The grumpy thread

[Aston Martin]

I had to go to Scotland, (someone has to) I saw this and teared up. It looked fucking horrendous.

 

www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/lorry-drivers-hospital-a69-northumberland-15372179.amp

[dozeydustman]

My job has an on-call function and I was up all last night dealing with something.  That's a bit annoying, but not the grump - it's just a part of the job.

 

Mrs H and I were supposed to go to a gig in Greenwich with my mum and sister tonight but having had just a couple of hours of dozing I don't feel up to going.  Again, that's annoying but not the grump - I gambled with my on-call and lost.

 

The grump is that my mum and sister have both been trying to guilt trip me into going.  No, I am absolutely not travelling 60 odd miles up from the south coast when I know I would just hate every minute of it because I'd be feeling tired and sick, then face the journey home.  I do not like being guilt-tripped.

 

It's all so bloody one-sided, as well - Mum tried to argue that it's not hard to get to London, so then why has she not visited us once since we bought our house?  And we can't sleep there afterwards because it's too hard for her to have overnight guests.

 

She has a lot of issues and my sympathy is large but it's reached its limits at the moment...

 

 

That gets me with my family as well. Appreciate nana dustman is in a home and needs a visitor once a day to stop her going completely doolally. I get guilt tripped into not being in Kent enough to see my family, yet my parents, aunts/uncles, brother only come here every 3 months at the most, yet mrs_d and I must go to Kent at least twice in a month, and then moan because we ran out of time and couldn't see my nan. We have somewhere they can sleep, a bigger home than before so entertaining isn't a problem.

 

My brother gets away with doing bugger all in the meanwhile....

[SierraMikeHotel]

I feel your pain mate. I've made a lot of effort to go and see my sister at least once a week while she's been in hospital (since February) and while I want to help and I don't begrudge it, it has been a lot of work getting to London after work every week.

 

I cancel one thing (not because I wanted to, but because of work - and believe me, the job was really worthwhile) and it's like the roof's fallen in...

[DodgeRover]

Pauxhall Meriva as mentioned previously anti roll bar links/ drop arms fitted upside down, no bastard jack, wheel brace or spare, apparently it's cost saving. Bollocks to that, NS one now fitted correctly, lower nyloc was only finger tight.

[New POD]

My job has an on-call function and I was up all last night dealing with something. That's a bit annoying, but not the grump - it's just a part of the job.

 

Mrs H and I were supposed to go to a gig in Greenwich with my mum and sister tonight but having had just a couple of hours of dozing I don't feel up to going. Again, that's annoying but not the grump - I gambled with my on-call and lost.

 

The grump is that my mum and sister have both been trying to guilt trip me into going. No, I am absolutely not travelling 60 odd miles up from the south coast when I know I would just hate every minute of it because I'd be feeling tired and sick, then face the journey home. I do not like being guilt-tripped.

 

It's all so bloody one-sided, as well - Mum tried to argue that it's not hard to get to London, so then why has she not visited us once since we bought our house? And we can't sleep there afterwards because it's too hard for her to have overnight guests.

 

She has a lot of issues and my sympathy is large but it's reached its limits at the moment...

 

I feel your pain. Without getting into it too deep.

 

My parents retired to Anglesey 17 years ago. They could have gone anywhere.

At the time, I pleaded with them to think it through.

I said

It's a minimum of 2 hours door to door.

We both work.

The kids are at school.

We will probably visit 3 times a year.

You are thus unlikely to form any lasting bonds with your grand children.

And when you get really old we are not going to be able to help you much.

And so it is. Kids now adults, barely tolerate my parents. Would not choose to visit even if they had time on their hands.

 

On the other hand we live close to my wife's family and there isn't a week goes by where I wish we were 2 hours from them so we could ignore them.

 

In my humble opinion, My wife has basically become Cinderella for her sister, brother and her parents. When it suits them they are all pleasant and kind, but only when they are getting their own way. They take advantage because they can use her good nature and strong conscience and apply a little emotional blackmail to get her running around sorting things out.

 

Its illogical for me to live in Merseyside, because there is very little work in my field within 90 miles.

[SierraMikeHotel]

That's shit

 

Attitude comes into it as well as distance though... Mrs H grew up in Poole - about 100 miles away and the roads and rails between aren't great so it's usually 2-3 hours - but we see them more often than we see my parents (50 miles, one hour, connected by a motorway and a really good train service). They are lovely, too, so at least we get support from one direction.

[iainrcz]

The tart has just come waddling in to the living room with a lump of cake on a plate.

 

Never even offered me any, what's that fucking game.

 

Eating cake in my house and not even asking if I want any.

 

Jesus.

 

Sent from my VFD 710 using Tapatalk

[SiC]

Drove the TT in today as it had its service. That's not the grump as it's all fine.

 

It's the hour drive home that was the grump. An hour to drive less than 7 miles. FFS.

 

I was going to drive in this week, but I think I'll be back on the bike tomorrow. That's only 15 minutes in and under 20 minutes back home (up hill) in comparison.

[Guest Hooli]

Google maps becoming cunting stupid & not being able to find where I'm training this week. It consistently refused to admit the road was a good mile from where it kept taking me so I gave up & parked there to walk across the hell hole that is Leeds. It could tell me how to walk here, but was pretending the car park next to the building I'm in is a mile away... Now I've got to find the car once I finish for the day to get home.

 

Tomorrow I'm getting my sat-nav out as that loses it's mind less often...

 

Update to this, the cunting thing couldn't find the way back to the car either. Not even along the road it thought I couldn't drive along this morning (I mean why would you have a road leading to a car park ffs?) But I found the car by retracing the silly route I took this morning when google was being a cunt.

 

Fucking google cunts! google maps worked when it first appeared, what the cunting fuck is the point of improving* it till it doesn't?

[cort16]

One of the guys at work had his 3 year old 4 series in for its 40k service . £500. £110 an hour labour. All it had was oil, filters and spark plugs .

[Tamworthbay]

Got a meeting tomorrow, only two hours long and I don’t have to go to work either side. Why grumpy thread I hear you ask? Because it’s in fucking London, and it gets better, ending at 4.30pm. But of course it won’t, it will dump out around 5-5.30pm for the joy of London traffic followed by M25 traffic, followed by M40 past oxford joy. Oh boy am I looking forward to it. No easy way to get a train instead so stuffed. I stopped doing a previous job due to my hatred of driving into London.

[Zelandeth]

You'd be surprised.

 

In the world of finescale model railways, I know of a kit manufacturer who had a Great Eastern Y5 tank, built to P4 standards and fully finished, nicked from his trade stand at a show in Manchester - the only one of several other finished models on his stand to go missing. Two years and counting: it has never resurfaced. Someone clearly wanted it really badly.

There's always one I guess. Just feel really bad for the guy. There's six plus years of history attached to the character, it's not something you can just buy a replacement for like that. Good £600 or so just the actual monetary cost, but the history and memories attached aren't something you can replace.

 

Guess my main grump of the day is just that the convention is done for another year and I'm back home again. The world always seems a very grey and uninviting place having been immersed in such an explosion of colour and atmosphere of general good will (our one apparent scumbag excepted anyway) for the whole weekend. I laughed at stories of what folks described as Post Con Depression for years until I first got to one in 2015...yes, the stories are bloody true. You *do* feel like you've left half your life back at the hotel after you left the event.

 

Also worried that we'll quite possibly be moving next year. We've got to the point that strictly speaking we've really outgrown the Livingston Mercure. Not only did the rooms sell out with months to go, but we're just struggling for seating capacity in the event space now. This is part and parcel of the event growing more popular year on year, but that hotel having been "home" for so many years now makes the idea of leaving it hard to think about. Not least because the staff are bloody fantastic, but also because going to a bigger corporate hotel we'd not get away with anywhere near half the nonsense we do there. I think it was something like 4am on Sunday morning the open mic night (strangely enough, even the most tone deaf singer sounds decent when you've got thirty plus people singing along) actually closed up. The hotel night manager being one of the last folks to perform would you believe.

 

I know it's inevitable we'll need a new venue at some point...but I don't want it to be necessary. Our somewhat threadbare, scruffy little hotel is home to us.

[New POD]

The tart has just come waddling in to the living room with a lump of cake on a plate.

 

Never even offered me any, what's that fucking game.

 

Eating cake in my house and not even asking if I want any.

 

Jesus.

 

Sent from my VFD 710 using Tapatalk

How is "the tart" related to you???

[iainrcz]

How is "the tart" related to you???

She's my fiancee. She doesn't come here, it's ok.

[GrumpiusMaximus]

I feel your pain. Without getting into it too deep.

 

My parents retired to Anglesey 17 years ago. They could have gone anywhere...

 

 

 

My Grandparents retired to Herefordshire (Orcop Hill, to be precise) in about 1988, the year I was born.  Both of them were healthy and fully in command of their faculties.  My Grandmother was always a big woman and my Grandad (who is also autistic and totally inflexible) became blind about 11 years ago and couldn't drive.  Which was fine but my family (my Dad and his sisters mainly) tried to have numerous conversations about what might happen if one of them had an accident or passed away.  Two years ago in April, my Grandmother went into hospital and about a week later died of heart failure, at 88.  They lived about 5 hours from us and at least 3 hours from the nearest relatives.

 

Cue massive family upheaval, my Grandad having to be passed around various houses whilst they sorted the old house out (which was huge and full of junk) and general disruption because they hadn't planned ahead in any way.  In the end, the best solution was for my younger aunt's part of the inheritance to go on building him a new home in one of their farm outbuildings.  He spent over a year in a static caravan (think 'I'm Alan Partridge' Series 2) until he finally moved into the newly converted building about 2 months ago, just after his 90th birthday. 

 

On the other side, my Mum's Dad passed away (also at 88) in 2012.  They had already moved into a flat in a managed building and my Gran still lives there, with absolutely no problems.  My parents live half a mile away and can help with everything...

[Tadhg Tiogar]

There's always one I guess. Just feel really bad for the guy. There's six plus years of history attached to the character, it's not something you can just buy a replacement for like that. Good £600 or so just the actual monetary cost, but the history and memories attached aren't something you can replace.

Guess my main grump of the day is just that the convention is done for another year and I'm back home again. The world always seems a very grey and uninviting place having been immersed in such an explosion of colour and atmosphere of general good will (our one apparent scumbag excepted anyway) for the whole weekend. I laughed at stories of what folks described as Post Con Depression for years until I first got to one in 2015...yes, the stories are bloody true. You *do* feel like you've left half your life back at the hotel after you left the event.

Also worried that we'll quite possibly be moving next year. We've got to the point that strictly speaking we've really outgrown the Livingston Mercure. Not only did the rooms sell out with months to go, but we're just struggling for seating capacity in the event space now. This is part and parcel of the event growing more popular year on year, but that hotel having been "home" for so many years now makes the idea of leaving it hard to think about. Not least because the staff are bloody fantastic, but also because going to a bigger corporate hotel we'd not get away with anywhere near half the nonsense we do there. I think it was something like 4am on Sunday morning the open mic night (strangely enough, even the most tone deaf singer sounds decent when you've got thirty plus people singing along) actually closed up. The hotel night manager being one of the last folks to perform would you believe.

I know it's inevitable we'll need a new venue at some point...but I don't want it to be necessary. Our somewhat threadbare, scruffy little hotel is home to us.

If it's any consolation, I'm still waiting for my full tiger fursuit to be finished. At current rate of progress, it will be ready just in time for me to be buried in it.

[GrumpiusMaximus]

There's a rattle in my passenger seat headrest.  It's driving me fucking nuts.

[Zelandeth]

If it's any consolation, I'm still waiting for my full tiger fursuit to be finished. At current rate of progress, it will be ready just in time for me to be buried in it.

...One of these days I'm going to stop being surprised when I stumble across more of us on other forums.

 

My husband and housemate just had theirs commissioned, Scotiacon being their first outing.

 

I started work on my own shortly after SC in 2016, my initial reaction to the idea of making it myself being a 50/50 mix of "that's an interesting engineering challenge" and "oh god, what have I got myself into this time?"

 

...Given it's still a 70% finished head, complete but in need of refining tail (the armature is waaaaaaay heavier than I need it to be - currently it looks and moves great, but it's impractically heavy) and a box of bits...The latter is the correct answer it seems. Should have just bloody commissioned it. Granted, that then raises the problem that nobody making the style I was after was open/didn't have a multiple year waiting list...oh, and would wind up costing me probably three or four grand. Hell...the box of bits and material cost the best part of £500 (yay import tax!).

 

Of course, enthusiasm is on a high after the con...so will see if I can channel that into a burst of actual progress.

[iainrcz]

There's a rattle in my passenger seat headrest. It's driving me fucking nuts.

Do what I do with rattles.

Hit shit out of the offending area.

 

If that doesn't work, take stuff apart and swear at it.

 

Sent from my VFD 710 using Tapatalk

[Tadhg Tiogar]

...One of these days I'm going to stop being surprised when I stumble across more of us on other forums.....

This is what I used to look like:

 

[DodgeRover]

This is what I used to look like:

 

image.jpeg

A horse riding Rakshasa! The jockey club will have a fit.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

A horse riding Rakshasa! The jockey club will have a fit.

Celtic Tiger (we all know what happened to that in the end).

[Guest Hooli]

Insomnia, note the time of posting.

[Eddie Honda]

Yeah, the time could be just that you're a milky Hooli.

 

[andy18s]

You'd be surprised.

 

In the world of finescale model railways, I know of a kit manufacturer who had a Great Eastern Y5 tank, built to P4 standards and fully finished, nicked from his trade stand at a show in Manchester - the only one of several other finished models on his stand to go missing. Two years and counting: it has never resurfaced. Someone clearly wanted it really badly.

A Honda rep for a surprise 1 year at the NEC bike show when he made his way over to a NR750 on the floor display,to find someone had their tools with them and had removed the back wheel......

[New POD]

She's my fiancee. She doesn't come here, it's ok.

Tell her about wedding dress sizes.

[Guest Hooli]

Yeah, the time could be just that you're a milky Hooli.

 

 

I'd already been awake 3 hours at that point too.

[GrumpiusMaximus]

Do what I do with rattles.

Hit shit out of the offending area.

 

If that doesn't work, take stuff apart and swear at it.

 

Sent from my VFD 710 using Tapatalk

 

 

The first stage of this happens on the way to work.  It didn't the other day but I was cranking out Nine Inch Nails so I think that may have had something to do with it.

 

The second stage of your repair plan is the only logical course.

[BorniteIdentity]

Insomnia, note the time of posting.

 

Still, on the flipside, just 5 sleeps 'til Santa now.

 

I'm not making light of it.  I also suffer; worse because I get up at 0400 for work so have even less time to 'get back to sleep' before another day begins.  I have no solution to offer sadly.  With me it comes and goes.  I just accept that it will pass, and try to sleep when I can.

[Crispian_J_Hotson]

Saturday morning... Go out early to use touring- soft Tyre on rear, there's a nail in it. Sunday morning... Go out to use land rover- soft Tyre on front and rear, dunno, tyres are shit anyway. Sunday evening... Go out to use touring- check rear Tyre and put air in, pull off drive and headlamp blows- change bulb in dark. Monday morning... Go to cycle to station- rear light bulb blows, go to turn on battery back up light, won't turn on, get it turned on and go to station, light won't turn off. Monday evening... Go to cycle home, Dynamo won't spin on Tyre- no lights. WT actual F? So, after 3 days I need 3 tyres and a new set up of lights on the bike. I'm used to all the cars pulling last minute surprises on me but the bike?! 

In start contrast to the above, I took the 6 series out Monday night and that goes like a rocket ship.