Vavra set up.

 Just a few bits on setting up Vavra VST, the Waldorf Q emulator in your DAW.

You'll need to put the dll file in a separate folder and add in the bios files for this as they are supplied as Midi files for some arcane reason. 

This is all.

Skyfire

 We found a lot of Russian records tossed out and logging just what they are has been a bastard, so forgive me if this is a short review of no 83 the Skyfire Puzzle.

The Skyfire Puzzle is kinda like the shark jumping episode of Happy Days, you know from here on it's all downhill from here. To put this in some sort of context, the boys are trained up for some fictional space shuttle program down at Cape Canaveral, in order to work on a case involving sabotage and foreign powers. Its a good story, and along with the desert phantom case are prototypical versions of the later casefiles series. 

Frank Hardy gets a love interest that isn't Callie Shaw, though its pretty tenuous if they're an item. Oh and the Van has a fucking modem circa 86 that can be used to analyze video, from space. 

That's right the boys are in low earth orbit due to signing up for the Skyfire shuttle program. 

There are no differences between the two books but you can read the UK edition here and the US edition here. Note, I had to add in a paragraph which was missing from original scans. The joys of having every UK edition of the original series.

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.

Interbang and stuff.

 I'm pretty sure we've written about Interbang before on here. Part of the old Children's Channel before it was turned into Trouble. For those not invested already, it was an adventure show where two lads had to find mini towers of Pisa hidden throughout the world. Never quite sure of the payoff for this as I've never seen the end, but the whole thing is up on Youtube. 

Also Pulp Librarian, posted up a bunch of Hardy Boys covers on X, which were mainly from the later mainline entries (100 plus) and the case files series. The strangest thing I took away from this is a scan from a comic book from Gold Key comics.  Apparently a tie in to a Saturday morning cartoon, it comes off as Scooby Doo but a rock band. And yes there are film scans up on Youtube as well.

Smugglers cove

 Another book for you and another one based on the Angus & Robertson hardback editions, so expect there to be no differences in the text.

The boys are framed up for stealing a local businessman's portrait of Simon Bolivar, when they're named as couriers of the aforementioned picture. There are a few side stories as they track some smugglers and poachers in the everglades, before it all comes together in the last 2 chapters, where its found that the smuggling and poaching teams are part of a larger group. 

It's a odd tale this as the stories never really gel together. The beasts that are the target of poaching, the American Alligator is said to endangered, but a quick look on the IUCN red data list shows that the American Alligator is of least concern. Whether it was when it was written is anyone's guess, but they are now said to be increasing in population.

Also for  some strange reason we get to see Florida Man in his natural habitat. In this case some nutter in full wizards get-up performing alchemy out in the swamp. Of course he's being duped by the smuggling gang so they can steal a diamond necklace from him. Palming gold into his crucible of slag, to convince him that he's succeeded. 

Anyway, as I've said before, there is no difference save for the numbering of the books between these two editions.

You can read the UK and US editions here and here. 

Down the tubes.

So the clown in charge of this city has decided to rebrand the overground rail lines with new names. Personally I never new that the big amorphous orange blob that is the London overground network really needed to be split into several smaller lines to make it easier to navigate. Its just the overground, you don't need any fancy names that make it more confusing. 

We all know why he's doing it, its just a virtue signal so the idiots vote him in again, and overlook the chronic mismanagement and rising crime rate that is characteristic of his term in office. In fact grand dumb vanity projects like this are more like Boris Johnson's term in the mayoral hot seat. But no its fucking labour.

The lines in question are going to be rebranded as such. 

Bus Conductor line (Windrush line) Islington to West Croydon. Which covers all the worst areas of the capital, and is a fitting memorial for the many West Indians who provided vital service as bus conductors back in the day. 

Weaver Line.    Because something something, textile industry. 

Little Line (Liberty Line) Because three fucking stops deserves its own line, obviously. 

The Bobby Moore memorial line (Lioness line) I will also accept the Queens Park Rangers line. As it at least covers the area it concerns (West London). Anything is better than some wimmin wun the euros and deserve their own thing. 

The Minmay line (Mildmay Line)  Covers the actress Lynn Minmay and her efforts to achieve world piece through song.

The Insuffragette line. Because nothing says indulgence like domestic gender terrorists. The line you want is the Lemon line. 

Dragon Year 2024

 Don't normally write this up as such, but I do enjoy going up town and watching the lion dance at Chinese New Year. I hate fireworks and such but this guy dancing around and the drums pounding is my jam.

The past couple of years I've missed out either due to Covid or missing entirely,  and this year is no exception, we came to early and they weren't set up in time. Havea shot of the Lion dance team that I though look good enough to post. Hope you danced your asses off. 

Dork Web

 It seems we're getting another moral panic over the internet, specifically the dark web in general. Thanks to this article, here, about the murder of Brianna Ghey. Scarlett Jenkinson used the dark web to look at murder and so called red rooms to look up fucked up content online. Although reading this we have no idea what she actually saw.

Apparently its what all the kids are doing nowadays which I'm sure is nothing but scaremongering and bullshit on behalf of the author drumming up views. He's apparently never heard of Liveleak back in the day or any amount of gore trash which I never bothered with back then. 

The fact is watching some Labour twunt chuntering on about regulating the net on Sky news means that the greatest resource we have ever had is being regulated out of existence, along with the double edged sword of Social media, which I'll admit is mostly good when its good and depressing at its worst.

But back to the article and I note he's got some sort of porn site up, most of what you'll see he's describing is actually on the normie web TCG sites, not sure about zombies but all the rest I've seen over the years.

Also given that every .onion address is a string of numbers and letters means you'll have to bookmark and such so browser history unless you're deleting every time. The fact is I've been a few times for of all things Mr Metokurs blog on Poa.st and the Syro album release website*. Apart from that without knowing any addresses and stuff and despite it baked into Brave as its incognito mode, I have fuck all reason to use it.

* This was actually on brand as it detailed every process your computer used to view the page and varied if you used no adblock or privacy blocker software. The cover of Syro famously lists everything expense and process that went into financing / making the album and if you are any way anal retentive makes fascinating reading.

Everyman.

One of those posts you see on the internet from time to time is the archetypal leftist saying that Jesus was a queer brown socialist just like them, and the follow up is them recoiling when the guy says, oh you like Jesus, have you tried reading the Bible. 

Its one of the dumbest quotes ever alongside the cartoon of  Rupert Murdoch blaming the foreigner for stealing all the stuff when he has a huge pile of stuff and we should improve society somewhat peasant meme. You can be sure that an ex Christian has read the bible, in fact I often joke most of the atheists I watch on Youtube were balls deep in the church, before leaving (and simping for social justice). No the thing I'd like to point out is the socialist Christ meme.

In fact the hardcore bible nut will have their own personal Jesus, they create from their upbringing, and a more moderate will have their own take. In fact you want a black Jesus, its feasible, or that one where they made him look more like a 1st century Jew (which if he existed, would most certainly be.) 

Another fact in this is that Easter is so tied in to Passover means he doesn't follow the pagan tradition of dying at the year end and being reborn in the spring. 

You want him to be the prince of peace then fair enough, he is. You want to emphasize his strength (which is how they converted the Vikings back in the day) then you can do that. The fact remains, Jesus is all things to all men. That he never died or will return from death means little, he's just an archetype a metaphor, an everyman, a peoples placeholder. If you want him to do all those things and they mean stuff for you, fair enough, but for me the risen lord meant nothing as he never rose or died to begin with.  

Bombay boomerangs.

 An odd one for sure. The boys get involved in a mercury smuggling racket that evolves into a national security threat.  They investigate thefts of mercury from freighters in Bayport and Baltimore and the mysterious Bombay boomerang which possibly has something to do with the Super S missile stolen from the Pentagon. 

Joe rings a wrong number and is put through to the Pentagon where his call is intercepted by someone being attacked, the only clue is something called The Bombay Boomerang (he was supposed to call a mercury supplier).  

This tale mixes some dark themes and cringe humour in places as Fenton Hardy goes undercover to crack the case only to end up in a barrel and dumped in the bay at Baltimore, and an Indian sent to kill the Hardy boys thanks to a mix up over them committing sacrilege against the Hindu god Krishna. 

Cringe comes from the Radio DJ Teddy Blaze who would be a massive Smashy & Nicey clone if he wasn't feeding information to the mercury gang via his broadcasts. Its made worse in  the US version where his records are known as hot platters. At least it isn't vinyls, which would be beyond the pale. 

Special mention must go to how the boys are written in this. They come across as sharp talking and quick witted with at least one snappy comeback to whatever the crooks  throw at them. In some of the books they're written in they come across as flat, but here they feel alive. Even more so that the bloke who actually wrote it, Victor Buranelli, did three of the worst Hardy Boys books, The revised Flickering Torch and The Flying Express and the execrable Witchmaster's Key.  

Anyway you can read both the Original and UK versions here. 

Drawing again

 Have been on an art rush, so to speak these past few weeks. Not only am I working on this years calendar (theme videogames and OC Heads and Tails), but have found time to do this small edit based on opera singer Lawrence Tibbett.

Can't remember what book this was that sprung forth the whole Tibbet thing as a shorthand for cat, my guess is the classic Smoke and Fluff, 

EDIT it's from Five Little Kittens, We obviously had a lot of Ladybird books as a kid. As a final punishment have seotpit aka Tiptoes  the Mischievous kitten which was often read to  Weedle as as he slept at the base of my parents bed. But more often or not he was buried deepd down under the duvet with me. 

He did get his own back by clawing the hell out of Watership Down as no one paid him any attention. In fact it was at the last battle with  General Woundwort when he went rogue. Along with the Horse and his Boy its one of those books that I've tried to read a few times but never got. 

Happy New Year.

 For  the first time in ages I went to Greenwich park. I wanted to look around the meridian line and the clock museum but its now £18 to get in, and last time I went there it was free. 

They are renovating the grass areas to restore it back to the 17th century original, so it looks rough at the moment.  If you really like dogs and are a tourist then give it a go. Me, I'll not be going back anytime soon. 

Better times was had looking round Greenwich town itself. There are a few charity shops but none open on new years day.  The local Music Video Exchange is open and I manage to get a few good things in the bargain rails. This includes Body 2 Body Let's get Intimate and a hopefully not too smacked up Neil Hawaiian House EP. Oh and Freeman by big  Darryl Pandy.