I have been collecting toys for many years. Over the years I bought boxes after boxes of toys and I end up having two display cabinet full of toys at home. It is time to part with them, some of them. There are a few reasons driving to say goodbye to my beloved toys.

First, I am getting marry, move on to the next stage of life. Pat always complain it is too boyish for a middle age man to buy toys. I do not dispute this claim, buying toys is indeed a boyish behavior. It is a treat for the child in my heart. I agree that I should cut back on my toy consumption.

Second, I am running out of display place. Both of my display cabinets are full. I have to free up space for new toys. I don’t want to merely putting the toys in storage. Toys are collectibles made for display. If you don’t display them, you are really owning them. One way or the other, why not sell them to recoup some cash.

Third, I am a perfectionist in toy collection. If I collect a toy, I would collect the complete series. I am an all or none person. If I couldn’t get the complete series, or at least a “complete collection” using my hard to describe definition, I would rather no getting any at all. My preference changes over time. A series may start off with some very decent toys, but later on the quality deteriorate so much that I have to drop the series. There is no point to keep just the first few toys in the series.

Forth, toys, especially die-cast toys do not depreciate much. I can sell them on ebay very close to the price I pay for a few years ago. Basically, I payed the shipping and have them displayed in my cabinet for free for the mean time. Toy in a seal box not only will not depreciate, the price could actually go up quite a bit depending on the supply and demand. Too bad that I don’t like keeping the toys in the boxes. When I buy a toy, I want to take it out, feel it and display it. Toys are not an investment after all. It would be silly to buy toys and wait for the price to go up. The market prince for the most “profitable” toy I have went up 3 times. I am seriously thinking whether or not I should sell it and take the profit.

One Year War Mobile Suites / Rx-78-2 vs MS-06S

Z Gundam MS / Evangelion

UC MS /Gundam Seed Destiny / Char’s Counter Attack

UC MSV / Macross GBP / Transformers

Macross: VF-1A Angel Bird, VF-1A Super / VE-1, VF-0A, SDF-1, VF-1A CF

Macross: VF-1S, SV-51, YF-19, VF-0S / VF-1A Low Vis

Macross: YF-19, VF-11, YF-22 / VF-1J Stealth, VF-1A Max

Macross: VF-1A Woodands, VB-1 / VT-1, VF-1D, VF-1A CF

Macross: VF-1J vs VF-1S / Skull Team

Macross : Max vs Milia

Today, I went to watch a game of Harlem Globetrotter, the famous comedian basketball team.  Pat got two free tickets from her school for seats far away, but the stadium is only half full, so we moved down to the first row to get a closer look.  The show is really fun for the children and adults alike.  It is more like a staged comedy than a real basketball game.  The Harlem is playing against Washington Globe, which is a fake basket team that is part of the Harlem tour.   It is a very close game, the two teams always have tie their score to keep the game interesting.  Obviously, Harlem won at the end with a slight lead.

There are lots of funny basketball move and tricks never appears in NBA games, such as shoot the ball with their heads, their trade mark fancy slam dunk, pull down the pants of other players, pull an audience into the court in middle of the game, throw pop corn, water bottle, and water bucket all over the court.  One of my favorite move is the player stuff the ball inside his own jersey.  There is another good one.  A Harlem player somehow get a handbag from the audience, then he stole the ball from the other player and gave him the handbag in exchange.  It is really funny see the player holding a basket in one second and swapped with a handbag the next second.

The show is very entertaining and full of laughters.  However I think a 2.5 hours show is a too long.  There are some boring time in the middle of the game.  The Harlem has to repeat their tricks from time to time.  It would be just right if the show is condensed into 1 hour.  When I watched Harlem’s on TV, they only show clips last 10-15 minutes.  No wondering Harlem on TV is much more exciting and action packed.

I went to work at 8a.m. this morning, because I have a conference call with the Indian design center. The different in time zone make communication between the two sites really inconvenient. I have two options when to have the meeting, 8a.m. in the morning or 8p.m. in the evening. None of them fits my usual schedule. I pick the early morning from the lesser of two evils.

I can understand why different places have different the time zone, the world is not flat after all. However I am kinda surprise to find out India is 13 hours and 30 minutes ahead of Vancouver. Pacific stand time is GMT-8 and the India time is GMT+5.5. Where the extra 0.5 hours come from? It won’t make much different using a round number for time zone, since the time zone is not divided evenly anyways. Some part of China is right above India and the time zone is GMT+8. It would not save any power for lights by shifting a mere 0.5 hours. Why can’t the Indians use a nice round number relative to the Greenwich Mean Time?  Hold on a sec, before saying Indians are silly to have an half hour time zone. We the Canadians are equally stupid, Newfoundland has GMT-3.5.

I made some interesting observation from the time zone chart. Time zone GMT-11 does not exists anywhere! There is no place on earth has their clock set to 11 hours slower than the Greenwich Mean Time. We have Tonga Island has GMT+13 thought. It is another mystery why would they use GMT+13 instead of GMT-11. When I first know Indian have a 30 minutes time zone, I was joking why don’t they make it a 15 minutes time zone to have it more accurately. Actually there exists a place super stupid enough to use 15 minutes time zone. The Chatham Islands has GMT+12:45.

Maybe the UN should fix the time zone chart, get rid of all the 0dd ball time zone to make things less confusing.