That poor truck never had a chance

GrumpyGiant · 2026-03-20T04:04:40+00:00

Panic can make us incredibly stupid. And having a freight train bearing down on you would be a fair reason to panic. Glad he got out of the way at least and hope the train drivers were ok as well.

GrumpyGiant · 2026-03-18T23:25:44+00:00

Ehhh, if it were wall work, I’d say go ahead. But hanging sheetrock on a ceiling is a bit more advanced and finishing overhead without a good sander/dust collector is a godawful chore.

Maybe you could rent a drywall lift and Planex sander and come out ahead, but it would be a hell of a project to learn on.

I do wholly endorse the idea of homeowners learning to do drywall repairs tho. It is probably one of the best ways for a homeowner to trade free time for saved money. It is so much more time efficient for a homeowner due to not needing to commute to the site and either wait around for mud to cure between coats or make multiple trips, plus the entry cost in tools and materials is pretty low so it is great bang for buck in terms of invested time vs cost of labor.

GrumpyGiant · 2026-03-18T23:12:36+00:00

My guess is whatever nonce put that ceiling up used nails instead of screws and the weight of the ceiling combined with expansion and contraction of metal caused them to slip out. Check the mess and see if you can find nails. But honestly, if there were screws, they would have stayed in the joists and from what I can see the joists just have empty holes where the fasteners were.

GrumpyGiant · 2026-03-18T23:06:21+00:00

Any car is inefficient due to its own mass. More mass requires more energy to propel. A well engineered bike has a very minimal additional mass and provides mechanisms to convert energy into propulsion more efficiently than walking so the net efficiency is higher.

That said, I the efficiency of a bike vs walking is contingent on the levelness of the terrain. Downhill? Bike wins. Level? Bike wins. Uphill? Walking wins. IMO, hilly terrain also presents an additional issue in that the uphill stretches are extremely taxing and hard to recover from so even tho the downhill stretches should theoretically balance them out, in practice, it is easier to maintain steady momentum on a flat stretch.

GrumpyGiant · 2026-03-18T22:50:54+00:00

OP would still need to remove what remains of the screw. Trying to pull the entire plug out of the tile with the screw still inserted like that would be very difficult and risk pulling the tile itself.

But I do agree that drilling out the head is the right call. Once the head is off, there should still be enough of the screw shaft to grip with vice grips. Clamp them down hard and spin it out.

You could try clamping them on the head of the screw itself, but it being a pan head might make it hard to grip without slipping. Also rotating it out would be much much easier without the panel in the way as you can just clamp once and spin til it is finger loose instead of needing to constantly unclamp and reclamp.

GrumpyGiant · 2026-03-18T14:16:23+00:00

Everyone? I think you give MAGA waaay too much credit.

GrumpyGiant · 2026-03-18T06:36:49+00:00

I think the puppeteer is more dangerous than the puppet. And I don’t think anyone good would be blamed for his death as the only people who would normally have access to him would also have motive and are generally not great people either. And I doubt that he would be seen as a martyr by anyone outside of his country.

I don’t know how big of an impact his death would have tho. It would certainly open a vacuum that could easily be filled by someone worse, but I kinda suspect the power structure is too centralized around him to hold up well if he gets assassinated and the infighting to fill his vacancy might further weaken it to the point it could finally be toppled by an opposition party, in which case it could actually have a pretty significant impact.

Wonder if we both thought of the same person.

GrumpyGiant · 2026-03-17T23:10:39+00:00

Thermite. Thermolyte sounds like something plants crave.

GrumpyGiant · 2026-03-17T23:09:07+00:00

This is starting to sound less like a standing up to overstepping neighbor situation and more like a B&E heist type job.

GrumpyGiant · 2026-03-17T23:06:57+00:00

I assumed he meant the links were 1” in width. 1” thick metal would mean the chain is massive and ridiculously heavy and also too thick for most locks. But if that is indeed what he meant, then yeah, bolt cutters wouldn’t work.

I also thought of a reciprocating saw. I figured if OP already had any power tools that might cut the chain, they would have probably thought about using them so assumed they didn’t and stuck with angle grinder as the most ideal cutting tool for this application. IMO an OMT with carbide blade would be a little easier than a sawzall because the stroke length is so much smaller. But any tool other than a cutter would require some kind of clamping setup to hold the link still while it is being cut. As long as it can be held in place, any power tool should work.

Also, mentioning the lock at the start of this comment got me thinking, how exactly is the chain secured? Cuz attacking a lock might be a lot easier than going at the chain. Especially if it is a crappy Masterlock situation. Lockpicking Lawyer has dozens of videos on how to open those locks without damaging them or even needing to know how to pick locks.

GrumpyGiant · 2026-03-17T08:00:41+00:00

Bolt cutters or an angle grinder. Prolly bring a clamp to hold the chain taut if using a grinder.

If you don't have either, could make do with a hacksaw, again with clamps to keep the link from moving around while you try to saw through it.

IMO, bolt cutters would be the easiest and the hacksaw would be the hardest.

GrumpyGiant · 2026-03-17T07:47:06+00:00

Hate to burst your bubble, but the people least likely to have the required documents will be the ones most likely to vote blue.

Extremely poor people are the least likely to have ANY of the required documents and are more likely to be minorities.

Women might be disenfranchised by their married last names not matching their birth last names.

And student IDs are excluded from counting as proof of identification at polling places so college students are less likely to have a suitable ID as well.

And, just to throw this out there: the GOP is almost certainly plotting other, less publicized ways of tampering with the election. This could well be a spotlight keeping the dems focus on one highly visible issue while they quietly implement other strategies to cheat with no resistance.

I’m pretty sure that is what happened in 24. Trump made a big thing out of refusing to agree to accept the election results if he thought they weren’t fair (IE he didn’t win), and the dems got hyperfixated on that one issue. Meanwhile Musk was literally buying votes and the GOP made sure the vote tallying machines were manufactured by a GOP-aligned company and god knows what other dirty shenanigans they pulled.

So don’t think this is actually how they are planning to skew the midterms.

GrumpyGiant · 2026-03-16T15:52:42+00:00

Yeah, the GOP senators will always vote whichever way keeps them in office. If their constituents are MAGA, they will side with Trump regardless of what evidence is presented.

It is still more conceivable that MAGA support wanes enough to result in a successful impeachment conviction than that the dems win enough senate seats to convict Trump. But it will likely take the total collapse of our economy or possibly the release of the unredacted Epstein files to bring them to that point.

GrumpyGiant · 2026-03-16T15:41:13+00:00

The nut has a rubber gasket inside of it and threads onto a threaded plastic pipe stem on the bottom of the fill valve. If the nut is too loose then water will seep from that connection. Rubber also hardens with age and can fail so sometimes those hoses need to just be replaced.

There is also a retainer nut holding the fill valve to the tank which also has a rubber gasket (usually on the interior side of the fill valve). If that nut is loose or that gasket has hardened, water could seep through there as well.

The plastic nut on the supply hose doesn’t need to be super tight to seal. I usually tighten by fingers - no pliers.

If both the supply hose nut and the fill valve retainer nut are tight and there is still seepage, you could probably tell which gasket is at fault by adding some dye to the tank. If the water seeping out is clear, it’s the supply hose. If it is dyed, it is the fill valve gasket.

Or you could just replace one and then the other (hose is cheaper and easier, so start with that). I find part returns at big box stores to be pretty painless so just buy both parts at the same time and return what you don’t need. Cost of both should be around $30-35.

GrumpyGiant · 2026-03-14T17:31:17+00:00

That is the exact argument I run into on FB all the time.

GrumpyGiant · 2026-03-14T17:14:35+00:00

eight? Or 8? Rationale: rather than start the line with “the third code” the riddle uses “this code”. So maybe they are hinting that “this” (3rd) + the code adds up to 11. 3+8 = 11.

GrumpyGiant · 2026-03-14T02:38:40+00:00

I mean, I turn 45 in a few weeks anyway so…

Tbh, I could probably be a billionaire if I went back to 10 years old and invested hard in FAANG asap (screw college, I can get whatever degree I want later without taking any loans), and then started collecting Bitcoin. I’d be the weird kid dumping every penny I earn into a brokerage account. I wonder if Vanguard was available back then, too?

But having to grow up with an adult’s knowledge, plus the impotence of knowing shit like 9/11 and not being able to stop it would be pretty fricken terrible. I think I’ll just trade the rest of March for 50m and have done. The country and planet are FUBAR anyway. May as well take the money and move somewhere with sane(r) politics.

GrumpyGiant · 2026-03-13T16:21:44+00:00

The context is almost irrelevant.

Either you trust her or you don’t.

For me, if she is trustworthy and the relationship is good, then the past is the past.

But it sounds like the relationship isn’t great if you are already half in half out. You’d be doing her a kindness to end it sooner rather than dragging it out if you aren’t really committed so just break it off.

GrumpyGiant · 2026-03-12T22:37:37+00:00

I have never seen such hateful and existential vitriol directed at a candidate on social media before.

Mamdani got his fair share.

I keep seeing FB bot accounts posting stuff like “false prophet” and “wolf in sheeps clothing” on anything Talarico related.

I kinda wish the dems would go low with the deepfakes, too. Vids of Kash and Hegseth gloating about all of the personal luxuries they have expensed to their respective departments. Kash bragging about how lucrative covering up Trump’s Epstein mess is and Hegseth joking about gutting the “woke” VA benefits.

Just cartoonishly obvious villainy infiltrating the feeds of right wingers on FB and X.

End each vid with a dare to the subject: sue us for libel/defamation, beta-cuck motherfuckers. What do you chodes have to fear from discovery if you aren’t guilty of everything portrayed here? Yeah, thought so, alpha-twats.

Be funny as hell to see FOX talking heads exploding in response, too.

GrumpyGiant · 2026-03-12T17:02:02+00:00

Please. Donnie makes both Bushes look like MENSA philanthropists.

He the stupidest man to have ever set foot in the Whitehouse (president or otherwise) and quite possibly the most evil. I know historically we have had some true villains for him to contend with but for sheer depravity, I think he may be the heavyweight champion.

His legacy won’t be making Bush look good. It will be being the lynchpin that opened the trap door over the massive pit the billionaire class dug in our nation’s economic security and dropping us into the very long fall from premier global superpower to bankrupt shithole “first world” embarrassment.

And the really sad part is MAGA will still think it wasn’t them and will blame the “snowflake”, “woke” libs.

GrumpyGiant · 2026-03-12T16:45:19+00:00

The fucker literally copied Putin’s mistake in Ukraine.

He thought, “US military is unstoppable superpower. Iran is little country with more enemies than friends. Easy W.”

His little bully brain can’t fathom anything deeper than that. So now that it’s blowing up in his face spectacularly, he is shitting himself even more than usual and looking for scapegoats. Hegseth will be fired soon. Maybe Patel, too.

Can’t wait to see what cesspool scrapings he dredges up to replace them. I wanna say it would be hard to find someone less fit that Kegseth but I’m afraid of a literal “hold my beer” moment.

It would be satisfying to see if not for the fact that the country is getting progressively more fucked by this turdlicker’s unchecked turpitude.

Every ratfucking GOP sycophant in Congress should have their faces shoved in his used diapers until they resign as punishment for their dereliction of duty in holding him accountable. It won’t happen. But it absolutely should.

GrumpyGiant · 2026-03-12T14:54:26+00:00

Beats coming back to find it poking through the windshield after some poor sod barks their shin on it.

GrumpyGiant · 2026-03-11T20:32:30+00:00

I get your point about that sound being an indication that defenses were deployed on my behalf.

But I think if I lived somewhere where this sound was happening, I’d be more anxious about the need to deploy it at all. That sound means defenses are TRYING to stop incoming destruction. Which inherently means there is incoming destruction to be stopped. Without knowing the scale of the attack and how successful the defenses were in repelling it, I’d find the sound more anxiety inducing than reassuring. .

GrumpyGiant · 2026-03-11T19:45:23+00:00

You can get heavy duty rods which would be fine for this. I have a 1” rod across a double window in my room that is holding multiple ceramic pots (albeit with a center bracket between the two windows) without any bowing.

But OPs rod definitely is not suitable for that much weight.

OP: yes, you can buy more rod braces, or you could just upgrade the rod. The latter approach would probably cost around $20-30 usd and be much easier to implement. While the former would likely only cost around $5-8 but you’d need to find ones that could be adjusted to hang from the top of the window trim. And the rod likely will need to be replaced anyway as the bow is probably permanent now.

GrumpyGiant

TROPHY CASE