jyrgenn

A couple days ago I wanted to watch a documentation off NDR.de. It stuttered and whatnot, a quick look showed the bits only trickling in at slightly over 1 MBit/s. I shrugged and sucked it down via mplayer -dumpstream, and watched it later on.
Then, the next day, I wanted to watch something else - and, again, just a lousy MBit/s.
Hmm, copied a file from/to a known-to-be-very-fast-indeed place, showed that I got no more than 1.2 MBit/s down- and 300kBit/s upstream. The Zyxel modem/router thingie told me the DSL side of things should run at a negotiated 6.4 Mbit/s, though (it always helps to have SNMP read access).
So, a call to the ISPs helpdesk, only to be immediately transferred to 2nd-level after I mentioned my account number (yay! Chris seems to have finally managed to make that note on my account he constantly promised!). Explained the problem, 2 minutes later I could suck down at 14MBit/s (and throw packets back out at 2.4 Mbit/s). And added to that I should get a new modem/router thingie next week that should be able to handle the line at even greater speeds (which I don't care about), and that can do IPv6 natively (which I do care about).

Now I only have to hope they've managed to get an unbundling cabinet out to Kloburg, so I can also this kind of service after we move.

In kitchen news, we got an offer from Leiner for about 11k€ (30-40% more than I'd like), and we moved our appointment with Peter Max up to next Wednesday. Also been looking at what "XXXLutz" and "Kika" have to offer yesterday, were distinctly unimpressed and left without even getting a quote - it's all either looking so cheap it'll probably disintegrate before even being delivered, or has a design like the original Fiat Multipla. Plus of course none of them seems to be able to make the cabinets all the way to the ceiling, every "design" line tops out at just about 2m/6.5ft. And if I shell out for a custom-built kitchen I want the cabinets all the way to the ceiling and never have to worry about having to dust up there ever again.
Currently we're thinking of matte white-ish fronts combined with a dark (black, or dark grey) working surface - it's going to be cheap chipboard anyway, and I'll not spoil with a cheap&nasty-looking wooden veneer, and at least it'll be easy to clean. Plus the idea is to have it with as little "design" as possible, that way it'll not be an eye-sore once the "modern design" phase has worn off. Or at least that's the general idea.

One of my closest friends, F., and his SO bought a house last year. Or rather, they bought some land, and shelled out to have a house built. We all tried to talk them out of it, because nobody could imagine how they could possibly afford that, but to no avail.
They figured that with a loan from the bank, and their income, and the subsidies they get for their 2 kids, and with the (minimum) pension of her mother, and maybe with making a 3rd kid, and the subsidies for that, they might be able to afford that, and so they went on.
After talking to many a building agent, and invariably scaling down, they managed to find one that promised them he could do it on their budget. Of course he didn't, and, as they had no other choice at that point, they just maxed out the loan. And went into the red on their bank accounts (the local method, USians would max out their credit cards at this point).
Then, because they couldn't afford paying rent for their current apartment along with the payments for the loan, and the building process took a couple weeks longer than originally promised, they had to move - so she sought shelter with the kids at her nieces place, and he went back into his old room at his parents apartment. All their stuff went into (also not exactly cheap, and I know, because I paid for it) storage.
3-4 months later they had to move, as relations between her and the niece were becoming rather over-strained, and he was doing 17-hour days between getting the kids to school/kindergarten and back, and working, all half across the state, with public transport - well, the house had a proper floor in the kitchen/living room, a toilet and a shower (both working), and heating. But that was about it on the inside. So they moved their old kitchen into the new one, put a bed, table & couch into the living room/kitchen. And that's it. All four of them living in one room, sharing one bed, and, because the only door is the one separating the house from the street, ill-fitting shower curtains partitioning off the toilet and the bathroom from the rest of the house.

At this point they still thought the situation might be salvagable.

Then her mother had a hissy screaming fit, declared F. the Spawn Of Satan Himself, and declined to move in with them (and thus to pay her share of operating expenses and loan payments).

After that winter came, and the need for heating. And the house not yet having been fitted with any insulation at all. So they burned through as much wood pellets per week as would've been proper over a whole winter. And then it finally got properly cold outside. Then they burned through a years worth of pellets in just under 2 days.
They tried to borrow money from each&everyone, but each&everyone had to decline (incl. me, apart from ensuring a supply of wood pellets so the kids wouldn't freeze), on grounds that we a) saw no chance of ever getting it back, and b) a quick calculation confirmed that we'd just delay the inevitable for maybe 6-9 months.

Now I just heard through the grapevine that they missed their last couple loan payments, and that the bank actually got a clue about the financial situation. So, barring a miracle, that means foreclosure in a couple months at best (the loan's already at the legal maximum of 30 years, so extending that is no option).

My estimate is that they can sell the house for 180k€ at best, and the loan should be approx. 300k€. So they'll pay those remaining 120k€ (plus various fees for foreclosure etc., say at least another 30k€) for the next 20-30 years for a house that they don't even have any more. Plus rent for somewhere to actually live. Just in a cheaper (and thus smaller and nastier) apartment than they had before they got this stupid idea of a house into their heads.

I can't even express how much this irritates me, seeing some of my closest (&oldest, I know F. for over 2 decades now) friends sink into financial apocalypse. Plus the kids.

Friday we drove off towards Innsbruck, because one of the SOs uncles deemed that the festivities for his 75th birthday should start on Saturday - at noon, sharp. And this is skiing-holiday-season, staged weekly across the land, so Saturdays are turnover-days.
Ah well, at least I can now report that not only does the car go like stink, it now also behaves like a car, rather than an ironing board (properly mounted shocks are great!).

All through the festivities (occasionally unpleasantly interrupted by local Berchten and everything that particular idiotic local custom entails), something nagged at me, but I couldn't pin it down.
Until today, on the drive back to actually civilized country (where A.Hofer is just some minor historical figure), it dawned on me: this family lacks the mandatory Black Sheep. Not a single Bunter Hund in sight. Nada, zilch, not one in >70 people. Well yes, the SO's got tattoos, and her brother's as gay as they come, but overall they're as conservative a bunch as can be imagined (I do think I was the only male that's not in the Cartellverband). I asked the SO if maybe someone wasn't invited - and got a definite "no" as an answer.

I wondered if maybe next time - once we're settled in nice&cosy at the SOs parents place - I should try and rectify that. Only to discover that I'd fit right in (well, apart from the voting-conservative part, and even that starts looking intriguing, what with the Greens playing silly-stupid Political-Correctness-over-Common-Sense at every opportunity nowadays, which is playing havoc on my long-standing political leanings).