An Unexpexted Hiatus

My three day absence is finally over. Why, you ask, was I gone for three days? Well, let's say two parts sickness and one part stupidity, and we're pretty much on the money. On Friday and Saturday I was sick as a dog with some kind of flu. I stayed at home and read things I had meant to read earlier and wallowed in self-pity until Sunday, when I finally felt good enough to get back to some meaningful work. Of course, after I had done some of said meaningful work, I toddled off home and forgot to bring my camera card with me, hence the one third stupidity portion of my absence.

It's OK, though, don't worry. I have the pictures now, and I will show them to you... I know you're excited.

Sunday started off rather groggily, as I wasn't fully over my flu, which I most certainly picked up from a certain Darth Vader mask purchased earlier at a certain frugal village. I had to revisit the Village of Values before I came into studio in order to pick up a shiny new radio to hack into bits.
My new radio is scarcely larger than your average pop bottle, and takes four double A batteries for its power source. Interestingly enough, I believe Superman himself works at the factory in China where this was assembled, because it was damn near impossible to get the four screws out of it. In the end I had to resort to using a thing screwdriver with a large pair of pliers clamped to it in order to get the bloody things out. Even with my new leverage advantage, I still had to lean all my weight on the radio and have someone hold the bottom so the radio itself wouldn't swivel in order to pry them loose, and I still stripped two of the four in doing so. I wasn't supposed to see the insides, I guess, but to hell with Superman, I always thought he was kind of a lame superhero anyway.

So what's inside of it? More of the same, really.The mechanisms all appear to be the same, only with fewer variable resistors (silver squares), and much smaller everything else. The volume knobs and tuner mechanism are almost identical, but I still haven't figured out what the coil of copper wire wrapped around a piece of iron do, although I have my guesses. I'll know for sure when I sever it from the rest of the board and observe the results, I suppose. Until then, it's a mystery, and mysteries are fun.
This is what it looks like when everything is separated from the case. I find it interesting that not only does the case have nothing to do with the shape of the actual pieces necessary to make it work, but that it also mimics the style of something that it's not. If you look at the front of the radio, it looks like it's a mini cassette player. It's like a vestigial piece of what a radio SHOULD be, which is pretty bloody strange if you ask me.

So what of my next vivisection? I'll have to take apart this lovely character, named Skrash.
Skrash is a character inside a remote control car I bought at Wal-Mart before I came into studio. It's a pretty sweet car, and I feel kind of bad taking it apart, but I must know how it works. What I do know is that I need a 9.6V battery pack to make it operate at a proper speed, but so far I've just jerry-rigged a 9V and made it go. It's good enough to make everything work, but it's not enough to power the huge motor in the back and make it actually move. All the other functions, like opening the hood of the car and playing its horribly annoying sound effects, work properly, but it doesn't move yet. I'll have a battery pack tomorrow, and I'll find out what makes ol' Skrash tick.
Aww, yeah. This is Skrash's ride... He's actually inside there, all tucked up. It must be very uncomfortable, but soon he'll be in a thousand pieces, so it's OK.