Gizmo GazetteA week ago we went to a birthday party for a former school friend of Our Kid. For propriety's sake, I won't name the lad but my Indonesian readers will probably know who I'm talking about.
His father owns three of the 126
Pulau Seribu (the Thousand Islands off Jakarta's coastline) and is a noted motor rallyist, as was his good friend Tommy S. His family own a nationwide chain of supermarkets and the franchise for Kentucky Fried Tikus. The lad's mother used to be a fashion model and
cinetron (soap opera) star.
Due to the family's earlier notoriety, the lad has bodyguards - former members of
Kopassus, the special forces equivalent to Britain's SAS. Jakartass is always extremely polite around these heavy dudes.
I won't bore you with details of the birthday party itself except to comment that the expenditure was at least ten times my annual income.
There was, however, one problem from our point of view.
What do you buy for a nine year old boy who has everything, including one of those islands?
Our Kid's suggestion was something called a fly wheel, a kind of spinning top, only a wheel if you get my drift. They say it's the thought that counts rather than the cost. And Our Kid wanted one as well.
It's a bit late now, but I think I've found what we should have bought, the perfect gizmo. And I want one.
USB pen drives have become ubiquitous here in Jakarta. They are immensely useful in transferring digital documents, programmes and viruses between computers. Combine this with one of civilisation's greatest inventions, the Swiss Army Knife, and you have the
Swiss Memory USB,
the perfect marriage of technology, practicality, materials, and quality design.
A special feature is that the USB flash drive portion of the knife can easily be removed, for safe airline travel (and successful passage thru security).
Ah yes, I'd forgotten that as well as being useful for getting girl scouts out of horses hooves, the
Swiss Army Knife is a hijacker's weapon of choice. Perhaps the toothpick is made of explosive plastic.
I must check mine.
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