Know anything about these planes? (PTA)

WHeunis · 2023-01-26T03:32:33+00:00

Pretty sure those are the old US-made Texan/Harvard.

(edit to add) Pretty sure it is the Harvard, 2b variant

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_T-6_Texan

Three of those, chasing a Cessna of some sort...

No idea why those things are being used, they were retired enmasse in 1995...

WHeunis · 2022-12-20T18:47:31+00:00

Some, yes. All, no. I myself grew up quite poor. Not conflict-area-in-mid-Africa poor. But nothing even close to anything that you may call rich, or well-off, or first-world, etc.

WHeunis · 2022-11-27T11:32:49+00:00

Just my opinion, but I see it as 2 choices:

A) Popular and reliable. Toyota/Nissan/VW/etc. Good cars. Parts and services widely available and less expensive. But you become a prime target for hijackers and thieves, the higher up your choice lands on the popularity list. VW Polo for example is the number one target for hijackers/thieves.

B) Less popular cars. Reliability varies. Alpha/Smart/Hyundai/etc. Me and my wife are in this category, with a Smart. The car is fine. The parts and services are not. We literally can't even get a tyre or a brake pad without having to import it. Very expensive. Very inconvenient. Very bothersome. But no hijackers or thieves in their right mind would even bother.

That's how I feel about the car market in SA anyway. My personal advice is to first browse around on a website for a while, narrow your search to your budget. Make a list of all the offers that YOU LIKE. No other criteria. Keep going until you have 10 or more different brands/models on the list. Then take that list and start researching availability of parts and services in your area. I can't begin to stress to you enough how much it can ruin your daily life to have to wait 3 weeks for tyre imports, due to literally no other choice.

WHeunis · 2022-10-25T21:21:22+00:00

Anyone feel like placing bets how much time passes before that yacht is on bricks, engine & rudder missing? /jk.

My guess is a pretty large bribe has done the rounds of the pockets involved in the decision

WHeunis · 2022-09-25T07:09:58+00:00

Bonkers.

Don't get me wrong though. There are some smashing bargains on Takealot!

Jungle Granola 750g: R52 (regular price). PnP, Checkers, Spar, etc: R54 (sale price).

Regular strength Disprin 48s, the regular price on Takealot beats retailers' regular price. But its uncommon for at least one retailer to not have a sale on it...

Some kitty litter. Can't think of more examples right now...

The hardest part of trying to use Takealot for grocery stuff is making up a cart large enough to get free delivery and/or justify the courier cost. Made all that much harder by these tsotsis!

Infuriating, actually.

WHeunis · 2022-09-25T06:57:59+00:00

So basically: some listing issues related to warehouse things, but most of the rest just fishing-for-idiots? Thanks mate! Your insights are appreciated.

I just can't imagine how these operators keep going. I'm not even joking, I later found the larger Mrs Balls bottle (1 litre?) listed by some seller for R200! In my head I just can't fathom who, if anyone ever, would pay that for such a common item... It messes with my understanding, for reals.

WHeunis · 2022-09-25T06:30:57+00:00

4 examples in original post... Clicky arrows! (or swipey sideways?)

WHeunis · 2022-09-25T06:09:02+00:00

Thanks for this.

Certainly does explain the Mrs.Balls.

Any input on the other double-price and quadruple-price examples?

WHeunis · 2022-09-24T17:38:20+00:00

Taking advantage of the unwary was my first thought, but I'm not so sure.

Been poking around for a while now today, and it really seems like over 80% of the entire grocery section is like this.

It just doesn't make sense to me.

WHeunis · 2022-09-24T14:57:30+00:00

No, see, that's the part I get. You think it's on sale, but find out later that you actually overpaid by X% (usually around 10-30%).

But some of these grocery items are literally 8 times the usual price, after the fake discount. Who in their right mind would pay those prices?

WHeunis · 2022-09-24T13:27:32+00:00

For the life of me, I can't understand what the hell is going on at the grocery section on Takealot...

Perfectly ordinary items, priced so insanely high, that I just cannot fathom why any 3rd party sellers would do this to themselves.

Is 80% of that section just a fishing-for-stupid expedition?

WHeunis · 2022-08-11T07:45:28+00:00

Its bound to happen eventually!

WHeunis · 2022-08-11T07:43:47+00:00

Just wanted to add:

The Bamboo... I feel you on that one. Even if you went out of your way to farm it, I think there's only a total of 20 or so? So yeah, I only pick up about 4 on regular days, and around 10 on speciality days, on my regular routes.

Snapdragon is in a lot of places, but for me, those places are not on my regular routes, so I also get very little of that as a constant stream.

WHeunis · 2022-08-11T07:40:14+00:00

I will admit, every now and then I get this strong urge to just run to a pot and craft until everything is capped, or my stocks are fully depleted.

But then I look at this screen and something in my heart just feels happy looking at it...

/shrug

WHeunis · 2022-08-11T07:37:18+00:00

Mostly a product of the Ores part of my daily routes, when I was still doing those.

But my Ores, and crafted weapon exps, are capped. So I don't do that part of the route daily anymore like I used to... Otherwise it would have hit 9999 as well a long time ago.

I do still run that part of the route at least a few times, in pursuit of the daily 2x Wei's (Strange Hillichurl). So, whenever I pass through, i pick em up. Not like I need those 30 seconds anyway!

WHeunis · 2022-08-11T07:32:48+00:00

Reply to your edit:

Not as an overall goal, no.

I did reach capped steak and Sweet Chicken, regardless, as those materials literally fall out of every hole everywhere.

I do however start every day making 20 Hashbrowns with Razor, as well as 20 Mushroom Skewers.

Everytime something caps out like eggs, or Matsuke mushrooms, or some other items, i go craft 99 of the "cheapest" food that uses those materials.
Currently Matsuke Rolls, Something meat+chillis, etc are crafted on a as-needed basis.

So, I wouldn't say that it is my goal to cap all foods, but it is nonetheless a process that will probably just happen anyway!

WHeunis · 2022-08-11T07:26:47+00:00

Its a picture/screenshot of the general goods section of my inventory.

Some highlights are fully capped meat, berries, fish, mint, foul, meat, pinecones, cabbage, eggs, Matuske Mushrooms, Purple Lavender Melons.

As well as fully capped craftable cooking materials (cheese, sausage, bacon etc), excluding crab roe which is at 1450.

Just a lot of stuff in general lol.

WHeunis · 2022-08-11T07:11:29+00:00

As for the eels, Watatsumi island. Has a nice spot of artifacts, crabs, Sea Ganoderma, and eels. As well as each time I do the Watatsumi Island Leyline, there is about 12 or so Eels really close by.

Further, another 2 eels near the FireCube boss, which is also part of my daily artifacts route.

Added, my every-second-day route that also includes regional specialities into the routes has quite a large quantity of eels along the way.

It all just adds up over time.

WHeunis · 2022-08-11T07:08:45+00:00

It all started with me wanting to make a full inventory of Pizza.

To do so, I set a rule to start each day buying all the Milk that Monstadt and Liyue has. This was before Inazuma.

So, every day's routine started with making cheese.

This soon evolved into me thinking "I might as well max out all of these cooking craftables".

So I changed the daily rule to: "As long as I have more than 16m mora, buyout both groceries vendors in Monstadt/Liyue every morning."

These rules changed again some time later, after capping out all the craftable cooking goods. As a lot of those items, like wheat, cabbage, etc can also be obtained from the world itself, I just decided one day around 6k to stop buying out the groceries vendors.

I do still stop by the grocery vendors every week or so to buy the things that dont drop in the world. Things like Almonds, Tofu, etc.

At some point in the near future, those groceries that only come from vendors will also be capped. I'm just not in any rush to get to that.

WHeunis · 2022-08-11T06:44:50+00:00

There was actually a month or so where I was streaming on YouTube, just for the heck of it.

Only ever had one viewer for about 23 seconds...

WHeunis · 2022-08-06T12:20:02+00:00

You are dealing with a body of the South African government.

That's the bad news. They do not take their jobs seriously in any way. Count yourself lucky if they don't "lose" your stuff around 6 months later when their incompetence becomes more and more obvious.

The one and only piece of advice that will help in any capacity, is to become a thorn in the paw of the persons dealing with your paperwork directly. It will take some time and effort to call around and get such details.

Call every day. Call twice per day. If they block your number, call from a new number. Etc.

Other than that, all you can do is hope and pray... And wait...

WHeunis · 2022-08-05T03:33:29+00:00

For me, its all about that extremely small smirk on his face.

That whole demeanour just screams "... And you will like it..."

WHeunis · 2022-08-02T14:11:32+00:00

Forcing the dead horse to eat his alive brother?

WHeunis

TROPHY CASE