Emperor's Birthday 24

 My birthday today normally comes with a gift, so here is Sony Vegas 13 up on Archive.org from "Sony" themselves. Seeing as I lost the key for my original this is a dogsend. 

Boot sale gods have smiled on me with a good amount of porn / old dance magazines and some vinyl for £20 records are.  John McLean Declaration of Love on Ariwa. Five Star, Depeche Mode People Are People Mute, Some rap comp on LB Bads LaRhon label, and finally Sly and Robbie Land of Rydim. 

Magazines are:

Your Choice Magazine 1st Issue Nov. 82. 

Free! x4 with MC Pugwash on the cover in a Father Christmas outfit.

Touch Magazine x 6 and as a note from here on out not safe for work

Rustler 130 UK Edition x1. June 85 if counting on from this is correct.

Experience Busting Out vol1-1.

Vibrations Vol 9-9

Exposure vol 12-8

Last but not least Claudia 12e Jaargang nr.1 Which is both Red hot and Dutch. 

As well as a box of slides and a stack of cds and videos. Which'll keep me busy for weeks to come. 

Junk Trip Dartford

 Seeing as the bootsale is off due to high winds, we decided to look around Dartford instead. 

Its one of those towns that I like, if you are in Derbyshire then Buxton has a similar vibe to it. Just a nice chilled out and laid back town. Tried to redeem some MC D winning" simps" and ended up winning a free coffee which I'll have to redeem later.

Otherwise not a bad trip out. Got the special edition of Leftfield Phat Planet with the extra mixes and the Aaliyah more than a Woman cd (Masters at work mixes ftw). We also have a version of Marc Almond's Black Kiss single mixed by a Mark Schneider, possibly this guy. 

Nothing will top last weeks mad anti racism cd by Genie called Attitude, though, full on tracker style afro dance / house with a good side order of bat shit insanery. The alt channel has mixes up if you want a look. In fact I recommend all bad music fans to at least check out the slow pop mix. 

Plus a sub, too. You're welcome. 

Heaven.

This is something I've been wondering about the past few weeks. As you may know, I don't believe in a religion, but do believe in a heaven or so. True there's no god there or at least, if there is, a kind of Shinto type of situation where everything houses a god to some degree or  where god is dead, but its essence is infused in the land itself.. There is a hell to go with it for those that have pissed me off in life but for what its worth, I get a heaven with my family / pets back and runs Spring to Autumn with a permanent Med climate. Think So Cal or the Balearics if European with a cold night and warm days with cooler days / warmer nights in the off season. I grow cacti and would definitely want them to grow outside.

Which gets me thinking about the Bible and its version of events. They can describe hell to the nth degree but the best they can come up with is a sort of item world from Disgaea 5 where its a house with endless houses inside. Or a promise of eternal life stuck inside church with god.  Its never explained well what there will be awaiting the faithful, save for vague promises of riches in heaven, eternal life and one of gods matryoshka doll rooms. 

Presumably heaven is some sort of Christ based TARDIS, where you get to spend it with the non doctor.  The Mormons at least let you have celestial sex.  So you better hope you'll get to spend it with classic era Jesus rather than later Chibnall Jesus, where everyone is woke. Unless that is your fetish. Me, I think I'd take my chance with my heaven, at least they'll be people I care about there. 

Easter Greetings

 You'll probably get a proper update tomorrow. But for now have a happy Easter to those that celebrate and for those that don't, hey tomorrow means cut price chocolate.

Spiral bridges.

 We're up to the based numbers, as this is number 8 in the series here. 

The story this time is that the Prito construction company has been suffering sabotage attempts on a bridge building project out in Kentucky. Fenton Hardy is out of commission, due to him suffering at the hands of the crooks, so its down to the lads (and it is the lads) to bring them in by joining the project.

There are the usual small edits such as a few spelling edits and baseball terms and bum of course being tramp now. But it's still quite a powerful story and one were the boys face genuine malice and threat. Fenton isn't all powerful in this as his near death experience attests. We could have done without the "Con speak", though I've heard one of two of the terms used normally. Arkintay indeed.

Anyway UK version is here and Original, here.

Offbeat oddities. Samh

We are reading through Panorama of Saudi Arabia, a badly edited book on, well, Saudi Arabia. Its a mish mash of Islam and poetry and black and white photos of various bits and pieces of Arabian life. There is however a list of plants with Latin names and their corresponding names in Arabic. 

The upshot of this is, well we have a mesemb, Mesembryanthemum Forskahlei (now Cryptanthum or Opophytum Cryptanthum according to my trusty Hartmann pdf.). Along with a few Asclepiads and Glassworts. Its Arabic name is Samh and seems to have some sort of medical potential for ulcer control and a ethnobotanical use for controlling blood sugar. It also seems to be used in cooking as the seed is ground to make flour. I quote 'and samh, a wild seed, is collected in northern Arabia to make coarse bread. 

Mesembryanthemum is now this weird mix of annual and non annual plants now. Can remember the BCSS journal when it proposed that the species Aptenia Phyllobolus and Browannthus were part of it now along with Sceletium which is used for chewing tobacco in South Africa. Opophytum as it was, is one of the weird annuals that nobody grows. I'll probably side with Heidi Hartmann that they are separate from Mesembryanthemum proper, as its an annual and such. But I'm willing to reconsider if we get a big DNA analysis showing familial lines

The book, well the best thing I can say about it is that it needs a bloody good proof read. So that you don't get stuff like this sneaking through on every page. 

Edit. Pic working now. 

Necrolog: Toriyama

 This was a complete surprise, Akira Toriyama was, as if he needed any introduction a Mangaka. In fact the Mangaka of the modern age. You ever watched Dragonball  or Dr Slump he did that. You played Dragon Quest or Chrono Trigger, those were his art designs. 

The Dragon Quest's slime, Goku and Piccolo, along with Bulma and Master Roushi, so many great characters. World feels a lot worser with him gone.  

Can remember having a few Dragon Ball memories as a teen, nothing in English, a French Tankobon and a Spanish floppy cover as they had more Manga than us in the 90s. A long forgotten memory of a live action version on MTV also from that time, that no one remembers. And later on assorted Dragonball games and anime on various small channels. The last time  I saw this was Dragonball Super on, I think Pop, in Mallorca last year at 6am.  

The game side was also in Mallorca, seeing the games on import going for 18,000ptas in 93. Oh and an actual Dragonball, ball that I may still have somewhere. Along with a DBZ shirt. Dragon Quest came a lot later. An official DQ8 for PS2 is the first Euroland ever got along with the originals for DS and 3DS.

Chrono Trigger was the first ever ROM that I got a first party PC pad to trigger a multi button input. And outside a limited run for NDS still isn't widely known here. 

Oh and a final thing about Chrono Trigger. Yuji Hori is the only member of the Dream team still alive.