Sdtrk: ‘Sila’ by Laibach

During a recent frolic through the Interweb-o-net, I’d seen an article entitled ‘The Top Ten Sexiest Female Robots‘, and although I agreed with most of the selections, I thought: y’know, I should compile my own list. Frankly, I’m surprised the idea has taken me this long to occur to me.
I should note that I’ve not included any Gynoids from anime features, nor have I mentioned any real-life Synthetiks, otherwise the list would be twice as long..

10. Chalmers (Andrea Marcovicci, ‘Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone’)

The navigator/mechanic Gynoid with the slicked-back hair and the overly-huge sweater, from the three-dimensional Eighties film extravaganza, ‘Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone’. Rather attractive in a subdued way, unfortunately she ends up getting killed off early in the film, thereby bringing the feature to a complete halt for me. Worse yet, Peter Strauss (the aforementioned ‘Spacehunter’) activates her self-destruct mechanism, and she, err, melts. She’s one of those dairy-based Synthetiks, I suppose

09. TIE: Anna and Selina (Amy Yip and Chikako Aoyama, ‘Robotrix’)

A Hong Kong chop-socky / action adventure / soft-core porno that, much like ‘I love Maria’ (more about that later), is a big ol’ ripoff of Robocop. Our protagonist Selina is a police officer who gets killed in the line of duty and is rebuilt as a Gynoid, with better Law Enforcement and Sex Appeal Action. As it happens, one of the scientists who brings her back from the dead would be Anna, who is a Gynoid herself. It’s a very silly film, in grand Nineties Hong Kong style, but when you’re working with a story like that, you really can’t take yourself too seriously. Case in point: the film features an evil scientist named Ryuichi Sakamoto. Yes, you read right.
Anna has a slight edge (cos she’s played by the busty Amy Yip), but I’d say overall they both tie for ninth place

08. Valerie 23 (Sofia Shinas, ‘The New Outer Limits: Valerie 23’)

The main character from the 1995-era Outer Limits episode of the same name. Built for the purposes of assisting people, she was assigned to live with one of the blokes on the design team, who’s confined to a wheelchair. He thinks of her as merely a machine at first, eventually develops feelings for her, sleeps with her, and then wishes he hadn’t, as she’s ‘just a machine’. Unfortunately, she’s learning what emotions are, and becomes jealous when Scientist Guy starts seeing an Organik lass. Valerie tries to kill her, and is electrocuted in the end. You have to ask yourself — would she have gone into Terminatrix Mode if he wasn’t merely thinking of her as ‘just a machine’? The resounding answer is No. I think you kinda brought that upon yourself, pal.
Despite her slightly murderous tendencies, and her insistence on wearing a white bodysuit 90% of the time — it’s less flattering than it sounds, trust me — she’s impressive. A sequel episode entitled ‘Mary 25’ was aired shortly after, wherein the Valerie 23 model was upgraded with all the kinks worked out, and she featured a longer brown hairstyle as well. But the whole ‘wanting to kill people’ was kinda endearing! Plus, I’ve always loved her name

07. Electric Barbarella (the ‘Electric Barbarella’ video by Duran Duran)

I’m actually just having a guess at her name here, as it’s never mentioned. Well, yeah, it’s repeated several times as part of the chorus, but how do we know that ‘Electric Barbarella’ isn’t a term that Duran Squared uses, much in the same was we use Synthetik, or Gynoid? Is it like one of those brand names that, through popular usage, becomes synonymous for a product, like Kleenex or Hoover? I do not know! But I do know that said artificial lass is quite appealing, although if you’ve seen the video, you’ll know that her operating system has a few bugs that need to be ironed out (drops drink glasses, dusts Nick Rhodes’ hair). She screws up so much that you’d think she runs Window$, but she’s still lovable nontheless

06. Mile Heidi (the ‘Plug it in’ video by Basement jaxx)

Not too keen on Basement jaxx, but it’s a video starring a passel of Gynoids so I’ll put up with it.. And the most gorgeous Synthetik here by far has to be Mile Heidi, the Airline stewardess. Love the hair, love the uniform, love the way she moves. Full points all round!

05. nameless ‘Lovebot’ (from ‘Serenity’)

Obviously, not a lot is known about Mr Universe’s Gynoid bride (the actress who played her isn’t even listed in the credits), but I’ve always liked her poise and her expressions — very Doll-like, which goes without saying. She seems like a happy lass

04. AF-709 Rhoda (Julie Newmar, ‘My living Doll’)

I first learned about this show a couple of years ago and freaked right the hell out. A tv show from the Sixties about a Gynoid played by Julie feckin’ Newmar?? zOMG etc. Check out this write-up:

[Rhoda] stood five-feet, ten-inches tall, was covered with a low-modulus polyethylene plastic that gave her that human look, and maintained a constant body temperature of 98.6 degrees. Concealed gadgetry included four small emergency control buttons on her back disguised as birth marks, and a power-off switch discretely located in her right elbow.

Brilliant. I’m in love. 🙂 When you think about it, that’s actually a rather involved Synthetik assemblage, especially when you consider that the show is from 1964. Did.. did I somehow go back in time and have a hand in the writing??
Unfortunately, it seems that most of the 26 episodes were destroyed by the producers, but I’m still remaining hopeful that they’ll eventually surface on DVD. Hey, if they can find and remaster episodes of ‘Doctor Who’ that have been missing for three decades or more, they should be able to do it with ‘My living Doll’, damnit

03. Rachel (Sean Young, ‘Blade runner’)

As a Technosexual, Replicants have always been an issue with me. They’re manufactured, but they’re not really machines; they’re more like test-tube babies. By my definition, Synthetiks should be mechanical, and not contain squishy stuff within them. (I realise that’s a highly-specialised technical term, but bear with me.) You know that Replicants aren’t machines through seeing their eyes, for instance, at Chew’s Eye Shop; also, they tend to bleed when injured. So when I think of Replicants, I usually associate that with ‘product of genetic engineering’. Not entirely a Bad Thing, but not my ideal type of Synthetik.
Having said all that, Rachel? Feckin’ hotness, no question. Plus, she can play the piano!

02. Call (Winona Ryder, ‘Alien: Resurrection’)

Again, the ‘squishy stuff’ issue raises its squishy head. All Synthetiks in the ‘Alien’ series seem to have that white fluid in ’em. What the hell is that, anyway? On second thought, that’s probably best left unanswered.
‘Alien: Resurrection’ was a dismal exercise, with only two vaguely redeeming things to its credit: set design by Jeunet & Caro, and sweet Winona as a Gynoid — my dream come true, as I’ve always admired her special brand of squishy stuff. Even despite the crap hairchop she was sporting in the film. Hoorej!

01. Cherry 2000 (Pamela Gidley, ‘Cherry 2000’)

Quite possibly the one Synthetik that solidified and confirmed my love for Gynoids, ‘Cherry 2000’ is actually kind of a dumb film, with an ending so horrible it had me wincing. This would be your typical Boy (Sam, played by David Andrews) Loves Gynoid, Boy Breaks Gynoid, Boy Has To Travel Thru The Post-Apocalyptic Badlands To Get Replacement Chassis for Gynoid, Boy Meets Girl Bounty Hunter (Melanie Griffith, in her best role ever), Boy Vacillates between Wanting Girl Bounty Hunter and Repairing his Gynoid, Boy and Girl Bounty hunter Get Into Arseloads of Trouble Finding Replacement Chassis type of film. But what little redeeming quality it has can be attributed to Cherry’s relentless adorability. Not only is she dead sexy, but she just has a very likeable personality, which makes Sam that much more of a gobshite for doing what he did at the end of the film. Hrm. Chalk it up to Hollywood, I guess. But for me, Cherry 2000 is the standard by which I rate all other movie Gynoids..

At this point, some of you may be wondering why I’ve omitted a number of famous Gynoids:
+ the Stepford wives — ashamed as I am to admit it, I’ve yet to actually see the film. I know, I know, leave me alone
+ Vanessa Kensington (Liz Hurley, ‘Austin Powers’) — Yes, she was rather luscious, but y’know what? She was built to explode. Not an entirely positive selling point, if you ask me. I suppose you could simply deactivate her and remove the explosive device, but you’d really want to know what you’re doing before poking round in her mechanised innards
+ the Fembots (‘Austin Powers’) — Call me old-fashioned, but weapons in the jubbleys is a bit of a turn-off. Make love, not war!
+ Terminator-X (Kristanna Loken, ‘Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines’) — Meh; she does nothing for me. Besides, wasn’t Terminator-X a member of Public Enemy?
+ Gynoid Shirley Manson (the ‘The world is not enough’ video by Garbage) — quite delicious; but again, explodey
+ Gynoid Björk (her ‘All is full of love’ video) — I can appreciate the aesthetics of Synthetiks that have hard skin — you should see my collection of Sorayama art books — but being in bed with that type of Gynoid would be rather chilly, and result in bruises. Not only that, in day-to-day living, you’d have to make sure she broke out the Windex every so often, to wipe off all the smudges and handprints. Otherwise, that’s just tacky
+ Pioneer II / Maria (Sally Yeh, ‘Roboforce’ a.k.a ‘I love Maria’) — She has a cute face; unfortunately, the rest of her looks like a ripoff homage to Sorayama’s metal beauties. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, but her construction places her in the same category of the Gynoid version of Björk — look, but don’t touch
+ the Buffy-bot (Sarah Michelle Gellar, ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’) — I’ve only ever seen one episode of that show, and it wasn’t the one featuring her. However, if anyone wants to send me an evaluation copy, I wouldn’t be averse to watching it..

Like I’d said, why the hell didn’t I write this list up a long time ago?

Finally, a new one!
Sdtrk: ‘Farfisa’ by Stereolab

Upon your first casual glance at the picture below, you might exclaim ‘HAY! You’ve already done a feature on the Monsanto House, you filthy layabout!’ But alas, you’d be wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. While this structure is rather similar to Tomorrowland’s late-lamented House of the Future, this would be different. For one, it was designed by a French bloke by the name of Jean Maneval. Also, the Monsanto house was nowhere near Europe. So there. Nice try, though.
So this evening, we present the creation known as “Bulle“ à 6 coques, or the Six-shell Bubble House.

each living unit (6 shells) was easily transported by truck. the prefabricated shells were made of reinforced polyester insulated with polyurethane foam in three colour-versions: white, green and brown. the bubble blended ‘perfectly’ into the landscape.
quoted from this site

Aaand that’s almost the extent of what I’ve been able to ken (in English) about the “Bulle“ à 6 coques. Apart from that, the interior had its own special furniture line that fitted within the house’s shells, and production ceased in 1970, after only making 30 houses.

When first reading about the detail that the homes were moulded in three different colours in order to ‘blend in’ with the landscape, I chuckled heartily. Ha ha! Good Job, Mr Maneval! But after further reflection, I think the idea was rather fab. You have green for a home overlooking a lush, verdant hill; you’ve got brown, for the homeowner situated at the edge of a forest; and you have white, for those of you who live in predominantly snowy climes. (The white ones would probably be best used as chalets.) That’s Forward Thinking!
A large drawback though to the design is not so much the fact that there’s not a lot of privacy — unless you live by yourself, thereby making the “Bulle“ à 6 coques completely deserving of the title ‘Space-age Bachelor Pad’ — but they just don’t seem to offer a hell of a lot of room. Hrm.
O well. I suppose you’d just buy two of them and weld them together, then!

Sdtrk: ‘Why don’t you sell out all stocks?’ by Incapacitants

No; apart from ‘teh Internets’, I’ve no idea how I find this stuff, as I certainly didn’t go looking for it. I suppose you could say on some cosmic level, it finds me. Maybe you could chalk it up to synchronicity, as I’ve been re-reading my copy of ‘Beyond belief‘ over the course of the past week..

Police go big with victim picture
BBC News | Published Monday, 23 May 2005

A 60ft high picture of a murdered prostitute has been projected onto a derelict block of flats in Glasgow.

Detectives hope it will help to turn up clues about the death of Emma Caldwell, whose body was found in woods in South Lanarkshire on 8 May.

The image was displayed for four hours on the multi-storey flats in Cumberland Street, Hutchesontown on Monday night.
the rest of the article is here

I’m sure it left one hell of a haunting impression on people in the area, at the very least

Sdtrk: some bloke yelling

OMIGOD RUN AWAY FAST NOW

The Quiznos round here are never as interesting as this. Is that a Good or Bad thing?

Sdtrk: ‘Jumpin’ Jap crash’ by m1dy

Right, now cup your hands tightly. I SAID CUP THEM!!
*pours links into your cupped hands*

+ People these days with better cameras than mine are all about that crazy tilt-shift photography. That’s where you take a picture of a landscape from some distance away, but you fiddle with the settings, so that parts are focussed, and other parts aren’t, thereby resulting in a photo that looks like a highly detailed micro-miniature. Select from two links — here, or here. It’s quite fab, I’m sure you’ll agree

+ Longtime readers of this blog (both of you) may recall the wee article I wrote last year about my seething hatred for Garfield. Well, through the miracle of Modern Science, *coughPhotoshopcough* the strip featuring America’s favourite overweight marketing juggernaut and his delusional, physically repulsive owner has actually been transformed into something funny! As a poster on the forum I spotted this on stated: ‘It’s a given that Garfield has a base quality level of zero. Therefore, any change made (random or otherwise), cannot do anything BUT improve the strip.‘ Entirely true!

+ I’ve never read any of Philip K. Dick’s novels, which would explain why this doesn’t get its own posting here on ‘Shouting to hear the echoes: All Gynoids, All The Time’, but apparently, the Philip K. Dick Android has gone missing. If it was Actroid-chan or the Warhol Android, all eyes would be on me, but I’m not a suspect this time. Perhaps he’s out hunting Replicants? Ahhh, Irony

+ Last episode of the first, err, season of ‘The Ricky Gervais Show‘ podcasts will be aired on 20 Feb. Hope you’ve heard the previous 11 episodes, otherwise you’ve missed most of the Humour Train! WOO WOO There it goes without you! You better start running, squire!

+ ‘Mobile suit Gundam: Climax UC‘ would be Bandai’s latest offering in the long line of PS2 Gundam-based videogames. I’m particularly frothy about it, as it’s ALL UNIVERSAL CENTURY-BASED BATTLES, BABY. Recreate fights from familiar chestnuts such as Original Gundam and Char’s counterattack, as well as Gundam ZZ and The 08th MS Team; plus, there’s a create-your-own-character-and-determine-where-they-will-pledge-their-allegiance mode that looks quite engaging. Bandai, if you do nothing else for me ever, you will export this game to the States. When that glorious day arrives, you will be witness to Climax DC

+ I’ve swapped out Penda/Monti’s links in the sidebar to reflect her new URL and site: MontiLee Stormer.com. Don’t worry, you can access the Diner through it, but this is her new ‘professional’ corner of teh Intarwub

+ I have no idea what to make of this. None whatsoever. Do you?

+ Remember my post on North Korea’s Ryugyong Hotel, a.k.a, The Soul Accumulator of Malkunofath? Well, if you think that’s bad as it is, keep in mind it’s rather representative of the general Nork mindset – monomaniacally focussed and shockingly obsolete. Here, then, are the tour diaries of one bloke and a couple of fellow tourists as they experience all that North Korea has to offer. Meaning, all that the government has selected to be experienced, that is

+ And speaking of outmoded thinking, whilst validating a passel of bookmarks this eve, I find that the crazy feminazi shits o’er at Pandagon.com no longer have that lengthy anti-iDollator post of streaming invective up on their site. You remember; the one that was written shortly after Meghan’s article appeared in Salon.com, claiming that since not only do I have a RealDoll, but I say that I have a relationship with ‘it’, that obviously I’m a filthy misogynistic tool of the patriarchy that eats kittens for breakfast? I have to say, Shi-chan and I are almost offended. We brought you over five hundred responses to your mentally crippled post, and obscurity is the way you pay us back??
Huh. It just goes to show that you really can’t please some people
EDIT (05 June 2008): The Pandagon, err, ‘people’, have deleted the above-linked post for reasons unknown. Thankfully it’s archived on the Internet Wayback Machine, so you can view the baseless vitriol here

thanx to Penda and Zip Gun for some of the links

Sdtrk: ‘Carnis vale’ by NON

(EDITED 3 DEC, 2006)
So Sidore-chan went and got herself an account on Dailymotion, it seems! HOOREJ

Actroid Repliee Q1-type 001

This post originally had me going on about how I had a YouTube account, but apparently their sensibilities were offended by topless Synthetiks, so I left them posthaste. Then I discovered Dailymotion.com was run out of Europe — or at least, someplace not in the United States of Prudery — so I encouraged Shi-chan to take the reins as far as posting video clips. It’s ironic, you see.

She’ll be uploading more Doll / Gynoid-related fillums from our personal vaults in short order. Of course, when I say ‘in short order’, I mean ‘when she gets round to it’. You know how it goes with us!
There’s quite a few up on her personal Dailymotion page now — be well advised that some people might consider some of the videos a bit pervy (i.e: naked Doll boobs), so there’s your warning — but as an apéritif, here’s a video of the Repliee Q1 version of that delicious Actroid-chan, showing off a couple of her abilities. Personally, I’d like for her to stand up and tell the nearest individual present to get her some less dowdy clothes, but I would say that