You Had To Be There: The Rifftrax Live Revue Review

Thursday August 20th 2009 a friend and I were witness to a simulcast event put on by Fathom Events for the MST3K spinoff "Rifftrax" which appears to be the Mike Nelson sect of Mystery Science Theater 3000. The riffers were Mike Nelson (Mike), Kevin Murphy (Tom Servo), and Bill Corbett (Crow Season 5-8). The Rifftrax Live boradcast was a "live" event in the same fashion as being at home watching the big game in HD from your couch. It had an aire of "I feel like I'm really here..." sitting not at the event on a staggered multi-rowed couch with 200 of your aquaintences having a borg-like super nerds collective enjoyment sitting and laughing remotely at the riffs and performances over probably THE worst movies of all time. It was the worst movie ever, what a great time!

We got here early assuming the 30 something crowd that has even seen MST would come out in droves and come out early. So we we're witness to a new batch of refreshing pre-show placards. They took the form of the seasonal theater "Did You Know" slideshows seen before except they we're very informative and quite hilarious.

The show was emceed by Veronica Belmont of Tekzilla fame, who did a good job of not showing her nerves considering the heavy tension of the nerderati's perfectionism and high hopes we're staring her down wishing her harm because they probably thought she was just in the way of the riffing. So began the introduction of the nights guests and Jonathan Coulton who performed the touching nerd soliloquy "Future Soon" that tells the tale of a nerd who's all growed up and in charge of the robot rebellion that has taken place but has replaced his muse's eyes with laser beams. He closed with an audience participation number "Re:Your Brains" which tells a tale of two office workers that are at odds regarding the dilemma that one side is locked inside a mall fighting off the incoming zombie rebellion and the co-worker outside having an intelligent debate from outside the mall doors. He is deconstructing his office worker's zombie resistance talking points and weapons will eventually run out and they should amicably end this disagreement so he can come in and eat his brain. The participation was from the audience's refrain of the chorus "All We Wanna Do Is Eat Your Brains." Next to the eloquent geek humor hidden in the acoustically accompanied dulcet tones of JoCo, were the cameras display of the numerous self parodying fans lypsynching along to each of the songs, which pleased the eager audiences's contemptful gazes with riotous mockingly delightful laughter.

The JoCo performance was followed by some giveaways and an Eric N Tim style random short sketch from Something Awful, which I thought they were...

I entered to the start of the short "Flying Stewardess" a training film from the 50s when a short flight from New York, NY to Chicago included a 4 course meal, and an overnight stay complete with complementary pajamas.

Favorite Riff: "The captain wishes to thank you for keeping this flight snake free"

This was again followed by another "sponsor" from Something Awful again which was for "Berry Alert" where there's a convoluted system that will notify you that you're out of berries in your fridge. Wasn't exactly my cup of tea.

Just before the movie the riffers sang a song called "Plans 1-8" and then onto the show which i would call THE WORST MOVIE OF ALL TIME and i've seen many bad movies over the years on my own as well as MST3K! So many great mockings of the movie that was so bad it mocked itself so it was thoroughly enjoyed by all. The night wrapped up in short order and fizzled a bit at the end because rather than a "THE END" placard we were shown the link to the rifftrax website for some free downloads which i'm sure anyone can now get... ;)

Enjoy and I can't wait until the next live show! =)

Happy Father's Day to Me, and Youins...

Dave has just been crackin me up lately, such a ham! Andrew's my clever dude, David is the clown and Christina's the cutest of all... She's got a little ham in her too, probably since she hung out with David a lot during Andrew's first year in Kindergarten (Yay Mrs. G! ) So father's day today, when mommy was out Grocery Gaming, I fixed up and fired up my eclipse, and by the end of tonight managed to drive it around the block without catching fire, or antyhing falling off, or breaking worse. I'm SOO glad it's drivable again. A few years ago i put on turbo to make it go faster, a man has a need for speed!, and then again a couple more years after that, the automatic transmission burned up and stopped making the car go anymore, which is kind of the point. I managed to limp it to Trunk-or-Treat 2x and the Fair Oaks Church Car Show 2x for 2 years worth of shows. But i wanted to atleast have it be our fair weather fun car, it's all paid off, so why get rid. The greenbriar garage hasn't been converted, or junked up too bad, so we have a place for it. In an effort to keep saving us a bunch of moolah on it, i thought i'd do the transmission job myself... So other than the HUGE headache of having a non working car, that DIDN'T make it to Car Show this year, and annoyed me to no end when it wouldn't start for months which i don't have all the time in the world to work on really, but in the end, it cost only about ~$750 or so, not $4000!!! to have someone else do it. So now it's a 5 speed, which for me is just GREAT since I've driven stick... 3 times in my life??? No time like the present to learn! and I'm really hoping to have MOST of the gremlins worked out of our it to safely drive Lori out on the town for our 8th anniversary (Tuesday, June 17th) with the top down, looking at the stars like we used to.. well, I'll be looking at the road, Lori will be busy getting hair out of her contacts, but when it clears up she'll be star-cruisin! I better get crackin'!!

So, back to the father's day we had, i just have to share the pics, and get the progression. The first shot, is the most serious one we could manage to take... then shots of what happened after we told him to cut the cra...ham... and then onto shots of us all together separate. 'Twas a good day today! Hope you enjoyed your father's day. Enjoy!

Crab Crackin Up!

I just downloaded pics from our family reunion/crab feast my parents host each year on father's day weekend. I just had to post this one. No Photoshopping, I swear! be sure to check out the full version for the motion blur of the hammer! It didn't stand a chance... ;)

Why is it called tag? Do I win anything?!?!?!

So everyone does this tag thing, i guess that means I'm it? When do i get to go back to home base? I figured what a better way to re-kick--start my blog with an about me type of thing. I mean I've only been doing this internet thing since gopher was not useful! So forgive the 3 year old unfilled blog! ;)

1.) What was I doing 10 years ago?
Hmmm... So that means it was 1998...
-I was working my 3rd real IT job, not just Computer City "sales associate" (read nerd/genius bar guy at the computer store, not out for your extended warranty money, nor treating customers like "Comic Book Guy", and this was before there was an apple store.) I played with computers all day, well night actually, and i got paid to "play" on other people's computers for a living? Sweet! To top it off i was still living in my parents basement, no rent, high-speed satellite internet (400kbps/56kbps) Pretty much all expendable income... yeah, that level of "responsibility" *never* ever hurt me... yeah right...

-Lori, my childhood chum/friend/i had no idea she had a crush on me, and i realized only AFTER she left for college i liked her/buddy, moved back into town in an apartment close by. SHe began teaching at THAT church with the school they had. They were the definition of the word Legalism, which I didn't really know what it was since i grew up in it, but because of an AMAZING Pastor (www.davidrstokes.com) he brought the place we went to church in to a great place to be at church!

2.) 5 things on my to do list
Ugh, did you HAVE to remind me about those?
-Get my Eclipse transmission completely fixed so we can drive it during SUMMER, not in the winter!
-Get all my old media types off of dying formats onto ANYTHING newer, this includes the following:
--Every episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 on VHS tape.
--Old musical compositions, my old "bands" recording sessions off of cassette tape and turned into MP3s.
-Convert my 2000+ CD Albums converted into MP3s.
-Ensure all data (Digital Pictures, Financial Records, etc) contained on my main PC backed up regularly, put in the fireproof safe, and send an archival copy somewhere offsite in case the PC crashes, AND the house burns down! =/ Hey, i'm a backup engineer at work, i go through several Petabytes in a year, I'm paid to worry about that stuff! ;) See i STILL get to play with computers!
-Get out of debt - Man this is a pain living where we are! Maybe i can ride a bicycle to work now?
Despite the long list of To-DOs, i managed to recently complete the following tasks which i'm rather proud of:
-COMPLETE : Get what i can off of upwards of 500 3.5" floppy diskettes, a few dozen 100MB Zip Disks and 230MB Magneto Optical Disks
-FAILED : During my data archiving tasks, i wasn't able to get ANY data off of several 1.5GB Syquest SyJet disks, that's probably 10GB of STUFF LOST, because they went bad... and I'm not the ONLY person this kind of fail has happened to either.

3.) Snacks I enjoy
-CANDY: Non-Pareils, Nerds, Smartees, etc. Despite my numerous cavities and using hot coffee to wash out the pain from all the cavities, i just can't get enough (Oops, add "go to the dentist" the the to-do list)
-Ramen Noodles at 11PM or later, or anytime, but best at night before you go to bed so you feel awful tomorrow.
-Soft Pretzels... Man, i don't care if it costs $15 each for the jumbo 3 foot high salted masterpiece at the fair honey... I NEEED a soft pretzel, AND you might as well get 3, cause i know you and the kids want one too, and you can't have MINE!!! and yes after seeing it done, i do dip it in mustard most of the time, must be the German in me. Oh yeah, if you ever get to a "Quaker Steak" restaurant, if you can call it that, it's more like a hooters without all the female objectification... but they have an entree that is a plate of several freshly baked soft pretzels slathered in butter, with pretzel salt, and a side of beer-infused nacho cheese. Growing up a Baptist, i'll just ask for a side of mustard, Thx!

4.) Things I would do as a billionaire
I have this crazy idea, and i wish i knew how it would work out, i'd love to make it a non-profit organization. But I'd love to have a service, something along the lines of a mobile Samaritan, maybe call it : The Samaritan Mobile. But i'd spend my day day driving around the area, helping people with cars broken down on the side of the road, or IN the road, or helping folks get to a gas station because they ran outta gas, etc. I mean if you think abut it, those folks probably didn't really need that hindering their day, and they would have gotten whatever it was fixed or filled up, if they had the money.

5.)Three of my Bad Habits
-Biting my cuticles, not my nails, it's around my nails, it bothers even me!
-Tardiness - It's still a REAL effort for me to not be late to this day. I was late to elementary school through high school and college. Now that I'm a parent I'm working hard on ensuring my kids don't pick up any of my bad habits. When I sign the tardy slip at school, it's not Andrew that feels the guilt about being late, I mean how is it "his" fault when I'm the one driving?!;)
-Oops, almost forgot... Not finishing a project. We have a name for it in our house, it's called 99%-ing. You may have experienced it, it's where you've just finished painting a room, and you've put away all the paint supplies, cleaned the brushes, changed back into your good clothes, start going, what an awesome job...awwww what-the?! You look down and you realize you forgot to paint the baseboards, or something else lame like that. It's unfortunately a way of life for me. ;) Maybe it's early Alzheimers?!

6. Five places I have lived
-Arlington
-Fairfax Station
-Oakton
-Herndon..which turned into the next "place"
-Oak Hill
-Fairfax
Guess what, it's all in VA! But that's IT.

7. 5 jobs I've had
Electrician - with my dad
Sales Associate - at a computer store, as eluded to before
Helpdesk
Network Engineer/Backup Engineer
IT, IT, IT, IT, IT

8. How I named this blog
It may have clued you in before, but i was a HUGE fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 growing up, going through Junior Highschool, through High School, and College, and my grown up years. There were a couple of episodes of MST that showed some Sandy Frank movies called "Starforce." It was this crazy live action anime/Godzilla/Space show from Japan. A cross between speed racer, star wars, and cheese. The episode in particular titled "Starforce II: Fugitive Alien" just kinda stuck with me as a cool name. Every computer guy needs a cool handle, i've come up with a few in my time, if i do say so myself! ;)

9.) Who You Gonna Tag?
I tag... Noone, i give up, it's time to go inside, i think i hear my mom calling... but when i grew up she only yelled since we didn't have cellphones, or text messaging, or twitter, or the internet for that matter... what did i do? Oh yeah, there was NES! and a top loading betamax back at home with thriller and Super Man 3 copied from Erols video store in it... ;) Member # 393!

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