Other What currently makes your life awesome?

It’s easy to keep secrets, when I can’t remember what they are…

 

Oh man, that’s a good one, thanks for that ‘cos I needed a laugh this morning

I’ve had the same hub since I went to gigabit, and that was at least 6-7 years ago. A couple of years back I called them and asked about getting an upgraded version; I was basically told to piss off because I don't need it. I didn't even have the option of paying them money for it.

Besides, from what I've read the newer kit doesn't have modem-only mode and that's a deal-breaker now.

 

Only the people on actual fibre XGSPON can't do modem only that's the Hub5x, on the old RFoG you get the Hub5, I have the 5 in modem mode as I have my own infrastructure, along with better wifi gives you a 2.5Gb port too so you can get the full 1.2Gb of VM gig1 on to your own stuff rather than just 1G.

I think it's a recent change in policy, just told my brother in law to do the same as he could not get more than 700Mb on wifi for obvious reasons as old hub is Wifi5 without 160Mhz channels, he didn't actually understand that Wifi was his problem, they have nothing wired and was complaining VM were rubbish etc, showed him my Wifi speed told him what his issue actually is and he has a new hub on the way.

 

Doesn't matter what model it is, they wouldn’t even let me buy a new model a few years back.

Point is, I’ve had no choice but to be on VM until relatively recently. Every time I’ve called to have the “I want a better price” argument, I really haven’t had any other alternative; it’s not like I’m going to go from 1 gigabit down to ~40-50Mbit, so it’s always an empty threat. Now when I call them however, if I say “YouFibre can do 2x the download, 20x upload, a static IPv4 address, let me use my own hardware, and have a 1-month rolling contract for £69.99 - match that or I walk” it’s no longer an empty threat.

 

Sadly, because of the level required I couldn't do any work, or indeed see any of the systems being used, I could only listen to the incoming calls.

I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you...

 

Glad to hear it, this is the way!

Where I used to work (20+ years ago) we started received faxed orders from a government department that none of had ever heard of. It had a really prosaic name and when they phoned one day, my colleague blithely asked what they did and was informed that they were unable to discuss that!
I found out a lot later on from a publicly available university research paper what they were, and it was exactly as we suspected due the sort of items they bought from us.

 

You have passed.

 

In all seriousness it's a lot less "Bond-esque" and a lot more boring - I work for an outsourcing company who do tech support work for A. N. government body who I will not mention on account of the fact that I've signed several NDA's and don't fancy being thrown in a box for the rest of my days. I'm now working on behalf of Wales and West Utilities, still as a L1 Service Desk monkey but there's a lot less stringency and they needed an extra body after one of theirs is transferring to my old role. So on the whole I'm very happy with that outcome. I will let you know on Tuesday if this is something I will come to regret.

 

I would not expect them to be any more amenable to that. I had the same conversation with them a couple of years ago, just after openreach fibre made it to my area. I told them that I could get 1 gigabit from sky for cheaper, they said no you can't sky doesn't go that fast.

 

Their loss then, I certainly won’t be crying any tears over having to leave Virgin Media .

I mean… they’re not exactly going to cry if I leave, and I already know they won’t even try to match it. But the only choice I have is to vote with my wallet, and if 16 years of having my money isn't enough to earn any kind of loyalty in return… f’ ‘em

 

So far so good - today was significantly better because I got my hands on a lot of the systems I needed to start working, so all being well I'll go live next week. Tues and Weds was a real bore - couldn't hear half the **** was being said, but today was different. First day back in office now tomorrow since Easter weekend, so I'm really looking forward to seeing my homies from my old contract.

 

Stopping on the way into work for a farm shop bacon roll *burp*

 

About to go on a bicycle ride, an easy 30-ish km with a stop at the post office. The weather looks lovely, sunny and a little bit cold.

After a short work week in which it was officially announced to the whole company that I'd take over as head of product, I'll enjoy this even more.

 

Congrats bud! Chuffed for you

 

I'm getting married on Saturday, and the nerves are hitting hard—I feel like I'm about to **** my pants at any second! I was fine until late last night when it finally dawned on me how little time I have left to prepare.

Overall, I'm really looking forward to it. Obviously, I can't wait to marry my partner, but I’m also relieved that it will bring an end to two years of gradually building stress and tension leading up to this day.

 

After 1108 parts, 720 decals, photoetch, after market lighting and 4 months of life...it is finally over.

There's killing the King, and then there's Killing the King, Bandai needs to step it up with the PGU NU

 

Holy cow, that's an insane amount of detail, and the quality of the finish is incredible. Absolutely top job, that's the kind of thing I'd expect to see in marketing or showcase photos.

 

Started speaking to a girl on Saturday on Tinder, met her in the evening with 12 of her colleagues (how my anxiety pulled that off I don’t know) but I’m absolutely fed up meaningless sleeping around)

As soon as I approached she gave me her chair sat beside, stayed by my side all night and just seemed so genuine it’s unreal. Just watching her interact and be herself basically sealed it for me.

Told me she’s been in two abusive relationships where they’ve obviously just completely smashed her confidence and broke her down. I got a first hand experience of this when we were on the phone last night and her ex partner walked in and called her every name under the sun for being on the phone, despite cheating on her twice and doing the same thing.

She’s spent every free minute of her free time with me and she’s definitely worth pursuing.

happy times!

 

Got a decision in principle approved yesterday for two different mortgages.

The first of which is a very limited budget that pretty much restricts us to flats, meaning that we have to worry about cladding, management fees, potential difficulty in selling, all the issues with leasehold, and so on. But… would allow us to get moving right now, since we have more than enough saved for fees, surveys, removals, repairs/redecoration, and even paying rent on our current house for several months after exchange. It would also allow us to build equity incredibly quickly; with absolutely no change to our monthly budget, we can pay more than double the amount of the indicated mortgage repayments. If early repayment charges were not a consideration, and we never re-mortgaged for a better rate, we could pay off a 20 year mortgage term in 8 years.

The second of those DIPs is more than double the amount of the first one. But what we’ve saved would be needed for a deposit, so it’d be a few more months of saving before we could really get moving. And the estimated monthly payment amounts at the top end of that budget move us firmly into “tightening the belt” territory. However… it would allow us to move to the kind of property we actually want, instead of having to wait another 5-10 years and then having to deal with leasehold flat shenanigans at the end of it. We wouldn’t have to make quite as many compromises.

I know what the most financially prudent option is, and as with many other aspects of my life I’m trying not to let my heart rule my head. But getting a flat means saying goodbye to the motorbike for the foreseeable future, and would even make having a second car difficult. There are few options where there is ample parking, let alone a garage - we learned that last year. And we can’t move too far out, because my OH needs to be close to her mother. (I mean… I do too, but I don’t have the health complications my OH has.)