60 minutes of Darkness

And that's it. Darkness. Everyone switched off their lights for one hour. To raise awareness about climate changes.

For decades, scientists and conservation groups have tried various ways to get everyone to reduce their energy consumption by creating more efficient lighting, hybrid cars, education and so on. Its an uphill struggle to get a person to switch off lights or appliances when not being used or even reduce its consumption. They have almost done everything.

Except this.

Some bright spark in Sydney, Australia thought it would be a good idea to switch off some lights for one hour, which he thinks will help improve the situation. But, there are some things to consider:

-Engineers and technicians would face divorce or cold dinners because they have to rush to be on-site to repair the Generators or cables, to contain any power overloads when everyone switches on their lights simultaneously. In fact, baby production for that month might even be jeopardised.

- Sales of Night Vision goggles would go up. And so are robberies and unexplained street graffiti.

- Vampires will have a full 60 minutes of killing frenzy.

- There would be a lot of reports of untoward incidents such as being robbed from behind, insulting backchats and so on.

- Alien Motherships would have near collisions with Earth in every time zone

- All airplane pilots would create 9-11 incidents in non-voluntary fashion.

- Blind people would make a lot of money as street tour guides for everyone, from taxi drivers to bike couriers to real-deal tourists.

- People would have street parties, where they will use the cheap inefficient lightbulb torches and increase carbon dioxide emission by burning candles. So, sales of these stuff would go up except for condoms and firecrackers (unless you can sell these as instant lights).

- Street cleaners would be very pissed off because of all the discarded (mercury safe) batteries and melted wax everywhere the next day. They might even go on strike for better pay and conditions, which force Cities to increase their budget.

- Fatal car accidents would increase because some clever clogs would actually think about switching of their car headlights.....

- Sales of fuel would increase and also carbon emissions as everyone would start using gensets trying to make a brighter torchlight.

- Wrong injections and diagnosis would happen in Hospitals. And so are increased reports on knee injuries.

- Librarians would experience boredom for the first time.

- Sales of Moon glasses will not take off since there would not be a Full Moon on that night.

And so, the list goes on and on. Let's not even talk about Lawsuits. And all this to create awareness about Climate Changes? Everyone is doing it, Celebrities are supporting it, and right across the Globe, its cool to do that, also at the same time, creating pressure on those who do not want to do it.

So, in support of Earth Hour, I will have my dinner where I can see my food, watch TV, have a Hot shower, turn on the air-con.

Because in the real World, everyone would be using fluorescent lights, plant thousands of trees everyday, go to bed at 10PM, not watch TV nor put appliances in standby modes, cycle to work and eat organically grown Tofu from their own backyard.

Alternately, I can go out and destroy all the power generators and dams all over the World. Then, this would be called Earth Decade instead. Because one hour is not enough.

This is the street scene at 2035 at night. Yeah, who cares?

Me? I am going to eat the duck, siew yok and Nasi
Dagang I bought in Ipoh and Tapah R&R. Lights are
bright enough right where I can see them.

The girls are enjoying them too. Yeah, who cares?

The trip up North ..... Penang Part II

And so, after last night's effort, today's remaining job is to continue setting up the system while my tech continues his. Not much to be done since we managed to squeeze a few hour's work into just two. But there were some problem, such as forgetting to bring some crucial plastic base although the customer is fine with matchbox connectors. My tech and I knew that it would not be good enough a solution. And so, for the next two hours, we got lost in Penang trying to locate a decent electrical shop for the items we needed.

I did not know Penang has Times Square....

Its such as nice day and I really did feel good
(about slacking off to take pictures). We did
locate the shop somewhere in the middle of
Penang. I could not tell where it is as my
Nokia 5800 is still being repaired.

I think this is Green Lane or something, which I
have been here 10 years ago. I loved driving on
this street due to the trees.

After finding the correct way way back, I saw this
place again, which I always successfully failed to go
into, everytime I was in Penang.

And so, with limited time, I had to check out of the
Hotel while I set my tech off to have his breakfast.
Luckily, I did bring a fresh half-loaf of Delicia's
Butterscotch while I worked

All done! And after testing, everything is fine!
We can go back to KL now, but before that....

Its the once in a lifetime experience of Penang Bridge traffic jam.

It took us 30 minutes to get from here to that arrow

Hurry! Hurry! Its 8 more minutes to 60 minutes of ..........

Opening the NERF Longshot

You know, in each of us, we carry a very dangerous item. It is so dangerous, it can create strife at work and in the house. It can even reduce a person to tears in seconds. And in some cases, fatal heart attacks. The effect of this item can even be spread to the other side of the World in seconds. If anyone claims they can control it, they're lying through their teeth. No one can control it. Not even for a second. Men would go weak at their knees, women would even beg just to use it. Beware, for when you use it, you become its slave. And at the end of the day, you WILL willingly become its slave, to the point of doing anything desperate to escape its clutches. Aw, heck, this is going nowhere. On with the real story.

And so, to cut the crap, I am its new victim today.

The NERF Longshot is one of the latest NERF toys to hit the shores of Malaysia (technically, its more than two years old in the US). Not only that, the latest NERF range (of 2008), the CS-6 and also the Vulcan was available as well. However, my main weapon of cherish is the Longshot. Long have I waited to get it in my hands. Long have I scoured eBay for one who would ship to Malaysia. Long have I.......... aw, heck. Let's just skip this part.

Anyway, the NERF Longshot is a single shot non-powered rifle as opposed to the Vulcan which is battery operated and feeds on belts of ammo in seconds. There is a reason why I liked the Longshot. This was because of its design, it would not go out of place in any Sci-Fi event, be it a cosplay, TV series or even in a movie. Not only that, the rifle is is the perfect base for any cosmetic modifications although many opted to increase its firepower instead.

The box is huge. And there is no way you can sneak
this back to the house without being caught. You
can see my Sony Ericsson T630 for scale comparison
since I am too lazy to walk 300 metres to buy a Coke
can and climb back up all the way to the Hotel room.

And I mean huge because unlike other toys, there are no
space for packaging. Just the no-nonsense cable wrapped
stuff. So, yes, this gun is huge. Luckily the paper box is
strong enough to hold all these together.

From clockwise, you have the rifle itself, another rifle
part, the scope, the grip for the extended part, the
cocking mechanism and two ammo clips

As I have seen the guy in Toys R Us trying to disassemble
a returned NERF Vulcan, he had problems taking this
reload bung off, which is similar to this part. As a
precaution, I unscrewed it so that if I wanted to remove
it, it would be easier to do so and not permanently wedged.

Unlike other NERF guns which requires you to just
pull some part to cock the gun, this is a double-action
(He ha ha) step. First you pull the bung towards you
and then push it forward, back to the original place.

This would thus push the firing pin into position, and
also place the ammo into position. Just like those
sniper type of rifles. Quite cool. Not so when you're in
the heat of battle and people would look at you funny
as if you have a jammed rifle.....
One nice thing is that when you cocked the rifle towards
you, you can slide the flap back to reveal the firing
parts as shown above.

Notice the orange tab near the trigger. This unlocks the
ammo clip. It will not drop to the floor but you'll have to
pull it out. The ammo clip tab release only works when
you have pulled the reload bung towards you.

If you have loaded your ammo correctly, the red rectangular
bar would show up, telling you the rifle is ready to fire.

In its basic form, the rifle looks the business.
Oh, you can extend the butt if you want to
make the rifle longer.

To lock the extra part into place, you just
insert it and turn, just like a bayonet.

Now the rifle is the longest NERF weapon. Mind you,
hold the rifle with two hands as its now very heavy
and you can actually sprain your wrist.

OK, so it does shoot up to 35 feet as claimed but I
cannot aim it on my shoes, even with the scope.
Maybe I am too tired since its past midnight

This type of ammo is different from other NERF guns.

The only gripe I had was that the drip area, near the thumb,
is very narrow and also, there is no trigger guard. Already,
playing with it has given me some modification ideas......