Tag Archives: evey

If She’s Pretty and Asian… She’s Probably a Computerized Virtual Composite

You can stare. But you can't touch.

NOTE: Made a video about this. Watch it!

So you’re trying to sell some candy in Japan (Glico’s Ice Nomi), and you sign  a pop band that appears to be an SNL parody of Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show (see “fun fact” at end).

Sales are up, but you decide you could sell another 30% of your little sweet and sour confections if only you had a hotter chick endorsing it. Sadly, you’ve picked the best available based humans on in-depth studies of the physical traits that arouse boys and girls… and a DNA composite will set you back two years.

So, duh, you manufacturer a virtual girl, compiled from a composite of the existing girls of the AKB48 band, and you call her it Aimi Eguchi. How much harder can that be than manufacturing virtual candy? Sure news will slip that she’s a fake (see how-to below), but most people won’t know or care. And perhaps weirder than the story itself is this quote from Channel News Asia:

Although Eguchi is not a real person, some observers say she possesses the purest essence of what an idol is – a completely artificial persona created by putting together the traits that fans love the most.

But is that true? I think not. To truly generate the “trait fans love most,” I would suggest turning this “make your own creepy avatar” feature into a “pick your favorite facial features” algorithm. Go ahead and make your own if you have patience for apparently hologram graphics, Japanese text, and music that makes my ears bleed.

Watch the video below at :50 to see how they composited this virtual star.

This girl is not real. I repeat. This girl is not real.

Fun Factoid: Kim Evey plays the host on Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show, is the producer of The Guild (Felicia Day), and is the virtual wife of Greg Benson (MediocreFilms). Here’s her debut, where Benson had his Hollywood friends create Evey v1.2 (at the time she was called XB09-23).

Internet’s Most-Viewed Live Hair Transplant

Well now I’ve seen everything. It seems Greg Benson, the follicularly challenged brains behind MediocreFilms has selected Earth’s best hair-transplant doctor to update his Bosley transplant (see video). With more than 13,000 live viewers via the Internet, this would indeed make hair-transplant history.

Dr. Alan Bauman, who you may know as SurgeonOfNalts, did the work… and now it’s a race to the finish. Will Nalts (me), the YouTube personality who once pitched Propecia, have the best hairline of 2010? Or will Greg? In a great moment of irony, Benson’s sporting the old Propecia mirrors. Ah, the days that we pharmaceutical firms could give out tissue boxes, pens and mirrors. Those were the days.

Benson made me proud when he, like perhaps every male transplant candidate, made the obligatory joke when one of Bauman’s peeps warned him about the loud, wet and cold cleansing-wash machine. It’s funny because it’s predictable, like his inclination to yell “bye MiniMi” before he runs over midgets.

Nearly 3500 new follicles (which represent a few hairs each) may be a record for a minimally invasive (no surgical slice) transplant. Dr. B uses a NeoGraft to do follicular unit extraction (FUE). Cutting edge that’s so cutting edge, it doesn’t require a cutting edge. Here’s a photo of Benson, with wife Kim Evey (producer of TheGuild and star of Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show).

Go, Greg. As YouTube funnyman Mark Day exposed, there are some side effects as I well know. Here’s some footage I just found that someone took of my live Internet broadcast during treatment, and here’s my summary video called “Hair Transplant Fun.”

Also worth watching are the educational videos we both did. Here’s my conversation with Bauman (which summarizes the steps in 5 minutes), and here’s Benson/Bauman talking about the entire procedure. Benson said he slept like a baby after his transplant, which is not what he experienced years before with the traditional surgery from Bosley. In a sequel to Alan’s interview, the duo speak about how even a year ago this 3K plus process wouldn’t have been possible, and about the recovery phase. After 6 months, you don’t notice much, but by 10-12 months you’ll see 90%.

Benson and I spoke recently, and are just gaga over this experience. In my Merck/Propecia capacity, I had lots of insights on the best hair-transplant surgeons. When I asked people who they’d chose, Bauman’s name came up constantly. We both know why.

Benson did it for his acting career, and I did it because 3 years working on a medication that treats hairloss will make you somewhat self conscious.

With all of this buzz, one can only hope that hair-transplants don’t need to be secrets (more on this on my http://www.hairofnalts.com blog). Some of the film and television actors and actresses you love have had these procedures, but you wouldn’t know it. Why?

  1. They don’t talk about it because they feel it would hurt their image.
  2. The doctors can’t reference their celebrity patients… unless they’re weblebrities who chose to take themselves a bit less seriously.