For some reason I ended up on a plethora of podcasts this week! Here’s the rundown for your listening and viewing enjoyment:

Sunday: This Week in Tech with Leo Laporte, Steve Gillmore, John C. Dvorak and Patrick Norton. We talked about all sorts of news, including SXSW (and Twitter, natch) as well as some unfounded rumors involving Revision3. Which leads us to…

Tuesday: Tekzilla! I love guest hosting this show, mostly because it means I get to hang out with Patrick and Roger all afternoon.

Thursday: The Instance Episode #100! I was honored and delighted to be on the 100th episode of my favorite podcast. Scott and Randy had folks on air that have made appearances or recorded special pieces for the show over the last 100 episodes, so it was like a big homecoming.

Friday: I went down to CNET for an in-studio recording of Buzz Out Loud. It was nice to be back in the BOL chair, even if I let Tom run the production side of things (it’s been a while, I’d probably break it). They live stream on ustream.tv now too, so I was able to record it. Not too exciting to watch us talk, I bet, but you get to see me chug some coffee.

And on Monday and Wednesday I recorded upcoming episodes of Mahalo Daily, so it was quite a full week.

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Looking for a reason to drag out your old copy of The Matrix or Raiders of the Lost Ark? OK, bad examples, you don’t really need a reason for those. How about Batman and Robin or Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith? These movies can actually be tolerable with the help of Rifftrax, possibly the greatest thing to happen to home movie viewing since Netflix. Created by Mystery Science Theater 3000 alum Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett, they continue the tried and true formula of commenting (hilariously) as a film plays. If you’re not familiar with the format, think of it as having your three most sarcastic and absurd friends sitting in your living room with you, with a constant running commentary. Yes, it could be annoying if you’ve never seen the film, but Rifftrax tends to hit the most popular blockbusters that you’ve likely seen 50 times.

I’ve seen MST3K in the past, and Ryan is a huge fan (and by “fan” I mean he was an actual fan club member…), but it was our friend Dan that introduced us to Rifftrax a few months ago. I was surprised that I hadn’t heard more about it, considering how neatly it fits into two major areas of interest for me: geeky movies and downloadable content. Getting your Rifftrax is easy enough: you pick a movie, download the Rifftrax audio file, and then follow the syncing instructions. Throughout the film, DisembAudio (the robotic voice behind their “Perfect Synch Technology”) will read a line of dialog at the moment it should be said on the film, so you can pause for a second if you’re out of sync. Beware — the syncing process can lead to arguments amongst video watchers: “No, just pause the film for a second!” “No way, it’s the Rifftrax that’s off, pause that!” “Oh great, now it’s totally screwed up…” and so forth. Luckily, they have their own RiffTrax Player that will do all the work for you, if you’re watching the DVD on a PC (dammit).

I’ve seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, 300, and The Matrix so far, and 300 was definitely my favorite. There are over 50 titles available and they cost between $1.99-3.99, and it’s absolutely worth the money to breathe new life into some of these films.

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As you may have gathered from my tweets of late, I was given the amazing opportunity to play Jonathan Coulton’s song “Still Alive” on Rock Band with Leo Laporte, Merlin Mann, and of course Jonathan! Horrifyingly, it was also on stage and in front of about 600 people at the Great American Music Hall here in San Francisco! I was on guitar (in the video, my part is on the right), Jonathan was on (duh) vocals, Leo on bass, and Merlin on drums.

We were soooo close to getting through the song! 99% isn’t bad, and if we had more time to practice (instead of having only played the song once!) I’m sure we would have made it. But it was a ton of fun, and I even saved the band a couple of times with my overdrive

But I want to thank Jonathan for giving me one of the most memorable experiences I’ll ever have. I’m a huge fan of his music, and I got to live out my rock star dreams for real. Not much can beat that!

Jonathan Coulton performs “Still Alive” in Rock Band from Joy Stiq

Special thanks to Chris from Joystiq for recording the video! Go check out his post for more details.

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I can’t say that I’m too surprised (especially after their dismal showing at CES this year) but it appears that Toshiba is letting HD DVD go silently into the night.

The format wars have been huge news these past few years, and it feels odd to say that Blu-ray has really won. I’ve said time and time again that physical media is going to be obsolete in the very near future (in favor of HD downloads) but I’m a little shocked that Toshiba is giving up the ghost so soon. But with getting dumped by Netflix and Wal-mart, I suppose it truly was only a matter of time. For some reason, I always felt like I was in Camp HD DVD. It was totally arbitrary side-choosing, but maybe spurned on by the fact that I was raised a Red Sox fan, and thusly (until very recently) a glutton for punishment.

Well, HD DVD, it was a pretty good run. I enjoyed using my Xbox HD DVD drive, but I guess I’ll be getting more play from my PS3 now. I wonder how quickly HD DVD will leave the store walls and become eBay gold (lol). Will a whole subculture of HD DVD enthusiasts spring up? Fans that refuse to let go? How does Microsoft feel about this whole thing? Do they care? (Answer: No.)

So many questions! What do you think?

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