Home improvements

[Note: 22042012 1647]

Blogger has changed format and its very difficult for me to get to the normal layout which I am accustomed to. This is very noticeable in the photos caption page. Also, the more important thing is the date and time format which is lost and I have to once again, rifle through the photos for the actual day and time of events. Sheesh, Google.

And so, right after the trip to Toys r Us, our next destination is very important. We need to get some things to 'update' the place to a better spec since it was neglected for years. And not only that, there is a time limit before the CON goes away. Since Houz Depot was nearby, we decided to take a looksee.

As you can see right now, the girls are getting very very hungry. So I had to get them something to eat while we continued with more shopping as we could not put it off anymore.

This one how much? Expensive!

This one how much? Expensive!

This one how much? Expensive!

This one how much? Expensive!

In the meantime, the girls were left to their own devices, much to the consternation of the sales staff walking around the place.

Ah, this is good price. What do you mean 'Out of Stock'? This demo unit cannot, ah?

Beeswax for Bruce but this is obscenely expensive. I mean, RM68.90 for one tub when he got it for much cheaper elsewhere. However, both of us now realise that there are more than one 'flavour' such as 'Jacobean Dark Oak', and 'Antique Pine' apart from 'Natural''

This is a very nice design and I love the way the bed WILL be mounted. Unfortunately, the price does not include the mattress. And so, it will be nothing more than a useless hunk of wood and leather (sour grape mode)

This one how much? Expensive!

Yes, if you think that's what they're trying to do...

Dinner time and its off to another locaion, which is the PJ Seafood. which is located 'behind' Houz. OK, a few hundred metres behind Houz Depot.

An right, away, for some weird reason, you can see that the place is in Full House mode. With so much people in there, it was so difficult to get a table let alone navigate our way through the crowd. And surprisingly too, the service was fast and efficient as well.

V r hungry. Want food now! nom nom nom nom

Soup. Nom nom nom nom

Weird mee hoon. nom nom nom nom

Weird prawns. nom nom nom nom

Weird piece of paper. nom nom.. OMG!

New NERF on the block

Its been quite some time since I have gone to Toys r Us and when I did today, I was quite surprised. NERF has another competitor, which, instead of shooting water balls, it shoots... wait for it.... spitballs.

OK, that was gross but it was what came to my mind when I saw it. I mean, what else would you call a bullet made of paper, which needs to be pre-soaked before firing?

So, before this was the Xploderz, which again, you need to pre-soak the bullets/beads for three hours to fully grow them. Which is quite nice because its like playing with paintballs except that there's no ink but just pure exploding ammo bliss. The good thing is, you do not need to look for your darts after every battle. The bad part? You need to BUY more ammo and they don't keep once grown. But it makes you think, "What if I used paintball ammo..."

And now, its Max Force Toys's turn, with their spit... er, soft splat bullets. Again, you need to soak them (10 seconds) and load them into the ammo clips. And just like Xploderz, you need to BUY more bullets and they don't keep either. But it also makes you think, "What if I ran out of water... ooh, here's a salivating dog...."

But seriously, folks, the design of these guns
are worth considering, especially the Shadow
Hawk (above) and the Crossbow (bottom). But
where's the trigger?

But this one is, well, you know what they
say, "If you have nothing nice to say..."

Oh, man. Now, this is really spitball tech we're
looking at here. So, I can imgine the sound effects,
instead of the 'ptoo.. ptoo.. ptoo..', it might very
well be 'ptui.. ptui.. ptui".

And there you have it, the Max ammo. All you have
to do is to put some ammo into the box, then pour
some water into it and let it drain out from the other
end of the box. Yes, its a sieve, so you'd have to do
this over a sink and not on your lap.

Seriously, it reminds me of those bedak sejuk, which
makes a girl's face go white in the night. (hey, rhymes)

NERF Vortex
The Vortex series are the latest products from Hasbro's NERF range. What is so different about them is they now fire rubber discs instead of foam darts. Green rubber discs that looks more like ice hockey pucks for midgets. What I like most was actually the designs on their gun grips as they look very comfortable. Sure, the guns look nice from the side but one you view it up front its very bulky due to the diameter of the discs. All these Vortex series has a lot of safety features and will not fire if you don't have the disc, or no ammo clip, or maybe a gun license....

First one is the 'smallest' of the lot, which is the
Vortex Proton. Its a single-shot where you have
to load the discs one by one from the back. Great
ambidextrous weapon.

What you need to do is to pull the green loading
tray out, slot in the disc, use your thumb to flick
the orange lever to slide the tray and you're now
ready for your shot. That is, if you can do this in
less than 2 seconds or risk getting shot. Equivalent
to Nitefinder?

OK, this is slightly bigger but holds more ammo.
This Vigilon is quite chunky. Although the trapdoor
slide is on the left, its still great for right handers

Slide the trapdoor open, bung in 5 discs, use your
thumb to close it, and pull the upper slider to cock
the gun. Its 5 shots, and equivalent to Maverick?
Grip design is so-so. Looks more like a futuristic
industrial air freshener.

I think this Praxis is a pump and run gun. Takes in 10
disc and has a removable ammo clip. The pump is
not those air pump type but very nice sliding clicks

NERF equivalent is, well, Raider? Reminds me of the
Appleseed Gong gun. Nice.

This is battery operated, has a nice scope and eats
2x AAA & 6 "C" cell batteries. Just pull the trigger
and the 20 discs shoots out automatically. But
calling it a Nitron?

Takes in 20 discs, Nerf equivalent of Stampede but
with slower firing rate.

Next one up are the repainted NERFs. Not sure
if there are any improvements to the firing range.
So far, I have seen the Maverick in Blue, Yellow,
Clear, Clear Green and now Orange. I think there
was a white one in the Whiteout series but I am
not so sure.

Barricade

Raider

In the meantime, the girls are enjoying themselves
as they are not so interested in NERFs anymore. I
should have adopted a boy..... sigh.

Chinese SUVs on display. Have seen a few on the
road but not enough to make an impact. Might give
Toyota's HiAce a stiff competition if this is good.

More Sleeping Positions

Ever since Kristine was small, she tend to
sleep like this. I don't know why but it looks
very comfortable and reassuring for her.

As for Kaelynn, I don't know why too but all
I know is that this is an occasional thing for
her. Bear in mind, they are asleep and not
pretending.

Sili-conned

Sometimes, I need someone sane next to me when I feel bored. There are a lot of things/mischief I could have gotten out of. For instance, the CCTV Camera that I have bought years ago and was too lazy to mount it to any car. Then it got lost.

But as Fate would have it, I found it right back at the most inappropriate time. What shocked me was the clear plastic lens which have become fogged. It was not until I put two and two together, did I realised what had happened. I was testing this camera months ago for a SFTPMS Lighting Workshop and found that the image projected as not clear. The mistake was, I left it alone after that and did not do any proactive repairs despite my instinct telling to do so.

Upon opening the camera again, I was happy that
the element itself was not damaged (I hope) and
I do not have a LCD screen to test it

This is very back, as if it fell victim to a flood. I
could not scrape the stuff off.

Wanna guess what happened?

When I first opened the CCTV, there was this soft clear spongy substance which I thought was silicon. And it was oily too. At that moment, that substance started to crumble leaving an oily surface. This was the part where I wished I had a time machine so that I could have stopped myself from opening it. I have just discovered silicon and thought that it was the best thing since hot-melt glues. I mean, what could go wrong, right?

What I did next was something stupid.

No, I did not order another camera.

I cleaned the insides clean of the mysterious substance and replaced it with silicon. And the silicon's fumes or something like that, reacted with the camera. It had all the time in the world too. And thanks to Bruce, now I know that it reacts to metal apart from giving off ammonia smell and sticks like crazy.

So, I am not stuck with a CCTV that might or might nor work...

Vee-Chai's Radio Amnesia

I am not sure what is the problem but after reporting this to the service center, the problem wasn't that severe anymore. But it still happens. You could turn the engine off, leave the car for a few hours and then you know that the radio has reset. Or, it could happen just as soon as you turn the engine off and then again.

Everytime it happens, the memory for the radio station disappears, the last track for the MP3 USB player is 'forgotten' and worse of all, apart from the clock, would be the system settings such as music quality, CallerID scrolling, auto-answer, etc.

Sometimes its annoying as Hell and sometimes, its worse than that. When this happens, I would need to set the radio all over again. And this is also dangerous since I have a habit of doing this while on the road...

Luckily, I only listen to 92.9, 94.5 and 101.8, with
the occasional 95.3. Its just too bad I cannot have
Internet radio while on the go...

New shoes

Hokay. I finally got the chance to get a pair of new shoes. What I really liked about the shoes was its design and its main feature of not looking like a sampan or a fishing boat. And although it felt a bit tight, after a few hours of wearing it, they really fit like a glove.

So, for RM79.00 its really worth it. I really have to start to wearing back normal shoes as the boots are really shaping my feet into something else...

And so, a comparison of the new and the old.

I have never seen such small shoes in my life...

Then again, the boots lasted me about three years
and they're starting to show its age.

The Action Base II

OK, let's do a quick one since I have about 30 minutes to myself. The Keiko Action Base is actually a very easy model and I am pleased to announce that after all these years, this is the first time I have every completed a model kit. (cue: Clapping sounds)

And not only that, you can get it all done just by glancing at the instructions. You cannot even make any mistakes here. (But if you're drunk or of not in sane frame of mind....).

In just a few steps, the base is already taking shape.
At this stage, you can already stop because its now
looking like a basic launching platform.

Maybe because its a new kit that I have never seen
before, I was sort of addicted to keep going. And so,
with the 'floor' in place, the model now looks quite
believable, except for the four stands...

So, you keep on adding more parts and more
parts until, before you know it, its done.

And so, in less than an hour, it is completed. It took
more than 30 minutes because I was having fun. In
reality, it was closer to two hours... oops.

One good thing I like about this base is that not
only can you slide it for different angles, you can
also lengthen the the 'stalk' (I don't know what
else to call it) for more extreme angles up to 90º.

Irritating or not, this lock always comes down
and so, you have to remember this or else you
can snap the part easily.

Lengthening the 'stalk'. One good thing is
that all parts were designed to look as if
they're functional.

Here is the can of 100 Plus for seize
comparison. It is huge. And because
its a snap-fit kit, you might want to
glue it permanently as some parts
tend to fall off as its very addicting
to play with it. But don't glue the
moving parts, ya?

This is the idea why I got the Base...

From this angle, it just looked so nice and real.