The grumpy thread

[mattblack]

Tailgaters... can anyone confirm if there's any mention in the C and U regs about having a rear facing, remote control shotgun fitted to your car... oh, and while your at it, can you point me to bit in the latest edition of the Highway Code that says you should stop at red traffic lights unless you can't be arsed to...

[Negative Creep]

Alarm has started to go off randomly when opening the door and neither of the fobs do anything (guess they've lost the code). Rather annoying at 8am when most of the neighbours are in bed. Stupid aftermarket rubbish - I may just see if I can disconnect the whole damn thing

[dollywobbler]

Alarm has started to go off randomly when opening the door and neither of the fobs do anything (guess they've lost the code). Rather annoying at 8am when most of the neighbours are in bed. Stupid aftermarket rubbish - I may just see if I can disconnect the whole damn thing

 

Alarms are well worth a grump. Stupid, stupid things. I wonder if one has EVER stopped a car being stolen? Remember as a child being in a relatives car. The alarm was going off as we were driving along due to some wiring fault! Did we get stopped? No. Have you ever heard an alarm going off and though "cripes, I shall summon a constable!" I very much doubt it. No, you'll actually just be wishing the bloody thing would shut up.

 

Imobilisers are a much better idea as they're much less shouty.

[M'coli]

Ahh cinema. My grump - that I never get to the GFT any more, to smile knowingly at films in languages I don't understand. Halcyon days.

I've seen some interesting films at the GFT! Suture & The Slab Boys spring to mind.

I enjoy going to the pictures, but dislike multiplexes. We have £20 of multiplex vouchers from Christmas about 4 years ago, but it's a pain to go there when we can walk to the local place.The last film we saw was Harry Potter 7 Part 1, Harry Potter and the Well-Fleeced Punter; 2 tickets and some refreshments came to about £14. That's expensive for the local place, it's usually a bit cheaper but HP costs a wee bit more to screen so early after its release.

 

Tailgaters... can anyone confirm if there's any mention in the C and U regs about having a rear facing, remote control shotgun fitted to your car..

Is there any mention of having a 100W spotlight inside the car rearwards facing, or a remotely operated camera flashgun?

[meggersdog]

Driving home tonight in the dark with a blanket of thick fog hovering just above the road surface I spotted a dark shape almost in the middle of the road.Not knowing what it was I slowed down as out of the gloom rode a stupid moron on a bike with no lights.He was wearing dark clothes too ! This idiot was about a foot away from the white lines in the middle of the road.

As he rode by he smiled.Well matey,luckily for you,I spotted you.A flash of teeth from that stupid grin is not enough illumination to prevent you from being a bonnet mascot.Perhaps a couple of lights would be less costly than weeks in plaster (or worse)...What a fugging tool.

[Negative Creep]

Alarm has started to go off randomly when opening the door and neither of the fobs do anything (guess they've lost the code). Rather annoying at 8am when most of the neighbours are in bed. Stupid aftermarket rubbish - I may just see if I can disconnect the whole damn thing

 

Alarms are well worth a grump. Stupid, stupid things. I wonder if one has EVER stopped a car being stolen? Remember as a child being in a relatives car. The alarm was going off as we were driving along due to some wiring fault! Did we get stopped? No. Have you ever heard an alarm going off and though "cripes, I shall summon a constable!" I very much doubt it. No, you'll actually just be wishing the bloody thing would shut up.

 

Imobilisers are a much better idea as they're much less shouty.

 

 

 

Since this is one of those fancy Thatcham ones I doubt I'll be able to simply yank a fuse out or cut a wire either. Also appears not to have a separate siren but is connected to the horn, so don't really want to disconnect that

[Pillock]

An alarm stopped my Beetle being nicked once so I can't share in the grump at that - the fellas were still clambering in but the alarm woke me up so I could disturb them.

 

My grump today - a perfectly good, 5mm treaded tyre with a fricking posidrive screw through the shoulder - unrepairable I'd imagine. Bugger. Who leaves screws in the road?

Partial further grump at the wheelbrace in the boot of the car not actually fitting the wheelnuts (or rather the nut-to-spline adaptor). Had to phone mum to bring a proper wheelbrace.

Even further grump at the wheels actually being multifit jobbies, with an odd sliding washer arrangement inside the wheel. WTF?? Looks about as safe as kicking a lion awake. They're coming off as soon as the Rev gets back in the country.

[warren t claim]

First day back at work grump.

 

Managed to get a 13mm bolt into the tread of a 22.5" brand new truck tyre. Forced to drive 4 miles to get it fixed only to have the Shit-Fit "Manslaughter if we fix that cos you've driven on it" speech. Cue a £450+vat bill for the company for a replacement. Sometimes I'm glad I'm not an owner driver.

 

Tyre fixed. Now I'm off to Blackpool to make a delivery. Friggin' detour 'cos one of Father Teds mates has clipped an OAP with the mirror of an Ambulance!

 

Phone call from Mrs_Claim to tell me that her daughter has managed to smash the front end of her X reg Escort Mk MCMVIII into a bollard in Tescos.

 

Notice that my delivery in Blackpool is to Bristol Avenue so I briefly perk up a bit at the prospect of a Warren T Claim 45min tacho break Urbex around the TVR factory. A place I used to regularly visit in the mid 1990s when they were clients of mine.

 

Find out that the TVR factory has now been broken into units and that the first floor is now a gym inhabited by steroid enhanced winkie shrinkage enthusiasts.

 

See owner of said gym pull up in his Mitsubishi Challenger Toss-Wagon signwritten to say his location as "former TVR factory".

 

Get phone call off work informing me that I'm starting at 5am tomorrow.

[Tayne]

.

[Claypole]

I'd be armed with a gas soldering iron, some heatshrink tubing, solder and wire cutters and throw that alarm out.

 

I took one off a Corrado once, in the process the siren went off so I unbolted it, put it in my pocket, locked the garage up and walked around the corner with it still sounding in my pocket... people just dont' give a shit.

 

Then smashed it to bits with a suitable hammer.

[scaryoldcortina]

Meh, alarms are easy. Even the thatchem immobilizing jobs don't usually take more than half an hour to bin completely. Factory jobs however....

 

my grump is with Steve Jobs, and Apple inc. generally. Bastards. I've picked up a cheap (39p!) bluetooth dongle designed to be used with an iPod, I've been trying to make it work without one (because I don't own one....) Easy enough to open up the dock connector, schematics are available (on pinouts.ru) it all looked fairly simple. Audio out, ground, 3.3v power, a "to ground" line to tell the ipod it has external speakers, a power control line and a tx/rx pair. So I gave it power. Nothing. Doesn't appear as a bluetooth device on the pc. Scope time, it is alive, and sending a stream of data up its TX line, at 2 second intervals, presumably looking for the Ipod to reply bugger. Ah well, I'm going to set it up so I can read it. Google says 19200 8n1 is likely, so I'm going to see what it's asking, and try to figure out a reply. Which is interesting and all, but totally un-necessary. most peripherals don't do this! How bloody anal do you have to be to actually ensure that not only will your device only accept approved periperals but to make the peripheral unusable with anything else? (actually, don't answer that. I know already - the reason I'm messing with it is because C's new PS3 needs a bluetooth mic due to not having a sodding microphone socket)

 

Ah well. If I'm lucky I'll be able to force it to work (by making an arduino pretend to be an iPod) and it's all good fun for a winter evening.

[Lord Sterling]

I wonder if one has EVER stopped a car being stolen?

 

The rather loud alarm on my '87 Rover Sterling stopped my car car being stolen once. Some twat decided to bend the door back, soon as he tried it on, he must have almost got a dose of heart attack as the alarm started sounding. It also allowed me and my neighbours to be informed of what happend, some neighbours came out to see what was going on and inform me that they had seen someone running from it.

 

The alarm on my car is an old one, but still very effective, its a combined alarm/immobliser. I know immobilisers on thier own are good but had the robbing twat got into my car, had he not been able to steal it, he may well have vandalised it in frustration, at least the alarm scared him off and I was able to bend my door back.

 

My grump right now, I'm not tired, I dont know why, I should be in bed asleep.

 

Just finished watching 'Regan' on youtube, now, its taken me at least 2 hours to watch an hours worth of clips, for some unknown reason every clip took ages to load.

[Cavcraft]

An alarm stopped my Beetle being nicked once so I can't share in the grump at that - the fellas were still clambering in but the alarm woke me up so I could disturb them.

 

My grump today - a perfectly good, 5mm treaded tyre with a fricking posidrive screw through the shoulder - unrepairable I'd imagine. Bugger. Who leaves screws in the road?

Partial further grump at the wheelbrace in the boot of the car not actually fitting the wheelnuts (or rather the nut-to-spline adaptor). Had to phone mum to bring a proper wheelbrace.

Even further grump at the wheels actually being multifit jobbies, with an odd sliding washer arrangement inside the wheel. WTF?? Looks about as safe as kicking a lion awake. They're coming off as soon as the Rev gets back in the country.

 

Deepending where about on the shoulder it should be still repairable. Look up a specialist (vulcanising) tyre repair company. I used to work for one yonks back and they heat a special patch on. Done correctly it's the strongest part of the tyre afterwards and won't cause any grief.

 

Causing me ag?

Shaving in the bath. Should have learnt from the last time when I slipped and nearly took my ear off, last night I cut a nice deep grove into my nose and filled the water with blood.

 

Women: Despite my beloved and I getting along better since a rcent 'debate' I can never understand women. Hot/cold/hot/cold etc. Anyhow she's adamant we're not going on holiday this year without the dog, despite my lad's bird working in a kennels. So I suggested some sort of camping type affair until I can afford to buy a 30 year old Pugrot camper van for eleventy cajillion quid. Good idea she says. So I get a trailer tent which looks pretty damned useful and half decent. Showed her pictures of it partly and fully erected (arf, arf) and she doesn't want to know.

[ashmicro]

A former colleague of my father bought a used Sierra GLSi in 1992, radiant red, minty. It had one of those Sparkrite alarms which detected current drain, so if the door was opened, the interior light came on, alarm goes off. On his way home from Coulter's Ford, Dad's mate was driving along the M5 out of Belfast as the alarm went off. (Back in those days, all police cars here were unmarked, many of them red Sierras.) Absolutely everyone got the hell out of his way!

 

He got the car home with the alarm still going, and disconnected the battery. Coulter's sent a spark out to his house with a really good alarm to replace it...

[chaseracer]

my grump is with Steve Jobs, and Apple inc. generally. Bastards. I've picked up a cheap (39p!) bluetooth dongle designed to be used with an iPod, I've been trying to make it work without one (because I don't own one....) Easy enough to open up the dock connector, schematics are available (on pinouts.ru) it all looked fairly simple. Audio out, ground, 3.3v power, a "to ground" line to tell the ipod it has external speakers, a power control line and a tx/rx pair. So I gave it power. Nothing. Doesn't appear as a bluetooth device on the pc. Scope time, it is alive, and sending a stream of data up its TX line, at 2 second intervals, presumably looking for the Ipod to reply bugger. Ah well, I'm going to set it up so I can read it. Google says 19200 8n1 is likely, so I'm going to see what it's asking, and try to figure out a reply. Which is interesting and all, but totally un-necessary. most peripherals don't do this! How bloody anal do you have to be to actually ensure that not only will your device only accept approved periperals but to make the peripheral unusable with anything else? (actually, don't answer that. I know already - the reason I'm messing with it is because C's new PS3 needs a bluetooth mic due to not having a sodding microphone socket).

Three words.

 

Absolute. Market. Control.

[dollywobbler]

Gah. Landy has a new thermostat, now the BX wants one too. I don't like stat changes - far too easy to snap a bolt. (though since I started warming the engine before doing this job, I've not had one snap...). That's a job for next week. Some time.

[warren t claim]

I thought I'd take the liberty of having the first grump of 2011.

 

A mangy woman in her 40s with a black eye and no teeth has been attempting to give me a kiss outside my house just because it's new year. I've never seen her before in my life and I can honestly say I'd rather slip my hand into a mincing machine than into her dirty pink Playboy jogging bottoms.

[Guest]

What the! You get all the luck.

[warren t claim]

What the! You get all the luck.

 

I really didn't wish to see 2011 in with my penis smelling of White Lightening and Richmond Superkings.

 

I must be too choosy.

[cobblers]

I thought I'd take the liberty of having the first grump of 2011.

 

A mangy woman in her 40s with a black eye and no teeth has been attempting to give me a kiss outside my house just because it's new year. I've never seen her before in my life and I can honestly say I'd rather slip my hand into a mincing machine than into her dirty pink Playboy jogging bottoms.

 

The bizarreness NYE can encourage is usually amusing. I'd have probably appreciated that, to be honest.

 

thx 4 ur avatar! They never fail to impress!

[garethj]

I am supposed to be collecting a conservatory tomorrow, which would at least give me something to do. Arranged a big trailer etc, on the basis that Er Indoors brother would help me fix my car. Except he didn't want to. So now as the other car has no tow-hitch that idea will have to be canned.

You can borrow the Volvo with tow bar if you like. Provide your own trilby hat and pipe of course.

 

Mind you it's a stupid idea anyway, as THERE IS MORE TO IT THAN JUST PILING SOME BRICKS UP AND STANDING SOME GLASS ON IT....

From time to time I think about building a conservatory, we could really do with an extra room. However....

 

Would I really get around to building it myself?

Would it end up much more expensive than I'd planned?

Would it be freezing cold in winter?

And hot in the summer?

 

A friend's parents had a conservatory, real big one. They put all the proper stuff in - cane furniture etc and it was very pleasant with a nice view onto the garden. They even put the big fish tank in there, much better than being jammed on a bookshelf inside the house.

 

One afternoon on a really sunny day my mate walks into the conservatory and says "it's boiling in here". And it was. Boiling the fish

[myglaren]

^ wrap it in turkey foil.

[eddyramrod]

From time to time I think about building a conservatory, we could really do with an extra room. However....

 

Would I really get around to building it myself?

Would it end up much more expensive than I'd planned?

Would it be freezing cold in winter?

And hot in the summer?

 

Unlikely; extremely likely; probably and probably. But that's just based on my own experience, yours may be different.

[55bloke]

From time to time I think about building a conservatory, we could really do with an extra room. However....

 

Would I really get around to building it myself?

Would it end up much more expensive than I'd planned?

Would it be freezing cold in winter?

And hot in the summer?

 

Unlikely; extremely likely; probably and probably. But that's just based on my own experience, yours may be different.

 

Air conditioning is the answer!

[pogweasel]

WHIBTLAC.

[Mr Lobster]

WHIBTLAC.

 

 

No idea. Why have you been?

[garethj]

No idea. Why have you been?

No, she went of her own accord?

[Richard]

Jamaica?

[Rusty Pelican]

Took me two days to build a 6x4 greenhouse , no way would i do a conservatory

 

Happy new year , I HAZ MAN FLU

[Tayne]

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