A run of bad luck

[JoC]

Kids broke window...arranged for glazier to come repair window on Friday
Boiler stopped working weeks ago...got it fixed last weekend
Cistern been overflowing to outside (clean water) for ages...Dynarod man fixed it this morning

Just when I think I'm catching up with all my maintenance...

I was driving home tonight quite happily, in the dark with dipped headlights, and suddenly a mammoth recumbent cone became illuminated right smack bang in the middle of the single open lane that I was driving along (the other lane of the dual carriageway having been coned off). Anyway it was very last second that it became visible partly owing to the angle it was lying at and I didn't have any option other than drive over it. Got home and in the dark, damage identified so far, one smashed corner of bumper, I worry for the underside of the car which I'll have to check in the daylight...

And I've got rats living under my shed apparently.

Pah!

[Tiggerbabe]

Pah!

You're ok though, which is a good thing

[DavidY]

{Bad stuff}
Pah!

You're ok though, which is a good thing

[bigdjiver]

You're ok though, which is a good thing

I have learned to say "It's just stuff."

[ducasi]

Bad stuff...

That reminds me though, I really should get that leaky radiator replaced before winter comes...

And I've got rats living under my shed apparently.

Hey, so you don't need to feed your cat for a few days!

Hope the rest of your car is OK, but like Sheena said, the important thing is that you're OK.

[JoC]

Thankyou eveyone , I feel better now after my 'pah!' moment.

At least I've got something different to do this weekend.

('It's just stuff' is so right, darn it though it means I have to keep going to work to pay repair people, no sign of that early retirement yet then!)

[Jive Brummie]

we eventually got the boiler fixed...

Took over 3 weeks. In the end I, (in my impatient little way) ended up calling another company...moaned about the first one to them and hey presto they came around the following day and fixed the problem. Not only were they far better than the first company but they were a damn site cheaper to boot.

So, if you have a problem with your boiler and live in the Dundee area, may I recommend McGills and poo poo Donachie's. All personal opinion of course, but may I add that McGills also identified that Donachie's had connected 'some' wires around the wrong way...hence boiler-it-no-worky!

Hmmmmmmmm, sharpen those spurs cowboy...YEEEEEHAAAAA!

JB x x

[JoC]

we eventually got the boiler fixed...

Took over 3 weeks. In the end I, (in my impatient little way) ended up calling another company...moaned about the first one to them and hey presto they came around the following day and fixed the problem. Not only were they far better than the first company but they were a damn site cheaper to boot.

So, if you have a problem with your boiler and live in the Dundee area, may I recommend McGills and poo poo Donachie's. All personal opinion of course, but may I add that McGills also identified that Donachie's had connected 'some' wires around the wrong way...hence boiler-it-no-worky!

Hmmmmmmmm, sharpen those spurs cowboy...YEEEEEHAAAAA!

JB x x

I'll second the recommendation that you find someone competent when it comes to gas boilers... years ago I got a company to do the annual service on my gas boiler by recommendation from a friend. I used to leave them to get on with it while I was out of the house. One year the boiler broke down barely a month after a 'service'. I decided to get Scottish Gas out and when they took the heater away to look at the boiler it was thick with soot, clearly hadn't even been cleaned during it's recent 'service', and had been left in a dangerous state.

At that point I signed up for the Scottish Gas service agreement and got a CO monitor fitted, and feel considerably safer for it.

[ducasi]

I don't have a tale of woe to tell as bad as those preceding me, but I wanted to ask for some advice as well as have a wee moan, and this seemed like the perfect place!

So, as I've mentioned before, I'm currently recovering from a wee stomach bug that has laid me low since Wednesday night...

This has meant I missed my new Salsa class that started on Thursday that I'm never going to catch up with.

It's also meant more than my average amount of self-catering... But now my microwave has gone on the blink! Even though there's only peas in a plastic bowl in it, when I turned it on it started making arcing sounds, combined with that lovely electrical fire smell that goes with it.

OK, so I have a hob, and pots and pans etc, but in the state I'm in I shouldn't have to deal with this!

Any thoughts what I should do with the microwave? I couldn't see any arcing, so I don't know where the problem is, but do you think if I gave it a really good clean (and it needs one!) it would help? Or do you think it's ready for the skip?




Oh, while I'm here, and keeping the theme of boilers, I wrote, almost a month ago...

That reminds me though, I really should get that leaky radiator replaced before winter comes...

Anyone here a plumber or heating engineer and wouldn't mind answering a few stupid questions?

[Tiggerbabe]

But now my microwave has gone on the blink! Even though there's only peas in a plastic bowl in it, when I turned it on it started making arcing sounds, combined with that lovely electrical fire smell that goes with it.

OK, so I have a hob, and pots and pans etc, but in the state I'm in I shouldn't have to deal with this!

Any thoughts what I should do with the microwave? I couldn't see any arcing, so I don't know where the problem is, but do you think if I gave it a really good clean (and it needs one!) it would help? Or do you think it's ready for the skip?

I'd throw it out - you can get a reasonable microwave for silly pounds nowadays. Anything electrical that starts going wrong.........too risky!

[El Salsero Gringo]

I'd throw it out - you can get a reasonable microwave for silly pounds nowadays. Anything electrical that starts going wrong.........too risky!

Take the fork out of the bowl of peas? Seriously, try cooking just a glass of water. If it still makes a funny noise then it's time for a new microwave oven...

[ducasi]

Take the fork out of the bowl of peas? Seriously, try cooking just a glass of water. If it still makes a funny noise then it's time for a new microwave oven...

I'm going to give it a good clean and see what happens... I'm also watching "Brainiacs: Science Abuse" for tips on how to really destroy it if I need to get rid of it.

[ducasi]

I'm going to give it a good clean and see what happens... I'm also watching "Brainiacs: Science Abuse" for tips on how to really destroy it if I need to get rid of it.

I gave it a good clean, and it's as good as new now!!!

And after watching the above TV programme I now know never to put a large bowl of conkers in my microwave!

Much happier now!

[Aleks]

Much happier now!

Have you recovered from the lurgey yet?

[ducasi]

Have you recovered from the lurgey yet?

A fair bit... Thanks for asking.

I am, as my location says, now just "wandering around, looking dazed."

[Dance Demon]

Does it come in Threes.........
1) ...Irenes dad went into hospital a fewdays before Christmas to have a tumour removed from his lung. he then developed an infection in his good lung, is still in intensive care, and is very poorly.
2) Just before Christmas, we discovered that someone had got our bank details and siphoned just over £2000 out of our account. ( bank has given us the money back , but we are now paranoid about using our switch cards for anything)
3) coming home from work today, travelling down a road i travel nearly every day, I skidded on black ice, down a slope & into a Mercedees that was parked at the side of the road. I wasn't going fast, but when i skidded (front wheels) i just picked up momentum, and all attempts at steering out of it were in vain. bang goes the no claims bonus..............

thats three....please, no more

[Jenni]

Does it come in Threes.........
1) ...Irenes dad went into hospital a fewdays before Christmas to have a tumour removed from his lung. he then developed an infection in his good lung, is still in intensive care, and is very poorly.
2) Just before Christmas, we discovered that someone had got our bank details and siphoned just over £2000 out of our account. ( bank has given us the money back , but we are now paranoid about using our switch cards for anything)
3) coming home from work today, travelling down a road i travel nearly every day, I skidded on black ice, down a slope & into a Mercedees that was parked at the side of the road. I wasn't going fast, but when i skidded (front wheels) i just picked up momentum, and all attempts at steering out of it were in vain. bang goes the no claims bonus..............

thats three....please, no more

poor you - Irene was saying at Hogmanay that she wondered what the 3rd thing was going to be

[Petal]

Does it come in Threes.........


thats three....please, no more

Mine are minor compared with DD's:

1. CD player in the car broke;
2. Washing broke down, engineer says the part it needs is obsolete;
3. Mobile phone stopped working.

Expensive start to 2006, but it could be worse.

[Birlmeister]

To cheer you all up when you've got a few 'stand-by' minutes ..

I thought this really puts things in perspective. Next time you have a bad day at work...think of this guy.

Rob is a commercial saturation diver for Global Divers in Louisiana. He performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs.
Below is an e-mail he sent to his sister. She then sent it to Laughline, who was sponsoring a "worst job experience" contest. Needless to say, she won.

Hi Sue,
Just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother. Last week I had a bad day at the office. I know you've been feeling down lately at work, so I thought I would share my dilemma with you to make you realise it's not so bad after all. Before I can tell you what
happened to me, I first must bore you with a few technicalities of my job.

As you know, my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the office. It's a wetsuit. This time of year the water is quite cool. So what we do to keep warm is this: We have a diesel powered industrial water heater. This $20,000 piece of **** sucks the water out of the sea. It heats it to a delightful temperature. It then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose, which is taped to the air hose. Now this sounds like a damn good plan, and I've used it several times with no complaints. What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working, is I take the hose and stuff it down the back of my wetsuit. This floods my whole suit with warm water. It's like working in a Jacuzzi.

Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my ass started to itch. So of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse. Within a few seconds my ass started to burn. I pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was done. In agony I realised what had happened. The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit. Now since I don't have any hair on my back, the jellyfish couldn't stick to it. However, the crack of my ass was not as fortunate. When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish into my ass. I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communicator. His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he, along with 5 other divers, were all laughing hysterically. Needless to say I aborted the dive.

I was instructed to make 3 agonising in-water decompression stops totalling 35 minutes before I could reach the surface to begin my chamber dry decompression. When I arrived at the surface, I was wearing nothing but my brass helmet. As I climbed out of the water, the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to rub it on my ass as soon as I get in the chamber. The cream put the fire out, but I couldn't **** for 2 days because my asshole was swollen shut. So, next time you're having a bad day at work, think about how much worse it would be if you had a jellyfish shoved up your ass.

[under par]

To cheer you all up when you've got a few 'stand-by' minutes ..

I thought this really puts things in perspective. Next time you have a bad day at work...think of this guy.

hink about how much worse it would be if you had a jellyfish shoved up your ass.

]
]I thoughht spillingh coffeed ovedr the kedboard wasz bad newsz