The Angry Thread.

[Davetrials]

Getting squishy in the mid section, working from home sucks, 25k steps a day down to not much at all is really starting to take its toll. Might have to actually spend some time doing cardio in the gym now *spits*

[craigjames]

On 22/09/2020 at 4:30 PM, Davetrials said:

Getting squishy in the mid section, working from home sucks, 25k steps a day down to not much at all is really starting to take its toll. Might have to actually spend some time doing cardio in the gym now *spits*

I feel your pain, mid-life/lock down spread has hit and the love handles have grown! Food was one of life's few pleasures during lock down and my eating habits haven't returned to pre-LD levels. I'll just add "be less fat" to the to-do list.

[Tom Booth]

On 9/17/2020 at 11:42 AM, Tom Booth said:

I missed a parcel yesterday with Parcelforce so was taken to a local collection point which is a petrol station.

The post office at the petrol station couldn't move it as it was so heavy, so it stayed on the shop floor near the staff entrance. Royal mail man did his rounds last night and collected the parcels from there and took my parcel too. 

I've gone to collect it from the petrol station today to vacant looks and when I explained what it should look like the staff member pointed to a spot and said it was there and was left there as it was so heavy, they've watched the CCTV and can see the royal mail driver takes it away.

So now if you check on Parcelforce the parcel is still at the drop off awaiting collection, royal mail have no knowledge of it as its not been submitted officially as a delivery and as it stands I'm out £280.

Anyone predict how this ends? The petrol station are blaming the driver for not checking, and royal mail are blaming the petrol station for leaving it on the shop floor.

 

 

So, this turned up today! Totally unexpected a d unannounced.

Parcelforce driver did mention he remembered the parcel as its so bloody heavy, aswell as noticing the taken to a drop point sticker hes put on there.

[Revolver]

Was it a jukebox?

[Tom Booth]

Nah, a shit load of electronic goods. 

[bikeperson45]

Had a cyclist ome around a corner with some ridiculously bright light  and haven't been able to shake the liht stain since. Evening plan was go for a walk and read for a while so he's actually managed to screw up my evening plans. 

[CC12345678910]

On 10/19/2020 at 8:23 PM, bikeperson45 said:

Had a cyclist ome around a corner with some ridiculously bright light  and haven't been able to shake the liht stain since. Evening plan was go for a walk and read for a while so he's actually managed to screw up my evening plans. 

Did you ask them what is was? [Joke] Could do with that kinda powah for all the SMIDSY cnuts of Barrow sat creeping on the clutch bite @ T junctions...

Youda thunk that 2 lezyne style cree lights set up x beam pattern on flashy flashy at full chooch & a knog on the peak of the 661 evo brain bucket would be enough.

But nope. Still get pulled out on at point blank range - even when I align myself centre right of the carriageway, then tuck back in mid left after the junction. 

 It's not like none of this is in a street-lit area either. Honestly feels less prone between the hedges of single trackers and 16ft wide lanes in the murk of midnight blackness.

[Revolver]

Good ole 2020. It's thrown quite a few unwanted curveballs 

Among others, the most recent: so as expected, corona virus is wrecking my schedule. I'm an English tutor in an after-school academy, but parents aren't sending their kids so I'm running at 1/3 of the classes. Teaching mainly adults now which is a relief, they actually want to come to class (well, sort of. They also go for 'breaks' for indefinite amounts of time )

Teaching kids is balls and I'm trying to break out of it, so I applied for a whole stack of programming jobs (Python/Flask/Vue.js boi at your service) and got nowhere.

And then recently two jobs got in touch. The first, a teaching job preparing students to come to uni in the UK, as well as writing some course material, and then a front end dev job.

But this is 2020, so... the teaching job offered really low pay, especially compared to the work. Originally they said they wanted to hire someone part-time and I had said I wanted full-time, but when they made their offer I said I'd take it if they'd pay that money for part-time... and now I seem to be being ghosted by them, even though they really liked me.

And the programming job, at the interview they said 'Well, we actually use a different stack, but we can see that you're really eager to learn so we might be able to give you an internship whilst you acquire the skills' which isn't going to be that well paid but it's in the industry I actually want to be in, and it does suit my experience level with that stack so I could do that for a time.

But then they were like, 'we thought about it and we hired a different person for design and we'll get a freelancer in for Front End for a few months so yeah, it's not gonna be you.

 

Yeah, this is 2020 alright...

[MadManMike]

There's no "mildly disappointed thread" so this will do

We went to view a new build today, which was not on the site we'd be buying from, but was the same flat-pack style house so effectively the same thing... We liked it and it would have been a good match for us. Rang the sales team when we got home and asked for the estimated completion of the site we were looking at and they said building is due to commence in February 2022

Plenty more to look at, but this one would have been good - seems bigger than most 3 bedroom new builds. I'm usually pretty against new builds due to lack of character / being crammed in / cardboard walls, but this one was good in all those areas.

[monkeyseemonkeydo]

Parking. Gotta have parking. So many new builds and estates seem to completely ignore the fact that most couples will have two cars (some more) and then if you think about kids then you potentially need 4 spaces to grow in to! We were lucky to find a place that we can fit 7 or 8 cars on at a push (plus a garage for bikes and motorbikes etc. but we'd be screwed if we only had on street parking or one designated bay or whatever.

[MadManMike]

Yeah that's on our list of requirements - quite high up the list. Definitely needs a garage for my next project.

I've spent a lot of today looking on Rightmove and there's really not much in our price range, the ones we looked at a few weeks ago have gone already, so stuff isn't hanging around at the moment!

The lack of details on some of the listings is frustrating too, a 3D render of a totally different property and no decent description - just a link to register interest... Interest in what?

To be honest I thought this part of the process would be easier, I thought the tricky bit was when you start dealing with surveyors and lenders.

[Tom Booth]

Not overly helpful but our house was built in 1995 so still classed as a new build, I wouldn't change a thing about it! 

Unless you see something massively obvious i wouldn't be overly put off by the new build hate brigade. There's no question, older houses are far more solid, but new properties are far from bad.

[MadManMike]

I'm a member of the new build hate brigade, but only because of my past exposure to what are probably the cheap and nasty ones. The one we saw yesterday went a long way to converting me as it certainly wasn't the cardboard box type I've been in before. I basically want a bit of character, a decent amount of space and I'd rather not hear my neighbours from two doors away having sex (Detached ideally, as my out of office activities aren't too quiet - well, they have been for about 10 years, but I'd like to change that once I own a place!).

I'm fairly open now, compared to a few weeks ago. Today I found a "3" bedroom cottage in the middle of nowhere that I quite like - I say "3", because to get a third bedroom you'd lose the dining room... But I think because of that I can probably low ball them on offer. It would need a fair bit of work outside, but I'm happy to crack on with that. Inside seems pretty sorted, definitely worth a view anyway.

The hunt continues

[J.KYDD]

18 hours ago, Tom Booth said:

There's no question, older houses are far more solid, but new properties are far from bad.

Fo reals? You seen the utter state of what the likes of Persimmon/Redrow etc are churning out at 100mph? Shambles, and as soon as the developer is done with the site and it enters that 'grey period' between construction and the utilities/services/roads being adopted by authorities, the developers just f**k off and try to pie off all responsibility of anything.

Had a couple colleagues buy new builds in the last couple years and the snag list on one of them was horrendous. Then it became a constant battle with the site managers to to get the relevant after-build team to come round and sort everything bit by bit. Jokers 

[Matt24.]

Good luck - We are a few weeks away from completing a house move. We are moving from a 30s built semi detached 3 bed and were looking for a more modern 90's onwards just for ease of less work, electrics, heating etc (the previous occupiers of our current house had been here 40 odd years and everything needed doing!) However we ended up settling on a 60s built house - mainly for space... We found the equivalent newer built properties generally had a smaller master bedroom, garden and drive that we had got used to. We were also looking at detached on new builds so we wouldn't have to navigate the noise issue. Ironically the house we are buying has had people in it for 40 years and needs everything doing again! I am glad I can correct some of my previous mistakes this time!

[J.KYDD]

We are also in the process of moving, early stages. We only put our place on the market as a bit of a punt due to the stamp duty freeze and it sold within 24hrs!
We're lucky to have a cash buyer for our place and our chain is super short. 

Moving from a 1905 Victorian terrace to a 1930's semi which is already in great condition but has scope for an extension in the future

[Matt24.]

Nice - the experience so far has put me off doing it again thus far! This is the first time we have sold and bought in the same transaction where we were first time buyers last time. Our buyers changed the source of the deposit from the agreed offer which was them just selling a flat to remortgaging to a buy to let which has meant a simultaneous exchange and completion but managed to not tell the solicitor so a day before exchange it came to light! Not helped by the fact the house we were buying was probate and the son ha asked for 2 weeks between exchange and completion so are stuck in limbo at the mo with half the house in boxes waiting for the solicitors to sort it out. Fortunately I left a walk way through the summer house to get to my bike!! Best of luck with the move - jealous of the 24 hours! We had 30 viewings over 3 weeks on ours in the summer and because of working from home people were viewing everyday at random times unlike traditional weekends.... 

[monkeyseemonkeydo]

We bought our first place back in 2010, a 1970s (I think) 3 bed semi detached place and toyed with the the idea of moving for an extra bedroom (two kids plus the requirement for a spare room meant sooner or later we'd like to upsize. In the end we decided to extend above the garage and utility room to give us an extra two bedrooms plus a shower/toilet room. We've effectively now got a 5 bedroom house though the boys are still sharing for now so we have an extra toy room and an office. The extra room is great! What's really good is that we managed to pay for the extension entirely from savings and with overpayments on the main mortgage we should be able to be mortgage free in just over 3 years which will be brilliant.

I think when we bought we only looked at 3 or 4 others before finding this one which we were very happy with. We looked at a couple of new builds/more modern places but they were all small with white walls and beige carpets that would've been a nightmare to keep clean! This house just felt right immediately- it felt like a home when we saw it, not just a house if that makes sense.

[J.KYDD]

We were first time buyers last time around too, so much simpler. Hate the stress of it all, but the place we're buying is exactly what we saw ourselves living in at 'some point' and genuinely cannot envisage us even considering moving again in the next 20+ years 

[monkeyseemonkeydo]

3 minutes ago, J.KYDD said:

cannot envisage us even considering moving again in the next 20+ years 

Yeah that's basically what we managed first time out- I don't see any reason to move from here until the kids leave home and we don't want to deal with stairs anymore!! The extension was something we'd been thinking of doing for a while and we were lucky with timing in a way. The work started just before the first lockdown and the work continued all the way through so that we could actually get it all decorated and finished during lockdown. I think if it had happened any other year it would've taken years to actually finish it (I know what I'm like!). Also having the office was very useful for school work and when Mel was filming Oak Academy lessons.

[Matt24.]

4 minutes ago, J.KYDD said:

We were first time buyers last time around too, so much simpler. Hate the stress of it all, but the place we're buying is exactly what we saw ourselves living in at 'some point' and genuinely cannot envisage us even considering moving again in the next 20+ years 

Yeah that’s what’s seeing me through this. We are doing the same buying something that sees us through the children phase. Nice area, good schools, and the house is a corner plot with spare space on the side so any future accidents can be catered for!! Just need to ride out the next week. Meant to be moving on the 18th but still waiting for both buyers and our seller to be ready so a little squeaky bum but sure it’ll come together.

[Stephen Morris]

I spent a significant part of my day (being paid, admittedly) searching for a PlayStation 5.

[Revolver]

I would really like to see nobody buy a PS5 from a scalper, so that they've spent all that money on them, and then they have to keep them.

[JT!]

I don't gamble, but I do end up buying the odd lottery tickets that are accidentally misprinted at work. Picked up a $2 one and matched 3 of the numbers. Got super lucky, considering the odds of that happening are 1 in 580.

I won $7.

What kind of bullshit payout is that for a 1 in 580 shot?

[Revolver]

Hahh, I used to work on the kiosk selling tobacco and lottery in Sainsbury's, and there were the odd customer who were nuts about lottery and scratchcards. But I don't believe anyone ever broke even.