My friends went to Malaysia and all they bought me was this ‘Rechargeable Mosquito-hitting Swatter’

My friends Colin and Jackie went on a holiday to Malaysia recently, now they are pretty good at getting unusual and funny gifts, I’ve got several funny things in the house that they’ve given me and Annie.

Well, keeping the tradition alive they brought back quite a spectacular but rather scary piece of technology. Behold, I present the…

“Rechargeable Mosquito-hitting Swatter”:

Click the image to see the big picture
[Click image to view larger]

How can you describe this thing? Well, cross a tennis racket with a tazer and this is what you get! Basically it’s for killing mosquitos, but it’s a pretty scary piece of equipment. It plugs into a wall and it powers up rechargeable batteries so that you can zap mosquitos by swatting and pressing the ‘zap’ button as you hit them!

Picture of the plug and 'on/off' button
Picture of the plug and ‘on/off’ switch

I have to admit I’m pretty scared to use it! I switched it on tonight and pressed the button and it zapped a piece of dust or something and it was pretty scary! It needs to be charged for at least 8 hours so it must get a fair amount of juice into it!

‘Very powerful’ package design

The other amazing aspect of it is the packaging, the description / instructions for use are hilarious due to the limited command of the english language that the makers of the device have, here it is in it’s full glory:

Main Character:

  1. Rechargeable Type: It furnishes 2 pcs. of 1.2V high quality rechargeable batteies which can by recharged in recycle for 600 times. it is quite practical and economic.
  2. Twice-speed discharge: It adopts an innovative twice-speed discharge circuit which can output 2500V in a moment. So, it has the best result for killing mosquito.
  3. Electric Shockproof Net: It can kill mosquito which is sucking blood on human bodies but it is harmless to human. when touching the net on flat surface, without any feeling of electric shock so it is safe for use.
  4. Leakproof Net: It consists on a special 3-layer net which can easily catch insect and never leak out.

Directions:

  1. When charging please use AC 100-240V, 50HZ power source.
  2. before using,please charge the batteries for 8-15 hours. They can be recharged in recycle for 600 times.
  3. When hitting insect, you can easily kill them just by pressing it’s switch.
  4. When the indicator twinkle,it indicate that the batteries run out. Then,the swatter should be recharged for 8-15 hours.

Warning:

  1. For more safety,do not press the switch or touch the ourface of net when swatter is in charge.
  2. Please do not finger the medium layer net.
  3. Please shake swatter for cleaning off insect carcasses which remain in net. Be sure don’t wash it with water,so as to avoid short circuit.
  4. The swatter may become without high-voltage or in low-voltage conditions when it absorbe damp in wet weather,the effect will be declined. Then,it can be dried by blowing with electric blower or shining with sunshine. The effect will be recovered soon.
  5. Children must instruce under adult when use it.

Wow, so there it is, one of the scariest electronic items I’ve seen for a while!

~Rick

I just bought a car!

Anyone who knows me may now be thinking, “But you don’t have a driving licence!?!?”.

This is true of course, it’s funny how this can seem like such a strange thing to some people (particularly people from somewhere like, um, Canada for instance!) mainly because people are very used to *needing* to have a car in order to get about. But for me it’s never been essential, living close to the centre of town I can easily walk, cycle or skateboard wherever I need to go. I’ve just never had a real need to drive, I’ve always thought it would be useful but just never been bothered enough to get around to taking lessons.

Of course, it’s actually Annie who will be driving the car anyway! I will just get chauffeured everywhere now! Although, now that we have a car I will no doubt want to get driving so it will motivate me finally to get my licence!

One funny thing about not having a licence is when I tell someone that I don’t have a licence I tend to have to explain that it’s not that I’ve lost my licence but that I’ve never had one!

What about the car?

Ok, here’s some details about the car, I’ve broken the information down into two formats, one for men and one for women, click the links below to jump straight to each.

Info for men | Info for women

Information for men:

  • Vauxhall Astra Envoy
  • 1.6 petrol
  • 5 door hatch
  • Automatic (Annie’s only allowed to drive auto here)
  • 2003 Model
  • One previous owner
  • Full service history
  • 13,000 miles

Information for women:

  • It’s green

Heh heh…

It looks like this: (car pictured is not ours but similar)

Vauxhall Astra Envoy 1.6

~Rick

Viruses, OSX and chiropracters…

Ok, quick update, got my Nokia N80, it’s pretty cool. Although my old number hasn’t ported across to it yet so I’m not using it day to day yet. Very cool surfing with Wi-fi!

Mac OS X: Viruses and Security

There’s a really interesting article on the Symantec website, entitled ‘Mac OS X: Viruses and Security’, it’s a good read to clarify the true situation regarding Mac OSX and viruses.

Check out the article ‘Mac OS X: Viruses and Security’ via this link.

Backpain

For the last week and a half I’ve been having loads of hassle with my back, not so much pain in my back as the pain is actually in my arm but the source of the problem is in my upper back. I’ve been to the chiropracter once this week already but I’m going back again today so hopefully that will bring relief! Ibuprofen has made no real difference so I’ve not been taking anything for the pain.

I post this for your sympathy! ;)

~Rick