Lego MOC Raft

While looking at the Lego 6240 Kraken Attackin' from the Pirates lines, I realised that I had most of the pieces in there and could make my own creation (MOC) for the Imperial Soldiers so that they have a counterpart sort of to that set. Kind of like the Bricksbeard's Bounty has a counterpart in form the of the Imperial Flagship.

So after a few Lego pieces hunting trip over at Tampines Mall Toys Outpost, I came home and assembled my first revision. I had to iterate a few times as I somehow got some stuff wrong like getting too long a technic axle but that did not cost too much so it was fine. I also had to buy some stuff on Bricklink as well before this assembled creation you see below was in this final form.

As the pirates raft had a parrot, I got these dudes an owl.

The lookout is very similar to the pirates version except it is slightly lower. I also inserted some white pieces to match the colour scheme of the soldier's fort.

What I managed to squeeze in for them was a weapons rack so that they can be overarmed and ready to take on the pirates while on patrol.

The other thing is that instead of using all 2x2 round brick pieces I made the effort to use barrels to add slightly more detail which turned out quite well except the colour is a bit different. Well slight variation sometimes add a bit of an organic aspect of the raft.

I have another Bricklink purchase coming soon, so I hope to modify some other part of the soldier's fort to extend it. Meanwhile I really do love this MOC.

Star Was Ice Cube Tray

Amazing, my sister came back from the States with a Star Wars Ice Cube Tray. It makes ice cubes the shape of a YT-1300 light freighter, YT-1300 492727ZED. That is the Millenium Falcon lah!

It is made by a Japanese company that does a lot of Sci Fi stuff, Kotobukiya. As you can see below how, they make a very good packaging artwork too and definitely creates quality products.

So how does the ice looks like. Bascially it is quite detailed for something rather small but bigger than your normal ice cubes. One definitely recognises it as the Millennium Falcon. I love this ice cube maker and must say it is probably one of the coolest Star Wars franchise product I own. Right now I am going to try to make a bunch of them and try to take a picture of it. Trouble is, it is quite hard to see the details as they are semi transparent but will give it a shot and see how it goes.

Thai Table with the family

As the wife's sister is in Singapore and Malaysia for one week and one day was to be spent staying over at my place, my mum wanted to invite the sister for a dinner with the family. We decided on going to Thai Table as it was near out place and price rather reasonably.

Thai Table is located at 20 Jalan Pari Burong, Singapore 488686. It is located in a rather cosy corner nearby Simpang Bedok where all the 24-hour prata shops are. The owners of this resturant is also the owner of the nearby Japanese cuisine restaurant Momoya.

One of the more unique dishes I find is the Crispy Sea Bass Salad. Now upon hearing this, when the dish first came, I wondered, where is the sea bass? Just looking at the dishes below can you guess which of the 5 is Crispy Sea Bass Salad? I would hazard a "no".

The reason that it is so hard to identify is because the dish's sea bass has been turned into flakes and fried to a crisp. That is the dish on the upper right at the 2 o'clock position if we take the chilli saucers to be the centre.

Next up is the Pandan Chicken. This is my standard meat dish besides the Green Curry Chicken.

Another dish that is said to be very good over at this restaurant is the fish cake.

The other thing is like are the desserts at this place. They serve primarily 4 types of desserts: red ruby, mango sticky rice, tapioca pudding and ice cream. We ordered the mango sticky rice and tapioca pudding.

They look like small portions but somehow to me they are very filling as they are very dense desserts in general.

In general I can say confidently that their food is quite oily in general and is well reflected in the smell imparted on the clothes once we leave the place. The ventilation at the kitchen obviously has worked overtime and maybe even concussed.

Thai Table definitely have 2 very satisfied customers I can assure them looking at the picture below.

The crowd during the weekends are not there hence making a good place to go to and eat decent food when you do not want to face a horde. That is one other very big attractive factor for me. Hopefully that does not mean that it will close down any time soon. All in all it is a nice place to go to occasionally if you live nearby like me.

Lego 6242 Soldier's Fort

Prologue

This is the last vital set of the Pirates II (2009) line which I have been slowly gathering. Below is a cover art of the set. Like most Pirates II sets, it features marine creatures, pirates, jewels and Imperial Guards in this one. Of course this set features heavily on the Imperial Guards.

The person who sold it to me had informed me before hand that the box was not in good condition but all tape seals were intact. Mentally I was picturing a horribly squashed box but on the day I went down to collect this set I was pleasantly surprised. Yes the box was warped but not squashed. So I was one happy camper as I used my grubby hands to haul this precious home.

One thing I really liked about the this is the artwork on the box featuring the map motif.

One side features the scale and lists all the minifigures that come with the set and they look very good indeed.

The back of the box shows how the set is made up of smaller parts connected by technic pins together, the accessories, play features and the fort in an action sequence. The lower left pimps the Brickbeard's Bounty. If you are a fan of Pirates II like me, you got to get the ship too.

Items List

Here is a shot of the bags, manuals and stickers of this set and since it is not that large, we are able to capture it all in one screenshot.

This set has 2 instruction manuals, 4 numbered polybags, a small sticker sheet and a plastic printed flag..

The Build

This set features six minifigures like the Shipwreck Hideout except this leans more heavily on the Imperial Guards. The line up of characters is quite standard with the exception of the governor. The 2 animals feature in this set are the money holding a key and a crocodile. A nice mix of characters though I am always more biased to getting more minifigures in a set.

Like a row reversal of Shipwreck Hideout, we now have Brickbeard in a row boat. This time the boat is reddish-brown instead of earth blue and the paddles are brown instead of white. Also he has a jolly roger at the bow and carries a stick of dynamite at back of it.

Now onto the first module. It features a nice palm tree, some plants and steps like a mini bridge. The palm tree piece looks really really great and is probably not a very common.

It has a small recess underneath the tree that stores some gems under it. Something about buried treasure I guess but not sure what it is about here with the Imperial Guards who are the good guys here.

The second module is more interesting. It features a jail house and a cannon position on top of it. If you ask me, I would not have designed a defensive position directly above a place where the bad guys are held. Just think too many things can go wrong if the bad guys escape. Oh well this is Lego after all, where for some reason we have more Firemen and Police sets than civilian buildings. Seems such things are legit in the Lego universe.

The jail house features a back wall which can be removed to simulate it being blown away by a kamikaze Captain Brickbeard on his row boat loaded with dynamite. The sticker on the walls are a nice touch. Just that I screwed it up by getting the stickers wrong. Who would have noticed that the spider in the cobweb are in different positions...
   

So here is the scene where you have an oblivious guard manning the cannon and a monkey being paid a banana in exchange for the key to get out of jail. The stickers on the panel really add a nice touch and is a pity indeed that they are not printed.

The third module has the most base plates but the simplest of structures. It is an open shelter with some defensive turrets and a flagpole. What is special about this module is that it is a "corner unit".

As a result, it has 3 connecting locations with one on the other side as shown below. This helps make the soldier's fort less elongated looking I guess.

Here is a scene of a soldier going towards the shelter. A familiar scene towards all NSFs I am sure.

The fourth and final module is the tallest and has the highest brick count, though to me, it is not the nicest of the bunch. It is a tower with a crane on top of it.

The back part of it is open air like most Lego sets of this type. The crane works pretty well except one has to really winch quit a bit to raise the cargo due to the small diameter of the pulley.

So for this scene, I put the governor at his blaconey overseeing the smooth running of the fort while another soldier is acting busy...again something all NSFs know a lot about! No one is manning the crane with its precious cargo...

 

Finally of course I could not resist doing a small MOC since I had some parts lying around that matched the colour scheme of this set. Yeah, I used the Eygptian Stele/Stela as pillars for this set. I move part of the Cannon Battle into it plus the weapons rack of the Soldier's Arsenal into it. When my HK ordered cannons arrive, I intend to me this a 2 level cannon fire base.

The back part is open to allow easy access to place minifigs.

Final Thoughts

This set was bought from someone in LUGS at a very good price as the box had some shelf wear. It is a fun set to own but is it worth buying? Well it is one of the larger pirate sets and for the imperials the largest land-based set, if you like the pirates line, this is a must have and it adds a different dimension in a sense as it is a fort whereas most of the other sets are mostly ship related. What it does offer though is a set with some interesting play features such as the modular nature of the set. It allows you to put some creativity in assembling the fort into a configuration that you like. Also, this set has the governor who is the leader of the Imperials and can be found only in this set and the Imperial Flagship. Plus there are quite a few imperial soldiers in it which I have a fondness for. I feel most pirates II sets are short of the good guys and this helps shift the balance a bit. I leave this review with pictures of the whole set.

Here it is on top of the cupboard with all my other nonsense. It is also unmodified.

Here it is with my own module added. I feel it looks slightly bigger and more fitting of a fort.

A close up of the set without all the distractions.

 

Honeywell Long-Life Pure HEPA QuietCare Air Purifier 17000

Yes, the package came this evening around 1700-1800hrs. Most surprising since the estimated delivery date was 19th July. Thank you Amazon for under promising but over delivering. Strange thing though was I ordered 2 pieces but only 1 arrived. Oh well they (Speedpost) will probably send the other one over tomorrow.

Interestingly enough, this did not come double boxed unlike my previous Amazon buy of the Lego Imperial Flagship.

Its claim to fame is that it is a true HEPA filter type air purifier which removes 99.97% of particles as small as 0.3 microns as you can see that the claim is found all over the box.

One one of its side touts all the advantages of true HEPA goodness as well as having recommendations supposedly by doctors...which I am sure is not allowed in Singapore.

Okay the bottom of the package is plain.

As this is a US electrical device, there is a need for voltage conversion. This device consumes 80 watts, so I got a 100 watts one to match as closely as possible. This is a Winstar brand one which comes with only 2 settings. Input 220AC, output 110AC or input 110AC, output 220AC by means of a toggle switch. Super basic but enough for my needs.

So let us see what lies inside of the box! Wow a big red warning leaflet.

So it comes with some leaflets to read before operating the device. The quick start manual is really all you need and the rest of the important instructions are stuck on the device itself.

Important thing to note, the pre-filter which is the activated carbon filter needs to be installed as stated in the quick start manual.

Before we do that, here is the front of the 17K. Very plain and simple. Reminds me of those old PC days.

See another sticker stuck on the unit informing a user to turn it on high setting for 5 minutes with new filters, whether pre-filter or the HEPA filter itself. I guess this is to "run in" them by trapping some particles stabilising their efficiency in filtering.

The back view is even more plain since it lacks any buttons.

The left hand side has nothing on it

It is on the right hand side that where the filter change is done.

So with the cover removed, we can see the HEPA filter.

One the inside portion of the lid, there are instructions on how to reset the change filter indicator LED.

So the pre-filter is wrapped around the HEPA filter and is held by means of 2 short strips of velcro.

Without the HEPA filter, we can see the motor that is going to do all the heavy lifting in the centre of the housing. Again, the colour scheme is very plain. Which works for me.

There are only 4 buttons at the front, OFF, HIGH, MEDIUM and LOW. Just hit the desired speed and off the device goes! This is definitely not a quiet machine at high settings which the ratings are derived.

The back vent at the upper portion of the device is where the air is vented out and is pretty strong. It creates a very nice breeze for anyone looking to dry a wet t-shirt or towel.

So if the haze should return, this is going to be my front line warrior. If not I will just remember to turn this on once in a while or when someone wants a strong breeze to dry anything.

Now some might say hey this only has the Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR) for 15 square metres which is awfully small. Well remember that for most of us, the aircon system is the recirculating type. The air in the room is cooled and return to the room. Hence, once the air purifier scrubs through the whole volume of air in the room once, the rest of the time it should be operating like in maintenance mode of cleaning whatever new unfiltered air that is introduced by means of door opening and by leaks present at the seams and so on.

Of course proof is in the pudding when the haze comes back. Stay tuned on how effective this is if the haze returns.