Another monotonous post, plus MST3K XV reminder

The announcement of my return may have been a little premature. Anyway, I’m going to try to keep up with things as much as I can. Which is probably not very much, but I’ll at least finally fire off that Cinematic Titanic Live report from last month. I may try to focus less on news and more on reviews and articles, now. As you probably know, Satellite News is always your best bet for the latest in MST3K-related news.

Also, just a quick reminder that the absolutely fantastic new MST3K DVD set, Volume XV, was released recently. It contains three of the series’ most amazing episodes (The Girl in Lover’s Lane, Zombie Nightmare, and Racket Girls — plus season one’s weak The Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy) as well as some good extras. If you’d be kind enough to pick it up via this link, my (almost literally) penniless self would appreciate it. Thanks.

Deep Ape is now on Twitter

Now that I’m back to posting semi-regularly, I’ve decided to finally finish setting up the Deep Ape Twitter account. So, if you want to be alerted when there are new posts, you’re one of the three people who still give a flip about the site and want to keep in touch, or you just want more MST3K / Rifftrax / Cinematic Titanic content on your Twitter dashboard, then go follow us (and by “us,” I mean “me”).

Introducing the Deep Ape TV beta, streaming MST3K 24/7!

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m very pleased to announce a brand-spanking new feature on Deep Ape: a streaming video channel! I hope to provide a regular place to view MST3K-related videos all day, all week, all month, and all year long. Try it out by clicking the black box at the top of this post a couple of times, and the channel should kick in. (Hopefully.)

Surely, this must look like witchery to your eyes, but nay! The channel is hosted on a site called Mogulus, which allows anyone to create their own streaming video channel. Most of the clips are taken from YouTube, which means that I am but a DJ making playlists. Basically, don’t give me too much credit, here. I just thought this would be a nice service to provide.

Mogulus is still in beta, so there may be some glitches and the occasional downtime. Sadly, I have very little control over everything and, frankly, this is all new to me anyway, so anything could go wrong on my end. Just bear with me and let me know if anything goes a little too wrong. I also encourage you to visit the channel’s page and chat with others while you watch. You can also embed it on your own site.

I have yet to finalize the schedule, but first up will be a week or two of Halloween-related episodes and clips, some of which are running now. The schedule will play in a continuous loop, and I’ll be adding and subtracting clips over time. Any major updates will be posted on the blog. So, enjoy!

A weekend musing… nothing to see here

This is my birthday weekend, and that’s my excuse for being absent from this blog. Once all the beer and cake and ice cream stops flowing, I’ll eventually pick myself up out from the heaving mounds of confetti and party favors and get back to blogging. Hopefully. Anyway, Josh posted on the CT blog a few days ago, and he gave a hilariously accurate description of his comrades:

Not that I mind my role as group huckster, someone’s gotta do it. It shouldn’t be Trace, he’s got that quiet dignity that no one wants tarnished. Mary Jo is more than willing but she lacks a certain shamelessness – no matter what she writes, the take away message is always, “Boy, I sure like that Mary Jo!” Joel…well we’d all prefer he remain a notch more mysterious than that. And I can’t get a hold of Frank – last I heard, he was locked in a suite at the Chateau Marmont working on Friday’s blog: “13 Movies From the Late ‘40’s that Make Me Cry”. The dude really should write a book.

Sorry. Thought it was funny, had to share it. Carry on.

Late-Night Thoughts

So, it’s 4AM over here, and I’m looking through the blog’s visitor statistics, before I head to bed. And I notice something. Something that leads me to a question that is sure to puzzle me through ’til the morning: Why is there a sudden influx of people coming to this site via searches for Beowulf and naked pictures of Angelina Jolie?

True enough, my post about Beowulf‘s Rifftrax did mention Angelina Jolie’s CGI nakedness from the film, but why now? Am I missing something? I mean, granted, a naked Angelina Jolie is never something to be scoffed at, but I’m just perplexed as to why the planets having seemingly aligned and driven everyone to search for epic poems and topless adoption fanatics. Is it the work of one sad man, or of many? What happened over the course of the past two days to create this surge?

Shrug. Honestly, this isn’t even one of the weirder ones.

Hiatus

In case it isn’t obvious, Deep Ape is currently in the middle of a sort of semi-hiatus. Every half-a-year, I burn out from blogging about all things MST3K, and I just need to ease off of it. I’ll still post from time-to-time, but expect the pace to be as slow as it has been, for these coming weeks. Thanks for your patience.

In the meantime, you should go click on the links at the bottom of the About page. You know you want me, baby.

Happy Valentine’s Day from Deep Ape!

Valentine’s Day. Either you love it or you hate it. Personally? I remain neutral. I never have any reason to celebrate it, but I don’t see why others shouldn’t. Greeting card companies got to get paid too, son. Regardless of your personal feelings on the holiday, I wish you the best of Thursdays. Either way, I’ve put a trio of videos after the cut to help you get into the appropriately lovin’ mood — or alternatively, to help you laugh your way through your loneliness. Just remember, fellow nerds: You’ll always have Battlestar Galactica. That’ll never be cancelled.

Deep Ape Is Selling Out

Sorry. I don’t like making these sorts of posts anymore than you like reading them. Basically, long story short, I’m perpetually strapped for cash. So, I’ve decided to try to bring in a teeny, tiny amount of cash via Amazon.com. Now, whenever I link to a relevant product (MST3K/Film Crew DVDs, a Rifftrax movie, etc.) it will be an opportunity for you to line my pockets with sweet, sweet cash to rub all over my naked body. I link, you click on link, you buy via link, and I get a small cut of the sale. Got it? Think of it as putting a few bucks in my tip jar, while buying something you want.

So, no, this doesn’t really effect you or your time spent reading this blog. But if you’d like to help me out and say, “Hey, your blog is okay. I want to give you money,” then this is the way to do it. I’d appreciate it, but no pressure.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to finish writing out that check for Pitch.

Happy Old Year: The Top Posts of 2007

Well, folks, 2007 is drawing to a close. We survived. (Well, if you’re reading this, you probably did. I don’t recall the numbers for my zombie demographic.) It was certainly a good year to be a MSTie, but I’ll talk about that later. And while it was a rough year for me personally, it was a decidedly triumphant year for this little project known as “Deep Ape”. The blog’s one-year anniversary is a couple of months off, so we’ll save the hardcore reminiscing – which, of course, I’ll be the only one interested in.

As is common for blogs like this, there’s usually a “most popular posts of the year” recap right around this time. Being the narcissist that I am, this is it. Now, I was almost reluctant to go through with this post, namely because some of the top individual posts are damn unimpressive. Effectively, they’re posts that Google led people to while they were desperately searching for naked pictures of Jessica Alba. But hey, let’s display our pathetic embarrassment for all to see (after the cut)!

Deep Ape Updates (Apedates?)

Hey, everybody. Can I just tell you how doggone pleased I am with this blog, and all of you who read it? This blog just reached 20,000 hits. That’s huge. Every week, the number of visitors gets bigger. December has been the best month of all time by a lot, and all this comes after I nearly let this place die, back in September. I really appreciate your support, whether intentional or not. So, enough with the Hallmark crap. There’s changes a-happenin’, so let’s get to ‘em.

Reviews

I’ve been heavily slacking off on the reviews portion of this blog. I’m sure it probably hasn’t been sorely missed, but it’s important to me, at least. And so, it’s finally coming back. You’ll notice that the Reviews link is back at the top of the page. I’m currently going back and polishing up my old reviews, and I’ll be adding them to that page once they’re done. Feel free to take a look at the new, under construction format and complain about the graphics.

Video Archive

Okay, so, the Video page is one of the most-visited parts of this blog. Those of you who frequent it, you probably noticed that most of the links stopped working a while ago. Well, I overhauled the full-length episode links, and I’ll be adding more soon enough. I still need to fix the non-episode links, as most of those are down. Basically, I’m just asking you to be patient. It will get done.

Deep Ape on YouTube

Yeah, I made a YouTube channel. Big whoop. I’m sure that there’s very little MST3K footage out there that has yet to be uploaded to YouTube, or any of its copycat sites. Still, hopefully I can dig up some decent stuff. If you go there now, you’ll find Rifftrax’s Signal 30 short and some piddly little playlists. More to come. I hope.

Fan Riffs / Interweb Theater

The FanVids page has been renamed Fan Riffs. For now, it just contains links to my own series, Interweb Theater. I’ve been meaning to branch out and list other fan-riffers, so that might happen in the future. As for my Interweb Theater series, it’s on hiatus. I do, however, have a couple of targets in my sights, so once I get a new microphone, you’ll probably see some new content turn up.

If you read all that, there’s something wrong with you. Bye-bye.

Merry Christmas from Deep Ape!

I genuinely hope your Christmas was a good one. It was quite a low-key, distracted holiday, for your semi-humble webmaster. Too much on my mind and not enough to take my mind off of it. Except for the beer, of course. That helped. I wasn’t really able to MST-out this year, though I do still plan on squeezing in one of the Christmas episodes before New Year’s. I also received my first Film Crew DVD, so you can look forward to a review of that sometime before 2009.

Reviews are still under reconstruction, but they will be making a comeback, next year. And in case you hadn’t noticed, the video page has also been undergoing some shuffling. Most of the old links kicked the bucket and I had to re-collect them. Also, before New Year’s rolls around, I’ll probably be putting up a “year in review” post, for those of you who have been living under a rock for the past year. I’ll also post a list of the year’s top posts on Deep Ape, if only because there are some odd selections. And because I’m a narcissist.

So, Christmas wishes to you. My OS also supports Hanukkah, so a merry that to you, where applicable. Everyone else, bite me. (I’m kidding! I love you, too.) Now, as Christmas draws to a close, I hope you had a Swayze one. Remember: Merry don’t hurt. (The proper version of the above video is after the cut.)

Happy Day of the Ninja!

Some of you might be familiar with the trendy, internet-famous “Talk Like a Pirate Day,” a day in which people are encouraged to talk like murderous thieves who once raped and pillaged on the high seas. Now, I don’t need to tell you how inferior pirates are to ninjas. As such, I refuse to celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day, but I do indeed choose to celebrate Day of the Ninja, which just so happens to be today.

Spend the day moving stealthily around your place of work or education. Dress in all-concealing black. (If you happen to live in an arctic region, I believe it would be appropriate to substitute white, here.) Play some Ninja Gaiden. Watch The Karate Kid and/or Surf Ninjas. Assassinate a pirate. Just have a good ol’ ninja time today, friends. In honor of this momentous holiday, I’ve embedded MST3K’s Master Ninja episode after the break, in five parts. Enjoy, my ninja allies.

A Note To A Reader

To the one person who apparently arrived at Deep Ape via searching for “Jim-Mallon cash-in,” I believe you’re at the wrong location. Please try this site. Sorry for any confusion this may have caused. Godspeed.

(Late) Happy Thanksgiving from Deep Ape

I realize this is a day late, but that’s what happens when you’re sick and you end up sleeping until 4PM on Thanksgiving, then hurriedly throwing together some also-late news posts, right before bed. But anyway, I hope you had a happy Thanksgiving. I didn’t get to indulge in any Mystery Science Theater viewings, for the above reasons, but hopefully you managed a little Turkey Day marathon.

On a more faux-poignant note, I just wanted to say thanks to all the regular Deep Ape readers. Throughout the course of this blog’s first year, I’ve seen the weekly hits increase steadily, and I’ve come so far, readership-wise. When I started this blog, it took four months for me to get 3,000 hits. Now, since I came back in October, I’ve nearly gotten 4,000 hits in that short time alone, and other blogs are even starting to link here. So thanks, guys. I’m glad you found reasons to keep coming back.

Satellite News Likes Me, They Really Like Me

It looks like all my hard work finally paid off. Of course, no hard work actually took place, and I wasn’t really trying to get this to happen, so that first sentence really serves no purpose other than to intro this post, which is really just a masturbatory post in the first place. What were we talking about, again?

Oh, yes. Satellite News recently linked to my review of their new design upgrade. They even go so far as to attempt to deceive their readers into believing that I’m a “very good blogger.” Well, gentlemen, I am flattered and thankful. I almost feel bad for being so snarky in that post. Still, I am a MSTie. If we can’t be snarky with one another, well… well, then Joel Hodgson died in vain, I tell you! So, keep at it! Keep snarking! Remember Joel! Remember the Hamdingers! THE HAMDINGERS!

Joel Hodgson’s not dead, you say? Well, where do you think Frank Conniff got that wonderfully authentic skin for that Joel Hodgson Emulation Machine, huh? Yeah. Didn’t think about that, did ya?