The grumpy thread

[camryv6]

1 minute ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

 

Garfield used to be my hero, and yes I know he is not real but I wanted to be him.

[Zelandeth]

Bloody eBay sellers who can't be arsed packaging things properly.  Or even making an effort.

Yeah... I'll just ship this light card box containing both one heavy component and one fragile glass one by stuffing it in a massively oversized plastic bag (not even a padded one!) and hope for the best.

The item arrived in one piece definitely by pure luck rather than any judgement on the part of the seller.

This is why I *hate* buying lighting stuff - especially long obsolete and hard to find things like this - from eBay unless I can collect it in person.

Had been after one of these for a while though so was willing to take the gamble...it very nearly didn't pay off!

[LightBulbFun]

27 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Bloody eBay sellers who can't be arsed packaging things properly.  Or even making an effort.

Yeah... I'll just ship this light card box containing both one heavy component and one fragile glass one by stuffing it in a massively oversized plastic bag (not even a padded one!) and hope for the best.

The item arrived in one piece definitely by pure luck rather than any judgement on the part of the seller.

This is why I *hate* buying lighting stuff - especially long obsolete and hard to find things like this - from eBay unless I can collect it in person.

Had been after one of these for a while though so was willing to take the gamble...it very nearly didn't pay off!

like for the Mazda (Thorn) 10W 2D lamp and adapter  (not for the bad packing!)

I really must get one of those in the collection again some day (I had one in the past but gave it to another collector) (although IIRC I still have some 10W 2D lamps on their own kicking around)

I however was fortunate enough to pick up a couple first generation 16W 2D ones on ebay a few months ago however  

even put one into use but sadly its included Thorn 2D lamp had some sort of defect and went EOL after only 5000 hours of 247 burning

need to pick up some more 2D lamps and put it back into use  (im saving the other one for the collection of course!)

 

[PhilA]

When the water out of the faucet looks like someone used it already.

 

... Empty jug for reference.

 

This morning's coffee went down the drain, and a fresh pot made with bottled water is on the stove.

 

Phil

[xtriple]

I have cooked steak, good steak at that... for the dogs! It is the dogs birthday (9 today fat bugger) and they get steak on their birthdays so I cook the stuff twice a year. I forgot that steak seems to lose half its weight on the old George Forman and in an attempt to be even nicer to the damned mutts tried to pour said steak juice (blood and general gore ) over their dry meal which I intended to mix in with 14 day aged steak.

However, I have a very dodgy left arm and a slightly shaky right one these  days... can you see what's coming?

Yes the juice from 4 bits of mature cow meat ended up on the floor/sideboard/tumble dryer/carpet and lino. What a bloody (sic) mess! Worse, Chester, whose birthday it is didn't even offer to help clean up! He was too intent on dancing up and down trying to see what was in the grill that smelled so damned good (to him!) and in his dancing, he managed to poddle dead cow even further into the flat. Now I am not what you'd call 'house-proud' but even I blanche at congealed gunge splodged into the carpet!

Also, said meal cost me £41. When did the stuff get so dear? I've taken blondes out for meals that have cost me a lot less than that and I got more than a sloppy kiss from a smelly fat dog as my reward.

[Volksy]

15 minutes ago, xtriple said:

I've taken blondes out for meals that have cost me a lot less than that and I got more than a sloppy kiss from a smelly fat dog as my reward.

Erm... ?

[iainrcz]

What silly dick head thought earlier "I'll fix that squeaking floorboard before the carpet fitter comes next week"

The same silly dick head that has just pierced a copper water pipe with a nail.

 

Fuck sticks.

[Stanky]

My work colleague with the much mentioned e220d came over earlier as he'd snapped his wheel nut remover thing from the toolkit in the boot trying to get a wheel off and I (with much foolhardiness) proudly proclaimed my Clarke mains impact driver would undo anything. So he rocked up, into bay B of the new garage and I set to work.

I really, honestly, have no idea how the wheelnuts have been done up so tight on the car. Driver side front, none of them would yield to whats rated (and I can believe it) at 450nm of torque. the impact gun was held on each bolt in turn for 60 seconds or so with a good quality 6-sided impact socket to literally no avail. not one of them released their grip.

Moved onto the passenger side front, mild progress here, one (of 5) eventually releaxed its death grip on the hub. The other 4? No, not a bit.

I had to give up, I suggested he try some 'freeze your nuts off' type stuff but I wasn't going near his nice alloys with my brazing torch and the impact gun wasn't shifting them. I am utterly baffled as to what has been used to do them up this tight? Have they used JB Weld as threadlock and a tame silverback?

He messaged me later on to say the Normfest super crack had enabled him to get 3 more bolts (2x 1 wheel, 1 x other) off with a scaffold bar on a 18" breaker (I lent him one of my 17mm impact sockets as he only had 12-sided ones) but then was thwarted when the key bit of the locking wheelnut remover sheared clean off. So its basically fucked. The only plus point of this entire fiasco is that he's discovered this now, while all 4 wheels are fitted to the car and fully inflated. The prospect of discovering this at 11pm on the side of the M25 in the pissing rain with a flat tyre doesn't bear thinking about. Someone wants a damn good shoeing for this.

I went and checked all of mine afterwards and all yielded to a 18" breaker bar (which is kept in the boot) and done back up again tight, but not ridiculously so.

[Noel Tidybeard]

7 hours ago, PhilA said:

When the water out of the faucet looks like someone used it already.

 

... Empty jug for reference.

 

This morning's coffee went down the drain, and a fresh pot made with bottled water is on the stove.

 

Phil

all fresh water has been passed by management ?

[Zelandeth]

12 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

like for the Mazda (Thorn) 10W 2D lamp and adapter  (not for the bad packing!)

I really must get one of those in the collection again some day (I had one in the past but gave it to another collector) (although IIRC I still have some 10W 2D lamps on their own kicking around)

I however was fortunate enough to pick up a couple first generation 16W 2D ones on ebay a few months ago however  

even put one into use but sadly its included Thorn 2D lamp had some sort of defect and went EOL after only 5000 hours of 247 burning

need to pick up some more 2D lamps and put it back into use  (im saving the other one for the collection of course!)

 

Glad to report that it has survived the treatment!  Was never going to be certain until it had been powered up if the cathodes would be rolling around in the tube or if it would have lost vacuum due to some unseen crack under the cap.

Has been running all evening, will probably be packed away safely again for the time being.

It's slightly strange seeing typical programmed electronic start behaviour on a switchstart fitting.

[LightBulbFun]

5 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Glad to report that it has survived the treatment!  Was never going to be certain until it had been powered up if the cathodes would be rolling around in the tube or if it would have lost vacuum due to some unseen crack under the cap.

Has been running all evening, will probably be packed away safely again for the time being.

It's slightly strange seeing typical programmed electronic start behaviour on a switchstart fitting.

ah yeah, happy to see it is indeed working  

yeah when I first got one I was a bit disappointed to find out they did not have a glow bottle starter! (although a good electronic starter is of course much better for lamp life! and seeing good end glow is always satisfying in its own right)

as a side fun fact, the ballasts inside them is just a normal tridonic EC10/13 with just the mounting back plate removed, always thought it would be something custom like a Philips SL lamp but nope!

[Zelandeth]

20 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

ah yeah, happy to see it is indeed working  

yeah when I first got one I was a bit disappointed to find out they did not have a glow bottle starter! (although a good electronic starter is of course much better for lamp life! and seeing good end glow is always satisfying in its own right)

as a side fun fact, the ballasts inside them is just a normal tridonic EC10/13 with just the mounting back plate removed, always thought it would be something custom like a Philips SL lamp but nope!

Does bring to mind, with the electronic starter (given the origins, I'm assuming it's basically a hard wired Vivatronic unit?), what's the EOL behaviour?

[LightBulbFun]

3 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Does bring to mind, with the electronic starter (given the origins, I'm assuming it's basically a hard wired Vivatronic unit?), what's the EOL behaviour?

never had an actually EOL lamp in mine (despite putting a good number of hours on it, these 10W 2Ds really can do silly hours, I think it was a 10W 2D that was the last lamp standing in Kev's crazy life test LOL)

but from doing some experiments with it the electronic starter acted much more like an EFS600 then something like an Vivatronic

[paulplom]

3 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Glad to report that it has survived the treatment!  Was never going to be certain until it had been powered up if the cathodes would be rolling around in the tube or if it would have lost vacuum due to some unseen crack under the cap.

Has been running all evening, will probably be packed away safely again for the time being.

It's slightly strange seeing typical programmed electronic start behaviour on a switchstart fitting.

Mazda?

How much welding has it had?

[Zelandeth]

City bloody Fibre.

Turned up yesterday and started making a racket well before 0700 offloading their mini digger etc.

No traffic management to speak of.

Utter disregard for correct use of PPE.  Who needs a guard on the stone cutting saw, or to wear safety glasses, gloves or ear protectors while using it?  Pretty sure Nike don't make safety footwear either...

Repeatedly blocked us in/out by parking their vans across our drive, despite there being ample parking available round the corner (which baffles me as that was actually nearer to where they were working...but who am I to apply logic?).

All their litter from their lunch, drinks and snacks through the day are strewn all over the street and our garden.

I have never seen such an incompetent, half-assed, inconsiderate bunch of workers...A lot of stuff I could overlook, but brazenly just chucking their rubbish in my garden was a step too far and had me spitting feathers.

Most of the ducts they put in a couple of months ago a couple of streets away have visibly started to collapse too...so I'm sure we'll see them back even once they're "finished."

They're already apparently on a "red warning" from the Council, well another written complaint has been submitted.  Not that I honestly expect MK Council to even acknowledge receipt of it if prior experience is anything to go by.

[Supernaut]

11 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

City bloody Fibre.

Bunch of fucking cowboys. I shake my head visibly every time I pass one of their sites in my (rival telecomms company) work van.

[Agila]

20 hours ago, Stanky said:

My work colleague with the much mentioned e220d came over earlier as he'd snapped his wheel nut remover thing from the toolkit in the boot trying to get a wheel off and I (with much foolhardiness) proudly proclaimed my Clarke mains impact driver would undo anything. So he rocked up, into bay B of the new garage and I set to work.

I really, honestly, have no idea how the wheelnuts have been done up so tight on the car. Driver side front, none of them would yield to whats rated (and I can believe it) at 450nm of torque. the impact gun was held on each bolt in turn for 60 seconds or so with a good quality 6-sided impact socket to literally no avail. not one of them released their grip.

Moved onto the passenger side front, mild progress here, one (of 5) eventually releaxed its death grip on the hub. The other 4? No, not a bit.

I had to give up, I suggested he try some 'freeze your nuts off' type stuff but I wasn't going near his nice alloys with my brazing torch and the impact gun wasn't shifting them. I am utterly baffled as to what has been used to do them up this tight? Have they used JB Weld as threadlock and a tame silverback?

He messaged me later on to say the Normfest super crack had enabled him to get 3 more bolts (2x 1 wheel, 1 x other) off with a scaffold bar on a 18" breaker (I lent him one of my 17mm impact sockets as he only had 12-sided ones) but then was thwarted when the key bit of the locking wheelnut remover sheared clean off. So its basically fucked. The only plus point of this entire fiasco is that he's discovered this now, while all 4 wheels are fitted to the car and fully inflated. The prospect of discovering this at 11pm on the side of the M25 in the pissing rain with a flat tyre doesn't bear thinking about. Someone wants a damn good shoeing for this.

I went and checked all of mine afterwards and all yielded to a 18" breaker bar (which is kept in the boot) and done back up again tight, but not ridiculously so.

Strangely I had similar on a 2002 v70 t5, ex police car.

Clarke impact gun you have never touched it. (Only thing mine has ever failed on)

Took it to the garage and it snapped an impact socket.

New impact socket and a scaffold bar 10ft long did it.

Thankfully I was doing a brake job and could drive it to assistance.

Must of been done in house by Humberside Police or a tyre fitter who doesn't like police. Weird.

[camryv6]

On 6/11/2020 at 4:56 PM, xtriple said:

I have cooked steak, good steak at that... for the dogs! It is the dogs birthday (9 today fat bugger) and they get steak on their birthdays so I cook the stuff twice a year. I forgot that steak seems to lose half its weight on the old George Forman and in an attempt to be even nicer to the damned mutts tried to pour said steak juice (blood and general gore ) over their dry meal which I intended to mix in with 14 day aged steak.

However, I have a very dodgy left arm and a slightly shaky right one these  days... can you see what's coming?

Yes the juice from 4 bits of mature cow meat ended up on the floor/sideboard/tumble dryer/carpet and lino. What a bloody (sic) mess! Worse, Chester, whose birthday it is didn't even offer to help clean up! He was too intent on dancing up and down trying to see what was in the grill that smelled so damned good (to him!) and in his dancing, he managed to poddle dead cow even further into the flat. Now I am not what you'd call 'house-proud' but even I blanche at congealed gunge splodged into the carpet!

Also, said meal cost me £41. When did the stuff get so dear? I've taken blondes out for meals that have cost me a lot less than that and I got more than a sloppy kiss from a smelly fat dog as my reward.

At least you can get some use out of the shaky right arm ?

[Saabnut]

Surprisingly* I have a car to collect, but it is in the Sheffield/Worksop area. I have a few days at home, so thought I would look into a train ticket, reasoning trains are reportedly empty so a safe(ish) means of transport. This is a route I have often done for chod collections, and usually pay £30-£60 one way, depending on how far in advance a ticket is purchased, with a short notice ticket around £90. With the current climate, the ONLY tickets available are £170 or £270 first class. The robbing barstuds are charging peak rate fares at all times. No wonder the trains are empty!

Anyone want a car shifting from Aberdeen ish to Sheffield ish? I have insurance that will cover it fully comp.

[Alan_Green]

That Saab 9000 in Aviemore is £650 now @Saabnut.  Bet you end up driving that down.  Aviemore is a quaint suburb of Aberdeen, right?.

[Saabnut]

Whilst I have had many 9000s they are my least favourite Saab. There. I have said it. Perfectly good cars, just, for me, lacking in character.

[Zelandeth]

What a lovely, cheerful town I live in.

Just had someone walk over to me in the supermarket car park and tell me that everyone like me is collectively entirely to blame for climate change and I should f*** off and buy a f***ing Prius already.

I rolled my eyes, wound the window up and shook my head.

That's three for three on the last trips out that I've had hassle from assholes for one reason or another.  Really wish I'd never moved down here.

[BorniteIdentity]

6 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

What a lovely, cheerful town I live in.

Just had someone walk over to me in the supermarket car park and tell me that everyone like me is collectively entirely to blame for climate change and I should f*** off and buy a f***ing Prius already.

I rolled my eyes, wound the window up and shook my head.

That's three for three on the last trips out that I've had hassle from assholes for one reason or another.  Really wish I'd never moved down here.

Smile and wave. They don’t know what to do. 

Seriously, it was a bit of a sport in “Woke AF” Cambridge a few years ago. If you drove a 4x4 you got climate change propaganda glued all over your car whilst you shop. They targeted all the multi storey car parks for a long time. I did let one white lass with dreadlocks know that my car emitted more carbon than the LPG 4x4 she’s just vandalised but they don’t really care - they’re generally just tying to get their narrative on the agenda. 

Next time, just say “I only do it piss off people like you” and they won’t know what to say. Or how to cope. It’s great. But make sure you have a shit eating grin on your face too. 

[anonymous user]

I assume that you were in the XJS and there was no point in educating the person with regard to whole life costs to the environment, especially with regard to Prius batteries.

My mate had a similar challenge a few years back when he was filling up his Bentley. His response was that he"d planted over two hundred trees on some of his land that week, how many had the other chap put in.

[Zelandeth]

...Less than five minutes later someone walks all the way over and asks me why the expletive I've not got a mask on?

Um...because I'm sitting on my own in my own car in the furthest corner of the carpark where there's not a single car within about 15 spaces of me.  Piss off.  If I was going into the supermarket myself, fair enough... especially as 95% of the customers seem physically incapable of following simple guidelines.  I sure as hell don't need one sitting in my own car.

What baffles me even more is that they weren't wearing one either! 

I really just want to crawl into a hole and die right now.

[Jazoli]

I've been out for a ride on my bike into the countryside today and people are wandering round in the middle of nowhere wearing fucking masks, fucking sheep incapable of thinking for themselves, it really is ridiculous, thankfully most folk are just getting on with it and life has returned to normal for the most part, you still get the odd one who has to jump out of the way if they get within 6ft of you but the majority don't seem that bothered.

[EyesWeldedShut]

Wasn't a Tescos was it?

Local town here has a Morrisons, a Lidls and a Tescos and that's it.

I used to use the latter two but gave up on Tescos last month as it was totally fecked off with the attitude of the other shoppers - staff are lovely btw.

There's a weird one way system in there (that the staff ignore doing click/collect and shelf stacking). If you have to go 'against' the system (which you have to if you want to use a self-checkout) then the passive/aggressive tuts, stares etc etc make you feel like a total crim. Then if you stop to look at a shelf people pile up behind you a-tutting and glowering. Patently there's a no overtaking sign that I missed on the way in. God forbid if you miss the beans and have to double back.

Overall a truly shite experience. Much more fun in Morrisons - seems populated by humans.

[Zelandeth]

They're all as bad as each other here it seems at the moment.  Well, aside from the one Morrison's which has a one way system that is physically impossible to follow.  They marked it out apparently before closing off the entire front end of the store to funnel all checkout traffic into a single queue - so there is no way to exit any of the aisles in the front half of the store without doubling back as they are only open at one end.

Actually finding the way into the checkout queue literally took me about fifteen minutes of aimless wandering.  I was seriously about 60 seconds from abandoning the trolley and walking out at that point.  If you're going to bury the way to the tills in the depths of the baby supplies (and around a corner so there's no line of sight of it until you've turned the corner) at least put up a sign saying "tills this way" or something...

It's complete madness most places around here.  I don't know why people are just so utterly incapable of following even the simplest instructions.

Toolstation have set things up so the click and collect counter is actually at the store entrance and they've got a gazebo to offer some shade.  You go in from the right, queuing if necessary, and exit to the left.  Through the two parking spaces in front of the store.  There are A1 size signs directing you, additional hand written ones, and both stickers and spray painted arrows on the ground.

Yesterday not one, not two, but four people in front of me queued up, got their stuff...then turned around and exited back the way they had come - which involved physically having to shove past about ten people...if they had just continued walking the same direction...just what?!?  Are the general populace really honesty this hopeless these days?  It honestly felt like I was watching something on some celebrity reality TV show...

[Tamworthbay]

After having two houses trashed by tropical storms in North and South Carolina my brother moved back to Tucson. Just spoke to him and they are waiting to hear if they need to evacuate due to massive fires. He has spent the afternoon watching the planes dump water and packing up the essentials. I told him God hates him for moving to America. It could be three houses in three years ?

[rusty_vw_man]

Bloody autodoc.co.uk does my head in. They tempt you in with scene tax free prices and easy part number search function, but then always take longer than suggested to deliver..... much longer...... apparently it’s because this order is ‘hard to pick’. Not sure how some oil, filters, pads and discs can be that tricky. 

I’m mostly grumpy though that I never learn - this is the third time in only a few months it’s happened, so I only have myself to blame really.... twat.