The grumpy thread

[Remspoor]

Oh  give up it is only an eclipse. People need stop screaming at a normal and natural event.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68727865

[w00dy]

need a new rear light for the van. Buy one on ebay, it's a Euro one without fog light provisions, bit of a waste of time, but I get a refund. Buy a pair once I'm sure they're right, ebay man spends forever messing with invoice to try and make it work since the postage was set to freight, I ended up Paypaling him the money and he promises to get them sent on friday. The seller has now cancelled the sale on ebay and gone quiet, so it's looking like he's decided to scam me despite being a well regarded business for old VWs. It's £40 you tragic wanker. 

I just want to MOT my van.

[scaryoldcortina]

Ffs I wonder about some people.

[Mally]

47 in a 40.  Long while since I had my last classroom stint.

Hope I get  chance of another.

[maxxo]

We’ve been purchased a new television by my partners parents 

this thing

now I brought my lovely old Panasonic plasma with us, absolutely cracking bit of kit

i wish they’d not bothered, apparently it’s great but I can’t watch the new tv it’s absolutely horrendous 

seriously the worst television I’ve watched in a good while 

I tend to sit in the bedroom now and watch my vastly superior Panasonic set

toshiba fire tv, don’t bother, it’s a pile of crap

thankfully I’ve said I’ll never watch it

[loserone]

7 minutes ago, maxxo said:

plasma

Glugity.

[maxxo]

1 minute ago, loserone said:

Glugity.

It is fantastic, really really like it so was quite offended with the whole scenario 

doesn’t even have a scart connector so can’t watch my videos 

[loserone]

I get that it's your choice but that sounds like a generous well intentioned gift and a stroppy ungrateful response to be fair.

[maxxo]

37 minutes ago, loserone said:

I get that it's your choice but that sounds like a generous well intentioned gift and a stroppy ungrateful response to be fair.

Why yes I completely agree, which is why I’ve hidden my true feelings somewhat, I’d rather not feel this way just got quite annoyed when my television set was called old crap

[richardmorris]

23 minutes ago, maxxo said:

Why yes I completely agree, which is why I’ve hidden my true feelings somewhat, I’d rather not feel this way just got quite annoyed when my television set was called old crap

I know what you mean. The only downside with plasma is that they can be expensive to run. We used to do analysis for the company that was developing OLED technology. A spin off from UCL I think. Sold out to merck or someone and left us with three months of bills unpaid. Nearly put us under twenty years ago.

[maxxo]

13 minutes ago, richardmorris said:

I know what you mean. The only downside with plasma is that they can be expensive to run. We used to do analysis for the company that was developing OLED technology. A spin off from UCL I think. Sold out to merck or someone and left us with three months of bills unpaid. Nearly put us under twenty years ago.

I realise how ungrateful I do sound, I really don’t intend to and I realise that’s a me problem

im just set in my ways really, but I can’t lie that television isn’t all that good

[loserone]

Just now, maxxo said:

television isn’t all that good

Absolutely true.  

[Spiny Norman]

2 hours ago, maxxo said:

toshiba fire tv, don’t bother, it’s a pile of crap

thankfully I’ve said I’ll never watch it

What exactly is wrong with it? New monitors can take a day or two to bed in, and often need a bit of tweaking in the settings for colour, contrast etc.
The sound will likely be shite but that's the case on most new flat panel TVs now, you're expected to use a soundbar or hifi with them.

[maxxo]

1 hour ago, Spiny Norman said:

What exactly is wrong with it? New monitors can take a day or two to bed in, and often need a bit of tweaking in the settings for colour, contrast etc.
The sound will likely be shite but that's the case on most new flat panel TVs now, you're expected to use a soundbar or hifi with them.

Extremely washed out colours, manages to be both dull and extremely bright at the same time

does this weird frame smoothing thing where everything looks unnatural 

HDMI inputs look horrendous, very grainy 

settings make very little difference 

sound is surprisingly good actually!

keeps turning itself on through the night 

[Kiltox]

On 06/04/2024 at 12:21, rattlecan said:

Paint, it’s shite nowadays. Wtf is going on?

I’m decorating the hall & landing, used Dulux (so not cheap crap) it’s magnolia over what is already magnolia, so no massive colour changes & literally every surface needs 3 coats (some bits 4) & same with the woodwork. Tin says ‘one coat’ yeh right one coat my arse.

This stuff is expensive as all fuck however I’ve never known paint to cover like it. It’s extraordinary. 
 

https://coatpaints.com/

[RoverFolkUs]

1 hour ago, Spiny Norman said:

What exactly is wrong with it? New monitors can take a day or two to bed in, and often need a bit of tweaking in the settings for colour, contrast etc.
The sound will likely be shite but that's the case on most new flat panel TVs now, you're expected to use a soundbar or hifi with them.

Cheap modern LCD TVs (they're all LCD regardless of whether they're branded as LED or QLED or ULED) are all shite. Toshiba is made by a company called Vestel who manufacture Bush, Hitachi, JVC, even entry level sets from Panasonic which should be a good name! Among many others. It's all bottom of the barrel shite using poor quality screens and components that might last a year or two

Going from an old Plasma TV to a modern entry level set is roughly equivalent to transitioning between a proper W123 Mercedes to a modern A-Class with the 1.5 Renault engine... I'm being deadly serious 

I agree it was a kind gesture from Maxxo's in laws (?) , most ordinary folk who treat a television as an appliance would struggle to see what's wrong, but anyone who could tell a quality TV apart from a bad one in a batch of 100 would be miffed if they thought they'd be upgrading from their 15 year old telly when they would realistically be worse off

[High Jetter]

5 hours ago, Mally said:

47 in a 40.  Long while since I had my last classroom stint.

Hope I get  chance of another.

First one didn't work, then?🤣

[Mally]

15 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

First one didn't work, then?🤣

Returning home from Kings Lynn Stock cars and must have got carried away. 

Know the route very well but I'm not normally driving.

[fairkens]

9 hours ago, maxxo said:

Extremely washed out colours, manages to be both dull and extremely bright at the same time

does this weird frame smoothing thing where everything looks unnatural 

HDMI inputs look horrendous, very grainy 

settings make very little difference 

sound is surprisingly good actually!

keeps turning itself on through the night 

FWIW my mate bought a Toshiba recently and took it back complaining of v similar issues. 

Lovely of someone to buy you a new telly but as with so many things and expensive old thing is better than a cheap new thing

[DavieW]

The council were out giving the grass its first cut of the year to the communal area next the house. It looks like they've been rallying on it. Feel sorry for the kids who play there. 

Surely they would stop when they saw the mess they were making. 

[myglaren]

2 hours ago, fairkens said:

FWIW my mate bought a Toshiba recently and took it back complaining of v similar issues. 

Lovely of someone to buy you a new telly but as with so many things and expensive old thing is better than a cheap new thing

I have an old LG plasma TV.  Rarely watch it but it is excellent image quality.  Mostly used for music DVDs so the sound piped through a stereo that cost a lot more than the TV.

I didn't know what I was looking for, just a replacement TV and was shown the difference between LED and plasma TVs.  The choice was easy.

Keeps the room warm too  

[Rust Collector]

22 minutes ago, DavieW said:

The council were out giving the grass its first cut of the year to the communal area next the house. It looks like they've been rallying on it. Feel sorry for the kids who play there. 

Surely they would stop when they saw the mess they were making. 

I don't know how it works in your area, but in my area the council has outsourced that type of work to private companies. We had one based in a unit a few doors down from my work, the bloke who ran it was not pleasant and had a piss poor attitude to the folks he employed. Shite wages and high staff turnover, so no doubt the lads out doing the work probably gave no fucks about doing a good job. The only winner is the bloke running the company, everyone else (council, his employees, general public) gets the shit end of the deal.

[Metal Guru]

15 minutes ago, Rust Collector said:

I don't know how it works in your area, but in my area the council has outsourced that type of work to private companies. We had one based in a unit a few doors down from my work, the bloke who ran it was not pleasant and had a piss poor attitude to the folks he employed. Shite wages and high staff turnover, so no doubt the lads out doing the work probably gave no fucks about doing a good job. The only winner is the bloke running the company, everyone else (council, his employees, general public) gets the shit end of the deal.

My neighbour uses a gardener. He turns up at the same time and day every week and proceeds to cut the grass regardless of the weather. I cut my own grass and wait until it’s dry  so I won’t  turn it into a mud bath. 
However, what’s he going to do? Have a day off ( without pay) if it’s raining? Not going to happen is it ?

Same with the council. While it’s not unusual for council workers to sit around (because they’re badly managed, don’t shoot me), if they don’t cut the grass today, it won’t get done until the next scheduled time , and will look even worse. 

[Rust Collector]

1 minute ago, Metal Guru said:

My neighbour uses a gardener. He turns up at the same time and day every week and proceeds to cut the grass regardless of the weather. I cut my own grass and wait until it’s dry  so I won’t  turn it into a mud bath. 
However, what’s he going to do? Have a day off ( without pay) if it’s raining? Not going to happen is it ?

Same with the council. While it’s not unusual for council workers to sit around (because they’re badly managed, don’t shoot me), if they don’t cut the grass today, it won’t get done until the next scheduled time , and will look even worse. 

I would hazard a guess that if you can't mow the lawn due to the ground being saturated then you probably find something else productive to do and resume mowing at the next opportunity. You'd hope that a well managed team responsible for maintaining all the public land in the county could do the same, there's plenty of places that could be worked on still whilst it's wet out with no detriment to their usage. A bloke who works for himself mowing private gardens isn't really comparable in my opinion, because as you rightly point out his livelihood is directly tied to doing the jobs exactly when they're scheduled in and there's no real flexibility in it.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

On 09/04/2024 at 09:23, loserone said:

So my grump is people who post 80% of their posts having a dig at people in the grumpy old man thread without a hint of irony.

 

16 hours ago, loserone said:

I get that it's your choice but that sounds like a generous well intentioned gift and a stroppy ungrateful response to be fair.

I’m now lost in an ironic vortex.

[loserone]

14 minutes ago, NorfolkNWeigh said:

 

SO I’m now lost in an ironic vortex.

Fixed that for you

[NorfolkNWeigh]

1 hour ago, Rust Collector said:

I don't know how it works in your area, but in my area the council has outsourced that type of work to private companies. We had one based in a unit a few doors down from my work, the bloke who ran it was not pleasant and had a piss poor attitude to the folks he employed. Shite wages and high staff turnover, so no doubt the lads out doing the work probably gave no fucks about doing a good job. The only winner is the bloke running the company, everyone else (council, his employees, general public) gets the shit end of the deal.

You forgot his mate at the Council that he takes on golf and whoring weekends in Marbella( probably).

[maxxo]

4 hours ago, fairkens said:

FWIW my mate bought a Toshiba recently and took it back complaining of v similar issues. 

Lovely of someone to buy you a new telly but as with so many things and expensive old thing is better than a cheap new thing

I know it was absolutely lovely and I do appreciate it but it just really annoys me watching it, I’m really surprised at how bad the picture actually looks on it

 

[mercedade]

1 hour ago, myglaren said:

I have an old LG plasma TV.  Rarely watch it but it is excellent image quality.  Mostly used for music DVDs so the sound piped through a stereo that cost a lot more than the TV.

I didn't know what I was looking for, just a replacement TV and was shown the difference between LED and plasma TVs.  The choice was easy.

Keeps the room warm too  

I used to have a fabulous Panasonic plasma - weighed 3 metric fucktonnes and heated the living room.

I managed to get a good deal on a Samsung QLED (their 'better than LED but not quite OLED' offering) last year after working out that once I'd taken up their £150 cashback for my old TV, 12 months 0% finance, and a banging offer through my Perks at Work, the TV would pay for itself in under three years of energy bill savings.

[mercedade]

EDIT: will freely admit the picture wasn't as smooth or rich as the plasma, but it did only take me a week or so to get used to it.