The Zoo over Ambuscade Street

To all the people who recommended Petite Princess Yucie:

Thank you. Next time, beat me over the head a little harder, so I don't wait until the entire series is out to start watching it. So good!

There is no way in hell that I'm signing up for any hardware that a manufacturer could "blow up" practically at whim. Not to mention the, um, technical difficulties involved with any piece of equipment in my house maintaining a permanent connection to the internet. I can't even get a freaking permanent phone line, and I'm supposed to have a permanent internet connection for a damn DVD player!?! No thanks.

This, however, is freaking cool, and has interesting implications for security procedures - probably only (or primarily) at much higher classification levels than anything I'd work with, but still. Cool.

( Upstairs, Downstairs Season 4 Disc 2 spoilers )

I don't think I can stress how amazingly good this show is. Season 4 deals with WWI and the changes it wrought in society. It's been almost painful watching the blind optimism of the beginning change into the broken men on leave and the baffled women who have to somehow deal with them.

I think it's interesting - the constant flood of information we're subjected to on a daily basis changes us, and has changed us as a people. Fainting because of the way an ulcerated leg looks? Not likely today with far more gruesome imagery on prime time television. And the very lack of violent imagery in daily life allowed the British government (and others, I'm sure, but this show focuses on England) to keep the population at home in such shocking ignorance about the state of things, making them even less capable of handling the damaged men (and I'm not talking physically) who returned.

That couldn't happen now - instead, we're so used to shocking violence that casualty lists barely merit a glance. I think we've become far too jaded about...everything. Nothing is shocking, nothing is too outrageous, nothing motivates us to the same heights of daring.

I'd ponder more on this, but Erik just arrived with some Famous Dave's beef brisket. I'll end with this:

This series is brilliant.