Category: Animals

Twenty Things We Saw At The Fair

August 17, 2013

It was time once again to visit the annual Altamont fair! It doesn’t change much from year to year, but I can’t resist the lure of the rides! Here’s twenty things we saw today:

1) A new ride, called ‘Pharoah’s Fury’. Basically a version of the Pirate Ship, this was notable for the 90 degree maximum incline that created sustained zero-g. KLS was screaming almost non-stop. A very fun ride 🙂

2) Another new ride, called ‘Vertigo’. I was impressed with how high it was! Unfortunately, since it’s a rotator, I didn’t ride it due to motion sickness.

3) All the old favourite rides returned, staffed by the usual gang of creepy ~~murderous ex-felons~~ carnies. We saw a guy ‘fixing’ The Zipper using a piece of string (not a joke!)

4) I saw KLS eat delicious fries with me, shortly after I had eaten a hamburger myself.

5) We saw this device, but for the life of us couldn’t work out what it was called or what it was supposed to do:

6) We saw a tiny, tiny goat:

7) And a kangaroo with a joey in it’s pouch. She bent down to eat some grass and the joey ate as well!

8) We saw a very special duck…

9) And an evil looking chicken…

10) And a happy sheep… in a barn full of happy sheep 🙂

11) Over in the art contest displays, we even saw Doctor Who!

12) Nearby, the first prize winning scarecrow wasn’t perhaps as scary as you’d imagine:

13) Here is a princess being defended by a dragon:

14) Heading back to the midway, past the vendors selling spa’s, blenders and insurance, I found an unusual sight!

15) We didn’t go on that many rides, mostly because they almost all go in circles. The Ferris Wheel is always fun though. Right next to it this year was a ‘cryptozoology museum’ with some extraordinary art hanging out the front:

16) Oh, I almost forgot! The giraffe was back:

17) As was the circus we saw last year. We didn’t go since we were a bit tired and it was very, very hot.

18) The games on the midway are as dubious as ever. Surprising prizes this time around included live goldfish and knives!

19) The animals are fun, but for me the fair is always about the garbage food…

20) And the big, noisy, scary and quite possibly life-threateningly dangerous rides:

I just wish I was 12 again, so I could ride them all without getting sick 🙂

Claudine & The King Of Goats

August 11, 2013

Last night I went down to lower city for some more exploration, this time by night.

As it turns out, we visited Quebec (purely by chance) during ‘The Festival Of New France’ and the city (especially lower town) was full of people in period costume, such as this:

And this:

There was a particularly large density of them in lower city last night, including some actors playing roles. This next shot shows a fishmonger pulling has cart into the darkness:

And here’s a bear!

The fireworks were lengthy and spectacular. Everyone in Quebec turned out to watch them 🙂

The next day, our last in Quebec, started with a visit to The Citadel.

This fort atop the highest peak in the city was built by the British to defend Quebec from the Americans. It was never actually attacked, and although an active base is now open for tours.

Although a bit rushed (due to tourist volume I suspect) our guide Claudine did a good job and we learned a lot. But were I to distill the experience to one image it would be this:

Holy Moses a goat in armor! This is (a statue of) Batisse the mascot of the regiment posted at The Citadel. The first Batisse was a gift from The Queen and the bloodline continues to today’s goat, who takes part in the changing of the guard every day! Batisse is a high level goat!

Here’s Jim eating poutine for lunch:

Can you guess from the photo what I had?

We did some other stuff, such as visiting churches and a nunnery and even the birds again…

…and then I saw the worst bear souvenir ever made…

…before we hopped on the train back to Montreal! Tomorrow back to Albany and a much needed vacation to recover 🙂

Apotheosis of The Machine Brain

August 10, 2013

It’s 8 pm and I’m sitting on the promenade outside the ~~castle~~ hotel overlooking the Saint Lawrence river. There will be fireworks later; people are everywhere! It will be a fun end to a busy day!

Here’s the very start:

We’d return to this bakery later for bread and pastries for our dinner!

In the morning we caught a bus upriver to the famous Montmorency Falls.

Beautiful! See the bridge over the top? We walked that. The photo above is taken from a steep staircase that leads from the top to the bottom:

Here’s a shot from the lookout to the south side of the falls, visible on the left in the first photo:

We started at the top, took the stairs down, then got to the top again via a rope way!

Here’s me hamming it up in the car:

Growing up in Australia waterfalls are not exactly common and it’s always a treat to visit one. It was a sight definitely worth seeing 🙂

Afterwards, we returned to the city and headed down to old town, at the base of the cliffs on which stands the hotel. Here I met a lovely bird:

Whose hand is that? ONLY MINE!

I petted him and he leaned into my hand. So cute!

We wandered on, and ignorantly walked right past the Canadian Museum of Civilization! Booooooring, we all might think. But stop the presses since a certain poster caught my eye…

What’s this? A froggy museum exhibit on the history of video games in Quebec, Canada? Could it be good? Was it worth $15?!?!?

Yes, my friends, it absolutely was!

The exhibit, which was divided into various eras (Origin, Arcades, 3D etc.) contained over 500 items including a staggering 88 playable consoles and arcade games!

And believe me, whoever curated this exhibit was no slouch to game history and the landmark games from each era.

The above snap shows Barbarian playable on an Amstrad!?! I was in hog heaven as I effortlessly demoed the 1-hit kill move to Jim almost 30 years since I had last played.

I would go on to play PC-Engine, MSX (!!), C-64 and countless other gems, including…

Tempest 2000 on a Jaguar! Jim got in on the action as well:

That’s him playing an Amiga for the first time. The game? Turrican!

Here’s a cute display:

That’s Bubble Bobble demonstrated on 4 different machines. A fifth was playable adjacent to this display.

I also went a bit menerk when I found Thunderforce III playable for Mega Drive. It was as if this exhibit was custom designed for me!

Oh and the relics! They ranged from breathtaking original working Space Invaders Deluxe cocktail cabinets:

To displays of rare game merchandise:

To awesomely nostalgic game packaging:

And to stuff bizarre beyond words:

There was so much to see and play, from Odyssey to iOS and Wii U. Superb beyond my mere words, this exhibit was one memory after another. As I got to this screen on my first man:

In this game:

I knew my visit to the ~~boooooring~~ Museum of Civilization was one I’d probably remember forever 🙂

Oh yes, and later in the day we saw this:

Gotta run! Fireworks 🙂

Robot Claw