Dear Blog V XV - the blog strikes back

[scarbunny]

Dear Blog

Yep, it worked out about £100 a month cheaper to go through the leasing company for a much higher spec car, built to order to my requirements rather than a fixed spec, so seemed silly to buy direct. True I end up with nothing in 4 years rather than having some equity in the vehicle, but I could always put the saving to one side and have a deposit of nearly £5,000 for the next one (I won't do this).

The only problem being I have to deal with a third party and they seem really bad at communication, and I have to trust them not to mess up my order.

[iwt]

Dear Blog,

Yeah that makes sense. We bought the mini from the dealer in Mayfair, which is owned by Mini, great experience. Quite fun collecting it because there's a whole underground car park thing. Communication was beyond amazing + made to feel very special. My car came from local dealer who were rubbish, we knew that they would be, but they had a build slot that suited and were very aggressive on price. Only knew the car was with them because I chased and they were like "oh yeah it's here now".

[matt]

dear blog,
just back from watching oxford smash scunthorpe 4-1. I knew I probably should have boycotted but at £10 a ticket and the first time I've actually seen them win at home, it's happy days!

In other news, looking likely I'm off to Spa GP this year as a mate has sorted a house for the weekend so only need to find ferry and ticket price - cashback!

[Johnmcl7]

Dear Blog,

I'm really kicking myself for not going to Spa last year for the six hour race now that Audi have pulled out so I've missed my chance, I am off for the six hour race and the Blancpain 24 race so I'm thinking I need to just stomach the costs and go for it as I've always been keen to see Spa. I also noticed the Nurburgring 24 pedal bike race is when I'm off, the organisational side of that scares me a bit but I'm thinking I should maybe see if I can find a relaxed team doing it that I could join in with. I finished all my big cycling challenges last year so I'm trying to think what to go for this year, it's good in a way but I'm frustrated my cycling this winter has been poor.

John

[robbo]

Dear Blog,

My car isn't sounding healthy at all. Really gravelly when accelerating and whiny when off power to brake. Sounds a bit like when in Top Gear/Grand Tour they go on a road trip with cheap cars and then one starts playing up...

[matt]

Dear blog,
UPGRADE TIME!

[EviL Ras]

Dear blog



Come on, you know you want to!

[Johnmcl7]

Dear Blog,

I've found the perfect mountain bike brand for Ras:

http://forums.mtbr.com/evil-bikes/somet ... 30140.html

John

[robbo]

Dear Blog,

Word up. That's all.

[Johnmcl7]

Dear Blog,

How's the car going Robbo?

I've just had mine serviced and MOT'd, I thought I'd damaged the rear wheel when I put it back on the other week but turns out it's needing new discs and pads at the back. It's never good to get a call just after dropping the car off but not too bad when it's just a wear and tear item although even then that all set me back £400.

John

[robbo]

Dear Blog,

Car isn't great. The gearbox wearing out - bearings inside along with getting stuck in reverse and maybe the clutch going and handbrake needing tightening. Local garage said not worth repairing the gearbox - just keep going with it until it gets really loud or you can't live with the noise. Have had a little look online and there are places that sell and fit refurbs or secondhand gearboxes for £500. Questions are "how long will I keep the car for and is it worth it?" and "how long will a secondhand gearbox last?" though.

[robbo]

Dear Blog,

So, go to gig, get phone stolen out of my pocket, ring up automated service to get it cancelled & blocked, ring up 101 to report it, go to town the next day to get a replacement sim, pay £5 for new sim, ring up to activate and use old number, it working within an hour.

Transferring numbers and activating sims is a lot quicker than the couple of days or so it used to take. Annoying that I got my phone stolen but quite a straightforward process to get reconnected.

[Johnmcl7]

Dear Blog,

A lady came into work wanting advice on choosing a replacement laptop for her son as the current one was broken which had been diagnosed as a dead hard drive. I explained hard drives are a common failure and usually easy to replace so I'd have a look although when I was handed the laptop the reason for the hard drive failure became clearer with a noticeably buckled LCD frame and a crack above the keyboard as well. The original drive wasn't reading so I chucked a spare in and loaded Windows 8.1 on (they wanted that back on) but no license found which I realised was because my build stick was 8.1 pro. I rebuilt it as Windows 8.1 but it still wasn't finding a license either so installed some tools to check what W8 license was in the bios but none there. I mucked about upgrading the bios, disabled secure boot etc. but no luck so I rebuilt my build stick as a Dell W7 one, installed Windows 7 which activated then rebuilt the build stick again as Windows 10 which went through fine as well.

On the slight plus side just as I was about to get started with data recovery the person mailed me back to say they weren't needing any files so that's saved some hassle.

John

[matt]

Dear blog,
brexlection?

[Replicant]

Source of the post Dear blog,
brexlection?

Dear Blog,

Here comes 7 weeks of pure bollocks and lies from every politician in the UK.

Irrespective of their stance on Brexit I suspect idiots will still vote tory because they aren't Labour and vice versa.