Absolutely Anything Else

I mean when you check the Audio language the program is in, [[Language]] (Orginal).

It should have......
British English
American English
Australian English

SimCityAT wrote:

I mean when you check the Audio language the program is in, [[Language]] (Orginal).

It should have......
British English
American English
Australian English


Oh, I see. 

After watching a season of Orange Is The New Black, it had reverted to some kind of Hispanic (?) street talk which I found impossible to care about and I stopped watching.  Mrs Fluffy couldn't get it and neither could I.  It was unfathomable and didn't relate to us at all.  My older kids continued with it and said it got better. I suppose it would come under Street Talk or Street Patois as American English would be more than a stretch.  At a push they could include Texting as a language.

Interesting news....

Some scenes for the latest Terminator movie are being filmed in Torokbalint this evening at an old derelict factory site next to the motorway.  There will be bangs, gunfire, helicopters and this and that will be going on overnight.  Rumour is Schwarzenegger will be there  strutting his robot stuff.

p.s.  we went to the filming location and it was sealed off and no-one seemed to be there. No lights, bangs or helicopters.  So it was a big fat zero.

Massive storm here -  really dark - the Ikea gods moving their furniture again,  trying out their LED light bulbs and testing their shower heads.  I just wish they'd turn off the heating for a bit.

We had a rain this morning, no storm. But looking at the sky now, we could have another downpour. Its nice and cool today at least that's something. Quite refreshing in fact.

SimCityAT wrote:

We had a rain this morning, no storm. But looking at the sky now, we could have another downpour. Its nice and cool today at least that's something. Quite refreshing in fact.


As I was posting the weather news, I suddenly thought wishing for a bit of a lower temperature was probably something I would regret. By about the end of October, we'll be in for 4-5 months of yucky weather, no sun, short days and snow.

In the news today, we (in Europe) are to experience extraordinary high temps than normal for the next 4 years. Will be interesting how they can work that out when they have trouble from one day to the next. :D

I wonder if members that have been away will notice the new format to the Expat.com website?

No huge chances but there are some slight changes. I quite like it. Its looks a bit fresher.

SimCityAT wrote:

I wonder if members that have been away will notice the new format to the Expat.com website?

No huge changes but there are some slight changes. I quite like it. Its looks a bit fresher.


Yes, looks like an improvement. 

What we wanted was a cross linking function for postings within and between topics. 

Should be easy to do  -  just have a "link to" button with a drop down history of previous posts by the same user or via topic and then under the posting footer, just provide a link.

I bought a new battery for my mobile phone, surely a jiffy bag would have done the job instead of a box, that I had to collect from the post office.

https://scontent-vie1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/39211671_10156361539327279_5079209246004871168_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0&oh=7b31c162190281a89fbd8c14a921da6e&oe=5C10B218

SimCityAT wrote:

I bought a new battery for my mobile phone, surely a jiffy bag would have done the job instead of a box, that I had to collect from the post office.

[img align=C]https://scontent-vie1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/39211671_10156361539327279_5079209246004871168_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0&oh=7b31c162190281a89fbd8c14a921da6e&oe=5C10B218[/url]


Looks like an Amazon box. They are notorious for giant boxes for single items. I once ordered a memory stick from them and it came in a shoebox sized container.

It can be quite bad here.  If you get something like a TV or a washing machine,  it always comes with polystyrene packaging which is almost impossible to get rid of without making a mess.  They could easily pack it in recycled cardboard.

my digi internet is down sorry i know wrong forum but it will be back in an hour or two, friends from australia are coming to stay here to get themselves sorted they have hungarian ancestry so i just wanted to post something to show i am around but will have to reconfigure once it is back up. thanks i know it is well off topic even for "anything else" but they cut it mid conversation and at a point that would seem like i cut my friends off, that is not the case. hence the quick typing.

The house on the corner from me has been sold very quickly, they have had skips etc but the owners do not seem to be around, we had a few power cuts, today it is Digi internet they have managed to cut through, fortunately I have a Vodafone 4G router as back up so am using that. I might even get round one day to make it a proper redundant router but cannot really do that until I also get Internet out on the Digi as it only has one way to go, so will not be able to test the load balancing.

I know it is not just me cos all the small shops along the street that take card payments use Digi as backhaul, well at least the smoking shop and the little corner shop that is not on the corner, so they can't take card payments right now. For me that is just an inconvenience, I keep a box of emergency tobacco, but for them that is lost sales. Planned "outages" (I hate that word) are inevitable, but to get no notice is I think a bit ridiculous.

And they did not get a licence for their skip/kontenert but i bet you all Lombard-street to a China orange if we hadn't we would have been in trouble, even though ours was parked on our verge and theirs was parked on the pavement, where AS A PEDESTRIAN I EXPECT TO BE ABLE TO WALK, PAVEMENTS ARE FOR PEOPLE

Rant over.

SimCityAT wrote:

I bought a new battery for my mobile phone, surely a jiffy bag would have done the job instead of a box, that I had to collect from the post office.

[img align=C]https://scontent-vie1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/39211671_10156361539327279_5079209246004871168_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0&oh=7b31c162190281a89fbd8c14a921da6e&oe=5C10B218[/url]


Amazon have a great habit of this, because it comes in standard sizes for the factory delivery machinery. We had an early example of automatic stores at British Wasteospace where I worked, X5 building an entirely automated store, and it was nicknamed "The Black Hole" because you could put anything into it but nothing would ever come out of it.

I was reading the ASA rulings this morning and it is a bit queer, Amazon S.a.R.L t/a Amazon was offering next day delivery, for free, and strangely enough a lot of people did not get next day delivery for free. Amazon settled privately with many and the sums are undisclosed and in confidence, it now seems to have hit the news sites CNBC and BBC etc so there is no point my spieling here. "Asa ruling amazon" on your favourite search engine will find it.

OK... since it is everything else... I shall start by saying the weakness of Hungarian broom handles.

Hungary seems to manufacture or be fobbed off with the weakest broom handles in the world. You give it a shove and it breaks in the middle. I have bits of copper pipe that are made to bend that way but I would not use those for a broom handle. For a few years I was always wondering why women of a certain age are always carrying broom handles, are they Transylvanian witches who ride on them  to Dracula's lair? No, the answer is more mundane, the broom handle has broken, again.

'Hungary, home of the weakest broom handles in the world", they should put that on the signs at the airport.

there is also another annoying habit that traditional tools do not have a handle at the top of the shaft nothing to grip them with. I have no idea how this would be useful. ok so now i have fork or rake but every time i grip at the top while i shove my size 45 clodhoppers against the spade or fork, me hands slip down the shaft in some kind of reverse pole dance which is amusing but not sexy. What they need of course is fork handles, but we seem to be in short supply of fork handles in Hungary.

there is also another annoying habit that traditional tools do not have a handle at the top of the shaft nothing to grip them with. I have no idea how this would be useful. ok so now i have fork or rake but every time i grip at the top while i shove my size 45 clodhoppers against the spade or fork, me hands slip down the shaft in some kind of reverse pole dance which is amusing but not sexy. What they need of course is fork handles, but we seem to be in short supply of fork handles in Hungary.

Perhaps I could as I rotate down its shaft do a reverse polish dance, as most pole dancers go clockwise but i go widdershins... but then that would be showing off

SimonTrew wrote:

OK... since it is everything else... I shall start by saying the weakness of Hungarian broom handles....


You can get new (metal) broom handles in Aldi.  They are quite a popular item.

But if you find your broom handle has broken, then cut it off before the break and the use it as a stick to hold up your plants.   

Grass/straw type brooms last the longest outside and are surprisingly effective. 

And for those in a coven, quite handy for V/STOL flight operations.

fluffy2560 wrote:
SimonTrew wrote:

OK... since it is everything else... I shall start by saying the weakness of Hungarian broom handles....


You can get new (metal) broom handles in Aldi.  They are quite a popular item.

But if you find your broom handle has broken, then cut it off before the break and the use it as a stick to hold up your plants.   

Grass/straw type brooms last the longest outside and are surprisingly effective. 

And for those in a coven, quite handy for V/STOL flight operations.


No, coven-exiting tends to be at a shallow ascent, so nowhere near v/stol, you pillock, the landing we don't know about, I have Jane's All The World's Broomsticks here and it does mention it, this is classified but at Wikipedia  here it gives an approximation of the approach to take off, but then suggests to  tie the knot, which is not normal ATC procedure.  I don't know how you could tie a knot in a broomstick, well a hungarian one would break anyway.

fluffy2560 wrote:

And for those in a coven, quite handy for V/STOL flight operations.


And then where do you get the underwriting in case it goes wrong, because Lloyds won'

SimonTrew wrote:
fluffy2560 wrote:

And for those in a coven, quite handy for V/STOL flight operations.


And then where do you get the underwriting in case it goes wrong, because Lloyds won'


You obviously haven't done your homework.  You can get underwear anywhere.

Eye of newt, squirrels bladder and some incantation and wham bam, the claimant is a frog off to join the other froggy claimants. 

Obviously you haven't worked at Aegon in the past.

SimonTrew wrote:

....
No, coven-exiting tends to be at a shallow ascent, so nowhere near v/stol, you pillock, the landing we don't know about, I have Jane's All The World's Broomsticks here and it does mention it, this is classified but at Wikipedia  here it gives an approximation of the approach to take off, but then suggests to  tie the knot, which is not normal ATC procedure.  I don't know how you could tie a knot in a broomstick, well a hungarian one would break anyway.


Are you using your 2006 Jane's again?  Broomstick approach speeds changed in 2017. They are very similar to helicopters, you have to get hover in ground effect, down on the collective while maintaining rpm and correct attitude. 

I would say, and I was told this personally by Sabrina whilst I was in Salem, keeping your CoG right is important so the black cat should be in the middle along with the book of spells.

fluffy2560 wrote:
SimonTrew wrote:

....
No, coven-exiting tends to be at a shallow ascent, so nowhere near v/stol, you pillock, the landing we don't know about, I have Jane's All The World's Broomsticks here and it does mention it, this is classified but at Wikipedia  here it gives an approximation of the approach to take off, but then suggests to  tie the knot, which is not normal ATC procedure.  I don't know how you could tie a knot in a broomstick, well a hungarian one would break anyway.


Are you using your 2006 Jane's again?  Broomstick approach speeds changed in 2017. They are very similar to helicopters, you have to get hover in ground effect, down on the collective while maintaining rpm and correct attitude. 

I would say, and I was told this personally by Sabrina whilst I was in Salem, keeping your CoG right is important so the black cat should be in the middle along with the book of spells.


Well I used to gyrate around the black cat quite often, but even in my eccentric orbit I didn't have anything sinister as I was going clockwise, the CoGs on my back wheel were all right but my centre of inertia was well it dropped

SimonTrew wrote:

....
Well I used to gyrate around the black cat quite often, but even in my eccentric orbit I didn't have anything sinister as I was going clockwise, the CoGs on my back wheel were all right but my centre of inertia was well it dropped


Just remember if you see the same black cat twice, you'd better make sure you are fully tooled up for what's to come.

fluffy2560 wrote:
SimonTrew wrote:

....
Well I used to gyrate around the black cat quite often, but even in my eccentric orbit I didn't have anything sinister as I was going clockwise, the CoGs on my back wheel were all right but my centre of inertia was well it dropped


Just remember if you see the same black cat twice, you'd better make sure you are fully tooled up for what's to come.


It's déja vu all over again,

When I lived in the UK I got some government funds to open a Local Centre of Inertia, But nobody bothered to come.

I used to work in the public library and we had a stack of self-help books including some on kleptomania, but they used to go missing quite a lot. They just helped themselves.

From the other thread....

SimonTrew wrote:
fluffy2560 wrote:
SimonTrew wrote:

I can't tell you that.


Why not?   

I cannot tell you about passive radar detection but I can tell you what's in the public domain.


there is by defintion no such thing as passive radar,. if you send a pulse out and it bounces then you are saying "i am here". it is just a contracdiction in terms. yes you can get passive radar that does not send signals out but receives signals from the active radar, but you are still bouncing signals out, it just happens not to be that particular bit of equipment. For truly passive you need electro optical.


Mouth shut, ears open - passive radar detection in a nutshell.  But maybe I misspoke, passive radar detection and identification. I've said enough.

SimonTrew wrote:

When I lived in the UK I got some government funds to open a Local Centre of Inertia, But nobody bothered to come.

I used to work in the public library and we had a stack of self-help books including some on kleptomania, but they used to go missing quite a lot. They just helped themselves.


When I worked in a library, I found a pair of trousers shoved in the stacks.  I thought, there's a turn up for the books.

fluffy2560 wrote:

From the other thread....

SimonTrew wrote:
fluffy2560 wrote:

Why not?   

I cannot tell you about passive radar detection but I can tell you what's in the public domain.


there is by defintion no such thing as passive radar,. if you send a pulse out and it bounces then you are saying "i am here". it is just a contracdiction in terms. yes you can get passive radar that does not send signals out but receives signals from the active radar, but you are still bouncing signals out, it just happens not to be that particular bit of equipment. For truly passive you need electro optical.


Mouth shut, ears open - passive radar detection in a nutshell.  But maybe I misspoke, passive radar detection and identification. I've said enough.


indeed. it is also a good thing to tell the fluffyettes.... mouth shut, ears open.. you have one of those but two of these.

SimonTrew wrote:

.....indeed. it is also a good thing to tell the Fluffyettes.... mouth shut, ears open.. you have one of those but two of these.


I would add....

"Better to let others think one is an idiot than open one's mouth and prove it...."

Ok since the brrom handle department seems incapable of delivery let's move on

my mate Sabrina (she has a good pair, two points her on the crib board) well she said to me that in hungary it is always "szex shop", not "szexí bolt". I think her day job is laying out, stock, on the counter, but she also manages to please the gentlemen customers with, as she puts it, "that I am open all hours".

I have not understood her English, I think it is a bad translation.

I'd have thought "szexi bolt" would be "Of Szexi shop".  Like "Shop of London". 

I've not found Szexi in the HU road atlas yet but there's a Condom in France and don't get me started with F***ing Austria.

fluffy2560 wrote:

I'd have thought "szexi bolt" would be "Of Szexi shop".  Like "Shop of London". 

I've not found Szexi in the HU road atlas yet but there's a Condom in France and don't get me started with F***ing Austria.


You are right, fortunately these keyboards are replaced by the manufacturer on monday. I  was thinking too much of Sabrina and it is my little cock up.

Not that it exists any more but in the Yellow Pages if you looked up "Boring" it said "See Civil Engineers".

Which also makes me wonder what uncivil engineers would be. Pass the port to the right or something?

(deleted double post)

It is one of those guessing games like you see vans that say (in Hungarian) "Carpets, no job too big or small".

Well then go and carpet the moon. Carpet this dolls house I have built for my niece.

Patently they should say "carpets, some jobs out of our range"

SimonTrew wrote:

It is one of those guessing games like you see vans that say (in Hungarian) "Carpets, no job too big or small".

Well then go and carpet the moon. Carpet this dolls house I have built for my niece.

Patently they should say "carpets, some jobs out of our range"


At the moment, Hungarian workmen don't answer the phone and if they do, and promise to come around, they don't turn up.   Others say that they've all gone abroad to work.  We've been waiting for some woodwork for our kitchen since about March.  We've made allowances but this is getting absurd.

fluffy2560 wrote:
SimonTrew wrote:

It is one of those guessing games like you see vans that say (in Hungarian) "Carpets, no job too big or small".

Well then go and carpet the moon. Carpet this dolls house I have built for my niece.

Patently they should say "carpets, some jobs out of our range"


At the moment, Hungarian workmen don't answer the phone and if they do, and promise to come around, then don't turn up.   Others say that they've all gone abroad to work.  We've been waiting for some woodwork for our kitchen since about March.  We've made allowances but this is getting absurd.


Well since you know it all then why not do it yourself. Oh,. I forgot, I can do it.

SimonTrew wrote:

....
Well since you know it all then why not do it yourself. Oh,. I forgot, I can do it.


I just don't have time really to mess about.   

But in any case, there's a better return for me on the workmen doing it while I do something else.   I might end up having to do it myself if we don't get a reasonable response.   If I do it myself, then it's clear it was me that screwed it up. 

I'll put a memo into the Mrs Fluffy department.  However, I know that department is short staffed.   The Fluffyette department is in a worse position - it's staffed by even shorter people.   Don't get me started on the Pet Department.  Fish, what do they know and hamsters, do me a favour.

Take today's screw up:

Mrs Fluffy gets fined  by post 15000 HUF for driving on the motorway without the e-vignette.  Getting over the shock, we find the e-vignette and clearly it's valid. However, we notice one character wrong on the registration number - it's a mistake we didn't see when we bought it.  So that's another trip to the other town to the road people/police to get the e-vignette changed and a paper to say the fine is now waived.   That takes a good 2.5h. All wasted time down the drain and not solvable by anyone but us. 

Tomorrow is another day.