terrycloth

Our hotel was in Rennes, basically, northwestern France. Our next spot was De Panne, a Belgian shore town, not quite due north of it. As you might imagine, the best way for us to get from Rennes to De Panne was going through Paris. The trains run that way, or at least the trains run more frequently that way. So this was another travel day but, we had reason to hope, our last travel day until the flight home Monday.

The train to Paris was fast and routine as we were accustomed to, even despite the incident going out to Rennes the other day. And then it was yet another trip on the Metro to get from Gare du Nord to Gare de ... I forget which. Not l'Est this time. But we also had to get more money put on our Metro cards because we had thought to get only single trips the last time around. Anyway, a lot of going up and down stairs and walking along long hallways, some of them starting to get nice and familiar.

The trick with the train to Belgium is that it's more a commuter line than a passenger rail like we'd been taking to this point. As in, you buy a ticket, but it's just for any train that day and you aren't guaranteed a seat or anything. Just, good luck. Turns out we had perfectly fine luck, getting on the train without issue and finding a seat with enough free space even for my new suitcase.

When we got to De Panne --- the end of the line, so it was easy not to miss --- bunnyhugger knew our hotel was just off the train line. We just had to start walking on this particular numbered street and eventually make a right turn. And from the train station we could see Plopsaland De Panne, what would turn out to be the only amusement park we'd get to visit this trip. The place where, had things gone right with Nigloland, would have seen my 300th roller coaster.

So, the hotel. It turned out not to be just next to the train station. It was, however, just a block or two off the tram station, the tram in this case being a 130-year-old interurban that we'd had vague plans of riding the whole length of Sunday, after we'd been to the park. The bright side is that walking rather than taking the tram let us get a feel for De Panne, and also for bunnyhugger to take her daily walk without particular fuss.

The hotel was a lovely one, with a nice modern style, by which I mean we couldn't figure how to get the elevator to work. There was just a flat metal panel with a 0 on it and we knew the lobby floor in hotels were storey 0. Turns out we needed to not touch the center of the 0 --- our best guess --- but rather touch the 0 ring, like, going across the whole loop. So we guessed, at least, after seeing the desk clerk have no trouble, and learning that every floor had a flat metal plate with a '0' on it for summoning the elevator.

Our last question for the day was where to get dinner. bunnyhugger found on google maps an Automat and absolutely, yes, we wanted that. We'd loved the handful of experiences with Automat-style food service when we were in the Netherlands in 2012. And it was only a couple blocks away, and on the shore, so everything we could hope for. Except that, first, we had a terrible time finding the place. And then when we did find it we found that Automat didn't just mean 'wall of coin-operated doors with ready-to-eat foot items inside'. It also meant 'vending machines'. And in this case, nothing with, like, a sandwich or other full meal inside, although we could get some cold cuts? I guess that'd be something. At least one of the vending machines was out of order; possibly that would have had viable meals.

So we needed some secondary plan, and we found that by walking around until we found a kebab place open. We ordered some falafel meals --- me, a pita, bunnyhugger a box --- and waited what felt like forever to get served. (Also they were cash only, so took us down to almost no folding European money through this.) I think a combination of a bunch of people going to the place that was open with one of the workers being on break caused the slowdown; when other guy got back into action everyone got served fast enough.

We took it all back to our hotel room, the largest we'd had yet and in many ways (having a mini-fridge, for instance) the nicest yet. Saturday was looking to be a great day.

What's not a roundabout way to get somewhere? ... Uh. Wait, this is a bunch of pictures of Calhoun County Fair carnival rides, most of which are about going in a circle. Sorry. Enjoy.

The carnival doesn't have a Scrambler they bring, but they do have a very similar ride and that's on display here in motion, catching the LED flickers so make the movement look more complicated.

That's what it looks like from the ground; it's almost supernatural in its shape.

And another picture with the shutter held open a little longer. I'm amazed you can make out one of the cars this clearly.

Here's a shot of the merry-go-round in action, only looking like it's going 300 rpm.

And the drop tower, looking like it's driven the passengers twenty feet under ground.

From this perspective the swings and the Ferris wheel look like they're going quite speedily.

Trivia: The Greenwich Observatory's chronometer was in 1850 observed to have a daily gain or loss of 0.149 seconds, based on the average gain or loss per month. Source: A History of Mechanical Invention, Abbott Payson Usher.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Sundays Supplement Volume 16: 1954, Tom Sims, Bela Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.

Thursday was the second and last day of the conference, and the course of events was pretty much what I described already. The most noteworthy thing besides the meals being set up better was a neat address about how the animal rights movement had changed in the past fifty years, conveniently broken into two phases, roughly 1975-2000 and 2000-present. The first half was dominated by the idea being introduced to public debate and, it seemed to me noteworthily, a focus on the importance of stopping animal suffering. The second half has seen a shift in focus to topics like how animals can experience joy and we should value that. bunnyhugger's presentation got a mention here, although just as an example of the sort of work done on this line of thinking.)

The finale of the conference was supposed to come a little past 4 pm, and we hurried thinking we might be late, only to sit through the last ten minutes or so of a presentation --- in French --- that was itself running long. At least we had good seats for when the closing remarks, including a good bit of hope that Peter Singer would be able to visit Rennes 2 for the 60 Years On conference, came on. (He must have heard that from everybody.) And then there was a little more hanging around, some desserts, the conference staff collecting all the name badges for some reason. Peter Singer walking around with his orange backpack like he was just another student taking a gap year. We didn't stick around to the very end of the gathering, but we were probably on the latter side of things.

Annoyingly we had more time Thursday night but less to do, since Le Grand Huit was doing exclusively some private event. We also were not quite hungry exactly but also not quite not. bunnyhugger found we were close to a franchise of a Belgian fast-food place named Quick and I thought I might get cheese fries or something like that, maybe a pop.

We were indeed close to it, although I managed to make the walk a needlessly longer one by going way too far north to start and getting us closer to Minimarche than we needed to be. Attempting to compensate by going over a block or two and then back down a road that wasn't precisely parallel succeeded, though, as well as letting us see a couple of nice bookstores and gaming shops and all that were closed but looked like fun places to hang out.

The policy of having giant touch-screen ordering menus has reached Rennes, France, and in this case it was actually not that bad since it meant we could look over the menu at ease, and use the [EN] button to read it and order in English. The only mistake made was that I touched the button to 'pay at register' --- I swear I thought I was going to pay at the screen --- and so I had some fumbling with the cashier, including not being completely sure they were even going to start making our food until we paid. Anyway, decent enough cheese fries. We saw they had some stuff that looked good, mozzarella sticks and something else (maybe a vegetarian burger?) that were unavailable, with the menu screens covering the pictures of the items with 'Victim Of Their Own Success', I guess indicating they were sold out.

So we had a slow night, a chance to get to bed a little early, make sure we were ready for tomorrow and the trip back to Paris and then on to Belgium. We'd could do that.

And now, some more Calhoun County Fair pictures for you.

Just checking that it's not a carved wooden horse. (I kid, although she might have been checking what kind of plastic or fiberglass it was made from.)

And just like that we have a dark sky and rides by night!

Here's much of the midway, including the drop tower and the Ferris wheel.

And here's that junior caterpillar ride.

Caterpillar looks a bit horrified at being ridden. Hope they get over that.

The balloons ride looks nice here.

Trivia: UPA cartoon studios' first television productions were a series of eight 60-second commercials for Ford Motors with Doctor Seuss. Source: Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons, Leonard Maltin.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 64: Olive Oyl's Dilemma!!, Ralph Stein, Bela Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.

On my humor blog I continued the experiment of mostly letting Robert Benchley write it, but I did find time to let Flash Gordon rumble through the schedule. Hope you enjoy! CW: fur-bearing trout!

• MiSTed: The 72 Hours Saga, Part 45
• Robert Benchley: The Evil Eye
• Statistics Saturday: European Team Sports, So Far As You Know
• What's Going on in Flash Gordon? Are We in Some Time Travel Story Now? April - June 2025
• Robert Benchley: Stop Those Hiccoughs!
• What's Going On In Rex Morgan, M.D.? Is Rex Morgan still in Rex Morgan, M.D.? March - June 2025
• Robert Benchley: Bad News
• MiSTed: The 72 Hours Saga, Part 46

Now something I don't let Robert Benchley do is share pictures of the Calhoun County Fair from last year. Don't thank me; I believe that's my duty.

Now on with the ducks, enjoying some water.

And turkeys, here for bunnyhugger's delight!

He may not be up for head-petting but negotiations aren't yet closed off.

Here's one partially phased through the bars to look stunned at us.

bunnyhugger coolly confident that her camera isn't about to get pecked.

Head-petting negotiations continue but do not resolve in bunnyhugger's favor.

He wants to know if I'm still here and why. All right, then! We're off to ...

The midway area and the start of the drone show. Which is all right, but if it lets places do more with their fireworks budget is worth it.

Here's some sheep and pig drones in the sky. It seems different from what I see on FurAffinity.

Turns out it was a blue-ribbon-winning drone show, though, that's nice.

And here's the world's most floating Ferris wheel!

We had time for a few rides and the carousel was the first priority.

Trivia: (That) Thomas Hobbes wrote against the use of symbols in mathematics, arguing, ``though they shorten the writing, yet they do not make the reader understand it sooner than if it were written in words. For the conception of the lines and figures ... must proceed from words either spoken or thought upon. So that there is a double labour of the mind, one to reduce your symbols to words, which are also symbols, another to attend to the ideas which they signify'', and goes on to note the ancients never used them in geometry or arithmetic. Source: A History of Mathematical Notations, Florian Cajori. Hobbes did admit that they could be useful scaffolding of thoughts.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 64: Olive Oyl's Dilemma!!, Ralph Stein, Bela Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.

My friend with the search for Parisian pinball arcades did get me to look at Pinball Map, just in case there were any in Rennes. It turned out there was a venue, Le Grand Huit, with a half-dozen pinball games and just on the other side of the train station from us! And in what they listed as a barcade. As far as I could tell from the web site it was a bunch of converted warehouses or something with a variety of amusement and arcade attractions put around. They even had a couple vintage fairground rides, although the hours when they were operating were vague. Pinball map suggested the pinballs here were new, or at least were first noticed just a couple weeks before we were in town. This would be a great place to spend the long evening after the conference ended Thursday! Except that the venue was closed for a special event Thursday. We had to go Wednesday evening, when we'd only have a couple hours, or else not go at all.

So and with rather too few coins in our pocket we set out and I led us confidently through roads that seemed a lot closer together in online maps. I was just getting worried we'd gotten lost, thanks to some construction on the south side of the Gare, when we reached a new corner and saw the big sign pointing to the new entrance! Perfect!

The collection of stuff at Le Grand Huit feels a little like What If Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum ran a barcade? It's not so crowded as a Marvin's thing would be, but it's also got more space than Marvin's old holdout-of-the-mall-food-court space would have allowed. They had some stuff that it sure looked, in the photographs, that adults might get to ride, including a swings and maybe a carousel that looks like a solid mutt of different mounts put together, but we were there by like 9 pm and they had long since stopped running rides for the day. The place has a couple salon carousel gondolas as dining booths, and has one carousel elevated, rotating eternally, passenger-less, fifteen feet above the dining floor. It's a pity to have a carousel be unusable for riding but it is also a heck of a thing to see it from that angle, without the platform always underneath. They also have a robot bartender, a coin-operated mechanical arm that the web site claims once did industrial manufacture stuff and that now will make a drink for you, but only on the weekends, which we were as far away from as it was possible to get.

And then, yes, pinball, two tables put next to each other beside the robot bartender, almost a normal arrangement, and four tables put way off (but near the actual bartender), radial spokes around a center pole beneath a canopy. It's an unusual but attractive arrangement. And the choice of games was ... wow. Weird. They were all old games, and not as some venues might have representing pinball's diversity of eras (electromechanical, early solid state, late solid state, dot matrix, LCD screens). No, they were all games from about 1989 to 1992, a range so tiny it seems like it must have been an aesthetic choice, but what was the aesthetic? It kind of smells of ``someone was given €15,000 and told to make it weird''.

The most normal games they had were Lethal Weapon 3 --- a slightly annoying game but one you can still find in tournaments --- and The Party Zone --- I've never seen this in tournament play, but it's a fun one. Also Riverboat Gambler, which you never see places. Gilligan's Island, which has some of the best integration of the theme into a game ever but that doesn't have much depth of gameplay, and has a little pranking move where you can give all your opponents points that makes it a courageous choice for tournament play. Surf N Safari, a water-park-themed 90s Gottlieb game so it's kind of fun but also not well-balanced a table. And ... Class of 1812.

Class of 1812 is another early-90s Gottlieb game so it's a little ramshackle in its design and rules. Its theme is that you're at the graveyard, digging up a comical-horror family, each of the major areas corresponding to one of the family you're recovering. Yes, there is a rapping granny. The most delightful piece, though, is that when you start multiball, which the game gives you eight billion chances to do, it starts playing The 1812 Overture. And after one round of the famous theme it goes back and starts over, only this time with chickens clucking the tune out. This is why people love the game, even though like nobody has it (The Pinball Arcade has it in simulation, though, and it's worth it). We had to play that.

So we did. I had an okay game; bunnyhugger nearly broke ten million, a great score. We played again and while I did better, she did better yet. She got a replay score at least once; I got a match, and we got to play another round. For only about three games each we were doing very well. For a time on our last game I started thinking one of us might reach the high score table but it turns out it started somewhere north of 35 million points, well beyond us. But for only a handful of games in a completely new venue? We had little to complain about.

But we had less change, our euros now exhausted. We thought a bit about getting a drink from the bar, and more change, and playing on ... but ... it was also getting closer to a time when we should be responsible and get to bed. So, regretting that the venue was closed for a private event Thursday when that would have been perfect for our needs, we made the sad way back to our cozy hotel.

Had enough rabbits yet? Of course not, but we will run out of Calhoun County Fair rabbits soon. In fact ...

Another Californian loaf looking suspiciously at me.

Rabbit conference threatening to get out of hand when one rabbit has the insight: you can just step on the others!

Rabbit wondering if anyone else knows about this ``just step on them'' move because it will change everything!

Here's a chicken stunned by the stepping-on action.

This kid was proud of his chicken and wanted us to take pictures of him with them and did not care that neither of us knew the other and we'd never get pictures to him. So, here, in case you have a google face alert going. I think it's a pretty good picture at that.

Here's one of those rare chickens that can lay an egg through their own bars, which is what gets you best-of-class.

Trivia: New York City radio station WEAF (later WNBC, now WFAN) aired its first paid advertisement in August 1922; by late 1923, the National Carbon Company sponsored the Eveready Hour, promoting its batteries. Source: Wih Amusement For All: A History of American Popular Culture since 1830, LeRoy Ashby.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 64: Olive Oyl's Dilemma!!, Ralph Stein, Bela Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.