New Toys

Thought I’d post a little round up of some of the more unusual objects I have purchased recently. Here’s a great object to start with:

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Give up yet?

It’s a …

“Sitting Disc”. Which doesn’t tell you a great deal. The sitting disc is an inflatable disc (comes with a pump) about a foot in diameter which one uses as an exercise device to improve one’s core stabilising muscles. I got mine here.

I’ve not been sitting on mine as my chair doesn’t go low enough to allow for the extra height of the disc. Instead I have been practicing standing on the disc. At first I could only stay on it for a couple of seconds. Now, about a week later, I can remain standing on it for much longer.

I’ve also been experimenting with standing up on the London Underground without holding on and my ability to do that definitely seems to have improved. Naturally, this blog comes with a disclaimer that you should not attempt to perform any of the feats you read about here as this could result in public embarassment and/or personal injury.

If you really must try, my subjective experience indicates that the Central line trains accelerate much faster than the District line trains and tend to wobble a lot more. “Lurch violently” being a more accurate word for “wobble”, in the case of the track between Liverpool Street and Bank.

And while I’m on about that particular stretch of track, I could just mention that that also happens to be one of the louder parts of the underground, measured with my decibel meter some time ago at around 90db. I bought it to measure noise levels in night clubs but it was a bit of a waste as pretty much everywhere I’ve ever been that plays music goes off the scale.

This is toy number two:

It may look like a cigarette lighter but it is actually a 1Gb Sony mp3 player / FM radio, which my parents bought me for my birthday. (Thank you!) Central Line decibel levels don’t do much for the music but everywhere else, the sound is great. I’ve taken the player everywhere with me since I got it and it has been fantastic having a choice of music where ever I go. The folding headphones and the player fit neatly into a jacket pocket, so there’s no need for me not to have it with me.

Depending on what quality level the music is recorded at I can get 15-30 hours of music on in one go. The battery life is quoted at up to 40 hours and charges from the USB port of my PC when I transfer new music across. Currently playing - Apollo 440’s Electra Glide In Blue, Depeche Mode’s new album (another birthday present, courtesy of my brother), The Distillers - Coral Fang and various other dance/drum and bass/metal tracks as varied as you might guess if you’ve read the Gig-Listed pages of this blog.

Here’s toy number three:

This is my old car battery on overnight charge after it failed to start my car for a trip to the supermarket. Which, of course, goes without saying, had to happen at a time when I had no food in the house and was absolutely starving. (I walked to the supermarket, in case you’re wondering how I survived to be here typing this.)

So, my car got treated to a brand new battery, which I replaced in the Halfords car park, so that I could drop the old one off at their shop for recycling. Very nice of them. This whole process was made about a hundred times easier by the socket set which my parents bought me for Christmas, inspired by my first bout of car battery trouble. I also bought my car a tax disc and a year’s insurance. It rewarded me by passing its MOT first time.

A final “New Toy” mention must go to my Canon digital camera which my parents also bought me for Christmas. I used that to take all the pictures you see here.