Drowning In Reverb

Top Ten : Commodore 64 Month

2012-08-30T16:46:00.002-04:00

August 2012 marked the 30th anniversary of the Commodore 64, and as such has been dubbed "#c64month" mainly by us Commodore-types on Twitter. There's been a solid month of postings about our beloved 8-bit machine, and not to be completely outdone I thought I would post my Top Ten list of Commodore 64 games. Without further ado, here they are! (By the way, I borrowed the screenshots from Lemon64 - a fantastic site dedicated to the C64)

#10 : Maniac Mansion (Lucasfilm, 1987)

I remember spending hours playing this one. Three kids (one named Dave and two of his friends) have to infiltrate a mad doctor's mansion to rescue Dave's girlfriend Sandy. A great adventure game where the story was just so outrageously zany. It also had the extra bonus of having different solutions depending on which combination of kids you chose. The interface was also a real leap forward from older text-based adventure games (like Zork) where you had to type in commands. I spent many hours trying to get out of the dungeon in this one.

#9: Ghostbusters (Activision, 1984)

A classic C64 game - though it was released for multiple platforms, this is the version I played the most. Trap ghosts, avoid marshmallow catastrophes and earn enough money before the Keymaster and Gatekeeper arrive at Zuul. Unfortunately, winning the game involves getting two out of three Ghostbusters past Mr. Stay Puft, which I've only ever done a handful of times. But getting there is the fun part.

#8: Locomotion (Prestige, 1992)

I discovered this game in the past couple of years rummaging through Gamebase 64. The premise is simple, it's a strategy game where you have to get trains where they're headed by flipping switches and avoiding collisions with other trains. I have a weird side story about this one though: playing this game recently triggered an odd memory for me. It was something I couldn't exactly put my finger on it but I could picture a physical train set on a large board with different coloured buttons that would allow trains to go around little pathways, similar to the gameplay of Locomotion. When I mentioned it to my Mum she knew right away that it was a toy I played with visiting my family in the UK when I was three. She's sure I wouldn't have seen it since. So discovering this game might just have triggered my earliest memory.

#7: Space Taxi (Muse, 1984)

"Hey taxi!" "Pad Five Please!" "Thanks!" Anyone who's played Space Taxi immediately knows what I mean here. A great game of bringing passengers from pad to pad while trying to avoid whatever obstacles exist on the current level. And the speech made it even more fun. A definitive Commodore 64 classic. "Up Please!"

#6: The Train: Escape to Normandy (Accolade, 1987)

Ok - so I have a soft spot for train games. This one is set in WW2 France, where you hijack a steam train loaded with priceless art. Your mission is to drive the train safely to Rivière, where you will rendezvous with Allied forces. There are three routes you can take, which are the three levels in the game. Probably my favorite steam train game, where you have to capture stations, bridges, and shoot down German fighter planes along the way.

#5: M.U.L.E. (Electronic Arts, 1983)

Another Commodore 64 classic. It's a 1-4 player game (4 player games being somewhat uncommon for the C64) where you pick a little cartoonish species to colonize a new planet. On the planet you harvest resources (food, energy, smithore etc) and deal with your opponents using a brilliantly designed auction system to trade for resources they (or you) may be lacking. I was glad to hear that M.U.L.E. is still alive and well in the internet age on PlanetMule.com, which is a testament to it's fantastic gameplay and replay-ability. I will have to sign up there when I have tons of time to spare.

#4: Kennedy Approach (Microprose, 1985)

A simple - yet tough to master - air traffic control strategy game. You are an air traffic controller and must guide planes to and from their destinations. There are multiple levels, where you can choose harder cities (New York, for example, being one of the toughest) or busier times (the afternoon shift). I don't think I've ever finished the last difficulty level. This game made me consider into a career in Air Traffic Control back in the day, though I realized it wasn't for me within about week of tearing my hair out trying to get past level three. Apparently air traffic controllers do that in real life as well.

#3: Impossible Mission (Epyx, 1984)

Aah. How could any Commodore 64 user forget the famous line: "Another visitor. Stay awhile. Stay FOREVER!" Impossible Mission has a little bit of everything. It had a nice smooth player animation, and requires strategy to figure out how to finish each room, hand-eye coordination to avoid the robots, music analysis to gain secret codes, visual puzzle solving skills to get the final password, and all this while racing against the clock. It also might have the most anticlimactic ending to a game ever. But no matter, this one is all about the journey.

#2: Hardball! (Accolade, 1985)

Right. So I picked a baseball game as number 2, and let me tell you why. As a baseball-addicted kid I can still remember seeing the demo running endlessly in the window of CompuCentre and thinking it was the best looking game I'd ever seen. I got it for Christmas that year (I think it was 86 or 87) and most of the city lost power on Christmas eve. We didn't get power back for a couple of days and all I could do was read and re-read the manual by candlelight. Well, I sure made up for those couple of days, since I have put more hours into playing this one than any other C64 game hands down. I used to play complete seasons of Hardball, keeping track of player stats (batting averages, ERA's etc) in SuperCalc (hard to believe I had that kind of time once!) As far as Commodore nostalgia goes for me, this one is as good as it gets.

#1: Pirates! (Microprose, 1987)

There wasn't much doubt when I started writing this : Pirates! was going to be number 1. I absolutely love this game. You take on the identity of a pirate, pick a historical time period and a nationality (either English, French, Spanish or Dutch) and away you go. What do you do? Well, pretty much whatever you want. There are plenty of ships to attack, ports to visit, and politics to navigate. Start beating up on the Spanish and countries at war with Spain will give you promotions, money and land. Countries allied with them will grow hostile and fire on you when you try to sail into one of their ports. Sail the high seas, find lost Inca treasures, capture the Spanish treasure fleet, flirt with the governor's daughters, capture ships, track down evil Spaniards, pillage towns and villages, drink in the taverns, collect treasure maps, rescue your long lost family and gain infamy and fortune, all the while trying to stay healthy, keep your crew happy, and avoid getting captured. It takes some time to play through an entire career - but I really find myself getting sucked into it when I start. And because everything is totally random and you can do anything, no two games will ever be remotely close.

So there is my top ten. It took a little while to get it down to that, there are so many great games for the Commodore 64. Not only that, new games continue to be released even 30 years later (Soulless and Knight'n'Grail are my two personal favorites.) If that doesn't say something about the longevity of the platform I don't know what does.

Happy Commodore 64 Month!

Resume Transmission...!

2012-08-29T10:46:00.001-04:00

I think it might be time to dust off the proverbial cobwebs and give this blog a new lease on life. Why not do a little cleaning and get this thing back in shape?

Lately here at Reverb HQ we've been indulging in all sorts of interesting projects, so it's a good time to get back in the swing of writing about it.

Blogger seems to have elimated the old layouts so we're stuck with this one for now. Maybe I'll do some playing around with it if time permits. But for now, we'll keep this boring one.

In the meantime - it's been a long while since I've podcasted but if you're new here why not check them out!

Drowning in Reverb Podcast #12 (Haunted Edition!)

2010-10-26T14:25:00.007-04:00

Welcome to the Drowning in Reverb Haunted Hallowe'en Podcast! In this episode we serve up a spooky little collection of music to complement whatever ghoulish plans you may have this weekend.

As always, the address for the podcast feed is here, if you want to subscribe to it in iTunes.

Click here to download the enhanced AAC version.
Click here to download the basic MP3 version.
Click here to have a look at this episode's playlist.

Enjoy... if you dare!

Drowning in Reverb Podcast #11 (Party Mix #2!)

2010-07-28T15:30:00.003-04:00

Alright Cats and Kittens! The Long Weekend is fast approaching, and I know a lot of you are going to be out Somewhere You Want To Be, doing Whatever It Is You Want To Do on a long hazy summer weekend. So here you go - just in time for those coveted three days of ultra-lounging, here's the second episode in the series of Drowning in Reverb Summer Party Mixes. It's the perfect soundtrack for your upcoming road trip, beach party and/or cottage chillout session, or even if you're just planning a groovy stress free weekend at your pad - this one's for you. There's a lot of groovy keyboards and funky rhythms in here - it's your ticket to kick off an equally groovy and funky August!

As always, the address for the podcast feed is here, if you want to subscribe to it in iTunes.

Click here to download the enhanced AAC version.
Click here to download the basic MP3 version.

Dig!

Drowning in Reverb Podcast #10 (Party Mix!)

2010-06-24T16:21:00.004-04:00

Just in time (almost) for the summer party season - here's Drowning in Reverb #10! This episode is actually a mix I made a little while ago of some of my favorite surf, garage, and funky oddities compiled from previous episodes of the podcast. No dialogue, no filler, just an hour and fifteen minutes of groovy tunes you can put on the stereo next time you have company over. And if you haven't heard the whole series of Drowning in Reverb podcasts, you may find some cool tracks you missed on previous episodes.

As always, the address for the podcast feed is here, if you want to subscribe to it in iTunes.

Click here to download the enhanced AAC version.
Click here to download the basic MP3 version.
Click here to have a look at this month's playlist.

Dig!

Drowning in Reverb Podcast #9

2010-05-05T16:21:00.003-04:00

Only four short months since the last episode, there's finally a new Drowning in Reverb podcast online! In this episode we take a short trip to Germany, hear some songs with lots of bongos in them and pay tribute to the infamous "rat fink" - as well as a typical dose of miscellaneous mayhem!

The address for the podcast feed is here, if you want to subscribe to it in iTunes.

Click here to download the enhanced AAC version.
Click here to download the basic MP3 version.
Click here to have a look at this month's playlist.

Dig!

Drowning in Reverb Podcast #8

2010-02-01T16:22:00.004-05:00

Welcome to the first Drowning in Reverb podcast of 2010! This winter podcast is designed to help you feel a little warmer, so grab your favorite hot beverage and kick back to the sounds of some surfy beach tunes, a little calypso, some jungle-themed tracks, and we even toss in a few cha-cha numbers for good measure. Near the end we go off the deep end a bit and get into some pretty odd little tunes, just for the sheer fun of it. Enjoy!

The address for the podcast feed is here, if you want to subscribe to it in iTunes.

Click here to download the enhanced AAC version.
Click here to download the basic MP3 version.
Click here to have a look at this month's playlist.

Dig!

Drowning in Reverb Podcast #7 (Xmas Edition)

2009-12-22T10:42:00.007-05:00

Finally - it's the Drowning in Reverb Xmas Podcast! The basic theme here is, of course, good christmas music, as opposed to the usual fare you get in stores and shopping malls this time of year. We've got some fantastically done versions of some old classics, as well as some great tunes you may have never heard, then we round it all off with a couple of tracks which get played to death in the UK but we hardly ever hear over here.

(By the way, did anyone hear about what was the #1 Christmas song in the UK this year? Amazing...!)

The address for the podcast feed is here, if you want to subscribe to it in iTunes.

Click here to download the enhanced AAC version.
Click here to download the basic MP3 version.
Click here to have a look at this month's playlist.

Merry Christmas!

Drowning in Reverb Podcast #6

2009-11-20T15:03:00.004-05:00

Just in time for the weekend, here's the next instalment of the Drowning in Reverb Podcast! Featured in this episode is a tribute to the Hully Gully, some Beatnik tunes (or at least some Beatnik parodies), and a bunch of other random tracks I've had in my brain over the last few weeks. So while it's not the Xmas podcast (yet), hopefully you'll have a little something to groove to in the meantime.

The address for the podcast feed is here, if you want to subscribe to it in iTunes.

Click here to download the enhanced AAC version.
Click here to download the basic MP3 version.
Click here to have a look at this month's playlist.

Dig!

Drowning in Reverb Podcast #5

2009-10-26T13:49:00.001-04:00

And.... we're back!
After many long months of silence, Your Humble Narrator presents Drowning in Reverb Podcast #5! Tune in to this episode for some odd songs about food, a healthy dose of Francophonie, and a couple of train rides.

The address for the podcast feed is here, if you want to subscribe to it in iTunes.

Click here to download the enhanced AAC version.
Click here to download the basic MP3 version.
Click here to have a look at this month's playlist.

Dig!

Update... link fixed. Oops!

Delay of Game Penalty

2009-10-05T10:41:00.003-04:00

As everyone no doubt has noticed by now, this blog has taken a bit of a rest. It's not gone permanently, I just really haven't felt the desire to update it lately. And rightly so - too much else is going on! So please bear with us while we refocus and regain our interest in blogging again.

And for you podcast fans, I haven't forgotten about you either. I'm actually getting a new one together (at least mentally) so don't remove that feed yet!

Homeless Beard - Week One

2009-08-07T18:35:00.002-04:00

Ouch...!

Drowning in Reverb Podcast #4 (One Liner Edition!)

2009-07-09T18:25:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the Drowning in Reverb Podcast #4! In this episode, I decided to do something a little different. The set follows a basic theme from beginning to end, which is this: all the songs are mostly instrumentals, only they all have a tiny bit of vocal flair thrown in there somewhere for good measure. They're not really lyrics, so let's call them "One Liners". If that doesn't really make sense, then have a listen. You'll know what I'm talking about pretty early on.

The address for the podcast feed is here, if you want to subscribe to it in iTunes.

Click here to download the enhanced AAC version.
Click here to download the basic MP3 version.
Click here to have a look at this month's playlist.

The Podcast will be taking a bit of an intermission (likely until the fall) since a lot is going to be happening over the next couple of months. But it will be back...

Enjoy!

Conquering Ben Nevis

2009-06-26T12:00:00.008-04:00

A few weeks ago, we took a quick trip up to Fort William in the Highlands, just a few hours drive north of Glasgow. We had a mission - to climb 4409' to the top of Britain's highest peak, Ben Nevis. We were incredibly lucky weather-wise: we had a very rare couple of days of 25° heat, clear skies and no rain - almost unheard of in Scotland! So it made for a rather blazing hot 7 hour round-trip walk to the top and back, but being up top (in the snow, no less) was pretty amazing.

Tons of photos were taken, but I've compiled the best ones in a photoset which tells the story better. Click on the signpost below to begin the walk to the top of Ben Nevis!

Eastern Trek Part 4: Croatia

2009-06-05T07:55:00.003-04:00

A month and a bit ago, B and I set off on an epic train journey through four different countries: Czech Republic, Austria, Slovenia and Croatia. Here's (the very long overdue) part four of the trip blog! The Croatia photoset is up on Picasa as well.

Picking up where we left off, we caught a train from Ljubljana, across the border to Zagreb, where we took a short walk up the street to the bus station. The train to Zadar is very infrequent, most Croatians travel everywhere by bus, so this was the only bit of our journey that wasn't by train. We had a bit of a hectic morning, since we had to figure out a new currency, buy bus tickets, get something to eat, and get on board a bus all within about 10 minutes. After that though, it was a laid back ride and a few hours later we arrived at the bus terminal in Zadar.

Since we'd been spending the last week and a half doing all sorts of busy-like things, we decided that the final four days in Zadar would be the rest period of the trip, so we really had nothing planned. In that sense, checking out the photoset will probably do a better job of telling the story about our time there than I could writing about it, since mostly we went from café to café, wandering around Zadar and taking photos.

There are some very cool things in Zadar though worth mentioning here. The coolest by far is the sea organ. As the waves crash against the shore, it pushes air through a series of pipes in the marble steps, making this really haunting series of chords that I could listen to for hours on end and never get tired of. We tried making a recording or two, but it didn't work out too well so I've borrowed this clip instead (from oddmusic.com). Press play to check it out!

Right next to the sea organ was the "Greeting to the Sun" - a big round disc of solar panels. During the day it doesn't look like much (although it's quite warm and people like to wander over it) but at night it uses it's stored power to generate a really neat light show. Even neater is that there are "planets" as well, further down the shore, whose sizes and distances away are all to scale with the sun. Anyway, we spent quite a bit of time here one night trying to get some insane photos of us on the lights - I think these are some of the best ones.

The full sun, with Mercury, Venus & Earth trailing away...

Awesome colours...

B strikes a pose!

Anyway, that's about all I'll say about our time there for now. Like I said, check out the full photoset for more photos of Zadar itself, and a trip along the coast through Kornati national park.

After spending five days in Croatia, we were reluctantly off on a flight back home again, concluding our two week adventures through Eastern Europe. I'm really glad we decided to go by train, that is definitely the way to do it. Now I really want to plan another epic train adventure! (Suggestions are welcome!)

Drowning in Reverb Podcast #3

2009-05-29T05:15:00.001-04:00

Just in time for the weekend, episode #3 of the Drowning in Reverb podcast is online! This podcast features some fun commercials, advertising jingles and cue music from way back when, as well as a few great "eleki" tunes and some of the usual garage-rock weirdness thrown in for good measure.

The address for the podcast feed is here, if you want to subscribe to it in iTunes or something.

Click here to download the enhanced AAC version.
Click here to download the basic MP3 version.
Click here to have a look at this month's playlist.

This one is going online a bit later than I had originally planned. After a bit of thought, I've decided to drop the once-a-month podcast concept in favour of simply getting it done when I have the time, because I think my schedule need less deadlines, rather than more. I'm still going to aim for one a month, the only difference is that I'm not going to beat myself up over it.

Enjoy!

Eastern Trek Part 3: Slovenia

2009-05-12T07:52:00.003-04:00

A few weeks ago, B and I set off on an epic train journey through four different countries: Czech Republic, Austria, Slovenia and Croatia. Here's part three of the trip blog! The Slovenia photoset is up on Picasa as well.

B and I checked out of our hostel in Austria, headed to the Südbahnhof, and hopped on a train headed for Slovenia. This has to have been the best train ride of the trip - it was on a Wednesday morning, and the train was pretty well empty, so we had an entire compartment to ourselves for most of the trip. (Sweet!) And the trip itself was amazing, with great views of the Julian alps, and winding around and through mountains until we crossed the border into Slovenia. One train change in Maribor later, and we were on our way to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia.

Ljubljana is really not a very big place, with a population of only about 270,000 people, so we felt like we got to see quite a bit of it in a rather short period of time. Our hostel was right next to the Dragon Bridge, which itself is a bit of a landmark. Unfortunately, it also rained both days we were there, which I think stopped us from exploring the city more. The first day, we went up to Ljubljana castle, which we thought would be a bit more interesting (of course, we're also spoiled here with Scotland's castles, so maybe our expectations were a bit high) but since there were only a few buildings we could get in to, we decided that maybe we would follow up on a suggestion my the hostel owner and take a bus to Bled.

Bled is a small pictureque tourist town in the Julian alps which oddly had much better weather than Ljubljana on the day we visited, and was definitely worth the trip! There is a small church on an island in the middle of Lake Bled, a castle on a hill, and many resort-looking places by the water. It was definitely not a very big place, but we spent most of the afternoon there, walking up to the castle for some cool views (like the one below) and wandering around the lake for the day.

The second day was pretty awesome too: we hopped on a train to the small town of Divača, which was a 3km walk away from the Škocjan Caves. The caves are a UNESCO heritage site, with over 5km of underground rooms and passages. You can only visit by doing a tour, which takes you through 3km of the caves, including some rooms so big that my mind just couldn't wrap around the hugeness of it. The one downside is that they don't permit any photos. I'm not completely sure why, but I think it might have had something to do with the tour which covers 3km in an hour and a half: if they allowed photos the tour would probably be more like three hours. Anyway, the photos you see here are borrowed from Wikipedia, and I did manage to find some other great photos here which at least gives an idea of how amazing the caves are (and yes, we did get to walk across the bridge in the photo below, which was amazing!)

Later, we hopped back on the train and headed back to Ljubljana for our final night in Slovenia, but not before getting some awesome night photos, like these gems I couldn't not post here.

Dragon on the bridge

The next (and final) stop: a little R&R in Zadar, Croatia!

Eastern Trek Part 2: Austria

2009-05-09T08:00:00.003-04:00

A few weeks ago, B and I set off on an epic train journey through four different countries: Czech Republic, Austria, Slovenia and Croatia. Here's part two of the trip blog! There's a photoset on Picasa as well.

After finally finding our train station in Prague (which was a bit tricky to get to on foot) we hopped on our train - a direct run to Vienna, Austria. Technically, Austria isn't really an Eastern European country, but it just happened to be on the way from the Czech Republic to Slovenia so we figured we'd check it out. I actually hadn't done a whole lot of reading about Austria before we left so we weren't really sure what we were even going to do there. Vienna has a lot of museums, art galleries and Mozart concerts, which (being outdoorsy types) didn't really score terribly high on our priority list. But while we were on the train, we met a girl who had been living in Vienna for 6 months, and she recommended that we find a way to get to a little town just outside Krems (about an hour northwest of Vienna) called Dürnstein, since it was one of the coolest places she'd been to.

The next day we hopped on a morning train to the small town of Krems, and walked along the shore of the Danube for 7km into the Wachau valley wine region, and into Dürnstein. I think it was probably one of the best things we could have done with a full day. Dürnstein is a medieval city with practically no cars, and is where King Richard I of England was imprisoned by Duke Leopold V of Austria in 1192. It's also reputedly a very touristy place in the summer for (I assume) posh wine-tasters. But since we were there on a Monday in mid-April, there wasn't a whole lot going on which was really nice. You can kind of make out a school trip poking around the corner, but other than a handful of other people it really felt like we had the place to ourselves.

The castle ruins are on a hill overlooking the town, so B and I walked up there and got some awesome views of Dürnstein and the Danube. (We're apparently being followed by the school trip as well!)

When we came back into town, we found another place our friend from the train recommended to us. She had been telling us about a "heuriger" (wine tavern) she had been to called Alter Klosterkeller, and we just happened to stumble upon it down a little side street. This was pretty cool - we sat outside on their back garden, which was right next to a vineyard you can wander around (the photo is looking at it from the back, although it's a bit hard to see) so we had a couple glasses of wine before walking to the train station to head back into Vienna.

The next day, we spent most of the day walking around the main ring road (the Ringstraße) where a lot of Vienna's main sights and buildings are. Vienna itself has to be probably the cleanest, greenest and best kept cities I've ever seen - the place was absolutely pristine. Halfway around the ring road, we decided to take a small detour to Prater, an amusement park just a few stops away on the subway. We mostly just wandered around, but did decide to hop on the huge ferris wheel to get some aerial views. (There are some shots in the photoset, check it out!) Later that evening, we found yet another brewpub - the 1516 Brewing Company. This one was much less like U Fleků and more like the sort we're used to, but did give us plenty of entertainment and delicious pints for our final night in Austria.

Next stop - Slovenia!

Eastern Trek Part 1: Czech Republic

2009-05-05T10:30:00.004-04:00

A few weeks ago, B and I set off on an epic train journey through four different countries: Czech Republic, Austria, Slovenia and Croatia. Here's part one of the trip blog!

We arrived in Prague early on the 16th, and ventured towards the flat we were renting for the three days we were there. We found that it was actually cheaper and a whole lot nicer to go this way. Our flat was definitely on the small side, but for us it was actually quite perfect. It was just on the other side of the Charles Bridge (which itself is a tourist hotspot) so it was kind of cool getting to walk over it all the time to get into old town (although much better at night when there were less tourists around!)

The first day we just meandered a bit around Prague, getting familiar with the place a bit and clueing in to the fact that we were actually on vacation for real. The next day we ventured out of Prague to a small town called Kutná Hora (specifically a suburb called Sedlec) which is home to the Sedlec Ossuary - a Roman Catholic chapel which houses somewhere between 40,000 and 70,000 human skeletons, all used as decorations around the chapel. This pretty much blew my mind. I'll just let some photos speak for themselves here.

The chandelier
A coat of arms
To check out the whole photoset, click here!
The next day started a bit gloomy weather-wise, so we decided to check out the Museum of Torture Instruments, wander around the annual Easter market in Prague's Old Town Square, and check out the Astronomical Clock. Later, we discovered what could be the most fun brewpub I've ever been to: U Fleků. It's been around for over 500 years, and they brew their own beer - the only beer you can get here. You're seated wherever they can fit you in on long benches, then they start bringing you pints. When you're done, the guy carrying the tray of full pints will find you and leave you more. It's a fantastic system, really. You also get entertainment from musicians who wander from room to room playing accordion and tuba oompa music. It's really quite the place to be.

The next day, we checked out of our flat, and headed to the train station to venture to our next destination - Vienna, Austria!

Note: the Picasa Photoset has a lot more photos to check out... dig!

A Brief Summary of Things

2009-04-15T11:25:00.003-04:00

I have a belief that not posting blog entries means one of two things: either (a) you are so busy doing fun and exciting things that you don't have time to blog about them, or (b) your life is so boring that you really have nothing interesting worth blogging about. I like to think that lately has been more along the lines of (a), although it's going to become even more (a)-like in the upcoming weeks.

But first, going back a bit to summarize: the last month or so has had quite a lot of activity. B and I rented bikes and went to South Queensferry, we took another trip to Stirling Castle (in the sun this time!) but I suppose the big event of the past month was a visit from my parents for a week. In one short week we did quite a lot of things - climbed Arthur's Seat, went to Mary King's Close, spent a day at Edinburgh Castle, saw Linlithgow Palace, had dinner in South Queensferry... and those are the things that occur to me off the top of my head. And in other very odd news, Scotland has had an abundance of sunshine lately (until yesterday actually.)

But the main reason things are becoming interesting is that tomorrow, B and I are headed off for two weeks in Eastern Europe! We're beginning in Prague, then Vienna, to Ljubljana (Slovenia) and finally ending up in Zadar, Croatia. It's going to be absolutely fantastic. In the meantime, rest assured that my life is, in fact, not boring, and I will have many interesting things to post about when we come back in a couple of weeks.

NB: the route is approximate, we're taking the train most of the way. Awesome!

Podcast #2 : April 2009

2009-04-08T12:37:00.000-04:00

The April 2009 edition of the Drowning in Reverb podcast is now up! Have a listen, particularly if you're into lounge, garage, exotica, that sort of thing. Or even if you're not, maybe you'll still dig some of these fine tunes.

The address for the podcast feed is here, if you want to subscribe to it in iTunes or something.

Click here to download the enhanced AAC version.
Click here to download the basic MP3 version.
Click here to have a look at this month's playlist.

But most of all, ENJOY!

Fun on the Airport Flight Path

2009-03-16T10:30:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, B and I went for a walk around Cramond Brig, which is where we finished up our hike from Dalmeny last summer. The walk was in the book we've been using to find fun places to go walking around Edinburgh, and this is one that's consistently been on our option list when we decide where we want to go, but for some reason we've never done it. If I knew before how awesome it was, we would have done it much sooner! The first part went through Cammo Estate, where there are ruins of Cammo House, built in the late 17th century.

The trail then followed the River Almond for a while, until we got to a relatively open field that the trail wraps around. The cool thing is that the trail crosses over the landing flight path for the airport (twice!) so you get to witness a whole lot of very low-flying planes making their approach to Edinburgh Airport. The runway is just over a set of train tracks so the planes are incredibly low. On the right is an Easyjet Airbus coming in for a landing. Below are some other cool snaps we got - first is a British Airways flight coming towards us.

And here's a Ryanair flight just before touching down - you can see the start of the runway on the left.

And finally, we took a short (12 second) video of us standing right underneath a landing Easyjet Airbus. This was tremendously cool - I've never been standing directly below such a low-flying plane before. Actually, it was a bit mental.

Whoah!

Podcast #1 : The Debut Edition! (March 2009)

2009-03-05T14:50:00.001-05:00

Dear readers, may I present to you the experimental debut of the Drowning in Reverb Podcast! It just struck me as a fun idea to put some music together that I've been listening to recently into a monthly podcast, so here it is! It's a little bit lounge, exotica, surf, tiki, and other musical oddities I've come across lately. I don't think there's anything there younger than me, so that should give you an idea. (I even speak a bit! Whoah!)

I had thought that it might be fun to work in themes at some point (such as: all French music, all commercial jingles, all Asian music etc) but for the first episode I thought I'd keep it simple and just play a bunch of stuff I like. So without further ado, here are the podcast links!

If you'd like to subscribe with iTunes (or something similar), here is the podcast feed for you to copy and paste.

If you'd prefer to download the podcast directly, you can get the AAC version here, or if that's giving you problems, try the MP3 version instead.

Hope you enjoy!

Update: On some good advice from fellow TRS'er The Fixer, I have put up a playlist of this month's podcast. Check it out here!

A Weekend in York (with Vikings!)

2009-02-26T07:47:00.001-05:00

Last weekend, despite getting hit with a pretty brutal bout of the plague, B and I spent a weekend in York - only 2 and a half hours away by train. The city had a viking festival going on at the time so we thought it would be a pretty good time to go. We got into York in the early evening on Friday, and spent the night checking in to our hotel (which was just a short walk outside the city walls), and wandering around a bit. We also found a couple of good pubs - York is definitely a good place to be if you enjoy pubs. I don't think we went into a single place that didn't have at least two or three really good cask ales on.

Saturday morning, we left the hotel fairly early and went to Parliament Street, where they had a market going on. We picked up a bit of food, then went for a walk around the city walls. The "City walls trail" is broken up into a few sections (since the walls aren't quite complete) but it makes for a pretty fun walk around the city. The walls themselves were originally built by the Romans although they've been added to and rebuilt many times since then. There are also four main gateways to the city (called Bars) which are still intact as well.

After walking one section of the walls and having lunch, we headed to the Museum Gardens where the main activities of the Viking festival was happening. We got there just in time to take a little walk around, then catch a very excellent Birds of Prey demonstration. They had brought several birds with them - a falcon, a few different kinds of vulture, and this awesome guy - an Eagle Owl named Oscar who was having fun landing on the roof of the museum, where all the wires are designed to prevent birds from landing there. Go figure.

Some of the birds were just massive, like this vulture he had flying around for a while that had a tendency to swoop low and nearly take out all the tall people in the front row.

After the bird demonstrations, they had a big "viking battle", which consisted of two opposing armies wearing chainmail attacking each other. I thought it felt a bit forced, since nobody was really getting "hurt", or falling down, or really appearing convincing in my opinion. (Not that I'd be any better if I was out there... but anyway.) We left and headed to where we knew it would be good times for sure - the York Brewery. We had had some York Brewery ale the night before at a pub called the Three-Legged Mare, and it was fantastic, so I was pretty excited about getting the brewery tour. I have to admit that I didn't realize how small an operation the York brewery was, with only two rooms and a pub area. But the tour itself was great, they explained a lot of the process, the equipment and it was just cool seeing somewhere that makes beer on a relatively small scale - brewed for quality rather than quantity.

After having some food, we went on one of those walking ghost tours at night - with about 150 other people who apparently had the same idea as we did. The guide did a pretty good job of giving a tour with that many people, and although there weren't a whole lot of stories about hauntings he was still quite entertaining. It always helps when you know the guide you have loves what he does and is having fun too. (Side story - this was the first walking tour I've been on that was interrupted by a streaker. No joke. It was just some dude who was out drinking, and his friends offered him £20 to run naked around the group, so he did.) After the tour, we had been out for almost 12 hours, so it was about time to head back to the hotel for some sleep.

Sunday wasn't quite as action packed. We finished walking the other two sections of the city walls, so now we have been all the way around. After that, we had booked a "Viking" walking tour from the Jorvik centre. These tours were only for the duration of the festival and was a lot more historical than the one from the previous night. We were a bit tired from walking, so we hit up a couple of pubs we had walked past all weekend but never went in before catching the train back to Edinburgh again.

And that's it for our trip to York. Awesome fun!

Groovin' With Mr Bloe

2009-02-13T09:27:00.005-05:00

It's been a really long week this week, and I haven't had any chance to blog about anything again, so I thought I'd post up a little Friday listenin' instead. I forget where I originally heard about this one, but this track's called Groovin' With Mr Bloe by (can you guess?) Mr. Bloe. According to Wikipedia, it's the theme song to a new TV show I'm unfamiliar with called "Oz and James Drink to Britain" so I doubt if I'd know it from there, since we don't have a TV. (The mystery continues, I suppose...)

B and I are heading to Loch Lomond this weekend for some hiking, so I'll definitely have lots of new material (and maybe more time) for next week.

Mr Bloe - Groovin' With Mr Bloe