Santa’s gonna get AssassinatedjawaproSat 15/12/2007 03:19 PM
Well, that was a good Christmas shopping trip, assuming you ignore the fact that some of the presents were for me, not for anyone else.
Unfortunately I chose the Saturday of the Devonport Christmas Parade to go shopping. Way too many people around. Everything was really busy, and traffic leaving town was awful.
The trip had two aims – pick up some stuff for the rest of the family for Christmas, and do a recon to see how much Dino Attack Lego costs in shops (cause I’ve been looking at some on ebay).
Well – the first part of the trip was a success, but the second wasn’t. That lego series isn’t sold down here anymore. Not that it matters, I was just interested in prices.
But I found something else at Toyworld I couldn’t leave there.
Yes, I know I shouldn’t be buying myself anything this close to Christmas – but I really can’t imagine anyone else buying me this.
I’ve already got a small collection of guns – mainly from Chickenfeed. Some of them look fairly good - but there’s a problem. They are toys – and made for little people. So when I take a photo of myself holding my M16, it looks pretty lame because it’s too small.
They are made to look right for kids - not idiots like me.
But this one is a full size replica of a AK-47. Or at least something similar to an AK47
So, of course, I couldn’t leave it there. I grabbed myself one.
To be honest, I’m rather surprised this can be sold as a toy.
The end of the barrel is red (which it wasn’t in the picture), but apart from that, it’s rather realistic.
Not that it would stand up to a close look, but if you saw someone waving this around, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference easily.
Except perhaps for the fact that the bullets are visible in the clip.
When you put batteries in the gun, it will make shooting noises, and the bullets will cycle and things. Haven’t tried that yet – because I don’t have any D size batteries.
Walking along the street besides the Christmas parade carrying the boxed gun did feel a little odd.
Especially with all the police about.
It did feel like I was an assassin about to try and kill someone – probably Santa. He deserves it. Dont ya think?
^ That’s me in my Hawaiian camouflage preparing to kill Santa.
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The Battery that Broke the BoxjawaproThu 13/12/2007 09:49 PM
Pictured on the left is the remains of my LAN box.
After years of carting keyboards, cables, and things in a collection of backpacks and other bags – I finally bought myself a LAN box. This plastic crate normally contains the majority of my LAN necessities – ready to go to a LAN. All I have to do is throw in my keyboard, mouse, and whatever extras I want, and it’s ready.
But the last LAN I went to – I decided to take my new UPS. Now, the UPS isn’t exactly new – but the battery inside it is. The rest was salvaged from work as it was on its way to the tip.
At a large LAN like Axon – you can be fairly sure that you’ll lose power at some stage – so I wanted to show off my UPS by being the only person still running on that table.
Unfortunately – this is the first Axon where my table stayed powered the whole night. Other tables went dark – but my UPS didn’t even get the chance to do anything.
Except for breaking my LAN box.
As it turns out, the added weight of the UPS was just too much weight for the chickenfeed plastic container – which fell to bits when I was getting ready to leave the LAN. Which isn’t too surprising – it’s not exactly light.
So I had to go back to Chickenfeed and get a replacement LAN box.
So the moral of the story – carry your UPS separately – or don’t shop at Chickenfeed.
* UPS = Uninterruptible Power Supply - or battery for your computer.
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The Cooler Awakes - And LeaksjawaproWed 12/12/2007 09:03 PM
Ok - now I really like my unit here in Devonport. Its a nice size for one person - and compared to my sister's unit in Hobart, it's positively huge.
But there are three things that really annoy me.
In the winter - things have a tendency to go mouldy. Although, that improved once I started turning the heater on occasionally. Apparently mould likes the cold as much as I do.
Secondly, there are a lot of ants. I keep attacking them with ant bait, which slows them down for a while - but at least it means I've learnt not to leave any dirty dishes around.
And thirdly - it gets hot.
During the warmer parts of the day - my unit gets quite hot - and stays that way too. It annoyed me so much last year that I bought myself a couple of fans and such.
But I was still hot.
So I bought myself an evaporative cooler. I wanted an air-conditioner, but they generaly have to be put throught the wall, which isnt good in a rental property.
This cooler thing is suppost to be filled up with water, and cools the air down and a fan blows it around.
The stupid this was, the weekend I bought it happened to be the last hot days of the year. It cooled down after that.
So all winter, this cooler has sat in it's box - doing absolutely nothing.
But lately, it's gotten hot again - so I decided to pull it out tonight and give it a whirl.
Everything started fine. It seemed to take a lot of water to fill it up though. I didnt manage to fill it up, even after quite a few jugs of water. I guessed it must have a massive tank.
Of course, a while later I was walking past and wondered why my foot felt wet.
Although it seems to do a good job of being cool - it does a much less good job of holding water.
I'm hoping that tomorrow is sunny enough to dry the carpet - and then I can investigate to see why the stupid thing was leaking in the first place.
In the mean time - I have to rely on the fan to keep myself cool.
*Note - the picture was taken before it leaked - otherwise I'd have a rather damp rear end.
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Axon LANjawaproMon 10/12/2007 09:47 AM
Friday night was the last Axon LAN for the year. And it was a great LAN too. Lots of game play.
We ended up with about 75 people there I think. Hopfully that was enough for the LAN to break even on costs.
We played a lot of DOTA and Savage. I finally managed to win a game of Savage. The first time ever that I wasnt on the losing team!
I also had a match of Starcraft - but alas, we were up against a player who plays online - and the other 3 of us have rarely ever played the game, so we were somewhat out of our league.
The lucky door prize was a Nintentdo Wii - donated by Play-By-Wire, and was drawn by a process of elimination. They started with everyone's name, and a computer script randomly eliminated everyone (one every 2 minutes) until there was only one - and he got the Wii. Took over 2 hours to complete.
It was starting to look like I might get a Wii to go with my Xbox - as I made it to the final three - but then my name was pulled.
This LAN was on a Friday night - instead of the normal Saturday night - which suits me much better. I had to rush there after work, but I was able to stay all night. Normally on a Saturday night I go home so I can get some sleep before Church on Sunday - but this time I played right through - did some shopping in Launceston in the morning, and then went back home to get some sleep.
Still a little tired after all that though.
And as a bonus - Tom (Nifen) has finally returned from Europe. So the LAN was a great chance to catch up again.
Tom has been living in England - and brought me back a Cyberman - which was especially cool. Not sure I want to open the packet though.
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Dr Who NewsjawaproTue 04/12/2007 09:25 PM
Ok - so I just discovered a couple of bits of news about Dr Who.
First up - there was another mini-episode for the charity event "Children in Need" again. This time it's called "Time Crash" and has the tenth Docotor (David Tenant) meeting the fifth Doctor (Peter Davidson).
This epsiode has already been aired - and you can watch it on youtube if you want. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn_NDKNlUa8
The other news is that the new series is bringing back another of the classic villians.
Apart from the Daleks, Cyber-men, and the Master - there was only one true villian that's missing from the new series. The Sontarans.
These guys were quite impressive in the original series - even able to invade the Time-Lord planet of Gallifrey for a while.
I hope they arent spoilt in the new series though. The Daleks have been - they have gone from a true menace to something pathetic. I'd love to see an episode where the Daleks win in the end. Of course - it couldnt be set on Earth. But something to give a reason for the Daleks to be feared again. At the moment it seems like a receipe - lots of Daleks turn up - Daleks become more human - Daleks all die except for one or two. Rince and repeat.
How about an episode where the Daleks conquer a planet and set it up as their base to grow more Daleks. Instead of the Doctor defeating them - he should just help the locals evacuate or something. Give the Daleks a break for once...
Other villians that could turn up are Davros (who invented the Daleks) and the Ice-Warriors. The Ice-Warriors werent always bad guys though - so they hardly count.
I'm not terribly impressed with the new Sontaran's appearance - so hopefully it'll look better in action.
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