Category: Toys

So a reader sent me a link to her blog where she wanted me to check out this toy gun she found being sold here in Kuwait. I didn’t see what was so interesting about it until I watched the video. Not sure if I find this funny or serious since it goes both ways depending how you look at it. Make sure you have the volume loud. [YouTube]

Thanks Elle

A guy in Kuwait posted a video up of his room with the walls covered in Hot Wheels cars. The guy has a huge ass collection and even a life size Corvette rear end sticking out of his wall. I used to have a huge collection of Matchbox cars (and a few Hot Wheels color shifters) but had to leave them all behind during the invasion back in 1990. Sucks. [YouTube]

I woke up this morning to a phone call from a friend in charge at 360 Mall asking me if I wanted to try out the roller coaster at Infunity. Infunity hasn’t opened yet and won’t be open for a few more months but today they were testing out the roller coaster and if I accepted the mission we would be the first passengers on it. I though it was a fun idea since I never beta tested a roller coaster before and agreed to meet him there before lunch.

Last time I passed by Infunity was in October and since then the place has changed a lot. As I mentioned back in October, Infunity will have a bunch of cool things going for it including a very large climbing wall, Go-Kart Drifting (very cool), an indoor roller coaster designed and built by the same people who create ones for Six Flags, and also a ton of other stuff I’m not sure if I am allowed to share.

When we first got there it turned out the German engineers were still working on the roller coaster so I walked around and checked out the place and took some pictures to kill a bit of time. Nat hadn’t been to the place before and I wanted her to see everything anyway. Once they were ready we went up the stairs to the boarding area. They had just finished testing the ride with sacks full of sand and now we would be the first people to ride it. We got into the seats, fastened the safety harness and took off. First of all the whole place was very dimly lit by a few portable projectors here and there. There was no one in the whole place except for three German engineers and the five of us so it was very empty. We were also the first people to try out the ride so there was that slight fear in the back of our minds that something could go wrong which added to the excitement. The ride although short turned out to be incredibly fun. The roller-coaster although on a fixed line actually rotates so one point you could be facing forward, the next backwards or sideways. The ride also takes you through one wall and then spits you out from another side and once the ride is completed the area behind the wall will actually have fake snow that comes down while you pass through. It was really a lot of fun and the whole time I felt like I was either going to get thrown from the track or hit my head on some pole, I loved it. We rode it a couple of times before we headed to lunch.

Now hopefully I am going to go back again once they start trying out the wall climb or drifting. I shot a video of the ride in the coaster which I might put up later but for now you can check out the pictures below.

Today I passed by Fantasy World that just opened up at Avenues. The place is pretty big and I found a lot of interesting random stuff. Two of my favorites are below:

Around two weeks back I was checking out this 3D webcam online and I found it at Fantasy World. They’re selling it for KD25 which is the exact same price as Amazon.

I also found this very strange aquarium called Easy Hatch. You fill it up with water and eggs hatch and you get colorful tropical fish and shrimp. That’s real fish and shrimp not toys. Weird stuff. Its selling for like KD8.

Since I have a long weekend I decided to pass by Extreme Hobby and pick up a small indoor helicopter. I played with it in their store a while back and since then it’s always been on my mind. Unlike the crappy toy helicopters you find at regular toy stores, this is a proper tiny hobby grade helicopter. It comes with a 4-channel 2.4Ghz digital transmitter with four AA batteries for it, the actual micro helicopter and a 1-cell LiPo battery.

The helicopter is very tiny which makes it perfect for flying around in the living room. Helicopters in general are difficult to fly and so this micro helicopter for me is a good way to get into them. As a beginner its a bit mind numbing still trying to fly this thing around. The left stick on the transmitter controls the throttle and the direction the helicopter is facing. The right stick controls the flight direction, front back left and right. You charge the helicopters battery in the actual receiver, there is a slot in the back where you can insert the LiPo battery and it takes around 5 minutes to fully charge it. You can then fly the helicopter for around 8 minutes. Because its a hobby grade helicopter Extreme Hobby carry all the spare parts for it so if you need another battery or if you break something you can get a replacement part.

[YouTube]

As I mentioned above I’m a beginner so I am pretty crap at flying it still. But if you want to see the helicopter in action there are a ton of videos on YouTube. The one above is my favorite since the guy is pretty good. The cost of the helicopter is KD26 and it comes with everything you need to get it up and running. It costs KD29 on Amazon so its cheaper in Kuwait. They only had around 4 more helicopters left so if you’re interested you can pass by them in Dajij. Their phone number is 24348123.

Someone in Kuwait is putting together the largest puzzle in the world. It’s made up of 24,000 pieces and they’re currently half way through. [YouTube]

They sell this puzzle set on Amazon for KD65. [Amazon Link]

It’s been nearly a month since I got my Tamiya FJ and just a few moments ago I finished building it. It took some time because I had to paint the body and ended up messing up the job, I then had to wait for the motor and electronic speed controller to arrive from the States and finally tonight I just had to source one more small part locally and get some wires soldered onto the motor. I’m now done with it, I tidied up all the wiring and my FJ is finally ready for a crawling session. I missed out on one last Friday because my car wasn’t ready but this Friday I am going and will take some pictures once I do.

Update: Here is a picture I took this morning

Tonight I passed by a shop called Pro-Hobbies in Dajeej. I needed some paint for my Tamiya crawler and the Tamiya dealer had run out so they recommended I pass by Pro-Hobbies instead. It was my first time there and the place turned out to be really cool. While Tamiya specializes in on and off road electric cars and buggies, Pro-Hobbies specializes in helicopters and nitro powered race buggies.

While there I also got to check out the KHR-1 Robot. I had seen this robot before on YouTube playing football so it was very exciting to see the robot live. They aren’t selling them yet, they just got one to try it out and see if there is a market for it. The robot costs around KD400 which isn’t cheap but the way it moves is just incredible. It’s fully programmable and is driven by 19 servos (motors) which explains the hefty price tag considering a single servo usually costs around KD12. I took a video of the robot which you can see below. It was running out of batteries and the floor was slippery but you can still see how cool it is.

[YouTube]

If you want to pass by the store they’re located in the mall behind Showtime in Dajeej. Here is a link to the [Map]. They have a website but it’s still under construction. [Link]

I personally wish I could participate in today’s giveaway since it involves a Tamiya radio controlled car and you know how much I love these cars. My Toy who are the local Tamiya dealers are giving away a ready to race Nissan GT-R TT-01E with battery, controller and charger. It’s ready to race meaning it’s already been built, painted and put together by the factory but its the TT-01E chassis which mean’s you have a ton of parts you can replace and upgrade yourself.

I have the older TT-01 chassis which is what my Lancia car is built on and I love it, its very fun to drive right out of the box and once you upgrade it you can have a pretty serious machine.

The My Toy shop is located in Tilal Complex in Shuwaikh on the first floor right above Roche Bobois and Living Colors. It’s the nicest RC shop I’ve ever seen, its really big and they’re building a huge race track on the roof right next to it. They even have a section in the back where you can build your cars in and even an airbrush room.

This package is worth KD147.500 and all you need to do to win it is to leave a comment below and later on in the evening I will use random.org to select a winner. Please take the time to pass by the shop (don’t take the wife) and check out what they have. If you love cars its hard to leave without picking something up.

My Toy’s phone number is 22256707

Rules: You need to put your proper email in the email field while commenting since the winner will be contacted by email. You also need to respond to my “You Won” email within 24 hours or I will have to make another draw and choose another winner. You can only comment once, anyone caught commenting more than once will get disqualified.

Update: The post was closed for commenting at around 9:30PM.
The winner is…

[YouTube]

Comment #368, you’ve got mail!
Everyone else check back tomorrow for another giveaway.

It took me around 16 hours to build which is the longest its ever taken me to build a radio controlled car but it was a lot of fun and I’m finally done. I had actually completed the build last night but today I passed by the Tamiya dealer to pick up a better quality damper system which is the blue and silver object in the pictures. I still need to change the motor, add an electronic speed controller and most importantly paint the actual FJ Cruiser body to put on it but I wanted to share these pictures I took of the car frame to show you how beautiful the details in the model are. Check out the pictures below.

Here is a link to the FJ Cruiser page on the Tamiya website. [Link]

I had a choice between going to Dubai and getting a Tamiya CR01 crawler, wasn’t that difficult a choice. Going to spend Eid at home putting it together and hopefully spend the winter down south crawling with the other FJ Cruisers pictured below. So what are you doing this Eid?

Teddy On The Go is an interesting social experiment by a Kuwaiti architecture student that recently moved back to Kuwait. To keep herself in check and out of a routine she decided to start the website Teddy on the Go as a way to motivate her into doing something interesting or new everyday and also as a way of expressing her opinions subtly through the bear. Her project is going to last for 365 days only after which the bear will be sold for charity. Currently she is at day 11. Check out her experiment by visiting her website www.yearofteddy.com

I passed by Tilal Complex tonight to check out the new Tamiya store. They opened up in Tilal back in December 2008 but recently they moved to a larger store on the first floor. I was expecting the new store to be bigger than the previous but it turned out to be like 10 times bigger and looked amazing! Seriously I was in shock. It was very nicely organized, they have stations in the back where you could go and build your car, they even rent tools. They also have a painting room with exhausts for the fumes, a small photography studio where you can take pictures of your car and my favorite section, the spare parts! They have hundreds and hundreds of parts occupying the whole right side of the shop. What I used to hate about their old store was the fact that you had to know what part you wanted and then ask the salesman to get it for you from behind the counter but now I can just browse and find parts and accessories myself.

I really really love their new store and I highly recommend anyone that is interested in radio controlled cars or plastic models to visit it. They’re located on the first floor of Tilal Complex, opposite their older store. Oh and they have this HUGE space right by the shop where they are currently building a race track.

Here is a link to their website [Link]
Their phone number is 22256707

Last time I took out my radio controlled cars out was back in February when the weather was good and my brother took the picture above. Since then my cars have been hibernating due to the bad weather. But, I just took my Tamiya Lancia out with the upgraded Super Stock RZ motor and was having a good time until the stock electronic control unit (ECU) overheated. And thats when I remembered what I liked about these cars. I like upgrading the different parts and I like the fact that when something breaks I can fix it.

This season I think I want to get the Tamiya Unimog although I am still dreaming of the Mammoth truck but its just too expensive. The Tamiya dealer My Toy has also opened a larger store in Tilal Complex which I still need to pass by and check out. They’ve also set up a large race track in the basement for people to race their cars on. This RC season should turn out to be a lot of fun.

This is a long shot but does anyone have a Lego man they would want to sell me? They are used for display purposes. I took a picture of the oneabove at Fantasy World but its not there anymore. Its around 40cm tall. Does anyone from Fantasy World read my blog by any chance?