Braun BET1000

One of the most essential tool for parents with babies and young children is a thermometer. You have to have at least one at home in the event the young ones run a temperature.

Back in our time, the most common thermometer widely used is the mercury thermometer. You know, the versatile thermometer that can be used under your tongue or under your armpit? Well it has come a long way.

We been using the Braun ThermoScan 6022 ever since Xavier was born. Its an in-ear thermometer that give you the reading in a matter of seconds. It can be a pain to use especially when you are trying to get a reading from a sleeping child. Imagine someone trying to poke something into your ear while you are sleeping. And I find it annoying when it gives you a reading of 37.5 degrees which is mild fever and the PD would say "Oh the in-ear thermometer? its a +- 0.5 degree so he's not really having a fever." It's almost like the device is only giving a ballpark figure.

Given that it recently started to give us some issues, we decided to get another thermometer. We were considering the forehead scanners but those are pretty expensive. Then I came across the Braun BET1000.

BET stands for Behind Ear Thermometer. And that's basically where position it to take the temperature. Press for 1 sec and the reading appears in the LCD screen complete with coloured backlight. So it's almost fool proof as the colour will indicate to you if you are not having a fever (green), having mild fever (orange) or having fever (red). As you only need to position it behind the ear, it would be able to take an accurate reading without the thermometer touching the sleeping child.

The thermometer is manufactured by Kaz USA Inc. Strangely when I tried to Google for more information via the Braun sites, I could only find it under Braun Korea. Braun USA does not seem to carry it. Kaz.com has a similar product on their website but its marketed as another brand Vick, the company behind the famous VapoRub.

Anyway from the site, it explains that "the measurement site in the hollow behind the ear is very close to the carotid artery, which carries blood to the brain. This is an ideal external site to measure temperature."

I seen these for sale at Robinson and heard that Courts also carries this. For us, we are just happy we found this lovely thermometer.

NDP 2012 - Building a LovingSG

This year we will be celebrating Singapore's 47th birthday. I'm sure many of you have balloted for the NDP  or preview tickets. Congratulations to lucky ones who go the tickets.

This year's celebration also has an interesting component call Building a LovingSG. Its a project to recreate the Marina Bay Floating Platform using Lego bricks under the leadership of Architect Eugene Tan. Measuring 12m by 9m, this massive Lego structure will use about 200,000 Lego bricks to build. It will have the exact same number of seats as the real Marina Bay Floating Platform, all 27,000 of it in the exact same colour setup.

I came to know of this project from two forums (Hardwarezone EDMW and Lego Users Group Singapore). I was keen to join and be part of it. But like the Chinese saying, 心有余而力不足 (got heart but no energy). The project was completed yesterday and after reading horizonsky's forum post on her experience on this 13 days project, I really kudos to all the people who made it possible with their perseverance and sacrifices.

There were people who took their annual leave to help in this project, people who came after work and build till midnight, and even people who brought their kids along and everyone take turns to babysit them. And although the AFOL (short for Adult Fan of Lego) volunteers from forum were only needed for the first two days to kickstart the project, they stayed throughout the whole 13 days when the going gets rough and things do not go as intended.

Now you too can be a part of this project. With a donation of $5, you will get two Lego minifigures of which one will be put onto the Lego Floating Platform to represent you, and the other to be kept by you as souvenir. There is a limit of 10 pairs of minifigures donations per NRIC but you are welcome to donate more. All money will be going to The Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund.

Below are some photos from Hardwarezone EDMW forum, Lego Users Group Singapore forum and PlaytimeSG flickr. They are not my photos and all credits goes out to them.

This photo should give you a sense of how big the whole project is.

Fixing each of the 27,000 seats, one seat at a time.

Will one of your minifigures you donated be seating here?

Lights


VIP Box

Group photos of some of the AFOL volunteers.

Fun shot of minifigures on the platform.

I have reserved a seat at the Lego Floating Platform. Have you?

Updated on 16th June 2012:
HWZ EDMW has its own section on the platform, special thanks to horizonsky for organising this. Below are some photos of the "unique area".

"EDMW assemble!"

My Lizardman sitting beside Spiderman.

Parade Commander "Sedi Ya!!"

Xavier Turns (Talkative) Three

Xavier turns 3 and he suddenly becomes very talkative, coming up with his own stories and songs every now and then. Its like his "talk" button is always pressed and boy can he really talk. 我们快给他烦死了.

Lilian did point out the irony part. When he grows older, the tables will turn and he would be the one finding us naggy.

We stopped his swimming class as he don't seem to be ready yet. He's having fun in the water but to take instructions and learn strokes is a different level altogether. Will probably revisit that when he is older.

Xavier is able to change lyrics of songs to his own version and we were surprised by him. We started him on music class and so far he seem to be enjoying it more. Let's see how long he can stay interested.

Below are two videos of him trying to tell a bedtime story I read to him quite often and singing a Chinese song he learnt in school.

Online Shopping Encore

Online shopping is so additive, I just can't stop clicking.

If you been shying away from online shopping, you are missing the attractive benefits. Beside the conveniece of shopping anywhere anytime, you often get larger variety and delivery right to your doorsteps.

But the main draw for me is the price. With the recent strength in SGD, US and Euporean sites offers fantastic pricing especially during their sale.

I wrote a blog post on online USA shopping before and that concentrated on the frieght forwarders that ship the goods bought on USA sites to you. This post expands on that to other options available.

Freight Forwarders like vPost and Borderlinx are ok to use when shipping multiple small items that are packed such that their volumic weight is close to their actual weight. But my recent interest in Lego sets has prompted me to look for alternative shipping. The main reason is most lego sets while doesn't weight much, are usually packed in nice big box, jacking up the volumic weight. So I'm effectively paying to ship air.

Enter Tarazz. They are a USA shopping site that ships for a flat fee for first three kg (also based on volumic weight) and at $6 per kg above that. I find their shipping pretty reasonable compared to vPost and Bordelinx, especially when you wish to ship big lego sets. And they quote the total amount you need to pay in SGD at checkout. If after the item reaches their hub and its higher than the 3kg, they will advise you on the addtional overweight charges. They also offers the option to debox if its overweight by 2kg or more. vPost offers this service too but not Borderlinx. It's an important service as it can subtantially reduce your shipping cost.

They also offer Butler service for sites that do not accept non USA credit cards or refuse to ship to frieght forwarder's address (like Nike.com and Lego.com).

If you are into Lego, you may be looking for loose bricks to do your own creations or just to replace some missing bricks. Bricklink is the place to go for loose bricks. Its a Lego marketplace that is huge and growing.
In there, you are find almost any kinds of lego bricks in another colour even made. And the prices for sets and minifigures are in general cheaper than eBay. And being Lego owners/fans themselves, most of them take the effort to pack the goods protectively.

Bookdepository.com is the place I shop nowadays for physical books. They also have a UK site call Bookdepository.co.uk. I usually check both sites to see which offers cheaper price (due to fx differences). The site offers free shipping to Singapore and they quote their price in SGD so its easy to compare, even with prices of local stores. So far I only had 1 book that arrived in not so good state due to shipping.

iHerb.com offers very good prices for health supplements and baby food. They also gave me a special coupon code "EWU242" to share with everyone. This offers USD5 off for your first iHerb purchase and I get to earn credit too.

Also check out my first post on Online US shopping.

Update 14 Aug 12: iHerb just informed me that the above coupon code is now worth USD10 for anyone shopping with them for the first time, with a minimum spending of USD40. Or USD5 off smaller orders.

Lastly, remember to take into account the 7% GST for any purchases above SGD400, inclusive of shipping cost, overseas sales taxes, etc. Happy shopping!

Update 14 Apr 13: It seems like Tarazz is no longer operational. The last update I saw was that they are away for the Christmas and New Year holiday but they never seem to come back. And now their website url is no longer working.

Roomba 770 - Automated Cleaning

We finally gave in and bought the iRobot Roomba 770.

We toyed with the idea of getting one for some time already but the high cost was the thing that held us back. Lilian cleans the floor every alternate day in the wee hours of the morning and she was just lamenting the other day about feeling tired and drained with all these chores on hand.

So I revisited the topic on iRobot and she was very keen. And the geeky side of me goes woohoo! So I surfed around and decided to contact Autovacstore.com. They were helpful with the queries and information I needed but I still couldn't decide on the model to get. So they were kind enough to bring down the models I have shortlisted namely the iRobot Roomba 560, 770 and 780.

You can get more information about the models at their website or their blog. We settled for the Roomba 770 because it has all the same technology and features of the top of the line 780 and its cheaper. Its missing some bells and whistles like touchscreen and lighthouse function and has less accessories, but we can live with that.

Here's the top and bottom of the Roomba 770.

The Roomba 770 cleans in a random manner. It has sensors to help it navigate around the house and has bumpers on the front. As we intend to use it when we are not at home, the randomness would not bother us. And it should eventually cover the house evenly over the week. Noise level wise, its not as loud as a normal vacuum cleaner but its not quiet either. Here a 3 minute video of it at the start of its cleaning circle for my house.


Here's the dust collected after 5 mins and after 4 days.

We have used it for a week now and so far it has only fail to return to the charging base on its own once. I found it on top of the base of the room standing fan. And it has been able to navigate itself out of the tight spots, weird angles and chair legs. There is some preparation that needs to be done before using it, like removing loose items from the floor but its the same prep work as normal vacuum.

We love it. In fact we were thinking why had we not bought it earlier? And it seems like a prefect time to get it as its Mother's day. Maybe next up is a dishwasher with bottle washing function for Father's Day? Ha.