Category: Miscellaneous

Animal Crossing

June 4, 2019

Yesterday we visited Animal Kingdom, one of the four main Disney parks. We’d been several times before, but recently a new section was added based around the world of Pandora from the Avatar film and we were looking forward to seeing it.

I know I’ve been overusing the word but it was… amazing. As you can see the ‘floating’ rocks are massive and imposing and very, very realistic. The landscaping is a mix of real and fake plants that are blended so well it can be hard to see the difference. It also seems that the Pandoran plants are bioluminescent and would glow after dark. But at the time of the above photo it was 8 am and the park had just opened…

Yes that’s the line as soon as the park opened. How is this possible? Yesterday was ‘Extra Magic hours’ which meant people staying at Disney hotels could get in one hour early. All those people filled up the line for the main Avatar ride even before the park opened for the rest of us 🙂

We never rode it, and never saw the line drop below 95 minutes all day. But we did have a FastPass (reserved position) for the other Avatar ride. Problem was it was 8 am, and our FastPass was for 7 pm. It would be a long day!

Almost immediately we rode the fantastic Everest Expedition rollercoaster and I got very motion sick! I guess I’m becoming sensitive in my waning years…

We went on the safari drive twice (one time was quite memorably since our young female driver seemed drunk), we went to every show (we both napped during Nemo), we did the animal walkthroughs, waited out a rainstorm and soaked up lots of AC in restaurants.

It was very hot and humid, especially after the rain, and I was close to death more than once. I’m fighting off a head cold and was sweating out the water faster than I could drink it.

But we pressed on! More rides and shows, more penny-pressing, (much) more walking and more sitting.

And then… somehow… it was 11 hours later and time for the Avatar boat ride we had reserved our pass for 30 days ago…

And it turned out to be a higher-tech clone of the Pirates of The Caribbean ride! Was it worth the wait? For me, absolutely it was! For most… probably not.

And that was that. Yesterday we proved that yes, you can see everything (except the most popular attraction) in just one visit… as long as you’ve got 12.5 hours and push yourself to the very limit and beyond 🙂

My Collection: Virtual Boy

May 24, 2019

In 1995 Nintendo released their Virtual Boy console. It utilized monochrome red stereoscopic 3D graphics and became a legendary failure, being pulled from the market in under a year. The launch price was $180; eight months after launch I bought mine – an ex-rental – for $30.

When assembled for use it looks like this:

And is played like this:

While playing you view two screens – one each eye – which form a 3D image via parallax. It’s very effective – ‘true’ 3D – and almost impossible to photograph. But I tried:

While the 3D effect is convincing, there are three significant problems with the device:
1) The games are poor.
2) The posture required to actually play it is painful.
3) Playing hurts the eyes and for most people (myself included) causes headaches in only minutes.

It’s incredible this was ever released since these serious issues are obvious after even casual use. I remember after it launched I knew it would fail, and was never seriously interested in buying one even after the first price cut (this is an advert I kept from a late 1995 comic):

Only 14 games were released in the USA (22 worldwide) and I own four:

All of these were purchased brand new for $10 apiece (games were $30 at launch). I got Red Alarm the day I got the system, and the others about six months later. I recall playing the Wario game to completion but barely played the others.

The cartridges are large but very thin, and quite collectible today. The game shown above may be my priciest single game, with boxed copies on eBay right now for $900 (yes, nine hundred). It’s notable for being the last and rarest game for the system and for being linked to the Persona series.

I only paid $70 for my system and games. I could probably sell it all for $1000+ today. Not bad for one of the biggest failures in video game history.

A New Sink

May 14, 2019

We had the trap under our sink rust out three months ago, and needed to call a plumber. A lot of money later – admittedly because I had him replace our water shutoff downstairs as well – the leak was fixed.

Then the other day we discovered a more insidious problem. A water line to our faucet had developed a slow drip leak and needed replacement. Once again the plumber was called.

He tore out the water-damaged undersink cupboard floor and we found a puddle. It’s possible water had been soaking into the wood a while, but there’s no sign of serious damage either here or downstairs so it looks good. The pipe on the left was corroded and had at least two slow leaks. It had to go.

That’s our old sink. And when I say old, I mean probably as old as the house. The faucet was terrible and wobbly, and the sprayer was lying in the sink since we discovered a few days back that it leaked into the cupboard too!

KLS wanted a new sink and faucet and as it turns out the plumbers company (who had also done our furnace and AC) was full service and he said he could install everything today! So we had a price estimate chat, I picked out a sink and faucet, and he got to work.

Most of this needed to be replaced, which essentially would erase half the work we paid for three months ago! It looked like hellish work due to how inaccessible it is, and he was both older and bigger than me.

He worked professionally and obviously had a lot of experience. All day he was cutting pipes, welding them together, removing the old sink and putting in the new. Including a trip to collect the parts it took him 7.5 hours in total before it was all done.

The only parts not new are the pipe from the wall and the bottom of the trap. The water lines were replaced from floor level. The black pipe is the line to the faucet sprayer, and the black cylinder is the weight to keep it in the faucet.

And there it is. As you can see I went with a simple design, and unlike our old faucet it can turn to the side thus freeing the sink (which is deeper). It’s all high quality stuff too; leagues better than the old.

Of course it was hellishly expensive, but anyone that owns a home knows the terror of calling the plumber. But this work should last longer than we’ll be in this house, and given we’ve hardly put anything into this place for all the years we’ve been here we reckon that’s not bad at all.

Robot Claw