I would write a little guide for people who have yet to show the world the super ability of.... Fixing computers.

Yes that’s right I work in computers, and that means I have this big sign on my head that says “I will fix any friend, family or friend of families computer for nothing” and it doesn’t stop there, Due to me knowing computers it means I also know how to fix any problems with TV, DVD, PVR’s, anything with wires and even mobile phones (well so people think). In the past I’ve even had to show some one how to print on stickers, and I didn’t even know this person, its my dads friends next door neighbour? So that just proves how you name will be passed around as soon as anyone has a technical problem or is too lazy to Google an answer. I’ve been doing these odd jobs for a long time and a few weeks ago I was asked to swap some one’s motherboard over at work. This was not his work computer but his home one, I didn’t mind doing this job as it was on works hours and not mine, but at the end of it the guy gave me money (even thought I didn’t ask for any) so since that I’ve stopped doing the free-bee’s.

My advice to you is one of two things:

1) Don’t EVER let anyone know your occupation, If anyone asks tell them you work for the council. No one ever wants to get into a conversation about that line of work

2) If by some way your true identity comes out like Clark Kent walking out his flat with his Super S shirt on instead of his normal suit and tie, then don’t even try and lie. Hold you head up and say “Yes, I am Super Computer man, and I can fix anything, I’ve made a lot of money doing it” and right there you have already told them you don’t do free house calls.. this should stop 75% of people asking you to do shit of them, and the other 25% should be the people who don’t mind paying you to do a job.

So right there you have less work and more money. But you will still get asked “how do I do this” questions. To avoid this stick to plan A and be Clark Kent.