Sdtrk: ‘My name is Nobody’ by Ennio Morricone

SATURDEEEE
Panic and Adventure were the Order of the Day that day, as I had arrived at Jeff’s house, and found him repairing the babygate, as the latch had self-destructed. Fascinating device, the babygate, as it happens to be constructed entirely from the bones of recently deceased infants. Also, it’s really haunted. As implied by the name, it keeps out babies, and pretty much everyone else, really, by apearance alone. But it was busted, and Jeff’s wife Kari was stressing out about it. She took off in search of a new one, at which point, Derek materialised, and the three of us headed to the basement to ostensibly began our evening. We managed to watch the first episode of ‘Nighty night‘, which is a riotously dark Britcom, and well worth viewing, when midway through that, Kari returned home, and asked if Jeff could go looking for a better babygate. So after the Nighty night ep was over, we scrambled upstairs, piled into Derek’s car, and sped off to the nearest Meijer.

We wandered round probably for a sum total of ninety minutes. Jeff, cos he walks so damn fast, lost Derek and I, and then my phone rang and I lost Derek. Mari rang me, as she was just getting off work, and said she’d meet us up at our Meijer location. As I was on the phone with her, my eyes were drawn to a rather nice-looking watch that I figured would finally be my current watch‘s successor (more later).
Eventually, I reconvened with Derek, who’d found Jeff, and we ran into Mari down the front of the store. Jeff couldn’t locate a babygate that wasn’t up to his standards of material — when you’re used to your gate built of femurs and the like, you’re gonna be rather hard to please, let’s face it — so he’d picked up a hook-and-eyelet pack, so he could jerry-rig a new latch. Materials and participants duly gathered, we then headed back to Jeff’s. I went with Mari to make sure she didn’t get lost, so I got to drive her car, which was fun. To me, it’s always fun driving other peoples’ vehicles, as it’s like a wee holiday from my own automobile. Like a little rolling Ibiza.

We returned to find that Tim and his new friend Mikki were already there. They needed to meet up with Derek, as Tim had left his phone betwixt Derek’s sofa cushions on Friday night. That sounds rather pervy, but we’ll let it pass. The lot of us kinda milled round the kitchen, Jeff and Derek having a go at the babygate repair, and twenty minutes later, anti-infant security was restored! Then Derek took off, cos he needed some sleep, as he’d been up since 7am playing World of Warcrack.

Back downstairs, the main thing we watched were highlights of a fillum that Jeff chose to review for his digitallyObsessed.com gig; a real piece of work called ‘Let me die a Woman‘. It. Was. HORRIBLE. Apart from the esteemed Dr Leo Wollman speaking to the camera and obviously reading from cue cards, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film with so many random sex scenes that were utterly devoid of any vestiges of eroticism. And there was this excruciatingly close-up sequence of Dr Wollman examining a post-op shoddily-assembled male-to-female transsexual that will give me nightmares for the rest of my days. I will never look at roast beef sandwiches the same way ever again. Yes, we were all laughing, but I think it was mostly due to shock.
Eventually, Tim and Mikki ran away screaming took off, and we viewed the first four eps of ‘Black books‘, as I had raved about it to Mari on several occasions. Then Jeff kicked us out round three. A fine, if partially repulsive, evening!

SUNDEY
Met up with Mari late in the evening, for the purposes of ‘hangin’ out’. It was a bit unusual, as I hardly ever go out-of-doors on Sunday, as that’s my ‘catch up on stuff that I neglected over the course of the week’ day, which could also be read as my ‘get out of bed at 1pm’ day. Anyway, I got round to Mari’s digs round 7pm, and since everything was pretty much closed, we hit Meijer, and wandered round there for almost four hours. Yeah, that astonished me as well, when I got home and realised how much time we spent there. That’s a whole lot of Meijer. However, I did manage to buy that watch I’d mentioned spotting.

I’m having some difficulty getting the fecker set though. Also, there’s no light-up function for it, the lack of which I would’ve overlooked, were I not having difficulty setting the fecker. So I might well return it later this week and try again. Looks nice though, doesn’t it?
Our evening came to an exciting conclusion, as we stopped round to Blockbuster video, so Mari could rent some fillums. She grabbed four: Oldboy, The Football factory, Immortal, and something else. I’d suggested the first three, as The Football factory was ace, Oldboy is worth seeing cos the first half of the film is fantastic (but the ending’s shite), and I’ve been wanting to see Immortal, so I’m having her be my guinea pig for that one. And then I dropped her off home, and then went home myself. A fine, if mostly Meijer, evening!

Happy 23rd! The end

Sdtrk: ‘Cut up’ by Duchess says

So — hypothetically speaking — who would I have to speak to in order to cash this fecker in?

Hrrm. Upon reflection, perhaps I’ll just sit on ‘Shouting etc etc’, and let it accrue some more interest. Maybe by this time next year, it’ll have gained five or six bucks

Sdtrk: ‘Rock me booa’ by Merzbow

I have to apologise for the lack of recent posting or updates and sundry, as I’ve been attempting to keep a rather low profile lately. It seems that the recent Salon.com article has not only produced bandwidth spikes the likes of which neither Shi-chan nor I have ever seen, but also a passel of radical feminists are now literally shrieking for my blood, as I, more than any other man in recorded history, am singlehandedly responsible for the subjugation of all women, simply because I’m an iDollator. It’s True! Ahh, notoriety. Is it Good or Bad? I can’t tell from here…
At any rate, the longer, unadulterated version (with a better title) of Meghan’s excellent article is now online here. Read it! It’s markedly better, and if you’re anything of an open-minded individual who was perhaps unfortunately led away from reason by knife-wielding feminazis*, the full article makes a hell of a lot more sense. It’s literally like watching ‘Blade runner’, then seeing the Director’s cut version — it’s like two different films. Well, stories.

On a more acquisitional note; yesterday, I managed to score an inexpensive copy of the Tetsujin 28 box set — just over $15, compared to the $28 – $30 that most online shops want for it — and my copy of Merzbow’s ‘SCSI duck‘ Cd arrived through the post today, which I’m listening to right this very minute. So far, it’s rather sonically penetrating, which is what I require out of my Japanese power-electronic artists. Good job, Masami-san!
And thanx to a benefactor, yesterday I got a new computer! It’s a Toshiba Satellite M55-S135, that I kinda had to jump through some retail hoops to obtain. I’d recount the story here, but it’s a bitter one, and I’m trying to maintain a rare good mood, here. But the laptop boasts a 80 GB harddrive, 512 MB of RAM, and a DVD burner. It’s got some other bollocks as well, which I’ve not paid a whole lot of attention to, as the three qualities I’d mentioned are the selling points for this difference engine for me. So that’s also a factor in my recent silence; not only have been adding all my old software, I’ve also been trying to configure the look and feel of the fecker, so that it’s similar to my old machine. Colour me satisfied!
However, I have to say without reservation, that touchpads are fucking shite. Ergh. I’ll be getting a mouse for this bad boy really soon..

Annnd back to Synthetik women (heh; that didn’t take long, but I stick to what I know), I ran across a photo on 4chan recently of two Japanese lasses seated on a train. They were twins; one was Synthetik, and the other was Organik, and they were both dressed in the height of Elegant Gothic Lolita fashion. Whoever posted the photo didn’t give any names or details, and as a consequence, I had to repost it in the Request board, to find out what the source was, the lasses’ names, anything. A couple of days later, someone provided the URL http://absolutmetropolis.com, and after duly scouring that site, I learned that the name of the Organik lass was Marie Honda, who worked in conjunction with a doll maker by the name of Erimo. So after a number of minutes grabbing Google Japan by the lapels and shaking the information out it, I successfully located Erimo’s site. I have to say, his work is overall rather fab, but my interest is especially piqued by his life-sized Dolls. But that goes without saying!

left, Marie Honda; right, Marie Honda

Right, I’m off to meet up with Penda, for our (mostly) monthly dinner rendezvous. I am having ridiculous cravings for tendon and that soba with the dipping sauce right now

*I don’t use that term too often, so it really means a lot here

EDIT (05 June 2008): The Pandagon, err, ‘people’, have deleted the above-linked post for reasons unknown. Thankfully it’s archived on the Internet Wayback Machine, so you can view the baseless vitriol here

Sdtrk: ‘Out out out’ by NON

File this under ‘Things That One Only Finds in Japan’. Behold: the art truck phenomena.

As you probably suspect, finding decent info about art trucks (or, as they’re also known, ‘deko-tora’, short for ‘decoration truck’) in English is uncommonly difficult, but from what I gather, they’re simply trucks used for shipping that just happen to be heavily customised by their owners. Like those who ‘rice out’ or ‘dub’ their Asian-made sports cars, they’re for showing off, but unlike sports cars, art trucks are still used for actual freight and utility purposes. It apparently started in the 70s, spawning a couple of films starring Bunta Sugawara of ‘The Yakuza papers‘ fame, and recently a game for the PS2 was made, called ‘Shin Dekotora densetsu’ (‘New Decoration truck Legend’).

Pretty decorative, pretty crazy.

Yep, art trucks.
So, like, do they hand-polish these feckers, or what?

Sdtrk: ‘To Alison’ by Ecstasy of St.Theresa

You know what I like doing? Getting into the left-hand lane in front of an SUV and driving slowly. The feckers deserve it, frankly.

I’ve never liked sport utility vehicles. They’re overly large, horribly inefficient with fuel, and 95% of them are just plain ugly (with the exception of the Aztek and the H2O, both of which somewhat resemble vehicles that SHADO would’ve used). However, it’s recently struck home with me why so many people feel compelled to purchase the damned things. I was showing my friend Mari some pictures of the various pre-2000 Mini Coopers, and she was astonished at how small it was. ‘How could you drive something that small?’ she asked. ‘I’d be afraid that I’d get crushed under somebody’s tires!’ However, that whole mindset really came screeching to my attention when I happened to catch something on a local newscast recently:

Smart Car Promotion Draws Criticism

You’ve seen the ads where Casino Windsor is giving away three smart cars, but did you catch that tiny print? Right at the bottom, the ad says “not street viable in U.S.A.”

The smart car, sold in Canada, has a small diesel engine and a little motor that does not meet U.S. emissions regulations, and U.S. Customs won’t let it in the country.

In Detroit, there are signs advertising the promotion, but if you win, you won’t be able to drive your prize in the United States. Casino Windsor said despite all the advertising, the rules are clear.

If an American customer wins the car, he or she has an alternative to take $14,000 in Canadian money instead.

There were plans to import the cars at one time, but right now, the plans are on hold.

Now, I’m seeing the sentence ‘The smart car, sold in Canada, has a small diesel engine and a little motor that does not meet U.S. emissions regulations’, and reading it as ‘The smart car is not vast and heavy enough to compete with our ridiculously large vehicles, and as we don’t really want people to be flattened like pancakes by an Escalade, the US cannot allow it on the roads’. They could’ve added ‘Three days’ worth of fuel for an SUV would keep a smart car running for three months,’ but that wouldn’t be entirely professional.

It’s really struck me why most Americans just don’t buy smaller vehicles. They want something larger that they’ll feel ‘safe’ in. You’ve got some tosspot going, ‘Well, if I don’t drive something that takes up one and a half parking spaces, I won’t feel safe from someone else driving an SUV.’ So that tosspot buys an SUV, wherein someone else says, ‘Well, if he has a huge vehicle, I want something equally huge, otherwise I’ll get crushed under his wheels’. So that person buys an SUV. And so on, and so on. It’s the Arms Race, only on four wheels.

As far as I’m concerned, the argument ‘what if you need to haul around a family, or a lot of people?’ no longer applies. Go buy a station wagon. Remember those? They looked rather like long cars — I know it seems fantastical, but it’s true, they once existed, you can see them on Google. Besides, I’m fairly certain that most people who own SUVs probably don’t have more than five people in their family, anyway.

I suppose you could reason that I wrote this post due to the fact that I was shagged off that Smart cars aren’t street legal in the United states. But it just goes to show what kind of mentality we have driving round on the roads today. I guess people really dig having to spend $40 – $50 to fill their fuel tank each week. Reason no.478 to move to Toronto: Smart cars are legal.
If I had that kind of crazy disposable income, however, I’d rather buy a pre-BMW Mini, or a Fiat 500. I’d love to drive a smart car, but even I think they’re too small to own

So I came home after a stressful day ov work, with the full intention ov sitting down with the rest ov the shrimp-fried rice and watching my copy ov Vidocq, right? I went up to the guest room where my telly is, set the steaming half-filled bowl ov rice down, and fired up my trusty & beloved CyberHome CH-DVD-500 player. Open disk tray, set disk in, close tray, wait for LOADING screen to finish. And wait. And wait. And wait. ?? I eject the tray, waited a couple ov seconds, and loaded it again, only to wait another couple ov minutes. Hrrm.

Okay, maybe I need to reset the region-free hack, I figured, as I really haven’t used the player since I moved back into my parents’ — I set it up for the first time since moving only a week ago; I’d been watching my R1 DVDs on my PlayStation 2, and watching my other region disks on my folks’ computer. So I redid the hack, and, for good measure, threw in my R2 copy ov Twenty four hour party people. Once again, the fecker refuses to play. Desperate / fuming, I grab a VCD and drop it in.. and that plays just fine. Okaaay, time to try another R1. No dice. Jesus. My player’s fucked.

You have to understand my love affair with my CyberHome player. When my circle ov friends gets together on Sat eve, 90% ov the time, we watch a film or two, and since our tastes run far, far away from the mainstream, most ov the DVDs we view aren’t R1 disks. Last year, Jeff, purveyor ov most ov the filth that we watch, had passed along info that he’d read on one ov the DVD forums that he frequents about the CyberHome CH-DVD-500 player, as he was, at the time, the only one in our group that owned an all-region player. This player was the stuff ov legend. Progressive scanning, Dolby 5.1 sound, aaand the ability to play not only DVDs from all regions, but to instantly convert PAL and NTSC?? Sweet baby James, how is that even possible?? They originally retailed for a little over $100, which wasn’t bad, considering that Jeff’s Malata cost over $200, but still, at the time, the asking price was a little steep.

Then, round Xmas, BestBuy had the bastards on sale. It was like a dream! They were stacked in the aisleways four feet high. We were like, ‘they’re here?? At BestBuy?? But.. they’re region-free! That naturally goes against anything that corporate America stands for!’ Mike was the first to have a go; he bought one at the startlingly low price ov $80. After he frothingly informed the rest ov us, Tomas & I went to the same location the very next day, and each bought one for $70. A week later, Marika bought hers at a different location, for $60. We couldn’t believe it; they did all they said they could do, and more. It was like a dream! Our respective DVD collections grew exponentially, and personally, I’d say that a third ov my disks are now non-R1s. I managed to get The Italian Job (the good one with Michael Bloody Well Caine, not the shitty remake) from England, when it looked like there wasn’t going to be a domestic release. I picked up Trainspotting – the Definitive Edition, with the better-looking case, almost a year before the R1 version appeared. I bought Ichi the fucking Killer. Sure, everyone has a copy now, but back when people were like ‘You’re itchy what?’ I was the coolest kid on my block. Or at least the weirdest..

So now what? Luckily Amazon still stocks the Player ov the Gods; oddly enough, when we bought ours, Amazon had them for like $90, now they’re $70. Ugh. O, well. That’s money I’d have liked to spend elsewhere, but for something like this, the choice is clear