totm nov 2023 Thread to discuss negative things in a very general way, just see where it goes y'know?

[Gargamel]

My baby birds flew away      Got home tonight and the nest was empty.... 

[richfiles]

On 5/26/2019 at 5:50 PM, IncongruousGoat said:

dealing with how mind-numbingly boring Minnesota is.

Well! A statement like this absolutely requires a counter!
This is where I went to on Monday... In Minnesota...

https://imgur.com/gallery/4xYDft4

Clearly you weren't in the right part of Minnesota! 

[razark]

12 minutes ago, richfiles said:

This is where I went to on Monday... In Minnesota...
...
Clearly you weren't in the right part of Minnesota! 

That does look like a nice place to spend some time.

I do wish there was something here more scenic than Gulf Coastal plains and marshlands.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Gargamel said:

My baby birds flew away      Got home tonight and the nest was empty.... 

Oh man, I have a soft spot for birds and you tell me this...

I'm hoping they're ok

[richfiles]

On 5/27/2019 at 3:55 PM, IncongruousGoat said:

I guess my mechanic didn't think the rust damage was bad enough to warrant mentioning. Either that, or he just did a bad job of it.

I once rode the train for 12 hours (spent the extra for a sleeper! Totally worth it!) to pick up a Fiero. Paid $600 for work to be done to it before I left with it... A month later, after making the 12 hour trip back, I had it in the shop, and the mechanic comes and asks me to come back into the shop with him... On a Fiero, the engine is mounted in the rear. the rear wheels and engine sit on a frame that hinges against the body behind the seats, and is supported by the shocks and struts. He points to one of the two main hinge points... The driver side was half unbolted, and there were NO tool marks and a uniform layering of rust, typical of something that hadn't been touched anytime recently. If the nut securing that hinge had come loose, the driver side rear wheel and engine would have dropped the frame to the pavement... I traveled on 12 hours of interstate highways like that. The brakes looked like they had only minimal work done to them. Clearly, I got had for $600 for repairs and inspections that clearly didn't happen, or were barely given any real effort, and with the remaining work that needed to be done, I more or less got a lemon of a car. I never did get that cash back either. I had bigger fish to fry at the time, and moved on. It was still pretty low to cheat me on SAFETY NECESSARY WORK though!

And let's be honest... A Fiero is either a GREAT car, or a WRETCHED car... There is no in between... They require diligent maintenance to remain good cars, and the second you lapse in your auto care... They will betray you and rapidly turn into the worst lemon! This car was too far gone for my capacity to bring back, so I just got rid of it at a loss. It was fun for a month... Then terrifying... Then angering... Then frustrating... And then I was just defeated. 

On 5/27/2019 at 12:37 AM, Aperture Science said:

Louis Rossmann

Already a long time subscriber. Right to repair is a serious issue that too many people just don't care about...
Well... That is, until they drop their precious baby photos, I mean iPhone into the toilet!

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, richfiles said:

Already a long time subscriber. 

I'm left extremely aggravated by the disgusting practice of leaving a near impossible to remove subscription on Rossmann's channel

Edited May 29, 2019 by Guest

[IncongruousGoat]

40 minutes ago, richfiles said:

Well! A statement like this absolutely requires a counter!
This is where I went to on Monday... In Minnesota...

https://imgur.com/gallery/4xYDft4

Clearly you weren't in the right part of Minnesota! 

Clearly. I admit, I only passed through the southernmost part of the state, and only saw whatever was in line-of-sight from I-90. Stopping at roadside attractions stopped once we left New York and didn't start again until we hit the South Dakota Badlands. Which are stunning, by the way. Highly recommended.

[Pthigrivi]

Damn this update. I keep running out of likes. 

[Geonovast]

7 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Damn this update. I keep running out of likes. 

 

Did you try some food for thought?

[Pthigrivi]

2 hours ago, Geonovast said:

Did you try some food for thought?

See I can’t even like that response!

[4x4cheesecake]

So this is the new "complain about stuff " thread? K....

Win 10 forced me to install the stupid october update and now I'm getting this annoying, 1 pixel wide gap between my browser windows and the edges of the screen when using aerosnap to align them:

This is the exact reason why I rolled back my windows version when I tried this update the first time a few months earlier and even though microsoft had to stop rolling out the update for various (probably more important) reasons, this annoying gap is still in there and it drives me crazy

[guesswho2778]

On 5/27/2019 at 8:20 AM, IncongruousGoat said:

you needed to push the pedal nearly all the way down to get any meaningful deceleration.

at least it wasn't a tire exploding on the highway ive had that happen to me before

[Superfluous J]

3 hours ago, 4x4cheesecake said:

aerosnap

That's a complaint all on its own. I disable that with as much prejudice as I can as soon as I encounter it.

1 hour ago, guesswho2778 said:

at least it wasn't a tire exploding on the highway ive had that happen to me before

My muffler almost fell off once on the freeway and nobody would let me get over because they were (presumably) afraid it would fall off the rest of the way while I was in front of them.

Their fears were not unfounded. When I finally did get over I found it was being held on by nothing but friction.

[Gargamel]

11 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

When I finally did get over I found it was being held on by nothing but friction.

That 's why, along with the normal stuff, my car kit includes some wire cutters and a few wire coat hangers.   It's amazing the quick and sturdy repair job you can do with coat hangers. 

[4x4cheesecake]

3 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

That's a complaint all on its own. I disable that with as much prejudice as I can as soon as I encounter it.

I actually like aerosnap and use it all the time to put two windows next to each other...

[richfiles]

33 minutes ago, Gargamel said:

It's amazing the quick and sturdy repair job you can do with coat hangers.

Makeshift materials can be a blessing to a stranded motorist!
Especially one that grew up watching MacGyver! 

I was stranded on the side of an interstate highway outside Sparta Wisconsin by the aforementioned Fiero... Among the MANY things the seller of that car failed to do, was to include the heat shield that covers the exhaust header. The result was that about 2/3 of the way on my trip home, the throttle cable had melted and collapsed under it's own pull force. The guide sleeve of the cable butterflied outward, tension was released from the throttle body, and the retainer clip and retainer pin and throttle body spring all let lose, with the clip and pin dropping onto the road at 65-70 MPH, and the throttle spring coming detached. The cable had no ability to pull tension on the end anymore (it just flayed the cable sleeve when you pulled on it), and even if I could fix that, all the attachment hardware that connected to the throttle body was gone. It was all literally held in place by the tension.

A highway patrol officer stops to assist, seeing me pulled over. with he trunk open, staring at the engine.

I explain the situation, what happened, discovering the missing heat shield...
He asks me if I want a ride to mechanic or motel...

I asked him if he had a clicky pen, the kind with a spring in it.
Confusedly, he looks and finds one. He offered it to me, and asks what i need it for...

In the car, I had the following materials:

A wire loom
a paper clip
a single zip-tie
duct tape
and a bellows style EGR (exhaust gas reflow) tube that was old, worn, and torn, just hanging onto the port on the air cleaner.

Add to that pile, the officer's pen spring... (expand to see examples of the items I had... For that visual effect...)
 

Spoiler

I used the paperclip to construct a new retainer clip for the throttle body. The zip tie passed through the throttle cable's end to secure it to the retainer and throttle spring. The pen spring was partially unwound and used as a wire to secure the paper clip, cable, zip-tie, and throttle spring together. It was convoluted, and in a tight space, but I made it work!

The EGR tube and wire loom, along with the duct tape were used to rebuild the cable sleeve of the throttle cable. I fed it through the wire loom, which was about the correct size to contain the throttle cable's overall diameter. I tightly wrapped the loom covered throttle cable with duct tape to bind the flayed portion. Problem is, the exhaust heat would just remelt it, so I peeled the EGR bellows tube into a long strip, and loosely wrapped it around the throttle body. this acted as a heat shield. I taped the ends of it to keep it from shifting position, keeping it centered over the exhaust manifold area.

I cranked the engine, and revved the engine a few times, made a few adjustments, and declared it a successful MacGyver job! I won't lie... I loved the face the officer made seeing the engine rev. He sat there and watched the entire process of rebuilding the throttle cable and throttle body clip... Basically out of junk and his pen!  Anyway, the officer offered to follow me for a while, to make sure it worked... Honestly, I think he didn't expect it to last. I got the impression that he expected me to get 300 feet and have it all fall apart... Then ask for that ride...

After 20 miles (32 km) I gave him a thumbs up and a wave when I got to the exit at the border of Minnesota, and he got himself turned around to head back to Wisconsin. I ended up driving that car for an entire month, without trouble, till I found the replacement cable. Sadly, as I mentioned in that pervious post... The guy I bought that car from had left too much to reasonably deal with, and the car was simply not economical for me to try to deal with. Ended up letting it go for a loss, but stuff happens...

I'm just proud that I got to literally avoid a tow, a mechanic, and a (albeit kind) ride in a police car by literally Utilizing parts just a step away from "Found lying by the side of the road"... A very fittingly Kerbalish "Found lying in a car's trunk, and in a police officer's cruiser"... How Jeb's Junkyard of me! 

Now...

All of this sounds very much like bragging (and you'd not be wrong  )... How is this discussing anything negative... Well... Murphy. Good ol' Murphy...

Not even a whole a day after I mention the horrid brake "service" done to that old Fiero, my current car... starts grinding metal to metal on my front driver side brake... You have GOT to be kidding me!!!  So, I had to wait till Friday to get it into the shop. It had a sticking caliper, and that was leaving the pad to wear heavily, till it was just gone. Had to replace the brake pads, rotors, and one of the calipers. The other side was fine. Cost me $380.

I was just about to replace my router... I don't get but maybe 1 Mbps on a GOOD day to my workshop, and it constantly drops connection. Three months in a row, this has switched my phone over to mobile data, and chewed up my monthly data cap. I managed to find a good deal that bumped me from 2 GB to 5 GB per month, for only $5 more... and I took it... I need more of a safety margin. I still think that ANY of these ridiculous single digit data caps are backwards, and not fitting for modern services for modern phones... The cost of mobile data is obscene! 

Anyway... No router for me! I have to be able to drive!

[guesswho2778]

43 minutes ago, richfiles said:

[story about becoming MacGyver]

i couldn't help but smile the whole way through that story

45 minutes ago, richfiles said:

he cost of mobile data is obscene!

and yeah it is

[Flibble]

6 hours ago, Gargamel said:

That 's why, along with the normal stuff, my car kit includes some wire cutters and a few wire coat hangers.   It's amazing the quick and sturdy repair job you can do with coat hangers. 

Cable ties fix all.

[Flibble]

Also on the subject of cars, mine was in the shop recently for a service and the mechanic mentioned that the front brake pads were falling apart. I hadn't noticed them being low. I took them off a few days later and one literally fell into two pieces. I think I was lucky it hadn't disintegrated sooner as it was just held together by friction.

Pic shows the pad just after I removed it.

Spoiler

 

[Geonovast]

Could be worse.

 

[StrandedonEarth]

2 hours ago, Geonovast said:

Could be worse.

 

Alright, who’s been taking pictures of my brakes? 

[Chel]

when everyone else has two weeks to work on a video project and you only have 3 days so you finish a draft for another subject (12am) and then edit your video until 2am, only for it to completely fail and for the teacher to tell me to do better and that I wasted my time and didn't do anything. I had only 3 days. Everybody else had 2 weeks. I did the best I could. At least I even made it in the first place. 

I'm honestly done with school. Just the same stuff over and over again. Homework. Exams. Assignments. Lack of sleep. 

When will it ever end. Oh wait! It won't! 2 and a half years more in this place and then university for another 4 and then a job! YAY! 

Edited June 5, 2019 by The_Cat_In_Space

[Klapaucius]

I love music. I'm a lapsed sax player (I was never more than an intermediate player) play trumpet in a community orchestra, and I used to sing in choirs.  I have a very diverse and eclectic taste. I'm a huge fan of Rush, Yes, Tower of Power, Earth Wind and Fire, Iron Maiden, The Outlaws, Billy Joel, pretty much anything Brazilian and I love classical, both western and Indian etc etc etc. Mahler 2 is amazing.  I love early music and opera, both baroque and contemporary.  Pretty much any genre as long as the players can play and the composition is compelling.

 

BUT: I hate the fact that I cannot go into a restaurant, a grocery store or anywhere these days without music blaring. Now I will admit that if it is a tune I like, it is not so bad, but most of it is bad pop sung through pitch correction.  But even if it was not, why do folks think we need background noise all the time? And musical taste is subjective.  I am part of a foreign language meetup group and it is a struggle to find a place to chat where you don't have to shout to be heard. This is especially problematic when you are trying to understand what someone is saying in Russian.

I hate it when music blares at ski areas. And once, while whitewater kayaking, I came across a paddler with a waterproof radio blaring out of his buoyancy aid. Argh!

I think people who really appreciate music hate background music because it becomes noise. If it is music worth listening to, it is worth giving some attention to it, not having it be something you have to shout over.

Edited June 5, 2019 by Klapaucius

[Flibble]

8 hours ago, The_Cat_In_Space said:

When will it ever end. Oh wait! It won't! 2 and a half years more in this place and then university for another 4 and then a job! YAY! 

Upside, most jobs don't have homework.

[XB-70A]

5 hours ago, Flibble said:

Upside, most jobs don't have homework.

Indeed.

They have paperwork instead