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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I received a beta invite to Bitstrips today, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to break into the web comic world. I’m kidding, of course (we’ll leave that to the people who actually have talent, like Scott) but this new social network and comic drawing site is a lot of fun to play around with. You can create characters (the customization is really good) and save and share your strips for other users. I don’t actually have any friends on there yet, but it seems as though people can also edit your comic (instant collaboration!).

I wish there were more ways to embed the comic, but maybe I just haven’t found that option yet. I’d like to be able to show all three panels at once instead of scrolling through panes. You can save a jpeg version of it, and then post that image, but that’s kind of a workaround. The site is in private beta right now, but they’ll be going live during SXSW (and also “comic blogging” the event, which should be hilarious).

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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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Here are two Valentine’s Day videos that you might enjoy. I’m putting the Mahalo one in first because they surprised me with it today, and I’m still blushing…

And now this one… because it’s hilarious. I found it on Leah Culver’s Pownce page.

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