What's on your mind?

[GoatmasterGeneral]

7 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

As long as we know the dates we can organise the heat wave!

Forget Sydney and the rugby. Sydney sucks and rugby is just a bunch of guys in tight shorts feeling each other up, you have the internet for that. See places like Perth it's much better and the heat is different, although you'll probably still hate it.

My outlaws are in Perth, we drive across there every year or so (4200ks each way), I don't really get along with all of my wifes sisters. I tolerate them for my wife's sake but the reason we drive and don't fly is so that I'm never trapped in a house with them.

Yeah but you see the main purpose of my visit to the land down under will be for my late wife's mother to have a chance to see her grandson for a bit, and me not have to be trapped in my own home with her for 3 fucking weeks like I was in 2018. She's not someone whose company I enjoy on any level and I was imagining ways to effect her demise and not get caught by about the 3rd day of her 22 day visit.

She's in Castle Hill now (had been in Olympic Park) with her cunty little "partner" which is outer Sydney so that's where we'd have to go. I would not spend the money to fly all the way down there just to go sightseeing around OZ with an 8 or 9 year old in tow if I didn't feel obligated to let the old biddy see the boy again once or twice more before he's a grown man. And it's really only because she's lost her only daughter and this will be her only grandchild that I am willing to set my feelings aside to do what seems like the right thing, as long as I can do it on my terms.

 

6 hours ago, Thatguy said:

Yep, mate. If you come to Sydney again I will get off my arse and drive to Sydney to hang with you and if it's the right time of year we will go to a game.. And Carlos and you and my son and I will go to a gig or two and a pub or two. Except maybe not the son as he is off to London for a few years later in the year.

And it's 'league' or 'the footie.' Rugby is what the toffs play at private schools (and Islanders, but that's another matter) and what toffs and would be toffs watch. I may be a highly educated, refined and diffident professional, but I am a Westie and a leaguie. Parra matters.

You're on mate! Probably won't be this summer (or winter as the case may be down there) but I'm thinking maybe July/August 2023 will be the time this trip happens.

I'm sure you know without my even having to tell you that I'm no toff. But as a card carrying Yank I'm not going to go throwing words like "footie" and "leaguie" around and sound like some tosser wannabe trying to pass himself off as a local yobbo. I'm quite alright being seen as the arrogant clueless Yank that doesn't know a scrum from a ruck from a try. And we Yanks say 'rugby' because you know we don't know league from union, and we already have a far superior game known as 'football' up here as I'm sure you must know, or at least I reckon you probably should. Never in a million years will you hear a Yank say "footie" unless he's referring to getting a foot job from a prostitute or something along those lines.

[AlSymerz]

I used to live in Castle Hill.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Well then you'll know exactly where to find us.

[AlSymerz]

Yeah I do, but I'd need to be dragged kicking and screaming back to Sydney. The place is a shithole, the people who reside there are mostly nose to the sky toffs that think they are better than the rest of the country, even in the slums, and there is way too many people. I much prefer being in the land of the country bumpkin, where people talk slow and we are greeted with the smell of cow shit every morning.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

19 minutes ago, KillaKukumba said:

Yeah I do, but I'd need to be dragged kicking and screaming back to Sydney. The place is a shithole, the people who reside there are mostly nose to the sky toffs that think they are better than the rest of the country, even in the slums, and there is way too many people. I much prefer being in the land of the country bumpkin, where people talk slow and we are greeted with the smell of cow shit every morning.

I agree wholeheartedly, except for the cow shit part. Crowded cities and suburbs are not where I like to spend my time either. I myself have moved out to the country since growing up and spending my first 55 years in the overcrowded suburbs of New York. My current house was once the farmhouse of a dairy farm back in the 1800's. Only one acre remains and the cows are long gone, but we do get a fair amount of deer and the odd bear passing through our yard.

But unfortunately my M-i-L didn't consult me when making the decision to relocate to Castle Hill, so if I bring the boy back down under for a visit that's where we'll have to go. We'd probably spend more of our time over in Auckland NZ with her dad and all her other Kiwi rellies on her dad's side, most of whom I actually like, rather than hot as balls OZ. But it would be rude to come all the way down to your hemisphere and then not stop in to see the old cunt. But as I've said there are a few forum buddies I've befriended over the years in OZ that I'd enjoy connecting with again so it wouldn't be a completely wasted trip.

[AlSymerz]

We don't really smell cow shit in the morning, well not unless we go looking for it, but if we tell city folk it happens it keeps them away.

Back in the early days of our marriage we used to drive 4200ks to the outlaws, then I'd leave my wife at her mothers place in Perth and head off into the bush with mates I'd found on a 4wd forum. When our first daughter was 5 we did the same trip and left our daughter with her grand mother and my wife and I went 4wding.

[blaaacdoommmmfan]

On 4/14/2022 at 12:43 AM, KillaKukumba said:

There is only about five factories in the world that make all the leading brands of power tools these days anyway.

AEG, Ryobi and Milwaukee all come out of the same factories, sharing all sorts of things from parts to R&D and they are owned by TTI in Hong Kong

Stanley/Black And Decker own and make brands like Stanley, B&D, Sidchrome, Dewalt and Irwin

Makita is one of the few companies that makes a wide range of tools that is not made by a subsidiary company. Not that that makes them better.

Not every brand uses the same parts as it's sister company just because they are made, assembled, or even designed in the same place, but they do share many similarities. They are all made to a price point but that price point doesn't mean expensive is always better, it means one name is more expensive than the other.

There is an Aussie bloke (and I'm sure he's not the only one), who does pull down videos on YT. He pulls down all the leading, and not so leading brands to compare what's in the case. He started doing it because people kept asking if Aldi Supermarket tools could be trusted, but he moved on to all brands and some of the results he found were quite interesting.

I've seen some you tube videos before I bought the SDS drill and a few tradesmen said most of the power tools be they DeWalt/ Milwaukee/ Makita/ Ryobi etc are very similar. They recommended getting a minimum 18volt in the colour you like the best😉  

Is that how you see it.  

Have you ever joined tools together. My dad added a DeWalt belt sander power unit on to a black and decker belt sander belt unit for a bit of extra oomphh. Also he may have knackered the DeWalt belt sander section so thats another reason for this tool. It was a good tool though. 

[AlSymerz]

Yeah picking buy colour is as good as anything else. Not sure if other countries have them but we even have pink tools now. It supposedly encourages women into trades, I'm not sure if that's true but good luck to them the pink tools look alright.

I've never really swapped tool bits around, we've re-made and restored a number of battery packs for people but generally if the tools are dead they are dead. Our silly swaps are usually bigger, things like swapping out the 50cc motor of a chainsaw to a 100cc, or replacing the motor on the air compressor with the biggest motor we can find. Years ago though we did swap out the 15hp ride on lawn mower motor with a Ford motor out of a '77 F series.

[Thatguy]

14 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

I used to live in Castle Hill.

Yep, and Castle Hill is a suburban shit hole. There are good bits of Sydney, but that ain't it.

That said, and although I grew up mainly in Sydney, I wouldn't want to live there.

[AlSymerz]

Castle Hill used to be snob central, big over priced houses, snooty people that looked down on common folk. I don't think it's changed much but I also haven't been there in a long time.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

15 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

Castle Hill used to be snob central, big over priced houses, snooty people that looked down on common folk. I don't think it's changed much but I also haven't been there in a long time.

All I know is they're chocka with blocks of apartments and lots of overpriced shopping centers filled with common folk and Bogans. Many of which I was dragged around to see, even last time in 2017 when they had already left Castle Hill and were living on the 19th floor of an Olympic Park high-rise. My M-i-L is no cook and her little cab driver bf (or whatever he is to her, they share a bed but I don't think she lets him actually fuck her) was a useless dickhead so many times our main meal of the day would end up being at some shitty food court in one of their many malls. Needless to say it wasn't the best holiday I've ever had. But because of that trip and the fact that they have since moved back there, my perception now is that Castle Hill is bogan central, not toff central. But that's totally anecdotal, I could be way off base.

[AlSymerz]

It's always been a rich area. Big houses, big mortgages, lots of people who probably could afford it and a lot of people who couldn't but did it anyway. They went mental with apartment blocks and built up because they couldn't meet demand of the snobs who wanted to live there. The house I lived in in 2001 was about $300,000 back then, it was a 2 bedroom house built in the mid 80's, it had a dodgy third room and second story bedsit added to it and a backyard that was almost impossible to do anything in. With only internal work done on it it's currently on the market for $2.15M. It's not the richest area in Sydney but it's still an area where money talks.

[Thatguy]

9 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Castle Hill is bogan central

Cashed up bogans. A very long time ago when Castle Hill was semi-rural, it was home to Patrick White, Australia's winner of the Nobel Prize for literature. This is Castle Hill's only claim to distinction but I doubt many of the current residents have read any Patrick White.

[AlSymerz]

Yeah that probably sums it up the best. I was surprised how rural Dural felt 20 years ago, yet Kellyville about the same distance out was almost suburban. One of my mates used to play a lot of gigs in Dural and I spent most of my time when I wasn't driving between Castle Hill, Kellyville and Fairfeild. The mob in Fairfield I was working part time for did house calls out as far as Silverdale. In a single day I could go from cashed up bogans, to the ethnic slums, to the hobby farm rich TV celebs and back to the bogans.

[RelentlessOblivion]

Can I just say these rapid Covid tests are more unpleasant than the PCR tests… I’d almost rather test positive to make it worth going through the ordeal. Also it seems incredibly stupid of our government to lift all restrictions with the virus so prevalent in the community, I know we need to get back to living some sort of a normal life but surely lifting the mask mandates and social distancing requirements wasn’t the right decision.

[AlSymerz]

The RATs?

I've not even had a PCR so I don't know but sticking something up your nose until it touches your brain has never seemed like a comfortable thing to me.

I don't have a problem with the rules being eased, people are still free to wear masks as they want to, people are still free to wash their hands a hundred thousands times a day. People can still social distance when they want too. In places like Melbourne so few are doing it that the mandates seems pointless anyway. But Victorians have two elections to vote in this year so Dan Andrews who played the tough line last year has already started to pander to the vox pop opinion for this year's election, he was possibly even told to go easier by the Feds as well.

I think it's a bit of a slap in the face for all those people who did get vaxed only to now relax the rules, kind of means those who held out win the mandate fight, but I also understand that way too many things are being disrupted at the moment and things need to get back to a new normal.

[blaaacdoommmmfan]

On 4/14/2022 at 12:58 AM, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Bought a DeWalt compact sawzall last summer and then their compact table saw earlier this year and I love both of them. Milwaukee vs DeWalt seems to be an ongoing debate here that will probably never end and it can transcend generations even, like Ford vs Chevy. Both have their advocates and detractors.

Problem is all the batteries suck. Made the mistake of buying two 5 amp DeWalt batteries off Amazon last year for $159 and they both crapped out within about 6 weeks. Put one on the tool and all the lights start blinking like Christmas lights. Left me wondeing if maybe they were Chinese knock-offs even though they do have what looks to be the legit DeWalt logo on them. Or maybe some unscrupulous cocksucker bought all the rejects from the manufacturing plant that failed quality control and is selling them on Amazon for cheap.

I will say that Milwaukee cordless nail gun is pretty cool once you get used to the weird sound it makes. Main advantage seems to be it's just nice not to have to listen to the compressor growling all day. I don't own one myself but this guy Vince I had working for me last year had one. All his tools and packouts were Milwaukee, everything of his was red from top to bottom including the bluetooth speaker, he was like a walking Milwaukee ad.

I have a Hitachi framing gun, saw it on an end cap display at HD for $99 two years ago and at that price I couldn't resist. It's still going strong. Mitre saw is a Rigid which I probably wouldn't have bought for myself but it was a gift 2 years ago and it's been pretty good actually, no complaints yet.

Goat 🐐 general I'm guessing the dewalt batteries were not covered by warranty. That's rubbish.Do you bring in the power tool batteries in the house over cold months as I read that leaving them out in the cold affects there performance. I bring mine in after I read that. It convinced me at least 

A work mate bought a Makita compact sawzall which made the job easier for sure. The mother in law has one. Think that's her only power tool she has. She finds it very useful for cutting fire wood

I've got an electric staple gun. Useful for upholstery. Not used nail gun before. But staple gun is nearest thing I've used to that. 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Well the nail gun is of course pneumatic, no batteries required, you plug the hose into an air compressor which plugs into a wall outlet. Little more kick than a staple gun. Plumbers don't usually need framing guns, but they love sawzalls, drills and hole saws, eh?

Yeah, we had some batteries go missing from the jobsite which also happens to be my house. I grabbed some new DeWalt ones off Amazon because they were slightly lower priced than normal, 2 of them for $159, they'd normally be more like $200 or more. But I guess you get what you pay for, and if something seems too good to be true it usually is. They worked for a few weeks and apparently batteries can't be returned unless they're DOA I guess. So we lose. No more buying batteries off Amazon. 

No we don't leave them outside, but the part of my house where we've been keeping the tools is not heated directly and we had an especially cold winter where it never got above freezing for weeks at a time. We'll be putting heat in there at some point, it used to be an L-shaped wrap-around porch but we knocked down a wall to make one side of the L part of the living room. 

[blaaacdoommmmfan]

On 4/20/2022 at 12:04 AM, KillaKukumba said:

Yeah picking buy colour is as good as anything else. Not sure if other countries have them but we even have pink tools now. It supposedly encourages women into trades, I'm not sure if that's true but good luck to them the pink tools look alright.

I've never really swapped tool bits around, we've re-made and restored a number of battery packs for people but generally if the tools are dead they are dead. Our silly swaps are usually bigger, things like swapping out the 50cc motor of a chainsaw to a 100cc, or replacing the motor on the air compressor with the biggest motor we can find. Years ago though we did swap out the 15hp ride on lawn mower motor with a Ford motor out of a '77 F series.

 

Swapping the little engine with that powerful ford motor. Did it work. Was the mower useable or did you have to be careful handling that power. 

Not seen pink tools. The maintenance guys at a site I was at while ago all had pink hi Viz jackets on. Intially I felt sorry for them. 10 mins later I wasn't bothered about the colour. I just wanted to get the job done and home for dinner😋

[blaaacdoommmmfan]

32 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Well the nail gun is of course pneumatic, no batteries required, you plug the hose into an air compressor which plugs into a wall outlet. Little more kick than a staple gun. Plumbers don't usually need framing guns, but they love sawzalls, drills and hole saws, eh?

Yeah, we had some batteries go missing from the jobsite which also happens to be my house. I grabbed some new DeWalt ones off Amazon because they were slightly lower priced than normal, 2 of them for $159, they'd normally be more like $200 or more. But I guess you get what you pay for, and if something seems too good to be true it usually is. They worked for a few weeks and apparently batteries can't be returned unless they're DOA I guess. So we lose. No more buying batteries off Amazon. 

No we don't leave them outside, but the part of my house where we've been keeping the tools is not heated directly and we had an especially cold winter where it never got above freezing for weeks at a time. We'll be putting heat in there at some point, it used to be an L-shaped wrap-around porch but we knocked down a wall to make one side of the L part of the living room. 

Yeah plumbers do like a drill. I'm no plumber but us water maintenance techs like a bit of using power tools to break up the routine of seeing alot of water pumps and pipe and doing a massive amount of samples. We had a guy work for us who was mechanic on quarries. He said it was like like hell at times with the dust and heat. 6 months later after joining us he went back to the quarries. 😉

. It may be just a myth then especially if you leave your battery in an unheated room and they work ok. For me its no issue bringing them in as they fit in a work bag. Also if my van gets broken into at least they won't get the batteries. 

 

 

[AlSymerz]

1 hour ago, blaaacdoommmmfan said:

 

Swapping the little engine with that powerful ford motor. Did it work. Was the mower useable or did you have to be careful handling that power. 

Not seen pink tools. The maintenance guys at a site I was at while ago all had pink hi Viz jackets on. Intially I felt sorry for them. 10 mins later I wasn't bothered about the colour. I just wanted to get the job done and home for dinner😋

It did work, but it wasn't really fit for purpose. It was a drunken idea that we took too far and once we started we couldn't let it beat us.

I don't mind the pink jacket and shirts. But the pink tools were a solid pitch towards getting more females into trades and it did work because plenty of women and now taking up all manner of trades and it's good to see.

 

55 minutes ago, blaaacdoommmmfan said:

. It may be just a myth then especially if you leave your battery in an unheated room and they work ok. For me its no issue bringing them in as they fit in a work bag. Also if my van gets broken into at least they won't get the batteries. 

 

 

There is a lot of myths around batteries and what makes them die prematurely and most of them are exactly that a myth. Most 'cheaper' ones can be a risk but with a little research and following a few simple steps you can be relatively sure about what you're getting. The first two basic steps are just because it's got a brand name on it doesn't mean it's great, and if it doesn't have a traceable name don't trust it there are plenty more choices out there.

[RelentlessOblivion]

17 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

The RATs?

I've not even had a PCR so I don't know but sticking something up your nose until it touches your brain has never seemed like a comfortable thing to me.

I don't have a problem with the rules being eased, people are still free to wear masks as they want to, people are still free to wash their hands a hundred thousands times a day. People can still social distance when they want too. In places like Melbourne so few are doing it that the mandates seems pointless anyway. But Victorians have two elections to vote in this year so Dan Andrews who played the tough line last year has already started to pander to the vox pop opinion for this year's election, he was possibly even told to go easier by the Feds as well.

I think it's a bit of a slap in the face for all those people who did get vaxed only to now relax the rules, kind of means those who held out win the mandate fight, but I also understand that way too many things are being disrupted at the moment and things need to get back to a new normal.

The issue I have is that now those of us who do take those precautions are the odd ones out. For the record I agree that abandoning the QR code check-in was a good decision, people weren’t doing it anyway and the various health departments are so far behind notifications come through well after you were already meant to have finished your isolation period. And easing density limits is also something I agree with, just don’t like how quickly every restriction has been lifted even though I do understand it’s mostly for political appeal. Honestly that’s part of the problem the pandemic has become a political issue rather than a public health issue, I guess we’re following America’s lead in that space. 

[AlSymerz]

I do feel a bit like the ones who chose not to get vaxxed are being rewarded by playing the waiting game but I guess I also knew it was going to happen at some point. In Vic our vax rates are pretty good regardless of those who chose against it. I think single dose is something like 99.5%, double is high 90's and triple is in the 80's.

It sucks that this winter dose they keep talking about is only for the oldies and the vulnerable because the old farts proved the first time around that they were reluctant to get it and it slowed the entire country down. I think with so many people double and triple vaxed the winter booster should be open to anyone that wants it.

QR codes were a joke to begin with, especially when the governments said the data would not be on-sold, or given to other parties and both the Victorian and NSW governments were caught doing the opposite. It might have worked if treated properly but eventually people were going to get sick of it anyway.

[RelentlessOblivion]

That’s true, the system wasn’t rolled out effectively and a lot of people certainly didn’t trust it. Sadly in South Australia out vaccination rates seem to be lower, I don’t have the exact figures to hand at the moment but I recall we were wagging behind significantly last time I looked.

[AlSymerz]

95% 1st and 93% 2nd isn't too bad. I didn't see third listed but in Victoria the tick app to show you're vaxed apparently didn't have provision for 3rd jabs so when they started the third round the Vic government acted all confused about what to do and they fixed it by removing the first dose and only counting doses 2 and 3 as 1 and 2 respectively.