The girl who did not smile

Well, what did you expect? We drove her to a studio, and never tell her what to expect. The camera man then leads everyone to a small room where all the lights were on her, with everyone telling her to smile. You're not going to smile too. In fact, you might be afraid from all the sudden attention.

I wanted to hit the camera man in the head because

he would not let me use the camera to help calm the

situation down. I sarcastically told my wife to wait

there while I go home and take my camera.....

Metering my car

Here I am, adding another meter to my car. This time, its a voltage meter plus some extras switches. Yeah, my car's electrical is going nuts, which I suspect could be due to the rusts. The voltage meter is for me to see how the car is doing but for all you know, it won't drop or rise as I expect. Maybe I should have gotten an ammeter with a 100A shunt instead. As for the switches, the red one is to monitor the brake lights while the white one is for reverse lights. Should any of the two not working, I will simply press the switch to bypass them manually.

To tell you the truth, I wanted to do the brake light switch ever since I got the car in the late 90's to simulate an emergency brake. But the switch would be those industrial mushroom types and p;aced in front of the dash in such a way that the driver behind cannot see I pressed it. He he he he.

Introducing one of my 'latest' tool, the metal nibbler.

Its the latest because I kept it for years and just got

to see it again. I asked around on how to cut metal

and Multifilla showed me a tool which is exactly

like mine. I am so stupid.

You cut a small hole for it to come through and then

you can start 'nibbling' the metal until you get the

shape that you need.

I wanted to put the special flip cover for the red switch

but there is not enough space. Too bad.

Since the meter is running on 5 volts, I can

just bolt on a 5v voltage regulator to the

metal casing which then acts as a big heatsink

Unfortunately, I can't find my heatsink thermal

transfer cream.

Looking from the side, there are no shorts. But I

am not taking any chances and so, I will use those

heatshrink tubing for the voltage regulators. And

when I need to wire up the switches later, it'll be

very messy in there.

At the same time, I decided to check my Tachometer

which has dimming problems. Since I do not have the

original specs, I used the next best component. So, it

now has a very bright display but cannot dim much.

There you go. As you can see, the two meters on the

right have spoilt displays and well, I am not going to

try repair them since I just opened them a few mins

ago and I suspect it has something to do with the

microprocessor IC. And I do not have the HEX files

to program them.

New things at SDCC 2010

Years ago, with the advent of the Internet, news reports of Cons (Conventions) do not interest me much even though I've been to one in the early 90's. But after going to MITF 2010 at Mid-Valley, I am still in a high over cons. So, while we had MITF, they had SDCC. And because being there is not economically viable, I had to contend with pictures from the Internet and maybe get my stuff from eBay.

I am not going to put up photos if chicks in costumes since they're all over the Net now. what I am going to post are the items of interest which I hope, would fall into my hands in the very near future....

The Farnsworth communicator , from Warehouse 13

by Quantum Mechanix. But I think one of the buttons

is wrong. Maybe its the middle one which is black.

Mark VI Iron Man Arc Reactor from Museum

Replicas. One of the actual companies who did

the Iron Man Helmets and went a step further

giving it a chrome look (which is a magnet for

finger prints) when you're not supposed to.

It looks very weird and personally, it looks

like one of those toy miniature Batman search

lights when it is lit.

Which means, I prefer my toy better. Just a coat of silver

paint, is all I need. Heh.

Tron Identity disk

Ghostbusters PKE Meter from Mattel

At the eFX booth, they had theMk X Medical

Tricorder. Basically, it is the same as the Mk IX.

Unfortunately, the screen is not 'Medical' in this

picture.

But with the difference that there is a handheld

scanner underneath the Tricorder. And if I am

not mistaken, there is supposed to be some blue

LEDs in there but I forgot where.

But my dream Tricorder is this one, the MkVII

aka TR-580, which debut in season three of STNG

Ah, what a beauty!

Not sure if this is the 1/1000 JJPrise

Quantum Mechanix's USD50.00 phaser from the movie

And their studio scale model (1/20?) Viper model

Which comes with a working DRADIS!

Beautiful Pictures from SDCC 2010

While we have the MITF, in America, they have the San Diego Comic Convention (SDCC) and after filtering most of the photos, I now present you the best photos of the lot....

Finally, Vader came to his senses and saved the Universe

Taken from (http://www.cbc.ca/photogallery/arts/3713/)

The riff in the family. Mom wants to work while

the kid wants build his career....