Monday, March 9, 2009

Miniature Toys: They are So Cool

The three of us — my wife, my son and I — went dining over the weekend to a place in Colaba we frequent. Food-Inn is also popular amongst foreigners because it is clean, reasonable, serves non-vegetarian food, gives good service, does not rush you through your drink/snack/meal and is open till midnight.
In the middle of dinner my son (who is just a year old) decided to turn around and stick his straw into a lady's blonde hair. Thankfully she looked over her shoulder and smiled at him (it helps to be cute some times). She was an elderly woman and she said something to my son in Italian or maybe French, I do not know. A minute later she turned around again and rattled a little plastic capsule to get my son's attention. He was now busy scratching the sofa's backrest and sucking on the straw at the same time. The gentleman she was with asked her to rattle it again. There was a tiny car inside the capsule and she wanted my son to have it. That was really nice of her. At first my son just gaped (this he gets from me), then looked away shyly. Finally he accepted her gift, we said our thank you's and they left the restaurant...smiling at us as they walked away.
That was really nice of them. Did I say that already? Who does that sort of thing anyway? Quite frankly, I was a little embarrassed at first. We give our boy a straw so he stays occupied. I did not expect him to run it into somebody's hair!

Anyway...that little car reminded me of the Easter chocolates a very good Berlin friend gave me years ago. Thanks Ms. D!! They were köstlich! One of them, in particular, was this huge chocolate Easter Egg. Beneath all that chocolate was a plastic eggshell and inside the eggshell were pieces of plastic (like a jigsaw puzzle), stickers and a tiny guide all neatly folded up. It was the coolest thing I ever got from someone.

With the help of the instructions I placed the stickers on the pieces of plastic and went on to put them together. Soon I had a little musketeer pointing his sword or "foil" at me. It even moves! There is a little roller that fits inside him which works with the arm piece (consists of the connector, sword and the hand) to make the sword arm move up and down. How cool is that? Below is a slideshow of how the musketeer was put together. The stickers are already on because I already did this years ago. I will upload a video of the little musketeer brandishing his sword as soon as I finish encoding it.



My Berlin friend just told me the Easter Egg chocolate is called Überraschungsei. This is the English version of the Wikipedia page — Kinder Surprise. "Kinder" is German for "children".
Take a look at Kinder Hobby — it is a collector's website of all the Überraschungsei he/she owns!

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Election Day Caution

I was out and about this morning, finishing up with some bank work. Took my camera along for the first time. I came across this message board outside Not Just Jazz by the Bay at Churchgate. It's on the elections because they are a month away. I would like to know who thinks up the lines for this message board — some of them are really nice. Someone once told me it was Nana Chudasama who contributed to the messages but I have no idea how true that is.

Goa: Tickell's Blue Flycatcher

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