Let's Play/MST... Witch Night

Hey guys, long time no post!

It's been a busy last few months for me but the last couple of weeks have been busily spent producing my second Let's Play of the AGS Game 'Witch Night' in time for and in honor of Halloween. Zoogz and I both wrote the script and my sister KizzyCaspy and I performed the voices. You can find both the Let's Play and the Blooper Reel on YouTube at the following links:

http://youtu.be/KlsZXdAH7G8
-- Let's Play... Witch Night

http://youtu.be/YpHz4jlBphc
-- Blooper Reel

All comments and criticisms are greatly appreciated and we sincerely hope you enjoy it. :)

Sincerely,

Megane 6.7 and Zoogz

New MSTing! 'Two Worlds: Discovering Good Hearts'

  Holy crap, could it be? Another new MSTing from us in only *six* months time!?  Seriously though, we're very happy to present to you our latest MSTing 'Two Worlds: Discovering Good Hearts', which you can find linked at www.nabiki.com/mst/recent.  Zoogz was also nice enough to post a link there to my first Let's Play of the adventure game 'Paul Quest', if you're interested in checking it out.  We hope you enjoy our work and comments are always welcome!

New avenues for posting:

So, just bought myself a new Acer 8.1" tablet with my just-received tax refund money... evidently, the US government is open enough to still process tax returns, especially since they've had mine since April 15. It's actually not a bad setup, the tablet is large enough to type on and view, but small enough to be rather nice and portable, and only $250 to boot. At the least, this means that I can take this to places to blog or write that I would not have taken my laptop.

Things have been looking up more a bit lately, not the least of which is obtaining the new tech. A couple of major issues at work resolved rather peaceably, and I will be in high demand at work through the next couple days with the computer skills that I've been able to use lately. Today, I had the opportunity to see one of my favorite instrumental groups in person, and not even in concert. It turned out that they were in town, and wanted to visit church on a Sunday, and it just happened to be the one that I attend. It was interesting to hear them speak about their challenges.

On the MSTing front, Megane and I have been working almost at double pace lately, getting another MSTing written to be published. It's not always a smooth process, but we're trying our best. I truly apologize for not posting in the better part of a month or so... there's still challenges to overcome, including a bicycle used for commuting that I've not been able to keep on the road lately, but I'll make more of an effort to do some reviews. I do have another Studio Ghibli review coming up soon, and I am still looking to do a post or three on the history of spoof movies too. Thanks again for your patience, and thank you for your support.

(Managed to scratch this out in about fifteen minutes on the tablet... hopefully, as I get better getting these out, this will become more and more of an option.)

New MSTing... now at nabiki.com/mst!

  After a bit of a website access snafu, we've finally updated A MSTing For All Seasons with the new Megane 6.7 MSTing!  You can find it linked at the Recent Updates page if you go to www.nabiki.com/mst.  I also updated our frontpage to include our Twitter and Google+ links.  Enjoy the new content!

New MSTing!

  In a once-a-year (or even once every two years!) announcement, Megane 6.7 and I have published another brand-new MSTing.  It's not available at our main A MSTing For All Seasons site due to access issues that will hopefully be rectified shortly.  It can, however, be read at Mediaminer by following this link .  Thank you for all your support and patience!

Let's Play... Paul Quest: Gold Edition

Greetings!

After much work and fretting, I'm finally ready to release my first ever Let's Play for a short AGS adventure game called 'Paul Quest: Gold Edition'. You can find all four parts on YouTube at the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcNQpobtJioDjD9WVf7bDaTMBJxbF5ohf

All comments and criticisms are greatly appreciated and I sincerely hope you enjoy it. :)

Sincerely,

Megane 6.7

New MSTing: "[None yet Suggestions welcome in Review!]"

Hey folks,

Megane 6.7 and I have finished our latest MSTing, to a Sailor Moon 'fic that went strangely untitled. There's a chess tournament, Canada, tons of senshi, and even more Sailor Mercury. It can be found at the top of our Recent Projects page on the main site, or at the direct links below:

Part 1: http://www.nabiki.com/mst/recent/none3k11.txt
Part 2: http://www.nabiki.com/mst/recent/none3k12.txt
Part 3: http://www.nabiki.com/mst/recent/none3k13.txt


Within the next couple days I'll have another blog post as well. Thanks for your patience and we hope you enjoy the MSTing!

Review: How to Train Your Dragon

This blog came too late. In the late 90s through the mid 00s, the Internet had a few forms... there was Usenet, message boards, and internet sites. It would not have been horribly difficult to be able to create a website that reviewed MSTings in a format like this; after all, even the "new releases" link on our webpage is nothing more than a faux-blog which provides links to our latest MSTings.

However, push-button publishing really didn't take off until the tail-end of online MSTing's popularity. The SVAM message board could have been close, and even allowed for the review and critiquing of MSTings, but that is also a long-gone artifact of the Internet, not even accessible anymore.

This means that I need more than just MSTings to be able to put up topics on this blog. It's why I've been putting up real-life faux-drama like my job search, and pseudo-reviews such as the anime series I'd been watching lately. Today is no different, though it is a review about a movie that is now in the second-run theaters.

How to Train Your Dragon never really showed on my radar, though I do enjoy animation. I think it's because the trailers they make anymore really aren't aimed at me, there's only so far you can take the same repetitive joke. However, the rest of the family went to go see it a couple weeks ago and reported that it was terrific. So, having nothing much to do on a Saturday evening, we all went once again.

Without giving too much of the movie away, I really enjoyed it quite a bit. The animation is a ton of fun, you can tell that the animators had a blast trying to figure out all of the various possibilities of dragons. You had tall ones, skinny ones, short ones, fat ones... one memorable scene is of dragons that look (and act) a lot like squirrels. One of the characters was a walking encyclopedia on dragons, and it makes you think that there could have been a bit of success if the animators had just scrapped the movie idea and created some sort of card game like "Magic the Gathering" out of all the sketches.

The animators did know what they were doing with the animation though, and that really shines through. I quite admittedly enjoyed flying with the main character and his trained dragon through the skies, far more than that CG'ed up Avatar movie. I suppose that this could be another proof of the "uncanny valley" principle, but I suspect it's something deeper, which is the biggest issue I have between the two movies.

In Avatar we're confronted with a jarhead Marine protagonist who seems none too bright and barely cares that he isn't. With extra irony thrown in, he's a broken Marine, as he is currently injured and in a wheelchair. This would not be an issue except for the fact that he goes to a *jungle planet* (which presumably doesn't have wheelchair ramps) yet has not even attempted to train himself to be a gunship pilot, or a mecha pilot, or even operate the remote-controlled bulldozers. He doesn't CARE about any of that, and presumably doesn't have the intelligence to do so.

Through the course of the movie, we seem him gain an Avatar body through sheer dumb luck (hey, your brother's dead and you're close enough genetically to serve!). He proceeds to learn how to work it within only seconds movie-time, as he's running within a few frames of waking up. This same jarhead proceeds to learn how to integrate himself into a new culture and even learns a new language in scant months, which is presumably more difficult than learning how to pilot one of the many contrivances that would make it worth having a handicapped gun-toter. In the process, he gets two new flying birds, one the Big Red Plot-Contrivance Chicken, and becomes the de facto leader of all the tribes.

Almost all of that growth feels like it happens off-screen and implausibly. I relate all of that because it seemed so out-of-character and was, to me, the example of trying to fit a square peg (non-curious, unable to help himself jarhead jock) into a round hole (having to learn and adapt to way too many new things simultaneously for someone who barely cared when he got there).

As far as I'm concerned, How to Train Your Dragon did it the right way. The protagonist is shown to be a curious person who puts the plot into action due to his characterization... he refused to kill the titular dragon. The parts where he and the dragon are shown to be growing in trust to each other are actually rather sweet, and they're not without bumps along the way. I felt happy for the protagonists (for the dragon is certainly one of the protagonists) as their journey was shown on the screen.

This really is the best comparison I can make. Avatar had bogus contrivances and a protagonist that had a very badly-written characterization. Graphics can't save that. Of course, all movies have contrivances... you have to accept that there is a unicorn in the garden before you can have adventures with the unicorn. On the other hand, you can *explain* the unicorn and as long as the reason sounds somewhat plausible, audiences will make the leap of faith to accept your premise. How to Train Your Dragon had its own leaps of faith, but it did the best it could to allow this moviegoer to accept what was going on and to enjoy the concept.

Which brings me back to the beginning of this post. MSTing is both a blessing and a curse, because while it really forces you to think critically about a piece of work it is hard to turn the critical thinking off. Ultimately, while I cannot give my opinions of good new MSTings to read or discuss much about the field of MSTing, I can at least attempt to think critically about movies, anime, and other things. I can then post opinions and rationale about these works and to try to take you readers into the critical thought process as to why some things work and why some things may not work.

MSTing, after all, is nothing more than witty critique about a piece of work that seems to have fallen short of its target. In order to draft those jokes though, you have to try to identify what's going on, what kinds of images the author/screenwriter is trying to convey, and hopefully craft a joke that relates the image to something humorous, all while trying to stay one step ahead of the audience's first reaction.

Ultimately, I am certainly recommending seeing How to Train Your Dragon, even if just once. I enjoyed the story's heart, the characterization, the humor, and the main pull is just all those dragons. They range from mean, snarly, and noxious to weird to cute. The setting is just fun to be in, and the movie really zips along (barely 100 minutes). It's a terrific popcorn flick and the kids'll love it too.

On tap, some updated status by the end of the week regarding MSTings, my current real-life exploits, and still going through My HiME.

The last of the fallout from ACen:

Couple last ACen notes that warranted a full blog post (My goal is to push the Rifftrax reviews below the fold before mid-June...)

1. At least according to the almighty Internet, Anime Central's attendance in 2009 was over 15,000 paid attendees (17,500 total). I imagine that you could possibly add another 2,000 to 3,000 attendees for this year, 2010. I mention this because also according to the never-lying Internet, ACen's attendance in 2000 was slightly more than 2,000 people, including yours truly, and 3,200 in 2001, including both myself and Megane 6.7.

To be honest, when I left in 2000 and in 2001, the highlights of the weekend were pretty much getting together with all the other hard-core fans and the goofy people who devote time to writing stories that will never earn a penny in revenue. That lasted for a few hours on a Friday night. Other than a few minutes in the dealer room, there wasn't a whole lot else that really caught my interest.

While some people may decry the size of the convention and say that it was better in the old days, I'm SO not that person. The more the merrier, and it was a terrific weekend. I enjoyed myself far more than ten years ago and I think it's mainly due to the fact that MAPS can put on a better convention with more attendees.

As I believe I mentioned previously, I will be attending Youmacon in Detroit now that I know that there's a decent following there too. I think I became gun-shy about conventions due to the cost and the fact that there were so few people at the ones that I attended in the past... (two ACens and three JAFAX, JAFAX being a free convention in Grand Rapids but exceedingly lightly attended.) The larger scale makes the convention definitely worth going to. Hopefully Youmacon will be comparably good to ACen.

2. On Friday, I and my friends had just arrived to the hotel at about noon. I had already spoken with my family and told them that the car survived another three-hundred mile trip. (There's always a question...) I had a bit of a back-and-forth for the next ten minutes, but then left to get to the convention. While walking to the convention, my cellphone beeps again... and I thought it was more conversation with my significant other. No, it actually turns out to be a temp service asking me if I'd be interested in a job opportunity. To cut the story short, I'm scheduled for a job interview on Thursday, 20 May. I must admit, I'm glad that I checked the phone, even though I spoke to the temp service underneath I-190 with a convention raging around me. I hope that it was a good omen.

Megane and I will be embarking on the next MSTing shortly. (For that matter, we hope that you enjoyed / will enjoy the latest MSTing.) The good news is that there is already some work into it, but the bad news is that it is a bit longer than the typical MSTings we do. I *hope* that we can get it out before the end of the year, that'd be pretty sweet. I've got a summer without classes at least, though there's always the wildcard of when (not "if" anymore, I think) I end up at a new job. Anyway, thanks again for your support and indulgence seeing as how this has turned into some weird kind of blog/commentary/diary hybrid for me. I promise, more anime and movie reviews as well as more MSTings, and possibly some original comedic writings, I just have to get through this rough patch I'm going through.

Latest MSTing & QnD Rifftrax Reviews!

Hey Everyone!

As Zoogz previously mentioned, we've put the final touches on our latest MSTing! It's a two parter and you can check it out at the following links:

http://www.nabiki.com/mst/recent/yaten67.txt
http://www.nabiki.com/mst/recent/yaten267.txt

In addition, I've just finished writing 20 new reviews for Rifftrax which can be seen below and I'm hoping to add a few more in the coming weeks. Any and all feedback is appriciated as always!

Sincerely,

Megane 6.7


"A Visit to Santa" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- Garsh! Well, uh, it's not the WORST Christmas short I've ever seen but it's definitely a contender for most irritating soundtrack. Two Sumerian speaking kids have their sleep interrupted by a creepy elf child and brought forth by helicopter to Santa's... low rent apartment. The apathetic Santa, probably played by some bored security guard at the mall where most of this thing was filmed, shows the kids around and makes them look at stuff. For a long time. This Rifftrax is amusingly dark and I enjoyed it for the most part. Recommended.

"Teenagers on Trial" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- Don't trust anyone under 30! Written by old farts for old farts, this short sets out to prove what they already knew, all kids are rotten and not to be trusted. They're worse than Commies! THE BEAVER IS A LIE! Only having them join the US Army can set these kids straight! Or get them killed, which is also acceptable apparently. This Rifftrax was a fun way to kill 8 mins of your time. Recommended.

"Cork – Crashes and Curiosities" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- Irish Sweep... I'm not a fan of modern or 1940s racing, so I really don't have much to say about this short. Irish jokes dominate this Rifftrax but it's all in good fun and I enjoyed it. Recommended.

"The Case of Tommy Tucker Pt. 1 & 2" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- This disturbing short starts out with a Pagen children's play which is quickly interrupted by the Hitler Youth Move... oops, I mean, the SAFETY PATROL lead by a little self-rightous snot named Tommy Tucker that resembles Howdy Doody right down to his Joker smile. Creeped out yet?

Thankfully, Tommy is run over by a car soon afterwards and hovers near death but what does he care? He's on SAFETY ISLAND, which is apparently a gated community in Heaven, and he's a martyr to the rightous cause of installing 1984-esque safety procedures to Anytown USA so people will stop running over annoying bossy kids that try to tell them how to drive! Yeah. As for the Rifftrax, while I wasn't a fan of it being split up into two parts (a practice they seem to have stopped now thankfully), the riffing was great and I enjoyed it a lot. Highly recommended for both parts.

"Women in Blue" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- Yep, it's another short desperately trying to convince its audience that sexism was a dirty lie and women had more to look forward to in the 1940s than more cooking, cleaning, and child rearing by showing them signing up to serve in the Navy so more men could be sent off to war. Of course, once the war was over, the women were quickly booted back to their old positions but hey, enjoy the fun while it lasts, ladies! Much like 'The Trouble With Women', the riffing here is nicely dark and sarcastic. Highly recommended.

"The Matrix Revolutions" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- Well, the film itself sucks on toast but this was far more enjoyable for me with a Rifftrax than 'Matrix Reloaded', probably because this movie was more mindless action than endless droning monologues sapping my will to live. The riffers themselves seemed more energized as well which always helps. Highly recommended.

"Star Trek 2009" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- *deep breath* Okay... I am a long time fan of the majority of the original Star Trek, The Next Generation, and select Deep Space 9 episodes. I knew this film was a reboot and I tried to watch it with an open mind and reminded myself how badly 'Nemesis' had botched it and with 'Enterprise' gone, the franchise needed this sort of thing to survive.

But this... this was a decent sci-fi action film, nothing more. You can dress them up as the characters, give them the characteristics of the original crew (and I will admit that Karl Urban was FUCKING scary as McCoy, he was practically channeling the DEAD with his portrayal.) and have old Leonard Nimoy himself show up to bless the reboot, so to speak, but it still ain't Star Trek as far as I'm concerned. Maybe that'll change with the next film, who knows, but for now... NO.

All right, rant over. Now for the Rifftrax. With the sole exception of the 'Funky Spock' sequence, which was hilarious, I found this trax to be dull and lifeless with very few laughs for me. Perhaps the riffers felt the same way I did with the film and couldn't muster up the energy, I dunno. Recommendation to avoid, sadly.

"Cinematic Titanic: East Meets Watts" w/ Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu, Frank Conniff, Josh Weinstein and Mary Jo Pehl. -- I initially avoided 'Cinematic Titanic', partly because of their previous choice of films to riff on, partly because past trailers for their commentary frankly sucked IMHO, and partly because I'm a cheap bastard who'd rather pay three bucks for a rifftrax that might suck than $14 for a DVD that might suck. However, when 'East Meets Watts' was announced, I checked out the trailer and was impressed enough to take a chance. And I'm glad I did.

The film is a mix of bad Blaxploitation and worse Kung-Fu, but mixed together, it became a somewhat watchable movie featuring several actors from M*A*S*H (No Alan Alda sadly, he could have used the style of the Hawkeye... *cough*)

As for the riffing, it's great overall and there's some big laughs to be found throughout. All of the riffers have some funny choice lines in this one and going live may have been the smartest move 'Cinematic Titanic' could have made as seeing the performers smile, laugh and react to each other and the audience during the riffing definitely adds a level of energy that a studio riffing, however funny, can't quite reach. It was especially great to hear Trace riffing again after all these years and he hasn't lost his touch. To be fair, though, there were three noteworthy spots where I felt the riffing quality dipped considerably:

- After the 'Journey' riff until Stud Brown first shows up.
- The majority of the gun fight in the dark.
- And the last seven minutes of the movie or so.

Still, the majority of this CT offering is well worth checking out. Very Highly Recommended.

"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- (Note: This isn't the version from the Live Christmas Rifftrax DVD, nor are any of the shorts reviewed here from that DVD at this time.) This was a fun 8 min short, of course I had to resist the urge to shout out rude phrases during the theme song but otherwise I enjoyed this. I do hope to see the live DVD version someday to compare them. Recommended.

"The Night Before Christmas" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- My personal favorite of the Christmas themed shorts, I was laughing pretty much all the way through this one and I don't want to spoil anything. Very highly recommended.

"Three Magic Words" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- Oh man, this short was just AWESOME! And I thought 'Shaking Hands with Danger' was tough to get out of my head. This delightful marketing musical has 'Mrs. Newlywed' pleading with The Three (Low Rent) Stooges, who are everyone and everywhere apparently, to save her ass by cooking dinner to settle a bet. Only the power of PORK can save her now, or more specifically, a half dozen or so songs praising said pork with a little help from dark magic. This short was an absolute laugh riot for me from beginning to end. Highest recommendations!

"Parade of Aquatic Champions" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- Another short I really enjoyed with plenty of laughs and belly flops. You'd think so-called 'Aquatic Champions' would be smart enough not to belly flop into the pool, especially when racing, but hey, I never competed in the 1904 Olympics so what do I know? And I have no idea what the deal with Larry is, but I haven't been that
confused/unsettled since Mr. B Natural. *shudder* Very highly recommended.

"Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- And so ends the riffing of Star Wars, unless they start doing 'The Clone Wars' which might be the only thing that could make that series watchable for me. I hadn't seen this movie for quite a while and was surprised by how amazingly DULL the first half was. Once things pick up in the latter half, it's all good but why the FUCK did they change the perfectly epic and enjoyable 'Yub Yub' song at the end to that generic piece of crap? Bleah!

Unfortunately, after a great performance with 'Empire Strikes Back', the riffing seemed to drop back to mediocre levels with this Rifftrax, though it was still better than the dismal effort for 'A New Hope'. There were the occasional funny moments, like the gay jokes for the droids and Kevin Murphy taking Lucas to task for adding crap like a completely asinine dance sequence to the movie but keeping cheap special effects like Han Solo defrosting from hibernation intact but overall I was more disappointed than entertained by this Rifftrax. Mildly recommended but just barely. So now, because I felt like doing it, here's my ranking of the Star Wars Rifftraxs from best to worst, IMHO.

"The Star Wars Holiday Special"
"Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back"
"Episode I: The Phantom Menace"
"Episode III: Revenge of the Sith"
"Episode II: Attack of the Clones"
"Episode VI: Return of the Jedi"
"Episode IV: A New Hope"

"Cinematic Titanic: The Alien Factor" w/ Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu, Frank Conniff, Josh Weinstein and Mary Jo Pehl. -- Ah, the hairy 70s. When even the monsters in your films were required by law to be unshaven. Actually, that's only one of the three monsters that invade a small town filled with the usual gang of idiots that make up the cast of these things. There's the nerdy scientists who don't actually do anything, the know-it-all stranger who has all the answers. The inept mayor. The drunken posse. The sheriff and his deputy. The movie star, the professor and Mary Anne, etc, etc...

The riffing for this one was good but not quite as funny for me as 'East Meets Watts', which may be the fault of the film itself as it can be a little dry and painfully dull at times. There were some great lines though, especially from Trace who provided some of the biggest laughs, including one PERFECTLY timed riff I won't spoil here that nearly brought the house down and broke up the other riffers. At one point, Josh even acknowledges to the audience during an extended walking scene how difficult some scenes can be to riff when nothing's happening for minutes on end. Still, I enjoyed the CT overall. Highly recommended.

"Molly Grows Up" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- At first I wondered if I was qualified to judge this short being a guy, but then the short itself doesn't seem all that knowledgeable on the subject either. So, I'll just say Molly's adventures with menstruation made for a very funny Rifftrax, especially hilarious was the list of "activities" one should and should not do when on the rag, as well as the riffing of the opening and closing credits. Very highly recommended.

"Little Lost Scent" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- Meet Gregory, baby skunk and all around badass who rarely has to resort to his special weapon as he stares down every animal foolish enough to cross his path of PAIN. Even his vampire mom can't keep Gregory in line for long. This Rifftrax was a lot of fun and while they did talk over the admittedly long-winded narrator a bit too much
at times, I still enjoyed it. Highly recommended.

"Seat Belts: The Life Saving Habit" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- YES! I love cheesy shorts from the 1980s! The music, the fashion, the hair, it's all good. This short has its share of goofy moments but its mostly serious or as serious as 80s shorts can ever be. The first half of this Rifftrax had more laughs for me than the other half though, but still funny overall. It might be a bit hard to watch though if you have kids as some child sized test dummies take a few vicious shots into the windshield in this short. Recommended, otherwise.

"Avatar" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- Continuing in the tradition of movies like 'TRON' and 'Star Wars: Episode I', combining state of the art special effects with a crappy script, it's CAPTAIN PLAN... I mean, AVATAR! Okay, sure, it has blue anorexics fighting the good fight against an evil corporation who employ cartoonish, gung-ho villains, but so what? Uh, besides, 'Dances with Wolves' and 'The Matrix' were darn fine movies so ripping them off should mean this film is good by default too, right? Right??

Sarcasm aside, the rifftrax for this was amusing for the most part, nothing outstanding but worth checking out once at least. Long ass movie though. Recommended.

"Drawing for Beginners: The Rectangle" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- Very funny Rifftrax for a rather dry short about drawing rectangles. The artistic skills shown here are about on par with my own drawing abilities so I can't judge it too harshly but still, funny stuff. Highly recommended.

Real Life / School and website maintenance

For a week now, ever since the final exam on the 29th of April, I resisted checking my final grade for my macroeconomics class. I truly felt that my efforts in the class absolutely did not pay off in terms of grades. While I understood the majority of the material that I was being presented, I was graded on whether or not I was able to take exceptions to the material and explain/understand them.

I took the test Thursday thinking that I had ground to make up due to past grades and thinking that all the past grades would probably damn me to a failure (for a $2000 class). I needed to perform almost perfectly. The test I was given was nothing more than Groundhog day--testing on material that was beyond the material covered. At this point, we were into realms of "what happens with X when Y, Z, alpha, and Superfly are changed?"

My mindset was, "I don't need to rehash all of the reasons that I've been semi-depressed for the past four months, and relive all the problems of this class." I'm not a strong person in any sense of the word. I did seventeen-hour days, twice a week for four months to take the class. At least for me, they sapped my energy. Granted, it wasn't all the fault of the class. It was compounded by the fact that work, which takes up eight of the seventeen hours, was and still is highly unsatisfactory.

Since grades have been posted for two days, I steeled my nerve and decided to check online. I received a C+ for the course, to my surprise. It is tied for the lowest grade I had ever received in a college course. On the other hand, I didn't remember any high-school calculus over twelve years later and I definitely didn't know much of macroeconomics, so I consider this somewhat of a victory. I think that the grade can be attributed as much to participation and effort as to scores on assignments. Of course, it could also be partly due to the rather bad class evaluation that I submitted too. Whichever reason, I don't care.

I'm glad to close the book on this stressful period. This was my hardest university course ever, which makes plenty of sense as it is in the graduate level. I had a far easier time with Chinese and Japanese than I did with macroeconomics.

Thankfully, this means that my university education continues, and with hopefully far less difficulty. I am more confident that I can continue and pass the remaining courses I need to pass. It may mean that I have to take tests and possibly write a thesis in order to earn a Master's degree, but I think I will be up to the task. I did entertain thoughts of withdrawing, and almost did in February. However, it worked out in the end and I am extremely glad for it.

Yeah, this is nothing but a self-congratulary post while I'm still sitting on the non-publishing of the most recent Megane 6.7 MSTing (which by the way is pretty funny if I may express my opinion). On the other hand, ten years of writing MSTings has been a good hobby, while my Master's degree will hopefully allow me to choose my employment and my compensation for the remainder of my life. I love you guys, and I definitely want to keep writing MSTings for you, but unfortunately this stuff comes before. The positive is that if I get to the point that I don't have to keep struggling to make ends meet, hobbies will definitely be allocated more time, including this writing habit I picked up more than ten years ago.

I've rambled long enough. New MSTing will be posted by this weekend, hope everyone enjoys it, and thanks for the support!

Update in six words.

Class over. MSTing finished. HTMLized soon.

Comfortable posting schedule:

I think I've been able to settle into a decent routine for blog posts, doing about one every week to two weeks. That usually allows me enough time to compile enough to write about to warrant a blog post.

The most recent Rifftrax I've been able to view were New Moon and Avatar. Avatar just came out a couple of days ago, both the Rifftrax and the movie, and it was a very solid Rifftrax. The riffers themselves knew exactly how long (and draining) the movie was towards the end, making comment on it, and it certainly was an epic in the time scale alone. The enjoyable part for me with the Avatar rifftrax was that if you don't turn your brain off, you can usually see what the riffers will target next, and the riffs were very good.

Bonus Avatar (the movie) review: it's painfully long, the story is just this side of implausible, I caught myself humming "Colors of the Wind" under my breath, and the ending was so telegraphed. I found myself feeling sorry for pretty much every other character in the movie except the hero. And the hero was a chunderhead jerk to boot, who entirely deserved the name of Gristle McThornbody. The MacGuffin was painfully obvious and could have been dealt with in a way that did not lead up to the subsequent two hours and forty minutes. But the graphics were decent. Woo-hoo, decent graphics...

The New Moon rifftrax was good too. Certain other "contributors" to this blog may disagree with my assessment, but you guys like me better, right? I will admit that the riffing got off to a slow start, but there were quite a few riffs in there that absolutely had a cutting edge... they're the type of riff that you can see is the absolute truth, yet is painful to realize. Considering the aspirations of this movie series and its fans, there are many absolute truths that *should* be realized yet are not. The Rifftrax crew is there to illuminate them to the world. If the Avatar rifftrax was humorous commentary, this movie could certainly be classified as pop-culture skewering, and both are such an integral part of the humor generated from Rifftrax.

As for the personal life, I have one more week left before the semester ends. This essentially means that next week is my final exam. In a class where I'm going to struggle to pass, I really just want to get it done. (I have never taken any class before where I had to struggle to pass, and I really felt like this was my worst professor that I have ever learned from.)

I had a job interview for a job that was about 1000 miles away from my current location. I really am looking to leave my current area because it seems that there is really no way forward unless you know someone who can help you through. I know that this is also 95% of the rest of this country, but there's no 5% other around here.

Unfortunately, only two days after the interview, I received my rejection notice. The email I received did not say in the subject that it was a rejection notice, but it did note that there was an attachment. The eternal optimist that I am, I was hoping that it would be either an itinerary for a face-to-face interview or (gasp) an offer sheet. No, it was just the graphics that are present in the signature, attached as if it were an image. Arrgh. I think this is about the eighth interview or so I've had since 2007, the first this year, not including all the federal positions I'd been applying for. I know and realize that it just takes one acceptance through all these rejections, but they hurt all the same.

So, going full circle, I'm already bummed out and now facing a final exam when I've pretty much stunk at the other two tests in the class. I only hope that I can bring myself up to do a decent job on the final, and to motivate myself to study for it.

The lone bright spot -- the MST that Megane and I have been working on is at final draft status, and will likely be posted within the next two weeks.

Updates for ACen, and NetFlix plug:

We all received an update from Anime Central regarding the fanfic panel. The best that they could do for us was to give us time on Friday, from 12PM through 1:30PM. Therefore, we're up against the opening ceremonies and hoping that all the writers (and/or fans) will show up super-early on Friday. By all means, come on out and hopefully we'll still have a good time.

I signed up for NetFlix recently, and I must say that this $9/month subscription is far better value than the $55/month that I pay for cable. There's just something about a movie that goes right, or even a movie that goes wrong. It's so much more fun to crack jokes at bad movies than it is at bad TV shows. I think it's because busting TV shows is like criticising high-school basketball players for missing shots. They're going to miss shots... it's high school. They're going to make bad shows... it's television.

Movies are a whole other animal, because someone had to approve the specific story line. TV shows don't get that kind of scrutiny. So when a bad movie escapes Hollywood with a huge budget yet sucks on toast, it's sad yet funny.

And of course, you get movies that actually were decent ways to spend time. I watched the Jim Carrey movie "Yes Man" about three times before sending it back to NetFlix. Wasn't terrible, even if it had Zooey Deschanel's huge nose chewing up (or, really, snotting up) scenes. I had a chance to watch "The Men Who Stare at Goats" yesterday, and that was amusing too. Clooney needs a good straight man, but when he gets it he's usually pretty good.

The best part though is that those movies can be given back. While I was laughing at both movies, I was feeling darned good about the fact that I didn't buy either one of them for upwards of $20. Neither of those movies deserve that, especially since I'm not sure I'd willingly put either of them in my DVD player again.

As far as cable goes, there's two options now. Either check it out online (hello, Daily Show and Colbert Report) or get seasons through Netflix. In both circumstances, it's far cheaper than $55/month. Once the cable contract's up, I'm outta there.

The semester is close to ending. Thank heaven for that, as my backlog has grown larger. My significant other bought a copy of "New Moon", and the Rifftrax has been terrific through the first half-hour... though I haven't watched the rest of it. I've still got to finish Transformers 2 (as well as Transformers 1, which is still sitting at home). There's games to finish, and even MSTings to write if I ever get to that point. Much less, jobs to find. Anyone outside Michigan currently hiring?

New post of random thoughts:

I'm sitting here, waiting for the bus and using a Wendy's internet connection from across the street. (Thanks, Wendy's, I buy your chicken nuggets all the time, they're pretty good. Plug over.)

1) The Anime Central fanfiction panel has hit a snag. At present, the ACen organizers said that they would not provide space for a scheduled panel. I'm sure that there will be some sort of alternate plan, but this absolutely shocks me that an anime convention will not grant space for a fanfiction panel (but, thank heaven, the lemon writing panel is still on! Literature is SAVED!) I will post any updates I hear about this situation. I am still going, but there are absolutely no plans for a live MSTing at present.

2) Transformers 2 really sucks. I watched the first fifty minutes while riding buses, and it's utterly amazing how bad the movie is so far. So far there are humping dogs, Megan Fox doing everything she can to drape herself over freaking Shia Labeouf, the freaking Autobots draping themselves over freaking Shia Labeouf, and military security that couldn't guard an ocean. I'm not saying it's implausible, but MST3k itself had better narrative continuity and less implausibility. Thank heaven the Rifftrax is around, the riff they cracked about Buckcherry songs and a pole in Megan Fox's future was terrific. Can't wait to get to more.

3) The only problem, though, is that half my headphones died. I have--- I *had* a nifty pair of over-the-ear headphones that allowed me to shut out most other noise so that I could hear things while riding on the bus. My wife just bought a Nintendo DS, which came with a pair of ear buds... but they are a far cry from what I had. Ordered a new pair from TigerDirect, noise-cancelling and hopefully over-the-ear (though the pictures could have been clearer...) I'm crossing my fingers that it'll work.

MSTings still march along, Meg and I are still editing our most recent. Meg, in his wisdom, pointed out our next project... to continue a MSTing that we had already started but put aside. I think that the break will help the MSTing, it was dragging a bit but the action scenes are still to come. Hopefully, we'll be able to publish a couple of MSTings this year.

In Memoriam: Bill Livingston

According to sources online, prolific MSTer Bill Livingston passed away last week at the age of 45. (Obituary here) Both Megane 6.7 and I wish to offer our sympathies to Bill's family and our appreciation to Bill, who wrote some terrific stuff. Bill only dabbled into anime MSTings occasionally but he also has a large catalog of spam MSTings as well as Star Trek MSTings. I've read quite a bit of his work, and sincerely enjoy it.

Bill was able to take some extremely long 'fics and had the patience and enjoyment of writing to be able to riff them with his friends. The finished pieces are extremely good, and here are some links below for those who want to check them out.

My favorite of the bunch: "The Misery Senshi Neo-Zero Double Blitzkrieg Dilemma". Warning, this *text file* is over 1MB large. The riffing was terrific, the story was amazingly... well, amazing in and of itself, and the host segments were plentiful and funny. I've never been able to read it all in one sitting... but that's a good thing, because that way there's more riffs waiting for you for next time too.

The MSTing Mine also has Bill's work here. Curiously, I needed to link Misery Senshi above as it seems that it may not have been posted on Usenet before.

Thanks, Bill, for your wit and humor, and we'll miss you.


In Memoriam:
William "Bill" F. Livingston
2 January 1965 - 14 March 2010.

New MSTing & QnD Rifftrax Reviews!

Greetings!

Hallelujah! Zoogz and I have finally completed a new MSTing! Yayyyy! To check it out, visit the following link: http://www.nabiki.com/mst/recent/find3k1.txt

Also, I've completed work on no less than sixteen new Rifftrax QnD reviews which can be accessed below. Any and all feedback is much appreciated as always!

Sincerely,

Megane 6.7

"Drugs Are Like That" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- I really have to question the wisdom of producing an anti-drug short featuring two kids COKED OUT THE ASS. Seriously, these kids HAD to be on something as they struggle towards a coherent thought and barely mumble their way through some sort of bizarre analogy with Lego and drugs. Apparently, much like patriotism, drugs are everyone, everything, everywhere. They are the alpha. They are the omega. They are... like that. As for the Rifftrax, it's pretty decent with the riffers being frequently bewildered with the short and quickly losing patience with the brain dead brats. Recommended.

"Buying Food" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- Yes, apparently people had to be told how to food shop back in the day too. What's next, Centron? A short on how to scratch yourself? Actually, at this point, that wouldn't surprise me. Anyway, this is another hilarious short that makes a excellent companion piece with 'Cooking Terms' as food is hastily bought, cruelly wasted, harshly judged and subjected to a staggering amount of superfluous investigation. Very highly recommended.

"The Trouble with Women" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- Ever see that old episode of Family Guy where Mr. Weed shows Ms. Ironbox the work training film from the 1950s that was blatantly sexist? Well, that's pretty much this film in a nutshell as it tells us that women are a huge pain in the ass to train on the job but it's still YOUR responsibility to do so, so suck it up, man. As you might expect, the trio just go way over the top with this one mocking the attitudes and characters in the film "You probably left bra marks on the table!" and it makes for a short but very amusing Rifftrax. Highly recommended.

"It Must Be The Neighbors" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- For some reason, I keep thinking of the phrase 'It Must Be The Pretzels!' whenever I see the title. Anyway, this short features fugly neighbors bickering over who's the least responsible for the possible influx of mosquitoes, rats and bugs due to their combined laziness. Naturally it's up to their super kids to keep the peace by forming a mob and cleaning the fuck out of everything till their parents get their collective butts in gear. After all, without video games and cable TV to entertain them, what the hell else were kids gonna do back then? The riffing for this was pretty good and I was entertained. Recommended.

"Going Steady" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- This was yet another short on dating, this time asking if going steady is worth the hassle or not. Surprisingly, most opinions expressed in the short seem to lean toward the negative, even the parents of the middle aged kids. This Rifftrax was all right for the price, nothing special but not bad either. Recommended.

"You And Your Family" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- This brought back fond memories of the MST3K classic short 'A Date With Your Family'. And while it's only 7 mins long, it was pretty funny and I think worth checking out. Highly recommended.

"Primary Safety: In the School Building" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- Ahh, this was great. I remember having to watch films like this back in grade school. Of course we welcomed any chance to take a nap back then. Seriously though, this short was almost non-stop laughs as some poor kids is forced to pass judgment on his classmates for minor infractions to achieve the greater good of nurturing future generations of anal-retentive neurotics. Very highly recommended.

"Cooking Terms" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- I watched this short before 'Buying Food' and I have to say it's one of my all time favorites. Poor little Margie is cruelly lectured by the narrator when she makes a mistake on her husband's dinner/dessert and shamed into learning proper techniques like how to sheep, boil water and the all important soft ball lesson of cooking. Needless to say, the trio pummel this short mercilessly with hilariously scathing sarcasm, making this one of my favorite Rifftrax shorts. Very highly recommended.

"Casablanca" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- Mike starts off this Rifftrax explaining that he, Kevin and Bill took on this classic film as a personal challenge to test their skills, which I can relate to and greatly respect considering some of the fanfics I've MSTed over the years. And how did they do? Pretty well actually. The riffs here are definitely more of the light and playful persuasion than the sarcastic and brutally funny humor they save for movies like 'Twilight'. They did rely on random pop culture references a bit too much in some spots but I found it mostly forgivable considering the difficulty of riffing one of the greatest films of all time. In conclusion, this Rifftrax makes a nice companion piece to the film, just be sure to watch the film first if you've never seen it. Recommended.

"The Room" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- "Oh hi, Rifftrax fans!" Hoo boy... this film is pretty much a glorified softcore porn, elevated by a mind-bogglingly goofy script and starring a long haired Euro weirdo with an accent even more incomprehensible than Jean Claude Van Damme, Tommy Wiseau. Tommy is apparently aspiring to be Orsen Wells by also writing, directing and producing this film but he's far closer to Ed Wood Jr., despite the lack of any crossdressing... that we're aware of. The man simply exudes limburger with every line he utters. All three of them. Over and over and over again. "Oh, hi, repetition!"

Anyway, you would think this would make for a pretty funny Rifftrax. And yeah, for the most part, it does. They tend to riff on Tommy Wiseau a bit too much, not that it isn't well deserved but it does get a bit tired after a while. Where I felt the Rifftrax really stumbled though was whenever they had to riff any sex scenes. I realize it can be difficult to riff on basically the same sex scene repeated about five or six times over the course of the film with little variation and that Mike Nelson is personally uncomfortable with scenes involving sex and nudity in them but their solution of having Disembaudio show up over and over with his friends and family being as loud and obnoxious as possible was frankly downright painful to listen to and I really hope they can come up with a less irritating solution next time they tackle scenes like that.

Overall though, I'm still recommending 'The Room' Rifftrax for the price and the movie as a whole but you might find yourself turning the volume down at times. Fair warning.

"Back to School with Joan Miller" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- Girls Gone Plaid!

This is another short that would've worked well on MST3K as we're forced to watch model after model smile through their pain as they parade their hot naked wrists for our pleasure while draped in endless variations of plaid, the epitome of high fashion... if you believe Joan Miller who couldn't even be bothered to show up for this thing. The short runs twenty minutes and is generally repetitive but to their credit, the riffers do a pretty good job keeping things interesting and funny throughout. Recommended.

"The Bill of Rights in Action" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- This is one of those shorts that asks a question and expects you to come up with an answer. In this case, does freedom of speech grant a Nazi the right to praise Hitler while standing in front of a Jewish temple? The short is pretty straight forward and not really all that goofy, and while the riffers do get some funny lines in, I found it an odd choice for a Rifftrax. Still, I did enjoy the jokes, so recommended, I guess.

"Shake Hands with Danger" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- This short from the 70s is apparently still in use today and shows the dangers of being rock stupid on a construction site, with each work related accident being followed by an addictive little song that you'll have stuck in your head for weeks afterwards. Trust me. It's also cheesy as hell and the trio do a great job riffing it. Very Highly Recommended.

"The Tale of Moose Baby" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- Oh MAN... normally I'm not a fan of films involving animals but the first few minutes of this short had me laughing so hard, I thought I was going to pass out! That made it worth the 99 cents right there. The rest of the short wasn't quite as gut-bustingly funny but still good overall with the editing jokes, constant ribbing of Moose Baby and the last minute or so had me giggling for another five minutes straight. Very Highly Recommended.

"Flying Stewardess" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- Wait, they used to have pull out BEDS in airplanes!? Bring them back! NOW! OK, OK, to business. This 1950 short basically tries to convince women how wonderful and fulfilling it is to be a stewardess instead of a dumb old pilot. And according to the short, most stewardesses get married within a mere THREE years so apply now, you lucky dames and be sure to brush up on your sailing and ping pong if you ever hope to land a man! Sarcasm aside, this 11 min short is nicely roasted by the trio. Recommended.

"Constance Bennett's Daily Beauty Rituals" w/ Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett. -- Five minutes of watching a woman putting on makeup and taking a ba? Sure, why not? And who the hell names their child, Constance? Anyway, this woman is more than happy to lead us through her morning routine, but before you know it, it's a quarter of eight and she's dressed to serve her lord and master (her exact words) also known as her son. Yikes. While this short's pretty short, the riffing is pretty damn funny for those five minutes and worth checking out for 99 cents, IMHO. Highly recommended.

Rifftrax Reviews

Hi, just wanted to post here and say that my Rifftrax Reviews are still being updated semi-regularly, you can check them out at http://www.nabiki.com/mst/zoogz/mst/blog/2007/03/really-quick-n-dirty-rifftrax-reviews.html

Also, Zoogz and I will hopefully have a new MSTing on the site before too long, we've had less free time to work on MSTings of late but we are still active and we hope you'll enjoy our other works in the meantime.

Sincerely,

Megane 6.7

New content update

Short blog post today...

1. Megane 6.7 and I have put the finishing touches on another MSTing, "Loki Unties the Wolf." By all means, check out the link and feel free to tell us what you think either by email or even commenting here on the blog. Thanks in advance!

2. In more updating news, Megane 6.7 has also updated the Quick and Dirty Rifftrax Reviews with the more recent Rifftrax coming along.

Thanks again for your support and attention, and happy reading!
--Zoogz

Deepening Winter Doldrums

In March... yeah, I know.

I'm sure that many other people have had these kinds of stretches, but I'm pretty much in the middle of the doldrums right now, mostly because I'm feelin' a lot like Charlie Brown looking at the football.

I won't go into a whole lot of details at present, but suffice it to say that lately, any news I've had has been bad. I've had a close relative pass recently, seen opportunities go without having any power to influence them positively, computer problems, and work has become a quagmire where I'm getting assigned a completely new process that's so unknown that I may or may not be legally liable for mistakes I (or OTHERS) may make, much less dealing with coworkers who seem to want nothing more than to throw me under the bus.

It's been depressing to say the least. The football is right there, but I haven't kicked it in the longest time and at some point, the question starts... is that damn football even kickable?

The worst part is that I have had time off of work recently. Ordinarily, that's a good thing, but it seems like all this time that I've been taking off has helped only minimally. And considering how days off are are a precious resource that is finite, it kind of makes me feel as if I've failed even that.

Failure, especially on a wide-ranging scale, sucks. It certainly humbles a person quite a bit. It's times like this that a vacation seems warranted, but without any money to do so and a winter that doesn't want to end, I can't imagine where the hell to go for it. Anyone got a closet to hide in for about seven days or so? Or some spare optimism to send?

Latest MSTing is still coming along, and work continues. Still no official timeline, but we certainly seem close enough that saying "by the end of March" wouldn't be a stretch of the imagination.