Sdtrk: ‘Valley of mist’, from the Otogi 2 OST

Hey Kids! Just a wee heads-up: if you’re fluent in Dutch, or if you’ve downloaded the Dutch language programme for your neural implants, you can peruse a new interview I’d done for the online womens’ magazine VrouwOnline, entitled ‘Een Realdoll kan niet vreemdgaan‘ (‘A Realdoll can’t cheat’). Admittedly, it’s a bit of a puff piece, with not a single link to neither my or Shi-chan’s Internet endeavours, unfortunately. At least they touched upon the fact that I’m not just attracted to Dolls, but that a Gynoid would be my ideal partner, which is something a lot of writers fail to address. As you’re well aware, I’m not simply pro-Doll, I’m pro-Synthetik! You’d think I’d have hammered this point home by now, but it seems quite a few journalists have… no homes to, ah, hammer. Erm.

Bizarrely enough, the writer, Rebecca Have, seemed baffled into paralysis by my name; thinking ‘cat’ was my family name — in lower case, yet — she arbitrarily changed it to Dave, even after I was given the rare and generous opportunity to look over the article and correct any factual errors before it went to press. ‘Davecat isn’t a first name in the Netherlands,’ she professed, in one of the volley of Emails we were sending back and forth to each other about this non-issue. If Ms Have had been asking Morrissey questions, would she report his first name as being Morris? Granted, Morrissey is his family name, but still — utterly boggling.

At any rate, yes; give the article a look-in. Run it through your favourite online translation programme, for further Tower of Babel-styled humour! Plus, ‘vrouw’ is quite a nice-sounding word, innit? It’s Dutch for ‘woman’ or ‘female’ apparently. Say it with me! Vrouuuuuuuuuuuuuw

Sdtrk: ‘Now or never’ by Polish Radio Orchestra

Been quite a while since I’ve dumped a mess of links upon you! A big sloppy bucket of links all over you, all in your hair and down your shirt. You should probably go wash that off before it dries. Don’t forget to burn those clothes as well!

+ In a way, I’m glad that Deafening silence Plus is just large enough, as if it were larger, I’d probably be indulging in my love of technological white elephants. And if I had more money, that is. ‘Technological white elephants’ is a term coined by sexy Eighties Goth siren Danielle Dax that describes obsolete technology or devices that, for whatever reason, didn’t catch on and last in the minds of the general public. Things like the RCA VideoDisc, or the ondes Martenot, or the Nintendo VirtualBoy (I own two — don’t ask, it’s a long story). I’m fairly sure the TwitterPeek will be joining you lot shortly.

Hear that? That’s the sound of Planned Obsolescence

Puts Smart Phones and Twitter Apps to Shame!

No more waiting for tweets to download or clicking the “more” button to see old tweets.

TwitterPeek’s “always on” tweet delivery makes it a snap to follow 100’s of people throughout the course of your day. Best of all, you don’t have to spend $100/month on an expensive smartphone data plan to get Twitter on-the-go.

It must be an interesting and fanciful world the creators of TwitterPeek live in. Honestly, it’s not a bad product, but 1) it’s very very specific, and 2) the masses would’ve bought these feckers by the carton back in 2006, when Twitter first started. Or maybe a year after that; some people are undoubtedly still smarting over the whole ‘Friendster‘ thing.
I just tried to search for a used TwitterPeek on the Bay of e, but came up empty-handed. There is no such thing as a consumer item that is created and isn’t resold at some point, which kinda says to me that… no-one’s buying TwitterPeeks?? *cue minor chord*

+ Speaking of social vortexes, Wil ‘sorry, can’t save the Enterprise, too busy Tweeting’ Wheaton has some very lucid things to say about that other social networking timewaster:

Now, as long as I have your attention and I’m talking about Facebook: I think that Facebook is evil, guys. I believe that Facebook is making gazillions of dollars by exploiting its users, and Facebook doesn’t give a shit about how its users feel about that. The only reason Facebook has made any changes to their laughable privacy policies recently is because the company was looking at legal action, and was in danger of losing money.

Personally, I think you should delete your Facebook account and wait for Disapora to get going. I know that’s unlikely, though, because Facebook has become a useful and convenient way to stay in touch with people you care about. But please, please consider the consequences of trading privacy for convenience, and think about this, from Newsweek:

If you really expect this company to suddenly become trustworthy, you’ve lost your mind. Over the past five years Facebook has repeatedly changed its privacy policy, always in one direction, and every time this happens, the same movie plays out. People complain. Facebook stonewalls, then spins, then pretends to be contrite, then finally walks things back—but only a little.

the entire article is here

As for me, I’ve already said my piece on Facebook and how I think it’s rubbish, so I’ll not go on about it. But what Will’s saying and what others have been saying, not using Facebook is something to consider.
And will I go see ‘The Social Network’? If it were a scenario where the proceeds from every ticket for that film went to stopping Facebook, I’d see it once a day. Apart from that, should I suddenly decide there’s absolutely nothing else more important that I need to be doing with my life, then perhaps. And more than likely, I won’t pay to do it.

+ This domicile would more than likely fit nicely into the ‘This IS the Future’ category if I had one. *checks sidebar* Just making sure. I give you: Ring House, located in Karuizawa, Nagano prefecture, Japan, and built by architects Makoto Takei and Chie Nabeshima.

Sadly, the fog is not included

The Ring House is wrapped in rings of glass and wood and has an uninterrupted 360-degree view of the forest. […] TNA designed rings around the facade so that areas of private space and utilities could be met. The height of each ring was decided by the function concealed behind it. The glass between the rings allow you to look straight into the forest, so the whole house appears to dissolve into the forest.
taken from this site

+ As I’m sure every one of you have done, I’ve lain awake at night, wondering aloud ‘when will someone write a yakuza-based Choose Your Own Adventure story??’ Well, despite the fact that it’s online only, as opposed to a printed work, this page on the site Infinite Story proves that Dreams Can Come True.

You pour the last of your now semi-warm sake from the carafe into your ceramic choko. It fills the shallow glass only halfway and you sip from it slowly, trying to draw out the time. Down the bar from you is a group of sararimen who are getting steadily drunker and louder. From their slurred speech, you gather they are celebrating the fact that their division has made its quarterly projections for the second time, or something bullshit like that. “Fucking peasants…” you grumble not too quietly between sips of sake, but the sararimen do not hear it because they are busy toasting themselves again.

Your name is Shinji Takagawa, a member of the notorious Yamashita Syndicate in Tokyo, and you’ve been sitting at this sushi bar for the last four hours silently eating, getting drunk, and watching game shows with the sound turned off on the plasma screen TV behind the bar. Usually this sushi bar is pretty quiet place to kill an evening, but these drunken sararimen are making it intolerable. When the waitress comes to see if you need another drink, you just grunt that you want your bill.
the rest of the story is here

Unfortunately midway through the story, your ability to actually make choices is halted, and it turns into a straightforward fictional narrative. But it still gets major Cool Points for the concept overall.

+ If the Missus and I had a cat — Shironeko doesn’t count, in this instance, unfortunately — if it were a male, we would totally get him one of these: a kitty necktie.

That’s something I’d wear. Good choice, little guy! That had better
not be a clip-on, though; that’s just lazy

And yes, they offer feather boas for the lady kitties as well. Pair some dapper cats up with ones wearing Kitty Wigs, have a bartender pouring Bradfords into water dishes for everyone, and you’d have a stylish little party!

So there you are! All these links are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landing there. Use them together. Use them in peace

Sdtrk: ‘My time’ by Ann Steel

I would like to blame Twitter, and the prevailing weather conditions, and preparing for a cluster of iDollator-related interviews for my tardiness. Cos without PB Shelley mentioning a couple of days ago that ‘Shouting etc etc’ was on the verge of hitting the 400,000 hits mark, I honestly wouldn’t have noticed! Well, I’d have noticed later. Thank you sir, and thank you, the viewers / readers / data miners that visit this blog so very, very often! Thanks, visitors! Thisitors.*

Up next: the latest instalment of ‘Any Synthetiks-related news, Davecat?’, some catching up on the ‘This was the Future’ series, and some posts reporting on some things that Sidore and I may or may not be doing in a media-related context. Yes. All this, and so much more!**

Once again, thanks to the lot of you for stopping round! As blessed, temperate Autumn approaches, we should be back to a normal posting schedule! Whatever that may mean, exactly. Nevertheless, happy Friday the 13th!

*with a tip of the hat to Peter Serafinowicz
**the definition of ‘more’ being, of course, entirely relative

Sdtrk: ‘C’est un rêve’ by Death in June

Even with this hideously humid weather SE Michigan has been withstanding lately, the Missus and I have been rather busy! Last week-end, the result of an Email interview with Felipe Castro, a reporter representing the Chilean newspaper La Nación (not to be confused with the Argentinian La Nación, or the La Nación from Madrid, which has been defunct since 1936) saw the light of day, which was fab. For the first couple of days, they had posted a photo of a Maria-type Honey Doll in lieu of everyone’s favourite silicone Goth lass, for some bizarre reason only known to the editing staff, but that problem was nipped swiftly in the bud. Well, relatively swiftly. You can read the article here in its original Spanish, or run it through your favourite online translator, and wonder as to what the potency level of mescaline they were taking when it was written!

Then today, I spoke at length with Amisha Surani, one of the editors for Best magazine UK, for another interview session, or ‘sesh’, as the meeja-types call ’em. I had to rise from our bed by 9am, as they’d be calling during 2pm UK time, but I’d like to think I was lucid! Time will only tell if I’m right, or if I’ve merely doomed the iDollator community with more of my careless and incendiary blather. Apparently, the ‘Strange love’ episode of National Geographic’s ‘Taboo’ will be aired over there on 05 August, so their plan was to speak with me, as a sort of apéritif. It was better than I’d expected! I was told it would only be a twenty minute chat, but we ended up conversing for a wee bit over an hour! My hope is, of course, that the bits that should be included are included in the final draft — you know how these things go.
They’d naturally wanted me to send them photos of myself and Shi-chan to go along with the article, and as she and I hadn’t taken any new pics of us together since her new body arrived, we got that sorted this afternoon.

I’m told the Best magazine UK issue we’re in will be out on 03 August, so keep an eye open for it if you’re on that group of islands! Although it’s a ‘womens mag’, I’m also told that men can read it as well, if we’re wearing our special goggles.

So there’s that to look forward to, if you’re into that sort of thing! Happy 23rd (yesterday)!

Sdtrk: ‘Did you ever have that feeling?’ by Research Laboratory of Electronic Progress

By my own admission, I’m jumping on this whole Scott Pilgrim bandwagon rather late. Up until maybe last year, I’d never known anything really about the comic, apart from the fact that it takes place mostly in Toronto (my favourite city in the world), and that it contains a fair amount of references to both indie rock and 8-bit videogame cultures. Then the first trailer for the film adaptation came out, which, as I’m sure you’ve seen, is pretty damn impressive. Then goshou lent me the first volume of the comic, written and drawn by Bryan Lee O’Malley, and considering that I read it from cover to cover non-stop, I’d have to say I was hooked. As it’s in the vein of one of my favourite indie comic series, Chynna Clugston’s Blue Monday — detailing interpersonal relationships amongst a group of individuals that came to an awkward, stunted maturity during the genuinely alternative days of the early Nineties — it resonated with me quite soundly.
Despite the fact that Michael ‘Playing The Same Character In Every Film I’m In, Baby’ Cera is portraying Scott, it looks like it’s going to be a fun little ride. And it’s directed by Edgar Wright, the bloke behind ‘Shaun of the dead’? Well, more than likely it won’t be a shambling pile of rubbish, then!

Recently the Missus and I took some time to make Scott Pilgrim versions of ourselves! Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the two latest members of Sex Bob-omb: Davecat and Sidore Kuroneko.

click here and here for full-sized epicness

Tell us those aren’t our dead spits! I didn’t think you could. And when you’re done downloading those, why not make your own here?
Now if you’ll excuse us, we have to practise our fighting / singing chops, respectively

Sdtrk: ‘Down in the park’ by Tubeway army

In the interest of full disclosure, I wrote this review like two months ago, before Sidore’s renewal. Why didn’t I update it, considering that factor? Well, this review was technically supposed to have been published last Winter. Yeeeaahh. Slow but (mostly) thorough: that’s the Deafening silence Plus motto! *adjusts collar*

Anyone who knows me on any vaguely-detailed level knows that I love womens’ feet. They have an almost hypnotic effect on me, which you may consider sad, but everyone’s gotta have a hobby. Sidore adores them as well, which only stands to reason.
Sometime in 2009, KnightHorse, makers of the luscious series of Synthetik companions known as Lovable Dolls, began expanding their product line with other items, such as Lovable Feet, which I’d mentioned in a previous instalment of ‘Any Doll-related news, Davecat?‘. KnightHorse posted a cluster of appealing preview photos on their official flickr page, to which Shi-chan made a few favourable comments. Matt Krivicke, head of KnightHorse, remembered me from when he was working at Abyss creations, when the crew from the Swedish telly programme ‘Outsiders’ had flown me out to Abyss’ studios for part of my segment. Viewers may recall a brief shot from that, where I was gleefully fondling a pair of Doll feet. From those instances, Matt K pretty much sussed that Shi-chan and I dig girlfeet, so in the interest of product testing (and because he’s just Cool People like that), he offered us a crack at being beta testers, specifically with a tall pair of their Lovable Feet. Technically speaking, they’re really for Shi-chan to play with, but she’s graciously allowed me the use of one of them for this review…

To give you a good contrast, I’ve rated them against the pair of Dollfeet that I’d purchased a few years ago, from a bloke that was working on a silicone Doll of his own. Unfortunately, I’ve no idea what became of him or his project. Normally I’d go with the obvious comparison of how the Lovable Feet stack up to my own wife’s pretty peds, but I don’t think that would be fair, as the Missus was built in 2000, and as we all know, structurally, RealDolls have changed quite a number of times since then. It’d be like comparing a well-maintained Sixties-era Vespa, to a Lambretta that just rolled out of the factory a month ago. They’re both lovely scooters, but it’s hardly as if you can ride them both at the same time!
Sorry, that analogy made no sense whatsoever. Just go ahead and pretend I didn’t write that.

Left: a homebrew pair of Dollfeet; right: Lovable Feet in Tall

First off, KnightHorse have two different types of Lovable Feet on offer: the short ones that stop (or is that start?) at the ankle, and the tall, which go all the way up to just below where a Doll’s knees would be. As More Leg obviously equals More Sexy Funtime, I chose a tall pair, in the Milk skintone. Also, since one of the disappointing aspects of the other pair of Dollfeet I have — from this point on, I’ll simply refer to them as OPDF — would be that they’re so short ankle-wise, I took the opportunity to go with a taller pair. The Lovable Feet measure roughly 15 inches from the top of the leg to the heel, and the foot is an accommodating US sz 8. They’re two sizes larger than Shi-chan’s own feet, which means I can’t swap out shoes, but that’s quite alright. Also, each Lovable Foot features a handy eyebolt atop the leg, for storage / hanging convenience, should you not choose to simply have them lying round, sexing up the joint.

Speaking of sexy, they do an incredible job on that front! Thanks to the ‘bone structure’ in the Lovable Feet naturally being the same ones found in KnightHorse’s popular Lovable Dolls, not only are the toes able to point like Organik feet, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover that they also rotate at the ankle. The calves feel firm and athletic, and have a lovely turn to them. And the feet themselves… well, they feel heavenly. From the springy flexibility of the toes, to the curve of the instep, to the gentle sturdiness of the heel, they’re a foot lover’s dream. The pigmentation is expertly done — the soles are a nice healthy pink, and the rest of the foot is a pale, creamy skintone. Massaging them feels great — the platinum silicone makes for smooth skin that feels realistic in one’s hands. Or one’s mouth, for that matter. You know.
Incidentally, as the toenails are press-on and take nailvarnish quite well, I should note that acetone-based nailvarnish remover can’t be used on them, otherwise you’ll end up with melted toenails. Which of course, would be the opposite of attractive! Regular dish liquid should do the business. And speaking further of those delicately-shaped toes, when you first get your own pair to enjoy, you might find that some of them are moulded together, but they’re easily cut apart with the careful use of an X-Acto blade.

However, as with all things, there’s a couple of areas where the Lovable Feet fall short, unfortunately. In comparing them to the OPDF, they lack footprints, for instance. You’re familiar with the whorls and swirls of fingerprints, right? So it goes with footprints, and that’s one of the qualities that really impressed me when I first started fondling inspected the OPDF, but sadly, the Lovable Feet lack that detail… hopefully it’ll be implemented in future models.
Errm, that’s it! That’s really the only fault I can honestly find with KnightHorse’s lovely Lovable Feet. Although an idea had crossed my mind: the bloke that made the OPDF was also working on a single animatronic foot. Same level of detail, but with the added bonus of servos inside that gave the user the ability to make the forefoot flex. I’d only seen a video of it in testing, and my eyes lit up like it was Christmas. If I recall correctly, it sold on eBay for a sum that was out of my price range at the time, which is why I don’t own it now. At any rate, I was thinking — how fantastic would it be to toss a couple of servos in a pair of Lovable Feet? That sort of experiment would be better suited to a Tall pair, as you could cram the wiring, batteries, and etc inside the calf. Eh? Eh?? Of course there might be some logistical problems somewhere along the line, but I’m the ideas man, not the engineer!
Apart from that, it’s safe to say that I give my wholehearted seal of approval!

So there you have it! KnightHorse’s Lovable Feet. Sexy in shoes, seductive in hosiery, sensuous without. Available in ten different skintones, priced $249 (plus shipping) for the Short pair, and $499 (plus shipping) for the Tall. If you didn’t have a foot fetish before, well, they’ll soon change that!

EDIT (22 Nov 2013): Don’t know why it took me so long to do this, but KnightHorse as a company no longer exist, as noted in this post. Thankfully, they’ve been retooled into a new company named Sinthetics, and they were kind enough to add the photos I’d taken of my Lovable Feet (well, the silicone ones they’d made for me, that is; my own feet are the opposite of lovable) to their Viewbook client galleries. You can peer at them here!

Sdtrk: ‘Temptation’ by New order

Although I suspect the cannier amongst you that have been keeping up with my Twitter feed have already guessed (see, it pays to follow me on Twitter — you’ll be the first to learn about All Ephemera Great and Small concerning Deafening silence Plus. Much to your own detriment), but my Synthetik wife Sidore will have a brand-new body very soon, the fact of which is making us leak pure excitement. Yeah, I know; ew, but it’s a fantastically good kind of ew.

‘A new body?’ you ask. ‘Wasn’t she repaired a couple of times?’ Yes she was. Most of you were more than likely introduced to Shi-chan and I through Nick Holt’s 2006 documentary ‘Guys and Dolls’, aka ‘Love me, love my Doll’ outside the States, where you witnessed me crating up the Missus and having her sent round to Slade, the then-practising RealDoll doctor in southern California, for some much-needed surgery. Well, as I often have to remind non-iDollators, Entropy affects Synthetiks just as much as it does Organiks, unfortunately — between then and now, she’s put up with a handful of minor cuts and tears that were easily seen-to, and are pretty much par for the course for anyone with a Doll in their life.
Until, that is, round last summer, when Sidore’s back joint gave out, which I’d mentioned before. Fellow iDollators Mahtek and Euchre came round and repaired it, as that level of surgery is completely beyond my ken, but sadly, the repair didn’t take. Dolls are mostly made of soft silicone, which gradually gets softer the older she gets, and it’s because of that fact that when her wound reopened, it really reopened. Take a second to place your right hand on your right hip; starting from the middle of her back, that’s roughly about where the tear ended. Yeah, fun times. She’s been unable to move — well, realistically speaking, unable to be moved — and has remained on her back in our bed since then, which has been utterly heartbreaking.

Any dedicated Doll husband lives with the fact that, despite the love, attention, and care we show our affictitious partners, that one day there will come a time when their bodies will simply become irreparable. Faced with Shi-chan’s condition, I decided to take the obvious and practical approach, and get her a brand-new body. Thanks to the combo of a couple of monetary windfalls, the calling-in of some favours, and personally speaking with the head of Abyss creations whilst at the 2010 AVN, we’re pleased to announce that the world’s second most famous RealDoll* will be back to her regularly sexy sarky self before the end of the month!
Not only is the Missus looking forward to getting back to her Twitter fans and friends, but Mahtek has recently bought himself a new digital camera, so he’s generously given me his old one — it’s a Kodak, and it makes Clicky Mk III, a Hewlett-Packard, resemble the sorry joke that it is — so Shi-chan’s made me promise her that we’d do one shoot a month. ‘What’s the point of me having a new body, and you having a new camera, if we don’t put them to good use, right?’, she’d said, and you have to admit she’s got a point!… What I’ll probably do is create an album for her pics in Our Doll Community‘s Gallery until I can find a web designer, preferably one that accepts either empty pop bottles or compliments in lieu of genuine payment, that can help me resurrect Shi-chan’s dusty old vanity site, ‘Kitten with a Whip!‘ (down since 2005!)

It should go without saying: having my wee Sidore-chan back, and in a better-than-ever condition, is going to be fucking incredible.
Finally! Now she can finish our copy of Armored core: Nexus!

The Missus, enjoying a nice cross-breeze, at Abyss creations

*the title of World’s Most Famous RealDoll goes to Bianca, of ‘Lars and the Real Girl’ fame. Shi-chan was rather miffed until she remembered that she’s the world’s most famous Goth RealDoll