Internet

As a latecomer to Mystery Science Theater fanhood, I'm glad that former head writer/host Mike Nelson is continuing to make bad movies enjoyable with RiffTrax. Being a longtime fan of Star Wars since seeing the first film at the age of six, I felt morally obligated to at least take a look at the new trilogy. With each passing film I was more and more horrified. Mike's rifftrax on the prequels got better and better as the movies themselves became more humorless and unwatchable. Some fans might consider the third prequel the best of the bunch, but for me, it's the worst. Luckly the rifftrack for that episode is the best of the three; it's the only reason to subject oneself to the film.

300 falls into that same category.

MST3K tended to focus on films that were so bad, hardly anyone would watch them. The show eventually ran into trouble when the very existence of MST3K increased the value of the rights to the films they were lampooning beyond the point where they could afford the rights to the movies. RiffTrax escapes that loophole by distributing only MP3 audio files, which they then help sync to your DVD of the movie by having a disembodied voice (named Disembaudio) do line readings from the film periodically. Files are also available to sync with NTSC or PAL versions of the film, and there's even a special Windows program that handles the sync for you if you're playing the DVD on a computer. If you don't already own the DVD of the movie in question, you can order it from RiffTrax.

There, of course, is the catch-22. Riffing is funniest on movies that aren't very good, or that you don't like. I've also listened to the tracks for the Bourne Identity and LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring, which are films I like. At some point these tracks fall a bit flat compared to the others. So in order to get value out of RiffTrax, you have to own (or at least rent) the movie. But riffing works best on films you wouldn't necessarily want to own.

RiffTrax seems to realize this, which is why they are also offering a video on demand option. Perhaps what they really need is a deal with NetFlix.

The raw rock sound of the band Boston (and I use that term loosely, since what I really mean is the sound of engineer/musician Tom Sholz) and the Internet have been two of my longest standing interests. And so it seems strange to note that only recently did I find that there was any connection between the two.

But until I found the Boston website the other day, I didn't realize how much I had forgotten about Boston, or how much I never knew-- such as the fact that a new album is scheduled to be released next month. It's called "Corporate America".

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some very good 25-year-old music to listen to.

Recently one of the so-called "spam blacklists" included one of my servers on their list, bouncing emails from some friends and clients. The machine has since been reassigned to another network number to avoid the blacklist.

It should be noted that none of Synfibers' machines has ever been used to send spam; the blacklist is intentionally expanding its influence to include non-spamming customers of networks that host other customers who do spam in order to enlist legitimate users in their fight against spam.

I had a series of interesting exchanges with a representative of one of these blacklists, it's been added to the site as Conversations With An Anti-Spam Activist.