What makes you grin? Antidote to grumpy thread

[Volksy]

without killing them... the plants that is, not my parents. I'm not into the Fred West school of gardening... yet.

 

We'll tell when you build a patio...

[Guest]

Shortly after my East Lancs unpleasantness (I don't see what else it could have been) I ended up on the M60 for Sale. Near J12 I spot a Bablyon 3 just before the Barton Bridge so eased off and gently overtook going past the Chill Factor. Got near J10 and a metallic blue BMW 5 series came ROARING by in the outside lane. He must have been doing 110 - 120.

 

'How the fuck' I mused, 'did the 5-0 not see that?'

 

Soon enough, the aforementioned 3 series traffic car comes hammering past in pursuit. By the time I'd got near J9 for the Sale Waterpark turn off they'd caught him - personalised plate and all. I reckon he'd binned his license.

 

Schadenfreude certainly, but the number of times I've seen someone driving like a ringpiece and wished they'd been tugged is incalculable.

[ashmicro]

[Cavcraft]

...I'd love a buddleja...

Very brave, us old Londoners call them bombsite plants due to the fact that we are old enough to remember when there were gaps in rows of houses caused by Hitler's urban redevelopment plan which had said plants growing up through twenty feet of rubble. I worked at a very posh advertising agency in Teddington which had a sack of building sand left outside the back door for some reason. A buddleia somehow took root in it and in no time it was over ten foot tall. We thought it would just be a case of moving the bag of sand to get rid of it but the bugger had its roots going through the bottom of the bag and through the solid concrete base that it was on.

 

Not surprised to be honest, we've got absolutely stacks of the stuff at work growing like wildfire due to parts of the place that were shut and knocked down over the years etc.

I'm sure some people said the white ones are classed as a weed but the purple(?) ones are quite sought after. If anyone wants some pm me and let me know how to take a cutting or whatever and I'll ask work if I can have some.

[trigger]

The old TV in my work messroom packed up over the weekend, it's been on 24/7 for the last 4 years and it's was a old one at that so it was hardly surprising, anyway i put a ad on freecycle asking if anyone can help 80+ dockers stay sane over the football season by giving us a new TV, I had quite a few emails but ended up collecting some massive old 32" Sony one from around the corner.

 

The trouble is after humping it up 3 flights of stairs and giving ourselves a hernia we found the picture quality was knackered as everything was dark, Then this afternoon i got a email offering us a 42" LCD TV, I agree to collect it this eveing expecting the worse...

 

 

I could believe my eye's!, a high spec 4 year old 32" Toshiba HD Ready TV with built in Freeview!, The lady had bought a new one this this morning as the tele has a dark patch in one corner and really wanted us to have it as it seemed a good cause!, I think I'm going to be popular this week!, I should have kept it for myself though!

[Louise2cv]

Garden Pic spam ALERT!

 

My bench, not keen on the bricks, but they were lying about in the garden along with the slate:

 

My mini pond:

Another old thing that was left lying around at my old work.

 

The view from the bench:

 

From the yard, up to the garden where all the above pics were taken, here you can see the stupidly big sycamore:

 

Now out the front:

 

My fav plant at the mo, a foxglove, but the petals aren't fused so there isn't the usual tube:

 

The front garden:

It needs to fill up more, but I'm tight so I'm only planting what I can find free or in a sale I've alsogot loads of seedlings coming up.

 

My neighbour probably wouldn't agree, but I love these weeds in the wall:

 

And finally, I'm not the only one who enjoys sitting in the garden:

 

Sorry I'm a bit rubbish at taking pics!

[willswitchengage]

The lady had bought a new one this this morning as the tele has a dark patch in one corner and really wanted us to have it as it seemed a good cause!

 

[ashmicro]

[vulgalour]

Love the garden pics, especially the weed wall, my old house in Sheffield had one of those and there were never the same plants two years in a row, always something of interest and no effort to maintain it. The front garden will fill out nicely if you just let stuff set its own seeds I reckon, keeping on top of unwanted plants of course. Looks like a really nice place to be and makes me miss north Wales quite a bit, one of my favourite parts of the country.

[DSdriver]

Louise

I'd terminate the sycamore soon if it were mine before it gets absolutely mahoosive. It should not be within 200feet of a house not only because the bloody parachuting spinner seeds get everywhere and will generate their own sycamore forest if you turn your back for five minutes.

I love the wild plant wall.

[Louise2cv]

Cheers VolksA, I love it here, in this village and in N.Wales in general, very nice pace of life. I've had a little triumph today with the language: asking our neighbour if she had a minute because I wanted to ask if we could put some scaffolding up (half would be on her property) as the chimney is still broken. All "yn Gymraeg"! I've just finished Course 2 of an online Welsh course and need to pluck up the courage to use it more.

 

Thanks DSdriver, that is my plan. It is far toobig already, even with what we've chopped out it shades nextdoor for most of the day. As for the buddleja, we have loads round here, esp on the cycle track over the road. I know it's an invasive alien but I've always liked it, esp the orange one

[michiel]

This (as posted in the 'gaffa' thread) makes me grin every time I see it:

 

[Negative Creep]

If they'd invented Duck Tape in medieval times we'd all be living on Jupiter by now. Or something. Also, rage quitting Mortal Kombat and Call of Duty MW (NSFW)

 

[Cavcraft]

Eyeing up cycle computers when a Workmate suggested downloading an ap to my phone. Found a free one called Strava (www.Strava.com) and it's ace.

Gives you miles done, average speed, best speed reached, caleries burnt, time taken, height of hills and even a map. Managed 5.9 miles home in 23 minutes 40 seconds, average speed of 14.9mph and a best speed of 30.9mph. One part of the journey home is a fairly steep hill that I struggled up very slowly so quite impressed with overall time and speed. Also it means when I'm fitter I can aim for better times and currently planning to crack sub 20 minutes.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Yo Cavette, take care not to fall into the same trap as half my mates... They’ve got apps for their iphones or whatever that post up all the details on facebook whenever they’ve been out for a run/bikeride/dogging session with all the stats, times, distances, altitudes etc etc, none of them seem to realise that NO-ONE GIVES A SHIT, least of all me! I think these apps bosh it all on there automatically without them even knowing.

 

‘So & so completed a 4km run in 22 mins blah blah blah’...... F**K OFF!

[Volksy]

Quite agree M_Boll, a lot of my mates do the same. Maybe I should create an app more suited to my lifestyle, which posts up the number of pints drunk, how many pies eaten, and how many hours doing bugger all.

[Cavcraft]

No worries on that score I'd sooner shovel dog shit in my eyes than have a Faceache account.

[willswitchengage]

Endomondo is another good one - a friend of mine has linked his to Twitter, it's great for when he makes a no-show at the pub then posts a bike ride an hour later to his girlfriend's house: rumbled. I do it the old fashioned way - a stop watch and working out my distance from the map

[dollywobbler]

"Out of my way! CX coming through!"

[fotorabia]

The next best thing after Autoshite..no..not the blue forum..Classic Scrapyard finds on Facebook..its a right old laugh...some characters from here on it!...making friends already he he..

[HillmanImp]

No worries on that score I'd sooner shovel dog shit in my eyes than have a Faceache account.

 

Hey, no need. I thought this was the official Autoshite Facebook thread. The only difference between this thread and my Facebook news feed is that nobody has put up a picture of their dinner yet. Other than that, the content seems to be pretty much the same these days.

[cobblers]

No worries on that score I'd sooner shovel dog shit in my eyes than have a Faceache account.

 

Hey, no need. I thought this was the official Autoshite Facebook thread. The only difference between this thread and my Facebook news feed is that nobody has put up a picture of their dinner yet. Other than that, the content seems to be pretty much the same these days.

 

 

Occasionally I get a "Malia summer 2012" album in my news feed so I can look at girls I've not spoken to for 10 years wearing bikinis, but that's pretty much as good as it gets tbh.

[ashmicro]

My (slightly dozy) mate rang me today to say that he'd got a new strimmer, but was concerned he'd been sent the wrong one.

 

Me: "Why do you think it's the wrong one, Tony?"

Tony "Well, I ordered a petrol one, but this one needs gasoline it says. Is that the LPG stuff everyone talks about?"

Me: "Tony, lob petrol in it, it'll go alright. And, twin-cycle oil is the same as two stroke"

 

Daft sod will probably chop his toes off with it.

[MrDuke]

For VA and L2CV, here's some weird shit I found in our garden this afternoon. Ignore the blue buckets, they contain things which have needed planting out since about a year ago...

 

 

Nice colour-fade:

 

2-tone stuff:

 

This looks a LOT stranger in real life, like something from the set of a 50s SF b-movie:

 

Some more Things. That might be a smoke-bush behind them, not sure.

 

This (clematis?) didn't come out too well, the colour's much much deeper, not really seen a shade like it before:

 

 

Apologies to all the city-dwellers

[TimothyClaypole]

I accidentally tipped a tin of dark blue paint on the living room floor, it was balanced in a box of car boot stuff that fell over.

 

It was a grump at the time but the floors wood so I cleaned 99% of it off.

 

In the process dumping it into a half full bag of rubbish from the kitchen as it was the nearest thing to hand while I was in a panic over it.

 

I threw the bag outside while I carried on with the damage control.

 

Came home yesterday to find the sack and contents scattered all over the place with a trail of dog or cat footprints leading off down the drive...

 

 

So someone had their dog/cat come home covered in dark blue paint for it's troubles rummaging in my rubbish.

 

 

 

(paint was not gloss so not that bad).

[Louise2cv]

Ooooooooooooooooo I'm jealous now! I love lupins and I was admiring Aliums just like those ones yesterday at Fron Goch, but unfortunately my euromillions ticket was a dud.

 

It's a shame I wasn't this interested in plants when I was doing my degree (Plant Biology), doing my first job (plant research technician) or one of my other jobs (Horticultural Scholar at a botanic gardens).

 

5-10 years too late!

[cort16]

Those are lovely gardens and plants but I hate my garden so much I want to punch it in the face. It's just a load of weeds with a couple of bits of grass running through it I'm forced to drag the lawnmower over every week.

[vulgalour]

Those lupins are pretty spectacular and I hadn't noticed those blue pots until you pointed them out. I do hope that whoever's dog/cat it was left comedy Tom & Jerry style prints all over their owner's house, that thought alone makes me grin.

[Cavcraft]

New personal best on cold calling wankers:

15 minutes, 43 seconds while some knobhead was trying to offer some sort of computer based 'help'. I repeated everything they said adding a different bit and kept going back to my computer and telling them I'd pressed the wrong thing. Just shy of 15 minutes and 20 seconds I told them I haven't actually got a computer and the daft bint had to get her supervisor to explain (to her) what I meant.

[dollywobbler]

New personal best on cold calling wankers:

15 minutes, 43 seconds while some knobhead was trying to offer some sort of computer based 'help'. I repeated everything they said adding a different bit and kept going back to my computer and telling them I'd pressed the wrong thing. Just shy of 15 minutes and 20 seconds I told them I haven't actually got a computer and the daft bint had to get her supervisor to explain (to her) what I meant.

 

My wife strung one of them along for a good ten minutes. Got a bit scary though as the chap on the other hand clicked that she was timewasting and asked if she needed any help to undress! My guess is they aren't allowed to hang up and that's one trick to get people off the phone.

 

Same thing. This magic "oh your computer is screwed because there's a text file just here. You'd better buy our magic potion fix cure!"