The grumpy thread

[Spurious]

Just now, Metal Guru said:

LED lightbulbs . Stated 20000 hrs lifetime, which is roughly 3 years continuous. Given normal use might be 2 hours a day, that should be about 30 years , which would be a lifetime at my age probably.

Instead , they last a year if you’re lucky!

Even worse are LED lights that have non replaceable bulbs. Always expensive and you end up binning the whole light. Hardly compatible with the green ethos presented by LEDs.

Chances are it's a couple of LEDs overdriven which will drastically reduce the life of them. 

 

[grogee]

1 hour ago, MikeR said:

Great  , days before Xmas the main washer splits it's door seal , scabs to the rescue for now , but a new  washer in the sales .......

Ooh is that scabs as in bike inner tube things? That is a very good tip and might come in v handy one day - thanks

But like you say, "fun" finding a replacement in the Jan sales. Which have probably started already

 

[Metal Guru]

58 minutes ago, Spurious said:

Chances are it's a couple of LEDs overdriven which will drastically reduce the life of them. 

 

Is there a way to stop that?

[Fumbler]

23 minutes ago, Metal Guru said:

Is there a way to stop that?

Getting better quality fixtures that use more LEDs at less power, or by adding more LEDs yourself to reduce power consumed by each LED.

[tooSavvy]

19 minutes ago, Fumbler said:

...... or by adding more LEDs yourself to reduce power consumed by each LED.

 

[Pieman]

On 12/17/2021 at 11:39 AM, AxWomble said:

Walking over a zebra crossing on Sloane Square yesterday, two lanes of traffic coming from my left, black cab stopped in the lane nearest to me, I start crossing but have to pause halfway as an octogenerian in a mk1 Focus bombs straight through the crossing in the other lane. It was broad daylight, her view of me wasn't obstructed at any point and so I saw her coming from a way off and thought "not sure she's stopping" 

 

Worst thing - I had a 7 month old baby in a sling on my chest and at no point did she brake or even show any sign that she had seen me. Shivers....

According to the precedents in this thread earlier this week, that's your fault for not fully making sure everyone had stopped.

[HillmanImp]

What the fuck is this shit? 

Naff all £1.50 cars (and normally 3 for 2 in this shop) anywhere we went but loads of these £7 jobbies! 

I had promised ImpJr a hotwheels car (I lost a bet on which side the platform would be on as we pulled into the station) but said these were too much and found a 'street fighter' Ryu car for £3.50 that was half price, probably trying to flog old stock to parents like me not wanting to spend seven fucking quid on what would've cost £1 if I'd bought it a few weeks ago. 

[myglaren]

3 hours ago, Metal Guru said:

LED lightbulbs . Stated 20000 hrs lifetime, which is roughly 3 years continuous. Given normal use might be 2 hours a day, that should be about 30 years , which would be a lifetime at my age probably.

Instead , they last a year if you’re lucky!

Even worse are LED lights that have non replaceable bulbs. Always expensive and you end up binning the whole light. Hardly compatible with the green ethos presented by LEDs.

I have loads here and the majority have lasted very well.  One in the dark stairwell is permanently connected and has been on for five years now, its predecessor lasted about five years and I think was spiked by a heating engineer working on the boiler - it is connected to the boiler.  The only other one was a huge cob bulb in the bathroom which lasted two years.

And an LED strip on top of the kitchen cabinets - overheating as I didn't provide a heatsink for them.

Otherwise I have chucked a couple of early ones out that were a bit crap and replaced with improved ones.

[somewhatfoolish]

On 12/13/2021 at 2:44 PM, wuvvum said:

That didn't go well.  Went out to the Mazda at lunchtime to check the coolant level, noticed a drip from under the thermostat housing so removed it to check whether the gasket was seated properly.

Well shit.  That's that car out of action then until I can source a replacement.  Only possibilities I've found so far are a new housing from a site in the Philippines which won't post outside the country, and a rather overpriced used Ford Festiva housing on eBay US. @gricer do you have any hot tips for sourcing bits for these?  I could try JB Weld I suppose but that's unlikely to be a long term solution...

 

You'd be surprised; the ship I'm on has had a coolant manifold temporarily* repaired* with wob(specifically the Wencon equivalent of Milliput) while waiting for a replacement to arrive. The replacement was ordered last year, it looks shit but it's not leaked yet. Because that housing only has two bolt holes I'd try making a reinforcement from sheet steel or aluminium and glue that on at the same time with epoxy of choice.

[AxWomble]

9 hours ago, Pieman said:

According to the precedents in this thread earlier this week, that's your fault for not fully making sure everyone had stopped.

Indeed, lucky I checked properly! 

[Metal Guru]

14 hours ago, tooSavvy said:

 

I just want to screw in a light bulb not rewire the house.

[Rab]

Weather Grump.

Here on west coast we've been enveloped in a haar..thick fog that seems to roll in from everywhere..its quite normal for the east coast..but three days on the west is highly unusual..

[MikeR]

1 cm of snow ..... We're fucked !

[jakebullet]

~Previously~ Sister's dog is most likely to expire soon. Waiting for test results to confirm.

So Friday night I went to the Mrs's flat as usual. This was obviously wrong, I should have stayed home moping about the dog. I've come back to the Ma staring blankly into space, and deflecting any attempt at conversion with silent treatment.

Anyone want to take bets the little bastard is going to take a turn for the worse on Christmas eve for maximum impact?

Idiot sister had the genius idea of reducing it's insurance to 3K of cover, 'cos it's cheaper innit? She also has a vet whose first course of action is to contact insurance and find out what he can blow money on. He's already planning when blood tests come back to do an MRI for a mere £1500. 3 grand is going to be smoked in no time. No doubt Ma is planning on selling the house to chase a wild one in a billion chance of fixing it.

[Yank Tank]

9 minutes ago, jakebullet said:

~Previously~ Sister's dog is most likely to expire soon. Waiting for test results to confirm.

So Friday night I went to the Mrs's flat as usual. This was obviously wrong, I should have stayed home moping about the dog. I've come back to the Ma staring blankly into space, and deflecting any attempt at conversion with silent treatment.

Anyone want to take bets the little bastard is going to take a turn for the worse on Christmas eve for maximum impact?

Idiot sister had the genius idea of reducing it's insurance to 3K of cover, 'cos it's cheaper innit? She also has a vet whose first course of action is to contact insurance and find out what he can blow money on. He's already planning when blood tests come back to do an MRI for a mere £1500. 3 grand is going to be smoked in no time. No doubt Ma is planning on selling the house to chase a wild one in a billion chance of fixing it.

just do the right thing and put it out of its misery. i remember my uncles dog going to live on a farm, it wasn’t that long ago that people would put their own pets to sleep rather than paying someone a fortune to do it for them. 
 

steal it overnight and put an end to the madness and suffering 

[adw1977]

Getting an animal put down at the vet doesn't cost very much (well under £100) and guarantees minimal suffering for the animal and no risk of prosecution for you.

[Sheefag]

7 hours ago, Rab said:

Weather Grump.

Here on west coast we've been enveloped in a haar..thick fog that seems to roll in from everywhere..its quite normal for the east coast..but three days on the west is highly unusual..

Disappointed you haven't blamed English Imperialism / Evil Torys yet.

[somewhatfoolish]

We don't really have evil ones anymore, this lot are just shite.

[New POD]

On 18/12/2021 at 09:54, MikeR said:

Its had other issues , one of which is not to drain properly ,it only cost me 80 quid years ago , the outside washer can be used for now , new washer and scrap the old ones ....

You have 2 washing machines???? How very sensible. And also slight karma here too. I'll explain at Christmas. 

[New POD]

10 hours ago, jakebullet said:

~Previously~ Sister's dog is most likely to expire soon. Waiting for test results to confirm.

So Friday night I went to the Mrs's flat as usual. This was obviously wrong, I should have stayed home moping about the dog. I've come back to the Ma staring blankly into space, and deflecting any attempt at conversion with silent treatment.

Anyone want to take bets the little bastard is going to take a turn for the worse on Christmas eve for maximum impact?

Idiot sister had the genius idea of reducing it's insurance to 3K of cover, 'cos it's cheaper innit? She also has a vet whose first course of action is to contact insurance and find out what he can blow money on. He's already planning when blood tests come back to do an MRI for a mere £1500. 3 grand is going to be smoked in no time. No doubt Ma is planning on selling the house to chase a wild one in a billion chance of fixing it.

The way to solve this is take it to the vet yourself. Now. And make the decision for them.  Then come home empty handed. 

[dozeydustman]

Fucking tabby cat has been in and out the litter box every 5 mins since 3:30 this morning, scratching and trying to bury whatever. The box is empty with the same clean litter we put in it yesterday. The 2 cats have a box each + a spare - black cat’s uses her one normally, spare box unused so is tabby’s. 

Fucking thing is costing us £90 a month in vet prescriptions and £140 for blood tests every 6 months.

Now the bloody thing is going senile I really wish the wife would ask the vet to put it out of its (and my wallet’s and the way things are going my mental health’s)  misery.

Next pet we get in this household is a dog. Or a parrot. Or a snake. Or an iguana. Anything but a fucking cat.

[somewhatfoolish]

Get it stuffed and mounted; if nothing else it will send a message to the next cat.

[dozeydustman]

41 minutes ago, somewhatfoolish said:

Get it stuffed and mounted; if nothing else it will send a message to the next cat.

I don’t want a reminder of the bloody thing!

[Pieman]

13 hours ago, jakebullet said:

I've come back to the Ma staring blankly into space, and deflecting any attempt at conversion with silent treatment.

My mother does that a lot of the time too.  Nothing to do with dogs, she just fucking hates talking to me.

[MikeR]

The only animals that did not have vet bills were the chickens ....they  had a block of wood and a axe ....!

[chadders]

4 hours ago, dozeydustman said:

Fucking tabby cat has been in and out the litter box every 5 mins since 3:30 this morning, scratching and trying to bury whatever. The box is empty with the same clean litter we put in it yesterday. The 2 cats have a box each + a spare - black cat’s uses her one normally, spare box unused so is tabby’s. 

Fucking thing is costing us £90 a month in vet prescriptions and £140 for blood tests every 6 months.

Now the bloody thing is going senile I really wish the wife would ask the vet to put it out of its (and my wallet’s and the way things are going my mental health’s)  misery.

Next pet we get in this household is a dog. Or a parrot. Or a snake. Or an iguana. Anything but a fucking cat.

That sort of behaviour reminds me of our youngest dog when she had meningitis.

[Talbot]

4 hours ago, dozeydustman said:

Fucking tabby cat has been in and out the litter box every 5 mins since 3:30 this morning, scratching and trying to bury whatever. The box is empty with the same clean litter we put in it yesterday. The 2 cats have a box each + a spare - black cat’s uses her one normally, spare box unused so is tabby’s. 

Fucking thing is costing us £90 a month in vet prescriptions and £140 for blood tests every 6 months.

Now the bloody thing is going senile I really wish the wife would ask the vet to put it out of its (and my wallet’s and the way things are going my mental health’s)  misery.

Next pet we get in this household is a dog. Or a parrot. Or a snake. Or an iguana. Anything but a fucking cat.

You're doing it rong. (not really, just there is an alternative:)  Treat a cat like a WBOD.  Get an 18year old cat from cats protection for free.  Love said cat in his/her twilight years, but as soon as they are very ill, it's off to the vets for a one-way journey, then get another one.  No-one will ever expect anything other than euthenasia for a sick 18yo cat, and you're doing a lovely thing by giving a senior cat some love at the end of their life.

Worked for me.  I had 9 months of a very elderly and very lovely small black female cat (basically a witches cat)  Once she developed kidney failure, it was off to the vets for a one-way, and trade-in for a younger model from Cats protection league.  When I said to the lady at CP that I wanted another old black female cat, she told me I could have my pick of quite a few, and actually did I want to take all of them?  Also, they didn't even want a donation as they were just really pleased that someone wasn't after the stereotypical cutesy kitten. (for which they do ask for a decent contribution).

[beko1987]

Wcad 😂😂

[Datsuncog]

Merry Easter, everyone.

Can't we just, y'know, take it one holiday at a time?

[dozeydustman]

23 minutes ago, chadders said:

That sort of behaviour reminds me of our youngest dog when she had meningitis.

This cat was only last checked up 3 weeks ago. We’ve told the vet its unusual behaviour and he has diagnosed senility/dementia. She is an old cat (16) so about the sort of age for that. All it does is sleep, make a horrid noise licking its arse, makes a horrid noise for food and shit. And in the last week we’ve noticed the last of those habits has been done in inappropriate places, so that’ll mean we have to replace the carpets or lose our deposit when we move out. 
 

10 minutes ago, Talbot said:

You're doing it rong. (not really, just there is an alternative:)  Treat a cat like a WBOD.  Get an 18year old cat from cats protection for free.  Love said cat in his/her twilight years, but as soon as they are very ill, it's off to the vets for a one-way journey, then get another one.  No-one will ever expect anything other than euthenasia for a sick 18yo cat, and you're doing a lovely thing by giving a senior cat some love at the end of their life.

Worked for me.  I had 9 months of a very elderly and very lovely small black female cat (basically a witches cat)  Once she developed kidney failure, it was off to the vets for a one-way, and trade-in for a younger model from Cats protection league.  When I said to the lady at CP that I wanted another old black female cat, she told me I could have my pick of quite a few, and actually did I want to take all of them?  Also, they didn't even want a donation as they were just really pleased that someone wasn't after the stereotypical cutesy kitten. (for which they do ask for a decent contribution).

I agree with the sentiment of giving an animal a loving home in its twilight years but as I get no pleasure from cats, and never have done throughout my 43 years on this planet, I’d apply that principal to a dog, parrot, any other pet - 6 of the 11 fish in the aquarium I rehomed, my cockatiel was a rescue, my last 2 dogs were rescues/rehomes.