Uptown Ranking

A round up of stuff if you will. Yesterday we went up town to see if the Orb's Orboretum was released, Spoiler it wasn't. But it gave us a chance to get out and see London, for the first time in ages. 

Well the non burb bits, anyway. There was a march planned to unite the right. I never saw any of these supposed Nazis, but I did see a bunch of crusty, Socialist Wanker types lurking by the Eros statue in Piccadilly. In fact it was a funny old day after all. A couple of things I wanted were either disappointing or not out yet. 

Also managed to find a Meta Quest at work. And after a lot of faff managed to get it to work. I suppose if you buy into VR as the future it's OK, I ended up getting a headache after 5 minutes or so, and my wreck of a laptop is definitely not supported. So we downloaded Kid Icarus for SNES instead, and am having fun with that. Finally leave you with the funniest sign I saw from the Socialist Wanker types.

Family stuff.

Don't usually post the personal here. Its not important to the wider world to know about me too much, I'm not a celeb and my life isn't interesting. 

We took a trip out west to seem my Aunty for the day, haven't seen her for about a year or so, though my mum keeps in touch. She has a small dog that's an absolute nutter and she quickly settled in to destroying her favourite toy. 

Took the cross rail to Heathrow and then a bus on. It's the first time I've ever been to Heathrow airport in any context and well, its a big airport. Eavesdropped on some people on the train over. Hilarious anecdote about her boyfriend eating half her birth control pills and wondering why he got all grumpy. Got to see my cousin and learned that my other cousin is hoping to get married next year. I wish them luck in all that they do, especially if they want kids. 

Aunty is doing fine, and liked the birthday card I sent. 

Finally, if you're a fellow robot who hates noise and such then Hayes and Harlington is not a good place to wait for the Heathrow bound train for crossing over. I counted at least 4 express trains rocketing through and its the closest I've come to a meltdown in ages. Not good.

Masked Monkeys

So the Masked Monkey or the Hardys go to Brazil. 

 A nice case here for the boys tracking down the sensitive son of rich industrialist J.G. Retson. There's a good subplot of Chet running a golf ball extraction empire from his pick up truck (surely on loan from the Morton farm). But mostly its the boys in Brazil trying to avoid the attention of a masked howler monkey called Diabo, and his owner Joachim San Marten. 

 Anyway you know the drill. Original Here and the UK version Here.

Kamikaze Rats.

Here's a real mystery. This comes from a bootsale pick up of an old copy of New Scientist dated 5-2-81. That's the Fifth of February. An article in their forum section, details a new video game from Japan called Rat Patrol. No developer given nor publisher. I will quote the article below in full as I'm not sure if this place can do scans now. 

Edit it can indeed do scans now.

Kamikazi sic Rats 

Hot from Japan is perhaps the dottiest video game yet, Rat Patrol. Hordes of brown rats dive from the sky (yes, the sky) onto a peaceful city. Charles Fort and Arthur C Clarke would love it: it beats showers of fish or frogs any day. With quite unrat-like stupidity, the beasts plunge into the hail of fire from your laser weapon, expiring with pitiful squeaks when hit. Rats which survive their skydive make nests in the bowels of the city and generally cause trouble. As the game proceeds, strange flying objects appear, bearing a read heart-shaped symbol. These are a kind of aerial love hotel for rats- centres of reproduction from which fresh supplies of vermin pour forth. If you can contain your laughter at the sheer absurdity (well, they are called amusement machines) you will find that it is quite a good game. But arcade operators had better watch out. As every scientist knows, there are now many people who find cruelty to rats no laughing matter. An animal-lover who is not amused by this particular amusement might feel entirely justified in sticking his chewing gum in the coinslot so as to protect the minds of the young and the dignity of our fellow mammals. As far as we know, there is still no Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Space Invaders. 

Joking aside about as society for the prevention of gamer cruelty. What is this, exactly. Its not a bootleg Space invaders, nor Galaxian as the whole spawn bit doesn't work with this nor does the landing either as Galaxian doesn't do this and Space Invaders this is a clear game over. In fact putting in various rodent permutations, the closest we get is Universal's Cheeky Mouse from 1980, a game where rats do fall from the sky and burrow down to steal cheese, but there are no lasers as you whack them with a mallet, or heart shaped love hotel. I would be a few years before they had a hit with Mr Do! so this is obscure. So this only half fits. If anyone reads this and knows. Pop a comment in as its quite a mystery.

Edit. I've found an image of  Rat Patrol uploaded by GDRI on Bluesky of all places. Its a game by Sanritsu and I'll put up the flyer image below. Its not Cheeky Mouse as stated but Rat Patrol as stated.

PS-3

We got a new synth today. A Yamaha Portasound PS-3, and no it doesn't have anything to do with Sony. It's like some sort of analogue string machine and looking online it seems to be an analogue synth using square waves. Whether that is true or not remains the question. But it is a nice looking synth complete with gun style music case. Anyway more info about the whole portasound series can be found here. 

EDIT. A week on and it sort of works. It's mostly square waves with sounds being better with the sustain added. A few are glitchy but with new batteries and a few caps prodded about, it works. Mostly.

Ibiza Part3

I'm not sure if this counts or not. But this time round I've not been watching foreign TV much. They still had clubbing TV on playing gabber at 5am which is cool and Fernsehn Sud is still showing its space channel which is NASA clips and unsigned techno. 

Spain still has Doraemon on TV and we caught the band bit from ruleta del suerte. AKA wheel of fortune. Oh and there's Sharkey and George in Catalan. 

Dora ey mon. 

 I think last time we mentioned all the animal stuff we saw, and that includes the elusive balcony gecko. We'll add that we also saw a Turtle Dove which is rare here and part of the twelve days of Xmas. 

Ok seems we didin't do that after all. Just talked about the nudists and Es Canar. We had a few good things here including a nice shot of a Bath white and a Locust that crashed into our balcony window at 11PM on the last night home. We saw our Graush gulls and a Shag, along with a blackbird. A few nice cats at a bar but never worked out where the Peacock lived. Finally we saw an octopus holed up in a little hole in the rocks. He had a cask of Amontillado thing going on where he'd walled himself in with only a tentacle and beady eye peering out to give him away. really nice.

Holiday part1 Es Canar vs Cala Nova

 We went back to Ibiza. Es Canar to be exact. To the same hotel. This time its not so great. Had patchier wifi and the lift broke down a few times. But can't really complain its a 3 star place. You get what you pay for. 

Anyway rant over. You'll want some sort of comparison seeing as the pic in the above link is Cala Nova beach. Both are Es Canar, but the main beach at Es Canar along with the harbour is much nicer. True both have a good variety of things to see but there are more bars and places to visit at the main beach.

Cala Nova also has an ever present current when swimming / snorkeling so bear this in mind. Its also a quieter bay further down the coast with much more nature. Though we saw a Purple Stinger Jellyfish when swimming which didn't endear me much. The main attraction of Cala Nova is that its full of naked hippies. Its not a nudist beach per ce, it just has its share of washed up old people and free thinkers in dreads letting it all hang out. Including a grey haired prick with a man bun totally in the raw. Worse everyone who saw him, laughed.

Es Canar doesn't have its share of washed up hippies on the beach but does have a nice array of fish and that. Quite a collection of mullet and two spot bream including the little bastard who took a nip out of my leg. Also if anyone is remotely interested there is a small octopus walled up (entirely its own doing I may add) near the little jetty at the end of the bay. 

Finally you'll also want directions. Es Canar is on the east coast above Santa Eularlia des riu. You can get the 18a bus in and the main stop is in the main square. The beach is straight down the street. Cala Nova is further along and if you're in Es Canar don't bother getting the bus unless you have mobility problems. You can access it by heading along the top road and chucking a left at the Hotel Coral Beach. Cala Nova beach is on the right at the end of the road.

Cala Nova Low light exposure experiment.

Es Cana at the back of the Jacaranda bar