In The Know: Are We Giving The Robots That Run Our Society Too Much Power?

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Need cheering up again? Do you like parody? Do you like news parody? Then you must watch the Masters of it - The Onion - as they the format of a news discussion panel to create an entire comic universe.

MST3K Lives On at RiffTrax

Back in the 90s, a show called Mystery Science Theater 3000 (or MST3K) aired for about 10 seasons. The format consisted of a man and his robots stranded in space, forced to watch a bad movie by an evil scientist. To maintain their sanity, they took to making funny comments while watching the movie. So each week on the show, we the viewer not only get to watch a bad movie (usually a sci-fi or horror film from the 1950s), but we get to hear it trashed by these three silhouettes in the front row of the movie theater.

MST3K reached the end of its run in 1999, but it lives on at RiffTrax (http://www.rifftrax.com/). RiffTrax features three of the original riffers, including Mike Nelson, MST3K's head writer and host from 1993 to 1999. The silhouettes are gone, but you still get to download and watch a bad movie, while getting the funny comments.

Samples are available of their extensive catalog, so you can get an idea of how funny these guys are. All movies and other items are available for purchase and download in DRM-free format (yours to keep forever, with no digital rights limitations.

One of the funniest series of subjects that they riff are short instructional films from the 1940s. These shorts deal with broad subjects like buying food, teaching children, and selling insurance. They are often funny and dated in their own right, and they benefit from topical commentary from the RiffTrax gang. The cost is only 99 cents to download one of the shorts.

There's lot of other things to do on the RiffTrax site; you can even make and upload your own RiffTrax!

Today is National Men Cook Dinner Day

I wonder what Jerry Seinfeld thinks about National Men Cook Dinner Day, the once a year event meant to ensure that the non-cooking man of the house serves up one meal a year. In some households, including one that belong to a couple of good friends of mine, the man cooks the vast majority of meals, and virtually all the dinners. They are boring, often burned, and not very tasty, but they do provide the sustenance required for the human bodies who partake of it while making faces and complaining.

Here's what Seinfeld had to say about a similar once-a-year event:

"The one movie ad I don’t get is this one: 'If you see only one movie this year...' If you see only one movie this year, why go at all? You’re not going to enjoy it. There’s too much pressure. You’re sitting there, 'All right, this is it for 51 more weekends, this better be good.'
- Jerry Seinfeld