Sdtrk: ‘Music (In my mind) (Prins Thomas remix)’ by Lindstrom and Christabelle

My Saturday and Sunday comprised a good way to end the year, I’d say… Saturday morn Derek, Steph, Jeff, Mike and I piled into Steph’s van and headed out to Ann arbor, for our usual bi-bi-monthly shopping extravaganza. Jeff, Steph and I sold a passel of Cds and DVDs at Encore records; I was awarded $80 in cash, so I picked up Art brut’s ‘Bang bang rock and roll’ release. After that, we convened at Borders, where I purchased the first volume of Naoki Urasawa’s Monster, which is a hell of a manga series, and highly recommended. Up until now, I’d been borrowing Jeff’s copies of volumes 1 – 6, and it was just a matter of time before I broke down and started buying my own copies. ‘A taut psychological thriller’, as a book club would undoubtedly describe it.
Following that, we stopped by our favourite overpriced anime boutique, Wizzywig, where I bought one of the newer Evangelion gachapons (Unit 01, if you’re curious), as well as two different KOS-MOS figures. We then had a delicious luncheon over at the Japanese restaurant Totoro, and finished our day with a stop round to Vault of Midnight, where I… actually didn’t buy anything. It was one of those in-between periods, where there was nothing new out yet that I’d wanted, and I couldn’t find anything older in the store. They did have the Medicom Johnny Rotten figure for $20, but I’m holding out for all four Sex pistols Kubricks, all told. Ah well — money saved, I suppose… Nevertheless, a grand day out! We got back round 5ish and went our separate ways for the eve.

As for Sunday, I’ve just now gotten back (well, about two hours ago) from hanging out with my mates again, minus Mike, for the evening, playing a devastating combo of Apples to apples, Milles bournes, and some variants of poker. We were accompanied by Kari, Jeff’s wife, and Kari’s friend Ellen. I can’t remember how this came up, but interestingly enough, Ellen says that her best friend back at grad school played Missy, Bill S. Preston’s new mum from ‘Bill & Ted’s Excellent adventure’. How fab is that?? *does riff on air guitar*
Later on in the eve, I got a call from T-money that I put on speakerphone, so we could all yell at him, and apparently some ball fell somewhere in New York city. Really, it was much like last year’s festivities, which is quite alright, as we tend to swear by consistency. A heady evening!

Any resolutions for 2007? I haven’t made resolutions for about the past ten years, as I’ve been of the opinion that as soon as I say, ‘well, this year, I’m going to _____,’ then it’s pretty much a guarantee that it won’t be done. This year, however, I’m making an exception: I am going to get ‘Kitten with a Whip!‘ back up and running in some capacity before 2008. A single photograph and six lines of text do not a website make. Plus, Shi-chan’s getting cranky. Right right; you may laugh, but you don’t have to live with her.
Also, I’d really like to get everything sussed as far as ‘Shouting etc etc’, i.e., the things I’d mentioned a couple of posts ago. That one’s not really a resolution, by the way; I just thought I’d mention that.

So there you have it. Happy 2007, and best wishes for the new year!

Sdtrk: ‘Rising sun’ by Merzbow

O, praise “Bob”, KITECH‘s remodeled EveR-2 Muse. Wow. Don’t call it a comeback, she’s been here for years…

‘What do you mean, I’m not allowed to sing anything other than K-pop??’

SEOUL, Korea (AVING) — ‘EveR-2 Muse’, designed by KITEC (Korea Institute of Industrial Technology), is the world’s first entertainer-robot. She had been first introduced last October and since then she even had ranked fourth with her first song on a certain website popularity poll.

Her skin is made of silicon material; 60 joints in her face, neck, and lower body enable her to demonstrate various facial expressions and some dance moves. She is 161cm tall and weighs 60kg, average figures of Korean women in their twenties.
(quote taken from here)

As an indie album title once put it: We have the facts and we’re voting Yes. Her upgrades from the previous EveR-1 version include an increase in height from 160 cm to 170 cm, improved CCD cameras for eyes, and silicone flesh that apparently covers her whole body. Is that a fact. *tugs at collar*
And speaking of her eyes; call me crazy, but I love EveR-2 Muse’s eyes — they look grey. You don’t see that too often in an eye colour, and that’s pretty unique. Unfortunately, her dress sense is still crap. Ah well; perhaps that’ll be her next upgrade.

KITECH, you have my approval, so keep up the good work! Just… mind her neck next time, eh?

Technorati tags: Android, Gynoid, EveR-1, EveR-2 Muse, KITECH

Sdtrk: ‘With every heartbeat’ by Robyn (feat. Kleerup)

WARNING: I’m subjecting you to another one of my dreams.

Steve (a former roommate), Marika (Shi-chan’s Organik sister), and I (me) were driving in my car to some motel, for some reason or other. The temperature outside was warm but not too unpleasant, so I’d had my rear windows down halfway. After pulling into the parking lot, we all got out; I was going to make reservations, and while that was occuring, Steve said he was going to go do something, and Mari was going to hit the adjacent Sunoco for something to drink. ‘Right, we’ll meet back in ten minutes,’ I said. So I headed into the hotel office — it was rather dingy, and it reminded me of one of those office trailers that you see on construction sites. Also, it seemed that no-one there was under the age of seventy. I went up the six or so steps and entered; the office was small and custard-coloured, but had a clear view of the parking lot. I saw the manager and his wife, who again had to be too old to be doing what they were doing, and I’d said, ‘I’d like to reserve a room please…’ then in looking out the window over the manager’s shoulder, I spotted a woman and her two sons. Their car was parked next to mine, and the mother had simply opened my left rear door, and pulled out a large framed Evangelion poster from my backseat. She was speaking to her two sons, who looked to be around six and ten, and they were nodding approvingly.
‘Ah, excuse me, I’ll be right back, someone’s, uh, taking something out of my car…’ I then bolted to where she was — she had just placed my poster in her back seat and was getting her kids back in the car, and I have to add that none of them were in any great hurry, bizarrely enough.
‘Ahh, what the fuck are you doing with my poster?’ I’d said to the mum. She was probably about 4’10”; I somehow sussed that she and her kids might’ve been Filipino.
‘Oh, uh, I’m sorry,’ she replied. She wasn’t freaked out or anything; she seemed slightly embarrassed, but it was more as if she was just inconvenienced. I reached into the back of her sedan and pulled out my poster, and also, without being seen at all, I spotted an LP on the backseat and took that, hiding it beneath my poster.
As she and her sons were getting in, I remarked, ‘You might want to get out of here before I call the cops.’ She turned backwards in her seat to reverse, and while she was engaging in that, I managed to surreptitiously break off her left side wing mirror.

Steve & Mari came back a couple of minutes later; I told them what happened, and they were aghast. ‘One of you has to stay with the car now,’ I’d mentioned, ‘while I go and get these reservations taken care of. ‘I’ll do it,’ replied Mari, and Steve followed with ‘I’m done, so I’ll stay here too.’ So I headed back into the office, which now contained around seven or eight other old people; most were milling around, but a couple were seated on a bed without sheets which was in the back corner of the already-cramped office.
‘Sorry about that,’ I’d said to the manager, ‘Someone was stealing something right out of my car.’
‘Yeah, there’s been a lot of that lately,’ he replied. ‘Times are rough these days, you know?’

So yeah! No idea what to make of that. As per usual. It’s a shame I didn’t realise it was a dream, as I could’ve laid a spinning piledriver on that mum; that would’ve been amusing.

In the meantime, Happy holidays, you ingrates. 🙂 Go listen to the new Ricky Gervais podcast!

Sdtrk: ‘Senza fare rumore (Demo)’ by Calle della Morte

Two brief things: ran across this series by photographer Juergen Specht last night, and I thought I’d share the love with you. The setup and execution are brill as it is, but the subject matter is definitely relevant to my interests…

Juergen Specht’s ‘The Doll’

Simply gorgeous. It’s a bit NSFW, but then, the best things in life always are…

And the Other Thing would be a couple of new videos uploaded to Sidore’s Dailymotion.com account, which is easily accessible via the clicky button labelled ‘Synthetiks videos’ beneath the header. If you’d seen my YouTube account, they’re nothing new, but they may well be new to some of you. Or perhaps something distracted you, and you weren’t paying attention!

O, and the Good People at MyPartyDoll.com have a handful of new pics of their luscious Leeloo model up for viewing. Now, if only they can get her weight below 112 lbs. Egad, that’s a handful.

Well, I suppose that would be three brief things!
‘Shouting to hear the echoes’: Sometimes, mistakes are made

Sdtrk: ‘Attack of the ghost riders’ by the Raveonettes

Not altogether too wide off the mark, I’d say…

What Withnail and I Character Are You?

Perhaps I should start drinking! Or at the very least, cover myself in Deep Heat until the pubs open

Sdtrk: ‘Rice 3’ by Merzbow

CHILD (answering phone): Hi, daddy!
ME: Heh… I hope to never, ever, ever, seriously hear that coming from a child’s mouth.

That’s not the first time that’s occurred, either. Now and again during my work duties, some errant toddler, labouring under various assumptions, will answer the phone, and I’ll end up shuddering visibly for five minutes. Hideous.

Who’s your daddy? Apparently I am. Happy now?

Sdtrk: ‘Zelzah’ by Medicine

Jeff/Zip Gun sent me this intriguing article yesterday. Normally, I’m against vandalism, but I’m behind this 100%. That’s one hundred one per cents!

Town’s Garfield statue decapitated 2 months after installation
Chicago Sun-Times | December 18, 2006

MARION, Ind. — Police say someone stole the fiberglass head of a Garfield statue located near downtown’s Riverwalk.

‘’I’ve got to believe that whoever did this is probably going to be bragging about this at some point,’’ said Marion Deputy Chief Cliff Sessoms.

The statue is now a headless figure dressed in workout gear and giving the OK sign. Police are investigating, but said Friday they don’t have any leads yet.

Belinda Hussong, the city’s parks and recreation director, said she was disgusted to hear about the vandalism to the statue, which was unveiled in October.

‘’You put so much energy and effort into a community project, then this happened,’’ she said.

Marion is in the home county of Jim Davis, the fat cat cartoon’s creator.

The statue was put along the Riverwalk to promote exercise, wellness and riverfront activities.

‘’We had a lot of generous sponsors to the statue and I feel like we should replace it,’’ Hussong said.

Good to see I’m not the only person out there who reaches for their gun when they hear the name Garfield™®

Clearly, the best Garfield™® strip Jim Davis never made