The grumpy thread

[retrogeezer]

It is cancelled, but they're taking money nonetheless.

 

Well in that case get onto your bank! If they are still paying a cancelled direct debit then they are at fault as well.

 

Telling the company to cancel the DD is not always sufficient by the way, the DD can still remain active on your bank account.

 

To be honest, if it is cancelled at the bank I would have thought it was impossible for the company to take money from your account, you really need to speak to your bank asap.

[Guest]

With Direct Debits you can always use the "Direct Debit Guarantee" - write to your bank asking to cancel it and refund the money back into your account. This is one of the reasons why many debt collection companies aren't keen on them.

[Guest]

1. Winamp for Windows 7.

 

Does not work with Windows 7 when playing WMA files. This is stupid. I am not using Media Player. The interface and layout are gay.

 

2. CD \ Vinyl juxtaposition.

 

I hate psychoacoustics. I've been listening to my SL 1210 rather a lot recently as I found a copy of WGNS Volume 2 for sale at a not-completely-stupid price. I recorded a few files onto MD and then through my notepad desk to listen while I work \ study \ e-swearing at group colleagues from University.

The transient lows and mids are far nicer than on CD. Even backed off a bit with a parametric EQ in Audition (mainly because they were making my cans fart) they're lovelier than a lovely thing, coupled with some canonical scrub and hiss from the Stanton 500.

 

They seem far more expressive to me. I never had the luxury of listening to vinyl the first time around - my early experiences of recorded music were from cassette tapes and then CDs. Listening to WGNS (vinyl via MD and then MP3) back to back with Dag Nasty (WMA from CD) resulted in the latter sounding like the drum kit was recorded in the confines of a £7.99 bin from B&Q. OK, I know 80's production standards were lean bass wise.....but I'm starting to understand why vinyl heads complained their arses off when the CD age dawned.

 

That said, you can't exactly take an SL 1210 with you everywhere you go, or run it through your phone. I don't care if it is a direct drive, it's not going to work.

Why do I use an SL 1210 as a listening deck you ask? It was surplus to requirements at Bailrigg a long time ago, my nobhead cousin snapped the belt on my old Pro Ject turntable trying to scratch, and the rest is history. OK, I had to buy a pre amp because my C320BEE lacked a cartridge stage, but what the hell.

 

KAM in the 'States do loads of audiophile upgrades for the SL 1210 Mk 2-5 which I'm thinking of purchasing. The aforementioned Technics deck must be one of the most copasetic pieces of consumer hardware ever conceived. The build quality, the tactility of the controls...I could go on. The fact that mine was ragged mercilessly for 5 years with barely any maintenance, and still works perfectly, is testament to how well made it is.

 

It's a shame the Technics brand name is so neglected within Matsushita \ Pansonic.

 

3. University E-Mail.

 

Why? Why scrap a perfectly decent pop3 e mail system and replace it with a horrible Outlook - in - Hotmail client thing? Why? Out of the 37 people in my tutor group, three e mail accounts work. One is mine. And it's still shit.

 

4. Burger King's Double XL Cheeseburger.

 

Was the most physically knackering thing I've eaten in recent memory. I had one at Abington services coming back from Edinburgh. I regret this immensely. I'm still feeling the effects now, my weakened stomach groaning 'URRRRGGGGGHHHHBBBBBGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG' every time I think about it. My toilet is very upset.

 

That said, the C4 did the 230 mile run back to Alti on 1/5 of a tank, which is quite good I suppose. Drive back was boring as hell though. I managed to keep the same speed set on the cruise control for 147 miles, until some suppurating shit cake in a Passat dived across three lanes near Blackburn because he didn't see the lanes being cut down from 3 - 1 because of the roadworks.

 

So, to summarise:

 

FTL

Winamp for Windows 7

University E Mail

WMAs

Burger King Double XL Cheesburger

VW Passat 1.9 TDI

Blackburn

 

FTW

Technics SL 1210 Mk 2 Turntable

Vinyl

Citroen C4 1.6 HDi ( ! )

[CreepingJesus]

^Agreed about vinyl. Currently we don't have a deck at all, but when we did, the direct comparison of a couple of Queen and Motorhead albums between vinyl, tape and CD left vinyl as the clear winner. My mum can't understand why my uncle spent $13,000 upgrading his audiophile set up. I can. Jammy git...

I don't use WinAmp myself, in any of its' incarnations; but I do use Audacity for my recordings. My GOM/Pedant complaint is that, no matter how hard I try to keep my recordings away from the Volume Wars compress and limit to the nth degree tactic, they always sound, well, wrong. And weedy. In the last few years of all-digital recording only one sounded any good. I'm not sure whether it's my expectation of how things ought to sound, or it's MP3/WMA/Ogg Vorbis' fault. Either way, I miss recording to good old tape - it's a mind bendingly expensive enterprise these days.

Oh, and there are times I wouldn't say no to a spot of Autotune, Cowell you rancid jam rag!

[Lord Sterling]

'New' Ford drivers.......

Just because I drive a Micra and you drive a bigger Mondeo, Focus etc... doesnt give you the right to; pull out in front of me or cut me up. You are not better than me, you fucking mouth breathers.

 

Fat Woman.......

Just because you had to wait literally a few more seconds as I was carefully coming out of a tight parking space into a tight road trying to not hit you or your car, doesnt mean you can give me a mouthful of abuse you fucking fat cow, hence my one fingered salute back to you.

 

Thank You

[Station]

I use Mediamonkey, I have a load of mp3's and it just sorts them out into order. I stopped using Winamp when it was bought by Fox or some oil company and started including bulbous corporate shite in it.

[whitevanman]

DW, Talk Talk are an entity unto themselves, never met anyone who has had a good dealings with them, from delayed resposes to fallen phone lines, to telling lies and getting extended contracts illegally, but above all this they are shit as an ISP, with a shit service, if it isn't too late......run away from them and use BT and a seperate ISP with a decent reputation

 

I changed from O2 (good) to surf anytime (very good) and the difference in service and speed is vast

[messerschmitt owner]

NIP for 93 on a quiet stretch of the M74 - well, at least the XM was hardly working hard at that speed!

[Mr Lobster]

M74 is notorious for plod hiding on bridges with speed cameras. I used to have to do it fairly regular and they were often out near Abington / Lockerbie as its a nice road and very quiet. A good few people I used to work with earned their points on that stretch of road

[Station]

Well in that case get onto your bank! If they are still paying a cancelled direct debit then they are at fault as well.

 

Telling the company to cancel the DD is not always sufficient by the way, the DD can still remain active on your bank account.

 

To be honest, if it is cancelled at the bank I would have thought it was impossible for the company to take money from your account, you really need to speak to your bank asap.

 

 

I got onto them and apparently I took out personal accident cover from a third party - I didn't, obviously. FFS don't use Ibuyeco, they a fucking shady.

[dollywobbler]

Thanks Whitevanman. Sadly there's nowt I can do because the other half rates them. To be fair, they were great and good value when we used them a couple of houses ago.

 

Really feeling the pain of no fast internet - so much so that I drove back to the other house on Tuesday and enjoyed full fat megaweb! Hmmmm.

 

Now sitting in a hotel wondering if another hot chocolate is an idea because I'm trying to send a video to my old man. Not going to attempt that on dial-up!

[AlsoMike]

Residents Parking.

 

The local council have decided to make the roadside spaces directly outside my house into 'residents parking'. They've also made certain sections of the road limited to 2 hours. So they want me to pay to park outside my own house, and they've reduced the number of spaces I can use. Great. Thanks a fucking lot.

[Gompo]

fists on the desk to thud out the intro to Dittohead. FFS!!!! He turned to look at me and stopped!

I experienced a level of apathy and un-arsedness with other students, their projects were so shit, they had no idea what they were doing and used it as an excuse to get a student loan and pissing it up the wall in a week.

 

 

Can someone advise me: I cancelled my insurance policy with some shitty insurer months ago and they're still taking random money from my bank. I was paying direct debit. How the heck can they take

 

Good work on the Slayer track.

 

Direct Debit used to be very shit, I dont know if they've got any better but my Mum used to work in a bank and would never use DD even if it saved her money (she is very careful with her money) due to the amount of mistakes they make. Withdrawing amounts twice and the like..

[Lankytim]

M74 is notorious for plod hiding on bridges with speed cameras. I used to have to do it fairly regular and they were often out near Abington / Lockerbie as its a nice road and very quiet. A good few people I used to work with earned their points on that stretch of road

 

About a year ago I went though a speed trap on the M74 at 90 MPH in a Smart car. I was absolutely shitting myself for a few weeks but never heard anything.. phew!!

 

 

 

 

WMA files psychoacoustics. SL 1210 WGNS Volume 2 MD transient lows and mids parametric EQ in Audition cans fart canonical scrub Stanton 500 WGNS MD Dag Nasty WMA SL 1210 SL 1210 Pro Ject pre amp C320BEE cartridge stage KAM audiophile SL 1210 Mk 2-5 copasetic Matsushita

 

Ehhhh???

[seth]

Residents Parking.

 

The local council have decided to make the roadside spaces directly outside my house into 'residents parking'. They've also made certain sections of the road limited to 2 hours. So they want me to pay to park outside my own house, and they've reduced the number of spaces I can use. Great. Thanks a fucking lot.

 

I feel for you. I dread the day we get this foisted on us. Most annoying thing about it would be that they paint yellow lines across driveways so you can't even park across your own drive.

[Tayne]

.

[Des]

Residents Parking.

 

The local council have decided to make the roadside spaces directly outside my house into 'residents parking'. They've also made certain sections of the road limited to 2 hours. So they want me to pay to park outside my own house, and they've reduced the number of spaces I can use. Great. Thanks a fucking lot.

That sounds like a common scam, sell more permits than there are spaces, send Parking Patawaya round on his shitty moped at 6am and 6 pm, guaranteed lucrative ticketing frenzy.

[AlsoMike]

It'd not be so bad if they didn't reduce the amount of spaces out there as well, but they've thrown out a load of extra double yellers as well for good measure.

 

Unfortunately I have no driveway or lawn or outside space of any kind to abandon my car on.

[Station]

Go out in the night and paint them black. I can't see the neighbours complaining.

I would do this.

[Tayne]

.

[CreepingJesus]

Witnessed a minor accident, which didn't have to happen. Just one of a spate of 4 or 5 near misses I've had in the last 24 hours. Nothing serious, but it's making me think I ought to raise a petition to have a new offence added to the statute books: witless driving.

Not careless or reckless, just witless. Maybe gormless. Punishable by a good solid boot up the arse, or a couple of hours in the stocks.

[Cavcraft]

Trying to get tickets to see 'Take That'*. It's a Brownie points mission, and when I went with SWMBO last time the place was packed with wall to wall top qual FLANGE.

Anyhow looks like it's mission impossible to get tickets, Ticketmaster's 'phone line is continously engaged and the website has crashed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*No, I'm NOT on the other bus.

[ashmicro]

Witnessed a minor accident, which didn't have to happen. Just one of a spate of 4 or 5 near misses I've had in the last 24 hours. Nothing serious, but it's making me think I ought to raise a petition to have a new offence added to the statute books: witless driving.

Not careless or reckless, just witless. Maybe gormless. Punishable by a good solid boot up the arse, or a couple of hours in the stocks.

 

 

+1111! Almost exactly the same thing happened to me last Saturday. Started off with some auld biddy in a snot-green Atoz sitting stationary, staring at a green light. When I sounded the horn at her, she then gave it 17000 RPM and shot out of the junction like the Millenium Falcon. Then, literally 200 yards further down the (2 lane, one-way) road, a little wanker in a chavved up Clio got the shock of his life, as he was driving the wrong way down said road, with me in the S Type in one lane, and a S Class Merc taxi in the other bearing down on him. In the course of his 273 point turn, he stalled twice. Mr Taxi Driver got out and had a "word".

 

Back on the main road, a huge artic was parked, on the brow of the hill, straddling a pelican crossing, outside the local Chav Academy. Being as it was Saturday morning, there were some kids coming back from a hockey match, trying to cross the road.

 

And the crowning glory - about 50 feet from my house I narrowly avoided a head-on with a neighbour who is a NURSE, who was driving down the wrong side of my street, while on the phone.

 

I like the stocks idea, CJ, especially as we have a set in the main street in my town. (pictured below)

 

[AXrescuer]

Residents Parking.

 

The local council have decided to make the roadside spaces directly outside my house into 'residents parking'. They've also made certain sections of the road limited to 2 hours. So they want me to pay to park outside my own house, and they've reduced the number of spaces I can use. Great. Thanks a fucking lot.

 

My local council have done this to us as well. Now the few spaces we can use are being filled by commuters the minute you leave the damn things empty. My neighbour is having a whale of a time letting the air out of their tyres.

[Pillock]

Seems a bit harsh! Surely if they're in a residents space without a permit you can call the fuzz, and if they're in a non-residents space then, well, why can't they?

[RedSparrow]

I daily witness acts of stupidity while driving, I am no master of driving but after a couple of accidents when I was younger I tend to be careful now. And never expect other drivers to be as conciencious as you, chances are they are morons.

[trigger]

The wife just bought the dog home after a walk around the local park covered in human shit, I'm not a happy bunny right now, Dogs are a PITA, It's totally beyond me why anyone would want one, It's been spending the last week barking every hour at night keeping us awake as well.

[Timewaster]

The wife just bought the dog home after a walk around the local park covered in human shit, I'm not a happy bunny right now, Dogs are a PITA, It's totally beyond me why anyone would want one, It's been spending the last week barking every hour at night keeping us awake as well.

 

As asked on Bookface - How can you tell it is Human shit?

[trigger]

It didn't look like dog or fox to either of us

[Rusty Pelican]

Seen the first Chrismas advert already , Sony I think . FFS its not even November yet , fuck off