What makes you grin? Antidote to grumpy thread

[nacho man]

Got this for a couple of days

 

 

It’s a hybrid so greenpeace are happy. It’s also 462bhp so I am happy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Lord Sterling]

Wow man, what's going on?

 

The last few days/weeks and months have been pretty shit. Suddenly all that shit has stopped and made way for some grin things;

 

● Got offered a French-speaking customer service role near Tewkesbury, contract, nigh-on £20k (money to be negotiated)

● Got paid today by dole because someone forgot to say that I had attended last week.

● After having had my satellite blocked by scaffolding, a mate suggested I stick the arial plug into the back of the TV, I've now found over 70 channels! (Typically though, loads of channels and absolutely sod-all on)

● Got some proper food in for once. More to follow on tomorrow.

 

So yeah, a good day can give you some surprising grins.

[Stanky]

Glad to hear you've got some long overdue luck Mo, that role sounds promising too. Keep us posted.

[Tamworthbay]

Walked the long way back from picking daughter up tonight, happens to go past chippy and through the park, very low sun, beautiful park, wife and daughter, bag of chips laced with half a bottle of vinegar and enough salt to rid Kew Gardens of slugs for a year. Sometimes it’s the simple things.

[Pillock]

Glad to hear you've had a bit of luck Mo, fingers crossed it continues.

[Guest Hooli]

It's about time Mo, glad to hear it.

[LightBulbFun]

My grin for today: TL;DR was going to be a grump but turned into a grin as a I managed to save some crap from the bin (I hope im not breaking any rules here with such a wall of text...)

 

well this happened a few days ago but I have been quite knackered for you will see why later in this post 

 

so a few days ago I had to drag my ass out of the house for some stuff I really did not want to do, on top of this I have a bad chronic back injury which means its quite a Pain in the Arse (well back) to go out without proper means of transport which we dont have sadly

 

so on the 2nd to last day of being dragged out the house i noticed that one of the dilapidated buildings right at the end of my Route had its loading bay opened up and there was a pile-o-crap in the middle, where 2 Beige CRT monitors sat

 

being a computer nut, I decided to have a closer look and see if there was any other computer gear, I could not spot any other computer gear, But I did spot an 8ft fluorescent tube sitting in a corner (im also a LightBulb nutter) so I flagged someone down to enquire about the tube, first guy I flag down spoke no english and he calls over his mate/boss who does speak some basic english, and he tells me I cant have the tube because there using it to light up the place...

 

its pretty clear he was bullshitting me, so I leave and I think to my self, ill pop round on the way back home and if the bay is open still pop in and see if i can flag down a nicer person.

 

well on comming back the bay was open but this time there was a Stereotypical white(Now beige) Box PC from 2002 sitting outside the bay "Oooh" I think to my self   before I had even slightly lent over to have a closer look, 2 guys at the back single to me "Yes yes take the thing!"

 

so thought to my self "dont mind if I do!" completely ignoring the question of "How the hell am I going to get home with this" while I have a lot of vintage macintosh stuff im lacking quite badly in the vintage PC department (I only have a few mATX motherboards, parts and a 2002 Pentium 4 shuttle clone), so cue me lugging a computer tower one bus ride and a half a mile long walk home 

 

I was utterly broken by the time I got home (and im still feeling it very much even now) but luckily the PC fired right up after removing a dead CMOS battery   it booted up to an old win2K install (it has a w2k COA on the side) it seemed to of been part of a network of some kind as such there not much on the hard disk.

 

specs of the computer for those that are as crazy as I am:

 

Gigabyte GA-7VKML Socket A (462) motherboard, quite a decent socket A mATX board, which has a universal AGP slot so works with Voodoo cards too Woop  the CPU is an Athlon XP 2000+ http://valid.x86.fr/3kk5r3

 

it had 256MB of RAM, a 20GB HDD, a 1.44MB FDD and a 52x CD-ROM drive.

 

(I upgraded the Ram to 512MB for the CPU-Z validation and I have since upgraded it from there to 1GB and it now runs windows XP, which runs surprisingly well)

 

its a very typical early 2000s PC built by a small system integrator. but this one was actually built with quality components even down to the PSU which was nice. (a lot of these had the shittiest of shit components in them)

 

so even though its completly broken me even more then I already was im pretty chuffed with this find, its a nice piece of early 2000s computing history thats getting rarer by the day.

 

but this is not the end of the story, oh no  on the last day of me going to where I was going, I pass the same building as they are loading a skip full of crap onto the back of a lorry and I spot a 2nd identicial looking PC poking out of the skip

 

but considering how badly broken i was and the fact I was going somewhere rather then comming back I decided to pass on trying to pick up this PC.

 

however on the way back I noticed a fresh pile of crap had grown so i pop in for another look, and low and behold there was now a bundle of flourcent tubes in the corner, so I ask again kindly if I can have a tube or 2 for the collection? sadly I get the same guy who refused me before, and he refused me with the same excuse as before but after me being quite persistent he let me take 1, result! 

 

so i grabbed the 8ft tube I eyed up the first time, which also was the only tube there that did not look utterly fucked, (which just proved to me even more that I was being bullshitted...)

 

so again I made my way home this time with an 8ft tube in hand, you should of seen the bus drivers face as he pulled into the bus stop, the look of "Oh what Have I got my self into" or "what have I done to deserve this" 

 

 as I expertly* threaded the tube onto the bus I said to the driver in a cheeky tone of voice "Do you think it will fit?" the driver said nothing  (the fun part of the bus ride was keeping the tube floating from the bus it self as it rumbled its way through the streets of Hackney) luckily 8ft tubes dont weigh that much so I managed to avoid* completely fucking my back over this time (although even without having to carry a PC it was still quite taxing on my back, especially as I had fucked my back the day before with the whole PC adventure, in general if i have to go out and walk around for a long period of time it always does my back in even without heavy computers)

 

I have not yet tested the tube but it looks to have minimal amounts of wear and looks to be in one pice although someone did push one of the pins in, so ill have to fix that. the tube in question is a 1990s to early 2000s British made GE 125W 8ft T12 tube colour 35 (3500K white), these are getting increasingly rare some im happy to of added one to the collection

 

so although I had to go somewhere I really did not want to go I at least managed to get some very nice loot out of it 

 

anyways times for pictures and as this is Autoshite I have a couple "Car" (if you can call the second one a car..) spots as well of course

 

picture of the pile-o-shite

 

 

 

picture of the computer I saved from said pile-o-shite

 

 

picture of the pile-o-shite being evicted (you can see the 2nd computer which I couldn't save to the bottom left of the pile in the skip)

 

 

picture of the 8ft tube I saved on the last day

 

 

and now the cars:

 

first up is

 

JDM Yo! (thats what the kids say these days right? im not sure how that reg plate is legal considering one circle is an O and the other one is a 0 and they look identical, right faff pulling that up on the DVLAs site)

 

 

and second up is:

 

whatever the fuck this is Yo?! (failed to grab a reg plate shot sadly, 57 plate tho IIRC) has DW "upgraded" from the invacar on the way to/from Bulgaria perhaps?

 

 

apologies for the mega post... 

[loserone]

Wow, I think we need a thread in the Open Forum dedicated to light bulbs now.

 

Purely because I really can't comprehend it, but there has to be something interesting about them

[SiC]

Wow, I think we need a thread in the Open Forum dedicated to light bulbs now.

 

Purely because I really can't comprehend it, but there has to be something interesting about them

Obviously not bright enough. Ba dum tsh.

 

*Gets coat*

[AlabamaShrimp]

Today I have been mostly walking on this

 

 

Just as I got to the top of the stairs (no phone out) about 4 or 5 Austin 7s in convoy just went through the toll.

[Ghosty]

Shitefest is Parklife festival weekend. Manchester is full of idiots that weekend.

[The Moog]

Random pub in Saint Quentin - techno night and no beer below 6%. Quality night.

[PhilA]

I guess I am doing something right with 2-stroke engine stuff, because so far from the vibration I've fractured the rear mudguard mount, the voltage regulator wiring and the kick stand has vibrated loose.

 

All in 40 miles

 

My old man helped finding loose bolts and fixings also.

 

 

Phil

[fordperv]

I've just sat and watched the sunrise on the beach with mrs fp, small things

[Rod/b]

This made me grin and grump in equal measure. Fucking dirty flytipping bastards get caught red handed.

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSrMMWxZ2iU

 

Obvs don’t read the comments.

[SiC]

I guess I am doing something right with 2-stroke engine stuff, because so far from the vibration I've fractured the rear mudguard mount, the voltage regulator wiring and the kick stand has vibrated loose.

 

All in 40 miles

 

My old man helped finding loose bolts and fixings also.

 

20180503_162858.jpg

 

Phil

Your dad looks like Doc from back to the future! Especially in that picture.

[Pillock]

This made me grin and grump in equal measure. Fucking dirty flytipping bastards get caught red handed.

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSrMMWxZ2iU

 

Obvs don’t read the comments.

That guy is a hero, especially for making them load the rubble by hand.

 

"That's not ours" but they've got dirty gloves, a rubble sack and it's bone dry.

 

Hopefully there's enough there for a fine off the EA too.

[bub2006]

My grin for today: TL;DR was going to be a grump but turned into a grin as a I managed to save some crap from the bin (I hope im not breaking any rules here with such a wall of text...)

 

well this happened a few days ago but I have been quite knackered for you will see why later in this post

 

so a few days ago I had to drag my ass out of the house for some stuff I really did not want to do, on top of this I have a bad chronic back injury which means its quite a Pain in the Arse (well back) to go out without proper means of transport which we dont have sadly

 

so on the 2nd to last day of being dragged out the house i noticed that one of the dilapidated buildings right at the end of my Route had its loading bay opened up and there was a pile-o-crap in the middle, where 2 Beige CRT monitors sat

 

being a computer nut, I decided to have a closer look and see if there was any other computer gear, I could not spot any other computer gear, But I did spot an 8ft fluorescent tube sitting in a corner (im also a LightBulb nutter) so I flagged someone down to enquire about the tube, first guy I flag down spoke no english and he calls over his mate/boss who does speak some basic english, and he tells me I cant have the tube because there using it to light up the place...

 

its pretty clear he was bullshitting me, so I leave and I think to my self, ill pop round on the way back home and if the bay is open still pop in and see if i can flag down a nicer person.

 

well on comming back the bay was open but this time there was a Stereotypical white(Now beige) Box PC from 2002 sitting outside the bay "Oooh" I think to my self before I had even slightly lent over to have a closer look, 2 guys at the back single to me "Yes yes take the thing!"

 

so thought to my self "dont mind if I do!" completely ignoring the question of "How the hell am I going to get home with this" while I have a lot of vintage macintosh stuff im lacking quite badly in the vintage PC department (I only have a few mATX motherboards, parts and a 2002 Pentium 4 shuttle clone), so cue me lugging a computer tower one bus ride and a half a mile long walk home

 

I was utterly broken by the time I got home (and im still feeling it very much even now) but luckily the PC fired right up after removing a dead CMOS battery it booted up to an old win2K install (it has a w2k COA on the side) it seemed to of been part of a network of some kind as such there not much on the hard disk.

 

specs of the computer for those that are as crazy as I am:

 

Gigabyte GA-7VKML Socket A (462) motherboard, quite a decent socket A mATX board, which has a universal AGP slot so works with Voodoo cards too Woop the CPU is an Athlon XP 2000+ http://valid.x86.fr/3kk5r3

 

it had 256MB of RAM, a 20GB HDD, a 1.44MB FDD and a 52x CD-ROM drive.

 

(I upgraded the Ram to 512MB for the CPU-Z validation and I have since upgraded it from there to 1GB and it now runs windows XP, which runs surprisingly well)

 

its a very typical early 2000s PC built by a small system integrator. but this one was actually built with quality components even down to the PSU which was nice. (a lot of these had the shittiest of shit components in them)

 

so even though its completly broken me even more then I already was im pretty chuffed with this find, its a nice piece of early 2000s computing history thats getting rarer by the day.

 

but this is not the end of the story, oh no on the last day of me going to where I was going, I pass the same building as they are loading a skip full of crap onto the back of a lorry and I spot a 2nd identicial looking PC poking out of the skip

 

but considering how badly broken i was and the fact I was going somewhere rather then comming back I decided to pass on trying to pick up this PC.

 

however on the way back I noticed a fresh pile of crap had grown so i pop in for another look, and low and behold there was now a bundle of flourcent tubes in the corner, so I ask again kindly if I can have a tube or 2 for the collection? sadly I get the same guy who refused me before, and he refused me with the same excuse as before but after me being quite persistent he let me take 1, result!

 

so i grabbed the 8ft tube I eyed up the first time, which also was the only tube there that did not look utterly fucked, (which just proved to me even more that I was being bullshitted...)

 

so again I made my way home this time with an 8ft tube in hand, you should of seen the bus drivers face as he pulled into the bus stop, the look of "Oh what Have I got my self into" or "what have I done to deserve this"

 

as I expertly* threaded the tube onto the bus I said to the driver in a cheeky tone of voice "Do you think it will fit?" the driver said nothing (the fun part of the bus ride was keeping the tube floating from the bus it self as it rumbled its way through the streets of Hackney) luckily 8ft tubes dont weigh that much so I managed to avoid* completely fucking my back over this time (although even without having to carry a PC it was still quite taxing on my back, especially as I had fucked my back the day before with the whole PC adventure, in general if i have to go out and walk around for a long period of time it always does my back in even without heavy computers)

 

I have not yet tested the tube but it looks to have minimal amounts of wear and looks to be in one pice although someone did push one of the pins in, so ill have to fix that. the tube in question is a 1990s to early 2000s British made GE 125W 8ft T12 tube colour 35 (3500K white), these are getting increasingly rare some im happy to of added one to the collection

 

so although I had to go somewhere I really did not want to go I at least managed to get some very nice loot out of it

 

anyways times for pictures and as this is Autoshite I have a couple "Car" (if you can call the second one a car..) spots as well of course

 

picture of the pile-o-shite

 

Image uploaded from iOS (9).jpg

 

picture of the computer I saved from said pile-o-shite

 

Image uploaded from iOS (11).jpg

 

picture of the pile-o-shite being evicted (you can see the 2nd computer which I couldn't save to the bottom left of the pile in the skip)

 

Image uploaded from iOS (10).jpg

 

picture of the 8ft tube I saved on the last day

 

Image uploaded from iOS (1).jpg

 

and now the cars:

 

first up is

 

JDM Yo! (thats what the kids say these days right? im not sure how that reg plate is legal considering one circle is an O and the other one is a 0 and they look identical, right faff pulling that up on the DVLAs site)

 

Image uploaded from iOS (12).jpg

 

and second up is:

 

whatever the fuck this is Yo?! (failed to grab a reg plate shot sadly, 57 plate tho IIRC) has DW "upgraded" from the invacar on the way to/from Bulgaria perhaps?

 

Image uploaded from iOS (13).jpg

 

apologies for the mega post...

The bottom one is a piaggio ape. Usually 50cc handlebars and 4 speed grip change.

[sierraman]

They do the same with houses don't they. I have several Asian friends that live with their whole family in a huge house. Personally I think they are mental, I couldn't think of anything worse but they probably look at me, skint as owt, squeezed into my 3 bed semi, trying to pay for everything myself like I'm the mad one.

If I shared a house with my family I'd be quickly sharing a different big house full of people.

[AMC Rebel]

Saw a LHD Rover 75 on Italian plates in Tesco car park - that made me smile.

[xtriple]

The sun has come out to play, which is nice cos I'VE GOT A CONVERTIBLE!!!!

[chaseracer]

http://www.motorpunk.co.uk/articles/evoque-recall-faulty-banksman/

[Pillock]

Had a day off today so went over to a mate's to help him with his car. Failed the MOT this week - Zafira A with broken springs (who'd have thought it?) and EML on (ditto). Him and his family are proper bloody lovely but are plagued by ill health so can't afford to just throw it in a garage, and they're also doing a house swap next week so kinda needed to be mobile.

 

I said I'd go over, and bless I think he got spurred on by my enthusiasm so went on the bus to get a pair of rear springs, changed them with the help of his 11 year old daughter yesterday. That just left the EML. Took my OBD2 dongle over with Torque, found a post-CAT O2 sensor fault. Cleared it but it came back after about 20 minutes of driving. 

 

So he's either saved the £60 a garage would charge to do the same thing, or he's just going to reset it on the way in to the retest as I've left the dongle with him.  He's well impressed what a £6 scanner can do so will get one himself. Car drives fine and gets good MPG so don't think it's affecting anything, as it's the post-Cat one it's an arse to change and will be rusted in solid. 

 

EML has been on for two years, it's only on the new rules it's failed.

[beko1987]

I've turned the eml off on the old meriva when it's cat started failing outside the test centre, and that was before these new rules!

 

Your also lucky it was the rear springs that were snapped and not the fronts! Whole different kettle of cunt are the fronts

[Slartibartfast]

The sun has come out to play, which is nice cos I'VE GOT A CONVERTIBLE!!!!

? Did I miss a thread?

[dozeydustman]

I have homemade peach wine (24% ABV) and Chinese food this evening. Perfect end to a stressful week.

[sierraman]

Had a day off today so went over to a mate's to help him with his car. Failed the MOT this week - Zafira A with broken springs (who'd have thought it?) and EML on (ditto). Him and his family are proper bloody lovely but are plagued by ill health so can't afford to just throw it in a garage, and they're also doing a house swap next week so kinda needed to be mobile.

 

I said I'd go over, and bless I think he got spurred on by my enthusiasm so went on the bus to get a pair of rear springs, changed them with the help of his 11 year old daughter yesterday. That just left the EML. Took my OBD2 dongle over with Torque, found a post-CAT O2 sensor fault. Cleared it but it came back after about 20 minutes of driving.

 

So he's either saved the £60 a garage would charge to do the same thing, or he's just going to reset it on the way in to the retest as I've left the dongle with him. He's well impressed what a £6 scanner can do so will get one himself. Car drives fine and gets good MPG so don't think it's affecting anything, as it's the post-Cat one it's an arse to change and will be rusted in solid.

 

EML has been on for two years, it's only on the new rules it's failed.

Turn it off just before the test.

[Parky]

The guy who bought my laptop and dicked me around regarding payment earlier this week paid me this evening. That was unexpected.

 

I have an interview for an alright new job on Tuesday. Also unexpected.

 

Wife is back tonight after being away at a conference all week so the cat has another human to bother. Thank god!

 

But best of all I took Parkette to Comic Con in London today. I was dreading it but the Friday session was quiet—ish so the crowds weren’t too bad. Main reason for going was one of her college assignments was to make contact with people in the animation industry and ask their advice on how to get on in the business and I was hoping we might bump into someone useful.

 

Now some of you won’t know the names Tomska, World of Warcraft HearthStone, Rick and Morty, or Eddsworld but we made contact with all of them, and got some brilliant advice caught of video and they were all very complimentary about her work so she was delighted. Tomska even liked my tweet. Yes, you can see my twitter name and yes I don’t look like Steven Toast. And yes I do realise my phone needs charging!

 

Yup, today has been good.

[cobblers]

 

EML has been on for two years, it's only on the new rules it's failed.

 

 

With a bluetooth OBD dongle you can sit in the MOT waiting room and re-clear the codes as the tester is taking it into the station.

I haven't had to do this yet, but I won't be the first to think of it.

 

In fact it's only a matter of time til someone makes a £3 OBD plug that just sends "erase DTCs" every 5 seconds.

[SiC]

With a bluetooth OBD dongle you can sit in the MOT waiting room and re-clear the codes as the tester is taking it into the station.

I haven't had to do this yet, but I won't be the first to think of it.

 

In fact it's only a matter of time til someone makes a £3 OBD plug that just sends "erase DTCs" every 5 seconds.

 

Would be only half a days job max to make an app that does exactly that. Then just leave the phone in the car. I'm half tempted to...