WAMT....what annoyed me today!

Norkie said:
£228:00 for a new car battery! It is one of those stop-start ones though:(
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Crumbs! not that mine is due for replacement....anytime soon. I looked mine up and depending on make & source the price ranges from at under £100 to £258 :thinking:
 
The ceramic heater bulb holder, for my snakes burnt out last night, I repaired it last time it did that,
Not this time it disintegrated!
Luckily I have a small fan heater with its own thermostat, so it makes a temporary back up.
Waiting for the usual message from Amazon.

"I dumped it on the doorstep and didn't knock or ring the bell",( just like the other night, thankfully it wasn't raining).
AKA parcel handed to resident :rolleyes:
 
Cobra said:
The ceramic heater bulb holder, for my snakes burnt out last night, I repaired it last time it did that,
Not this time it disintegrated!
Luckily I have a small fan heater with its own thermostat, so it makes a temporary back up.
Waiting for the usual message from Amazon.

"I dumped it on the doorstep and didn't knock or ring the bell",( just like the other night, thankfully it wasn't raining).
AKA parcel handed to resident :rolleyes:
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Yes it’s difficult when you’re relying on electrical equipment for pets, I have a similar setup for our Crested Gecko
A ceramic emitter thing which is like a flattened lightbulb with a controller
 
LCPete said:
which is like a flattened lightbulb
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Yep that's the one (y) controlled by a separate thermostat.
The wires going into the holder burn out though, well that is a couple of times in the last 3 years or so.
This time the wire "clamp" into the holder disintegrated!
.
Luckily these things are not that expensive to replace
 
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Cobra said:
Waiting for the usual message from Amazon. "I dumped it on the doorstep and didn't knock or ring the bell",( just like the other night, thankfully it wasn't raining).
AKA parcel handed to resident :rolleyes:
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Well, that was a turn up for the books. "Parcel left in or near the garage"
No, it was handed to the resident.
 
Well, you were probably within 25 yards of the garage!
 
Yet another Virgin issue.

We're plagued by iffy internet and just general faults and loss of services and today one of the two Virgin boxes we have has died. The other one died just a while ago so both have now died in quick succession (we've had maybe half a dozen over the years) and of course although Virgin are quick enough to come and replace them (they say they'll come on Monday but last time I booked a slot he didn't turn up, no message sent, nothing, just didn't turn up so I had to rebook) you lose anything recorded on them. In these days of clouds and thinking how expensive virgin are surely they could offer some off box back ups so that when their iffy kit dies anything on it can be recreated.

Last time the engineer came he said that the software on these boxes isn't too good and if you record and later delete things this increases the chances of it dying. That might be true but if it is surely they can do better.
 
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woof woof said:
Yet another Virgin issue.

We're plagued by iffy internet and just general faults and loss of services and today one of the two Virgin boxes we have has died. The other one died just a while ago so both have now died in quick succession (we've had maybe half a dozen over the years) and of course although Virgin are quick enough to come and replace them (they say they'll come on Monday but last time I booked a slot he didn't turn up, no message sent, nothing, just didn't turn up so I had to rebook) you lose anything recorded on them. In these days of clouds and thinking how expensive virgin are surely they could offer some off box back ups so that when their iffy kit dies anything on it can be recreated.

Last time the engineer came he said that the software on these boxes isn't too good and if you record and later delete things this increases the chances of it dying. That might be true but if it is surely they can do better.
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Seems like quite a bug if recording and erasing breaks them, seeing as it's their main function.
When the virgin network was still Telewest I worked for them and got it free. It was so crap I opted to pay for sky.
 
I have a Virgin set up myself but no problem with the current set top box which must be at least 8 years old. Many programmes can be watched any time now without recording.

Dave
 
There might be something in what the tec guy said as we only really started having problems when we began reguarly recording and deleting. For years I've used a Panasonic digital recorder to record programs but the industry have been cracking down on this sort of recorder and although a similar recorder is still sold today it has no inputs other than a tv coax so you can't record directly from a Virgin Tivo type box. Actually they've removed some of the outputs from those too to try and cut down on digital recordings.

Anyway. That's when the trouble seemed to start for us plus we've just about stopped watching live or vertical tv and one reason for this is the adverts lasting 5 or 6 minutes every 12 minutes during some programs so if there is anything we want to watch on vertical tv we've been taping it as we can then watch it before it appears on catch up. In more recent times catchup is now often available on the same day as broadcast but now we can't avoid the adverts so would prefer to record and skip through them but that seems to be causing the boxes to fail more quickly.

As above, my main gripe is probably that every time a Virgin Tivo type box fails we lose everything we've recorded. The old Panasonic digital recorder is in the region of 25 years old now but still happily recording on its HDD (but the DVD recorder has long since packed up) but the image quality is degraded as its outputs are scart and of course that's been dropped now so I have to push everything through converters which degrades IQ.

Many people don't seem to care about recording, you can stream anything you want they say. Well. No. You can't.
 
woof woof said:
Anyway. That's when the trouble seemed to start for us plus we've just about stopped watching live or vertical tv and one reason for this is the adverts lasting 5 or 6 minutes every 12 minutes during some programs so if there is anything we want to watch on vertical tv we've been taping it as we can then watch it before it appears on catch up. In more recent times catchup is now often available on the same day as broadcast but now we can't avoid the adverts so would prefer to record and skip through them but that seems to be causing the boxes to fail more quickly.

Many people don't seem to care about recording, you can stream anything you want they say. Well. No. You can't.
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Like you we record so we can miss the adverts, which you also get on commercial catch up TV, Our Humix box is 15years old and records Freesat. The storage now only has about 35% free, with the 1 program I would like to keep and the 60odd the Mrs has on there.

WAMT is that Love Island (not for me) is now scheduled to last 65minutes so that makes it much more difficult to record the programs around 9 - 10 PM where the watchable bits are.
 
A "health" and "care" service that sends a 98 year old home with a broken arm and diabetes, to look after herself, in her own home. Fifth day now, sleeping in a chair, in the same clothes that she had on when she fell!
EDIT:- Working on it!!!!!
 
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I bought an electronic keyboard from Amazon a month or so ago and it came with everything, stand, stool, headphones and a very small and light AC adapter. Mrs WW loves it and plays it every day. Anyway. One day it wouldn't power up so I got my multimeter out and checked the AC adapter and there was nothing coming out. Rather than buy one as I'm never sure they'll have the right end on the cable I contacted the supplier and had an online txt chat with a very helpful guy. I told him the problem was the AC adapter and asked if he could supply one but of course he couldn't, he had two options, refund or supply a new keyboard so we went for the new one.

It's just a bit wasteful that the whole thing, stand, stool and all has to be replaced instead of just supplying the AC adapter. On the subject of that AC adapter, they used to be quite chunky things with some weight but this one is tiny and it weighs nothing. It probably weight less than an ordinary three pin plug and probably cost less. I wonder how many they've had fail. It's a shame as I don't suppose anything will be done with the keyboard we're sending back and it'll probably end up in landfill for the want of an AC adapter which probably cost less than £5, in fact I've just googled it and the first one that came up costs £4.99. TBH I'd rather pay £49.99 for a decent one which will last decades. If you can still buy a decent one which will last decades these days.

The next annoyance was that Mrs WW insisted that she wanted the new stand and stool so I had to dismantle the old ones and pack them up and assemble the new ones.
 
seaodyssey said:
Like you we record so we can miss the adverts, which you also get on commercial catch up TV, Our Humix box is 15years old and records Freesat. The storage now only has about 35% free, with the 1 program I would like to keep and the 60odd the Mrs has on there.

WAMT is that Love Island (not for me) is now scheduled to last 65minutes so that makes it much more difficult to record the programs around 9 - 10 PM where the watchable bits are.
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I recoded and watched Chrissie Hynde being interviewed and singing Bob Dylan songs and telling the story about how the album was made on Sky Arts and I loved it. I bought the CD but there's no DVD of the show and of course when the box died I lost the recording. Luckily it was on again and I recorded it again but I'll lose it if and when the box fails again.

I think I'll look into getting my Panasonic digital recorders fixed. "All" they need is a new DVD recorder fitting if they're still available, they still record on the HDD but if I can get new DVD recorders fitted I can then record onto a DVD and keep the recording. Another thing I desperately want to keep is a Japanese drama called "The hours of my life." I love it and I've watched it quite a few times and of course it's not available on DVD.
 
woof woof said:
I bought an electronic keyboard from Amazon a month or so ago and it came with everything, stand, stool, headphones and a very small and light AC adapter. Mrs WW loves it and plays it every day. Anyway. One day it wouldn't power up so I got my multimeter out and checked the AC adapter and there was nothing coming out. Rather than buy one as I'm never sure they'll have the right end on the cable I contacted the supplier and had an online txt chat with a very helpful guy. I told him the problem was the AC adapter and asked if he could supply one but of course he couldn't, he had two options, refund or supply a new keyboard so we went for the new one.

It's just a bit wasteful that the whole thing, stand, stool and all has to be replaced instead of just supplying the AC adapter. On the subject of that AC adapter, they used to be quite chunky things with some weight but this one is tiny and it weighs nothing. It probably weight less than an ordinary three pin plug and probably cost less. I wonder how many they've had fail. It's a shame as I don't suppose anything will be done with the keyboard we're sending back and it'll probably end up in landfill for the want of an AC adapter which probably cost less than £5, in fact I've just googled it and the first one that came up costs £4.99. TBH I'd rather pay £49.99 for a decent one which will last decades. If you can still buy a decent one which will last decades these days.

The next annoyance was that Mrs WW insisted that she wanted the new stand and stool so I had to dismantle the old ones and pack them up and assemble the new ones.
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IMO what this illustrates is that the supplier does not stock spare parts, to supply in such circumstances. So the keyboard all being well is likely to last some years.........and so should the power brick(?) but don't expect the supplier to have spares available for any of the box contents.

PS on a side note ~ I would not buy such power brick from Amazon. I bought a third party one sold as suitable for my Dymo label printer but as a matter of routine checked the marked polarity of the output connector and it was the reverse of the printer. Ok I thought, they have supplied the wrong box?

But no, the stated the model & polarity was as per the box but the unit was reversed. This was a supplied by Amazon but sold by a third party, therefore Amazon undertake the problem resolution ~ I was given a refund with no requirement to return it plus even though I specifically told them of the situation and the potential risk of damaging buyers equipment 'they' gave me no confidence that they would quarantine the stock or any other appropriate actions! :(

NB I cut the cable of it and put the lot into the electrical waste.
 
woof woof said:
I recoded and watched Chrissie Hynde being interviewed and singing Bob Dylan songs and telling the story about how the album was made on Sky Arts and I loved it. I bought the CD but there's no DVD of the show and of course when the box died I lost the recording. Luckily it was on again and I recorded it again but I'll lose it if and when the box fails again.

I think I'll look into getting my Panasonic digital recorders fixed. "All" they need is a new DVD recorder fitting if they're still available, they still record on the HDD but if I can get new DVD recorders fitted I can then record onto a DVD and keep the recording. Another thing I desperately want to keep is a Japanese drama called "The hours of my life." I love it and I've watched it quite a few times and of course it's not available on DVD.
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DVD set on eBay ....though $ priced
www.ebay.com

Japanese Drama DVD The Hours of My Life 2014 Boku no Ita Jikan ENG SUB | eBay

AkaBoku no Ita Jikan. The Hours of My Life (2014). Production: Fuji TV 2014. Japanese Drama DVD Language: Japanese. No of CDs: 3 DVD (11 Episodes COMPLETE). Takuto Sawada (Haruma Miura) is an ordinary university student.
www.ebay.com
 
Box Brownie said:
DVD set on eBay ....though $ priced
www.ebay.com

Japanese Drama DVD The Hours of My Life 2014 Boku no Ita Jikan ENG SUB | eBay

AkaBoku no Ita Jikan. The Hours of My Life (2014). Production: Fuji TV 2014. Japanese Drama DVD Language: Japanese. No of CDs: 3 DVD (11 Episodes COMPLETE). Takuto Sawada (Haruma Miura) is an ordinary university student.
www.ebay.com
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Yes. I've just found and bought that one before reading your post :D

I've checked periodically over the years and today is the first time I've found it available in Japanese with English subtitles. The closest I've come before is a dubbed Thai version with English subtitles and as we've seen the Japanese language version a dubbed one would seem odd. I can recommend this drama, we all loved it. It is quite moving though.
 
Pixbarmy said:
A "health" and "care" service that sends a 98 year old home with a broken arm and diabetes, to look after herself, in her own home. Fifth day now, sleeping in a chair, in the same clothes that she had on when she fell!
EDIT:- Working on it!!!!!
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Now (eventually) sorted, after a lot of pleading and pushing! Six weeks of "Enablement" care of three daily visits and ongoing assessment. (Would not have happened had I not done it myself!)
 
Box Brownie said:
IMO what this illustrates is that the supplier does not stock spare parts, to supply in such circumstances. So the keyboard all being well is likely to last some years.........and so should the power brick(?) but don't expect the supplier to have spares available for any of the box contents.

PS on a side note ~ I would not buy such power brick from Amazon. I bought a third party one sold as suitable for my Dymo label printer but as a matter of routine checked the marked polarity of the output connector and it was the reverse of the printer. Ok I thought, they have supplied the wrong box?

But no, the stated the model & polarity was as per the box but the unit was reversed. This was a supplied by Amazon but sold by a third party, therefore Amazon undertake the problem resolution ~ I was given a refund with no requirement to return it plus even though I specifically told them of the situation and the potential risk of damaging buyers equipment 'they' gave me no confidence that they would quarantine the stock or any other appropriate actions! :(

NB I cut the cable of it and put the lot into the electrical waste.
Click to expand...


I did some work for a local company that imported "fogging" machines from China. The quality was so poor that we had a 60% failure rate within 2 weeks of them being sold. When I started to look at repairing them, the inside was nothing like the one used for type approval (CE mark). The filtering had been taken out, and the decent flex had been replaced by cheap crappy stuff. Worst of all, the decent quality soft rubber grommets that protected the mains cable from rubbing against the hard plastic had been replaced with yet more hard plastic that erased the conductor on the cable.

The manufacturer sent over a huge box of spares, including new otors, and I spent 2 mornings a week for 3 months repairing them, and adding RCD plugs to any new stock. It was quite clear that they built a few to a high standard to get type approval, then just manufactured cheap rubbish to make money.
 
Jelster said:
I did some work for a local company that imported "fogging" machines from China. The quality was so poor that we had a 60% failure rate within 2 weeks of them being sold. When I started to look at repairing them, the inside was nothing like the one used for type approval (CE mark). The filtering had been taken out, and the decent flex had been replaced by cheap crappy stuff. Worst of all, the decent quality soft rubber grommets that protected the mains cable from rubbing against the hard plastic had been replaced with yet more hard plastic that erased the conductor on the cable.

The manufacturer sent over a huge box of spares, including new otors, and I spent 2 mornings a week for 3 months repairing them, and adding RCD plugs to any new stock. It was quite clear that they built a few to a high standard to get type approval, then just manufactured cheap rubbish to make money.
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It was quite clear that they built a few to a high standard to get type approval, then just manufactured cheap rubbish to make money.
Click to expand...

Before I retired I was a Electrical/Mechanical surveyor for what was then one of the major composite insurance companies. That was my experience, not only in my discipline but in the lifting/handling as well.
 
WAMT?
Some idiot turned off the pond pump last night. :facepalm:
The filter was frozen, as was the short run of above ground pipe work.
Thankfully it thawed out with a few kettles worth of hot water.
I've had a serious with them me.
 
I keep telling myself to drink less but why should I listen to a drunk?
 
Phone call to County Council - in a queue- Menu No 1- make choice - menu No.2 - make choice- wait................. Get through - We can't deal with that - ring your area team. Ring area team - more queues and menus - get through - we can't do that without a GP referral - ring GP - more queues and recorded messages - menu - sub menu - get through - we will make a referral. Later ....................... call from County Council to meet someone at residence - meet, then during meeting, get a call from GP - They are dealing with it.............. Council lady says that they are dealing with it............................ hand phone call from GP to lady from County Council - Council are going to sort it! The council that I rang in the first place!!! I believe that it's referred to as running around in ever decreasing circles until you disappear up your own rectum! Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh! As it said in the recorded message "Your call is important to us"! Really?
 
My friend said his Doctor considered that Red Wine was good for your health. It seemed very sound advice to me which I have followed for many years; I was disappointed to hear that my friend was now in hospital with a heart problem.

Dave
 
Dave Canon said:
My friend said his Doctor considered that Red Wine was good for your health. It seemed very sound advice to me which I have followed for many years; I was disappointed to hear that my friend was now in hospital with a heart problem.

Dave
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Yeah, but that's the smoking.
 
Grrrrrrr

Went out into my front garden [ live at the top of a 1in8 hill ] to read my Gas Meter for submitting my monthly readings to my Energy Supplier & found one of these HUGE white plastic tarpaulin sacks that are lifted off builders lorries by a Crane when filled w/ sand etc , blown into the corner and I'm now going to have to drag it out and work out just how I can dispose of it . Far too big and awkward for any of my Council supplied bins for domestic trash.

Any ideas as to how I can get rid of this ? All suggestions are welcome as long as you remember I'm an 84yr old , not very mobile lady who lives on her own with no family near .

TIA
 
camerassassin said:
Grrrrrrr

Went out into my front garden [ live at the top of a 1in8 hill ] to read my Gas Meter for submitting my monthly readings to my Energy Supplier & found one of these HUGE white plastic tarpaulin sacks that are lifted off builders lorries by a Crane when filled w/ sand etc , blown into the corner and I'm now going to have to drag it out and work out just how I can dispose of it . Far too big and awkward for any of my Council supplied bins for domestic trash.

Any ideas as to how I can get rid of this ? All suggestions are welcome as long as you remember I'm an 84yr old , not very mobile lady who lives on her own with no family near .

TIA
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Is it a branded one? If so call the company and explain the situation requesting that they remove it for you. Alternatively, any local builders who might be able to oblige?
 
AHA - thanks for those ideas :)

As it's dark now I'll wait till daylight tomorrow and investigate a bit further.

Does anyone else have any thoughts/suggestions ?.

Once this is sorted successfully I'll post the final outcome :)
 
A lot of them are reused by gardening company's/garden enthusiasts as they are brilliant for moving waste such as grass clippings/hedge trimmings around.

They are only about 4kg/8lbs in weight and do fold down very small.
 
Put it on Freecycle, or equivalent. You will be surprised by what some people will take
 
Suvv said:
Put it on Freecycle, or equivalent. You will be surprised by what some people will take
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The poster is a silver surfer and I surmise may not welcome any Tom, Dick or Harry coming to collect said builders bag :thinking:

Though it did occur to me that the local Allotment Society might be interested in it......................and as local body with known(?) members more 'trustworthy' than Freecycle strangers ?
 
Yesterday. Just a small annoyance.

Me and Mrs WW went to Fountains Abbey for a day out and despite the weather we enjoyed it. One annoyance was when approaching a dividing wall with a number of gates. A small group of people were chatting near the main gate which they were holding open. There seemed to be a short exchange with an approaching guy a few yards in front of us and he then angled off the path and across the wet grass and mud to use an another gate. When we got to within 3 or 4 yards of the gate a woman who was part of the chatters gestured and announced "I'm just closing this gate. You'll have to use that one."

What annoyed me was there weren't many people about and none after us. It would have held her up maybe 20 seconds to let us go through and then close the gate. 20 seconds, a fraction of the time she'd spent chatting with the gate open anyway. We could have then stayed on the path.

Give someone a badge or a lanyard and so often that little bit of power just goes straight to poor customer service. IMO.
 
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