PBS as a whole has a great Best of Briton segment going this summer, first to cover the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and then expanding to all things entertaining from the empire. Brand new this week however is WETA-UK, a round the clock celebration of the best of British TV. And because it is just starting, you can catch the first episode of a lot of series right now. Episode 1 of Fawlty Towers takes place at 12:30PM EST tomorrow, Sunday June 10th, for example (if you are outside of the Maryland/DC/Virginia area, check your local cable lineups for exact times; if your service does not carry it, ask for it). An hour later will be the first episode of My Hero, a comedy about an Alien adapting to life on Earth while chasing the human woman of his dreams. Immediately following that is episode one of season 1 of the new Doctor Who series, where Rose Tyler gets told by The Doctor Run For Your Life. When that one ends, we get two episodes back to back of Red Dwarf, episodes 1 and 2 from season 1. I know where my TV is going to be set on Sunday afternoons from now on! Then at 8:30PM EST tomorrow, later the same day, we get the next Fawlty Towers episode, followed by Primeval season 1 episode 2, the next Doctor Who episode, and then 4 episodes of Red Dwarf including episodes 3 and 4 from season 1. I somehow missed seeing when episode 1 of Primeval was, but I suspect they may have a glitch or two in their electronic program guide. Guess I will just set my TV on the channel in the morning and let it ride all day, to make sure I don’t miss anything.
Terrestrial Human
This picture from Klein Mania gets my vote for Image Of The Week!
Creating animations using buildings as your canvas… I had to say it right up front, because no matter how I worded the title of this post, it never actually meant what it really is, even though it may have accurately said it. As a person who created his very first animations by drawing pictures in the upper right corner of every fourth grade textbook page I was forced to use, and then flipped through them to see them actually move, these artists have my respect. They do a complete base painting on some large real world object, such as a building or vehicle, and take a picture. Then they change one or more parts of the painting, and take a picture. Then they change something else, and take a picture. Hundreds or sometimes thousands of pictures later, they have a video which can then be save as an animated GIF. When your canvas might be 30 foot tall by 50 foot wide or greater, this can turn into a time consuming process, to say the least. Even so, some amazing work has been done in this field, and more is being created every month. The original article telling us about this is courtesy of the Huffington Post, as many of the more unusual projects are.
Doctor Steel’s Fibonacci Sequence is a great example of Heavy Metal Nerdcore, not a well-represented music sub-genre but one with some very interesting songs. His roots were always in his Steampunk background, and I don’t think he got to perform with his Robot Band on stage live since they kept breaking down, but you have to appreciate his attitude and attempts.
Becky Stern bills herself as a DIY Guru and head of wearable electronics at Adafruit Industries, itself a company founded by a former MIT student known as Lady Ada. I got one of those ear to ear grins when I saw this one, and as I know some geeks that do cross stitching, I had to post this for them. If you would like to create one of these for your own, you can download the instructions in PDF format and check out their instructions page for additional background and support. Of course, you can also pick up the kit if you don’t already have the materials available. Thanks to Laughing Squid for the heads up on this one.
The primary movie this week is obviously Prometheus, the Alien prequel starring amongst others Noomi Rapace, and I really can’t think of anyone better to be handed the Ripley torch. If you are looking for something a little more lighthearted, or just more suitable for the younger crowd, then Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted is silly fun for the whole family. I may just have to do both.