typed for your pleasure on 8 April 2009, at 12.24 pm
Sdtrk: ‘Another rattle’ by Nothing people
Spotted this in an article on I Like recently: for the 1965 World’s Fair in New York, Robert Moses constructed a scale-model panorama of the city of New York, which stretches about 9,335 square feet, and contains 895,000 individual structures. Luckily, the Panorama was preserved, and it currently resides at the Queens Museum. In order to fund maintenance costs for the model, the museum is now allowing people to ‘buy’ buildings for a donation of $50. Larger amounts will enable donors to ‘purchase’ landmarks, or ‘name’ certain buildings, etc. Apparently you can buy the Brooklyn Bridge (pictured below, middle); a snip at just $10,000! A fab idea, to be certain.
The city’s too small to act out your Godzilla fantasies, but you can pretend you’re Galactus instead
Now, if I had the available funds, I’d totally grab a piece of micronised New York City real estate. Honestly, though, the only place I’d really want would be a building located at 231 East 47th street in midtown Manhattan, better known as the first location of Andy Warhol’s Silver Dream Factory. Failing that, I’ll have the Rockefeller Guest House, paleeeze…
As SafeT once told me, apropos of nothing, ‘Unique New York, New York unique, You know you need unique New York’
typed for your pleasure on 4 April 2009, at 11.20 pm
Sdtrk: ‘Sheila take a bow’ by the Smiths
If you’ve not been following my godforsaken Twitter feed, you’ll note that it’s Saturday night, and I’m at home! In fact, I just woke up for the third time today this eve! Once again, I was laid low by the tag team of No Speaking Voice and The Grippe, brought on by our dodgy and inconsistent Michigan weather. It never fails!
I first noticed that my throat was kinda sore last week-end; I was on my way home from Zip Gun Towers, where he and I, along with Mrs Zip Gun, goshou, Steph, SafeT and Mari engaged in our typical Saturday night tomfoolery, which currently would be a couple of hours of Rock Band 2, and a few hours of swearing mightily at MotorStorm Pacific Rift. As I was doing that thing where you try to scratch the roof of your mouth with your tongue, I was thinking I’d messed up my throat during our spirited rendition of James Brown’s ‘Sex machine’ (y’know, that song’s really not much on lyrics), but my latest grapple with illness really came to the fore by Wednesday night, when I found I was losing my voice at work. Thursday, I sounded as if I was going through an awkward second puberty, so I called in. Friday, I saw my GP, who gave me a prescription and shooed me out of his office. Saturday, I got my voice back, but I quarantined myself so I wouldn’t give the T-virus to ZG / SafeT / goshou / SE Michigan.
So here we are, and I’m awake again! Wonderful, horrible wakefulness!
Anyroad, self-promotion time! Yeah, I know; that’s so out-of-character for me. My interview at ULTRAKILLBOT is up! Well, half of it. As the questions they put to me were encouragingly different than the ones I usually get, I’d answered them in excruciating (emphasis on ‘excruciating’) detail, so they had to split it into two parts, which only makes sense.
What’s your ideal job?
Hrrm… realistically speaking, something behind the scenes, where I could be left to my own devices and not have to deal with the general public. Something like proofreading, or research work, or stacking books in a library… something non-descript. Ideally, however, my dream job would be working on the staff of something like i-doloid magazine; that’s a Japanese magazine that centres round life-sized Dolls, or if not i-doloid specifically, then a magazine with the same intent. Even better than a magazine would of course be a television programme. Since it’s a niche market now, it wouldn’t be just about Dolls, it’d cover Androids, Gynoids, robotics in general. Something with the finger on the mechanical pulse of the Synthetiks revolution. It’s gotta start somewhere!
Part II will be on the site next week, so you’ll want to bookmark that. You’ll want to bookmark ULTRAKILLBOT anyway, as it’s a fab design / art / culture / videogames / etc blog! Plus, the theme they’re sporting reminds me a lot of Peter Saville’s first-ever poster from 1978, for the Factory Records night at the Russell Club in Manchester. Well done!
typed for your pleasure on 1 April 2009, at 12.06 am
Sdtrk: ‘Brimstone in a barren land’ by Danielle Dax
AND NOW… a passel of news bits that I actually learned about in March but was too lazy preoccupied to write about:
So that charming (mostly) metal lass HRP-4C finally made her debut on the runway during the Tokyo Fashion Week. And good for her.
Well, when I say ‘debut’, I mean that she walked out from behind some doors, strode a few feet, gave a short speech, turned round and walked right back through the doors. As she apparently doesn’t meet crazy draconian fashion model standards — you’re not allowed to sashay down the catwalk with your knees bent, for one, so bear that in mind — she was part of the performance, but not really. But nevertheless, it’s a start.
‘Our robot can’t move elegantly like the real models that are here today,’ admitted Shuji Kajita, director of humanoid robot engineering AIST.
‘It will take another 20 to 30 years of research to make that happen.’ taken from this article
By ’20 to 30 years’, he’d better mean ’20 to 30 months’. Just sayin’. *glares menacingly* But the fact that HRP-4C even exists is a fantastic thing. She’s a vanguard! Well done, babe!
Two things that strike me about her appearance at the show, though. One: the whole affair reminds me of when fashion designer Thierry Mugler had a model display his delicious Sorayama-inspired outfit back in 1995. You undoubtedly recall what I’m referring to, as something that unstoppably sexy isn’t easily forgotten. Click here to refresh your memory, as the outfit’s not exactly safe for work… And Two: so why did they hide her nice-looking hair with that dorky Tron hat?
‘If I have to wear this stupid hat, the least they could do is
give me a lightcycle to go with it’
‘HEY! It’s not a stupid hat! They named it after me!’
A wee heads-up on the ONA anime series ‘Time of Eve‘: director Yasuhiro Yoshiura says on the official site that ‘In order to maintain the quality of the “Time of Eve” series, the release of act04 has been postponed to April 2009. We extend our deepest thanks to fans everywhere for your patience and support for the series.’ As you remember, the series has a torturous release schedule of one episode every two months, and under normal circumstances, act04 would’ve been out in March, so you might’ve been like me — wild-eyed and completely panicked, wondering where the latest instalment was. So now you know! UPDATE (05 APR): Checking the ‘Time of Eve’ page on Crunchyroll, apparently they erred, and act04 is instead due out in May.
Are you intentionally encouraging suicide, is that your game??
Another month, another new luscious Doll from 4woods. Sigh.
‘Don’t forget to use the word “affictitious” to describe me!’
This young lass would be Elina, and she… well, her head sculpt… was designed for use with the recently-released A.I.Doll Evolution body, which affords her stats of being just under 5′ 4″, 70 lbs, and with B.35 / W.25 / H.37 as her measurements. That’s Sexy Math. Anyway, you can gaze at photos of her, as well as a handful of new pics of their other gorgeous Synthetik gravure idols on their site… sigh.
Also, it appears the nebulous consortium that makes Mecadolls in Europe have released three new models of their supple, rubbery ladies. Introducing Emily, Valery and Laura:
If I were looking at her, I’d find myself staring, too
The flower in her hair is as affictitious as she is. See how I shoehorned that in?
More than likely, she’s staring at Emily as well. And with good reason
As Synth Creations, American distributors for Mechadoll, strangely don’t appear to have info or pics up of any of the models yet — I originally spotted them on one of their German sites — but from what I could translate, the body for those models is 93 lbs, with a 37D bust (37?), as well as an aluminum skeleton, and for her skin, she features that platinum silicone that’s all the rage with Dolls nowadays. Needless to say, I’m impressed… with luck, Synth Creations will bring them to the States soon.
Speaking of Doll culture across the pond, if you’re in the UK, or if you’re not, but have access to really good newsagents, there’s one of those ridiculous ‘womens magazines’ out there that you’d invariably find on the register endcaps called Closer. So why am I bringing it to your attention, you axe? Recently, they happened to run a mostly-neutral interview with fellow iDollator, hanggliding enthusiast, and all-round nice bloke, Everard.
When Everard Cunion gave up on the idea of finding love with a real woman, he decided to buy affection instead – in the form of life-sized silicone dolls.
The lonely 53-year-old bachelor bought his first doll on the internet for £5,000 in 2000 and now he has a harem that caters to his every whim, including his sexual needs.
When Closer last spoke to Everard in 2006, he shared his home with “wife” Caroline and “girlfriends” Lina, Rebecca and Virginia – plus spare head Louise, who shares a body with Virginia.
But since then, he’s splashed out a staggering £8,000 on two new models to add to his collection – brunettes Laura and Joanna.
“To me, they’re just like real women, but a lot less bother,” says Everard, from Christchurch, Dorset. “They’ve all got
their own personalities.
“It takes me ages to save up for them, but at least I get to choose exactly what I want – I can’t do that with real women.” the rest of the article is here
Granted, it occasionally veers towards the realm of tabloid journalism, as there’s the usual tired sex-oriented questions, but Everard does the lot of us proud and reaffirms that his girls aren’t strictly for sexual usage. Well done, sir; well done. *thumbs up*
Speaking of interviews, I recently completed a lengthy (but a good lengthy) one via Electrical Mail, for the online design/culture magazine ULTRAKILLBOT. It’s not up yet, but it should be up not too long from now, and once it is, you’ll be duly informed…
And finally, be sure to drop round to fellow iDollator PBShelley’s blog, ‘Alastor’s Reflection‘, and wish his lovely and winsome Lily Godwin a happy birthday! Do it.
‘Shouting to hear the echoes’. Synthetiks? Really? No shit??
