Science Friday will be covering the impact of Sequestration on science and research tomorrow, but they also have a very fun guest: MC Frontalot. He’s not the only Nerdcore artist, but he is my favorite, and he just came out with a new CD, his 5th. Nerdcore is hip-hop for nerds, about computers, video games, science, and being geeky, so he should fit right in with the Sci-Friday crowd. You can listen to it on your local NPR radio station, download the podcast, or stream it live, check this page for the links to listen, or get the app. Or for the full geek effect, log in to Sci-Friday in Second Life and enjoy it in VR. Don’t forget to visit the MC Frontalot web site for the latest updates and tunes.
Oops! Had to fix a bad video link; this one is from the Blender Foundation, so it should stay good. If you haven’t seen it before, Big Buck Bunny was made as a Blender project a few years back, more I think to prove that you could indeed get professional grade animation out of free open source software than any other reason. In the process they made a wonderful little video about a a friendly rabbit gone Rambo and the evil squirrels you will not soon forget. Grab your own free copy of Blender and start creating today!
I enjoy the heck out of online Virtual Reality environments, and this is a perfect example of why; I get to be the Death of Rats (one of my favorite Terry Pratchett characters from his Discworld series), flying one of the Airships featured in the recent Steampunk movie version of the Three Musketeers. The universe these pictures were taken in is Second Life, which has been around for a while but is still an awful lot of fun. I had found that ship an hour or two after the Role Playing class I attended (last picture; it is difficult to see me hidden by the wings of the fairy sitting behind me), where the instructor was a red demoness on a bar stool, with her assistant teacher being a 10 meter long yellow dragon. Some of the smaller non-humans brought their own seating arrangements, like the cushion the mouse lady in the lower right corner of the picture is using.
This week we have a particularly silly title: Gnomeo and Juliet. It takes the classic Shakespeare tale and applies it to garden gnomes, by way of some of the folks involved with the Shrek series of feature length films. This one comes in 3D and is silly fun of the family friendly variety. If you want something a bit more gritty and adventurous, The Eagle takes place in the 2nd century British islands, an environment so alien to the modern world it might as well be on another planet. The 9th Legion of the Roman Empire had disappeared several years before the story opens, with a son of the expeditions leader out to figure out what happened to them.
A whole lot of titles being released, or mostly re-released, this week hoping to ride on the coattails of the new Green Hornet movie. The Green Hornet: Movie Edition, The Green Hornet: Original Serials, and Kato & The Green Hornet are all repackaging of the 1940 Green Hornet serials from Universal Studios. Note that the one that starts off with Kato’s name is coming out of South Africa and being sold predominantly across Asia. I find it disappointing that I have located no reference to the 1960s Bruce Lee TV show being re-released this week, as existing editions are a bit pricey if you can track a legal copy down at all. However, The Jade Tiger is going on the shelves Tuesday, so martial arts fans will have something new to watch.
The animated feature film this time around is Alpha and Omega, which has some quality animation work and an excellent vocal cast. It is targeted at the younger set, so don’t expect anything too profound out of the plot line, but a good choice for sharing with the family.
Interestingly enough, 2010’s Piranah 3D is actually being released on 3D Blu-Ray this week, while 1989’s Alien from the Deep seems to have neither a Blu-Ray or 3D version. Personally, I won’t be seeing either one, not being a horror fan.
On TV, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea: Season 4, Vol. 2 finishes up the final episodes of that series, so you can now have the entire thing in your collection. As with almost any other TV program from the 60’s (Star Trek and Twilight Zone being the notable exceptions) it is a bit campy, but still fun.
In Anime, 11 Eyes: The Complete Collection tells the story of two friends who are transported into the strange world of Red Night, and must vanquish evil spirits and other foes in order to escape. The other selection is Black Butler – Season 1 Part 1, about a boy who trades his soul for revenge on those who murdered his parents, and the Demon Butler who dismembers his enemies. You can watch it on Hulu to help you decide if you want it in your collection.
If you are looking for something lighter than those two, there is an anime series about an Otaku girl who’s secret hobby is gradually revealed to her friends and family I can recommend: Oreimo. It is currently streaming online for free over at Anime News Network, and every Sci-Fi, Manga, Anime, or Gamer Fan will recognize a bit of themselves in this one. They just posted the final episode the other week, so you can watch the whole thing in one go if you like; it is almost addictive enough that you might even if you don’t intend to.
When Nintendo rolls out a new product, usually it has a smattering of in-house titles for it, with half of them playable, and half vaporware, depending on third party products to take up the slack. Not so this time, acording to Japanator; there will be 32 in-house games on display for the Nintendo 3DS, their portable 3D gaming platform. You won’t need special glasses to get the 3D effects, although as with most new optical systems there will be a brief learning curve while your eyes figure out the trick to viewing it. The percentages will be about normal though, with 15 playable games and another 17 game trailers. They are taking over Chiba City’s Makuhari Messe Hall 9, the same town featured in so many early William Gibson stories, and the same venue used for the Tokyo Game Show each September. I am not much of a gamer, but this is one system I am looking forward to. For a full list of which games are real and to see coverage of the actual event, go to Nintendo World 2011. The event will run January 8th, 9th, and 10th.