Sdtrk: ‘Die Wäscheklammern’ by Stereo total

After getting over a case of the 24 hour flu, which personally I’d never previously had and only thought they existed in films and television, I contracted a case of consumption (ho ho) as recently, I’ve purchased:

+ the trade paperback of Grant Morrison’s Sebastian O. Finally, a comic miniseries that asks the question, ‘What if Oscar Wilde was an assassin that lived in a steampunk London?’ Lovely stuff, but far too short

+ the 2-disk version of ‘The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou‘. Y’know, I think one of the reasons that I dig Wes Anderson as a director, is that he often uses the same typeface, known as Futura, in his films. That man loves him some Futura. I think I fell in love with Futura after realising that one of my all-time fave directors, Stanley Kubrick, used it wherever and whenever he could. Honestly, ‘Shouting etc etc’ is only in Century Gothic cos most people sadly don’t have Futura installed on their computers… I don’t see why not! It’s the Typeface of the Future, circa the Twenties!

+ Penny Arcade’s The Warsun Prophecies. Always a laugh riot, our Tycho and Gabe

+ the 40th anniversary Prisoner DVD boxset (comes with a full-colour map of The Village!)

+ I’m Alan Partridge – Series 1, which I know I shouldn’t have bought as Series 2 isn’t domestically available yet, and once it is, you’ll merely wait about six to eight months, and both series will be available in boxset form, cos that’s how they get you. Bastards

+ Vol.4 of Naoki Urasawa’s manga, Monster, a ‘taut psychological thriller’

+ Tomorrow’s Eve, by Jean-Marie-Mathias-Philippe-Auguste, comte de Villiers de l’Isle-Adam (his homies just called him ‘Cheezy-J’). As it’s a book from turn-of-the-century France, concerning a man who falls in love with a Gynoid built by Thomas Edison, it was obviously a book that I had to read

+ the RealDoll Complete Collection DVD, which was more of a gift exchange thing I’m doing with MaRi-chan‘s lad atsushi-san. (He also shipped me the first ‘Ergo proxy’ DVD. How generous!) In exchange, he’d like a Detroit Tigers baseball cap. Done and done, sir!

+ and finally, a stand for the Missus. I’ve yet to assemble it, as I’ve been busy playing catch-up on everything lately, it seems, but that should be on the week-end. Shi-chan’s been wanting to stretch her legs!

The slight irony behind all the DVD purchases is that my DVD player — the one that replaced my previous CyberHome that went tits up — has gone tits up. So now I have to acquire a new, sanely-priced, region-free player that converts PAL as well. Guh.
At this point, I have to retract my recommendation for the CyberHome CH-DVD-500 player, as pretty much all of my mates bought one, and pretty much all of them have expired unceremoniously. Maybe other CyberHome models are more robust, but I’ve no idea. This time, I’m thinking Malata, which is, by all accounts, the Cadillac of region-free player brands.

All of this mania is brought to you by Tax Return Cheques! WOOOOO

Sdtrk: ‘Underground library’ by Moon wiring club

Apparently the architects of Singapore like to play fast and loose with Mistress Fate. Observe:

*facepalms*

Far East Organization, Singapore’s largest private development company, has commissioned the Office for Metropolitan Architecture for OMA’s first architectural project in Singapore – a 36-storey residential high-rise. […] With 20,000m² of built floor area, the building will provide 68 high-end apartment units with panoramic views. The design strategically maneuvers within the highly regulated building environment to maximize the full potential of the site: Four individual apartment towers are vertically offset from one another and suspended from a central core.
taken from this site

I have to be honest — this proposed Scotts Tower looks rather fab, but it also looks like a Seventies disaster film just waiting to happen.

“THE SCOTTS TOWER CATASTROPHE”

starring

Peter Fonda

Suzanne Somers

Dick Van Dyke

Dyan Cannon

Avery Schreiber

and Gig Young as “Paddock”

© 1973 A QUINN-MARTIN PRODUCTION

Nice place to visit, wouldn’t want to live there, that sort of thing. There but for the grace of god go Singapore, I guess…
Also, if you recognise any of those names in the film cast, you’re too old

ta very much to KrazyQ for the tipoff

Sdtrk: ‘Ma recontre’ by Benjamin Biolay

I have to admit; the only Vonnegut that I’ve ever read would be Harrison Bergeron (for school) and Slaughterhouse-five (still a fantastic book), but I can definitely admire a bloke who not only came up with the concept of Ice-nine, but apparently had his den wallpapered with rejection notices from various publishers throughout the years.

RIP Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Sdtrk: ‘Jinxed’ by The Aluminum group

Well, I for one am certainly encouraged!

Robot woman encourages turnout for local elections in Yokohama
Mainichi Daily News | April 9, 2007

YOKOHAMA — A humanoid robot designed to look like a young woman was a popular attraction at a department store here on Thursday as it called for voters to participate in nationwide local government elections.

The robot, named Actroid, appeared in front of the Sogo Department Store in Yokohama’s Nishi-ku.

The Yokohama Municipal Election Administration Commission planned the robot display to educate voters, as turnout for the unified local elections in Yokohama has not exceeded 50 percent since the start of the Heisei era in 1989.

The robot’s eyes and mouth move, along with its cheek muscles, and it even has veins in its legs to make it look real. The robot left at least one customer tying to sort out whether or not it was a real person.

“It’s a real human, isn’t it?” the customer asked.

Hopefully voters won’t have as much trouble sorting out the candidates during election time.

Hell, get me round to Yokohama; I’ll vote for whoever had the foresight to employ her.
That’s how they’ll get all of us Technosexuals — the worst party to vote for in the world will say ‘Hey, vote for us! We have Androids and Gynoids!’ and we’ll be like ‘Fuck yeah, there’s Gynoids at the polling booths WOOO’, and months after that party has won, we’ll all be made into Soylent Green or something similar. ‘Know your voters’ is the lesson to be learned here…

Not to harp on this point, but someone please put her in sandals and get some pics, even if it’s just for one day! If I can’t see how her feet look at least once, I will be vastly disappointed in the Universe

Technorati tags: Actroid, Repliee, Android, Gynoid, Technosexual

Sdtrk: ‘Hélicoptère’ by Mireille Darc

Some of you vaguely recall my report on Fräulein Borghild, the WWII-era RealDoll analogue assembled by Nazis, for Nazis. Yes, I was sceptical that she existed in the first place, but deep in my heart, I wanted to believe. Much to my chagrin, I just discovered this article on Boing Boing, posted back in 2005, about how a pair of unrelated and investigative readers in Germany revealed that the entire affair was merely a protracted example of japery. Gods, how depressing.

The main problems with “Borghild” are:

– There is no evidence that any of the documents the text talks about ever existed. The Deutsche Hygiene Museum says that of course most records were destroyed in an attack in 1945, but that still no one they talked seems to remember anything about this project. The photographs on borghild.de are clearly fabrications, and the site even acknowledges that.
– The author of borghild.de, “Norbert Lenz”, claims to have worked for a number of German magazines – all of which claim not to know a journalist by that name. He is not listed in phone directories, and the only book currently available in Germany by a Norbert Lenz is a book about – ducks.
the entire article is here

DAMNIT *pounds desk with fists, collapses into loud sobbing*

Technorati tags: Borghild, Nazis, sex doll

Sdtrk: ‘Sharevari’ by A number of names

So have you picked up issue nine (‘The Counterfeit issue’) of Lifelounge® Magazine? ‘Why would I want to do something like that??’ I hear you asking. Well, there’s a sympathetic and smartly-written article about RealDolls between its covers. Plus, it showcases some of Stacy Leigh‘s remarkable photos of her two naughty Synthetik roomies, Taylor Nishino and Tabitha Leone. Reasons enough? I’d say so!

The magazine’s actually bigger than it looks here. Well, wider?

My copy just arrived today from its origin country of Australia, so unless you live there, or have access to a subsonic flying machine, you might have to order it from the website. Or you can read the piece online, but frankly, it’s just not the same.

Always lovely to see well-deserving iDollator colleagues enjoying a slice of fame! Kudos to Lifelounge®, and double kudos to Stacy, Taylor, and Tabitha!

Technorati tags: RealDoll, iDollator, Lifelounge

Sdtrk: ‘Satellite’ by Depeche mode

from the cover of the April issue of Smithsonian:

I swear to “Bob”, when I first saw that line, I’d read it as ‘What Bizarro Taught Us’. An article detailing life lessons learned from a freakish alternate-universe version of Superman makes slightly more sense than lifestyle examples handed down from a chunky-brained mammal. Or should that be ‘hoofed down’?

No, I’ve not actually read the story. Anything it has to tell me cannot possibly live up to what I’d pictured in my mind. Apart, of course, from ‘whatever you do, do not break any of your four legs’. But that’s just plain common sense