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The Duleks is an interesting home made video series which claims to have no relationship to Doctor Who or the Daleks. I am not sure how long they will be around, but figured I should post the first episode here so everyone could catch a glimpse of it. Along with some rather good satellite tracking software and a bunch of other machinima, it is the product of Satscape Films mastermind Scott Hather, and the series has now been nominated for an Ollie Award.

Rock Lobster by the Bit-52’s, the New Zealand band The Trons practicing before hitting the stage for their Berlin gig, Pat Metheny’s Orchestrion project; From technology new and old, Robot Rock has been alive and about in the world for quite a few decades now.

Sadly, the best bet this weekend is an American remake of a movie that was perfect to start with. Let Me In can only have been made for people who can not read, because the films being in Swedish and therefore needing subtitles was the only drawback to Let The Right One In for English speakers. I expect the US remake to be very disappointing, since the original was brilliant and riveting even with the subtitles; you might as well try to remake the first film in that other world-class Swedish film trilogy Män Som Hatar Kvinnor (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). Oh, wait, I think they are…

The winner in the movie category this week is obviously Iron Man 2, a film that built on the premise of the first one and ran with it. Of particular interest is the way it fleshed out more of the Avengers arc and back story, and introduced several new characters with Black Widow being the best represented. The other movie this week is no slouch, even if nowhere near as well known: Suck is a rock-and-roll vampire film with some real bite, and a cast that includes Malcolm McDowell as Eddie Van Helsig, Nicole de Boer, Rob Stefaniuk, Jessica Paré, Iggy Pop, Alice Cooper, Moby, Henry Rollins, and more. It picked up at least seven awards including ones from the Toronto IFF, SXSW, and Fantasia.

Live Action TV series include Legend of the Seeker: The Complete Second Season, based on the Terry Goodkind novels, and not much else that I have seen.

In the field of western animations, the important releases are the final two seasons of Red VS. Blue, Red vs. Blue: Recollection which is season 7, and Red vs. Blue: Revelation, season 8. With these, the entire run of Red VS. Blue is available to play even on TVs with no web interfaces.

There are several Anime releases this week, including Bleach Box Set 6, another season of our favorite Soul Reapers in action. If you want to watch some of these online, including the latest episodes as they air in Japan, you have a couple of choices; Crunchyroll, where a premium membership allows you to watch the latest episode an hour after it airs in Japan, and Viz Anime, where you can see the released in the US episodes as well as the current season only a week or two after they played in Tokyo.

Also out, Hell Girl: Three Vessels Collection 1 does not let go of the pressure generated in seasons 1 and 2, but continues to build on it. Season 3 collection 2 of Hell Girl will be available at the end of November, if you were wondering, and I can’t say I am very surprised to learn there is conflict in Hell. Kaze No Stigma: Season 1 is the story of a family of Fire Users who banished one member who later returned as a very powerful Wind Spirit controller to challenge them all. Nabari No Ou: The Complete Series gives you a taste of what it is to be a Ninja with a hijutsu (hidden technique) that can control all other Ninja’s, much in the spirit of One Ring to Rule Them All. All three of these tales fit in here because they are fantasies from my perspective, but in terms of the cultures which created each of these stories (and yes, like the US, Japan is not a monolithic society, no matter how much the multinational corps try to homogenize us all into one big consumer culture) is told from a world view considered the core reality by its society members.

Today, September 25th, is Museum Day; the museums you can find from that Smithsonian locator link are all free to the public today. All you have to do is download a ticket, print it out, and take it with you to get free access for two adults to any one of hundreds of museums coast to coast. Which should be a good warm up for next month’s event…

This one looks very interesting; from October 10th to the 24th this year the USA Science & Engineering Festival will take place in the Washington, D.C. area. Billing itself as the the country’s first national science festival, it already has over 500 organizations signed up to participate, and will end with a two day Expo in the nation’s capital. This event will give science & engineering groups the opportunity to present themselves to the public with hands-on science activities to inspire the next generation of researchers and developers. The teams involved are wide ranging, and include such diverse outfits and events as the 4H National Youth Science Day, the You Can Do The Cube competition, a presentation from Hollywood Movie Physics, and the Versatile Mr. Freeze from FermiLabs, to name but a few. And yes, you can follow them on a boatload of social media tools, including Twitter.