Bath time!

This should be a time of fun, but with the wrong tub, it can be hell.

What we were given at our baby shower was by Safety 1st Infant Tub. Similar to the one linked. In theory it sounded great, which is why we registered for it, it's got an easy drain plug, it's got non slip grips and a thermal sticker to gage the water temperature.

The reality was, it was rubbish, the sticker never changed colour, the non slip pads didn't really hold the baby at all. The tub also wasn't deep enough to have enough water cover the baby, so she was always cold, and the water would cool very quickly. This resulted in pissed of nuclear baby on the epic proportions, which was not good and also heart breaking.

Someone recommended the Tummy Tub, this looked awesome, nice and small, the baby slips in and feels comfortable, the water doesn't get cold and you can easily bathe the baby, only problem was, it was close to $80 when we first looked, it's now around $60. This is a lot when the usual bath tubs are around $25-30.

We found a cheaper knock off on Amazon, the Prince Lionheart WashPod, which is basically the same as the Tummy tub, but $25.

It has been one of the best buys for the baby so far, she now loves bath time which makes the whole process a lot easier and not a strain, plus she can play in the water and stay warm and far less mess.

3D Connection

The Space Navigator as most are probably aware is a peripheral device that is supposed to help with navigation in a 3D environment. The basic model, at $60 is certainly affordable and was the reason it was tested out, but unlike software applications, there isn't a free 30 trial, so this was tried and if it were good, the higher up models would have been evaluated afterwards.

It turns out, if this was an introduction to the product, it was off putting enough that after every artist tried it, it just got dumped on a shelf, never to be used again and put paid to any notion of bothering with any other products.

The theory is good, being able to seamlessly navigate your scene, rotate, zoom and pan all at the same time and have simple shortcuts at your finger tips.

The reality, it was too clunky to control, the drivers were rubbish and interfered with any custom layouts and short cuts. It was tried out with 3DSM 8 and 9, ZBrush 3 and a few other programs. It could well have improved since then, but the actual hardware interfacing with the device just wasn't very comfortable either.

I will say, it worked really well with Google Earth though, and it could be worth a poke if it has been significantly improved since it was evaluated. It's a shame that this device didn't live up to expectations nor filled us with confidence to spend the considerably more money on the higher range line of products.