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Happy new year, etc. Wound up doing Uber Eats for 5 hours, since they had a $28/hour guarantee so long as you averaged 1.6 orders/hour between 5-10pm. 1.6x5=8. I managed 8 orders in that time frame. Granted, they take a big cut of it (25%  ), but that's $105 after their cut. Went to mom's afterwards to have dinner and get the tamales she picked up for me (which are loving awesome). Figured I'd log back into Uber Eats to try and catch a delivery or two on my way home, and...... account suspended. gently caress. I forgot they made me upload a picture of the registration sticker on my car; my registration expired at midnight (I'll have the money to renew it on Thursday, finally, just gotta make sure to keep the paperwork with me showing it has a valid inspection and that I finally got the registration block released). Have hours with GrubHub tomorrow too (they're doubling our per-trip payout, plus the usual mileage+tips), and I've started managing to get hours with Amazon again. I'm still doing serious job hunting, but I managed to make rent, should be able to get caught up on all of my bills except my car payment this month (car is 2 months behind, I should be able to be fully caught up next month, but I'll be 1 month behind after I make this payment), and a friend that works in medical billing/coding is encouraging me to go ahead and try for a certificate in it; it apparently pays pretty well, and she has amazing benefits.So.. things are looking up for sure. If I can consistently get hours with my driving gigs and enroll in a certificate program Had an ER visit on the 30th though, for what I thought was either DTs or a heart attack.  I still drink too much, but the doctor ran a shitton of bloodwork to rule out, well, DTs, strokes, heart issues, and blood clots. She also hit me with a small dose of ativan right away; once the nurse told me the dose I knew it wasn't enough for DTs, but it calmed me right the gently caress down and got my blood pressure to downright normal (almost too low). She said my bloodwork was "fantastic except for low sodium", one liver count was slightly elevated, and it was a combination of thinking I was in withdrawal and the low sodium that likely caused it. Jesus christ, I never want that experience again (and I KNOW I don't want the hospital bill, since the hospital isn't in-network, but apparently the doctor is). Got a couple of bags of fluids and send home with a small prescription for librium (which is commonly used for withdrawal, but also works for anxiety). Walked the half mile to a 24 hour pharmacy to get it filled, used uber to get home. I've used the librium a little today whenever I got shaky, but I know from past experience that if I was using it for severe withdrawal, I would have used the entire bottle before midnight... so not nearly in bad of shape as I thought I was. I think in a couple of days I'll be out of the (physical) rut I got myself into.Have an appointment with my doctor on the 2nd (already had it lined up prior to this). ER doc strongly suggested I get on something stronger than a SSRI for anxiety (tried SSRIs, nope). Going to ask my doctor about Buspar (which is non-addictive) for anxiety and naltrexone for alcohol cravings. I'm going to give AA another shot, too. My drinking these days is 75% because it helps with anxiety, 25% to knock myself out at night. Just wish I could loving sleep. tl;dr I'm already very optimistic about 2017 being the year I finally get sober, and my financial situation has improved a bit (credit still took a big hit, but I only have a few 30 day lates at this point). tl;dr2 sorry for the wall of text. I'm on the wired side because I only had 3 drinks on NYE vs my usual 12-15/day, and trying not to take the benzo I was prescribed until I get shaky. meltie posted:My 190e's lazy starting has deepened into a 15-minute stumble fest before *something* warms up properly and it's OK. I got stuck in London yesterday because of it. Replaced rotor, wires and plugs today, no better. It feels very similar to when my voltage regulator last shat the bed. Does K-Jet use a coolant temp sensor and/or an oxygen sensor? A 1 wire oxygen sensor takes a bit to heat up, and they get flaky as they get old. A CTS that's reporting much colder than it really is until it finally warms up would really gently caress with things. I've never worked with K-Jet though, so I have absolutely no idea how it works, just basing this on my knowledge of mid 80s+ Honda EFI. The Door Frame posted:Guaranteed. I already had one customer ask if I had the Uber app before ordering herself 3 drinks Don't EVER order an Uber ride using your own account (even if it's paid with the customer's CC) for someone else. The driver gets to rate the rider, and if you get too many <4 star ratings, drivers will start cancelling on you, and eventually your account gets locked. And if they're a puker, that's generally an automatic 1 star + a big cleaning fee. The Uber app also doesn't show you your customer rating. ilkhan posted:Woke up on December 31st, there's already a January chat thread. Welp. Kinda surprised it took so long TBH, I think I've seen a couple of new month threads start with 3 days left in the month.
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Jan 1, 2017 12:30
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Rigged Death Trap posted:I saw some fireworks at midnight Someone that isn't me may or may not have a pretty good sized cache of fireworks. Which are a massive fine for using, or even possessing, within city limits. That rear end in a top hat probably lit a few roman candles off of their balcony too.
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Jan 1, 2017 17:17
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No new holes in my roof or car despite living in the semi-ghetto, so...
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Jan 1, 2017 17:41
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Galler posted:I've been sick since Tuesday and it's pretty awful. Doesn't seem bad enough to be the flu but I've never had a cold last this long either. gently caress 20161227 to ?.gif I woke up feeling like complete rear end and shooting snot rockets every time I exhaled. Took a nap a bit later, and now my throat is so sore I can barely swallow anything (sorry CSB). Damnit.
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Jan 2, 2017 00:35
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Seminal Flu posted:I'm switching the A/V setup in my family room and the equipment is not going to be line-of-sight. Something like this?     This is a bottom of the line Onkyo that's probably 4 years old. You can do everything with the remote that you can do with the front panel. The remote's IR, but I assume you have something in mind for that already. randomidiot fucked around with this message at 03:05 on Jan 2, 2017 |
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Jan 2, 2017 02:58
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Seminal Flu posted:Yeah, like that. I'm using a base Yamaha and nice.Pioneer that's a few years old and neither have anything on screen through the HDMI output... Any good, name brand receiver that handles HDMI should be able to handle that these days. This was a $250 "subwoofer + 5 speakers + receiver in a box" thing, which is very bottom tier. The speakers got thrown out immediately (LOL full range when I already owned 2 way components), but I needed a sub, and needed a receiver that could handle HDMI. That said, if I'm using component video, I have to switch to component inputs on both the stereo and TV. In that case, no OSD at all, but this is pretty much the poverty spec Onkyo from its time - I only use those inputs for my Dreamcast, Playstation, and NES. Even if I do run the component/composite video through the receiver, it can't output them over HDMI, nor can it do OSD with them. But ... again... poverty spec receiver. I'm pretty positive that any fully featured Onkyo can do all of that, just happens . Anything higher end will be able to handle the HDMI <-> anything video and do an OSD overlay. For the game consoles, I've found it's easier to just leave a set of cables hanging out of the TV for them. I already have an optical cable to the stereo from the TV for when I use the TV for OTA stuff. I'm pretty surprised the Pioneer doesn't have OSD - this Onkyo is probably 4, maybe even 5, years old, and it's quite literally the lowest end full receiver that they sold at the time. To be very specific, I have this poo poo. I only opted for the home-theater-in-a-box approach because (a) it was an actual proper receiver and (b) came with a (crappy) subwoofer. A scrub tier name brand receiver and sub would have cost what I paid for this. randomidiot fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Jan 2, 2017 |
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Jan 2, 2017 16:03
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supposedly Toyota had fixed the oil consumption for the 2012 model year. According to the TSB, anyway.clam ache posted:The XB comes with that ? I thought it had the smaller motor? Oh well Leica is no stranger to toyotas. I'm just as surprised as you are at learning this, but google says 2.4 on that model year.
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Jan 3, 2017 03:10
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funny Star Wars parody posted:this makes me wonder what the gently caress was going on at my old 600sqft flat because my heat and electric bills are virtually the same if not cheaper and my current house is 2100sqft Apartments are built as cheaply as possible, and generally skimp on things like "insulation", "HVAC that's remotely efficient", and the like. Also, at least here, they tend to be all electric. My highest electric bill so far (in this apartment) was around $200. My lowest hasn't been below $80 yet, and I have all LED lighting except for the kitchen (typical 4 ft strip fluorescent fixture) and bathroom (tried it in there, the bulbs kept failing, usually while I was showering). The insulation in this place is laughable - on really cold nights, there's a good 15 degree difference between the living room and kitchen. I'm in a ~750 sq ft top floor apartment. My worst was in a 900 sq ft apartment... my summer electric bills were higher than my rent. I nailed over $600 that August... and nailed $500 in January. There was absolutely zero insulation in there, the ac couldn't get it below 85 during the day in the summer, and the heat couldn't get it above 55-60 in the winter.
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Jan 3, 2017 06:48
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Sprinklers are required by code in multifamily housing these days in most of the US, same with building-wide fire alarms. Some areas have gone so far as to mandate sprinklers in new single family homes now. Some places do give a poo poo about efficiency during building, sounds like you guys found one. randomidiot fucked around with this message at 07:21 on Jan 3, 2017 |
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Jan 3, 2017 07:19
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Rhyno posted:The sprinkler system is unique herein that it only goes off in the room where the fire is detected as we learned in August. Most of the new construction here has an all on system so if you set your kitchen on fire your bedroom is gonna get soaked as well. Uh... no. The great majority of fire sprinklers are like the ones you have. What you have is what's called a wet pipe system, where the sprinklers always have water pressure behind them. Look at a fire sprinkler sometime. See that little (usually) red part in the middle? That's all that's holding the water back. It's full of liquid; once that liquid gets hot enough, the little vial pops, unleashing the water. There's no reason to cause water damage to an entire building when a fire may be limited to one room. Some of them may use a thermal fuse instead of the liquid vial, but the function is the same. This is also why the sprinkler itself has to be replaced after it's been triggered. A deluge system is the kind you see portrayed in movies. They're out there, but not as common, and need something to trigger them (fire alarm system, etc). They also don't start spraying instantly like you see in movies, since the entire piping system for it is dry until triggered - so it takes a bit for the water to travel to everything. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_sprinkler_system https://www.archtoolbox.com/materials-systems/fire-supression/sprinklerheadtypes.html randomidiot fucked around with this message at 13:02 on Jan 3, 2017 |
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Jan 3, 2017 12:56
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Fermented Tinal posted:Well, what if my kink is breaking down voltage? What then, huh? You might say you're transforming... you might even be building a magnetic personality. But I'm not ohm to tell someone to resist whatever makes their arc flash auras, or how to use their probes. I'll show myself out... randomidiot fucked around with this message at 06:29 on Jan 5, 2017 |
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Jan 5, 2017 06:12
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Nice. Just went to do laundry... someone decided it'e be fun to rip doors off of a dryer (and kick the poo poo out of a few others), take a dump in a couple of washers, rip the ceiling fan off the ceiling (still hanging by the wires), and have fun with the fire extinguisher. It's not like I'm wearing my last clean shirt or pair of pants or anything. 
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Jan 5, 2017 07:48
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freelop posted:What drives someone to do something like that? I live in kind of a lovely area. v  vEither some assholes that wanted to trash a place, or someone got sick of half the equipment always being broken (CSC Serviceworks ).. so they broke the rest. There's a bunch of kids (as in teens) that live a couple of buildings away that I've caught checking cars to see if they were unlocked before (including mine), and their building backs up to the laundry building.... that's my only guess on who it could be, since I don't really talk to many neighbors.Not the first time someone's dumped the fire extinguisher, and I've seen the dryer doors caved in, but never things straight up torn apart. Several dryers had the latch torn out too. I called the non emergency number and made a vandalism report with the police, they said they'd send someone out sometime tonight to document it with pictures and follow up with the office, but since no witnesses and the building is always wide open, it gets the lowest possible priority. Emailed the office about it too, I don't think they check on the laundry room every day (even if they did, they don't own the equipment itself). I get to go to a laundromat tomorrow I guess.
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Jan 5, 2017 08:06
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Got a nice spicy pot of beans cooked up, and I have the last of my new years tamales reheating via steam right now. I'm going to bed with a full belly tonight. Finally got my drat car legal again too. Kinda surprised my tow-happy apartments never slapped a tow sticker on it, but they haven't bothered my downstairs neighbor's car either (her registration expired at the end of November). IOwnCalculus posted:Ffffuuuuuuuck. I woke up mid-yank. Novocaine and xylocaine do absolutely nothing for me either. My dentist screamed at me in front of my mother about me being a coke addict (apparently there's a cross tolerance). I had never done coke before at that point, but when I did eventually get into it, I got into it heavy. It took tons of it for me to even feel anything. slurry_curry posted:Yea, one of the implants I have to get this year is to replace I root canal I got ~4 years ago. The root has since cracked, so it needs to go. lovely part is, they have to pull the tooth, wait for it to heal, put in the implant, wait for it to heal then finally put the finished tooth on. Should be about 8 months start to finish according to my oral surgeon. At least its the tooth behind my k9 so its not super noticeable. I thought I had a crown coming off a few months back. It was a tooth that I'd had a root canal on, and it felt loose. .... the whole loving thing came out (including everything below the gum), crown still firmly attached. Thank gently caress it wasn't something in front, but it freaked me out pretty bad. I don't think there's even a gum left to put an implant in that particular spot now.  I know I'm going to need pretty much all implants eventually, but my teeth were doing the breaking thing, not the "entire loving thing falls out" thing.mariooncrack posted:Not sure if that's embedding correctly. Sorry if it isn't.  FTFY
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Jan 6, 2017 06:59
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZFqgqHivZw You know something has gone really, really wrong on the roads when you see that on your way home. Took my normal 20-30 minute drive from the part of town I was in to home, to a nearly 2 hour drive. It wasn't the road conditions in that video, but all the bridges were iced over (and just a bit past where that vid ends is a ~5 mile bridge over a lake) and it was accidents galore. The snow didn't even stick, people just don't know not to make sudden movements on an icy bridge. I was one of the last ones to get through I think, the police shut the highway down in both directions. Three-Phase posted:I need to start buying groceries through Amazon or something. If you already have Prime and live in an area that Amazon Fresh exists.... it's a thing.  but it's an extra $14.99/mo on top of your Prime membership. and if you were in DFW I might be the one delivering it, do you really want to catch the gay when you handle those boxes?Somewhat Heroic posted:Grocery stores being out of normal things is super irritating. Target is out of stock on the diapers we get for my kid all the time. It is like "WTF people? How are you out of this?" Hate to be an Amazon shill, but on stuff like diapers you can set them up to be auto-ordered regularly. Bulk Vanderhuge posted:What level are you? If you can tolerate living in the frozen north Primary Care Paramedics in my city start at 50k and go to 81k after 4 years, before OT. And that's on the lower end of the payscale in the country. His city also outsources their ambulance service. So you know, there is that. randomidiot fucked around with this message at 14:10 on Jan 7, 2017 |
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Jan 7, 2017 14:08
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angryrobots posted:Are there places that don't outsource ambulances? I always thought of them as private companies. At least in TX, EMS is usually part of the city fire department if the city is large enough to have a paid fire department, and the ambulances are parked at the fire station in one of the bays. The firefighters are almost always cross trained to at least an EMT Basic level, and calling for an ambulance often gets a fire truck too. Rural areas will sometimes have a county-run EMS service, others may contract with the nearest city or a private company. The city I'm in requires all firefighters be at least EMT Basic certified, and has almost all ALS ambulances (if not all of them). I always thought most cities had EMS under the FD. Guess not? Dallas runs EMS under the FD as well, though they'll station ambulances around the city during the afternoon and evening. They have contracts with private companies for overflow, which was a big deal last year in the news when that cost came to light (it would be a lot cheaper long term to buy more ambulances and hire more EMTs). randomidiot fucked around with this message at 02:42 on Jan 8, 2017 |
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Jan 8, 2017 02:38
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Pham Nuwen posted:I would like to clean my 'new' transmission a little bit before I install it. What's the best way to get old nasty grease off without making a huge mess / killing all my grass / etc? Purple Power and a rise? If I work on a concrete slab, will it stain the fucker? Yes, it will stain the slab. Lay down several layers of cardboard and go to town with some brake cleaner? Or throw it in the back of someone's truck and take it to a self service car wash and hit it with degreaser, use the rinse there. Take it out of the truck first if they value their paint.  Or do what I did and just toss it in the trunk with some rags, take it out to wash it, wipe it off as best you can and chunk it back into the trunk to take it home.Goes without saying, but make sure the tailshaft opening is covered somehow.
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Jan 8, 2017 02:48
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A popular mod with the ricer crowd on 80s and 90s Civics was to use a motorcycle battery to save weight. It would start the engine fine... so long as you didn't dare turn on any lights or the radio without the engine running.
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Jan 8, 2017 03:40
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That was really weird. Started the car to go get stuff to cook dinner and to get gas for tomorrow. Left headlight was really bright and flickering, and the high beam indicator was flickering too. Flicked it to high and that bulb went out completely - no high or low beam (single bulb, dual filament). Never lost both filaments at the same time before. Also meant dropping  on another bulb instead of making a pot of stew.  I know the other bulb isn't far behind since they both went in at the same time; I get paid Monday, hopefully it lasts until then! or if it doesn't, hopefully at least one filament remains intact so I can be that rear end in a top hat driving around with high beams on instead of getting stopped for having a light out.....When I pulled the bulb out, both filaments were gone, there was just a melted glob of metal lying below where the filaments used to be, and the top of the bulb (when positioned as if installed) was black. 
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Jan 8, 2017 07:12
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Wait, what's going on with Roadkill's episode numbering? The MCM episode was #60. #58 just went live on Youtube. Did they just release the MCM mashup to the public instead of putting it behind the paywall for a bit?
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Jan 8, 2017 09:05
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That makes too much sense for Roadkill! e: the car wash scene  randomidiot fucked around with this message at 09:16 on Jan 8, 2017 |
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Jan 8, 2017 09:14
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meltie posted:What's the opinion on using FS in older engines that have lived their lives on Dino? On my old car, existing oil leaks got worse, valve cover in particular turned into an oil bukakke, but cold start rattles pretty much disappeared. I also noticed on that car that the oil pressure light would shut off while cranking after switching to synthetic, before the engine fired - with conventional (same weight), it would flicker a bit while cranking, flicker a couple of times after it fired, and finally shut off after it'd been running for a second or so. That car had 130k when I got it, almost 180k when I got rid of it. Also, on the first and second oil changes after the switch, chunks of nasty came out with the oil. I don't think the oil pressure sender works on my current car.  It comes on for the bulb check at key on, but turns off when the airbag, brake, etc lights turn off, even if I haven't started the engine. Also doesn't come on if I stall the engine. You can get away with running synthetic quite a bit longer vs conventional (assuming a fuel injected gasoline engine), which helps offset the cost. The price difference isn't that big if you do your own oil changes - 5 quart jugs of Mobil 1 are $27 at Walmart here (one brand of synthetic is as low as $15 for 5 quarts in the same store, which is about the same price as a 5 quart jug of name brand conventional), and my oil filters run $6 for OEM (also carried by Walmart) or $3 for Walmart's store brand. Current car story: I got my current car with 60k on it. I assume it had been run on conventional its whole life by how it looked under the oil cap and the fact that GM has absolutely zero dealer maintenance records on it (aside from its original pre-purchase inspection). It now has 160k; I've been running synthetic since I bought it. It leaks a little from the valve cover (gasket is on my list of things to do next week), but even with the extended oil change intervals I run (9-10k, basically when the "change oil" message shows up), it only uses 1-2 quarts between oil changes. That amount of consumption is less than what car makers consider normal on a brand new car that's within warranty, and I don't exactly baby it. The 100k I've put on it are mostly delivery/courier miles, so it's seen a ton of city miles, lots of redline pulls to merge with highway traffic, and a lot of engine off/on cycles. I've sent oil samples in to Blackstone Labs 3 times now, and they always say the wear levels they see are along the lines of an engine with far less miles. After looking at the bottom of the oil filler cap, and inside the valve cover through the filler opening, I'm pretty sure the original owner didn't really think about oil changes much. It's nasty in there, but hasn't gotten any worse since I've owned it. Enourmo posted:If full synthetic "makes" your engine leak, your seal(s) were already bad and it was a matter of time before whatever crud was blocking the leak got dislodged. Also, this. Synthetic typically has more detergents than conventional oil (so I'm told), so it'll wash away stuff that's clogging a bad gasket. That gasket needed replacing anyway. spog posted:UK: In the US, Napa was selling store brand full synthetic for $3/quart in single quart bottles recently, which works out to roughly 4.75 litres if you get 5 quarts (my car takes 5 quarts, so I always buy the big bottles, then buy whatever is cheap to top it off if I need to). No idea on the currency conversion though. For comparison, I typically pay $27 for a 5 quart bottle of Mobil 1 high mileage synthetic, with individual quarts selling for $7 at the same store. Maybe they're selling it as a loss leader? As in, sell it at a loss to get people in the door, in hopes that they'll buy other stuff. It's very common to do that in the US to get people in the door, in hopes they'll buy other stuff. The Locator posted:MGS can provide more details, but in this area many of the big cities have the ambulance service as part of the fire department and are paid accordingly, but it's ridiculously competitive to land a job with one of those departments. I didn't want to give away the company or city MGS was in (even though it's fairly common knowledge in the chat thread), but... yeah. Rural/Metro doesn't pay worth poo poo, and at least from what I understand, I think the city he's in outsources most EMS services to R/M? The city I'm in pays police recruits $57k/year, and doesn't require a college degree, topping out at $79k/year. That's before overtime. Pay for EMS and fire is a bit harder to find, but it looks like a recruit FF/EMT-B starts at $51k before OT. From what I'm reading it sounds like you have to be cross trained as both a FF and a minimum EMT-B (at least, I can't find any pay info for just EMS - all EMS stuff is lumped under fire dept). The only education requirements in my city are a GED for police, and community college for FF/EMT. And I'm in a not-wealthy-at-all city - at one point they were broke enough that instead of repairing all of the maintaining and repairing all of the outdoor warning sirens (you know, tornados, etc), they just shut them all off for a few years until they could replace the entire system (they were down to <25% of sirens working). Dallas pays less, and requires at least 45 college credit hours for police.. and the city manager wonders why they can't keep cops. Looks like their fire and EMS positions pay less than the suburb I'm in too. Tomarse posted:I'll have you know that the current mineral oil loss via leaking seals and gaskets in all my classic vehicles is carefully calibrated and controlled.  British vehicle owner spottedOlympic Mathlete posted:Oh god this is my future isn't it? I carry a 1l around with me at all times and top up the engine as and when. I think I've worked out the exact mileage number per litre... And this is why I shall be engine swapping the car this year hopefully. My Integra used enough oil that I just assumed it needed a quart every time I filled up. And generally, I was right. I eventually wound up keeping either a case or 5 quart jug in the hatch with me, and if I didn't top off the oil when I filled up, I'd be greeted with a flickering oil light before I filled up again. The friend I wound up giving the car to said oil poured out of the cat once he yanked the engine and downpipe. I believe it, compression was barely into the double digits on 2 cylinders. Downshifting in that thing at highway speeds would give off a smoke screen that would make James Bond poo poo himself. randomidiot fucked around with this message at 10:26 on Jan 9, 2017 |
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Jan 9, 2017 10:23
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angryrobots posted:The 5qt jug of Mobil1 is regularly on sale for 15 bux-ish at Wal-Mart. Some weirdos on bobistheoilguy say it's a different formula but they are full of poo poo. I've never seen it for less than $19 there, and that was once - sales usually bring it down to $22-23 and change. You sure they're not talking about Mobil Super? angryrobots posted:Also it may be on the endcap or somewhere else with the sale price, but the normal aisle location says regular price. Seen that too. I saw the opposite last time I was there. Endcap price was $29. Shelf tags were $26. It rang up as $29 and they refused to even send someone to look at the shelf tag, so I walked out without anything. randomidiot fucked around with this message at 19:06 on Jan 9, 2017 |
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Jan 9, 2017 19:03
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Damnit. Did brakes on mom's car a bit over a year ago, using Advance Auto semi metallics. It failed inspection today, the shop said they were grinding. Mom said she doesn't feel any grinding, but they tried to sell her a brake job. At least they didn't charge her for the inspection, so it doesn't have a failed inspection on its record. Ordered new rotors and ceramic pads for her to pick up from Advance tomorrow morning, going to swing by after work and see if they were actually grinding or not. She drives a lot less than I do, and I'm at 2 1/2 years on $6.99 organic brake pads. Ceramic pads and both front rotors came out to $71 with tax (gotta love those Advance coupons). I'm going to be downright pissed if the shop was just trying to swindle her. Those brakes probably have 15k on them, my lovely $6.99 Rockauto closeouts have 60k. I'm really hoping a caliper isn't dragging, I've never had to deal with bleeding a car with ABS before. Pham Nuwen posted:Eww, there's crud suspended in the Midget's clutch reservoir. Should I just try to bleed it down until the reservoir's empty, then clean it with a paper towel and bleed it again? I discovered this because the clutch is basically right on the floor and has basically no range of motion, figured it needs to be bled. Use a turkey baster to get everything out instead of sending that crap through the lines.
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Jan 10, 2017 05:55
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So... oil chat. I normally swear by Mobil 1 and OEM filters. I'm broke as poo poo, and the change oil message has been showing for well over a month now. I won't run conventional, I only buy it if I need to top off the oil a bit before I need to change it. I picked up Walmart's store brand (Supertech) synthetic, and was surprised to see that it was dexos2 certified (my car doesn't call for it, but later models with the same engine did call for it)). Also got the Supertech brand oil filter, and it looks exactly like the AC Delco filters I've been buying from Walmart (except for the part number printed on the filter) - for less than half the price, and actually includes a new o-ring for the oil filter cap (it's a cartridge filter instead of a spin-on). Opinions? Some googling suggests Champion made both Supertech and AC Delco filters at one point, so I may go ahead and stick with these (the new o-ring is nice too; the cap is leaking pretty good on mine right now). Even Fram filters for my car are normally $8, the AC Delco filter is usually $6-$7. Kinda wondering about the quality of the oil, a 5 quart jug of it was the same price as name brand conventional oil. The only stuff I could find about it was some really old posts (10+ years old) on the BITOG forums saying it wasn't bad. I'm not going to push it as far as I normally push Mobil 1, but the price seemed really good. Rhyno posted:Does your mom appear to be a little out of it or is she still sharp? My mom likes to put on this aloof, spacey act whenever she needs to have a service done just to see if they'll try to gently caress her over and without fail some dick always tries to upsell her on poo poo. She's still as sharp as it gets. She's coming up on 69, but mentally shows no signs of slowing down. Physically she doesn't get around like she used to, but she's also part cyborg now (titanium hips). She's kinda clueless when it comes to a lot of car stuff, and her hearing isn't so great anymore (but still better than mine!), but she knows what grinding brakes (and the wear indicator squeal) sounds like. She runs anything a mechanic suggests by both me and my stepfather before approving any work - the only mechanic she trusts 100% on everything is the one I used for years, and only because she knows I trust him. He's a long drive for her though. She avoids chain shops in general, aside from a local chain for oil changes (which changed once she realized it only costs $30 to have me do the oil change w/Mobil 1 vs the $70-80 she was paying before) There's only about 15k on those brake pads and rotors. I ordered pads and rotors for pickup tomorrow just in case, but I'm pretty sure the rotors, at the least, will be getting returned. The pads on there now are Advance Auto semi-metallics with a lifetime warranty, so I could probably get away with returning them for credit, at least if I bring the receipt showing I'd purchased store brand ceramics. The only way I see those pads already being worn out is if a pad came apart, a caliper is dragging, or if the slide pins got stuck (I, uh... may not have greased them last time). She said it's not pulling when braking either, so I'm doubting a sticking caliper. I'll know tomorrow night. A guy I used to work with would send his girlfriend to shops with his 80s Prelude for basic maintenance stuff just to see how they treated her (this was in the early 2000s), and she would pull the airhead act. Turns out he'd sent her to the mechanic I used for years, and he was completely honest about the car being in good shape and not needing anything, after asking when the timing belt was last done. Just suggested a timing belt around <whatever mileage would make it 60k for that timing belt>, and did the oil change she asked for. He wound up using that shop for a long time. randomidiot fucked around with this message at 09:48 on Jan 10, 2017 |
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Jan 10, 2017 09:44
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Yu-Gi-Ho! posted:Damnit. Did brakes on mom's car a bit over a year ago, using Advance Auto semi metallics. Shop owner is a lying sack of poo poo. He drove the car with her in it and jammed on the brakes, and mom heard "grinding" then. I had her ride in the car with me driving tonight, and slammed on the brakes. She said it was the same grinding sound. It was the ABS kicking in.  They were a little over half worn on the passenger side, about 3/4 worn on the drivers side, rotors look brand new. Both drivers side pads were worn equally, so I think the caliper may be starting to stick. The amount of brake dust was pretty equal on both front wheels, and it's not pulling at all (even when laying into the brakes hard). I'll replace the caliper next time if the wear is still odd. I forgot how tiny the pads were for such a big car. I think the pads on my Saturn are bigger, but she has 4 wheel disc brakes; I have drums in the back. So anyone know what Advance does if you return half of an order that had a big coupon on it? It was a $40 off of $100+ order coupon, which brought the total for 2 rotors + ceramic pads (Carquest Gold) down to $71 with tax. She's taking the rotors back tomorrow. BraveUlysses posted:is it even illegal to "brandish" an airsoft weapon? even if the kid's dad is a cop the shooter could probably walk scott-free It is absolutely illegal. Not everyone knows that the orange tip means it's a "toy". And airsoft guns can still gently caress you up, just not as bad as real bullets. Children have pulled airsoft guns on cops and wound up dead. Rhyno posted:His story is full of holes Kinda like his leg and car?
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Jan 11, 2017 07:07
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Make sure there's not an early payoff penalty first. If there is, you may want to look into refinancing, and compare the refi cost to the early payoff. Now that your student loans are gone, you may be able to get a lower APR anyway, just give it a month or two to update across your credit files. That was a really awesome thing that your mom did for you.
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Jan 11, 2017 08:08
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funny Star Wars parody posted:Yeah Yeah, going after the high APR stuff is usually the best bet if you can do so. $2k/mo in student loan repayments is murder. Sounds like a decent mortgage to me? My mom bought her house in 2000, had a credit score in the high 700s, a $150k down payment, and still got hit with a 7% APR, with a company she'd dealt with in the past both professionally (working in car dealers) and personally (3 or 4 houses purchased with them). Gotta love housing booms. She got the house paid off several years ago after the mortgage holder went bankrupt and sold all of their mortgages to a subprime lender that she'd had experience with when she worked in car dealers - as soon as she found out who owned it she pulled the money out of her retirement to pay off the house. There was a huge clusterfuck following that thanks to the company losing track of the payoff for several months. My student loans range from 3.4% to 9.99%. The 9.99% is my only private loan (Sallie Mae), the rest is a mix of subsidized and unsubsidized federal loans. I'm sitting at about $18k in loans  but the bulk of them are subsidized.
randomidiot fucked around with this message at 10:04 on Jan 11, 2017 |
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Jan 11, 2017 09:58
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and there is no early repayment penalty so I technically could have dumped the money into that instead, but my mortgage is a 3.25% rate with 3% APR and my student loans are 8% 
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funny Star Wars parody posted:I should probably go see an accountant or financial adviser of some sort QFT. If you're doing decent enough that you're worrying about tax benefits vs paying stuff off, you need a good CPA and a financial advisor. Those can be the same person (sometimes), they could be different people (recommended). But you need someone familiar with your local laws. Ramsey has a lot of solid advice, but he's not your advisor, and he's not familiar with your local stuff. Therefore, has no legal responsibility for any advice that may or may not work for you.
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Jan 11, 2017 16:49
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Adiabatic posted:Please let me know if you have any questions. A financial advisor and CPA is a great idea and you should roll with that, but I want you to have ammo to first find the right one and second bring up questions for him/her to have to explain why it will/wont be in your best interest. I'm nowhere near TT's position financially (and won't be for a long time), but I'm genuinely curious how you find a good local advisor and CPA. I'm extremely lucky in that my father has been a CPA since the mid 1970s, was partner for a long time in one of the largest firms in my hometown, then went solo, then joined up with another firm that one of his former partners works in, and is slowly winding his own personal involvement down (and selling his clients off to the partnership he's currently in - he has no desire to be partner again). I'm able to use him for advice so long as I'm in Texas. But I don't plan to remain in Texas, and I know he's very close to retirement (he turned 70 in December). He's very much tied up in my hometown and doesn't really talk to many people outside of there, aside from being a professional witness as a CVA. tl;dr how do you find a good financial advisor and CPA? It doesn't seem like something you can just head over to Yelp for. Especially when you're in a metro area that makes up over a dozen counties and includes part of another state (DFW MSA is 20 counties and includes part of a county in Oklahoma). Also, what are fees like?
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Jan 11, 2017 17:40
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Adiabatic posted:Anti-sensationalism is a great trait for someone handling your money to have. Anyone who comes at you saying "I can outperform the index by X amount" can't back it up by fact. If they can, they got lucky for a short time (a short time in this case is 1 or 2 years) or they're doing something illegal/shady. Warren Buffet bet some awesome hedge fund manager $1MM he couldn't beat the market over something like 5 or 10 years. Dude had to pay Buffet. Also google Monkeys Beating Hedge Fund Managers At The Market. I'm not the smartest guy by a long shot - I'd guess I'm one of the lower IQ people in AI to be honest - but I know if I were to invest anything, it would be on the highly conservative side. I'd rather have a guaranteed small, even tiny, payout, vs "hey I KNOW I can get you 10% back this year alone!" followed by "I lost 25% of your investment, but you still owe me money for losing a bunch of your money". Fiscally, I tend to be very conservative outside of social spending. I'm hoping that within a year I'll be in a financial position to actually worry about investing, instead of playing the "gently caress I have more fires to put out?! Didn't I already pay that bill once or twice this year?! gently caress!" game. My stepdad buys into the "I can outperform EVERYBODY" hook, line, and sinker, and wonders why he's losing $20k+ a year.. that's before all of the software and webinar subscriptions, half of which come with plenty of malware. 
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Jan 11, 2017 18:07
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1500quidporsche posted:Because the money that would've gone towards paying that could be invested elsewhere to offset the hit you're taking. If you're generating a 4% return through investments versus a net 2% interest payment through tax deductions you're coming out ahead. Where you're partially right is what if your mortgage term is up in 5 years you've got 20 years left on the mortgage and the going interest rate is 12%, you might have been better off just paying down the mortgage over the long term. And this is why hiring a CPA and financial advisor that know your state (and preferably city, if not metro) laws is a really good idea. I'm certainly not smart enough to figure out if I should throw all my money at a mortgage, or throw some at it and go with some investments, etc. I'm bad at adulting, and particularly bad at math. I mentioned it before, but my dad has been a CPA since before I was born. He's able to advise me on federal and state stuff, but he has no clue on local stuff, since he's over 600 miles away and has never practiced in DFW. Texas is pretty easy for that too, since we don't have a state income tax - but each city is different, and there's several hundred cities/towns that make up the Dallas/Ft. Worth metro area alone. Whenever I finally buy a house, I'll be asking him if he knows anyone local to me to help me with everything. He and I both know he doesn't know region-specific stuff, and to be honest, it's highly unlikely I'll even be in Texas when I do buy. Even if I do live in DFW or Austin when I finally buy, my hometown (El Paso - where my dad lives, and has always practiced) is an arid desert climate, whereas I'm at the rear end in a top hat end of tornado alley (in a subtropical climate), so insurance requirements and suggestions are so different that we may as well be in different countries.
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Jan 11, 2017 19:01
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So I made a stink about how my mom got treated at this place on their Facebook page. The owner of the place just reached out to me on Facebook. There's a small chance this could get interesting. Rhyno posted:Okay this right here, you shut the hell up. You're one of the smartest people on this forum, you just make a few bad decisions from time to time. I'm serious, I'm visiting DFW this summer and I will punch you in the face. We have people with masters degrees (and higher) in here, while I don't have anything beyond a HS diploma and a couple of CE certificates. I have enough college credit hours for a bachelor's, if I could make up my own degree. But it'd be cool to meet up. Just don't knock out any of my remaining teeth unless I can knock some of yours out too.
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Jan 11, 2017 20:13
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Yu-Gi-Ho! posted:So I made a stink about how my mom got treated at this place on their Facebook page. The owner of the place just reached out to me on Facebook. So uh... they told me they just fired the person she dealt with.  And offered $125 off on some other work she asked about (struts).That escalated quicker than Ron Burgundy's penis around a 14 year old. I'm... shocked, impressed, and yet depressed that someone lost their job over this. But FFS don't try to rip off a nearly 70 year old woman with handicapped license plates...
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Jan 11, 2017 20:40
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IOwnCalculus posted:Don't look at it like this. They didn't lose their job because you complained, they lost their job because they went out of their way to try and defraud a customer. That's a good way of looking at it I guess. I know their techs get commission, but this was outright fraud. I'm impressed that they reached out to me so quick and handled it. They did ask that I not leave any negative reviews anywhere about this experience, since they're trying to compensate her (and honestly, they've gone WAY above that at this point). It's a local-ish chain that's fairly well known for trying to rip people off. I did send pictures of the brake pads to them, which probably helped. I didn't strip any EXIF data, so if Facebook didn't strip it, they would have seen the location as being less than a mile from their shop. I'm really impressed to be honest. I seriously doubt my mother will ever go back there, but she has one hell of a credit waiting for her if she does.
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Jan 11, 2017 20:55
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Easy there, Socrates. I was kinda joking about my intelligence. I know I'm above average in a lot of ways..... and dumb as poo poo in others. We're all kinda idiot savants in some way.
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Jan 11, 2017 21:12
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BoostCreep posted:Is there a list somewhere of people's old and new forum names? I get so loving confused. We need to go back a few years for me to really figure out who everyone is again.
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Jan 11, 2017 22:51
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So I had posted on Facebook trying to find a cheap desk chair. The metal base on mine has 3 of 4 welds broken, it's just a matter of time until it dumps me on my rear end. Which really sucks, it's a nice chair that's in good shape. Someone that I've never met in person offered me a desk chair. We've been facebook friends for a bit, I went to rehab with a mutual friend a few years ago. Went over to get the chair. "By the way, do you know anyone needing a washer and dryer?" Me: Yeah, I've been looking for an affordable set myself. How much do you want, and is the dryer gas or electric? "Oh, they're yours if you want them. Dryer's electric. I still use them all the time, just haven't hooked up my new ones yet. I'll let you know when you can get them, just promise you'll give them away instead of selling them whenever you replace them". Score! Gave them a quick look, washer looks to be a late 80s/early 90s model, dryer is probably mid 90s. Both Kenmore, both basic models, both fullsize, so I know they'll have good parts availability for a long time, and I know I can fix them when they break.
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Jan 12, 2017 23:01
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The Royal Nonesuch posted:Also, be super nice and compliant to the officer (keys out, hands at 10/2, etc) and don't talk any poo poo so he cuts you a break, while not saying anything beyond the bare minimum. I don't care what all the lawyers say (you know the ones that say barely open your window, keep asking the cop if you're free to go, etc), I've always tried to be very polite to cops. The side of the road is not the place to cop an attitude with law enforcement (or anyone), and if you disagree with the ticket, the courtroom is where you should sort it out. I never consent to searches (never have, never will, I'm a pretty private person), but beyond that it's yes sir, no sir, I'm sorry sir, where do I sign sir? Thank you sir, be safe out there.\ I've worked with a lot of cops over the years... one worked off-duty as security at a grocery store I worked at. I was chatting with him one night after the store closed and after I'd clocked out, and he was finishing up an accident report. I asked him what happened, he told me the situation, and that the person who was at fault immediately copped an attitude. So he started finding more and more reasons to write tickets. Oh, your inspection is expired. Oh, you don't have your insurance card? Well yes ma'am, I COULD look it up online, but that takes time, and you're supposed to keep a copy with you. And going by the damage and lack of skid marks, and the broken cell phone on the floor, it seems you were distracted, so here's another one for distracted driving. And by the way, the witnesses stated you didn't signal before pulling out, so here's a ticket for failure to signal. He was initially going to just cite her as being at fault and ignore the expired inspection, and he'd already looked up her insurance, so he knew she was insured. But the law still states you have to carry the physical paper ID card. I think he said he wound up giving her 6 tickets. He knew all but 1-2 would get dropped in court, but she pulled a nasty attitude, so he returned the favor. Rhyno posted:All for free? Wow! Yeah. She's a regular on Freecycle, Nextdoor, etc. She got this set (and the set replacing this set) for free, and anything she gets for free, she eventually passes on for free. Darchangel posted:You know, you my know someone in the area who has a welder. A lovely welder, but a welder nonetheless. I left Plano last year. I'm in far SE Garland now, kinda where Garland, Rowlett, and Sunnyvale meet. randomidiot fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Jan 13, 2017 |
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Jan 13, 2017 03:25
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I love chocolate. My pancreas, however, does not appreciate the sugar associated with chocolate. And gently caress "sugar free chocolate". That poo poo isn't chocolate. It's worse than Hershey's. I finally figured if you can't beat em, join em. The only people who can get hours at Amazon are the ones running macros on their phones that try to grab hours for them constantly. Worked more hours in the past week than I have in the past month combined. I don't feel bad about it. It's a badly kept secret that almost everyone at my warehouse cheats in some way. kastein posted:did your siblings troll you as a kid? I have some gift suggestions, ranging from fun to monstrous to outright war Suddenly I realize why my aunts and uncles (and grandfather) always gave me really neat loud poo poo as a kid.  CharlesM posted:[*]The cigarette lighter socket never turns off so you have to unplug the GPS, etc. every time. This might be OK if you could have it be optional / turn off when you open the door like the radio does Somehow, my car not only has two power sockets (unusual enough in a compact coupe)... but one of them stays on constantly, while the other shuts off with the ignition. Unfortunately, the one that shuts off is in the back seat... nice long trip for the dashcam power cord, but I can see why they chose the back one to turn on/off. The front one keeps my cell phone charger, which doesn't seem to do any appreciable drain overnight. Though for all I know the "constantly live" socket may turn off with everything else - if you leave the doors open, trunk open, or interior lights on, they turn off 15 minutes after the car is shut off. Noise Complaint posted:This plus the car's need to beep the horn if you use the lock button on the dash always drives me nuts in my Focus. I have no idea how I'd get into the car if I locked my keys in. The rental Jeep I had last year not only honked the horn anytime you used the keyfob to lock it, but it also turned on the headlights if you unlocked it with the fob - and kept them on until you got in. Not quite as bad as GM's "let's turn on EVERY EXTERIOR LIGHT INCLUDING THE HIGH BEAMS WHEN YOU UNLOCK THE CAR" approach on their newer vehicles, but at least GMs don't honk the horn unless you double press the lock button. Mine just flashes the turn signals for any keyfob press, it'll honk if I press lock twice instead of once (I assume just for an audible confirmation, the alarm is turned on either way), and the automatic headlights only stay on for ~30 seconds after I shut off the car (if I don't shut them off as I pull into my parking space - which I do if it's after about 9pm). My parking space faces my bottom floor neighbor's bedroom window. 
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Jan 15, 2017 03:08
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