Sdtrk: ‘Model home’ by Group Rhoda

EDIT (12 July 2011): Clearing out some driftwood here. As you’ll quickly gather, I’d written this post some time ago, when I was employed at B**********. I can smile about it now, but at the time it was terrible. Or have I got that in reverse?

So this comprised my workday a few days ago:

R: Are you bringing anything for potluck?
ME: Chips!
R: What’s your specialty?
ME (bewildered): Ahh… chips?

Later that same day, I made a call to a person named Walterina. Walterina, huh? I can just imagine the conversation her parents had, shortly after her mum knew she was pregnant…

FATHER: If it’s a boy, we’ll call him Walter!
MOTHER: But what if it’s a girl, dear?
FATHER: Ha ha! It won’t be a girl.

Sdtrk: ‘Dance avoid’ by ADULT.

Well, there are now! Honestly, one month ago there really wasn’t a lot of bits and bobs concerning the world of Synthetiks, so apart from writing a post consisting solely of the sentence ‘DOLLS: go buy one today!!’, the article would’ve looked a bit spare. But now it’s June! Check this lot out:

+ First off, we have everyone favourite walking talking Gynoid, Miim-chan (aka HRP-4C), having a stroll outside of the laboratory she was built in, in Tsukuba, Japan. Cute? She’s automatically cute!

What makes this video significant is that it shows she’s able to walk on rough and uneven surfaces, not just smooth interior floors; she does this through the use of an inverted pendulum control model to maintain her equilibrium. It’s not the sexiest of sashays, but AIST has to start with the basics first. Nevertheless! rrrRowr.

+ Quite interesting: CARIS, the Collaborative Advanced Robotics and Intelligent Systems Laboratory in British Columbia, is conducting a survey regarding human-robot interaction. Their aim is to get a sense of how Organik people perceive and interpret actions performed by both Organiks and Synthetiks. It’s about 15-20 minutes in length, and the results are going towards robotic development, so I’d say it’s definitely worth your time. After all, you can’t whinge about how ‘the uncanny valley’ makes Androids and Gynoids move in an unnatural manner, if you didn’t help to correct it, right?

+ I can’t definitively recall where I found this, but it seems I have a New Favourite Artist, by the name of Yves José Malgorn. Can you guess why?

Left, Android Anatomy 01; right, portrait of Nathos

When he’s not whipping up graphic design for clients, he spends time creating affictitious pin-up models from the not-so-distant future. The thing I like most about his illustrations is their crisp and well-defined lines; if Eighties-art icon Patrick Nagel had turned to mechanical women instead of making covers for Duran Duran, his work would be not dissmiliar to that of Yves. Why not have a look at YM Graphix?

+ Thanks to our friend Mariko Lynn, a winsome RealDoll that Sidore and I often chat with on the Twitter, there’s this tale of a Seattle man who, back in May, received a ticket from a police officer for misusing the HOV lane, as his passenger happened to be an Air Doll. *cue comic trombone*
Humourous as that instance was, fast-forward to this month in Oakville, Ontario: another bloke, another Air Doll, another ticket. Lesson learned: if you’re going to try to get away with that sort of chicanery, you really should use a silicone Doll as your partner-in-crime.

+ Speaking of silicone Dolls, Were You Aware that not only are there a cluster of heart-stoppingly gorgeous new photos of the Yu-ki, Haruhi, Natsuki and Kunika types, modelling the recent A.I.NEO im body, on 4woods‘ website? Well, you are now.

Left, Natsuki, remembering that she’s near-sighted; right, Yu-ki, wishing you would shut the hell up

Not only that, but if you were to place an order for one of their A.I.Dolls, you can have her made with a soft stomach for an additional 30,000 JPY. ‘As of April 2011, using our advance technology, we added a new option of “Soft Stomach Feature” for all our four body types. Not only “breasts”, the area customers touch most, you can now select a soft stomach and enjoy the realistic feel of doll body’, sez the company, it sez. Is that sort of feature worth an additional $372 USD, you ask? Perhaps sir or madame would like to view this video (NSFW)?
When I was in Vegas for AVN last year, I had the opportunity to fondle the boobs of the A.I.Doll that was showcased there, and they were the softest Doll breasts I’d ever felt, ever. I cannot lie; they were like marshmallows, and as I squeezed them over and over, I wept salt tears at their cushiony wondrousness. Keeping that in mind, I’m convinced the new soft stomach will make a wonderful pillow for many a head.

+ American robotics genius David Hanson weighs in on science and technology blog IEEE Spectrum, on the question of ‘Why We Should Build Humanlike Robots‘:

On the tree of robotic life, humanlike robots play a particularly valuable role. It makes sense. Humans are brilliant, beautiful, compassionate, loveable, and capable of love, so why shouldn’t we aspire to make robots humanlike in these ways? Don’t we want robots to have such marvelous capabilities as love, compassion, and genius?

Certainly robots don’t have these capacities yet, but only by striving towards such goals do we stand a chance of achieving them. In designing human-inspired robotics, we hold our machines to the highest standards we know—humanlike robots being the apex of bio-inspired engineering. […]

It is true that humanlike robots are not nearly human-level in their abilities today. Yes, humanlike robots fail. They fall, they lose the topic in conversation, misunderstand us, and they disappoint as much as they exhilarate us. At times these failures frustrate the public and robotics researchers alike. But we can’t give up. Humanoid robots are still in their infancy. Though they falter, the abilities of humanoid robots continue to grow and improve. Just as babies can’t walk, talk, or really do anything as well as adults do, or do anything particularly useful, this doesn’t mean that babies deserve our contempt. Let’s not give up on our robotic children. They need nurturing. And as a researcher in humanoid robotics, I can attest that it’s a pleasure to raise these robots. They are a lot of fun to develop.
the entire article is here

The common man, especially in Western society, seems to believe that once robots acquire some level of cognition and reasoning that comes close to equalling that of humanity, then humanity is Clearly Doomed to be Fleshy Victims of the Robot Apocalypse. Generally, these are people that believe the ‘Terminator’ and ‘Matrix’ franchises are documentaries. The only conceivable reason for this fictional robolution (I apologise) would be that once humanoid robots are more prevalent in society, a lot of them are pretty much going to be slaves, performing tasks or duties that Organiks would avoid doing. Correct me if I’m wrong, but human society has dabbled in slavery before, yes? Any opportunity an Organik is presented with to subjugate a being that he sees as being similar yet unequal to himself is one he’ll take advantage of. Heh, going by that line of thinking, wouldn’t a robot revolution be almost justified? So as we approach a state where Synthetik beings are edging closer to Organik ones in appearance, thought, and action, wouldn’t it be better to start off on the right foot?

+ Newer visitors to ‘Shouting etc etc’ — you know who you are — know about the pro-Doll lifestyle that I’m eternally promoting and would expect the same on my blog, but are probably unaware that it doesn’t stop there, which is why I use the term ‘Synthetik’ so often. You’ll want to take a couple of seconds and hover that so-called mouse pointer of yours over that green underscored word, there. Going from my interactions with people — again, you know who you are — I get a sense that a lot of you aren’t privy to how advanced Android and Gynoid technology is coming along. You spotted Miim-chan above, and do you know of Kokoro co. Ltd‘s Geminoids?

With friends like these, who needs mirrors?

Contemporary genius Hiroshi Ishiguro and his Synthetik twin met with that unnamed model lass and Actroid F (formerly Geminoid F), as well as Prof. Henrik Scharfe of Denmark’s Aalborg University and his recently-built Geminoid DK Doppelgänger, at a summit back in April in Kyoto.

When Scharfe ordered his Geminoid DK bot from Kokoro, the price tag was around $200,000, he told The Vancouver Sun. It took about six months to build.

Scharfe can remotely operate Geminoid DK so that it imitates some of his upper-body movements such as head position and facial expression. Meanwhile, it automatically “breathes” and blinks for a more lifelike effect. “It begins to feel very natural to operate it,” Scharfe tweeted. “Really like a natural extension of my first body.”

Scharfe said he used his clone in a translation experiment when he got together with the other Geminoids.
the entire article is here

Sounds like the world of ‘Surrogates‘ isn’t that far off, then! *rubs hands together gleefully*

+ And finally, Sinthetics have posted new photos of their luscious Tawny, Celeste, Alicia, and Monique Manikins, that I’m sure you’ll find entirely distracting in the best possible way.

Left, Alicia’s striking peaks and valleys; right, Monique, seconds before reminding you her eyes are up there

If pics like that aren’t enough to nudge you towards the pro-Synthetik side of the fence, then frankly, I don’t know what to do with you

Sdtrk: ‘Burning car’ by John Foxx

So I wanted to get this bit in before the week-end, as it’ll be a mildly eventful one (I’ll get to that), as well as the fact that I’ve been horribly neglectful of my writerin’ duties. I’m sure none of you have noticed! With all this time on my hands as of late, I honestly should be ashamed of myself. Actually, I am hanging my head in shame as I type this, which works out rather well, as I tend to look at my fingers when I type. So no shame, no gain, then! Errm.

What’s been percolating at Deafening silence Plus? Well, I’d refused an interview with MTV Brasil last month, as I honestly didn’t think it’d do anyone any good; the brief exchange of Emails we’d had back and forth isn’t even worth discussing, frankly. However, Sidore has successfully gotten me to do new photoshoots of her! At least until it started getting hot out. But three shoots in May, totalling over 170 pics? That’s something to be proud of, I’d say.

Also, you’ll find a new link in das Seidenbär, under the ‘Synthetik friends & friends of Synthetiks’ header, for a relatively new website called Future of Sex. It’s a (mostly) Safe For Work site that ‘provides insights into the fascinating topic of the future of human sex and sexuality. It looks at how communication, interface, biological and other technologies are enabling new expressions of human sexuality, and the individual and societal responses to these significant shifts.’ It’s topical, and definitely worth looking at!

Lastly, the other bit I was supposed to tell you about? The Missus and I will be on TLC’s ‘My Strange Addiction’ again this coming Sunday the 12th, at 9pm EST. It’s a follow-up episode; they’d stopped round with the intention of seeing how the Missus and I were getting on with her girlfriend/my second Doll, but then the bottom fell out of my personal economy, so instead you get to watch me trying my damnedest not to be bitterer than usual, as well as Other Stuff. They filmed for two days, but our segment should be probably less than ten minutes long, so Shi-chan and I will be as surprised as you lot as to what made the final cut. As we usually are in these cases

Sdtrk: ‘…da beißt ein Goldfisch an’ by Brigitt Petry

So I’d recently come to this shocking revelation:

You have singer-songwriter Kate Micucci:

And here’s silicone sexpot Miss January:

Hmm. And has anyone ever seen them in the same room together? Hmmm.
The plot thickens (not really)

Sdtrk: ‘Foehn winds’ by Horrid red

I feel I must offer you all this gaily-coloured basket of cheese wheels apologies, for my reduced lack of posts lately. (Haven’t I said this before? Don’t answer that) For one, I blame Twitter, as its siren song of only 140 characters provides a swift immediacy that a lazy fucker like myself often finds hard to resist. Another, the Missus and I have been busy. Not gettin’ busy — although I’d be a liar if I said we weren’t up that type of activity — but we had a twin media salvo take place on the week-end of the 16th and 17th of this month, the report of which I’ve been steadily working on, and which will be posted before the sun burns out.
But the biggest reason for this current slowdown — and if you follow my Twitter feed, you already know — would be that I was fired from my recent job on the 7th of April. Which was inevitable, I suppose. They cited it as a combination of my number of transfers dropping, which I credit due to the fact that the decent leads we were getting were growing more scarce, plus I ‘just didn’t seem like [you] wanted to be here anymore’. Well, when you have a schedule that’s constantly changing for the worse, reduced hours, reduced pay, and having your health benefits (and free bagels on Monday) being taken away from you, it’s a little hard to remain upbeat about things, job-wise. So I’ve signed on the dole again, and I’m trying to drag myself out of my complacency. WOO YAY

Anyway! What else has been conspiring round Deafening silence Plus, you ask? Do you recall how some poor misguided soul under the employ of ‘Dr’ Phil had asked if I’d wanted to make an appearance on their show, because they apparently weren’t privy to the fact that they’d already previously enquired? Ah heh heh.

from: “Mason, Keya”
to: pulsedemon [at] gmail.com
date: Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 7:24 PM
subject: Ask Oprah’s All Stars

Hi Dave,

We spoke a few months ago about making an appearance on Dr. Phil which you were not interested in. I am now working on another show called Ask Oprah’s All Stars. It’s Oprah’s new show on OWN. I would love to get in touch with you to tell you a little more about it and see if you would be interested in participating. It is a much lighter and fun show. Give me a call so I can tell you more about it.

You can reach me at [phone number]

Keya Mason
Ask Oprah’s All Stars – Associate Producer
Mae West Building
5555 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038

Curiously enough, she’d also CC’d her Email to ‘davecat@davecat.com’ and ‘davecat469@gmail.com’, whoever those poor unfortunates are.
I’ve always viewed Oprah through ambivalence-tinted glasses: I’m not keen on her, but I don’t hate her. Someone’s got to entertain daytime television watchers, and all told, she’s the least poisonous of that crowd. The Onion always manages to get good material out of her, but they get good material out of everything. I was aware that Oprah’s show is (currently?) in its final season, but I had no idea she was extending her reign with this network and another show called ‘Ask Oprah’s All Stars’, for crying out loud. Again, hey, if people dig that sort of thing, fine. But once again, daytime telly = not the best place to discuss the ideals of the iDollator community, Synthetik developments and rights, etc etc. So days later, I Emailed Keya back:

from: pulsedemon [at] gmail.com
to: “Mason, Keya”
date: Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 9:16 PM
subject: Re: Ask Oprah’s All Stars

Hello again Keya —

Thanks for contacting me! Sorry it’s taken a bit for me to get back to you, but I was made redundant by my job earlier this month, so I’m signing on for unemployment, as well as looking for work, and playing catch-up with everything else as well…

At any rate, thank you for the offer! However, what with my recent unemployment busyness, as well as a cluster of other scheduled appearances that Sidore and I will be participating in this Summer, I honestly don’t think we’ll have the time to take part in your programme. These days, I’m trying to get the interviews we take part in to not focus so much on the Missus and I, but of Synthetik humans in general, so we have to pick and choose, as you can imagine. Sorry!

Again, thanks for the offer, and take care!

Cheers,
Davecat, with valued assistance from Sidore

Maybe I was exaggerating a wee bit with the line about the other appearances Shi-chan and I will be making, but we’re not halfway through the year yet, so anything can happen. Or nothing, for that matter! If I could see into the future, I’d be at the racetrack more often.
Did that put our Keya off? Not in the slightest:

from: “Mason, Keya”
to: pulsedemon [at] gmail.com
date: Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 9:21 PM
subject: RE: Ask Oprah’s All Stars

Well if possible I’d like to talk to you about the possibility of the show. Perhaps you have a simple question you could ask Dr. Phil, Suze Orman, or Dr. Oz via webcam or video. There are many ways to possibly work an appearance into the show.

Let me know. Give me a call at [phone number]

Thanks
Keya Mason
Ask Oprah’s All Stars – Associate Producer
Mae West Building
5555 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038

You have to admire her dogged tenacity, if nothing else. And I just now noticed that they’re located in the Mae West building! When did she get a building? Is it a ribald, bawdy structure?
I responded thus:

from: pulsedemon [at] gmail.com
to: “Mason, Keya”
date: Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 12:59 PM
subject: Re: Ask Oprah’s All Stars

Hey Keya —

But I don’t really have any questions for any of those people! Furthermore, I had to look up who Dr Oz and Suze Orman are, as I haven’t watched broadcast television in years. And being honest, I’m not all that keen on Dr Phil, as he tends to be one of the many medical ‘experts’ who choose to pathologise eccentricity and individuality, for the sake of making an attention-grabbing show. Being on a show such as this would be, frankly, a pointless exercise for myself and the Missus at best, and a losing battle for the iDollator community at worst.

Again, I’d like to thank you for the enquiry, and have an excellent day!

Cheers,
Davecat

I mean, really. A question that I could ask them?? First off, I genuinely had to look these humans up: Suze Orman is some sort of finance expert, and Dr Oz is a health expert, and not an Eighties hair metal band from California, as I’d previously assumed. Under normal circumstances, I’d assumed that they’d be asking me questions, not the other way round.
Actually, here; I’ve got some simple questions I just thought of: ‘Ms Orman, how can someone best finance an Actroid or Geminoid of their very own, particularly if the purchaser is currently between jobs?’ or ‘Dr Oz, would consistently lifting one’s Doll be a decent basis for a workout regimen?’ or ‘Dr Phil, why are you such a judgemental shitwick?’ You know.

Is that the lot of them, finally? Have the entire battery of ill-suited daytime chat show hosts asked me now? I sure hope so

Sdtrk: ‘Destination’ by John Foxx and the Maths

For some reason, it feels like I’m a month behind on these. For the sake of argument, I’ll simply blame daylight saving time, as it’s a rubbish practise 50% of the time, anyway. It’s either Happy You’ve Lost An Hour Day!, or it’s ‘Well, ordinarily I’d be getting off work about now, but hey! Looks like I’ll be here for another hour.’ Not that either situation has ever happened to me, o no. *thins lips*

+ According to the website Plastic Pals, a Korean robotics company by the name of SoluBoT debuted their recent winsome Gynoid, Ari-1, at the Industrial Automation Show 2011 Automation World that took place this month. She’s a keeper!

Is it me, or does she resemble a Boy Toy Doll?

SoluBoT worked previously with KiTECH to help them develop Korea’s other famous series of Gynoids, EveR-1 and EveR-2 Muse. Good to see Ari-1 clad in Korea’s national dress, the hanbok, but something more revealing would be obviously better (see ‘Boy Toy Doll’ reference above). Plastic Pals goes on to say that she was developed back in 2006, and was designed primarily to study human-robot interaction. Ari-1 is the right way to study that sort of thing! She’s speaking with you for Science.
AVING has an article which details more about her, but the page is in Korean, so you can look at it here if you like, but if you can make proper sense of it, you need to let me know what was written, as details on Ari-1 in English are few and far between. Okay? Okay!
UPDATE (25 April 2011): Alert reader Paul Cobb has stepped up to the plate, and translated the aforementioned news, which you can read in his comment here. Thanks very much, sir!

+ In last month’s installment, you might well recall the latest head from Vladivostok’s Anatomical Doll, Eco. Like you, I wondered, what could be the story behind that name? Was it a sly reference to overly-intricate postmodern author Umberto Eco? Or was Oleg possibly paying homage to his favourite game for the Sega Genesis, Ecco the Dolphin? No, it’s more interesting than that, as he wrote to me:

This year I start to build the non-polluting house for the family in a reserved wood, is very far from all cities.

My house will be non-polluting, completely independent, receiving energy from the sun.

Keen on this new idea, I have named a new head – “Eco”

More straightforward than you thought, eh? Personally, as I’ve always been a firm believer in names for homes, I think he should call his new home ‘Eco House’.

+ Speaking, as we were, of human-robot interaction, fellow iDollator JM of Synthetically Yours sent me this interesting (‘interesting’ in the Davecat definition of ‘not necessarily completely good or completely bad’) link: How Do People Respond to Being Touched by a Robot?

For people, being touched can initiate many different reactions from comfort to discomfort, from intimacy to aggression. But how might people react if they were touched by a robot? Would they recoil, or would they take it in stride? In an initial study, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology found people generally had a positive response toward being touched by a robotic nurse, but that their perception of the robot’s intent made a significant difference. The research is being presented today at the Human-Robot Interaction conference in Lausanne, Switzerland.

“What we found was that how people perceived the intent of the robot was really important to how they responded. So, even though the robot touched people in the same way, if people thought the robot was doing that to clean them, versus doing that to comfort them, it made a significant difference in the way they responded and whether they found that contact favorable or not,” said Charlie Kemp, assistant professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.

In the study, researchers looked at how people responded when a robotic nurse, known as Cody, touched and wiped a person’s forearm. Although Cody touched the subjects in exactly the same way, they reacted more positively when they believed Cody intended to clean their arm versus when they believed Cody intended to comfort them.
the complete article is here

For one, I used to love ‘Touched By A Robot’. That was a genuinely heartwarming show. Roma Downey as a Gynoid, travelling from city to city, touching people. Sometimes she would hug them, or place a reassuring hand on their shoulder, or simply headbutt them. One pivotal episode had Roma poking someone with a stick. The townspeople were left wondering if being poked with a stick was the same thing as being touched. It was very pivotal. In fact, it pivoted!
Originally, I would’ve simply chalked up a lot of the negative reactions to people not being used to machines behaving like humans, but the article went on to say that similar studies had been conducted with Organik nurses, with much the same result: ‘In general, if people interpreted the touch of the nurse as being instrumental, as being important to the task, then people were OK with it. But if people interpreted the touch as being to provide comfort… people were not so comfortable with that.’ I would say that perhaps one of the focusses should then be employing Synthetiks in more of a non-physical context, like counselors, for example, but artificial intelligence isn’t complex enough yet to handle the labyrinthine pathways of the Organik mind. Hrrm.
Perhaps a study on the reactions of Organiks when Synthetiks physically interact with them in a situation outside of a hospital would be something worth doing. And I don’t mean in the typical context of sex; perhaps massage therapy instead? I’d initially thought of sports, but robotic capability isn’t at that level yet, either. But massage takes advantage of the fact that a masseuse doesn’t move around a tremendous amount, and it’s based on tactile sensation without it being either medically- or sexually-related. Sensual maybe, but not sexual. When a person’s in hospital, they tend to be more tetchy than usual, as they’re dependent on the care of others, and they’re in a very vulnerable state of mind. With a massage session, people look forward to the relaxation that physical contact can bring them; it’s a completely different environment. I think I’m on to something here. I should apply for a grant, as this is a study that seriously should be conducted… This is gold, Jerry! GOLD!

+ As Private island Beauties is a Doll-making company that everyone knows about but works on quieter level, this information nearly evaded my sensors: they’ve created two new heads and a brand-new body recently. For years, their mainstay body was the ‘Bathing Beauty’ — you know her, you love her — but joining that body style is the new ‘Girl Next Door‘, as expertly modeled by Aria, one of the sexy new head sculpts, below.

HOW NOT TO REGARD A PAINTING: from two miles away (left), or less than two inches away (right)

Just what is it that makes the Girl Next Door body so different, so appealing? She’s 20 lbs lighter and five inches shorter than the Bathing Beauty-type, for a start, making her a diminutive 4’9″, 59 lbs. 32.21.33 would be her measurements, and she wears a petite 5.5 shoe. She’s very elfin! In fact, the other new head Patrick Wise created, Bitzy, capitalises on the Girl Next Door-type’s tininess…

The most seductive Keebler elf you’ll encounter

Well done, Patrick! Keep on truckin’! And by ‘truckin”, naturally I mean ‘sculpting relentlessly delicious silicone women’. It’s slang.

+ Finally, I can’t begin to recall where I first saw mention of this, but Ricky Ma Tsz Hang, a bloke in Hong Kong, has assembled an animatronic version of Chinese actress Kelly Chen. O my goodness.

Will she be replacing the Organik Kelly Chen if they make
another sequel to ‘Infernal affairs’?

Of course I had to know more, so I fired off an Email to him. He replied very quickly, which was fab, as information in English on her is decidedly hard to find. Ricky sez, he sez

I’m a graphic designer in Hong Kong. I want to use my totally art & creative skills to make a robot. Last year, I made a decision to create the Kelly Robot because this is my dream. But Hong Kong haven’t any courses about it. Besides, no more spaces, limited money and machine to do ( just use the handy Grinding machine & my hands only) at home. Finally, my dream is come true!

Anyway, please see the details about the Kelly Robot as below :

Measurement:
Tall : 5′ FT 7″ inches
Head : Sculpt by clay (based on the hundreds photo), make the molding and re-molding by silicon. Then use PU to make the Eyes Ball, Skull & teeth, and use the 6 servo for movement of the blink, left and right, up and down of eyes, open mouth, the neck – left and right, up and down. The body, I find the fashion display model and complex mold by soft foam.

Material:
Silicon rubber, PU, servo, mini board, simple computer control system.

He further goes on to say that it took him five months to make her, as due to his day job, he could only spend two hours per day to work on construction, and her material cost ran about $28,000 HKD, or $3592 USD, which isn’t bad. And yes, she does have limited movement! Here’s one of the videos he’d made:

Ricky is currently working on version two of his affictitious Kelly Chen. Maybe when she’s completed, he can ship the old one round to our place! For, errm, science. Yes. A couple of versions later, perhaps we can look forward to her new career as a masseuse!

So that’s March sorted, then! *dusts off hands*

Sdtrk: ‘Reader meets author’ by the Smiths

Recently, Deafening silence Plus took a bold step forward and entered the 21st Century. That’s right — we now have an XBOX 360! I kinda had to purchase one, as a couple of mates gave me games for it this past Chrimbo. There’s currently a small but growing cluster of games in my library — Space invaders: Infinity gene, Pac-man Championship edition Deluxe (blame SafeT for getting me addicted to those two), Bayonetta (of course), Bioshock 1 and 2, and Lost planet 1 and 2 — plus, Zip Gun lent me his copy of Bladestorm, which means I’m entirely overstimulated. Honestly, in order to get away from the insidious clutches of that foul machine so that I could write this post, I had to use Sidore as a sacrifice; she’s playing Bayonetta right now, so I’m not. I knew there was a reason I got her in the first place!

So a number of Saturdays ago, goshou and I did a wee bit of shopping for vidyagaemz. Neither of us managed to find anything that we were looking for, as either the shops we hit were out of stock of what we wanted, or their prices were patently outlandish. However, the most outlandish thing by far we’d seen had to have been this:

Frankly, the pheasant’s the most dangerous of the lot

Seriously, what in the living hell am I looking at? Now, I don’t play hunting videogames, as they’re hunting videogames, and I can’t think of a genre that’s more rigidly boring, except for perhaps golf. Or Drying Paint: The Game. Obviously I’m not the only person who thinks that way, which is undoubtedly why Field & Stream, wanting to drum up sales, had 505 Games’ art department design a compelling, attention-grabbing cover. Having said that, how much do you wanna bet that the scenario depicted on the box art never comes close to taking place in the game? That’s FALSE ADVERTISING. However, I could be wrong — that could be a boss battle.

Here’s an idea that might widen the fanbase of the hunting game genre: I’ve noticed that with the advent of the next-generation series of game consoles, such as the extremely popular WiiStation 720, people seem to dig the whole player-vs-player online experience. Why not… why not apply that experience to hunting games?? One team plays a solitary human player, or, if you like, a small hunting party of no more than five humans, and the opposing team is Team Wildlife. Players on Team Wildlife can select from different animals, which would naturally have various attributes. Choose the Elk, for swift its hit-and-run tactics! Choose the Grizzly, for its brute force attacks and fearsome roar! Choose the Cougar, for frequently tanning, cruising clubs, and hitting on blokes much younger than yourself! O, wait.
But yes! It’s an idea so revolutionary, that it revolves. Any hunting game developers that want to get in on the ground floor of this action — which would be all of you, if you know what’s good for you — you can get in touch with me via my Contact page. Please have chequebook ready!