Up Yours, Butters

I've been on a South Park kick lately. I regret getting rid of my South Park collection, but I'm glad that all the episodes are available for watching at SouthParkStudios.com.

There's been lots of great shows that I've missed. I recently enjoyed Canada on Strike where in Canada goes on strike and demands some of that Internet money.

I just downloaded this sample to my phone from this web site. I really want to play it on my phone's (excellent) speakers in a public bathroom when someone is fumigating for humans.



Also, here's some downloadable South Park commentary tracks for some reason.

Juno

If you've made the horrible mistake of watching the movie Juno, then you should read this.

Update:
I had to respond to Milkman Dan's comments in this post because I really want to embed this hilarious video that he linked.



Juno is worth watching if you're a Michael Cera fan, but he doesn't have a huge role in the film. I would guess that he is in the movie only fifteen percent of the time, but he provides more than fifty percent of the funny. That math doesn't lie.

The problem with Juno is that the dialogue is so pretentious that it's distracting. The main character has all these contrivances that she makes an effort to display, yet act casual about. A good example is the famous hamburger phone scene, where she casually brings up the fact that she's using a novelty phone while scheduling an abortion. How wacky! It's not that my belief is suspended, because I'm sure there are more pretentious people than her in existence, but it's god damn annoying. I wouldn't want to spend more than an hour watching them without Michael Nelson providing commentary.

The deciding factor on how many stars to give this movie was the terrible music. This movie suffers from the same problem as The Darjeeling Unlimited. It unrelentingly assaults the viewer with horrible music. The movie plays multiple, full-track songs from horrible indie bands and edits the scenes to be longer so as to torture impress the audience with how indie it is. When you watch this movie, you're going to want a mute button handy.

Future Theater of Scientific Mysteries

One of my favorite shows in the history of the televisual universe is Mystery Science Theater 3000. If you are also a huge nerd, then you will be pleasantly surprised to find that even after Mike Nelson, Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo returned to earth many years ago, they are still subjecting themselves to audio/visual torment (spiritually, at least).

The most exciting of these new projects is RiffTrax. RiffTrax features Michael J. Nelson, the head writer of MST3K, as well as many different guests who join Nelson in creating entertaining commentary tracks for some new DVD releases. All you have to do is download the mp3 and use your own home stereo (or with the RiffTrax Player) to Sync the audio with the movie, much like watching The Dark Side of Oz.

Raise your hand if you've already checked out some sweet RiffTrax action and, if so, what was your favorite episode? My favorite, so far, was Roadhouse. Nat and I have also watched Transformers, The Lord of the Rings, The Fifth Element, Firewall, Casino Royale, Point Break, Fantastic Four and Mike Willey's Chocolate Factory. All of them were equally funny. We fell asleep while watching Star Trek V and 300, so I am unable recommend them. We are currently set to watch Glitter, Triple Ex, The Mattress, and Night of the Living Dead when we find the time.

Another MST3K spin-off project is Cinematic Titanic. Cinematic Titanic features five former MST3K veterans. They have their first movie available to download as of today, but I haven't watched it yet. I have high expectations.

The Film Krew is another way to get some Mystery Science action. I think I've only watched one Film Krew movie from start to finish. It was Hollywood After Dark and it features a stripper from The Golden Girls. Hot!

Mike Nelson also recorded commentary tracks for some old movies released on DVD such as Plan 9 From Outer Space, House on Haunted Hill, Night of the Living Dead, and Carnival of Souls. My favorite of these is the colorized Reefer Madness, which is funny even without the commentary track.

While I'm at it, I might as well add that Mike Nelson has also written several books. I have them all, but I have only read the picture books: Happy Kitty Bunny Pony, Love Sick and Goth-Icky. Nat has read his two novels Mike Nelson's Mind over Matters, Mike Nelson's Death Rat! as well as Mike Nelson's Movie Megacheese.

All of this comedy greatness has inspired me to create my own commentaries for some of my favorite bad movies. I'll let you know when the project is complete. Of course, it will be free to download and enjoy via the magic of the Interwebs and it will be the cherry on top of my extensive comedy portfolio (which exists only in my mind). If you're reading this, Michael J. Nelson, I look forward to working with you soon I have told you nothing that you didn't already know.

from left to right: Crow T. Robot, Bill Corbett, Michael J. Nelson, Tom Servo, Kevin Murphy

The Mists!

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to hide from silly Steven King monsters in a grocery store? If so, then you may not enjoy The Mist a little more than I didn't. If not, then you may want to stick to Garth Marenghi novels.

Portable MP3 Players

I am sick of MP3 players.

I held out for a long long time before buying an mp3 player because I was holding out for something that played Ogg formatted files and worked well. I finally cracked and bought a Rio Sport Forge from target on clearance. It doesn't play Ogg files, it has a slot for SD cards and it accepts AAA batteries. I use NiMH rechargeable batteries and it's very convenient to carry a fully charged spare battery with me.

The player was working great. The menu was clear and easy to navigate. I was really happy until it started to glitch out on me and had difficulty turning on. After doing some research, I found out that these types of problems were common because some problem with the memory chips. Also, Rio had just gone out of business so I could not really send it in for repairs.

After that, I ordered a replacement that I thought would be comparable. I bought a SanDisk e140 1gb player that also accepts SD cards for additional storage and AAA batteries.

After using it for a short period of time, I noticed a lot of issues with this MP3 player. It didn't play the songs in the order of the track number or even the artist name which was very upsetting. Also, the quality of the sound was really horrible, through the headphones and my car's stereo input are not the greatest.

I found that SanDisk had firmware for the device on their website that would allow tracks to be sorted by track number and artist name. Also, after tweaking with the equalizer settings, I was able to make the player sound acceptable.

Part of me wants to throw this thing at ebay and get a new MP3 player, but I can't find one that meets all of my needs. I would consider using an iPod if I didn't have to use the iTunes software.

I'll just stick with this thing for now.