third time's the charm

My dad is MacGyver. We would have appliances dating back to the 1970s because he kept fixing them until we would have enough of the 'old farts' that we would force him to stop. Naturally, I inherited some of his mechanical mind and usually am not gadget/electronics challenged, and can hook up any complicated entertainment system. However, I was at a loss this weekend when I couldn't figure out the rice cooker, microwave or oven in my apartment.

Given the diversity and mass production in the Asian markets, gadgets/appliances usually have symbols rather than words. The user manuals seem to cover a number of different models in one booklet, and it usually isn't clear what model I have in the apartment. There are a number of options on my washer and dryer but I've been happy to just figure out the basics to avoid shrinking or coloring my clothes. We had three people look at the manual for the oven just to turn it on. We ended up having my friend call her friend who coincidentally is my neighbor to walk her through it. It doesn't seem so self explanatory that one has to push the timer and heat buttons at the same time to turn it on.

After baking the chocolate cake twice, we could not figure out why it would only cook the top. Luckily my friend is married to a MacGyver also. While he couldn't explain to us what he did, he somehow managed to solve our dilemma. After scraping off the burnt top, the chocolate cake was well worth the wait.