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Sunday 30 July 2017

$2 a month!

So there's been some re working done to the old RHDN (romhacking dot net).  The main site has undergone a bit of an upgrade from the classic web 1.0 look to one with  a big sidebar with random hack photos and other such fripperies.  I consider it a bit of a second home (I'm MontyMole there though I haven't posted in ages) and today when visiting I noticed that there is a big Patreon begging post as a sticky on the main page.  I wanted to look over the forum and see what happened but the main general board had gone missing.  So knowing I follow a few people on twitter who are well known rom botherers I decided to look there.

Apparently certain stuff is paywalled now including changing site themes and the General board on the main forum.  Its been done before from ages back, when World of Stuart changed over to a subscriber model so Stu could write about grown up politics in Scotland rather than gaming like he used to.  I don't know what Nightcrawlers main aim is but it would be sad to lose all the info and fan translations, that's built up over the years.

You can read a mod's take on it here.  (short answer, they didn't have a clue).  Also I'll keep watching twitter to see if anything changes.

Sunday 23 July 2017

P5 Further Stuff.

So its been a few months since I last wrote about Persona 5. Back then I had a PS3 that was temperamental and a big CRT block to run it on, well that's sort of changed.  I now have a "new" TV one of the first Sony Bravia models that was a kerbside pick up.  It was being used as a monitor for a long defunct PC and touch wood works.  Resolution is slightly lower for PS3, I would say screen ratio wise its about the same but more crucially weighs a bit less.

The Old TV Via an equally old camera.
 
This is an update of sorts to my original post on Persona 5, I promise that I won't spoil stuff intentionally but game wise I'm up to the middle of September, and the phantom thieves (your gang of sorts) are now quite popular.  The woman interrogating you in the opening part is called Sae Niijima a detective and big sister to one of your team mates (also a social link).  I still haven't been to the Casino palace from the opening either so I guess I have that to come. 

Ryuji I am convinced is the Japanese equivalent of Beavis, though as a lightning user he doesn't have Beavis's pyromaniac tendencies.
Heh heh
Your Margaret / Elizabeth stand ins are Justine and Caroline and just like the previously mentioned duo their social link improves via fusion requests. I haven't gotten anyone to maximum yet but there are a few people that are close.  I still can't get used to them pronouncing Ann as Arne and it really grates on me, but I guess that's murica for you, Its supposed to rhyme with pan.

Also I kinda like Morgana as well, there is a stray near us that looks like him, have a short clip of him raiding the bins next door something the regular Morgana didn't do.

Further notes.

Still can't get the hang of baseball pitcher and always aim low.  Took me ages to get the hang of fishing in P4 too.

Oh they have a regular fishing as well you just have to read a magazine to unlock it.

Akihabara has capsule machines which seem to eat up most of my cash and the arcade there hosts this versions incarnation of the crane toy (and yes you can win a Jack Frost doll).

Despite the bar in Shinjuku being called Crossroads its clearly New Kama in Japanese. I'm guessing its a play on Newhalf / Okama both LGBT slang meaning trans or gay.  its owner Lala Escargot reminds me of old Drag queen Divine in a way, though its clientele doesn't seem to be from the LGBT community.  There are two old poofs down by the station who are quite fun and seem to have a massive hard on for Ryuji.

Finally I found a bug that on the day before your exams on 12/7/20xx (that's July) the game will hang if you do any social links or go to the gun shop in Shibuya. You can ignore this by going to bed instead, its what Morgana wants.

Sunday 16 July 2017

Xaloc Top HIts From United Kingdom Goans

Sometimes you find stuff that you know will be fire, sometimes you luck out.  There are only 2 tracks really worth your time on here from a dance music perspective Mogan Ravuiha and Torkariwali the rest are sort of dumb skits to old rock and roll type tracks, with a few jazzy bits thrown in. 
That's despite them showing Roland strings and an Arp synth as well as a few band members (people who can sing a bit and play instruments) posing in London with Tower Bridge in the background.
 
According to wiki, Goan music is a fusion of Indian and Western with a heavy Portuguese bias (and spelling with h's everywhere), and not just a type of trance music.   Seeing as I got it from a charity shop in Welling it has a local address on the back and blessing of the UK Goan Association.

More info on Goa and Goans in general here.
Auction post if you want your own.


Sunday 9 July 2017

Memories and the like

Continuing on from last week and thinking about last months Fortean times in particular.  Not this months edition which is 70 years of flying saucers but last month where they discussed Scarfolk and such. 

More specifically a look at the nebulous world of 1970's TV looking at things like Penda's Fen and the Apaches Pif / nightmare fuel source.  My own nightmare fuel source was the  Dark Towers serial from listen and learn from the early 80's. 

The thing that they underline time and again is that it was pretty much undocumented, no real home videoing and such so you rely on archives and faulty memories.  Its pretty much the same business for Sky stuff back in the mid to late 80's.  There are tapes of stuff from DJ Kat show and The Children's Channel back then but even though video ownership crept up back then probably not much has survived.  Would like to see some stuff from the adult channel back then as well as HVC the home video channel its direct to video film showing ancestor.  Would even like to see the cable vision magazine that we got every month that covered cable stuff but I guess that's long gone.

We had cable, as I've mentioned before, because our tv reception is utter shite. They had a set top box that looked like a small safe that you could turn to show various channels like Premiere (19), The Box (02) and Superchannel.  You could see German / Dutch ads for Pro Grainen (pro grain) cereal with a macaw that said pro grainen and Frolic on MTV or was it Sat 1. 

That's the problem, we had a video then (a Ferguson from my Grandad.)  but no one knew how to use it, generally it was a bastard to program back then no on demand streaming and no hard drives big enough for Sky Plus to be viable for another 15 years. 

I'll leave you on a happy note with a german Netto Advert (now no longer with us in the UK) from last year mixing two of my favourite things cats and synths.  Check out that feline version of Magic Fly.

Sunday 2 July 2017

Hackney Haul

Have been busy lately as a few people I know are downsizing and going into sheltered housing.  Plus there is a few things I wanted to write about last months Scarfolk themed Fortean Times about liminality and the 70's and how it applied to my own thoughts on cable television.  But mostly today is about Hackney.

Haven't been for awhile as its quite a distance away, but whenever I've been there I've struck big whether its Finding old Scientist dub CDs or a few weird bits and pieces for discogs and stuff yesterday though I outdid myself.

They have a few charity shops there that are quite well spread out along the high street.  There is a pretty good one at the Salvations barmy (Salvation Army) that deals in all sort of stuff and has a few bits and pieces spread around the store.  Turned into the first stack of cds and there was a Simian Mobile Disco Bugged out mix cd pretty good decided to grab that then noticed that there was a few things by Fennesz, and it didn't stop pulling out gems from ~scape and Mille Plateaux and a few tiresome free improv jazz records that was duly left behind, but all in all 18cds and a big stack of records (largely Jeff Mills stuff and DJ Rush) for just under £16.

I know some of those will be a fire in a pet shop job but most of the vinyl is pretty legit. 

A few shouts out to some of the more odder ends of this spectrum i've dug through.   

MGRS Remix

Done for a Swiss culture organization this is a hybrid 2 lp 1 cd release that was given away to people / artists involved.  The caliber of remixers here is pretty good, Fischerspooner, Ovuca Biosphere, Cylob and the late Mika Vainio. Sadly the url you see where you can download this from is no more and doesn't even show up on Archive.org.  Half of mine is missing presumably still in the shop (will need to go back next week and check to see) but I have side a/b and the promo cd / sources.   Expect a few releases of this soon.

Morpheus Emergent music from the supercollider CD. MAC only.

Sadly I do not own a mac and never will due to them being overpriced douche bags, but this is part of the haul I got so its here.  Its generative music on one CDrom that will generate its own random interpretation every time you play it.  The only link I can find is to PDF. files, which you can read up on the processes on how its done and such.  I'll meet you half way and put up shots of the sleeve and CD image below.  If I ever get a mac emulator going I'll see if its any fun or not.