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Terrestrial Human

Something to Watch: DVDs, 11Mar13

The only genre movie this week is a parody, The Hungover Games, making fun of The Hunger Games, The Hangover, and Ted, to name just a few. I also have to mention Lost in Thailand, which came out on DVD a week or two back, and is pretty much the Chinese version of The Hangover.

In TV, while there is no genre releases, the BBC series Vikings is a look at what was really driving the repeated Viking raids on the British Isles over the course of several centuries (800 to 1150, give or take 30 years at each end).

In Anime Accel World: Set 2, the combat continues as the Brain Burst Linker’s vie to see who gets to rule the Accelerated World. If Arita can not defeat the new menace he could lose everything and everyone that he cares about.This ox set includes the 12 episodes of the second set, plus 8 mini-episodes of associated silliness. Ikki Tousen: Xtreme Xecutor is the 4th round of battle-induced clothing malfunctions as the Dragon’s Powers determines who wins and who loses. This series gives a whole new meaning to school rivalries, as the street brawlers meet for some reincarnated mayhem.

Justice in Psycho Pass is based on the Dominator, a futuristic weapon that can read minds and assess the probability that a citizen will turn criminal. This tool is wielded by the Enforcers and Inspectors who have replaced police, judges, and jury with heavy caliber instant justice of the extreme prejudice kind. At the other end of the social spectrum, The Pet Girl of Sakurasou: Collection 2 is all about the care and feeding of the terminally unworldly.

DOLL＄BOXX

DOLL＄BOXX is a five to seven woman rock band from Japan (some members seem to be there intermittently as other projects draw them away), formed when the band Gacharic Spin joined forces with Fuki, the lead singer from Lightbringer. Both bands continue to record and tour separately, and both are very good, but I really like the music they created together. The first track is their song Take My Chance from 2012, the second is 2013’s Ｍｅｒｒｉｌｙ　Ｈｉｇｈ　Ｇｏ　Ｒｏｕｎｄ.

Doctor Who: Every Story 1963-2013

This video really is Doctor Who: Every Story 1963-2013, as compiled by the good folks at BabelColour. 13 Doctors in 13 minutes! And they don’t (he doesn’t would be more accurate, for even if his videos are group efforts, there is only one mind driving these productions) just cover the primary TV series; they also include the spinoffs, the specials, the webisodes, the games, and so much more. There is logic in the things he does not include as well; enjoy.

UPDATE: As some folks were kind enough to point out to me (see the comments), this is not a group effort, but the work of one person, named Stuart. That definitely makes this even more impressive than I thought it was when I believed there was an entire production team behind this video. The flip side of that is, I could have sworn the credits at the end of the video acknowledged other people who contributed to the production, several doing voice over work, one creating the music mix, and so forth. I suspect this may be a difference in degree, not kind, since the director always has the vision of what the final product will be, and assembles and edits the various parts of the production team’s work into that final result, after assigning them each their tasks and explaining what he/she needs from them.

How To Learn Anything in 20 Hours

And you can learn how to do that in 20 minutes, by watching this excellent TED video by Josh Kaufman. If you are not already a major TED fan, you should check the project out. This is the way to help yourself become the best version of you that you can create; by learning how to learn, and grow, and develop. This particular lesson is only the tip of the iceberg.

Happy Mardi Gras!

To everyone who did make it this year, from all of us who wish we were there: Happy Mardi Gras, New Orleans! Hope you get the Baby in your King Cake! And nothing really says Mardi Gras quite so much as a song or three from Professor Longhair; enjoy.