Pets « Robot Claw

Archive for the ‘Pets’ Category

Glimpse Of Nature

Monday, May 30th, 2011

The squirrels seem more abundant than ever this year, and as always both I and the cats love watching them. The feeders I put up last year are still going strong, and here’s proof:

Eventually they ate around the screw that holds the corn block and were able to detach the remaining food from the tree, dragging it off to places unknown.

Look closely at the above shot; can you see the squirrels? Here’s a couple of closeups in case you’re having trouble:

There were actually three there when I took the photo, but I can’t see the third. He was on the ground as well, so maybe he ran behind the tree or out of shot. The squirrels on the ground eat the corn niblets dropped by the guy up on the feeder.

Yesterday we told Jim and Joyce how strange it was that we hadn’t seen a single deer yet this year. Here’s a photo of one of these nonexistent deer (taken just half an hour ago):

And here is a (HD if you select it) video of this very same deer, who doesn’t believe us when we say deer are not visiting our yard for breakfast, lunch and dinner this year 🙂

Posted in Family, Garden, Miscellaneous, Pets | 1 Comment »

Game Dev Story

Saturday, April 30th, 2011

Game Dev Story is a charming iOS game that has had me hooked for the better part of the last week.

In the game you run a game company, and your goal is to succeed in the competitive world of the game industry. You choose which games to make (style and genre) and which system to make them for and then release them and hope they succeed! With success comes money and the opportunity to hire more and better staff. Eventually you’ll be upgrading your offices, making sequels to hit games, winning industry awards and even releasing your own console.

The above shows the first console I developed, the strikingly named Satan Engine. This was 17 years into the game, and in real-world-equivalent times this 64-bit Blu-ray drive monster was going up against 16 bit offerings from ‘Senya’ and ‘Intendro’. Obviously I wiped the carpet with them, quickly gaining 26% of the market. (The slightly blurred graphics are because I am playing an iPhone game at double-size on the iPad)

This was helped of course by my launch game:

Since Acrosatan X I have released a few other games, including a ‘music’ style game in the genre ‘cuties’ (called Pantsu Dreaming) that scored 40/40!

Even so, it was the long awaited sequel to Beating Jesus (BS: I expect a comment on this) that would be my first Game Of The Year. I guess those F1 Driving fans are more numerous than I thought?

The game is very cute and light-hearted, and one nice element is that there are certain… unusual staff members that can periodically be available for hire. The best is this guy:

Yep, Grizzly Bearington the legendary bear-producer. At his job interview, he said he had left the woods in search of honey! He’s perhaps not the most skilled employee I have, but he certainly brightens the office with his presence:

I’ve sunk many hours into Game Dev Story, and considering it was only $1.99 (on sale from $3.99) it’s well, well worth the price. There are few enough Japanese developed games on the US App Store, but considering the quality of this one (and the Cave shooters) I can only hope we’ll see more in the future.

Posted in Games, Otaku, Pets, Tech | 2 Comments »

Mega Mantis

Thursday, April 21st, 2011

My brother got me this kit for my birthday:

I just assembled it. The parts are all aluminium, and the nuts and bolts that hold everything together are tiny!

The instructions are clear and very nicely done, with a 1:1 scale list of parts on the other side. It is very easy to know how to put the kit together:

Actually putting it together was quite challenging though. It took me about an hour in total, and most of the time was consumed by trying to get nuts on the end of very tiny bolts with very little room in which to maneuver. Of course I was stubborn, and never went and got tweezers. This particularly step was by far the worst:

The springs are there to make the wings have a bit of ‘give’. Unfortunately although the kit has a lot of springs, none of the others do anything and are purely for visual impact, such as this one:

I did like how some of the parts were made of ‘soft aluminium’ (as described by the manual) and can be bent as the owner sees fit. The antennae are an example:

Here’s a shot to show the scale of the finished mantis:

And here is a dramatic shot showing this mantid golem in it’s natural habitat:

Posted in Family, Games, Miscellaneous, Pets, Tech | 2 Comments »

Emi Eating Chips

Tuesday, April 5th, 2011

Here’s a cute video of our little toad enjoying a chippy snack:

Posted in Family, Pets | 1 Comment »

Ningen

Friday, April 1st, 2011

It’s time for a new cryptid!

Today I give you all… the Ningen!

About four years ago, on a Japanese forum, someone posted a story about gigantic (20 – 30m) long semi-humanoid creatures that had occasionally been witnessed in the antarctic oceans by researchers and sailors,

They are said to be ghostly white, very large, with humanlike faces and two long wing-like ‘arms’. They are often sighted at the surface, but are believed to be deep-sea creatures. Apparently they are slow moving and non-aggressive.

Other reports soon followed, and this cryptid was picked up by a magazine from which the story spread. All of a sudden there were many anecdotal reports of Ningen, accompanied by a few (obviously fake) ‘photographs’ (including the ones in this entry).

A ningen has even been spotted on Google Earth:

And here is a video of one, allegedly taken by an underwater ROV (this is particularly creepy):

Hostile or not, I wouldn’t want to run into that underwater 🙂

So, what do you think? Real or not?

Posted in Miscellaneous, Pets, The Unknown | Comments Closed

Robot Claw