bob

I've always meant to make a thread about parenthood, since there are quite a few NE kids in the world now, but i don't think it would get much traction, since they're usually the ones that have no time to post. In terms of my parents, they live almost 4 hours away, and I know it saddens them that they (or I) don't live closer. The are only 1.5/2 hours away from my sister and her kids, and so as a result they see her family a lot more than mine (also probably because of the whole couples being closer to the wife's family phenomenon). They've always said that they are going to sell up and move closer, but it's such a big decision to move away from all your friends and start fresh when you're 70+. They're both still pretty mobile, but there have been some health scares recently that make me realise it won't be long before we have to make frequent trips to check up on them. My wife's parents live an hour away, so we see them a lot more, but they aren't really close enough for emergency childcare a lot of the time, so we mostly just have to make do ourselves. They're also a bit (~10 years) younger than my parents, and have their own parents to look after...

We watch a lot of kids stuff in our house, and generally speaking the quality is rubbish. In particular, the animated shorts that they've made to go alongside a lot of the Disney/Pixar films are clearly aimed at children. They are very well received, since it's nice to have a 10min short to put on when the child asks for 'more Elsa!', but the short is usually very obviously thrown together, and it generally very forgettable. HOWEVER, the other day, my son asked for the 'party bath time one' when pointing at Toy Story, which i eventually worked out to be 'Partysaurus Rex' a Toy Story short about Rex the dinosaur. The short is absolutely fantastic! I couldn't believe how good it was. It's extremely tightly written, and no single shot or line of dialogue is wasted. Would highly recommend if you have a spare 10 minutes and a Disney+ account.

We started watching S2 of Andor a few night ago. It certainly starts slowly. Not much happens in the first two episodes, and what does happen is kind of dull. The wedding scenes and 'empire officer have the mother-in-law over for dinner' scenes in particular. The scenes with the stolen Tie fighter are a bit more exciting, but once the pilot flies off at the end, the entire plot seems a bit pointless - it basically seemed like filler for 2 episodes, because he's in exactly the same position as he was and nothing's changed? Anywho, episodes 3 and 4 have picked up a lot, and it's getting way better, so i'm excited for the rest of the season.

I wanted something to watch while I cleaned and tidied the kitchen each evening, so I decided to watch My Hero Academia again through from the beginning. Netflix kept recommending it to me, so I thought why not. I'm surprised at how early a lot of the stuff gets introduced - I thought they spent a couple of seasons at the school just pissing about before they even introduced the main villains, but they turn up like 10 episodes in. Anyway, last night I fired it up only to find that it had gone back to S1E1. Turns out Netflix only has the first two seasons...fucks sake. You shouldn't be allowed to host something if you don't have the whole thing!

We've been trying to sort our re-mortgage out since January, with our old fixed rate coming to an end at the beginning of June. We wanted to pay off a chunk of the loan amount to try and bring the monthly payments down, but didn't know at the time how much we were going to be able to pay in. Our adviser said it was fine, we'll apply with the lower amount, and then if we wanted to pay more off, the borrowed amount would be less, so we should be ok. Eventually we decided we could afford to pay a bit more off, so we decided to put more money in and borrow less. Their (the new banks) conveyancers have been useless. I asked multiple times whether we needed a new mortgage offer because the borrowed amount on it was wrong, and they ignored my messages. I finally get a phone call a few days ago saying that the shortfall didn't match the amount required, and I would need a new mortgage offer...fucks sake. Six months of faffing about, and they finally realise a couple of weeks before the deadline. I really need to sort it out before the 1st June, because otherwise the default rate on my current mortgage would mean I have to pay an extra £650 this month. Our advisor applies for a new offer, and on Friday it arrives in the post....it's got the wrong amount on it still!! Another emergency application, and we finally get a mortgage offer with the correct amount on it today. Fingers crossed we can get everything else sorted and the money transferred before the 1st June now. Solicitors are useless.

Seen on Reddit that some people have been getting their consoles early, but can't play them because they need a mandatory update before they work 😂

Yeah, I normally would wait for 2+ years at least before considering an upgrade, but luckily this happened now - if I'd waited until June, I'd have been out of warranty and not received as much money for it.

My phone's battery started dying really quickly when it got below 25%, so I started googling around, and apparently it's a known issue with the Pixel 7a. They have a thing called the Pixel 7a Swollen Battery replacement program, where they'll replace the battery for free or, give you £300+. (Sure enough, I took the rubber casing off my phone, and it's cracked the back where the battery is bulging out - I hadn't noticed). So I opted for the free money, and have bought a Pixel 9a. In slightly worse news, my phone could explode at any moment.

That's amazing! Did you know exactly when the patch was going to be released then?

Is Fresh off the Boat good? I kind of assumed it was mainly aimed at immigrant Americans, and I may not get the humour, but I did enjoy Kim's Convenience.

Finished watching The Residence last night. It was really good! Basically a good old fashioned whodunnit set in the White House. Lots of crazy characters and silly goings on. Randall Park was hilarious (does he play FBI agents in everything?) I was surprised to find out that Andre Braugher was originally cast as A.B. Wynter, but he passed away halfway through filming. That must have been such a loss to everyone. I thought Esposito did really well, but Braugher would have been great. My only criticism was that they left a couple of loose ends (the secret service van crashing and the calligrapher) and just never explained them, which was a bit weird. It wasn't the sort of program that left things intentionally vague, so it makes me wonder if they just cut some scenes and forgot?

I don't think I'll ever get tired of Man Utd being shit. Dazzybee must be absolutely delighted. Bit sad that he and Ramar aren't still on here (plus other Arsenal fans).

I really hope the bear finally shows up in this one.

They should change the name to Snickers.

Fixed it for you.