Category: Miscellaneous

Air, Land & Sea

  • May 26, 2015

In a couple of days I’m heading off for my first European trip of the summer. Here’s the approximate route:

trip map

At a rough estimate, before I get home, I will have taken 8 train trips, 4 flights and 1 ferry crossing. There will be a lot of travel to fit so many destinations in such a short trip but I know it’ll be worth it.

I’ll spend the first half of the trip (Ireland and the UK) with Florence, and the second half (in France) with Sue and her daughter. As usual, I’m planning on casting myself in the ‘wise and seasoned but still ruggedly handsome ex-pat Australian supertasting world traveler‘ role. This will hopefully serve me well in France, where I know none of the local tongue! 😉

Of course I’ll be blogging as usual. Several of you have expressed particular interest in this trip, so I’ll strive to make the posts entertaining.

See you in Ireland!

  • Posted in Blog
  • Robert

Capy Day

  • May 24, 2015

We recently learned of an animal park about an hours drive from here and yesterday went to check it out.

IMG_7079

This is a family run animal park over about 100 acres with many types of animal on display and a safari ride. How did we never know it existed?

IMG_7118

Unlike almost every other park/zoo I’ve been to, you can buy food (ryvita biscuits actually) and feed virtually every single animal. Since most of them are ‘horsey things’ and happily chow down on the biscuits, this means you can get quite close to most of the beasts on display. We gave food to deer, llama, alpaca, goats, giraffes, kangaroos (!), zebra, monkeys and even a wolf!

And these guys…

IMG_7089

The capybara family! We knew they had capybara before we visited but were surprised by the fact they had a whole family in such a large enclosure. Mum and dad and the three babies were incredibly adorable and we spent a great while admiring them. To her delight, KLS was actually able to entice the placid mother over for a snack:

IMG_7103

Here’s her charming face up close:

IMG_7107

The safari ride was a highlight. Although not particularly long, it was very well done (especially the narration)  and since we went on the first one of the day the animals were all active and very interested in us:

IMG_7170

IMG_7172

IMG_7192

The camel in the first shot is apparently one of the four biggest in the US, standing almost 9 feet in height! The safari had camels (one and two humps), bison, rhea, goats, pigs, ostriches, several types of antelope and probably a few other things I am forgetting. There were quite a few newborn babies and many eggs in nests. Apparently breeding came early this year due to the unseasonably warm weather we had a few weeks ago.

IMG_7239

There were some weird elements to the park. Displays such as the above are common in some of these family run attractions here in the US, and this one was part of a ‘western village’ that included similar things like this…

IMG_7242

And this…

IMG_7251

It was all weird and creepy, and very, very dated. The mystery is we couldn’t quite work out when it had been built or why it still existed (although to be honest, the many kids there yesterday seemed to love it all). The age of the park in general we couldn’t determine, and there doesn’t seem to be any history online including on their own site. Had I know this yesterday, I would have asked someone.

IMG_7271

I was surprised they had giraffes. The enclosure was a bit grim, but it opened out onto the safari so I assume they let them wander around when not on display. As with many of the animals, they happily accepted a ryvita biscuit (or ten) from us:

IMG_7215

It’s not a massive park, and it took us about 3 hours to see everything they had (and feed almost all of them!). We enjoyed the place quite a bit and are glad we went.

IMG_7272

The Fabulous Owlbear

  • May 22, 2015

First, read this post Adam did on his blog.

I’ve found a similar example. Here is the owlbear (an owl-bear hybrid monster) as illustrated in the first ever AD&D Monster Manual from 1978:

Owlbear

I have a copy of this book. It’s the 6th printing, from 1980, and was owned by KLS long before I met her. The owlbear in this version of the monster manual looks like this:

IMG_7069

Fabulous isn’t it! It’s the only monster in the book that has been coloured in, but we can only dream she had done more as a child 🙂

Speaking of the owlbear… what’s this picture?

Owlbear2

Interesting isn’t it? A few years ago it was revealed that some of the unusual monsters in AD&D were based on plastic toys. You can read the full story here (with more wonderful pictures). Based on the toy, and the supposition (which seems reasonable) that the toys were bootleg Ultraman monster toys, it’s obvious the owlbear is nothing more than… a kappa!

The kappa is a japanese water spirit which has a very rich mythology. Here’s an illustration done by Hokusai (famous for his The Great Wave Off Kanagawa) in the early 1800’s:

hokusai

You can see the resemblance to the toy.

So what of the Ultraman connection? Japanese sentai shows often base their monsters on mythology, and it’s almost certain there is an early Kappa-based foe in one of the first few Ultraman series. I did a search and could only find one before 1978, a kappa-influenced alien named Tepeto in an episode of Ultraseven from 1967:

tepeto01-us41

Not very owlbear-like is he?

So my guess is the original kappa designs (such as Hokusai’s) influenced the chinese toy which influenced the owlbear in AD&D.

What of the owlbear today? Here’s the latest illustration:

DND-next-owlbear

A bit literal isn’t it?

 

 

  • Posted in Animals
  • Robert