Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[tautech]

However we do speak often of the French guys from Paris ! Every body in the country hates them. They are just unbearable, you can spot them from a mile away and after 3 seconds usually the only thought that crosses your mind is  :" FUCK ME I will kill that SOB !!! "   
That's how much we like them.

OK I gots to know. Why are they hated? Sorry I don't get out much. 

AFAIK from international reputation: arrogant superiority !
Correct me if I am wrong Vince.

[BU508A]

I do not drink my coffee raw. I prefer it fully cooked, thank you. 

mnem
I grew up on Ranch coffee. Anything less is pee water.

Coffee is only coffee if it passes the horseshoe test.



Image taken from "Lucky Luke - Barbed wire on the prairie"

[med6753]

Now I'm going to really piss you all off, I buy instant in a jar if I fancy a coffee, mostly I drink tea because quite simply it is the most economical for me as the rest of the family are tea drinkers. Personally, I love coffee, always used to drink coffee before I got married but all that changed when money got really tight so tea it became.

Seeing you go on about coffee, beans, grinders, machines, percolators etc, makes me smile, in the same way as people go on about wines, to me its meaningless. I hear people go on for ages about what wine to have based on what they are eating, means diddly squat to me, I hate red wines, prefer whites or rose, these are all just various forms of drinks to me, like food, give me good quality plain food, and I'm happy, all of these fancy posh names that you see on menus in restaurants leave me cold and worried about what I'm about to order, so I always ask for basic guide to what it is really. So there you are, thats me, nothing fancy about, I'm just a normal everyday guy, a bit common but one with good manners and sense.

I can feel the heat coming my way now, so OK I'll get my coat and my asbestos suit on shall I  

Oh now you’ve gone and done it 

Tea in front of Americans, insulting coffee and wine and probably most European cuisine in one go.

I applaud this action   

I applaud this too. Ain't got no time to grind my own coffee. I buy my coffee off of Amazon in bulk. 6 containers of Floger's  ground Colombian. I keep it in the frig so it stays fresh.

Wine? Never developed a taste for it of any variety. You can keep it. I guess I'm uncivilized. So be it.

Tea? Believe it or not I do enjoy a cup of tea once in a while. Lipton tea bags. Stick it in the microwave for 1:30. Done. I think I just heard some British folks faint dead away over brewing tea in the microwave. Don't knock it until you try it.     

[BU508A]

The world's top tea drinker are located in Germany - to be exact: the East Frisians.

world's top tea drinker

Cup of tea anybody? 

[tggzzz]

Alas bad news: had to say final goodbye today to another family member on the ex wife’s side who unfortunately has multiple organ failure.

It is that time of our lives. I'm in the midst of preparing a funeral in a couple of weeks. Cause of death was "fragility and old age".

My suit is being used for too few "hatch 'em" and "match 'em" gatherings, but too many "dispatch 'em" gatherings.

My condolences of course.

I think we’re truly blessed if we get to make old age. I knew a couple of people who didn’t and hope one will.

I hope my body dies before my brain does; the alternative is very hard on those around you. It is also hard on you, when you realise that you aren't coping with everyday life very well anymore.

I've seen a couple of people die, one in a bed, one skiing. There's a lot to be said for speed and surprise.

[Vince]

Hatfield was a big industrial town that housed British Aerospace. Which shut down in 1993. Everyone in the town worked there so the whole place went into a poverty stricken nightmare for about 20 years. The outcome of this was some particularly nasty bits.

Wow, thanks for the info ! How come I missed that ?!    Can't remember anyone mentioned this site, ever ! It closed 5 years prior to my arrival, so I guess locals had already moved on and nobody was talking about it any more...
Funny how I lived next to that site without even knowing and 10 years later I would retrain in aviation ! It was destiny ?! 

The Hatfield rain crash was a nasty one for sure. Moving a couple of years on I’d bailed out of the EE sector and moved to a Barnet. There was another major crash on that line at Potters Bar which fucked up my commute into London for weeks. I moved to Leytonstone almost immediately and guess what? Well there was another bloody crash on the central line at Chancery Lane which shut everything for weeks.

Ah yes, even before I moved to the UK? I remember on TV we would regularly hear news reports about train crashes in England, and every time they would say it was Thatcher's fault because she sold the train system to the private sector.. which promptly increased ticket prices a lot yet stopped doing any maintenance on the network, resulting in a crappy service and worse, regular accidents. They said capitalism was the best thing since sliced bread...
I remember when I was in the UK as a consequence I was afraid to take the train... I went to London city only once (to buy a suit so I could go to an job interview for my sandwich year industrial placement near Cambridge in Saint-Ives.).   One of my room mates, a nice German chap, dragged me to the city to find a suit and some shoes. Wore the suit a couple hours and never put it on, ever. I don't even know where it is today... can't find it, didn't throw it away either... just no idea what happened to it !?...
Digressing again, that's so me. So didn't want to risk taking the train so I took the bus instead ! I remember it was direct  link fro Hatfield to London city-center, quite practical. took 45 minutes or something IIRC.

[Vince]

However we do speak often of the French guys from Paris ! Every body in the country hates them. They are just unbearable, you can spot them from a mile away and after 3 seconds usually the only thought that crosses your mind is  :" FUCK ME I will kill that SOB !!! "   
That's how much we like them.

OK I gots to know. Why are they hated? Sorry I don't get out much. 

AFAIK from international reputation: arrogant superiority !
Correct me if I am wrong Vince.

In a nutshell yes ! 

Just because Paris is the largest city in the country, the capital, they got the Eiffel Tower, all the rich people, the cool museums and stuff, nice architecture here and there, the government, all the politicians, all the TV stations, because apparently somehow Paris is the #1 destination worldwide for tourists, blah blah blah..... so they just think that they are the best in the country (world), that anything that's not like them, is shit.
Their narcissism and egoism is outstanding.

They refer to "the rest of the country" with condescending terms that clearly show that they think we don't belong to the same country or same race...

To them, France IS Paris... they don't just realize that it's the other way around : Paris is some STRANGE, weird speck on the map ! It's just 0.00.1% of the country's surface, but somehow they think it's the other way around ?! 

So when they "go out"  ... they act as if they own the place and that tehy can act like shit liek they do in Paris ! NOPE !!!!

Other big problem si that :

1) They love Paris and shit on the other 99.9% of the country but.... but.... somehow...

2) When they have money, they RUSH to buy a leisure house in some place far away from Paris, to get a taste of nature and peace.

3) So in my neck of the woods, on the Altantic cost south brittany, lots of cool places. A house by the coast used to cost 100K now thanks to the rich Parisian people, market value tripled and now the locals can't even buy a house in their own village, they are forced to live outside their OWN freaking town !! All the nice houses in nice places are owned by arrogant rich Parisians who can cough tons of cash like there is no tomorrow, and they come to their house like 3 weeks a year at best !
So the anti-Parisian feeling is extremely strong as a result... not only they shit on us, but on top of that they come where we live to deprive us of our own stuff ! That's too much to take !!! 

4) They drive like shit, they park like shit, they behave on the road like shit !

5) They drive big shiny SUV's that they park across two parking spaces, diagonally, because it's too big for as single spot, and they don't know how to drive anyway !

I HATE PARISIANS, KILL THEM ALL !!!! 

[med6753]

However we do speak often of the French guys from Paris ! Every body in the country hates them. They are just unbearable, you can spot them from a mile away and after 3 seconds usually the only thought that crosses your mind is  :" FUCK ME I will kill that SOB !!! "   
That's how much we like them.

OK I gots to know. Why are they hated? Sorry I don't get out much. 

AFAIK from international reputation: arrogant superiority !
Correct me if I am wrong Vince.

In a nutshell yes ! 

Just because Paris is the largest city in the country, the capital, they got the Eiffel Tower, all the rich people, the cool museums and stuff, nice architecture here and there, the government, all the politicians, all the TV stations, because apparently somehow Paris is the #1 destination worldwide for tourists, blah blah blah..... so they just think that they are the best in the country (world), that anything that's not like them, is shit.
Their narcissism and egoism is outstanding.

They refer to "the rest of the country" with condescending terms that clearly show that they think we don't belong to the same country or same race...

To them, France IS Paris... they don't just realize that it's the other way around : Paris is some STRANGE, weird speck on the map ! It's just 0.00.1% of the country's surface, but somehow they think it's the other way around ?! 

So when they "go out"  ... they act as if they own the place and that tehy can act like shit liek they do in Paris ! NOPE !!!!

Other big problem si that :

1) They love Paris and shit on the other 99.9% of the country but.... but.... somehow...

2) When they have money, they RUSH to buy a leisure house in some place far away from Paris, to get a taste of nature and peace.

3) So in my neck of the woods, on the Altantic cost south brittany, lots of cool places. A house by the coast used to cost 100K now thanks to the rich Parisian people, market value tripled and now the locals can't even buy a house in their own village, they are forced to live outside their OWN freaking town !! All the nice houses in nice places are owned by arrogant rich Parisians who can cough tons of cash like there is no tomorrow, and they come to their house like 3 weeks a year at best !
So the anti-Parisian feeling is extremely strong as a result... not only they shit on us, but on top of that they come where we live to deprive us of our own stuff ! That's too much to take !!! 

4) They drive like shit, they park like shit, they behave on the road like shit !

5) They drive big shiny SUV's that they park across two parking spaces, diagonally, because it's too big for as single spot, and they don't know how to drive anyway !

I HATE PARISIANS, KILL THEM ALL !!!! 

Substitute "NYC arrogant assholes" for Parisians and you've nailed it 100% 

[xrunner]

They refer to "the rest of the country" with condescending terms that clearly show that they think we don't belong to the same country or same race...

Oh - the "Let them eat cake" sorta thing goin' on? 

Very interesting thanks for the explanation. 

[Vince]

You're welcome ! 

02H40 here, going to bed, have fun !

[beanflying]

What you heathens are missing out on with instunt, pods or store brought preground it the anticipation and visual bits of the process before you miss out almost completely on the slurpage and appreciation of the fine nectar.

Life is to short to drink bad Coffee 

Yes someone needs to find and hour and clean the shiny shiny bling bling 

[mnementh]

I do not drink my coffee raw. I prefer it fully cooked, thank you. 

mnem
I grew up on Ranch coffee. Anything less is pee water.

Coffee is only coffee if it passes the horseshoe test.      Image taken from "Lucky Luke - Barbed wire on the prairie"

Heh... snurched and added to my "img treasure trove"; gave it a place of honor right next to my zoop!

mnem
That guy reminds me of my ex-next-door neighbor, Everardo.

[mnementh]

Now I'm going to really piss you all off, I buy instant in a jar if I fancy a coffee, mostly I drink tea because quite simply it is the most economical for me as the rest of the family are tea drinkers. Personally, I love coffee, always used to drink coffee before I got married but all that changed when money got really tight so tea it became.

Seeing you go on about coffee, beans, grinders, machines, percolators etc, makes me smile, in the same way as people go on about wines, to me its meaningless. I hear people go on for ages about what wine to have based on what they are eating, means diddly squat to me, I hate red wines, prefer whites or rose, these are all just various forms of drinks to me, like food, give me good quality plain food, and I'm happy, all of these fancy posh names that you see on menus in restaurants leave me cold and worried about what I'm about to order, so I always ask for basic guide to what it is really. So there you are, thats me, nothing fancy about, I'm just a normal everyday guy, a bit common but one with good manners and sense.

I can feel the heat coming my way now, so OK I'll get my coat and my asbestos suit on shall I  

Oh now you’ve gone and done it     Tea in front of Americans, insulting coffee and wine and probably most European cuisine in one go.

I applaud this action     

Yeah, but we'll cut him some slack because we know he's from Essex. If he was from somewhere relatively sophisticated like Peckham it might be different. 

This is how we make tea in my house. 7 bags of Red Rose, a metric gallon of 90° water from the tap (it comes out nice & hot this late), let it sit til morning. When I get up, I remove the bags & add enough artificial sweetener that the tea itself gets cancer, then in the fridge widdit so it's nice & cold by lunch.

It is gone by bedtime.

mnem
And iff'n y'all donn' like it, yew kin suck it!!!

[mnementh]

However we do speak often of the French guys from Paris ! Every body in the country hates them. They are just unbearable, you can spot them from a mile away and after 3 seconds usually the only thought that crosses your mind is  :" FUCK ME I will kill that SOB !!! "   
That's how much we like them.

OK I gots to know. Why are they hated? Sorry I don't get out much. 

AFAIK from international reputation: arrogant superiority !
Correct me if I am wrong Vince.

In a nutshell yes ! 

Just because Paris is the largest city in the country, the capital, they got the Eiffel Tower, all the rich people, the cool museums and stuff, nice architecture here and there, the government, all the politicians, all the TV stations, because apparently somehow Paris is the #1 destination worldwide for tourists, blah blah blah..... so they just think that they are the best in the country (world), that anything that's not like them, is shit.
Their narcissism and egoism is outstanding.

They refer to "the rest of the country" with condescending terms that clearly show that they think we don't belong to the same country or same race...

To them, France IS Paris... they don't just realize that it's the other way around : Paris is some STRANGE, weird speck on the map ! It's just 0.00.1% of the country's surface, but somehow they think it's the other way around ?! 

So when they "go out"  ... they act as if they own the place and that tehy can act like shit liek they do in Paris ! NOPE !!!!

Other big problem si that :

1) They love Paris and shit on the other 99.9% of the country but.... but.... somehow...

2) When they have money, they RUSH to buy a leisure house in some place far away from Paris, to get a taste of nature and peace.

3) So in my neck of the woods, on the Altantic cost south brittany, lots of cool places. A house by the coast used to cost 100K now thanks to the rich Parisian people, market value tripled and now the locals can't even buy a house in their own village, they are forced to live outside their OWN freaking town !! All the nice houses in nice places are owned by arrogant rich Parisians who can cough tons of cash like there is no tomorrow, and they come to their house like 3 weeks a year at best !
So the anti-Parisian feeling is extremely strong as a result... not only they shit on us, but on top of that they come where we live to deprive us of our own stuff ! That's too much to take !!! 

4) They drive like shit, they park like shit, they behave on the road like shit !

5) They drive big shiny SUV's that they park across two parking spaces, diagonally, because it's too big for as single spot, and they don't know how to drive anyway !

I HATE PARISIANS, KILL THEM ALL !!!! 

Now contrast that with "The French Canadian Problem", ehh...?



mnem
Props to Pat for digging this gem up a couple years ago... no, I didn't forget, ya hoser.

[mansaxel]

Now I'm going to really piss you all off, I buy instant in a jar if I fancy a coffee, mostly I drink tea because quite simply it is the most economical for me as the rest of the family are tea drinkers. Personally, I love coffee, always used to drink coffee before I got married but all that changed when money got really tight so tea it became.

Seeing you go on about coffee, beans, grinders, machines, percolators etc, makes me smile, in the same way as people go on about wines, to me its meaningless. I hear people go on for ages about what wine to have based on what they are eating, means diddly squat to me, I hate red wines, prefer whites or rose, these are all just various forms of drinks to me, like food, give me good quality plain food, and I'm happy, all of these fancy posh names that you see on menus in restaurants leave me cold and worried about what I'm about to order, so I always ask for basic guide to what it is really. So there you are, thats me, nothing fancy about, I'm just a normal everyday guy, a bit common but one with good manners and sense.

I can feel the heat coming my way now, so OK I'll get my coat and my asbestos suit on shall I  

Don't worry. I myself tend to have gotten a few opinions on what I want to drink, be it coffee, beer, wine or spirits.  But I understand it is not for everyone. Sometimes it gets a bit out of hand -- I was meeting a supplier in Paris some 2 years ago, and one of their people said, as I was going through and discussing what to get from the wine list for dinner, "You know much more about the geography of the Rhône valley than I do!" -- and he's French!

I was mostly concerned with getting a wine that would go well with what people had ordered. Somehow I managed to conclude that a Chateauneuf-du-Pape would do just fine. Happens a lot, that selection 

Back to coffee: We've been through most methods. We did have a French Press, which was very nice; until it broke. We have the small Bialetti style espresso makers, I as noted above tend to make boiled coffee a lot in the outdoors,  and at home there is a Moccamaster brewer that's responsible for the cup besides me now.  I've got a few sachets of instant in my backpack, together with energy bars, and some isotonic drink poweder. Instant and isotonic come out of our MRE's -- and that's their rôle; a last resort.  We did do an experiment with raw beans. That was entertaining, but a bit much work. Roasting, grinding and brewing (in whatever method we ground for) was a bit much compared to ready ground vacpac.

A thing I don't understand, OTOH: People who seem to get by on only one multimeter. There even is a thread on here, that says "Show your multimeter!". As in singular. Wilhelm Theodor Friedrich? William Thèrese François?

[mansaxel]

After the lectures at uni I would just go home to eat something, then back to uni all evening/night to use their computers at the library, 'cause they had internet access, unlimited, super fast, freely available... they had a few satellite dishes on the roof I remember.

In 2000 (based on the date of the Hatfield accident), it's more likely that the connectivity was based on fibre -- JANET was well on its way to being a decent network already then. In Sweden at the time we had just upgraded our 155Mbit educational backbone to 622Mbit in select places, and I was about to start working with it; I got enable (that is full privileges in the router OS when logged in) in AS 1653 around March 2001.

And, at that time, the UK fascination for doing things back-asswards had already been stemmed wrt naming schemes, so that domain names on JANET were written in the if not correct so at least the in same order as everybody else.

Finally, if anyone wants to know how good and reliable and sound-to-the-core privatised infrastructure services are going to be (Think NHS) -- just look at Railtrack. The Hatfield accident is regarded as one of the major nails in the coffin of Railtrack, that IMNSHO can be argued being the worst part of the  "break things because ideology" adventure that was the end of British Rail. I do believe that Network Rail is significantly better, but the issues to some length remain.

 

[bd139]

To be fair the biggest problems that lead to rail crashes here are simply our biggest cultural defect: dire lack of rigour and competence. British is best they crow but no never buy anything British made on a Friday afternoon.

[Robert763]

I just buy mine ready ground. 

Awaits flames

Instant 

[mansaxel]

To be fair the biggest problems that lead to rail crashes here are simply our biggest cultural defect: dire lack of rigour and competence. British is best they crow but no never buy anything British made on a Friday afternoon.

The Hatfield did put the light on the central problem -- you have a new organisation that is supposed to be hands-off and use only contractors for everything (likely because the contractors are owned by Tory MPs and this is a sure way of milking the tax chest) and the contractors (who when things work out right have hired the competent maintenance folk off of the old monolith) are explicitly forbidden to do anything but the things having been decided by the organisation that just got rid of all competent staff.

We have the same problem here, but it is not as pronounced.

[beanflying]

Seriously excellent condition for its age eBay auction: #284425329061

[dl6lr]

The world's top tea drinker are located in Germany - to be exact: the East Frisians.

world's top tea drinker

Cup of tea anybody? 

Count me in!
When it comes to tea, do not underestimate the russians. I had some russian colleagues. We now own a samowar...

[Robert763]

<SNIP>
Going out for me was mostly limited to paying a visit to the auto parts store to buy parts to fix my old Renault, and learning car mechanics along the way. Hobby got started this way.
<SNIP>

Memories.....

A Renault 19 was hardly and "old" car in 1998. the oldest was probably 10 years. The 19 wass pretty popular in the UK so spares would not have deen a problem. I had a bit of  run of Renalts in the late 80 and 90's. First was a 30TX (V6 injection) that was supposed to be a donor for a kit car that never happened. Then following an emergency purchase of a cheap one owner R6 due to lack of funds and company van following a job change and my Lotus Elite having even more Lots Of Trouble Usually Serious  than normal. The 6 was a great car once I replaced the new but "never heard of the brand" tyres that came on it. A few years later I went to the dealer to get a part  and was ambushed by  salesman on the way to the parts counter. Haing assured him I was not going to buy a new car I made the mistake or asking if the personalised plate was included with the used 11 Turbo? It wasn't but he pursuaded me to take it for a test drive. After half an hour or so on Hampshire lanes I had a big grin and the salesman was a lot quieter and paler  The 11T was bought. A 21 Turbo followed that. put over 100k on that and it was one of my all time favorites. It was black and you could take it anywhere from a car meet to a wedding or job interview and it fitted right in. Shame they never made it in the Savanna (estate) body for more TE capacity. An Audi S4 Avant, the ultiimate high speed TEA wagon, replaced it but when the idiots started swapping from BMWs to Audis about 15 years ago it was time to get rid of it.
   

[dl6lr]

A Renault 19 was hardly and "old" car in 1998.
 

You know that Renaults get crusty in the brochure?
As a friend always says: Do not buy a car that starts with F: Ford, Fiat, French...
Unnecessary to say that I have two Renaults and one Ford.  

[BU508A]

Italian Instant Espresso from Cellini:



 

[beanflying]

Italian Instant Espresso from Cellini:



 

So Burnt (like typical Italian roasts), Baked (from the slow roasting) and bitter (as it almost certainly contains 50-80% of Robusta floor sweepings).