Merdeka!

Kristine's Class made some hats for the coming Merdeka. And to say the least, its beautifully made too. Since we're days from the actual event, I would like to wish everyone a you-know-what and when the day comes, and you don't hear from me, that's me thinking you a very happy you-know-what.

The hat is a perfect fit for Kristine

Repeat after me: Its a perfect fit for Kristine

Looking for Mickey Mouse in a guitar

Just for Merdeka, everyone stayed at home. There were some reasons for that but I am not going to tell you why. So there.

While I was in my 'room' doing some wiring, Wife came up to me and asks if I still wanted the girl's broken guitar. They were about to be thrown away due to the sharp edges on the broken pieces. And so, after taking a long look at it, I decided to keep some parts.....

The first was the plastic globes which unfortunately,
comes in three pieces.

And now, boys and girls, this is the main reason
why the guitar was so loud; the speaker was in
a resonance chamber.

Like all electronics toys, it does not matter how much
it costs because everything ends up in one small tiny
circuit board. This is the hart that makes everything
looks good. Or rather, the small black glob.

And to keep the costs down, the circuit board was
manufactured from SRBP instead of Fibreglass.
Here, the board is very thin, thinner than a normal
prototype board. Because of that, it is very fragile.
Talk about cheap. But then again, if it breaks, you
just have to buy another toy guitar, since it is so
'cheap' nowadays.

Gutting the Power Force 5's Reverb

My head is spinning like crazy today as I had to do a lot of thinking for some pulse ammo counter. The reason is that most of the ICs I required were not available and so, it was a stupid exercise of buying the chip, then told it was not available, go home and redesign and repeat until I have the chips. But usually, by the time I got the chip I wanted, the other is not available and so, I have to repeat the who damn thing again. It is not their problem as these chips are very old and nowadays, they no longer in use, even in fatories as most of them are ASICs or just plain microprocessors.

I mean, who needs logic gates anymore?

Anyway, I needed to unwind my brain and so, I decided to take the Reverb apart. This was the toy I bought a few days ago and well, for that price, the design was well worth it. (It has to be because no one accepts refunds for change of taste). I had tot ake it apart to see if my plans for lighting it up works or not. Also, I wanted to remove the pair of bonnet cannons which, lately, was very very annoying because they tend to pop up on every accidental bump or bonnet lifts.

As I laying staring at it for minutes, hoping for some
inspiration to kick me in the butt to change the front,
it never came and so, I did the next best thing; I took
a photo of it so that I can remind Inspiration to do her
job the next time round.

The first thing you need to do is to remove the
chassis. All you have to do is to concentrate on
the 10 little screws.

And there you have it. When you open it up
yourself, just keep your temper in check that
you have been ripped off paying RM70.00
for a RM25.00 toy.

I have no idea why they want to put a flap
around the smoke visor. Then I reasoned to
myself that this is probably due to the cost
of making a proper cabin for the toy. And
yes, the windshield is transparent.

And here you go, the irritating twin cannons.
It need only three screws to secure it onto
the chassis while the body needed 10. Weird.

What you're seeing here is actually the cabin.
You can make your own cabin as this toy is
about 1/24th in scale. So, get two car seats
and you're in business. However, not many
people are interested in the cabin unless you
can make it slide out like the 1989 Batmobile.

OK, the main thing I want to do with this car is
to drill out the fifth slit to serve as headlights.

Well, this is going to be a bit of a problem because
there are supporting pillars meant for the screws
coming from the chassis itself. Bummer. But I am
confident it can be overcome........

Trip to KLIA 29082010

Today, we're sending off the girl's favourite Aunt back to Singapore. And because of reasons unknown, AirAsia was the flight of choice. And so, since it was a Sunday, it was a lso a good day to just take a drive to ..... LCCT (Low Cost Carrier Terminal) in Sepang.

After that, it was time to pay a visit to KLIA as the girls have never been to an International Airport before. And boy, comparing this to LCCT, the KLIA was like comparing Sungei Wang to Lot10. KLIA had some passengers but they're all for International flights while LCCT was more for domestic flight which was so full of people that if you had a dollar for every person there, would be be a millionaire after a weekend.

This is one of those rides which the girls
enjoyed without having to use the 20sen
coins. That is, until the friendly trolley
guy came.

Did I mention that they had waffles and
ice-cream?

After looking at various restaurants, we decided that eating in KLIA was too expensive. And it took us about three hours too. we were ready to eat at MacDonalds until we saw the 'Genting Higlands' prices. So, it was decided to go look for food in Kota Kemuning instead. In the meantime, I bough more waffles for my parents in case they were starving. Yeah, the girls helped themselves too.

Finally, after finding out that many restaurants do
not serve food at four in the afternoon, we had no
choice to but to eat at the clown house.

Nearly cause an accident at the roundabout when the family wanted to go to Carrefour instead of going home. But then, since this almost the end of the month, it was time to replenish supplies. At the end, it was the cartons of milk which rocked our wallets.

Whoa! And I paid RM9.00 for it. Still, this
one is blue but I did not have the chance
to see if there is a LED inside it.

What were they doing going through and fro
at the pillar?

And what is she doing with our groceries?

Yep, they discovered how to scan for things and
no product was safe from them.

While I was there, I SMS-ed Bruce hoping to escape the boredom but well, last minute plans usually never worked out.

Caught in the Act

Grandma got the two girls to help out with the laundry
as they were still very active and noisy after the day's
activity. They were so eager to help that one of them
was not properly dressed.....

Overheard...

Kristine: I want to be a counter!
Caryn: You want to be a Accountant.
Kristine: Yeah!

Trip tp Mid-Valley 28082010

My things had to take a back seat this week as we had a few errands to do in Mid-Valley. So, we had to leave early as this would be one of the last two weeks before Hari Raya and the End of Sales. Naturally, this would mean a lot of people and huge traffic jams.

First thing first, which is to let the girls have their
breakfast. Originally, the plan was to go to MacD's

But we were 'diverted' to KFC instead. Why?

This is why. This is KFC's weapon to beat MacDonald's
game. What is so special about this game is that each
game had a card which you can use to select one of the
two games. Its a nice idea but because the card is paper,
it tends to get bent easily and in the end, you're left
with the default game. MacD's have left/right, jump and
twist while KFC has Game 'A' and Game 'B'.

After the breakfast, it was time to go have
some looksee-looksee. In the middle court,
were some decorations for the Hari Raya.
Nothing fancy this time but just flowers
in an incomplete house.

And so, naturally, it was just a matter
of minutes before they start to warm
up for some photos.

There you go. I still have not found
out where they start to have the "V"
signs out. Must be a natural for girls
in this day and age.

Yes, its Saturday but its not Night

In the meantime, while I was getting my
glasses made, they were meditating. Its
good because everyone in the shop gets
a few minutes of peace and quiet.

Not satisfied with the breakfast, its time for
lunch. And their last meal was just less than
two hours ago.

By this time, the midday crowd had gathered and
so, its showtime. Presenting the bing bing bong
ensemble. I love this when I was small but now,
its just random some bongs, more of like an
original Malaysian Jazz thing.

Two hours later, they were hungry again!
I am starting to worry if this keeps up as
all my salary would be going into their
stomachs instead of their education....

Finally, its time to go home after scoring a
lot of books from MPH. I was temped to
get a Moof.com.my notebook for RM15.90
but I stopped myself as I had less than
RM50 in my wallet and most of it is going
into the car's petrol tank come Monday.

This is a very nice book. Its designed for magnets
which Kaelynn wanted it so badly. Think of it as
stickers but reusable type of stickers.

They even had a small clear plastic 'drawer' for
the girls to keep the magnets when they are not
playing with it.

So, by using the magnets, they were able to
tell a lot of stories and also expand their
imaginations. Cool.

Open Spaces

While I was at the customer's place, I happen to pick up some magazine which highlighted some designs on houses. What caught my eye was the way the stairs were designed. It looked nice and gives the impression that this place is very big. Actually, for me, I would like a big studio-type of house where everything is on one single floor, from the garage to the lounge to the kitchen etc. Only the bedroom would need the stairs and are suspended by wires..........

Imagine if you just drive into here and the stairs leads
you to the bedroom/hobby room.

Breakfast

From this picture, you can tell what we had for
dinner last night. Yes the spoon was delicious!

Kristine's Magic Trick

Kristine is showing Kaelynn a Magic Trick.
She is showing her how a wrist strap can
disappear. And so, Kaelynn was very, very
interested.

Unfortunately, the Magic Trick took too long
and she lost interest. This was because big
sister did not practise and so, it took her a
very long time to make he strap disappear...

Hotwheels Battle Force 5's Reverb

24082010 2220

While biding my time for my appointment with Kenny, I spotted something very nice at the Pavillion. Its one of those Hot Wheels toy cars (read: Expensive). To be more accurate, its the Reverb, owned by Stanford Isaac Rhodes IV. I'll skip the background details as there is a lot of info on the Internet. This is one of the new CGI cartoons which I saw the girls watching them a week ago on Astro. Suffice to say, it took me more than 30 minutes before getting it. And from the corner of my eye, I suspect the Salesperson was about to pounce on me for lingering in the shop too long and not buying anything. Hah.

Oh, and guess what? Its from the same company which made Stormhawks too.

And so, for RM69.90, I submit myself to VISA. This
is one of the few BF5 vehicles of this scale/size. You
can have the smaller 1/43 but they come in a playset
or you can have a slightly bigger one but their
dimensions looked very cacat. So, this Reverb
is the best of the lot.

Of course, in a cartoon, you have a team. All are
really identifiable by the colour on their G-suits.
Reminds me of those live-action Japanese kiddy
shows. Then again, this happened everywhere.

So, purple guy have purple car. Got it.

The Reverb's weapon is sonic something and here,
in the real world, it is represented by hard plastic
missiles that can take out an ant at 10 inches. I
like the opening flaps and the 'pop' up of the guns
but after accidentally popping them too often, its
very irritating.

So, this is the more economical way of securing
the toy to the packaging. No more black wires.
Note the serious amount of screws to secure
the chassis to the body.

And those irritating but strong clear 'rubber
bands'. Lukily I was patient or else I suspect,
I would end up with a broken toy instead.

So, why do I like it? Well, just look at the front. If
you do not mind the razor sharp corners, the front
is just nice. Imagine the grills all being black and a
just a thin slit at the top for headlights.

Then at the rear, its enough for the red lights.
Who needs turn indicators and reverse lights?

The figure is just so sad, though. Its made of some
very soft vinyl and with just 5 points of articulation
it looked as if it was designed as some very last
minute addition. But then again, at that size for a
toy, this will have to be the best that they can do
since they have to take children into consideration.
Now, all you have to do is to add some rear vertical
wings and guess what?

Yep. But I'll forgo the front turbine.