The Awkward Silence - 2022-01-25

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Extroverted Main Man

4:13 AM

0

Q: Feelings hopeless all the time

During this COVID outbreak , I was stuck in college . My life just went in circles and circles . At first I'd have to appear in my college entrance exam then my master's entrance exam then my IELTS or GRE exam then focus on my research , that's 10 years later but life just keeps on getting comple...

3 hours later…

6:48 AM

morning

4 hours later…

10:33 AM

i know its been a while, but morning :)

Welcome back :) How's life been treating you?

3 hours later…

1:27 PM

@Tinkeringbell :D

afternoon :)

Hey :)

It's... imagine having a conversation with a physics professor, that's exasperated you don't "get" something as simply as quantum mechanics and can't solve the math equation that goes with it. While you can barely add 2+2 together.

He acts like that, and it's really hard for me to distinguish between 'he's saying something I should take seriously' and 'oh well, it's just quantum mechanics and won't influence my daily life at all'.

1:43 PM

sounds like he's lacking any and all empathy... difficult to have a conversation with someone who is completely unable to understand the other party's point of view in the conversation

I avoid people like these tbh, unless it's important they understand something or I have to convince them

In said neighbour's case... I hear great things about clue-by-fours :)

Yeah, I tend to avoid him too. Last weekend he talked at me again, and I stupidly gave in and talked a bit about my plans to get a sun-blocking aluminium screen in front of my bedroom window. I want a white one: Part of the wall next to my window is painted white, and there's a little white 'afdak' above it too. So white will just blend in better.

So, I just told him I was just returning from getting one. (as he started talking about his screen).

Immediate questions: What color, why did I go to that store while this other store was much cheaper... Remarks like 'Just listen to me, you're going to regret it'.

"You're going to be the only one with white screens, your other neighbors are getting dark grey ones."

Journeyman Geek

lol

"Its ok, next time I'll get a red one. TO HIDE THE BLOOD"

It's just... tiiiiring. And in case of the screens, that was something I knew a little about what I was talking about (dark screens run a greater risk of malforming due to heat if you have the summer sun on them all afternoon, and darker screens absorb more heat so if I open the window at night but keep the screen down, that heat will radiate into my apartment)

Journeyman Geek

@Tinkeringbell Some people are... just like that

In case of the rain pipes yesterday... I do not have such knowledge, so I have no counterarguments except 'here's the guy I'm paying to know his business'

Journeyman Geek

1:56 PM

I think you don't hate the person you hired enough to "Facinating, you should talk to my contractor"

Actually, he's distantly related to the hired person XD

Like a very far removed uncle?

@Tinkeringbell another reason, bit of building physics related to the warping... white is the highest albedo you can get, so the most sunlight reflected away from being absorbed as heat by the structure

Journeyman Geek

@Tinkeringbell that probably makes it crueller

@MiG Yes, that is exactly why I want white.

It's cooler :P

same reason half of greece is covered in white buildings

@Tinkeringbell literally :D

Journeyman Geek

1:58 PM

@MiG the paint wears out after a thousand years?

what?

Journeyman Geek

@MiG :D

that was a very random comment...

Journeyman Geek

Apparently classical greek structures were brightly painted.

I'm not talking about monuments, doh... nobody lives inside a temple

Journeyman Geek

1:59 PM

which faded or wore out to white marble ....

homes

HOMES

@MiG Yes. It's also why I picked a very light grey (not white) for the tiles in the backyard: It will reflect more light away, and as such be cooler than the dark grey/ almost black (anthracite) stones you see in the neighborhood here a lot.

yes, I'm aware of that

@Tinkeringbell try walking over those with bare feet... my parents have those, and I remember as a kid that was pretty unpleasant

Yeah. The only reason I didn't choose white is... I don't want to go snowblind in summer :P

Journeyman Geek

@MiG depends on how used you are to it And what kinda stone...

Granite is actually surprisingly cool

2:01 PM

although in that case there's also the effort spent keeping those sparkly white to be considered, and yeah, how snowblind you want to get :D

@JourneymanGeek your basic concrete tiles really, I mean that would be quite a different budget would it?

Journeyman Geek

point

But granite is also fairly common, not super expensive here

I live in a highrise building so I have no reason to or knowledge of tile pricing, but considering I've seen extremely few people with granite tiles, I'm guessing there is a significant price difference here

Journeyman Geek

@MiG I know folks in india who went for it

this country is basically a giant river delta, so unless you dig deep you mostly find soft soil types, including river and sea clay and peat

Journeyman Geek

I think it was an option when we were doing it, but mom prefers 'normal' tiles cause easier to maintain

(new place will be vinyl ._. )

2:04 PM

bit of marl in the south

@MiG I dunno. jonksierbestrating.nl/sierbestrating/tegels-voor-terras/… is 10 euros cheaper than the ones I'm getting right now (which are concrete with a ceramic top layer)

jeez, 60E per m2 is still a lot

Journeyman Geek

hah SEE?

I'm translating this to holidays missed out on, and great dinners :P

Journeyman Geek

/me is as smug as @Tinkeringbell's ISKIA neighbour...

2:06 PM

@MiG Of course. I always fall in love with one of the first things I see, and it's never the cheapest XD

Journeyman Geek

@MiG man...

So, I just saw the perfect dog

and I'm currently grumpy I can't afford a dog cause new apartment saving + covid pricing + parents don't want one

I'm resisting the urge to ask about recipes :P

Journeyman Geek

user image

doesn't look very tasty to me

Luckily I don't have a very big backyard, so for the meagre sum of 5k, it's all paved and done. :P So, I don't think I'll have to miss out any holidays, and/or dinners :P

2:08 PM

5k gets you a pretty long holiday tbh :P

@JourneymanGeek That one is pretty white, so good for hot climates :P

Journeyman Geek

@Tinkeringbell Thats about how much my kitchen would cost. and less than a small dog

@MiG Doesn't mean I am going to miss that :P

fine :P

@JourneymanGeek My kitchen was 6,5k ;)

2:08 PM

did pay off my student loan last month, so that's a few hundred E extra a month I have liberated

So far, I think I'm going to be happier with the pavement than the kitchen XD

Kitchen was just 'oh, it's there'

Journeyman Geek

@Tinkeringbell Oh, I mean, I could go cheaper but I actually want to cook :D

Pavement is like "I can't wait for it to be finished OMG !!!111!!!!! finally!!!!211111!eleven!!"

oh man, if gf has to choose between kitchen and pavement... let's just say there won't even be a discussion :D

Journeyman Geek

@MiG More in terms of stuff you want, and money pits :D

cause pets do cost a bit to maintain over their lifetime

2:10 PM

@Tinkeringbell at least you'll be ready for summer.... IN HALF A YEAR

@JourneymanGeek tbh, my main concern has been keeping animals for entertainment and comfort... feels wrong to me

Journeyman Geek

@MiG I had a dog for 15 years

I might be goaded into a rescue, but we've had some pretty heartbreaking stories about puppy farms, so there's no way in hell I'd get one from there

Journeyman Geek

@MiG Ah, unfortunately my options for that are minimal outside project adore

@MiG Hey, it's not just summer. It's also being able to hang the laundry instead of having to put large things like the bedsheets on a dryer cycle because they don't fit on the small rack I have for laundry in the bathroom :D

Journeyman Geek

My old dog was a semi rescue

(someone bought him without asking the SO, arguement ensued)

2:12 PM

@Tinkeringbell tbh, we have those huuuuuuge ceilings right now, so even the tightest packed clothes rack parked in the living room will still be bone dry in 24h right now

Journeyman Geek

@MiG This is one of my mom's official reasons for 'no'

that'll change when we move of course, but the previous place was built in 1959 and came with built in clotheslines at the gallery, pretty handy :)

@JourneymanGeek tell your mom random guy on the internet agrees with her :P

I'm jealous. Though my laundry dries well in the bathroom, it's just the size of the rack that's the problem :D

Journeyman Geek

@MiG unofficially, its mainly "Its too much work"

@Tinkeringbell don't be. the flipside is the insane heating bill, even though this place is energy label B... we have two apartments worth of volume, and that requires a lot of gas

@JourneymanGeek well, as with all kids you have to gauge how likely they are to lose interest / skip out on walking and cleaning duties, and therefore these end up with the parents :P

Journeyman Geek

2:16 PM

@MiG Oh I did most of it till my current job

so until his last 3 years

@MiG More onions and beans = more farts = less gas needed? :P

Journeyman Geek

I even would finish night shifts and go to the dog run on a sunday morning after that

and honestly, that I can't invest the time now isn't why I'm not going "Uh, I'm getting a dog"

@Tinkeringbell until you light said farts, they do not result in additional joules of heat :P

I'm not opposed to that idea though, are you? :P

Journeyman Geek

@MiG That's half the fun

2:18 PM

:facepalm:

Journeyman Geek

Farts farts the fun and furious gas!

I don't know that.... where's that from? It reads a bit like I'm supposed to know a similar jingle?

Journeyman Geek

It does, and I don't remember either.

Hahaha

On another note, the toilet repair-guy visited... and to repair the toilet they have to remove the entire back wall it's mounted against, so yeah... that'll be a day without a toilet for me XD

Journeyman Geek

2:44 PM

._.

I will probably end up working either at the office for a day, or at my parent's place :)

He's not demolishing things right now!

Journeyman Geek

As far as you know

Though needing to remove the back wall makes sense. Also ow

I hope its covered by the builder?

Yeah, should be. Paying wasn't mentioned at least ;)

Journeyman Geek

Oh! One of my co-workers flat is closer to being finished. They sent him a 3d model of the place + a example of how it would look with an ID doing work on it

That sounds nice!!

Journeyman Geek

3:07 PM

Beans, Beans, the Musical Fruit

"Beans, Beans, The Musical Fruit" (alternatively, "Beans, Beans, the Magical Fruit") is a playground saying and children's song about the capacity for beans to contribute to flatulence.The basis of the song (and bean/fart humor in general) is the high amount of oligosaccharides present in beans. Bacteria in the large intestine digest these sugars, producing carbon dioxide, hydrogen and methane. These gases are expelled from the body as flatulence. == Lyrics == == Popular culture == A version of the rhyme appears at the beginning of Robert Crumb's comic strip, "Crybaby's Blues". In The Simpsons...

If you have been searching for that since your original remark... that was a long rabbithole!

2 hours later…

5:14 PM

user image

Loooook! TILES!

2 hours later…

7:21 PM

...aaaaand dirty footprints on your light grey tiles already :P

what's that strange thing in the back on the left? an AC unit in the garden? :)

That's the heat pump

oh cool :)

figured that would be up against the house, but they put this one pretty far away

It was supposed to go on the roof of the building, but since the residents of already finished apartments were complaining about the noise/vibrations of those, I was given the choice of backyard or front yard instead.

can always put some plant pots in front of it or something

it does need space to breathe, but I reckon 30-50cm is probably enough

I said I would only accept it if they didn't put it close to the house. I already knew I wanted a basically apartment wide "afdak" at that stage. And front was no option as that's where the bedroom window is XD

7:24 PM

hehehe

@MiG Yeah. Plants are the plan atm

brand new house then, nice :)

Yeah. Comes with a bit of backstory as the first contractor was a careless good for nothing that went bankrupt

But eventually things worked out

oh, that sucks :(

my parents had something similar when they had their house built, fortunately in their case it happened right after it was finished... just means that there was no warranty :x

Most of it is that I'm now stuck with a heat pump in the backyard, moisture/mold and lots of little things that need repairing as the originally hired people just did it wrong... The current contractor people are pretty good at getting things fixed and nice about it though, probably because all of it is paid by the warranty :P

7:28 PM

oh of course, bouwgarantiefonds

I forgot about that one

And I had a lot of extra time to save money and do more expensive stuff. Like getting a PVC floor instead of just cheap click laminate

the mould in a new house is a bit disconcerting tbh, I hope they're making major fixes or it'll return in no time

hehe

our current house has a wooden floor, it creaks like hell sometimes but I would love to have one of those when we buy something

They're going to redo all the silicone edges in the bathroom, and the ceilings weren't mold... So should be fixed soon enough ;)

hehe nice

@MiG yeah, nothing beats a real wooden floor

7:30 PM

gotta be a ventilation issue though

make sure they check the 'ventilatievoud', that should be very high in a bathroom

@MiG nah, mostly they're so unevenly sloppy it's almost impossible to clean them

I think it was something like 8-10x, they have a device that looks like a horn that they can measure this with

Ventilation is fine. I can have a hot bath, and I'll run the mechanical ventilation for an hour afterwards and everything is dry again: mirror, walls, air

still very strange it would be mouldy, that is almost always directly related to not drying fast enough, and therefore, ventilation

luchtklimaatservice.nl/inregelen-van-ventilatiesystemen - this thing btw

It's more like... Laundry dries well when you hang it out, but if you leave it balled up, it dries much slower. These edges are ... Almost 'gerafeld'. So water gets sort of stuck underneath in little spots

7:35 PM

the high ventilation rate is supposed to be dimensioned so that even those small spots dry up quick enough, that's why bathroom ventilation is so noisy

mould is a no no, that'll have a negative effect on your health :(

I always dry off all the shower right after using it anyways, saves on cleaning as you will have no calcium spots. That includes the silicone edges, but there's just spots I can't "reach"

that is always a great idea, I (should) do the same :)

tbh, I mostly stick to the shiny metal stuff, walls I use antikal on every once in a while

but yeah, my parents use a window wiper in the shower cabin for that reason

Window wiper on the walls, then I use multifiber towel to dry off the shiny metal, and go over the walls and edges of the bath tub. I usually use another towel to dry out the entire bath tub

oh man :x

I think I would just install some kind of jet engine to avoid that... 200x ventilation rate :d

Hahahaha

To be fair, it sounds like a lot of work but it beats scrubbing away stains later. Trust me

Only thing that really needs extra cleaning so far has been those silicone edges, once a week with a strong bleach water these days.

7:43 PM

that'll do it :)

8:01 PM

Apparently not enough ;)

well, the bleach fixes the problem :P but it should not appear so quickly and in large quantities imo

Define large quantities... It's visible, but it's not like overtaking the tiles yet :P

oh, I thought it was large quantities as you were concerned about it... no, not overtaking tiles, but definitely a lot more than you would expect considering all your effort :)

8:37 PM

Well if it's visible, it's definitely large enough quantities to be worried about ...

But yeah, it's mostly just 1-2mm black spots

Here and there

ugh... I don't usually say this, but you have my permission to commit genocide :P

user image

Hehehe I try :)

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