Entries Tagged as 'Personal Items'

Belldandy figurine

As usual I’ve been busy with a lot of “extracurricular activities” that I have barely enough time to create a post here. And since I’m already going out, I’ll just post a quick one. Nothing special, I’m just showing you my Belldandy figurine I bought last year.

Belldandy figurine
She’s my angel and goddess.

Looking back on my previous entires, I have a lot of posts that I tagged Belldandy. A quick search for the keyword Belldandy reveals the posts I mentioned her. There was the desktop meme, the custom Belldandy theme of my computer, and of course her bio.

Quartet, cast puzzle level 6 solved!

Yes!!! Finally after almost a month in storage, I finally solved one of the hardest puzzle in the Cast series.

Today was our yearly year-end family reunion. It was a tradition in our family and relatives to gather every year, and was observed since I was still a kid and my grandparents are still alive. Before I left the house, I thought to bring my cast puzzle, Quartet, so I have something to do at the reunion. I never really socialize with my other relatives and mush prefer to watch at the TV or do something.

So then and there, I started tinkering my puzzle toy. After a couple of tries and re-tries, since my cousin(s) kept borrowing my toy and trying it out for themselves, I finally solved it. After about an hour or two, the first of the latches was released and followed by the other three.

Hehe. I was so happy, even my girlfriend (whom I invited to our family reunion) congratulated me for conquering this mind bending little metallic object. So I immediately got my phone to take a photo of this momentous event. Hehehe.

After separating the puzzle pieces, I tried to put them back together, which until now (as I’m typing this) haven’t had any success in putting it back in its original state. But at least I solved the 3rd part of the puzzle. Which is to form all the 4 pieces into a solid square.

Rubik’s cube solved

YES!

The other day while I was looking for something to do, I stumbled upon my Rubik’s cube. Yup, the one lying in the corner of my room collecting dust. That’s when I remembered that a friend of mine ask me to download some videos at YouTube. It was videos on how to solve Rubik’s cube, so I searched my hard drive to find it. I got at least 8 videos downloaded, but only two (1, 2) were worth watching.

I can already solve 1 and 2 layers of the cube beforehand, but to finish the cube I have to learn the algorithms used by cube solvers so I can finish it up. So I practiced while watching the video, and also taking down notes. I tried scrambling and solving the cube many times, so I can perfect the moves by using the algorithms.

Although I can now solve the cube, the next thing I should do is memorize this algorithms so I wouldn’t look stupid solving the cube with a paper in hand. ;)


(my handwriting sucks because I stopped using pens and papers when I was already in college. hehe)

USB flash drive or Portable card reader?

Every time I go out, I always bring my portable card reader loaded with a 2GB SD memory. I always copy files from my friends and/or download files off the Internet when I’m outside. There are those who ask me, why I chose to use my card reader instead of my USB flash drive. I have many reasons, but to sum it all up it is because of flexibility and safety.

Here are some of my reasons:

  • I’m using a card reader. That means if any of my friends bring along a SD card, lets say from their mobile phone or digital camera, we can easily transfer files between our units.
  • I can use my SD card as extra storage for using in a digital camera or mobile phone
  • I can use a larger capacity SD card for my card reader, thus I don’t need to buy another unit.
  • SD cards have a lock option. So if I insert it in another computer, it wont easily get infected with a virus. Lets see a USB flash drive do that.

Bringing along a USB card reader is more flexible than a USB thumb drive due to numerous reasons. Although I have to admit a USB flash drive is more durable than a USB card reader. But hey, I don’t usually drop my gadgets.

And I got both USB device for almost the same price.

Hand puzzle games

Yesterday at MOA, I bought two puzzle games to play around in my spare time. I wasn’t actually planning to buy one, but one incident led to another and… you get the picture. Anyhow I decided to look around at the National Bookstore branch there to see if they have a stock of TaleCraft. But unfortunately after almost an hour searching, I still couldn’t find that elusive story-telling-game. As I was at the cashier’s line, I noticed this puzzle game at one of the shelves. I took one and bought it then and there.


Dilemma Games (299.75 php @ National Bookstore)

The objective of the puzzle is simple, just remove the rightmost ring attached to the object. Of course, you don’t need to use hammers or pliers to twist and turn it because that would be cheating. The game also includes a solution inside the box, but I didn’t dare to even open or look at it because if I do, I’ll just be wasting the money I bought for that game.

I took a picture of it before and after I unboxed it. After that I started tinkering with the object, as I wasn’t planning to solve it yet. But as luck would have it, after much twisting and turning, the ring came off. Ok so much for the 300 bucks, gone in less than 3 minutes.

After that, I called it a level zero puzzle, that I think even a 5 year old can solve. Moving on…

After my girlfriend and I left National Bookstore, I decided to go to Powerbooks to search for that elusive TaleCraft. I know that these are the only stores that sold that particular game, so I usually search for it in every mall I went. But then we passed by this store with a lot of toys in their display window. I was curious of course, not for the toys, but I wondered if I could find what I was looking for in there.

Inside the shop I came upon another one of these puzzle, this time it was more professional looking. It was packaged properly, it was die-casted and has a metallic coating, and costs more. I remembered seeing it the first time at the Podium when this girl showed it to me, got a sample, and asked me to try and solve it. I never thought I would see this puzzle again.


Cast puzzles (525.00 php @ Hobbes and Landes)

The same objective is required in this puzzle, you just have to separate each of the four ‘latches’ that formed the puzzle itself. Easy enough? Not really. This is a level 6 puzzle and the hardest of all the puzzles. The puzzle name is Quartet, from the Cast series. The series contains puzzles that ranges from level 1 to level 6. Simply put, level 1 puzzles are the most easiest and level 6 are the most hardest. Wonder why I bought the hardest? I’m not really expecting to solve this puzzle easily, but the reason is that, I get more out of the money I spent to buy this thing. So I can say sulit talaga.

You can see at the back of the box that there are three ways of doing the puzzle. It looks small, but I tell you it’s really not that easy. I was fascinated by these kinds of puzzles that I’m planning to buy all the Cast series for the reason of collecting and solving them. They also have a website, but I dare not visit it ‘coz of the fear that I may see a solution there…

Anyway, I started playing around with the puzzle earlier today, and even my friend got hooked at it and was playing it for the last couple of hours. He did eventually gave up after about 4 hours, for fear that he might get insane or something. Hahaha.

With all these puzzles, I still haven’t mastered the cube which is sitting idly in the corner of my room.