NYC
Sweltering in Secaucus, a New Jersey suburb whose only saving grace is that it's a 20 minute bus ride from downtown Manhattan. We got in on Wednesday after an uneventful flight to find the state cool and cloudy. The taxi ride to the hotel would have yielded a good view of the New York skyline from the New Jersey turnpike, but with all the low cloud all we got was an unpleasant distopian landscape of smokestacks and powerlines, which nonetheless made me smile, the pleasing sense of unfamiliarity reminding me that I was on holiday. For the rest of the day we stayed in the hotel and surrounding environs, trying to stay awake until a reasonable time, and straying no further than the mall on the other side of the highway. When we got there it looked closed, but we tried a door and found another creepy future scene, or perhaps one from Dawn of the Dead. All the shops, bar about four, were shuttered and empty, as though a plague had swept through the place overnight. The few that were open all had defiant "We are not closing down! We are here to stay!" signs outside. Creepiest of all, though, was the huge white head that grinned at as from behind one set of anonymous shutters.
Today we were up at the crack of dawn, still not quite on local time, and got the bus into New York. Stepping onto the street in downtown New York for the first time, you experience a degree of sensory overload that makes it hard not to just panic and stand slack-jawed. It takes a while to get used to the people, the noise, the traffic, and long skyscraper canyons. We paid through the nose for tour bus tickets, and we spent most of the day being stereotypical New York tourists. It's an amazing, exhilarating place, but man, it's hard work.
I could write a lot more, but I'm flagging. Tomorrow we're planning on getting up early and getting the very first bus into the city. Today some of the tourist attractions were just too busy to deal with - the Empire State Building had a queue stretching around the block - and we're hoping that we'll beat that by getting there first thing.
Labels: new york, photos, travel
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Friday, August 10, 2007
Sweeties
This has been the week from hell, and both R and I are feeling a bit glum. I shall spare you the details, but pleasingly each of us ordered a present for the other without them knowing, and this morning they both arrived at about the same time. I got a big box of Lush bath stuff for R, and in return received a great big box of retro sweeties, including Dib-Dabs, Refreshers, Gobstoppers, Wham Bars, and Sherbet Fountains. The latter completely obliterating a false memory I had of sucking sherbert through the licorice "straw" in the top, since it is completely solid and intended for dipping.
Expect me to run around like an idiot then collapse in a diabetic coma before the weekend is out. link | 0 comment(s) | links to this post
Saturday, July 21, 2007
C64
I never owned a C64 in its heyday, serving with religious zeal on the side of the ZX Spectrum during the great "my-computer-is-better-than-your-computer" wars which took place in the playgrounds of the nation during the 80s. Eventually, however, I had to admit that there were some pretty great games to be had on the 64, and I bought one second-hand from a friend-of-a-friend.
The advent of full-speed emulation of these old machines, coupled with the fact that I never acquired a floppy-disk drive for it and had to sit and wait for games to load from tape, meant that it never got the attention it deserved.
Anyway, this afternoon I rescued it from the cupboard, gave it a good clean, and fired it up for the first time in years. Unfortunately, the only tape I could find to test on it was proto-Sims software toy Little Computer People, but it loaded without a hitch, and is just as charming, if a little shallow, as it was in 1986. I was sure I had others kicking about, but I don't know what happened to them.
The picture from the C64, on the same channel as the VCS, looked great. This is slightly worrying, however, as I was hoping that the distortion on the VCS was down to some factor other than the machine itself. The fact that the C64 looks so good on that telly suggests otherwise. I dont think it's anything fatal, and the VCS is still perfectly playable, but it could probably be doing with a new RF lead, and unfortunately these are hard-wired on those old models. Bah.
Anyway, C64s don't go for a whole lot on eBay, and I don't have much in the way of games or peripherals for it, so I reckon the cost of sipping + a pint is probably fair. Anyone?
Update: This has now been sold. link | 0 comment(s) | links to this post
History For Sale
As part of an ongoing mission to declutter my life and make some room, I'm selling some of my old and dusty toys. First up is my old Atari 2600 and games...
It'll be sad to see it go, but I can't honestly say that it's seen much daylight in the years since I bought it off eBay. However, I did spend a very pleasant couple of hours this afternoon cleaning it up, plugging it in, and thoroughly testing each and every game. It seems to be in perfect working order, though there was a bit of ghosting on the screen. I suspect that's down to either local interference or a modern LCD tv struggling a bit with a crappy old analogue signal. It was still perfectly playable, anyway.
Call me a massive geek if you like, but I think it's a thing of genuine beauty, partly because of its nostalgic place in video game history, partly because its games are still fun, despite being unbelievably primitive by today's standards, and partly because of its amazing 1970's design. Come on Apple - where's my faux-woodgrain iPod?
Anyone want to make me an offer before it gets thrown to the eBay wolves? It comes with two joysticks, two paddles, and the following games:
Boxed
Circus Atari
Combat
Golf
Outlaw
Pac-Man
Space Invaders
Unboxed
Dig Dug
Pitfall II
Pole Position
Star Raiders (Can't guarantee this one works, since it requires the numeric keypad add-on which I don't have.)
Update: This has now been sold. link | 0 comment(s) | links to this post
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Saw-watch. The thrilling conclusion!
Click the pictures for larger versions with comments.
I had a very brief shot when it arrived, and can make some lovely noises come from it, though having enough control over the tone to make a recognizable tune seems some time off. It's R's present, though, so I've put it away for when she gets home. link | 0 comment(s) | links to this post
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Photos
Pics from Christmas and New Year are now on R's Flickr,
Labels: photos
link | 0 comment(s) | links to this postThursday, September 14, 2006
Icelandic Photos
I took over 120 photos over the weekend. Lucky for you I only have a free Flickr account, so here are a few of the best ones.
Labels: iceland, photos, travel
link | 1 comment(s) | links to this postThursday, May 04, 2006
Boom, etc.
The outside world was strangely warm when I left the office. Far more so at half-five than it was at lunchtime. Nothing to complain about, but it's a bit odd when that happens. We wandered around the shops for a bit, glad not to have to wear a coat, then went for something to eat. As the train pulled away from Glasow Central, the sun was just going down. It felt nice. There's something about a hot city at twilight that I like. As we got close to home, however, the sky darkened quickly and we saw the first flashes of lightning in the distance.
Naturally, the heavens opened just as we got off the train, so we had to make a run for it. The flashes got more and more frequent, and soon we were in the middle of the biggest thunderstorm I can remember witnessing above British soil. R, rightly, made me run round unplugging everything. Then I would plug it all back in again as the storm seemed to be dying down, then re-unplug it as it built up once more. I knew that attempting to take a still photo of the lightning was pretty futile, but I had a go with the video function of my camera and managed to capture the bolt you see here.
I like thunderstorms, me.
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