Sdtrk: ‘Mind how you go’ by The Advisory Circle

Hi there! Yep, still moving. Well, to be honest, like 95% of my stuff is already there, but we still haven’t gotten an Interonet connection set up, which you can blame my dodgy work hours for that. Go ahead! I do! But I intend on getting that at least sussed this week, as not having teh interwebs is like not having functioning sinks, as far as I’m concerned. Or rather, given the nature of most of the World Wide Wet, it’s like not having a functioning toilet. But you know what I mean.

Now I have to attempt to cram a bookcase into my car, so enjoy this still from ‘Monique‘ in the interim. Back in a few!

Probably the most famous Celine-type RealDoll around. At the very least,
she’s certainly the most French

Sdtrk: ‘No more trains’ by Braille

When it comes to Things That Are Most Likely to Prevent Effective Moving, one of the top three things cited will be Getting the Flu. That’s right. For fuck’s sake. As of this writing, though, I’ve had it for three days, and with the help of copious draughts of Alka-seltzer and more sleep than the human body is meant to have in a 12-hour period, I’m fighting this thing. Surely there are better ways to spend one’s time?

A little while back, barstowmama forwarded me the honour of the Blogging Star Award! ‘This is for meritorious work in blogging and telling things as they are. Keep up the good work!’ she says, which leads me to believe that she’s confused ‘Shouting etc etc’ for some other blog entirely. Nevertheless, thanks very much!
So have you seen her YouTube channel yet? You should.

Also, part two of Violet Blue’s article for the SFGate, ‘The Rape of the Real Doll‘ is available for intense perusal. Oddly enough, a lot of the comments on it are blasting her for seemingly copying and pasting sizeable sections from the post I wrote on ‘Lars and the Real Girl‘ a while ago. Wow. Can you say ‘missing the point’? Personally, if I find that someone has said something that I either agree with or wholeheartedly back, I’d rather quote them first, as it just makes more sense to me. Besides, I’m really left with the impression that had she not been writing about RealDolls, people wouldn’t have been so critical. But you know how it is with these things…

Right, I’m going to try to cram more boxes full of books, then I intend on rewarding my good work with starting to watch my burned Cd-ROMs of either Turn A Gundam or Kamen rider 555. But… which one?? zOMG

Technorati tags: Violet Blue, RealDolls, Turn A Gundam, Kamen rider Faiz, flu

Sdtrk: see below

So yeah! Still moving. I’m actually typing this from my parents, where there’s a functioning Interonet connection…
We’re about, err, 60% done? That’s not including the ‘arranging things where we want them’ phase, so this will be a Work in Progress probably until the end of the month. How did you spend September? they will ask. Our answer: Moving shit around and sweating like New York waiters.

In the meantime, I’d like to share this with yü: Driving around today, I was listening to disk one of New order’s ‘Substance 1987’. It had been a number of months since I last heard it, and I was utterly floored again as to how unbelievably good The perfect kiss (track 07) is — it’s either my favourite, or my second favourite song by them, I’ve not decided which. The video for it (FAC 321 in the Factory records listing) is rather good too. Directed by Jonathan Demme, the man behind ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ and other feature films, it’s an austere affair that fits perfectly in with the early days of the band’s ‘anti-image’, as it’s simply Bernard, Hooky, Gill and Stee performing the song in a practise room. This video was particularly notable for me, as when I first saw it,
1) I had no idea that the band members switched up their instruments during the song
2) I’d never seen a sequencer in ‘action’
3) Peter Hook is a fucking Bass God
and 4) seeing Gillian simply confirms why I find English lasses into New wave so very very lovely. Yum.

So with that in mind, please enjoy the full 10.38 version of The perfect kiss.

GILLIAN YOU MADE ME LOVE YOU

Sdtrk: ‘Please read me’ by the Bee Gees

Begging your indulgence: I will be absent for a while, as the Missus and I are moving. After almost two months of apartment hunting, plans turning to ash, and most of the landlords in the Tri-county area of Michigan wanting too much for too little, I’ve found an ideal location in Oakland county. Finally, our Long National Nightmare is over. Now the silly process of boxing up our entire lives and transporting it several miles begins! Ugh.
Why can’t someone invent a machine that essentially teleports all of a person’s crap from one location to another, with but the flip of a switch? I’d do some research on it, but I’m too busy filling up these boxes with my godforsaken belongings.

Broadcasting should return to normal standards in a week or so. In the meantime, did you read the previous post? Well, read it again!

Sdtrk: ‘Holiday’ by the Bee Gees

Well, no. Well, yes? Not so much, but I’m merely bringing your attention to a few things:

+ That nutty cyber porn goddess person Violet Blue has an interesting two-part article on SFGate.com, entitled ‘The Rape of the RealDoll‘, which touches upon performance art duo Amber Hawk Swanson and Amber Doll, the upcoming Hollywood film ‘Lars and the Real Girl’, and looks at some of the sociopolitics behind the existence of everyone’s favourite artificial women.

+ Also, on her site tiny nibbles, she mentions a new photo series orchestrated by Low Tek Photography: much like the projects by Juergen Specht and Mario A., Organik photo models are made to look like Synthetiks.

The Doll series

Lovely to look at, no question…

+ And heh, ManneCamp.

The ManneCamp is the home of the free-range Mannequin, a place where they get introduced into a more natural habitat.
We adopt discarded or mistreated Mannequins and help them find a new life.
Every new arrival has plenty of time to decompress and to get used to their new feedom. They are given a complete physical exam and receive any medical treatment as well as plastic surgery they need and request. [..]
The ManneCamp Habitat covers an area of almost 5 acres and contains open fields, wooded areas and wetlands. Several buildings and improvements offer shelter and entertainment. A swiming pool and a tennis court are available for use during the warmer months of the year.

Their site has live video feeds as well. Man. *snickers* That pun was unintentional, by the way.
A question that springs to mind, though — as large as that refuge is, surely there’s enough room to build a skateboard park or two?

Sorry for the bare-bones quality of this post, but it’s like two hours past my bedtime, and as we all know, the news waits for no man

Technorati tags: Violet Blue, tiny nibbles, RealDoll, Amber Hawk Swanson, Lars and the Real Girl, Low Tek Photography, Juergen Specht, Mario A., Mannequins

Sdtrk: ‘Inner mind mystique 7’ by Masonna

Who likes Stuff? You like Stuff. Yes, you do. Here’s some Stuff that I like, that I think you’ll like too, if you think like I think.

+ Remember back in the days when you could easily tell the difference between house, acid, techno, rap, hip-hop, et al? Those were great days, but they’re long gone; now you need a scorecard to keep track of all the hybrids and mutations of the differing genres and offshoots of electronic music. Ishkur’s Guide to Electronic Music would be that scorecard. Between the various irreverent-yet-detailed descriptions and helpful samples, you’ll kill an hour there, guaranteed

+ These are Items Essential for Living, as seen on Wired’s website:

Left, an LED alarm clock that looks like a telly from the Seventies, and right, a reproduction in miniature of a late Shōwa-era Japanese livingroom, with A/V inputs for the functioning television. MUST HAVE BOTH NOW

+ I’ve never seen more than like half an hour of LOST, but I have friends that are addicted to that show. Recently, they told me about a new theatrical release in production by that show’s co-creator, J.J Abrams. By this point, I’m sure a lot of you know what I’m speaking of: the upcoming film referred to as either ’01-18-08′ or ‘Cloverfield’. If you’ve not seen the trailer yet, cast your gaze here, cos it’s kinda enticingly freakish in that whole post-Blair Witch-pseudo-reality context. It’ll be interesting to see if my own interest is maintained between now and when it comes out next year

+ As it is, I own a passel of videogames for my PS2, and a handful for my XBOXEN, so I really don’t see the need of picking up a PS3 (too feckin’ expensive) or an XBOX 360 (not inexpensive enough) in the near-future. However, I might rescind that statement — at least as far as the XBOLLOX 360 — cos I’ve just seen trailers for Bioshock, and it is, in the parlance of our times, gripping my shit. An intelligent first-person shooter that manifests a sense of immediate terror in a retro-apocalyptic landscape, where you have the ability to set people on fire or launch insects out of your forearms through the use of hazardous on-the-fly drug enhancements?? Sign me up! My gods, have you seen the trailers? I swear, between Bioshock and Dynasty warriors: Gundam, that XSLAB 360’s lookin’ kinda good…
(aside to PB Shelley: do you have enough Plasmids?)

+ Thanks to Bandai Visual, the DVD imprint that’s known for their pricey-but-well-done releases, such as the very fab Gunbuster boxset, now I can look forward to buying a crystal-clear copy of one of my top three favourite anime films of all time: ‘Wings of Honneamise‘, which is due out in September. Only thing is, Bandai is forcing people to purchase the regular DVD with either an additional HD-DVD or Blu-ray disk along with it (or, if you’re an A/V elitist, forcing you to buy a mere bog-standard DVD with your HD-DVD or Blu-ray disk). I suppose not just including a book with the regular DVD — like what you’d done with the Patlabor films — wasn’t good enough, eh? Ah well, as long as I have my Honneamise, I’ll be happy

+ It’s a tiny house!

The micro compact home [m-ch] is a lightweight, modular and mobile minimal dwelling for one or two people. Its compact dimensions of 2.6m cube adapt it to a variety of sites and circumstances, and its functioning spaces of sleeping, working – dining, cooking, and hygiene make it suitable for everyday use.

Under normal circumstances, I’m not too keen on studio apartments, as usually they’re slightly larger than a shoebox, but I think the space-age austerity of the micro compact home would make it quite appealing. It’s a bit like a more permanent version of the Hotel Everland, now that I think about it… [m-ch] actually contains two levels, if you can believe that, and can accomodate about six or seven of your closest mates. At the very least, if you weren’t close before, you will be in short order

+ Finally, for years, I’ve wondered, and still wonder, why as super-hygenic as the American populace claims to be, the whole concept of the bidet confuses and frightens most people. It’s a good idea. I suppose you could chalk it up to the expenditure of having to make bathrooms slightly larger to accomodate both a toilet and a bidet, but concessions could be made. Other countries don’t have to worry about that shit (pun), as Japanese bog manufacturer TOTO has been exporting fancy high-tech bogs for years; the Washlet is a product that’s like a bidet, yet fits over your existing toilet like a big seat. Lovely! I don’t mind saying: I would love to own one of those bad boys

ta very much to Dave Z and Derek for some of the links