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little things that annoy the shit out of you


boots123
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When you go out for a meal and the place is relatively quiet and the waiter sits you next to a few other people despite the rest of the place being empty. Simply because the waiter/waitress is lazy and doesn't want to walk a little bit further.

 

Just tell them where you want to sit mate.  Waiters by and large are thoughtless twats.

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Weather forecasts are shit. Last two years we've been promised really bad winters and it's been fine.

 

First winter in ages I've got a rear wheel drive car and no snow yet. It's shit. 

 

 
 

 

Essentially "tomorrow the weather will happen"

 

Any weather forecast that claims to forecast more than ten days ahead is full of poo.  It scientifically cannot be done.

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Haha I was thinking wow, death wish much?  Then I remembered - rally driver, I bet you're like a pig in shit with a RWD when it gets like that.

 

I don't know how familiar you are with Oldham but basically you can't travel more than half a mile without going up or down a hill.  As well as the main road, there's a moderately steep hill that's a S bend leading up to where I live, every year I get to giggle as I drive round some hapless twat furiously spinning his wheels as he slides gracelessly backwards down it in a beamer.  Especially amusing since I'm in a 17 year old Punto.

 

 

Still more than capable of losing control of it though! Although generally speaking if the weather is bad the only time the car is sliding is because I made it do it. 

 

The whole rear wheel drive argument bugs me, the trouble is most people just aren't used to it anymore, this is compounded by the fact pretty much no one puts winter tyres on their cars. Everything has much wider wheels these days as well which doesn't help either. The pink BMW currently still has as close to slicks as I can get on it, but they are a really soft compound so they grip in the cold very well, set of knobblies sitting on wheels ready to go on which will probably happen this week as I want to get them squared off ready for a rally next week.

 

Modern stuff in general is poor in the snow, heavier, wider tyres etc. it was easier to get away with when everything was lighter and had narrower tyres. Very simplistic and not 100% accurate but in most cases tyres simply don't work properly under 7 celsius. 

 

For anyone who thinks BMW's are twitchy I'd suggest they try and Escort or a Sierra with 200+ horsepower, then they'll know what twitchy is! My old Mk1 Rally car was a little tin box weighing about 900kg with 250 hp in a chassis designed to take 200. Not stable.

 

I'm not saying this is because I have some kind of supreme talent or anything, I just have a lot of time in cars sliding and it becomes a lot more natural. I'm average at best and on a good day I can mix it up with some of the really quick lads if I'm on it, I was lucky enough at one stage to earn enough in sponsorship to take a wage out but I didn't have the manufacturers beating down the door begging me to drive for them!

 

In all seriousness given a wet field or icy car park I reckon with enough time I could get most people able to control a sliding rear wheel drive car relatively well.

 

First time I ran a BMW competitively was a customers car which he'd just bought, I took it out for it's first event as I wanted me to see how it handled, if you've ever been to Alston near Hexham you'll have driven up through the hairpins. I was calling it worse than shit because I couldn't get it slide because it had so much grip. The grip levels are bloody ridiculous in the dry. It's essentially a better Escort. Although first task on getting in is to turn off the traction/stability etc.

 

It was running his two that made me switch across, I've two half prepared Escorts (a Mk1 and a Mk2) and if I have a front end hit it's about 3 grands worth. If I hit the front end on an E36 BMW Compact I go and buy another car and swap my nice bits across. The suspension going on the new one cost 5 times what I paid for the complete car. 

 

Had a customer asking me to look at an advert for an Escort he's looking at which is £35,000, I equated that into based on the average I am paying for a compact I could buy a hundred of them! Or I could have bought the first 5 M3's on AutoTrader within 50 miles of me and had five grand left over.

 

In short, I fucking love rear wheel drive. As one of the old factory drivers put it in the 80's as four wheel drive was taking over he preferred rear wheel drive because it had "handling a man can understand", Want it to slide more, more power, want it to slide less, less power. Simple as that really. 

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Any weather forecast that claims to forecast more than ten days ahead is full of poo.  It scientifically cannot be done.

 

The British weather forecasters are rubbish though.  I don't believe anything they say which is more than 24 hours away.  Granted, it is a little more challenging to predict the weather over the British Isles than it is over the US, but given the amount of money spent, it's a fucking disgrace.  

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I hate applying for jobs. I am in one now and I am going to stay there for a while as I don't like applying and hate being interviewed. A lot of stress and messing about

Job interviews are a crock of shit, I tend to stay in jobs I hate for years because job interviews are worse than a prostate exam from king kong.

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You should change jobs every two to three years.  Keeps you fresh.  

 

I think that;s about the right timescale, it's enough time for you to realise all the flaws in there and enough time for them to suss you out. 

 

Between doing work for myself and just taking short term jobs I keep having a couple of months off to recharge and chill out, I'm not minted but I'm not working my arse off all of the time. 

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I think that;s about the right timescale, it's enough time for you to realise all the flaws in there and enough time for them to suss you out. 

 

Between doing work for myself and just taking short term jobs I keep having a couple of months off to recharge and chill out, I'm not minted but I'm not working my arse off all of the time. 

 

I can't wait to get to this stage! Hopefully another couple of years of studying and I can start working for myself in some capacity.

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Blokes who put a plazzy glove on at the petrol pump to fill up.

 

Paedos all of them, a sure sign of kiddie fiddling.

 

Sorry mate, that's me. I've got a diesel and I don't want my hand stinking for the rest of the day because the handle is usually covered in the stuff.

 

If I park with the petrol cap on the other side of the pump, I sometimes glove both hands. Yeah that's right... BOTH.

 

My hands never smell like diesel.

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Maybe people do just make the baby on board signs to make a buck but if they've saved one baby's life then perhaps it's all been worth it.

 

I think you are drastically underestimating the amount of babies I'd tolerate dying before I would change my stance on the Baby on Board sign.

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Maybe people do just make the baby on board signs to make a buck but if they've saved one baby's life then perhaps it's all been worth it.

 

I think you are drastically underestimating the amount of babies I'd tolerate dying before I would change my stance on the Baby on Board sign.

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I can't wait to get to this stage! Hopefully another couple of years of studying and I can start working for myself in some capacity.

 

One day I might actually post in the depression thread in depth but I'm not entirely ready for that yet. There are a couple of people on here who know more. Essentially I think too much.

 

You know the Doug Stanhope thing about sleeping sober? That's essentially what is going on my head most of the time. Right down to the whole "you're 30 odd years old you fucking loser", first time I saw that and heard someone else actually describe what goes on in my brain.

 

 

I lost about a year of my life because I'd frankly run myself into the ground, had depression issues in general and just did too much both inside and outside of work, recovered from that and went to an engineering company. Within 6 months I was managing the place, first man in, last man out and running my own business on the side, bosses son came in and basically fucked the company big time, I was working the same hours and stuck in between the boss and his son who knew fuck all and seemed determined to fuck the place over and the staff who quite rightly feared for their futures as they could see the issues. I was on the brink of going downhill again and then redundancy was on the tables, the old boy on the shop floor reckons it's the first time he had seen me smile in months!

 

Got offered a job almost immediately elsewhere, again a small engineering company, family owned and used to supply the place I was made redundant. They basically wanted someone to come in and be the bastard who made everyone work plus expand into some things they didn't have knowledge of that I did. Would have been the same situation as the previous company, plus knowing I'm the biggest expense and the first out of the door if things got tough for the business. 

 

Took my 3 months gardening leave, had another month off and started at HMRC part time, did 3 and a bit years and got made redundant. Been off since September, just started applying for stuff in earnest as the last of the overtime wages I had saved up is just about gone so I would be touching my redundancy money and I want to invest that wisely on go faster bits for the rally car. 

 

Long term I'm building to getting my own thing to the point that's all I do, but running it on my terms and in a way that limits the pressure I have. Mail order only and only advertise what I have in stock ready to go. 

 

I'll not be rich, but I've lowered my expectations across the board. Yes I'd love half a million quids worth of rally car and an Aston Martin on the drive, however I can have just as much fun rallying 6 or 7 grands worth of BMW with an M3 engine in it and having an old Escort to play with as a road car. 

 

I'm relatively lucky though in that my parents support the direction I'm going in business wise and accept my irregular board payments and what have you. I'm also fortunate to be pretty much debt free so what I earn is mine, all of the parts I have for sale are bought and paid for so I'm not putting the money in someone elses pocket or using a bank to factor invoices so I can buy stock.

 

It's a longer harder process but keeps me relatively pressure free which is something I need for my own sanity. 

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