The grumpy thread

[wuvvum]

How did the birthday go then chief, plenty of ale I trust?

Not bad, ta. Plenty of ale indeed - and, unfortunately, some hideous 11% Belgian Trappist stuff which I liked the look of at the time (I'd already had a few by then) but which doesn't appear to be doing my head much good this morning . Still, that's what birthdays are for - and at least it wasn't a school night this year.

[chaseracer]

The F1 podium interviews by "personalities"...

 

WTactualF??!

 

Jacky Ickx proved beyond all doubt that being an accomplished driver does not an effective interviewer make, but EDDIE JORDAN? Can someone please push that attention-seeking wanker over the barrier? Ta muchly.

[trigger]

My moneys on the Powerline adapters being shite, I'll take them back to maplins tomorrow i think.

 

Took my powerline adapters back to Maplins yesterday, got a repalcement set and my internet working perfectly again, result!

[cort16]

^ until someone turns the bathroom light on.

[willswitchengage]

A friend of mine has just bought her first car - Séat Mii. Apparently this was third choice as the waiting lists for C1s and Citigos are two and four months respectively Probably not the most interesting post but this was new to me. Waiting lists for stuffs like the new GT86 makes sense, but city cars? Bizarre... I thought Europe was suffering from overproduction if anything, or at least that's what the Economist told me this week (quite an interesting article in there about the future of the automotive industry actually - mainly about demographic shifts and not the usual electric cars wishy washy).

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

It's because they're 'so cheap to run'- the insurance is only 4 times what I'm paying for my 2.9 shite, dealer servicing ('you have to keep up that warranty, INIT M8) costs an extra £200 a year over my DIY/fast-fit place oil and filter changes, tyres are almost the same price, and she'll never do the 90000 miles she needs in order to get her money back through fuel savings. Not saying that this is the thought process for every person who buys a C1-type car, but I am sure a fair few are like that.

[Guest]

Yeah Luxo, but it only needs 3 services a year at 299 and tax is JUST £20.

 

Also, Belgians.

 

Why are they such cunts about postage costs?

[Alexg]

The Local Kent Messenger paper has a 'cute kid' contest this week. Lots of face shots of babies and toddlers along with the largest collection of Pikey chav names I've ever come across: Chardonnay, Colton, Bridey, Archie-Lee, Ivy-Mae, Lenny-Joe, Lacie-Marie,  Lily-Mai, Ruby Mai, Ryan-Jay, Teddy-Joe, Tilly-Louise... etc.

 

Worrying.

[cobblers]

My moneys on the Powerline adapters being shite, I'll take them back to maplins tomorrow i think.

 

Took my powerline adapters back to Maplins yesterday, got a repalcement set and my internet working perfectly again, result!

 

 

My mum turned up with a few sets of powerline adapters, she works for a charity and they got stacks donated, the bloke in charge of "technical things" lobbed most of them in the skip unfortunately but I've primed him to divert anything new PC wise or old amps that don't work to me. Anyway, they are old cheapo shit ones that BT gave people when they got BT vision TV dealio. They get stinking hot in use, enough to wrinkle the stickers, but they have all been on and working dead rate since january. Speeds working round the full length of a normal semi-detached house are about 40mpbpbpbpbs - I use it all day every day.

 

A bloke I know has 5 fancy Denovo jobbies that cost him about £70 a shot and have built in wireless routers - He lives in a big posh old house and needs one in every room to maintain any kind of wireless signal, and they work fine but 2 out of the 5 have packed up in a few months. I'd stand by the technology but it works components hard to try and send signals down AC lines, so expect component failures.

[Station]

Why can't we have one active moderator on here that can just delete all the spam straight away? Are there even any admins available? I know it's 'Autoshite', but surely a single high-poster could be given permission to do this?

[Des]

That's how Hitler started.

[Station]

The Local Kent Messenger paper has a 'cute kid' contest this week. Lots of face shots of babies and toddlers along with the largest collection of Pikey chav names I've ever come across: Chardonnay, Colton, Bridey, Archie-Lee, Ivy-Mae, Lenny-Joe, Lacie-Marie,  Lily-Mai, Ruby Mai, Ryan-Jay, Teddy-Joe, Tilly-Louise... etc.

 

Worrying.

 

We have that up here as well, it's toe curling - horrible, overfed kids with faces red and bulging because of the chemicals from the processed shit they're weened on in LFC and TAPOUT clothing, called Tia, etc. Great story to tell when the mother is on the couch of Jeremy Kyle explaining that their jailbird son Jack-Hawaii once won cutest baby of the year contest 20 years ago.

I vote NONE OF THEM WIN.

[Cavcraft]

That's how Hitler started.

 

I don't recall him invading Gucci in a pair of Ugg boots armed only with several fake iphones, but I've been wrong before.

[cms206]

That's First Scotrail hit the big red panic button for the first time this autumn/winter; if anyone needs me, I'll be in a coach at Kilwinning Station until about March.

[Cavcraft]

Orange:

 

GO FUCK YOURSELVES.

[ruffgeezer]

Talktalk broadband; go and fuck yourselves with a rusty railway spike until you've knocked your own back doors through, you bunch of low life, money grubbing wanklets.

[Caffiend]

Christmas. It happens every fucking year. Of course, because it only happens annually, we have to spend a quarter of the year preparing for it by buying as much overpriced shoddy crap as we can possibly stuff into our houses, because Christmas only comes once a year so it has to be perfect, and it won't be perfect unless you spend money whether you have it or not.

 

Give it a sodding rest until 1 December (earliest).

 

Bah fucking humbug.

[Lankytim]

Finally plucked up the courage to speak to someone at work about how I was spoken to the other week by my boss and how he thought depression was an excuse for poor performance e.t.c and ended up having a row with one of the directors. . He said the company wasn't a charity case and I needed to sort it out.

[Cavcraft]

Bollocks to 'em, Tim. Get looking for another job (I know you liked this one, but you can just see where it's going to lead soon) and in the meantime give serious consideration to visiting your doctor, telling him you have stress (no offence but I think you do, as anyone else in your situation would) and going on the Pat for a few weeks.

[M'coli]

'kin 'ell, LT, they really know how not to take care of their staff at your place, don't they? That's shocking behaviour from an empolyer, what an utter shower.

[mattblack]

Settled down last night to watch 'Classic Car Rescue'

 

WHAT A CROCK OF WANK.

 

I was prepared to overlook the contrived haggling, the artfuly applied primer, the 'geezer' going into motor factors and asking for 'E' Type bits, finding a pile of bits in a scrapyard, supposedly buying secondhand discs and shocks, the 'knackered engine' turning out to be overfilled dashpots (and the oil in them being 'to lubricate the valves in the carbs', 'repairing' a piston (WTF?), the bloke aimlessly tapping the bonnet with a body hammer 'repairing' dents and the painter having 'spent all night' spraying it... but when the bloke backed it out of the booth and straight into a strategicaly placed engine in an otherwise empty workshop I swore at the telly and switched off.

 

Why couldn't the hour have been used to make a decent program about the 'E' Type... bit of background info on it's development, visit a 'proper' restorer, interveiws with people with memories of them from the 60's and 70's, visit a club meeting, show them being used in motorsport today ect?

[Lankytim]

I've already been off for a couple of weeks a while ago (for which I got full pay) but was told today that if i'm incapable of working to the required standard due to stress or depression then I shouldn't be in work at all and should be signed off, but I won't get paid for it.

 

Apparently they were all up for helping me through this rough patch when it initially happened but there is a time limit on how long they are prepared to help, and if my performance doesn't improve then i'll be subject to a disciplinary and they will look at "other options" (i.e get shot of me)

 

I was told that I could escalate the complaint against my immediate boss to a formal complaint, but If I did that then there would be a full investigation into my performance and I may get sacked.

 

I did get an apology from my boss over his comments though.

[Rocket88]

Settled down last night to watch 'Classic Car Rescue'

 

WHAT A CROCK OF WANK.

 

I was prepared to overlook the contrived haggling, the artfuly applied primer, the 'geezer' going into motor factors and asking for 'E' Type bits, finding a pile of bits in a scrapyard, supposedly buying secondhand discs and shocks, the 'knackered engine' turning out to be overfilled dashpots (and the oil in them being 'to lubricate the valves in the carbs', 'repairing' a piston (WTF?), the bloke aimlessly tapping the bonnet with a body hammer 'repairing' dents and the painter having 'spent all night' spraying it... but when the bloke backed it out of the booth and straight into a strategicaly placed engine in an otherwise empty workshop I swore at the telly and switched off.

 

Why couldn't the hour have been used to make a decent program about the 'E' Type... bit of background info on it's development, visit a 'proper' restorer, interveiws with people with memories of them from the 60's and 70's, visit a club meeting, show them being used in motorsport today ect?

 

 

Makes Wheeler Dealers look like Tolstoy wrote the script. How, exactly, does one "repair" a piston? Total lack of imagination on the cars chosen, duff script , a steaming pile of shite.

[M'coli]

Tonight I am grumpy because as of tomorrow, this shower of clunge

has made this obsolete, and there is nothing on the market that can replace it.

This is the type of telly I've had since 1998, it still has an excellent picture - a black & white picture - and it doesn't require an external aerial, as it has a wire hoop one built-in to the back of the set. It's the only telly that we have in the house that will pick up without an external aerial, even in the depths of the kitchen with the extension shielding the back of the house.

Not only that, but I they advise me I cannot buy a free-standing aerial that will allow use of a digital box, as we live too far away from the nearest transmitter and will need one external to the house - just what the fuck is going on here, since when was a poratble telly no longer portable? Added to this, it turns out the digital box we havemay also be obsolete - some are not compatible with the new digital signals. Why was this allowed to be sold in this country, then, you shower of fannies?

 

Tomorrow they switch off the analogue signal.

[ruffgeezer]

I got a crt panasonic wide screen here with scart socket you can have for nowt if you like?

[autofive]

throw away your televisions, they are all outdated, and show nothing but crap and crap adverts these days

 

hmg has done you a favour, even if you dont realise it yet

[RedSparrow]

You can buy a modulator that converts digital signal into analog (ie scart to RF) from ebay for about £12. There is a small company in Germany that makes them.

I have one here in the Czech rep., I was given an old portable for free and it was a lot cheaper to buy a modulator from ebay than buy a new TV, especially if you have a retro one that you want to keep using.

[M'coli]

It's the signal/aerial/enforced adoption of the technology combo that's the problem, not the telly itself...

[RedSparrow]

But it can still be used. With a modulator yes you have to keep the set itself tuned to one channel for ever but it means you can at least make use of it. And you can use a remote control with the digital box.

Seriously, I didn't think it would work myself until I tried it.

 

Like a lot of things...

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

I gave up on Freeview a while ago. Our analogue picture was reasonable, but with ghosting. Digital - forget it, it just breaks up. I don't watch much TV anymore, what I do I can watch online.

 

What really pisses me off about Freeview is what a wasted opportunity it was. We could have had a smaller number of high quality channels, but instead with have dozens of shite channels with the bitrates at the lowest possible level. Channel slots should have been allocated on a programming quality basis, not just handed out to whoever had the most money.

 

Fuck shopping channels, fuck +1 channels, etc