Isoroku Takano, a Japanese pilot shot down over Bougainville Island in 1943, is thrown through a time slip and allowed to relive his life, retaining all the memories of his former existance. Teaming up in 1941 with another time-traveller, Yasuburo Otaka, he seizes power in the Japanese government. With Otaka as prime minister and Takano leading the armed forces, the Japanese demand that Western powers pull out of Asia. When the Americans refuse to comply, the Japanese declare war and bomb Pearl Harbor.
Foiling the evil American plans for the atom bomb, the Japanese push the enemy back to Christmas Island, using the foe's own weapon against them. As the fighting rolls down from the Torres Strait to the Tasman Sea, U.S. President Roosevelt has a heart attack and dies. Scared at the Japanese victories, Hitler declares war on his one-time allies. The Japanese navy blows up a Third Reich atomic facility on Madagascar, and, in a desperate attempt to curb Nazi advances, launches suicide attacks in the Red Sea. By 1946, a stalemate leads to espionage operations in California and Manchuria, and the Nazis launch a U-boat counterattack in the Indian Ocean.
Based on the long series of novels by Yoshio Aramaki, Deep Blue Fleet takes a very different approach toward the pacifist posturings more commonly seen in English-language anime. Ironically, this "alternate history" has more in common with genuine WARTIME ANIME, but it coyly extricates itself from the real issues of WWII. Mixing the second chances of EMBLEM TAKE 2 with the historical reenactment of ANIMENTARY, the series dispenses with the Allied enemy relatively quicklythere is just enough time to self-righteously shoo them out of the Pacific before more acceptable foes enter the fray. From that point on, the story is an excuse for a series of battles utilizing Axis weapons and vehicles that never left the drawing board. Compare to Ted Nomura's U.S. comic World War II: 1946, which places similar emphasis on "what-if" technology.
A one-shot special, Secret Launch of the Sorai (1997), features two engineer brothers working on a secret project, who see American planes in the air and launch ahead of schedule to thwart the 1942 Doolittle bombing raid on Tokyo. It is Deep Blue Fleet in a nutshella famous Japanese defeat turned into a victory. Though some may claim that the series' value lies in its painstaking research, the Doolittle raiders are flying B-30s instead of historically accurate B-25s.
After the initial 19 episodes, the series continued as Fleet of the Rising Sun (Kyokujitsu no Kantai), directed by Hiromichi Matano and backtracking a year to 1945 and the launch of Japan's latest battleship, the Yamato Takeru, which immedietly trounches Germany's Bismarck II. The flagship soons leads a fleet to Europe where, amid its spats with Hitler, it takes time out to shell Britain. As with earlier episodes, the result is an unnerving window on a very different world, one that holds the sick fascination of a traffic accident.
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Oh, yeah, won't be seeing that fansubbed soon. But I'd really like to watch it in a train-wreck watching sort of way.

If there is one game you play this year, for the love of all that is holy, play BioShock. The demo came out for X360 a night or two ago and it is HOLY SHIT awesome. Looking forward to the PC demo to see how it runs on my hardware.*********
Touched By His Noodly Appendage
www.venganza.org

For three hundred years vampires the Church of the Brotherhood and human beings have lived in peaceful co-existence but when a rogue vampire starts killing humans, a human cop and a vampire cop must team up before a war between the two races erupts.
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www.perfect-creature.com/
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A very, very cool piece of low-key alt-history: a 17th century alchemist discovered advanced genetic manipulation, creates plagues that decimates the human race and also inadvertently creates vampires. Start from there and go forth from there.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=I...ed&search=
*dies laughing*
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm

Lullaby
Hush now baby don't you cry
Rest your wings my butterfly
Peace will come to you in time
And I will sing this lullaby
Know though I must leave my child
That I would stay here by your side
And if you wake before I'm gone
Remember this sweet lullaby
And oh, through darkness, don't you ever stop believing
With love alone, with love you will find your way
My love
The world has turned the day to dark
I leave this night with heavy heart
When I return to dry your eyes
I will sing this lullaby
Yes I will sing this lullaby

Josh Groban-Awake Album
My first thought is that of an area "go to sleep" effect for everyone around Doug. However, I wouldn't recommend playing this in the Potter step with Harry around. Especially on Hallows Eve. It just might bring back the ghost of Lilly Potter back.

Weeping
I knew a man who lived in fear.
It was huge, it was angry, it was drawing near.
Behind his house, a secret place
Was the shadow of the demon he could never face.
He built a wall of steel and flame
And men with guns, to keep it tame.
Then, standing back, he made it plain
That the nightmare would never ever rise again.
But the fear and the fire and the guns remained.
It doesn't matter now.
It's over anyhow.
He tells the world that it's sleeping.
But as the night came 'round
I heard it's lonely sound.
It wasn't roaring, it was weeping.
And then one day the neighbors came.
They were curious to know about the smoke and flame.
They stood around outside the wall,
But of course there was nothing to be heard at all.
"My friends," he said, "we've reached our goal.
The threat is under firm control.
As long as peace and order reign
I'll be damned if I can see a reason to explain,
Why the fear and the fire and the guns remain."
It doesn't matter now.
It's over anyhow.
He tells the world that it's sleeping.
But as the night came 'round
I heard it's lonely sound.
It wasn't roaring, it was weeping.

In normal use, I'd say demon containment/imprisonment, though the effects would only last as long as the song. In the Potter step, it might just detail every shenanigan the Fudge ministry had ever done.
The last one I don't have an idea on it.
In Her Eyes
She stares through my shadow
She sees something more
Believes there's a light in me
She is sure
And her truth makes me stronger
Does she realize
I awake every morning
With her strength by my side
I am not a hero
I am not an angel
I am just a man
A man who's trying to love her
Unlike any other
In her eyes, I am
This world keeps on spinning
Only she stills my heart
She's my inspiration
She's my northern star
I don't count my possessions
But all I call mine
I will give her completely
'Til the end of all time
I am not a hero
I am not an angel
I am just a man
A man who's trying to love her
Unlike any other
In her eyes, I am
In her eyes I see the sky
And all I'll ever need
In her eyes time passes by
And she is with me
I am not a hero
I am not an angel
I am just a man
A man who's trying to love her
Unlike any other
In her eyes, I am
In her eyes, I am

When I first heard this I thought it could be used in a Sailor Moon step- Mamoru and Usagi's relationship. But I think it could be used better in the OMB step. The song describes K1's relationship with Belldandy from his POV to a tee. What's interesting is that the refrain is sung with a staccato beat. If you change "angel" to "Angel", it might sound snarky.
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

Last week's Inquirer "top whatever" list was The INQUIRER Top 12 Songs About Technology. Now, with a topic like that, there's bound to be something that might give Doug a power, right?
Well, maybe. Discounting the purposeful mondegreen, the songs with dangerous or nonsensical lyrics, and the Neil Young song, the list gets much shorter. Here's what I came up with for powers from the two that were left:
Are Friends Electric?, Gary Numan (lyrics) - disables any self-aware robot in the area of effect. (One that Noah would not have let Doug play while he was visiting Stellvia, even if it wasn't a power song...)
Digital Man, Rush (lyrics) - gives him a robot-like body with every sensor he can imagine and a force field, but also makes him even more impulsive than normal and easier to track.

-Rob Kelk
"Read Or Die: not so much a title as a way of life." - Justin Palmer, 6 June 2007
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

It takes a very special kind of stupid to come up with something like this:
www.plotpatents.com
What. The. Fuck?
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm

The original essay was posted in the New York Times, thus making Canadian politics relevent!
To those who don't follow Canadian politics, the guy who wrote this essay, Michael Ignatieff (Ig-naughty-eff - "you" on the end is optional) was almost the leader of the Liberal Party, which made him almost the undeclared King Of Canada. Believe it or not, he was like a rock star for a couple months there. Mostly because we all wanted Pierre Trudeau back and if you looked at Ignatieff and squinted when he was saying something condescending, it almost seemed like... well... never mind.
I didn't support him during his race for the Liberal leadership, mostly because I didn't like several of his political positions and was dubious how well an academic that spent most of his life outside Canada would fare hopping into federal politics almost instantly upon returning. Thus making me almost as smart as a bus driver! I feel so proud.

I was exchanging e-mail with my sister about Deathly Hallows a couple of weeks ago, and admitted that rather than wait to read it, I'd gone to Wikipedia to look up spoilers. She'd asked how much I knew. Although fairly sure she'd finished the book, I gave a very sketchy, nine-word summary -- and then, unable to resist the Dark Side, added:

Quote:

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Maybe I'm sentimental, but the revelation that Voldemort was cloned from Elvis by space aliens not only explained a lot I hadn't understood, but it made me want to hug him and tell him it'd be all right.

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And it's not about to improve much.
Due to financial reasons, I've cut most of my unessential monthly fees and City of Heroes is included in that. I don't know how long it'll last, but it'll probably be a while.