Updates and slots

First before going into one, we'll have a bit of an update of stuff previously posted.

Marchen Maze Fan translated.

First up I'd never thought I would see this happen.  When people fan translate its normally the glory days of Nintendo i.e NES and SuperNES era with a few nods toward the original Playstation.  Anything that runs on Sega Hardware or falls under the banner of NEC or is a handheld system is usually roundly ignored.  So I nearly fell off my chair when a general update appeared on RHDN showing that someone had fan translated the original.

Incidentally patching this is a breeze, just grab your favourite patcher (FuSoYa's LunarIPS) and apply the patch to the rom and it'll patch.

Pulse FM and Copyright Cunts.

We've found one of the old tapes that has Pulse FM on it.  Its probably the first thing I've ever taped off the radio and harks back to 1993.  Of course its one of Aphrodites shows and has an incredible mix of old house, trance and sometimes Acid.  Converting it across and adding song titles in Vegas we finally uploaded it to Youtube.
However some parasite at the Performing Reich Society seems to think because its a radio show that they should have their pound of flesh, we are going to argue that its an archive of a Pirate Radio show and that it should be exempt on copyright grounds (though possibly not on music grounds).  We'll see how this goes on.

Coin Pusher, Haniwa De Go.

Arcade experience in a PC draws nearer.

We periodically read Dave Haywoods MAME page, an interesting read into MAME politics and the state of arcade emulation, 14 years after its inception.
We were surprised to learn that in his latest post he's looking into adding Fruit Machine stuff  to MAME now seeing as its not that hard to do. 

Though some of the video slot stuff has been in MAME for a while now, for regular slots an MAME offshoot called  MFME was the best bet, even though its closed source (against MAMEs mission statement) and not updated in ages.    

Now I'm ambivalent about slots, they are mostly not fun (though some of the UK ones were weakly entertaining) and are mainly about seperating idiot from cash.   However, intergrated into MAME this would instantly emulate about 90% of seaside arcades in the United Kingdom, though they still wouldn't be fun at all.  

Addendum

As if by magic theres a top ten dance thing in todays Sun that warranted only a short page space to fill. 
Conducted by Global Gathering apparently the best dance track of all time is...*  James Browns Sex Machine...
Followed up by stone cold Classic Groove is in the heart.  For sheer perversity Wino and Ronsons cover of Valerie by the Zutons is in at number 8 if only they had covered Groove is in the heart...

In unrelated news it seems Ally Ross is back doing TV reviews, I've always rated his column, and he has been absent for some while.  They had Dom Joly covering and doing not bad if I say so, but its nice to know he's back.

For the uninitiated he's the Sun's in house TV reviewer, a sort of Scotch version of Charlie Brooker (whos gone downhill since Screenwipe diversified into a million different wipes).  In fact rather then let me explain badly theres an article in teachers bible, the Grauniad, thats a pretty good run down of who he is and why he matters.

*Full list and commentary here.
1 James Brown – Sex Machine – 26%;  We'd prefer Steinski and Mass Media Lesson 2.
2 Deee-Lite – Groove is in the Heart – 13%;  No argument from me.
3 Martha & The Vandellas – Dancing in the Street – 11%;  Soul standard nuff said.
4 Donna Summer – I Feel Love – 10%;  Patrick Cowley version only
5 The Bee Gees – Night Fever – 9%; Just no, really anything but the Brothers Gibb
6 Fatboy Slim – Praise You – 8%;  No argument either.
7 Abba – Dancing Queen – 6%;  Pissed up hen night special
8 Amy Winehouse and Mark Ronson – Valerie – 4%;  See 8 and indeed 2 for non cover
9 The B-52s – Love Shack – 3%;  This is kinda rock, its still cool mind
10 Michael Jackson – Billie Jean – 2%. Jackson could do no wrong in the early 80's but I'd rather have Can You Feel it instead.

Hot one on one round up action

An awful lot of stuff has happened so far this week and not all of it pleasant.  We lost Amy Winehouse over the weekend.  We always joked that she should have done a cover of Deee-lites Groove is in the heart before she died of drugs, I guess its not to be now.   To be honest I can't see any major dance music artist getting the same coverage when they go. 

Rest assured when Juan Atkins, RDJ or Roni Size passes into the great hereafter it will not be front page news. Not even worth a small quarter page column on page 23 news near the lottery results cos when it comes to dance music, we don't matter.  We lost Aaron Carl to cancer last year and earlier this year disco diva Loletta Holloway suffered a heart attack and died, yet neither warranted column inches in any of the main newspapers.  Or if it did they were very small.  

You may like to think of dance music as a bunch of faceless guys fiddling with synths and stuff, or worst case scenario music that can simply provide a backing for the latest rap track.

For instance, JLO stole the hook from the  Boss Theme from Parasol Stars as a backing theme for Get on tha Floor. Snoop lifted Felix Don't you want me wholesale for his track, Wet, and Jason the Rolo has a bastardized version of Robin S Show Me Love on his track Don't Wanna Go home.

Saddest of all, gay fish and funny specs wearer Kanye West has 2 cOunts against him.  First for lifting Daft Punks Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger the second unforgivable crime is using AFXs excellent Avril 14 for a pile of old toss featuring John Legend.  


In other news we found a picture of Benny From Crossroads thrown out at work.  It is the campest thing I've seen, sadly though its seems to have gone missing so here have a picture of Dizeeeeee Rascal (Ripping off Stevie Vs Dirty Cash) instead.

Dizee Rascal Workout via Billys Boocamp.

To battle the Elf. Go to post 115

Do you remember Fighting Fantasy books then that heading will all be familiar to you.  For the unenlightened they were green spined roleplaying books from Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone (He runs Eidos now don't laugh) where you got to choose your own path through a fantasy story before succumbing to traps and ultimately cheating.  They were an integral part of 80's / 90's youth, where two dice and a pencil (oh and the ability to read) were all a young adventurer needed to have a reasonably great adventure. 

We came across some such weirdness the other day where a totally unrelated search for stuff brought up this weird little factoid.  Fighting Fantasy was released in Japan not only with the original covers intact, but bought right up to date with manga covers.  We can't vouch for the other illustrations and that, just that it seems to have quite a following in Japan (the Warlock magazine lasted way longer than here). 

Lone Wolf: Twice as rocking as this.  FACT.

To be honest though, even though I loved the Fighting fantasy books we loved Joe Devers Lone Wolf books even more.  With a cohesive storyline {you had to become a Kai master} and the chance to transfer skills and items to other books as you 'levelled up' this was about the closest you could come to RPG goodness without investing in 20 sided dice and joining a D+D group. 

We had about 20 of the books and managed to make it magnakai status back in the day.  Though to be honest we never actually used the battle system properly.  
This is how you should have done it back then.

1. Choose a number from the number grid (located toward the back of the book)  and while your there choose a number for the enemy.

2. Turn to the back page to see what results it gave you in the battle grid.

This is how we did it instead.

1. Close your eyes and pick a number from the number grid and pick a number for the monster you're battling.  If your number is higher than theirs take off the difference from their HP.  If you draw pick again and add the result to the numbers you chose.  If the monsters number is higher than yours then take off the difference from your HP.

I.E. If Elf rolls a 3 and Lone Wolf a 5, Elf would take 2 damages. Rinse and repeat untill either is dead.

We made one of the squares a K square.  If you landed on that you would instantly kill anything there with a critical hit and vice versa.
This revised ruleset saw me through a good 12 or so Lonewolf books untill the books disappeared toward the mid 90's. 

Both LoneWolf and Fighting Fantasy are available on DS, though Lone Wolf is currently Homebrew so you'll need either a Flashcart or an Emulator to enjoy it. 

Finally, (this was more of a junior school thing) there were a series of gamebooks called Choose Your Own Adventures.  They didn't have any combat, and you always seem to end dying a few pages in.  I know of nobody who made it through with a satisfactory ending, they either died or had one of the wanky endings where you lived out your life amongst nomads or as a pauper.

Summed up below with three atypical choices.

Young Peter Stupid was walking home from school when he is approached by a strange man driving an old Ford Fiesta. 
"Hey sonny, My names Professor Guy Dubious, I'm looking for a young lad to help track down some missing dinosaurs.  They've escaped through my time portal and I really need to get them back." 

Wow real live dinosaurs, that sounds pretty great.  If you'd like to help the Professor go to the next paragraph entitled bad outcome.

Hey dinosaurs don't exist any more, I bet he's a foreign agent or a weirdo of some kind,  Go to the paragraph after, called good outcome, to call the police on him.

If you'd like to ignore him and head home to play CODBlOps, turn to the final paragraph called unsatisfactory ending.

Dinosaur: Bad outcome.

You agree to head off on an adventure with the Professor, full of ideas about tracking Diplodocuses and evading Tyrannosauruses.  However before you can start hunting for dinosaurs, the professor puts a strangely scented rag over your face and bundles you into a large sack in the boot of his car.   24 hours later after unspeakable depravities are carried out you, your body is dumped onto waste ground at the back of Tescos where your corpse is found by dogwalkers. 

Dinosaur: Good outcome.

You are suspicious about something the Professor says, and decide to call the Police instead on your Mobile phone.  A squad of police officers in a panda car pull up and arrest the so called professor.

PC Copshop: Thats the third sighting we've had of Professor Guy Dubious this week, you've had a lucky escape sonny, he's no professor but a notorious child killer and a dinosaur buff, take this fiver as a reward for not talking to strangers.

Dinosaur: Unsatisfactory outcome.

Your mum told you not to talk to strangers, and you swiftly ignore the professor to head home to play CODBlOps with your mates online.  You load up the PC in your room and while it boots up you notice a shadow fall across the wall behind you.  Looking in the direction of the window you see a small Brontosaurus  walking through next doors garden.  Maybe the "professor" was telling the truth after all.

Smash Hits

Right, remember when I said that we were creating samples from a found Smash Hits Keyboard, well we are finally through with it.  We found out a little more stuff about it.  It only has twenty or so original synth sounds on there {not 100 as they say on the hooter itself}.  Believe me when I say they just recycle sounds and put a new name up.  Apart from that what you have isn't bad some usable drums, an 8bit esque square wave and a string ensemble that could be of some use.

Anyway enough waffling on.  This is a 13MB 7zip file, that unpacks to around 44MB.  All sounds are in wav. format for use in whatever tracker / sampler VST you use.  You can find the file download.


HERE http://www.mediafire.com/file/dcxz43qa2xdss23/Smash%20Hits%20Samples.7z

Work, Safe.

Heres a brief bit of round up of stuff and for once a breaking of the golden rule (no talking about work)
It'll also give you an insight into what I was doing 12 years or so back.

I had course to visit the estate where I first worked all those years back due to a lack of staff, and really took stock in whats changed between now and then.

Its quite alright the people who I worked with are all retired with one exception and are thought of semi fondly if at all. 

The upshot of all this navel gazing is this, sod all has changed to the blocks itself with the exception of new talky lifts in each block.  What was our tea room then, still floods even now, and venturing to the other parts of the estate reinforced my opinion that it hadn't really got even better.  They seemed to have a lot of stores in there something which would please my old chargehand (though he would prefer to be known as Senior Caretaker or idle git behind his back). 

"'Ere boy, we've got a big codgle of stores in, the blokes gawn an' come down with the truck an' dropped it off.
(for those who really don't speak South London I'll flag up a translation,)

We've got a massive amount of stores in.  It seems the delivery man has dropped it off of the lorry for us.

Codgle/Codule is one of those words that seem to be either old school cockney or South London, that you never hear anymore.  It seems to relate to amounts of things and on one or to occasion about a persons dick (like all good Brit slang having double or even triple meanings).

One good thing is that we don't have any sheltered accommodation to deal with now, no bins, no salt to put in the water systems and no cups of tea with the wardens and residents in our breaks.

It also lead to one of the most baffling experiences of my life so far.  While clearing out some wheelie bins we found a collection of porn.  Given its location (sheltered housing) and the nature of the magazines (we had new cunts and a color climax along with several others) baffles me to this day.  Were they owned by the wardens, or some horny old dude throwing out his stash of pr0n.  It was just the most hilarious thing finding hardcore filth in the bins.  Nowadays you don't even get  an Escort let alone that. 

Draw something nice and win Legowelt reissues.

To celebrate the reissue on Bunker of The Rise and Fall of Manuel Noriega, Tower of Gypsies (baroque electro weirdness can recommend this whole heartedly) and Klaus Kinski,  Legowelt is offering up signed versions of these tracks to those who can submit a Panama style tropical Paradise.   The catch.  The comp closes tomorrow.   Pics can be done in either Paint. (PC) GIMP (Mac) (Which I've never got working) DPaint 3 for the tru Amigans, or even hand coloured and scanned in.

More details at www.legowelt.com

Genetics, Kin and all that jazz.

If you are wondering why the regular Sunday service wasn't updated, we have the perfect excuse.  We were watching the Annoying Orange (hey apple)  and the Super Mario World Cartoon, MAMA Luigi (the original non pooped version no doubt) on Youtube.  With someone special.

To paraphrase we were down my aunts house in Suffolk for the weekend, and she'd brought my cousins daughter down from a visit from Scotland.  The last time I saw anything of her, she was only 3 and it was after my Nans funeral at the wake, in my aunts place outlined above.

FFWD 12 years.  I'm employed now (between jobs at the time) and the family in which she grew up in is now split apart.  We still don't know the full details of what happened or how, just that they were all taken into care and fostered out to different people.   She has some physical problems which make life tough for her but apart from that she seems to have weathered the storm of her upbringing and is doing well despite it all. 

Anyway we came down on the Saturday and as soon as I got there, it was a massive shock to see how much she had changed.  I've seen photos of her and that but this doesn't give you any insight  into a persons nature or likes and wants.  In fact as it went on, we found out we share a staggering amount in common, which is really scary.  First of all she is a complete game nut, like myself at that age before Superplay corrupted me into RPGs, we loved Mario.


We both like Luigi and have DS's and brought a shed load of games with us.  This culminated in me getting totally schooled by a 15 year old girl at NSMB thanks to wi-fi link play.   We had a go on Pokemon Heart Gold GBC Reboot, and Cooking Mama 2 which has the worst voice acting ever.  She was taken by my love of old school games and role playing harvest moon take on Rune Factory 2.

The Sunday we showed her some of the less weird and work safe of the Youtube stuff I do and a few clips and memes including, Nyancat, Hatsune Miku and Justin Beeble being shot in CSI, someone we both hate.  She has a toy dog, which I also had as a kid.  Oh and she really looks like her mum, minus her temper of course. 

We also twiddle our hair when stressed, have a liking for cheese and a dislike of tomatoes, and above all are nature lovers.   We were watching some ants, probably the biggest I've seen in the UK and no they weren't flying ants either (something that I saw on holiday too).  We also larked around on Google Earth and tried to find her house where she lives with her foster family in Scotland and the hotel in Salou in Spain where I spent my holidays, this ended up in a miserable failure for both of us and my arm covered in Pritt stick (don't ask). 

Like I say, I liked her a lot in a moe sort of way, kinda like the little sister I never had (No really, I'm not kidding, I'm an only child)..  Weirdly, if you've ever played Persona 4, Nanako evokes the same feelings in me as well, and I've always thought of Nanako as looking a lot like my cousin when younger, though she was never as endearing as Nanako was.