Happy Puppy Vintage Computers

To begin with, trenches were built to last, with concrete washplaces and other amenities. Later, the constant shifting of the Front Line made this unrealistic.

When the outside instruction begins, George (who will soon be in the army), tells the Georginas how to step up a ladder so as to avoid making any mistakes ....

When U.S. and Soviet troops met at the Elbe River in 1945, there were smiles and hugs and even dancing to celebrate the imminent defeat of Nazi Germany. But the camaraderie between the Allies was short lived as suspicion grew and tension arose over the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. This video shows the jubilation at the Elbe as well as the speech, delivered less than a year later by Winston Churchill, in which the term "Iron Curtain" first rang out. The cold war had begun, and campaigns of propaganda took both the U.S. and the Soviet Union by storm. The major events of the Cold War are covered well in this video, and interviews with participants and well-chosen archival footage show the real dangers--and some of the absurdity of the times. The open warfare in Korea is seen in propaganda films produced by both sides, and participants in other major events, such as the 1956 Hungarian uprising and the 1961 building of the Berlin Wall, are interviewed. Among the gems of footage shown are snippets of the famous "Kitchen Debate" between Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and a bizarre U.S. newsreel in which residents of a small Wisconsin town dramatize what would occur in a Communist takeover. Brave New World is a lively depiction of the Cold War, as both a solid history of and an engaging view of it. --Robert McNamara

"We knew our society was just and that capitalism was terrible and people were exploited. That's what we were taught. It didn't matter how badly I lived now, I hoped it would get better. I believed Stalin and knew that life would improve." - Tamara Banketik, Russia. Just over fifty years ago, Soviet and American troops met on the banks of the river Elbe and rejoiced at the defeat of Nazi Germany. The mood was one of camaraderie between Allies, and their optimism was shared by the liberated populations of Europe. Brave New World tracks the building tension between these two superpowers, from the post-war world of the late 1940s through the early 1960s, as the hope for peace swiftly disintegrates into a "cold" war of competing ideologies between East and West. The people remember: meeting on the Elbe, refugees in Europe, Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill at Fulton, Nikita Khrushchev, propaganda wars, NATO, Berlin blockade, Korea, Hungarian uprising, Berlin Wall.

CBS Video Library.

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If you really want to jump online for a massive gaming experience, The Station Access Collection is your complete ticket. This collection gives you five award-winning, massively multiplayer online games, with 30 days free game time for each included for new accounts. The Station Access Collection includes Planetside: Aftershock, Star Wars: Galaxies, The Matrix Online, Everquest: Evolution and Everquest II. All excellent and engaging games by themselves, this collection represents all the online gaming you are going to need for a long time. Planetside: Aftershock throws you into a futuristic all-out-war on the continents of Auraxis. View larger. Planetside: Aftershock Planetside: Aftershock is itself a compilation that includes PlanetSide, with the Core Combat expansion pack and the new BattleFrame Robotics action pack included. This game throws you into a futuristic all-out-war on the planetary continents of Auraxis, where you must engage your enemies in large-scale battles or tactical base assaults. Players must decide upon their allegiance and enlist in the army of their choice amongst three unique empires fighting for total domination. As battles are fought and experience gained, characters can choose to advance in more than 30 different combat specialties, including infantry, sniper, stealth commando, engineer, hacker, medic, pilot, driver and more. And with the new BattleFrame Robotics pack, players are put in control of giant mechanized robots, each with multiple weapons systems at their command. Star Wars: Galaxies is a role-playing game based on the popular movie series. View larger. Star Wars: Galaxies Star Wars: Galaxies lets you create a character by choosing from male or female versions of eight different Star Wars races, including humans and wookiees, as well as the fish-faced mon calamari, the bug-eyed rodians, and more. The most important part of the character creation process is choosing your starting profession, whether is be as the artisan, brawler, entertainer, marksman, or scout. Then you must grow your character by gaining experience points, not simply by generically killing monsters or completing typical missions you'll find in other role-playing games, but rather by repeatedly using the specific skills that are most important to your character. The basic starting professions actually branch off into more than 20 different advanced professions, which become available as you master the skill paths of your starting profession. It's easy to enter into combat in Star Wars: Galaxies, as characters need only venture a short distance from any of the various starting locations before they will run into myriads of creatures that can be killed for experience points. Star Wars: Galaxies' fighting characters have access to different special abilities that can cause more damage or hinder the abilities of their enemies in some way, and these characters will gain new abilities as they improve their skills. Thanks to its impressive visuals, authentic Star Wars music and sound effects, Star Wars: Galaxies will get you as close to living in the Star Wars universe as you'll ever be. The Matrix Online is a turn-based combat game that puts you directly in the middle of Matrix itself. View larger. The Matrix Online The Matrix Online puts you directly in the middle of Matrix itself, a place also known as the Metro World, and the story line picks up after the conclusion of The Matrix Revolutions. It is a time of uneasy truce between humans and machines, with a third group called the exiles -- self-aware programs that have their home in the Matrix -- that further complicates matters. You play as a newly awakened "redpill," a human freed from servitude and made recently conscious of the nature of the Matrix and the state of the real world. Being human, you start out in the service of Zion, who'll help train you to survive and even thrive in The Matrix. But for you rabble rousers, you'll soon have the option of choosing to align yourself with any of the three organizations vying for domination of the Matrix. One of the more compelling features of The Matrix Online is how it doesn't force you to lock yourself into a particular character profession; instead the game allows you to customize your character's proficiencies and make dramatic changes to your skill set on the fly. Also, each character's set of statistics, such as perception and belief, predispose them toward one style of play or another. Gameplay is primarily turn-based combat that occurs during randomly generated missions in search of targets or objects. You earn currency, experience points, and loot (such as weapons and other items) from accomplishing missions and defeating opponents. Many missions have multiple stages, and while it's possible to finish them on your own, it's much more efficient to plow through them with a group of other players. The Matrix Online allows players to form groups of up to a dozen, called "crews," that are more permanent in nature, and multiple crews can come together to form a "faction." In addition to fighting foes using hand-to-hand combat, guns, and viruses, characters can create useful items by "compiling" them. One of the most enticing aspects of The Matrix Online is the promise of an evolving storyline that develops based on each players' actions, ensuring that you will keep coming back not just for the thrill of the game, but in order to see how the story turns out. Both Everquest games -- Evolution and Everquest II -- take place in the world of Norrath. View larger. Everquest: Evolution and Everquest II As the game that originally helped create the market for the massive multiplayer online role-playing genre, the Everquest line of role-playing games require little explanation. Both Everquest games -- Evolution and Everquest II -- take place in the world of Norrath, but in Everquest II Norrath has been stricken by a cataclysmic event that caused civilization to virtually collapse, leaving only two main metropolises intact. In both Evolution and Everquest II, you must choose your character's race, profession, and alignment before you head out in to the world to gain experience, win renown, and hopefully become rich and powerful beyond your wildest dreams. EverQuest: Evolution features the original game plus all of the expansion packs released so far, including The Ruins of Kunark, The Scars of Velious, The Shadows of Luclin, The Planes of Power, and The Legacy of Ykesha. Everquest II includes the new world order, a ton of original content, breathtaking new graphics, and several tweaks to gameplay, such as a purely player-versus-environment gameplay design that removes the original Everquest's option of attacking other players. As one of the most participated in and deeply developed massively-multiplayer online games ever created, both Everquest: Evolution and Everquest II will provide you with virtually endless entertainment and challenges.

Sony Online offers the Station Access Collection, a collection of massive multiplayer online games. These MMOs will introduce you to of a real-time, permanent gaming world. Become a soldier, a tradesman, a hero or a villain -- entire universes are wide open, waiting for you to explore them. Features Planetside Aftershock, Everquest II, Star Wars Galaxies, Everquest Evo, and Matrix Online.

In Conquest Of The Empire you'll relive the fun and challenge of the classic Milton-Bradley board game. It is set during the Roman era and depicts a civil war in the Mediterannean as rival factions attempt to take control of the empire. Take control of Caesar and guide Rome to wealth and glory.

This is a Star Wars Big Fun Book to color! Activities include coloring, word scrambles, word search, identification, mazes, and much much more! 96 pages. Made in the USA!

Batman Begins explores the origins of the Batman legend and the Dark Knight's emergence as a force for good in Gotham. In the wake of his parents' murder, disillusioned industrial heir Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) travels the world seeking the means to fight injustice and turn fear against those who prey on the fearful. He returns to Gotham and unveils his alter-ego: Batman, a masked crusader who uses his strength, intellect and an array of high tech deceptions to fight the sinister forces that threaten the city.Product Measures: 0.5 x 5.5 x 7.5

Batman Begins discards the previous four films in the series and recasts the Caped Crusader as a fearsome avenging angel. That's good news, because the series, which had gotten off to a rousing start under Tim Burton, had gradually dissolved into self-parody by 1997's Batman & Robin. As the title implies, Batman Begins tells the story anew, when Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) flees Western civilization following the murder of his parents. He is taken in by a mysterious instructor named Ducard (Liam Neeson in another mentor role) and urged to become a ninja in the League of Shadows, but he instead returns to his native Gotham City resolved to end the mob rule that is strangling it. But are there forces even more sinister at hand? Co-written by the team of David S. Goyer (a veteran comic book writer) and director Christopher Nolan (Memento), Batman Begins is a welcome return to the grim and gritty version of the Dark Knight, owing a great debt to the graphic novels that preceded it. It doesn't have the razzle dazzle, or the mass appeal, of Spider-Man 2 (though the Batmobile is cool), and retelling the origin means it starts slowly, like most "first" superhero movies. But it's certainly the best Bat-film since Burton's original, and one of the best superhero movies of its time. Bale cuts a good figure as Batman, intense and dangerous but with some of the lightheartedness Michael Keaton brought to the character. Michael Caine provides much of the film's humor as the family butler, Alfred, and as the love interest, Katie Holmes (Dawson's Creek) is surprisingly believable in her first adult role. Also featuring Gary Oldman as the young police officer Jim Gordon, Morgan Freeman as a Q-like gadgets expert, and Cillian Murphy as the vile Jonathan Crane. --David Horiuchi

The follow-up to Batman Begins, The Dark Knight reunites director Christopher Nolan and star Christian Bale, who reprises the role of Batman/Bruce Wayne in his continuing war on crime. With the help of Lt. Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman sets out to destroy organized crime in Gotham for good. The triumvirate proves effective, but soon find themselves prey to a rising criminal mastermind known as The Joker, who thrusts Gotham into anarchy and forces Batman closer to crossing the fine line between hero and vigilante. Heath Ledger stars as archvillain The Joker, and Aaron Eckhart plays Dent. Maggie Gyllenhaal joins the cast as Rachel Dawes. Returning from Batman Begins are Gary Oldman as Gordon, Michael Caine as Alfred and Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox.

The Dark Knight arrives with tremendous hype (best superhero movie ever? posthumous Oscar for Heath Ledger?), and incredibly, it lives up to all of it. But calling it the best superhero movie ever seems like faint praise, since part of what makes the movie great--in addition to pitch-perfect casting, outstanding writing, and a compelling vision--is that it bypasses the normal fantasy element of the superhero genre and makes it all terrifyingly real. Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) is Gotham City's new district attorney, charged with cleaning up the crime rings that have paralyzed the city. He enters an uneasy alliance with the young police lieutenant, Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman), and Batman (Christian Bale), the caped vigilante who seems to trust only Gordon--and whom only Gordon seems to trust. They make progress until a psychotic and deadly new player enters the game: the Joker (Heath Ledger), who offers the crime bosses a solution--kill the Batman. Further complicating matters is that Dent is now dating Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal, after Katie Holmes turned down the chance to reprise her role), the longtime love of Batman's alter ego, Bruce Wayne.In his last completed role before his tragic death, Ledger is fantastic as the Joker, a volcanic, truly frightening force of evil. And he sets the tone of the movie: the world is a dark, dangerous place where there are no easy choices. Eckhart and Oldman also shine, but as good as Bale is, his character turns out rather bland in comparison (not uncommon for heroes facing more colorful villains). Director-cowriter Christopher Nolan (Memento) follows his critically acclaimed Batman Begins with an even better sequel that sets itself apart from notable superhero movies like Spider-Man 2 and Iron Man because of its sheer emotional impact and striking sense of realism--there are no suspension-of-disbelief superpowers here. At 152 minutes, it's a shade too long, and it's much too intense for kids. But for most movie fans--and not just superhero fans--The Dark Knight is a film for the ages. --David Horiuchi On the Blu-ray disc The Dark Knight on Blu-ray is a great home-theater showoff disc. The detail and colors are tremendous in both dark and bright scenes (the Gotham General scene is a great example of the latter), and the punishing Dolby TrueHD soundtrack makes the house rattle. (After giving us only Dolby 5.1 in a number of big Blu-ray releases this fall, Warner came through with Dolby TrueHD on this one.) One of the most interesting elements of The Dark Knight was how certain scenes were shot in IMAX, and if you saw the movie in an IMAX theater the film's aspect ratio would suddenly change from standard 2.40:1 to a thrilling 1.43:1 that filled the screen six stories high. For the Blu-ray disc, director Christopher Nolan has somewhat re-created this experience by shifting his film from 2.40:1 aspect ratio (through most of the film) to 1.78:1 in the IMAX scenes. While the effect isn't as dramatic as it was in theaters, it's still an eye-catching experience to be watching the film on a widescreen TV with black bars at the top and bottom, then seeing the 1.78:1 scenes completely fill the screen. The main bonus feature on disc 1 is "Gotham Uncovered: The Creation of a Scene," which is 81 minutes of behind-the-scenes footage about the IMAX scenes, the Bat suit, Gotham Central, and others. You can watch the film and access these featurettes when the icon pops up, or you can simply watch them from the main menu. A welcome and unusual feature is that in addition to English, French, and Spanish audio and subtitles, there's an audio-described option that allows the sight-impaired to experience the film as well. Disc 2 has two 45-minute documentaries on Bat-gadgets and on the psychology of Batman, both in high definition. They combine movie clips, talking heads, and comic-book panels, but aren't the kind of thing one needs to watch twice. More engaging are six eight-minute segments of Gotham Central, a faux-news program that gives some background to events in the movie, plus a variety of trailers, poster art, and more. The BD-Live component on disc 1 is more interesting than on some earlier Blu-ray discs, which could be simply a matter of the content starting to catch up with the technology. There are three new picture-in-picture commentaries, by Jerry Robinson (creator of the Joker), DC Comics president Paul Levitz, and Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.--he's a Batman fan who's made some movie and TV cameos), plus you can record your own commentary and upload it for others to watch. There are also three new featurettes ("Sound of the Batpod," "Harvey Dent's Theme," and "Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard") and two motion comics ("Mad Love," featuring Harley Quinn, and "The Shadow of Ra's Al Ghul"). No longer available is the digital copy of the film (compatible with iTunes and Windows Media, standard definition, download code expires 12/9/09). --David Horiuchi Product descriptionThe follow-up to Batman Begins, The Dark Knight reunites director Christopher Nolan and star Christian Bale, who reprises the role of Batman/Bruce Wayne in his continuing war on crime. With the help of Lt. Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman sets out to destroy organized crime in Gotham for good. The triumvirate proves effective, but soon find themselves prey to a rising criminal mastermind known as The Joker, who thrusts Gotham into anarchy and forces Batman closer to crossing the fine line between hero and vigilante. Heath Ledger stars as archvillain The Joker, and Aaron Eckhart plays Dent. Maggie Gyllenhaal joins the cast as Rachel Dawes. Returning from Batman Begins are Gary Oldman as Gordon, Michael Caine as Alfred and Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox. Stills from The Dark Knight (click for larger image)

Harry, Ron and Hermione set out on their perilous mission to track down and destroy the secret to Voldemort?s immortality and destruction ? the Horcruxes. On their own and on the run, the three friends must now rely on one another more than ever?but Dark Forces in their midst threaten to tear them apart. Meanwhile the wizarding world has become a dangerous place. The long-feared war has begun and the Dark Lord has seized control of the Ministry of Magic and even Hogwarts, terrorizing and arresting all who might oppose him. The Chosen One has become the hunted one as the Death Eaters search for Harry with orders to bring him to Voldemort?alive.Features include: •MPAA Rating: PG-13•Format: Blu-Ray•Runtime: 146 minutes

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I is a brooding, slower-paced film than its predecessors, the result of being just one half of the final story (the last book in the series was split into two movies, released in theaters eight months apart). Because the penultimate film is all buildup before the final showdown between the teen wizard and the evil Voldemort (which does not occur until The Deathly Hallows, Part II), Part I is a road-trip movie, a heist film, a lot of exposition, and more weight on its three young leads, who up until now were sufficiently supported by a revolving door of British thesps throughout the series. Now that all the action takes place outside Hogwarts--no more Potions classes, Gryffindor scarves, or Quidditch matches--Daniel Radcliffe (Harry), Emma Watson (Hermione), and Rupert Grint (Ron) shoulder the film almost entirely on their own. After a near-fatal ambush by Voldemort's Death Eaters, the three embark on a quest to find and destroy the remaining five horcruxes (objects that store pieces of Voldemort's soul). Fortunately, as the story gets more grave--and parents should be warned, there are some scenes too frightening or adult for young children--so does the intensity. David Yates, who directed the Harry Potter films Order of the Phoenix and The Half-Blood Prince, drags the second half a little, but right along with some of the slower moments are some touching surprises (Harry leading Hermione in a dance, the return of Dobby in a totally non-annoying way). Deathly Hallows, Part I will be the most confusing for those not familiar with the Potter lore, particularly in the shorthand way characters and terminology weave in and out. For the rest of us, though, watching these characters over the last decade and saying farewell to a few faces makes it all bittersweet that the end is near (indeed, an early scene in which Hermione casts a spell that makes her Muggle parents forget her existence, in case she doesn't return, is particularly emotional). Despite its challenges, Deathly Hallows, Part I succeeds in what it's most meant to do: whet your appetite for the grand conclusion to the Harry Potter series. --Ellen A. Kim

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Consider a war in which 25,000 soldiers are killed or wounded in a single battle, as they were at Gettysburg, or 16,000 in a single day, as at Antietam. The degree of suffering and hardship during the American Civil War has been well documented and analyzed in books and films from Margaret Mitchell's fictional Gone with the Wind to Bell Irvin Wiley's classic studies of Civil War soldiers, The Life of Johnny Reb and The Life of Billy Yank. All these sources agree on the brutality of the combat, but what motivated soldiers to continue fighting under such bitter conditions is the cause of some controversy. Until recently, the common stance has been that soldiers enlisted out of economic need and stayed out of loyalty to their comrades. The respected Civil War historian James M. McPherson weighs in with a different point of view in For Cause and Comrades. Professor McPherson posits that the common rank-and-file soldiers did indeed hold political and ideological beliefs that prodded them to enlist and to fight. His research is based on letters and diaries from 1,076 Union and Confederate soldiers. These reveal many motivations, but always they lead back to duty, honor, and a cause worth dying for. For Cause and Comrades is a fascinating exploration of the 19th-century mind--a mind, it seems, that differs profoundly from our own.

General John A. Wickham, commander of the famous 101st Airborne Division in the 1970s and subsequently Army Chief of Staff, once visited Antietam battlefield. Gazing at Bloody Lane where, in 1862, several Union assaults were brutally repulsed before they finally broke through, he marveled, "You couldn't get American soldiers today to make an attack like that." Why did those men risk certain death, over and over again, through countless bloody battles and four long, awful years ? Why did the conventional wisdom -- that soldiers become increasingly cynical and disillusioned as war progresses -- not hold true in the Civil War? It is to this question--why did they fight--that James McPherson, America's preeminent Civil War historian, now turns his attention. He shows that, contrary to what many scholars believe, the soldiers of the Civil War remained powerfully convinced of the ideals for which they fought throughout the conflict. Motivated by duty and honor, and often by religious faith, these men wrote frequently of their firm belief in the cause for which they fought: the principles of liberty, freedom, justice, and patriotism. Soldiers on both sides harkened back to the Founding Fathers, and the ideals of the American Revolution. They fought to defend their country, either the Union--"the best Government ever made"--or the Confederate states, where their very homes and families were under siege. And they fought to defend their honor and manhood. "I should not lik to go home with the name of a couhard," one Massachusetts private wrote, and another private from Ohio said, "My wife would sooner hear of my death than my disgrace." Even after three years of bloody battles, more than half of the Union soldiers reenlisted voluntarily. "While duty calls me here and my country demands my services I should be willing to make the sacrifice," one man wrote to his protesting parents. And another soldier said simply, "I still love my country." McPherson draws on more than 25,000 letters and nearly 250 private diaries from men on both sides. Civil War soldiers were among the most literate soldiers in history, and most of them wrote home frequently, as it was the only way for them to keep in touch with homes that many of them had left for the first time in their lives. Significantly, their letters were also uncensored by military authorities, and are uniquely frank in their criticism and detailed in their reports of marches and battles, relations between officers and men, political debates, and morale. For Cause and Comrades lets these soldiers tell their own stories in their own words to create an account that is both deeply moving and far truer than most books on war. Battle Cry of Freedom, McPherson's Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the Civil War, was a national bestseller that Hugh Brogan, in The New York Times, called "history writing of the highest order." For Cause and Comrades deserves similar accolades, as McPherson's masterful prose and the soldiers' own words combine to create both an important book on an often-overlooked aspect of our bloody Civil War, and a powerfully moving account of the men who fought it.