Self-repaired my DS 24 November, 2009
Posted by dear1dear2 in Consumer Electronics, Dear1, Leisure & Games.add a comment
If you remember, I received my DS as a birthday present from Dear2 in 2007. It was really fantastic. I’ve always always wanted one of those handheld games since I can’t remember how young I was. As such, I have treasured this gift very much both because it was something that I really wanted and because it was a gift from Dear2.
For the past nearly 2 years, my DS seldom left my backpack as I carried my backpack to school everyday. I’ll always play it while travelling on the bus or train. Sometimes, Dear2 and I would challenge each other to a game of Mario Kart or Tetris when we’re travelling together. I can get pretty exciting. At home, we also play Animal Crossing with each other, visiting each other’s town and bring new furniture. We really had fun with our DS.
But unfortunately, my DS was dropped twice. I can vividly remember both times. Once at night, I left my DS on the bedside table, and I unknowingly threw my arm around while asleep and swept the DS onto the floor. Sad. That was the last time I left my DS on the bedside table. Nowadays, it goes under the bed if I was playing DS just before bedtime. The other time, I left it under my pillow, and in a similar fashion, I swung my arm under my pillow to cuddle up into a cosy sleeping position and swept the DS from under the pillow onto the floor. Sigh. Under the bed is the safest place for a DS to be.
I think it was during one of those drops that the lower screen started spoiling. The screen produced a yellow tint and discoloured everything. Soon, the resolution started reducing and I would see missing horizontal lines and vertical lines. I would say the resolution reduced to about 1/4 the max. There were no dead pixels however. Some time after that, the screen started flickering up and down, but it would stabilize after some ‘warming up’ so I was still able to play my games. Things took a turn for the worse and the lower screen gave up completely and wouldn’t even light up. I would turn to playing GBA games becos they only used 1 screen and my top screen is still working perfectly. This whole deterioration process spanned over about 6 months or so. But it was clear, I needed to get my DS repaired.
I brought my DS to a repair shop and asked for a quotation. It was going to cost about $30 or more for parts and labour and I would need to leave my DS there overnight. Hmm… I certainly do not want to leave my precious DS with some stranger overnight. So I began looking for new alternatives. I turned to my favourite DS accessories website – Dealextreme.
I also looked up some DS repair videos on Youtube to get an understanding of how DS works and how do I go about disassembling it. Surprisingly, I found this video of a young girl, probably about 10 years old, give a demonstration of how to replace the lower screen for the DS. So I thought, if she can do it, so can I. I ordered all the parts that I needed from Dealextreme – a replacement lower screen, a trigram screwdriver, a replacement touchscreen (just for good measure although my touchscreen isn’t spoilt), and a set of screen protector (because my lower screen protector was already badly scratched). The total cost was about $20, and since Dealextreme owed me $7 from a previous transaction, I paid only $13 for this shipment.
The actual instructional video that I followed to repair my DS.
The parts arrived last week after some delay and I sat down to repair my DS right away. Following the instructional video found on Youtube, I disassembled my DS and replaced the lower screen as well as the touch screen. All this took about 1 hour to complete for a complete first timer like me (don’t understand why the repair shops require the whole night to do it). At this stage, I suddenly became a bit skeptical. Maybe it wasn’t the screen that was spoilt. Maybe it was one of the video processors in charge of rendering the lower screen that was faulty. Then I would have wasted money buying all these replacement parts. Too late, I just have to turn on the power to find out.
Yes! It works! It was indeed a faulty lower screen. Haha.
I quickly applied on the new screen protector and began playing my DS again. I miss those DS games, GBA games can be a bit stale. My lower screen hasn’t looked this gorgeous for so long. I realized how much rubbish resolution and eye strain I’ve been putting up with for the past how many months. Getting replacement parts is this cheap and self-repairing is this easy. I should have done it a long time ago. Damn procrastination. #@*%!
Hopefully with this repair, my DS would last me another few years. Playing DS together with Dear2 is really fun. Although Dear2 always beats me at the Tetris Push challenge but I just enjoy playing together with Dear2. :D
-Dear1
Misunderstood McDonald Monopoly 9 November, 2009
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Our McMonopoly. Everyone else’s probably looks the same.
Sentosa Cove is the currently hottest property in town. Why? Becos you can take home $50000 in cash from the McDonald Monopoly game if you own the Sentosa Cove property sticker.
We’ve eaten about 6 upsized extra value meals (EVM) since the start of this marketing campaign to join in on the latest craze in town. After all, getting a chance to win great prizes while eating $5.50 upsized lunch time discounted McSpicy meal sounds like a good deal!
Sure, the set collecting game does look fun at first, and the chances of winning looks great too. Each upsized meals comes with 8 stickers and we *just* need to collect 2 or 3 of the same colour to win. For many people out there, the hidden assumption is that all property stickers are printed in equal quantities. And right here, we have a big contradiction.
If there is going to be only 1 cash prize of $50k, how can there be 72148 pieces of Sentosa Cove in circulation? If everyone comes to claim the prize, do we split it like Toto? >_>
It didn’t take us many EVMs to confirm this. After collecting 3 Ardmore Parks, 4 Geylands (no misspelling) and 5 Amber Roads, it is quite easy to observe that the prize winning stickers are printed in controlled quantities. In a sense, everyone in Singapore who are playing this game will probably have Newton Road and River Valley, waiting for the prize winning Scotts Road. And so on for the other colours as well.
Or if we look at it another way, referring to the picture of the monopoly map above, there’s only going to be 50+100+20+15+10+15+1+1=212 prize winning stickers (and probably a few more spares in case of unclaimed prizes). Yes, only ONE Sentosa Cove.
And if I’m the organizer, I’ll probably release these prize winning stickers slowly over the course of the game duration (until 31 Dec 2009), starting with the lowest prize in the first few weeks of the campaign to convince the public that prize winning stickers are indeed in circulation. And I’ll release the winning Sentosa Cove sticker (singular, not plural) on the final week to crown the so-called grand winner. After all, who will still want to play the game if the big prize was given away during the first week.
Just the other day, we overheard a few aunties in our neighbourhood discussing about how they *only* short of Orchard Road. And if auntie A have *extra* Orchard Road, must give it to auntie B ok. Erm… There’s only 1 Orchard Road in Singapore (pun intended). Everyone else in Singapore is also *only* short of Orchard Road. I wonder if these aunties realized that they’re falling into the marketing trap by eating EVM every day.
For us, we just eat our EVMs whenever we have cravings for french fries, and at the same time try our luck at the game. Our best hope are the instant win prizes. So far, we’ve won $3 Esso discount, a milk shake and a snack wrap. Slurps!
-Dear1
The Five People You Meet in Heaven 3 May, 2009
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In case you don’t know, this is a book by Mitch Albom, author of the international bestseller Tuesdays with Morries (yeah, it’s that bestseller, so better go grab a read if you haven already done so.)
The Five People You Meet in Heaven. Who are they?
First person: The Blue Man
The Moral: Some people die when others live. Some things happened (or not happened) so that other things can happen.
Second Person: The Captain
The Moral: Sacrifices. One man died so that others can live.
Third Person: Ruby
The Moral: Forgiveness. Don’t be a moron and be angry all your life; you will only end up wasting the whole of your life for nothing.
Fourth Person: Marguerite.
The Moral: Love. Life ends, but love doesn’t.
Fifth Person: Tala
The Moral: Everyone of us is important in this world, regardless of how insignificant your job is, or how worthless you think you are. Becos you are you, things happened. Becos you are you, there are people whom others can love, and who loves others. Life is wonderful, no matter how meagre you feel.
Conclusion: The only way to live is, to live life to the fullest. Dun bare hatred, dun bare regrets, cos you are only wasting your life in doing so. Cherish life, and dun wait until you meet the five people in heaven to tell you how important and loved you are. The world is great simply becos you are you.
- Dear2
Hula Hoop from Toys “R” Us 4 January, 2009
Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear2, Leisure & Games, Sports & Health.2 comments
It was really tough going! How did those people make hula hooping look so effortless? Hmm…..
In an attempt to pick up hula hoop faster, Dear2 came across some hula hooping lessons from youtube. The trainers demonstrated a series of different routines with a single hula hoop – clockwise loop, turn clockwise on the spot, turn anticlockwise on the spot, and repeat these 3 routines now in anticlockwise loop. That already makes 6 different routines. Try it, cos only those who try it can appreciate fun in such a simple exercise.
The point about these youtube lessons is, that the video is actually to promote this certain brand of hula hoop. Okay, Dear2 obviously is not going to order and have a hoop shipped to Singapore, but the key thing to note about these hoops is that, they are huge. Huge and slightly weighted hoops. Hmm… So means that bigger and heavier hoops are easier to rotate? Hmm… Den what about my hoop bought from the local stationery shop? I think it’s meant for kids leh….
Off we went for hula hoop search again, this time from Toys “R” Us. Oh, what’s that? A hula hoop is going on sale, UP $13.95, now going at $9.95. Confirm get lah. Haha!
And now, with the new hula hoop, Dear2 can execute all the above mentioned 6 routines with fair ease, something that the previous hoop can never achieve. Even Dear1 now picks up hula hooping a little, and not sweat so profusely after just 2 rounds on the small hoop, haha.
Hula hooping. Try it, it’s fun.
- Dear2
Stop that LEGO criminal! 17 June, 2008
Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear1, Leisure & Games.1 comment so far
At 3.54pm this afternoon, a LEGO criminal escaped on a hijacked police motorcycle. A pedestrain manage to capture this photograph at the very moment of the escape.
According to eye witnesses, the police transport van and the accompanying escort patrol stopped by a local kopitiam for an afternoon coffee break.
On pretense of asking for a toilet break, the criminal managed to trick the vehicle driver into opening the rear door. An unofficial report says that the criminal had already loosen his handcuffs earlier while under detention and was able to escape once the doors were opened.
One LEGO police officer was injured during this incident. As seen in the picture above, LEGO officer Helm Etra Dio was knocked off his patrol bike by the runaway.
“Suddenly… [I] felt a hard *thump* on my back… and [my body] fly through the air and [my] face hit the ground.” said officer Helm during an interview.
The LEGO police is taking this escape very seriously, describing it as “outrageous”. A four member committee will be appointment to lead the investigation of this incident.
-Dear1
p.s. We got this 2-in-1 promotional LEGO set at the Takashimaya toy fair, that’s $17.90 (U.P.$27.90) for box 7235 and 7245 which comes with a total of 3 LEGO figures. :D
KBox KLunch 29 March, 2008
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KBox is the name of a karaoke service provider here in Singapore. And KLunch is one of their lunch promotion that includes 3 hours of singing, 1 bento lunch set and 1 drink. The catch is you have to ‘check in’ between 11am to 2pm, so if you check in at 1pm, you get to sing until 4pm. The good thing about this deal is that it is available every single day, yes including Saturdays and Sunday. And it’s pretty cheap too! If I remember correctly, it’s $10+++ per head. Just last weekend, Dear1 and Dear2 went for one of our regular karaoke sessions and paid $27 total for 3 hours of food, drinks and songs. Gee…
I enjoyed going to karaoke with Dear2. I really like Dear2’s voice and really enjoyed Dear2’s singing. But sadly, I can’t really sing that well. More often than not, Dear2 can’t even guess the song I’m humming, and it’s not because she doesn’t know the song. =( But I still like going to sing with my dear, and just to sing that few songs that I know my voice range can handle.
As for the lunch set, Dear2 dun like it too much, so most of the time, she’ll just eat slight more than half of it and I’ll finish the rest, which is an excellent arrangement in my opinion. Firstly, I like to eat (yum yum yum) so I dun mind eating my dear’s share of the lunch set (hehehe…). Secondly, I dun need to put my horrible singing to the mic during the time I’m eating (and I will try to eat as slowly as I can). Thirdly, I get to listen to more of Dear2’s great singing. See! So many plus points. Gee…
I sure hope this KLunch thing is here to stay, otherwise it’ll really burn a hole in our pockets visit these karaoke places. The reason it is so cheap is because of the awkward timing. I dun think many ppl wants to sing in the morning and around lunchtime, which is why they need to lower the price to attract more customers during this kind of down-times. We dun really mind the timing that much. It’s more of enjoying singing with each other at a value for money pricetag. If I’m not wrong, the price is $25+++ on weekend nights after 7pm and *without* a dinner set! See the difference!
Sometimes, I just so happy that I found Dear2. That we have a common understanding on the ways we want to spend our money, our time, and to make the most out of a simple and happy lifestyle. Thank you dear dear.
-Dear1
Dear1 Dear2: Ace Attorney 20 February, 2008
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Argghhh!
I dunno how to embed the Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney (DS) flash game demo onto this blog! I think it cannot be done…
Hold it!
Here’s the website: http://www.ace-attorney.com/aj/ so readers can still play this exciting demo before getting the actual game.
Of late, Dear1 and Dear2 have been playing lots and lots of DS, even more so after Dear2’s brother got her a pink DS for her birthday. So now, Dear1 has a black DS and Dear2 has a pink DS, and we can play multiplayer DS games with each other. Yeah…
However, we become hooked on this series of games that does not support multiplayer. The 3 games in the series are Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Phoenix Wright: Justice for All, and Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations, the story flow in that order. We’re currently still at the 3rd case of the 2nd game. These games are originally released for the GBA and ported to DS so they lacked dedicated DS designs such as the use of stylus (except PW1 case 5 which serves as a proof of concept of what the game will be capable as a true DS game). However, there’s a new game in the series coming up, tracking the stories of a new defence attorney, Apollo Justice, designed for the DS. The demo in the link above is the online flash demo for this new game.
The series is quite really quite interesting. The player, as Phoenix Wright, goes through each case, investigating, finding evidence and finally defending your client in court by cross-examining witnesses, spotting lies and contradictions and presenting evidence to prove your client’s innocence. At least, that’s a really simple way of describing it.
I think the real attraction of the game is its story, slowing unfolding as u visit the crime scene, talk to witnesses and fighting it out in court. The strong sense of suspense of the story telling keeps me playing, eager to find out the next twist in the story, never knowing the real murderer until the last moment. Even if it becomes obvious who the murderer is, there’s still the task of proving it in court and getting defendant acquainted.
The overall story sometimes are related through several cases and characters introduced earlier reappear to help you, or for some other reasons get implicated in later cases. This make me as a gamer get attached to some of the characters and really add to the effectiveness of the story telling.
Looking at this game from another angle, it’s really a story telling game. It’s somewhat akin to reading a booking, just that the reader is much more involved in the development of the story. Another thing that I really liked about this series is that it teaches the player some basic things about the legal system, for example how contradictions are argued in court, how the process of cross examination is conducted, what kind of evidences can be presented in court, etc. Of course, these may be different from real life and different geographically, but it is still some basic exposure to people who have no idea at all.
Dear1 and Dear2 plays the same game individuals on separate DS’s and help each other out when one gets stucked. Haha… So after the past 2 weeks of Hold it! Take that! and Objections!, I’m proud to declare Dear1 and Dear2 as Ace Attorney in couple disagreements. :D Gee…
-Dear1
Nintendo Dual Screen Lite 12 January, 2008
Posted by dear1dear2 in Consumer Electronics, Dear1, For Him For Her, Leisure & Games.1 comment so far
Hohohoho… Dear2 gave me a Nintendo Dual Screen Lite (NDSL) for my birthday present. So happy so happy. Gee… Thank you my dear. I’ve definitely always wanted a handheld console since the introduction of Gameboy Advance some years back. Back then I was still serving National Service and Dear2 is still schooling so really not much extra income to speak of. Now that both dears are working, we can afford just a little bit more and so Dear2 gave me a DS. So happy so happy.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that we just go shopping and just get a DS from any store out there. Normally, parents or people looking for gifts spend more than required because they were in a hurry and there’s sort of willingness to splurge when people are gift shopping. Well, not us. Dear2 informed me that she intends to get me a DS for birthday present quite early on. My task, as a tech savvy person, is to source around and look for the most economical means of getting a DS and all required accessories. And that’s exactly what I did.
In the end, we bought an export set black colour DS (they call it Onix colour) at $215 from qisahn using the sgclub discount coupon. Then there’s the $4 for the screen protector. After some sourcing around, I found out that DealExtreme (based in Hongkong) is selling some DS accessories quite cheaply and decided to order from them. I ordered a black soft pouch with strap, a pack of 4 retractable stylus and a retractable USB charger from them at $12.62 including free shipping. Cool ya? The shipment took 12 days to arrive in Singapore by registered Airmail which I thought was reasonable enough. The only thing about ordering from DealExtreme is that they only accept Paypal orders and that meant I have to open a Paypal account. At least now that I have a Paypal account, I’ll be able to shop online more frequently. Gee…
These few days, Dear1 and Dear2 both had a lot of fun playing with the DS. If Dear2 grows fond of it enough, maybe we can even consider getting a second set so that we can play games with each other. Gee… Let’s see about it when our year end bonus comes in… (I know, but our companies pays end year bonus at the beginning of the year. -_-)
-Dear1
Our 4D philosophy 21 October, 2007
Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear1, Dollars & Cents, Leisure & Games.1 comment so far
We have been buying 4D for quite some time now, since our ROM day. We began with buying our wedding cert number. The wedding cert consists of 6 numbers, abcdef. We decided to 2 sets of numbers, abcd and cdef. And we bought $1 big for 3 draws a week. That meant $6 a week. Well, it seemed like a rather large extra expense, so we changed our strategy and bought our house number instead. This amounts to just $3 per week, much more affordable. So far, we have not struck any 4D with our house number yet but our marriage cert number did appear before… after we stopped buyng it. Grr…
Here, I would like to do a simple analysis for our philosophy of continuing to buy 4D. First of all, let me quote the prize table that can be obtained from the Singapore Pools website.
So you can see that if we bet $1 big for each draw, we can potentially win $2000 if the number comes up as first prize. Therefore, if we continue to buy $1 big for each draw, we can potentially participate in (2000/3=) 666.67 weeks. If we divide by 52 weeks a year, that’s (666.67/52=) 12.82 years. This implies that we can continue buying $1 big for 3 draws a week for 12.82 years in the hope of striking 1st prize at least once within this time period. This is of course making the assumption that the cost of 4D tickets does not increase and the top prize also remains unchanged. Additionally, we can also break even if we manage to strike at least a second prize within 6.41 years, or at least a third prize within 3.2 years. Well, that sounds comforting enuff, knowing that we can afford to wait for more than 12 and a half years and still break even on our 4D investment.
Let’s take a quick look at ibets. The number that we’re buying falls in the category of 4 different digits. So for a $1 big ibet winning 1st prize, we get $83. Hmm… Doesn’t sound like a lot. This means that we can buy my number for (83/3=) 27.67 weeks on ibet and break even with a top prize win. That’s only about half a year! But then, we need to factor in that ibet allows us to increase our chances of winning by 24 times. Looking at this in another way, it means that we’re buying 24 different numbers every draw with each set of number costing (1/24=) 4.2 cents each! In the end, the winning prize to cost ratio is the same as before ($83/4.2cents=2000).
But if we consider it carefully, each draw there can be only 1 winning number. But if you buy 24 numbers, only 1 will be the winning one. Meaning that, potentially, we can win a maximum of (83*83=) $6889 if 1 of our 24 numbers win the top prize every draw for 83 draws. If we consider the case without ibet, this is equivalent to winning 3 top prizes and 1 second prize over 2000 draws. Which one is more achievable? You be the judge. For us, we believe buying ibet is not to our advantage, so we shall stick to just buying regular bets. Or maybe switch to $1 small to increase our break even deadline. When will we finally win some prize?
-Dear1
Since we’re on the topic of 4D, let’s drown our sorrows in this song.
Kartrider 13 October, 2007
Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear1, Internet & Blog, Leisure & Games.add a comment
Recently, Dear1 started playing this online game called Kartrider. The idea is simple. You drive a kart and race with 7 other people from the internet and the winner is the one that crosses the finishing line first. :D
But this deceptively simple game has gotten me deeply interested, and I sometimes wonder, what is it about racing games that make it so fun? Maybe it is the controls. Racing games are so simple, just 4 buttons, accelerate, brake, steer left or steer right. Of course this is the traditional bang-bang controller where the acceleration is simple on or off, no medium or slow acceleration. But sometimes, simplicity works when people wants to relax. Realism is really not an issue in this sort of game because people who wants to play just wants to have fun. Real time collision mechanics, deformation and rag-roll physics is really for the hardcore fans.
There is one additional twist to this game though, that is the drift button. With the touch of a button, you can throw your kart into a drifting maneuver and perhaps navigation a difficult hairpin turn without slowing down. Eventhough it is just a single button, some gaming experts who have been playing this game for a long time have developed complicated strategies that involve multiple drift techniques that blaze through corners at inhuman speeds. Let me embed a Youtube video of experts playing the game here to demonstrate what I mean.
I don’t think I’ll ever reach that level of skill, but I think those people are professionals and they probably does it for a living. We’re just simple people looking for some entertainment to our otherwise routine lifestyle.
Dear2 has pick up on this game as well and we’re taking turns to play. Dear2 didn’t want to set up a new account to play so we’re just playing on 1 account which also means that there’s no way for us to race each other. But then, in order to race each other, we’ll need another computer too. So for now, we’re just taking turns racing with people out there in the internet.
This game is really fun, so I think we’ll be playing it quite alot in the upcoming weeks/months.
-Dear1
