This is just amazing

Animated commercial for The Beatles: Rock Band.

Aside from just being beautiful, it's a trailer that could be an anime. And I would totally watch a Beatles anime. At this point, we are far enough removed from the debut of The Beatles that they are practically legendary. They could be their own animated cartoon and it wouldn't change our perception of them.

If they're archetypes instead of people, can't we just reboot them the way we have, well, all of our cultural icons? I want my Beatles anime, damn it.

Uhhh...

So, the first season of The Deadliest Warrior came to a close with the episode "The IRA vs The Taliban." (Thanks to edgehopper for the heads up that the episode had aired. I thought it wasn't on until tonight...)

Ah...yeah. I've made my objections known about the use firearms and how it should generally exclude ballistics-only soldiers from being "warriors." I renew those objections and the ones I made about weapons that aren't really culturally evolved. Again, a Samurai sword has a history amongst the Samurai warrior class. It evolved to the point where it was replaced by better weaponry. Guns, on the other hand, tend not to have come out of most of the cultures that now rely heavily on them. In this "IRA vs Taliban" match-up, both sides use at least one weapon designed by not just another nation but specifically Russia. That shows you how little effort on the part of the warriors in question went into perfecting those weapons. Again, my objection stems from the fact that anyone could use those guns to kill. It's not that one culture's warrior-ness that made it so effective.

So there's that. But did they really have to add to it by putting two terrorist groups against each other? ( That's just awkward for all involved. )

While I did appreciate a kill counter at the bottom of the re-enactment to help keep track of the remaining forces (something "The Mafia vs The Yakuza" and the aforementioned "Green Beret vs Spetnaz" could have used), I could have done without the codified references. In the opening, the Taliban is referred to as "hard-lined religious extremists" and the IRA is referred to as "bloody urban guerillas who waged a savage war for independence." That's a creative re-imagining of the IRA's role in Northern Ireland if ever I heard one. That's far from the only example, too. The inference is fairly obvious: the IRA are less icky (not really) than the Taliban. While I agree that the Taliban's religious extremisms makes it nigh-impossible to bargain with them, a lack of religion wasn't exactly the IRA's problem, one; and two, they were pretty damned impossible and extremist regardless.

I find things on the internet

I don't know how I find them sometimes, I just do. Have a Flickr pool of steampunk Justice League.

Zatanna is fabulous. Her shoes! TO DIE! And she knows it. Look at that smirk! I kind of love the Nightwing, too. Very classy. I prefer the red-shirt Flash to this one. (Because he looks like Vash the Stampede.)

Other things I love:
-A Power Girl and Supergirl fight!
-The detail on this emblem.
-The steampunk portrait of Superman. (As a side note: OKAY WE GET IT. YOU ARE STEAMPUNK SUPERHEROES. NOW STOP IT WITH THE GOGGLES ALREADY.)
-And one more of Zatanna. Who seriously is made of awesome. Why does she cry?

Kudos to this group. There are weaker members, but even where imagination is lacking (Catwoman? That's supposed to be Catwoman?), the quality of the costume construction is pretty first-rate.