Activity from JHarris
Displaying post 1 to 50 of 1383
CATSTRAVAGANZA
The Desktop Cat Cursor (not free but really cheap) , from Samperson, turns your computer's pointer into a big cat's paw extending onto the screen. Currently only for Windows 10 and 11 but a Mac version is in the works.
Special Event: Mining Accident Theater: WAR OF THE ROBOTS
MST Club presents.... Okay, this one requires some explanation. MST Club has lately been doing "expanded universe" riffs, like Rifftrax and The Mads Are Back, but has also been presenting fan-made riffing productions, like this one. Many old fanriffs are lost to the ages, sadly, but this one is quite recent, like two-weeks-ago recent! Mining Accident Theater is the story of Bogdan Smithee, a person trapped in an abandoned mine, with nothing but coworker Tom MacDonald and stranded rescuer Katherine Sprakehunter, and a bunch of old filmreels, to keep them company. There's no "Shadowrama" effect, their comments are just voiceovers. Up to this point MAT has only riffed shorts. This is their first attempt at riffing a full movie, and it's a doozy. It doozes. It's Alfonso Bresca's WAR OF THE ROBOTS, a movie where the robot army is composed of bodybuilders with Prince Valiant haircuts, the ultimate evil lady leader is named "Lois," and... well, you should see it for youself. On Youtube. Here. (1 hour 42 minutes) It was released April 2024.
The Amazing Digital Circus: Candy Carrier Chaos!
The day after Pomni's arrival, Caine gives the group a new adventure, to protect a tanker delivering maple syrup to a Candy Kingdom from bandits. Jax is excited at the prospect of violence, but Zooble is apathetic and stalks off. But in the Candy Kingdom, Pomni finds an unexpected kindred spirit.
The Amazing Digital Circus: Pilot
From Glitch, and created by Youtube animator Gooseworx. In a wacky 3D virtual world set in a circus, a new human arrives! But she immediately finds herself trapped there, and unable to recall their name. Rechristened Pomni, she meets several other trapped humans, some who have been there for years, and who daily try to keep their sanity while being subjected to frequent wacky hijinx, created by the crazy ringmaster Caine. If they don't, they become "abstracted" and turn into an eyeball blob monster. In the show's own description: "The Amazing Digital Circus is a psychological dark comedy about cute cartoon characters who hate their lives and want to leave🎪😀"
Special Event: The Mads: She Shoulda Said 'No'!
A.k.a. "Marijuana - The Devil's Weed." "How bad can a good girl get?" "Stay up or stay dumb." One of those anti-drug movies, from 1949. A young woman's life is wrecked through the use of 'the reefer.' The actress playing the main character is Lila Leeds, who had been the subject of scandal after she and Robert Mitchum were arrested for smoking marijuana. Due to the scandal it would be the last film Leeds would appear in, and she left acting, while Mitchum would go on to receive multiple Academy Award nominations and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I'll let you guess as to why Mitchum's career took off and Leeds' died, and here's a hint: it rhymes with "exism." Riff first shown September 19, 2023.
"Sounds like Kermit the Frog during a rectal exam."
Waluigi sings "Rainbow Connection." It'll consume two minutes and 44 seconds of your day, but no more than that. That's all. That's enough.
I've gone ahead and pushed #Dungeon out the door...
Dungeon, an RPG system for Commodore 64 I've gone ahead and pushed #Dungeon out the door for people to buy and play for $5. It's an RPG game system, for old-school RPG adventures, for the C64 from 1990. You use the Dungeon Guild to create a character, then put it through adventure modules other people have created. Five of them are included with the game, to play and to use their monsters and items in your own scenarios. It was published on Issue #74 of the C64 disk magazine LOADSTAR. It's presented by permission of the rights holder, Fender Tucker and configured to play in VICE.
Special Event: Rifftrax: The Amazing Bulk
MST Club presents... a riff of a frankly astonishing movie. You may think you know awful CGI. Well, the computer art in this movie makes Birdemic look like a masterpiece. Buildings made out of a few rectangles! Storefronts with names written out in Comic Sans--which is also what the credits are written in! And the titular Bulk combines all the worst aspects of both Playstation and N64 in-engine cutscenes. Sites say it's meant as a spoof, but, oof. It seems a lot like that's just them trying to justify their terrible decisions. Riff from April 2024, movie from 2012.
The six directions: North, South, East, West, Anth and Kenth
On Steam right now is a game that lets you play Mini Golf in four dimensions, called, naturally, 4D Golf (Steam, $20). I don't mean in the sense that time is a fourth dimension, it's set in a fully 4D world: you decide which slice of it is revealed in the visible 3D world at any time. Here's a trailer. (1 1/2 minutes) Here's Youtuber Icely Puzzles playing the beginning of it. (43 minutes) Here's the video devlog. It's from CodeParade, who also made the hyperbolic plane exploration game Hyperbolica. At the end of the release announcement video, its creator mentioned that there is a secret feature in 4D Golf that makes it even more bizarre, but telling its existence is a pretty major spoiler....
10 Years of Jeremy Parish's Works Projects
Jeremy Parish, dedicated game journalist and Retronaut, and creator of design deep dives, has been covering Gameboy (1989, gaiden), Game Boy Color (1998), Game Boy Advance (2001), NES (1985, 1986, 1987, 1998, 1999, gaiden), SNES (1991, extra, gaiden), N64 (1996), Sega, Virtual Boy and Metroidvania games now for ten years! His terrific and scholarly videos don't get nearly the views that much less worthy series get, so please give them a try if you have any interest in this area.
"so many tech demos end up hiding an ugly truth deep down"
Amazon Go, "a new kind of corner store," that company's futuristic storefront where you installed an app on your phone, and could shop for things just by picking them up off of shelves and walking out the door with them, is being shut down. Some random internet person called "Matt Haughey" described his experience with the store, and how it wasn't nearly as magical as it seemed: as it turned out it was a kind of technological sleight-of-hand, instead of using RFIDs and weight-sensing shelves and other techno-devices, they just had a whole lot of people watching cameras. Another random person on Mastodon points out the whole-lot-of-people part was probably a bunch of subsistence contractors in other countries. A third random person notes, even doing that, the store concept couldn't be made to work. Meanwhile the important gigantic hovering electronic head of Jeff Bezos floats above us all, unmoving but watching, silently.
COOOOKIIIEEEES! (a-rum-rum! a-rum-rum-rum-rum!)
Muptown Funk (previously) keeps rolling along, recently with two longer videos concerning Sesame Street: ranking every Waiter Grover sketch (50 minutes), and a deep dive into the stomach history of the Cookie Monster (20 minutes)!
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Food Delivery Apps
This week (aired on March 31, 2024).... The Murrieta Police Department has agreed to stop altering their mugshot photos with Lego heads. Trump's legal issues cost a lot, which might be paid for by Truth Social's company TMTG's IPO. (The show aired in the narrow period when it looked like it might be worth $5 billion for Trump.) And Now: Garth Brooks' Facebook Videos Are A Portrait Of A Very Strange Man. Main story: Food Delivery Apps, how the squeeze restaurants and drivers while even now not being profitable for their companies. On Youtube (26 minutes) And Now: Stuart Varney's Favorite Person Is Exactly Who You Think It Is. (Margaret Thatcher, somehow)
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Student Loan Debt
This week (aired on Marth 17, 2024).... Congress considers banning TikTok unless it breaks ties with its parent company. Colorado congressman Ken Buck announces his resignation. And Now: Coming Up On Inside Edition. Main story: student loan debt and the horrible situation borrowers are in. On Youtube (30 minutes) And Now: Coming Up On Inside Edition, Just Taylor Swift Stories.
Special Event: The Mads: Battle Of The Worlds
MST Club presents this 2022 riff of a 1961 movie. It's referred to as Season 3, episode 1 of The Mads Are Back. A mysterious rogue planet called The Outsider is approaching the Earth, and everything but Professor Benson thinks it'll hit! Prof Benson is right, but that's only the beginning of Earth's problems. At the end, a little dog is sad.
More D&D Info Cartoons
Six years ago (really? wow) I posted about Zee Bashew's terrific D&D explainer videos. Well he's still making them, and is trying to do one a week for the next few months! Here are some he's made since I last told you all about them: What is a grognard? - Ceremony - Encumbrance in 5E - The Awful Way I Ran 5E Survival - Magic Mouth - Oops! All Wizards - 5E Players Try 1E (AD&D) - Healer Feat - The Problem With The Awaken Spell (sad/funny) - Dangers of Metagaming - Option: Quantum Inventory - Grappling in 1E. If you enjoy D&D, or just learning or watching videos about it, Zee Bashew's Channel is great.
Special Event: Rifftrax: For Love Or Death
MST Club presents a 2024 Rifftrax of a movie from 1996. A karate monk doesn't want to do the karate-monk thing any more and leaves their evil karate sect. They come after in the evil karate sect way. So he transfers his soul into a passed-out hobo, giving him his karate moves. I didn't know it was so easy! Neo's skills in The Matrix don't seem so impressive now. Wait... maybe this is the Matrix, and the robots got their brain files mixed up? Agent Smith is going to have to pull overtime to fix this. You know most of the work the Agents do is going to be dumb gruntwork like that. Anyway, 1996 karate hobo action flick go.
"Magical Cat!"
✨There he is, ✨he's a magical cat, ✨everybody loves him ✨he's a ＭＡＧＩＣＡＬ ＣＡＴ!✨✨✨🧚🦄🧜♀️🧝🐈
(5 1/2 minute video, claymation animation compilation, silly, meow)
(5 1/2 minute video, claymation animation compilation, silly, meow)
ZachsMind: "It's awesomely awesome!"
Culled from a cancelled FMV 3DO game from 1996, you may never have seen anything so incrediculous as the 7 1/2 minute trailer Duelin' Firemen. While the trailer has been bouncing around the internet for 16 years (previously from 2007 by hypocritical ross), a higher resolution version has turned up that's almost watchable. It contains Rudy Ray Moore, the Rev. Ivan Stang, Mark Mothersbaugh, Dr. Timothy Leary and Tony Hawk. The Youtube channel of a documentary about the game's making has some other obscure clips from it.
Special Event: The Mads: Night of Shorts 7
Tonight on MST Club.... The Mads Are Back's Night of Shorts 7 was on sale recently, so I took the opportunity to purchase a copy. The five shorts shown are mostly from the late 40s and early 50s. The initial stream was on April 12, 2022.
“I actually think that AI fundamentally makes us more human.” (BOOOO)
Ted Gioia: "Tech leaders gathered in Austin for the South-by-Southwest conference a few days ago. There they showed a video boasting about the wonders of new AI technology. And the audience started booing." [Xitter link]
Gioia argues that users are becoming much more wary, not only about "AI," but about tech in general.
Special Event: RiffTrax: Spy High
Next up for MST Club.... this is a fairly recent release, both in movie (2000) and riff (February 2024). Hi-tek hakker kidz, and their dog, are recruited by a government agent to foil the plans of a nefarious video game company to put a mind control weapon on the internet. Think about what it implies to have a movie about hacker kids on the internet in the year 2000. I think a little more kindly of the movie knowing that nowadays the kids would be in their 30s and cursing the name of Elon Musk.
Make TrueType fonts for free on the web
Long ago, back in 2008, Dave Faris posted a link to FontStruct, a simple, yet deceptively versatile, free system for constructing fonts on the web, which you can then download as TrueType fonts for yourself, or even allow others to use. This is to inform you that FontStruct is still operational after 16 years at a different address! And it hasn't stood still during that time, it has steadily been updated with new features!
A matter concerning a square and a circle
Snif & Snüf (five minutes), a cartoon about two friends who find a couple of mysterious shapes, by Michael Ruocco, an animator who's worked on New Looney Tunes, the Cuphead Show and Bojack Horseman.
Special Event: The Mads Are Back: The Phantom at 10,000 Leagues
A radioactive monster wreaks havoc; for some reason the heroic scientist has to develop a relationship while saving lives from it; also, the monster's maker has to perish in his attempt to stop his creation. All these things the way they have to be in 50's monster movie world. (Riff from 2024, earlier this week)
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: State Medical Boards
This week.... Kamala Harris appeared to call for a cease fire in Gaza... but then qualified it by adding "for the next six weeks." Trump endorses North Carolina Republican candidate for Governor Mark Robinson by calling him, inexplicably, "Martin Luther King on steroids." And Now: C-SPAN Callers Show Once Again Why They're America At Its Best. Main story: state medical boards, the organizations whose job it is to issue, suspend and revoke licenses to practice medicine in each state. These boards tend to be underfunded, but also are often composed entirely of doctors, who can be biased in their judgements on behalf of their colleagues, a phenomenon called "the white coat code of silence." On Youtube (23 minutes). And Now: People On TV Love To Talk About Their Big Fuckin' Heads.
peepy is about crime and peanuts, peanuts and crime
What the hell is Peepy? "A peepy thrives in the shadows, using its wit to stun enemies. Its ability to steal may surprise you. It loves peanuts and will commit any heinous act to get them." In our sad real world, Peppy is a little plush animal that's vaguely peanut-shaped itself, with a beak and big eyes both round. In the lore, a Peepy has two loves in life: eating peanuts and committing crimes. The adventures of Peepy and "friends" on video are part of an elaborate ad campaign by itemLabel with a jolly but vaguely unsettling vibe. Most of it has strange and infectious music by Japanese musician Emamouse. Here's Peepy's Theme Song; a Nintendo DS-like console explains how to care for Peepy; and then there's the amazingly trippy animation Peepy's Secret (warning: bright lights and flashing).
Special Event: Rifftrax: Prisoners of the Lost Universe
MST Club presents! We're going back and forth between The Mads and Rifftrax in this phase of our riff watching project. This week Rifftrax is up, with the movie Prisoners of the Lost Universe. You may have seen a bit of it before: when Film Ventures International repurposed Ator the Fighting Eagle into Cave Dwellers, they gave it a generic fantasy scene behind the opening credits: that, it turns out, was from Prisoners of the Lost Universe. IMDB says: "Three people are transported into a parallel reality, where they find they must use modern technology, but medieval weapons, in order to save the citizenry from a murderous warlord." Selective technology, got it. For more on Rifftrax, see inside. This riff was released in 2012.
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Boeing
This week.... Biden "hopes" for a cease fire in Gaza. The Supreme Court says they will take up Donald Trump's claim of absolute immunity while in office. And Now: Newscasters React to a Seasonal Phenomenon (iguanas falling out of trees). Main Story: The problems with aircraft manufacturer Boeing, which has fallen from grace in recent decades, after their merger with McDonnell Douglas brought with it a focus on using stock buybacks to juice their shares at the cost of all else, paid for by cutting corners on safety. LWT presents a more honest ad for Boeing at the end of the episode.
"I have a Bubsy 3D poster on my wall, it brings me daily inspiration!"
Garfield (2004) was a game for the Playstation 2 and PC. It was a pretty lackluster 3D production where the idea was to help the cartoon cat clean Jon's house within eight hours (real time!) or else be put on a diet. The few places that reviewed it gave it extremely low scores (0/10!). Youtuber planet clue recently had a look at the game (20 minutes) and, while agreeing it's no great work of art, saw that there was still a bit of fun to be had, if it could be made to run on Windows 11, and if one could get over its issues. So, they went about hacking it to correct its more egregious flaws, and when they were done put their improved version online, as Garfield+ (Windows only).
Special Event: The Mads: Manos The Hands of Fate
Next up on MST Club's current mostly random sequence of further riffing as we can get it is The Mads' showing of (gulp) Manos The Hands of Fate. Infamously one of the worst movies MST3K ever did, this return to the trough has Trace Bealieu and Frank Conniff tackling it by themselves. Rifftrax also covered Manos, in a live show, but we'll save that for a future date. As for the movie... yeah, its Manos. A family of three on a vacation trip unwisely stay the night at the mysterious Valley Lodge, run by "Torgo," a balking goat-man with intrusive theme music. Turns out Torgo is in league with the forces of darkness, which include The Master and his undead wives out in the desert. Things don't well, either for the family or for the viewer. Good luck, once again, everyone.
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Pig Butchering Scams
This week: West Virginia considers a law that would impose criminal penalties to people who expose children to "obscene literature," and similar moral panics grip lawmakers across the nation. The Alabama Supreme Court rules that frozen embryos are people "regardless of developmental stage," putting the legality of in vitro fertilization in jeopardy. Anti-abortion figures try to keep quiet that the Comstock Act could be used, in a second Trump term, to harm access to abortion drugs nationwide without going through Congress. And Now: More Explicit Readings From Concerned Citizens At Public Meetings. Main story: "Pig Butchering Scams," where malign entities send out-of-the-blue messages to people attempting to engage them in conversation, build a connection with them, and eventually con them. And Now: Local News Loses It Over Major League Baseball's New Pants.
Special Event: The Mads: Mutiny In Outer Space
The Mads are Trace Beaulieu, who played Dr. Clayton Forrester and was the original voice and performer for Crow on Mystery Science Theater 3000, and Frank "TV's Frank" Conniff. They partner with Dumb Industries to riff movies and shorts! We are doing some of their shows in our continuing exploration of the wider universe of riffing. Their most recent show was Mutiny In Outer Space. The Commander of Space Station X-7 has come down with a bad case of space raptures, and his crew has to mutiny to save their station from being destroyed.
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: The Supreme Court
Welcome back! This week (and the past two months).... The Chicago Rat Hole. (wait, what?) Tucker Carlson had a fawning interview with Vladimir Putin. Israel continued its horrific assault on Gaza. Courts have hit Trump with gigantic fines, but he keeps on Trumping, saying (amidst the word salad) all the horrifying things he's now been saying for over eight years, including telling Russia to "do whatever the hell they want." And Now: Chuck Grassley Celebrates His Favorite Holiday (Groundhog Day). Main Story: The Supreme Court, which has been losing respect among many, has been rocked by news of gross financial impropriety by Justices, which is dangerous for an institution with no enforcement power. Thomas, in particular, has accepted millions of dollars of trips and other gifts from conservative billionaires, including some who frequently are involved in matters before the court, and almost never recuses himself from their cases, and in recognition of its status as the highest court, the law explicitly carves out exceptions for Supreme Court justices. Last Week Tonight offers to resolve the appearance of impropriety with its characteristic bluntness: if seats on the highest court of the land are so invulnerable to appearances of influence without consequence, then John Oliver himself will offer Justice Clarence Thomas a $2.4 million-dollar motor coach and a million dollars a year for the rest of his life, if he will just step down from his office. In Oliver's words: "How is this legal?"
Special Event: MST3K Vs. Gamera Round 2: GAMERA VS JIGER
The second of a set of three fan productions; the first two were made in 2019, the third was delayed but is said to be almost ready for the world. (When it is released, we'll try to show it if possible.) When this production was made, MST3K Season 11 was fresh in people's memories, but Gamera vs Jiger had yet to be riffed in Season 13. Crow and Servo are joined by hapless test subject Helmut Crusoe, who is subjected to Gamera movies by a goofy second banana-wannabe called the Crimson Weirdo. The makers place these episodes in continuity between the Comedy Central and Sci-Fi Channel eras of the show.
Recreating a game using a VHS recording of it
The exclusive Satellaview-only broadcast tracks of Nintendo's classic SNES/Super Famicom racing game F-Zero have been recovered by fans, and are available in a romhack on the original F-Zero. The story of their recovery, and in some cases recreation, is told in an interview with the hack's main programmer on classic gaming blog Press The Buttons, which reveals that special tools were used to recreate some of the tracks from out of a VHS recording of the tracks being played when they were originally broadcast. DidYouKnowGaming (12 minutes) also has a video about the process of the tracks' recreation.
Special Event: MST3K Vs. Gamera Round 2: GAMERA VS VIRAS
In 2019, some fans of our favorite cowtown puppet show took it upon themselves to riff Gamera movies that the show (at that time) never touched. Tonight we're watching the first of these, GAMERA VS VIRAS. It's got the same kind of content as Gamera vs Guiron and Gamera vs Zigra: it's a kids' film starring a giant mutant flying turtle. Meaning, look out for the return of the Gamera Song!
tl;dw: RUN FOR THE HILLS
A helpful Adversary explains to a Sunday School class the many ways that Evangelical Christian teaching doesn't match up to what pastors learn in seminary, in the animated documentary Satan's Guide to the Bible. (1 hour 26 minutes) Watch out for that Jen!
Sports make ya grunt and smell. See, be a thinker, not a stinker.
Carl Weathers has passed away (1948-2024). Here he was on stage 10 months ago at Star Wars Celebration. From MGM on Youtube, the best of Apollo Creed. Col. Dillon's death scene from Predator. Carl Weathers on the Rich Eisen Show about his football career. "Carl Weathers" meeting Tobias Fünke at Burger King. And Din Djarin meeting with Greef Karga in the first episode of The Mandalorian.
Special Event: Mystery Fandom Theater 3000: Shorts
The last episode the fans made of Mystery Fandom Theater was a collection of shorts. We'll watch it tonight, if you want to join us! I'm not sure yet what we'll show next week, but there's a couple of other fan-made riffing productions that we're looking into.
This monkey means business!
After another successful Kickstarter, today sees the premiere of Hanging With Doctor Z Season 3, with guest Kevin Pollack! Nox Aeternum posted the first three episodes here back in 2021, and all the episodes can be seen on the show's Youtube channel. Here's the show's website!
Special Event: Mystery Fandom Theater 3000: ELIMINATORS
The fourth of five Mystery Fandom Theater 3000 fan-made episodes, this one riffing the movie Eliminators. A "Mandroid" fights against his(?) master, who has a time machine. It's got so much cheese it might as well be a pizza.
The giant space hamster is a beast; the space hamster is a monstrosity
The Monsters Know What They're Doing is a blog that examines all of the D&D 5th Edition monsters, according to their rulebook stats and descriptions, and offers strategy ideas for the interested DM.
Exploring the BABA IS YOUNIVERSE
Hempuli, the brilliant designer behind the rule-modification puzzle game Baba Is You ($15 for Windows, Mac and Linux, previously, again), hasn't rested since that came out. (Everything mentioned is free and for Windows unless otherwise noted.) Baba Is You was so successful that now we have to help Baba File Taxes! Covemount (Web) is a simple Sokoban clone with an interesting numeric gimmick. Baba Is You XTREME adds an extra feature to Baba for reasons of "fun." And there's a collection of 16 Solitaire games! And a little Neko-like Baba friend/desktop toy! And... Mobile Suit Baba, a mashup of Baba Is You and Into The Breach?! ($4, Windows) There's lots more i left out only for brevity's sake: the rest is on Hempuli's itch.io page.
Special Event: Mystery Fandom Theater 3000: STARCRASH
What, again? Before the new MST show covered Starcrash, Mystery Fandom Theater 3000 did it, and that's what we're watching tonight!
I'm okay with my tax dollars paying for this
The website fatherhood.gov maintains a database of Dad Jokes.
Infinity Train: Book 1
Infinity Train was a short-lived Cartoon Network series, who for its second two Books was moved to HBO Max, then unceremoniously delisted from there, because WARNER BROS IS TERRIBLE. That's right: current Infinity Train right now can only be legally seen on DVD or from tapes of on-air recordings. This is what you missed. Contains minor spoilers.
Zelda Day 2023
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, like Breath of the Wild, has a secret experience system that doesn't make your character stronger, it makes the enemies harder. Here's 102 ways to kill a bokoblin in that game. If you got it for the holidays and want some tips, here's 10. How to send Link waaaaay up into the sky with just a fan and a plank, using Oriented Carryable Objects (OCOs). And here's TerminalMontage's speedrun cartoon, featuring Cucuí Ganon.
Special Event: Cinematic Titanic: SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS
When we went through Cinematic Titanic, we passed over one episode to save it for the Holiday Marathon: their re-riff of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. A weird conceit (the lives of Martian children are too regimented so they need Santa to break them out of it), the actors give it their all but the low production values have given it a reputation of one of the worst movies ever made. Among the actors in this are a young Pia Zadora as Girmar the Girl Martian, and Bill McCutcheon, who later appeared on Sesame Street and in Steel Magnolias, as the childlike Martian Dropo.
10th Annual MST Club Xmas Marathon!
This year we are holding our tenth annual (yikes) Christmas Video Marathon, at https://cytu.be/r/Metafilter_MST3KClub. The enormity of that number is not lost of us. From the noon (Eastern time) of December 22nd, and all through December 23, 24 and 25, that's 84 straight hours of irreverent Christmas comedy and specials, along with other fun things, all produced with the intent of giving you something to unwind to during stressful times. More information inside....