Sdtrk: ‘Surfactant’ by Merzbow

So, what have you cats been up to? Huh, really? Me either.

Not a tremendous amount going on with me at the moment, although I did manage to score bargain-priced copies of Phantom crash and Blood will tell. To be honest, Phantom crash has been taking up a lot of my free time, but then, as I’d said, there simply isn’t a whole lot I’m up to right now.

Right, well, there is this (cross-posted from the thread I’d started on The Doll Forum):

Once again, the illustrious Ta-bo-san has yet another link in his diary worth investigating; this time it’s a film that looks pretty ace, called ‘Tamaño Natural’, aka ‘Grandeur nature’, aka ‘Grandezza naturale’, aka ‘Life Size’. Directed by Luis Garcia Berlanga, it looks to be like a 70s version of ‘Monique’. Apparently it was just released on DVD this year. ‘2005 March, DVD was obtained finally,’ Ta-bo-san sez through Babelfish. ‘It is Spanish reissue edition.’

Looks ace! But I would say that.. Actually, I already did say that.

O, and Abyss creations have posted new pics of their RealDolls on offer; that’s definitely noteworthy..

Finally, I have built a haiku out of raw matter. This is what happens when you step outside, by the way.

Oily black bird lands
Pecks at lawn without stopping
He has lots of time

Sdtrk: ‘Radio drill time’ by Josef K

Gods, this whole ‘leaving one’s house’ and ‘going outside’ thing.. what can I say? It’s crazy! I’d say it’ll end up being a passing fad, though; I really don’t think it’ll catch on.

EARLIER: Ran around with Wolfgang, Mike and Gina in various and sundry parts of downtown Detriot from 10am to 1pm, taking more photographs of structures. This time, we spent most of our time in the Joe Louis Arena parking structure, which was pretty fecking ace. It was a pretty good example of Eighties concrete architecture that was aspiring towards something greater, and largely failing. Well, it worked back then. Very Logan’s Run-ish, which of course, greatly appeals to me. I didn’t bring Clicky Mk II, but Wolfgang and Mike both had their cameras on hand, so I’m sure they’ll post summat about it on their Rotors blog soon enough..

LATER: Attended my first session for my transcription technology class this afternoon, which really doesn’t seem like it’s gonna be all that difficult, all told. It’s an eight-week course, and we meet for five of those weeks, non-sequentially. It’s more of a lab-based/independent study kinda thing, apparently. ‘Students will learn and develop competencies in transcription, proofreading, and editing skills as they relate to using technology to communicate information and increase productivity,’ sez the syllabus. Basically, it’s Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation cross-bred with Typing and Transcribing. Should be a doddle, really. But then, I say that now..

And Tomas just rang me an hour ago, from the midst of BFE, Nebraska. He was kinda freaking out, due to a sudden lightning / hailstorm slightly before the halfway marker of his voyage. ‘Hailstones the size of marbles!’ he exclaimed. ‘Fuck!!’

See? I told you! Going outside is waaay overrated

Sdtrk: ‘Super shooter’ by RIP SLYME

Many people of all walks of life ask me all sorts of questions*, but the one question I get most often is ‘How do you come up with the installments for your acclaimed “This was the Future” series?’** Well, I’ll tell ya. I have this really ace book perched on my shelf that was given to me by a friend, called ‘Twentieth-century Architecture‘. I’ll just flip through the bastard (at 400 pages, it’s a feckin’ doorstop) and settle on a structure — one that not only catches my eye, but one I think people should know about. Then I hop on the Internets and scour various sites for adequate sites describing my chosen topic, as well as a decent picture. If necessary, I look for a second site that has a passage I can quote on ‘Shouting etc etc’.
The process is rather the same if I cover something that isn’t a building in the volume, only there’s no one particular book I have for reference points. I’ll skim through my copies of ‘Op to Pop‘ or ‘Sixties design‘, looking for the name of a designer that I dig. Repeat the scouring/photo-saving/site checking process, and roughly fifty minutes later, I’m done!

So there you are! Vol.11 of ‘This was the Future’ due soon. Well, soon enough

*not all at once
**lies, scurrilous and unbridled

Sdtrk: ‘Standing stone’ by Flying saucer attack

1. Total number of films I own on DVD or video:
117 DVDs (including various boxsets), plus 40+ videotapes of stuff that I’m waiting to come out on DVD, or needs to be burned to a DVD cos no studio will ever pick them up

2. Last film I bought:
‘Innocence: Ghost in the shell 2’. I thought the first one was merely okay, but not only does the second one look better, as well as remind me of the best/weirdest parts of Mamoru Oshii’s ‘Urusei yatsura 2: Beautiful dreamer’, but ‘Innocence’ contains many references that heavily appeal to the iDollator in me

3. Last film I watched:
‘The filth and the fury’, Julien Temple’s excellent documentary on the Sex pistols

4. Five films that I watch a lot or mean a lot to me:
+ ‘Wings of Honneamise’ wasn’t the first anime film I saw, but it really solidified, now and forever, how very cool that medium is
+ I’ve loved every single thing about ‘A clockwork orange’, from the time I first viewed it back in eighth grade, all the way up to today
+ The stylistic direction and overly-sarcastic dialogue of ‘Trainspotting’ always makes for a grim laugh
+ ‘The breakfast club’. Two words: Ally Sheedy
+ And I’d watch my copy of ‘if…’ more often, but it’s not yet out on DVD, and I’m afraid that tape’s gonna snap one day

5. To which five people am I passing the baton?
None! Apparently no-one likes it when I pass memes on to other people. If you want it, you can steal it, like I did

Sdtrk: ‘The truth about Johnny’ by the Raveonettes

Come Tues morn or afternoon, whichever comes first, one of me mates Tomas, aka Krazy-Q, aka T-money, aka the Other Derek, will be driving westward across the nation to his new home in Portland, Oregon. Needless to say, it’ll be really weird once our circle of degenerates realises that he’ll no longer be getting together with us on Sat eve to watch foreign fillums, or to play Burnout 3, or to stuff vast amounts of Japanese cuisine in our mouths.

This past Sat, we all got together for his send-off. Wolfgang & Masako, Mike, Jeff & Kari, Dave Z & Lani, Tim, Joe & Heather, Derek & Steph, Frog & Jackie, Marika and myself, had an enjoyable dinner at Tokyo sushi /Seoul BBQ, as that’s been our restaurant of choice for years. Whilst we were digesting our dinner, there was almost an hour of hemming and hawing about what to do afterwards. This sort of behaviour is par for the course for our group; most of the time we always know we’re meeting up on Sat, but we usually don’t know where, or to do what, most of the time, and usually some panicky decision is made about an hour before we actually get together. So after making a couple of phone calls and pruning our group of a couple of members, we hit a bowling alley. Through no real fault of our own, we usually go about a year between bowling alley visits, and every time we bowl, we agree that we should do it more often. After great enjoyment flinging oversized marbles down the lanes for about three hours (mental note: the 12 pound balls are the Key to Victory), everyone went their separate ways, and Tomas, Mari and I got back round to Jeff’s house, to watch ‘Frog-g-g‘ which was just awful. It was a Troma film without the Troma, basically. Man. *shaking head*

But yeah! Tomas has been a good friend of mine. I’d first met him back in the early Nineties, when a now-defunct comic store in Ferndale used to hold a weekly anime viewing night called Tora tora Tuesday. He was Derek’s best mate, and I’d only met him once back then. That night, I’d bought an issue of AnimeV that had Catty from Gall force on the cover. I was undoubtedly going on about it, cos I had a thing for purple-haired Synthetik girls back then too, and Tomas suggested that if I let him borrow that issue, he could draw a pic of Catty for me. Eventually, he and Derek ended up leaving, but I had neglected to give him that AnimeV, and I remember being glad that I never lent it to him, as we didn’t see each other until several years later. I can’t even recall how or when we met (again) — it had to be round 1995 or so — but when I was looking for a place to move to when I was living in Clinton township, he suggested his one-bedder, as he had just moved out of it to an apartment unit one floor below. It was a fab place, in a good area, and it even had the unit number 23, which was definitely a good sign. I can’t count the number of hours we spent beating the shit out of each other throughout the entire Armored core series, or having the rest of the lads over for videogames and general chicanery. Good times!
He’s really into webcomics, and one of the ones we always get a kick out of is John Allison’s Scary go round. I would have to say that this particular instalment sums up the inherently goofy friendship he and I have..

myself, Jeff, Mari, Mike and T-money (foreground)
enjoying some painful cinema, as usual

We’re all gonna miss you, Tomas. Ganbatte kudasai, and be sure to give all the SuicideGirls a good rogering when you get there