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The New Jigsaw

Monday, January 18th, 2021

I love jigsaws made by a company named Pintoo. The pieces are plastic and fit together with barely an atom between them. The finished puzzles look great and you could easily frame and display them.

I’ve bought a lot by this company and given several as gifts. I think 500 to 800 pieces is an ideal puzzle size, but recently I got a 2000 piece puzzle:

This is a lot of pieces, and all spread out barely fit on our table:

Pintoo puzzles lack flat edge pieces so making the border is much more difficult than in other puzzles. In this case, sorting the pieces and making the border took me over 4 hours!

Finishing the entire puzzle took me 24.5 hours over ten days!! Here’s an animation of the puzzle after each work session:

Its a lovely puzzle and was a lot of fun to assemble. But I think it’ll be a while before I tackle one of this size again!

Posted in Art, Blog, Crafts, Miscellaneous | Comments Closed

LEGO NES

Wednesday, December 30th, 2020

Earlier this year LEGO released a set of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and I bought it online within moments of it being listed.

It builds in two parts, the console and the TV. I built the console first. It was a fairly easy build, but the engineering is impressive (amazing even) since it has a working cartridge tray (which locks into place) and the model reproduces to uncanny detail every aspect of an actual NES including all the plugs and sockets.

Here it is finished. You can see the (LEGO) Super Mario Brothers cartridge in the tray.

Next game the TV. While I would have been perfectly happy had the set been the console alone, the inclusion of the TV takes it to another level since they actually include a scrolling playfield to simulate the game itself.

This works by creating a belt mounted on tracks, which then turns via a crank mounted on the side. This works seamlessly and smoothly and is just another example of how clever LEGO engineers have become.

Here’s the TV interior with the scrolling belt attached:

This was a great kit to build, and for old school gamers such as myself the nostalgia value is through the roof. This is easily my favourite LEGO kit to date, and one I’ll likely keep assembled and on display for a very long time.

Posted in Games, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Toys | Comments Closed

Space Invaders

Saturday, December 19th, 2020

Space Invaders may not have been the very first video game, but it’s probably the most historic. It took the world by storm and led to an industry that by 2018 had surpassed the movies. I’ve written before how I still remember first playing it about 40 years ago, and to this day the game retains a place in my heart.

So when I saw the line of Micro Arcade handheld games it was a no-brainer which one I would buy.

These are tiny little game systems about the size of a credit card. I believe the same basic hardware is used for the entire range of games which is why this one has two buttons and a four way controller (space invaders only uses left, right and one fire button). The design is very nice: it’s a solid little unit with good buttons and a nifty clear front so you can see the PCB. It contains a rechargeable battery and has separate on/off and sound switches.

The screen is impressive for its tiny size (less than 1 square inch) and the pixels are clearer than they look in this photo. You can see the game simulates the cellophane stripes that added colour to the original monochrome arcade game, which is a nice touch.

It is of course a rewrite of space invaders and not the original code. It controls and plays the same but is fiendishly difficult with very fast enemy shots. Unfortunately the iconic sound and music of the original is not reproduced (this is a major omission) but what is here is good enough. It also doesn’t save high scores when turned off.

All things considered, for the low price ($15) this is much better than I thought it would be and while it’s probably ‘one for the collection’ I’m intrigued enough by the tech to consider buying one of the more complex games they have released.

It’s also notable how advanced this device is especially for such a low price. If you could take this back to 1979 and give it to little me I would have thought it was magic. Imagine the technology the children of today will be using when they’re my age!

Posted in Games, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Retro, Tech | Comments Closed

Too Much Snow

Thursday, December 17th, 2020

Woke to this:

That’s a shot of my driveway and the neighbors tree. You can’t see the driveway? Neither could I!

We knew we were getting a big storm, but even when we went to bed last night the forecasts said the worst would be south of here (around NYC) and we’d only get about 6 inches. We got a lot more than that!

You know you’ve got hard work ahead of you when the snow is deeper than your giant-sized snowthrower! Luckily it was light enough the machine could clear it, but it was very slow going. Here’s my view heading to the end of the driveway:

After one pass:

And after some progress:

It was terribly difficult work and took a long time – over 90 minutes – but it was made all the more difficult by the fact it was damn cold! When I started it was 15 F (-9 C) and even with three hats and two pairs of gloves on I was cold. I started to feel my fingers freeze and for the first time ever ended up putting ‘hot hands’ (chemical heat packets) into my gloves, which helped a lot.

Here’s before and afters on the driveway and front steps:

And a shot of the edge of the driveway with a normal sized soap bar box for scale:

The officially tally as of 7 am was 17.5 inches. It’s still falling now as I write (around 10 am) but will taper off soon. We’ll probably end up with about 20 inches, which is a colossal fall for less than 24 hours.

As you can imagine the world seems to have stopped. Everything is closed and there’s a ‘state of emergency’ in effect keeping vehicles off the road. Not that there needs to be: our street hasn’t been plowed yet and it would be virtually impossible to drive through this:

The good news of the forecast is for frigid conditions to continue for at least the next two weeks. It seems 2020 will be a white Christmas 🙂

Posted in Home, Miscellaneous, Nature | Comments Closed

Ramen 1: Triple Chicken

Sunday, December 13th, 2020

I ate three different packet chicken ramen on three consecutive days. All were prepared the same way (boil water, add ramen then flavor when noodles cooked). Here’s my review of each.

Top Ramen (380 Calories, 14g fat, 1600 mg sodium)

I bought a pack of these months ago due to a Gudetama promotion but didn’t get around to trying any until this past week. The noodles are fatter than other ramens, but the flavor was light and didn’t taste anything like chicken soup. Not terrible for the price (about $0.25), and I’ll eat the ones I have but I won’t be buying them again.

Maruchan (370 Calories, 14g fat, 1520 mg sodium)

An old favorite of mine, this one didn’t disappoint. The noodles are thin and delicious, and the flavor is stronger and more chickeny than Top Ramen. Afterwards I felt satisfied and regretted I hadn’t been wearing my Maruchan t-shirt whilst eating. Overall a solid chicken ramen, especially for the low price ($0.16).

Sapporo Ichiban (460 Calories, 20g fat, 1810 mg sodium)

The undisputed winner of this comparison! The noodles seem identical to maruchan so the difference must be in the flavor packet. I’m guessing it’s the extra fat and sodium that makes this one better. Each mouthful is like a chicken injection into your soul, and this is a ramen you could eat over and over without ever getting tired of it. They cost more ($1 apiece) but are absolutely worth it!

This was a fun thing to do, but I wished I had more types to include. If I can get my mitts on any other types of plain chicken packet ramen I’ll do a follow up!

Posted in Blog, Food, Miscellaneous | 3 Comments »

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