I will return Monday from my unannounced hiatus. But,today being Friday the 13th, I leave you with this hilarious nugget of joy:

Exciting News! After being announced four years ago (has it really been that long?), “The Gamers 2: Dorkness Rising” finally has a release date. It will release August 14th at Gencon Indy. What makes this extra exciting (for me, anyway) is that I’ll be at Gencon this year to promote a Board Game that will be released at the con. A handy coincidence, if there ever were one. (Read: I’ll be watching the film that Thursday night from my hotel room)

The first Gamers movie was a surprisingly funny low-budget look into the world of gaming. Some of the jokes may have fallen flat, but overall it was a fairly true-to-life look at the overall fun and silliness that hardcore geektastic gamers have. If you haven’t seen it, it’s definitely worth picking up and watching (or you can watch it, in it’s entirety, on Youtube. If you’re broke. Or a cheapass). The second film looks to up the ante with an actual budget, higher production values, and (gasp!) what appears to be a real plot. It’s sad, but it looks like it could be better than the two Official live-action D&D films that have been released. But don’t take my word for it, check out the trailer below.

Gamers 2: Dorkness Rising will be available at Gencon, at Paizo, and a surprising number of a bigger box retail stores. MSRP: $19.95

“Where are my Online Episodes?!”

Dear Sci-Fi Channel,

I would love to tell you that I have seen the most recent Episode of Battlestar Galactica. You know, the one that I keep hearing is fantastically awesome. I would love to share with you my new theories about who the fifth cylon could be. However, I can’t. You can blame(/thank) yourself for that.

You see,you used to have this great, forward-thinking feature on your website. You called it Rewind, your term for what is basically time-shifted content. Whenever you would air a New Episode of Battlestar Galactica you would also post it on your website later that evening at 1am. You see, I work days and nights, and am thus not home when BSG is on TV. So for the first six weeks of new episode bliss, I would excitedly pop over to your website at some point after 1am and excitedly watch the weeks new episode. Last Friday, I excitedly popped over and found nothing. You had the four previous episodes, but not the newest one. I searched and searched and could find no announcement of when it would be posted.

So I ran over to Hulu, which puts their episodes up at the same time as you do (you know, since you’re both owned by the same company). They had nothing either. I hoped that it would be a simple technical problem, and that the show would be up by Monday. Wrong.

I popped on Sci-Fi.com Monday, confident that my beloved BSG would be there waiting for me with a warm embrace that only two lovers can share. Nothing. No announcement, nothing. So I checked out Hulu. This time, they did have an announcement:

Upcoming Episodes:
Guess What’s Coming to Dinner: Pt. 1; Airdate: May 16, Avaiilable on Hulu: May 24
Guess What’s Coming to Dinner: Pt. 2; Airdate: May 30, Avaiilable on Hulu: June 7
Sine Quan Non; Airdate: June 6, Avaiilable on Hulu: June 14
The Hub; Airdate: June 13, Avaiilable on Hulu: June 21

Being that you get the episodes the same time Hulu does, this is essentially rewind’s schedule also. So I angrily ask, I have to wait a week and a day to watch the Episodes online?? That’s a week of dodging co-workers out of fear of spoilers, instead of spending time talking with them about and building up buzz and goodwill for your damn show. That’s a week of avoiding enthusiast forums and blogs, instead of discussing and dissecting.

So guess what happens now? I stop playing your game. You were at one point getting advertising revenue and hard viewing statistics from me watching your show online. GONE! I will now go back to far more convenient BitTorrent approach to watching your show. I got rid of Comcast a few months ago, so I’m still able to download those Peer-enabled wonders.

The tragedy here, Sci-Fi, is I actually like the show enough, that I was willing to jump through your flash-driven, advertising-enabled hoops. I don’t do that for just anything or anyone. But, hey, if you change your mind and decide to embrace the 21st century, give me a call. You’ve got my number.

Love,
~Chris

Apparently superdeluxe.com is being shuttered and rolled into Adult Swim’s website. The reason being that the humor on both sites is very similar. I guess this makes sense, in my Internet Video post I mentioned that the two sites were fairly similar. There has actually been somewhat of an outcry online, with people comparing Superdeluxe.com to Arrested Development and other great cancelled shows. While I may not go that far, the site was pretty cool, and I liked it a lot better than funnyordie.com. The silver lining of this story is that two of the site’s more popular video series have already been picked up to be turned into a TV show. Here is a nougat-y sample of what that show could be:

I don’t know if any of you were watching SNL this weekend. I was sort of half-watching while I was running a DnD Session, but I did manage to catch one of the funniest sketches I have ever seen on the show. These are likely to go down in the hall of fame, forever.

A note to NBC: The fact that I had to pull two of these off of YouTube proves that you still don’t “get it”.

EDIT: NBC eventually added parts 1 & 3 to the Part 2 I had posted originally. As a result, I removed the YouTube versions (which were liable to be taken down soon anyway). That said, NBC you’re still on Notice.

The best show on television returns tomorrow with the season premiere that we’ve waited over a year for; and I, for one, am ecstatic. Today I go over the many ways you can catch the new Season, even if you don’t receive the Sci-Fi channel. I also go over what happened last Season, and what I think could happen happen in this the Final Season. This page will be Spoiler-Free, but the next page includes speculation about Season 4 and spoiling information from Season 3.

5 Ways to Catch the New Battlestar Galactica

Watch the Sneak Preview online

Sci-Fi will be airing the Episode in it’s entirety at 11am tomorrow (or today, if it happens to now be Friday the 4th) on their website. Take an early lunch and you could be lording your sudden knowledge over your classmates or co-workers in no time. There is a downside to this, since it is a live stream it could be possible for your network to hiccup, causing you to miss a vital part of the episode and leaving you without the ability to rewind.
http://www.scifi.com

On the T.V.(a.k.a The Old-Fashioned Way)

For those of us in Champaign who are lucky enough to have the Sci-Fi channel (those with Satellites, Digital Cable, or Premium Cable), we can catch Battlestar Galactica the old-fashioned way: on TV. Battlestar Galactica will be airing “He That Believeth in Me” (the season premier) four times over the course of the next week. You can catch it:

• Friday, April 4th at 9pm (The official premier)
• Friday, April 4th at 11pm
• Sunday, April 6th at 10pm
• Next Friday, April 11th at 8pm (2 hours before Episode 2 airs)

On the Internet

There are now two sites where you can catch the latest and greatest Battlestar Galactica Episodes. The first one is, naturally, http://www.scifi.com. They should have the new episode posted shortly after it airs on TV. While you may not get the same resolution that you would get over the TV this is a fairly good way of watching the new episode. You can rewind, if wanted, and if it stutters it will simply rebuffer instead of skipping ahead (as opposed to the aforementioned live stream). There are also shorter commercial interruptions than regular TV; in the last online episode I watched, there was 4 minutes of commercials, as opposed to 16 minutes that a normal broadcast has.

The second site is a newcomer to the scene. http://www.hulu.com/ is a sort of coalition of various TV networks streaming their video online. You can catch the new Battlestar here after it airs, in addition to Family Guy, Simpsons, and others. It’s good to see TV Networks finally realizing the demand for these services, though my one complaint with this, is that they only have the five most recent episodes of Battlestar Galactica. I personally think they should post the entire back catalog.

On DVD (probably in 2009)

You can also catch the new Battlestar on DVD or Blu-Ray when it comes out (probably) sometime in 2009. Granted this is probably the slowest and most frustrating option, but on the bright side it means there will be no commercial interruptions, can be watched at your convenience, and will be in high quality. I do know a few people that do this, though I marvel at how they manage to avoid spoilers in that period of time. For an even cheaper option, you can always rent the DVD’s as opposed to buying them.

Illegally

Let me start by saying that neither the217 nor it’s producers condone any sort of piracy. That said, I know a lot of you out there will be watching Battlestar this way. To be honest, this is how I got started with the show,and now I’m an addict who watches it on TV and buys the DVD’s. So I can see good coming out of this (even if the TV execs and Comcast can’t). It has similar advantages to DVD in regards to commercial interruptions and quality. But it doesn’t help their ratings or webview counts (which let’s us enjoy more Galactica goodness).

With all these ways to watch it, there is no excuse for missing this show. If you’ve never seen the show, I recommend renting the mini-series and giving it a shot, it may surprise you. Chances are you’ll be rapidly devouring the series until you get caught up. Then your biggest problem is dealing with the shakes while you wait until your next fix.

Next Page: A look back at Season 3 and at what Season 4 might contain.

As YouTube gains in popularity (is it possible for it to be more popular at this point?), its signal-to-noise ratio continues to decrease. For those that flunked ratios in math, this means the amount of junk on YouTube is increasing faster than the amount of watchable stuff. As a sort of fallout to this, we’ve seen several sites crop up since then to take on the user-generated giant. There have been many sites that do the exact same thing as Youtube, allowing anybody to upload anything for any reason. More interestingly, specialty video sites have also been cropping up lately, which focus on one particular genre: comedy. While these sites are too narrow to become a true successor to Youtube’s throne, some of them could become hugely popular in their own right. Perhaps even replacing Youtube as the goto site for comedy videos.

http://www.atomfilms.com/

This site actually predates Youtube, serving up funny films since 1999 (six years before the big ‘YT’). It used to be famous mainly for Star Wars fan videos and flash animations. Lately, in response to Youtube’s dominance, it’s tried to shift the focus more prominently to general humor, though they still host videos of all genres. While Atom Films has some sticking power, I think they hit their peak a few years ago.

Some famous AtomFilm videos:

In “President Bear”, the question is asked: Would the Nation Notice if the President was replaced by a bear? Maybe not, though the first lady might. This is the first in a series of videos about the follies and foibles of President Bear.

The Star Wars Gangsta Rap, came out in 2002 and helped propel Atom Films into prominence. I remember thinking this was the coolest thing since sliced bread when it came out. In hindsight, not so much.

http://www.funnyordie.com/

The first major success following the YouTube revolution, FunnyorDie is interesting in that it mixes both major name players and regular people’s videos and just sort of lets the funniest ones rise to the top. Will Ferrell has been a huge contributor to this site, though other celebrities (like Bill Murray, for instance) have been known to appear. I think it has a fairly good selection of videos, though I am sort of disappointed that the most viewed videos are usually the celebrity-made ones. Some might think that it has peaked with The Landlord video (see below), but I think the site has some serious potential. The next “Evolution of Dance” could be brewing somewhere deep within Funny’s labs; waiting to pounce on an unsuspecting populace.

Some famous Funny or Die videos:

This video launched the site, in fact to most people, this video IS the site. It has been viewed over 55 million times. Consider this: If it were on Youtube, it would the fourth-most viewed video of all-time. Chances are you’ve watched it before. In fact, me posting it here almost seems redundant.

Canadian Jon Lajoie (who has, perhaps, the most Canadian name in history) raps about what it’s like to be an everyday normal guy. Instead of a tricked out SUV, he takes the Bus to work and instead of being a smooth operator, he’s socially awkward. This is one of my personal favorites, perhaps because it rings so true.

http://www.superdeluxe.com/

This is the new kid on the block, the upcoming rising star. In a sort of backlash to the Web 2.0 movement, it’s not user generated like the other sites. Instead Turner Broadcast Systems (who delivers us our Adult Swim) pays professional comedians to generate content for the site. Since it’s owned by the same company that owns Adult Swim, it features a lot of the same type of humor that’s broadcast on Adult Swim. Since people are paid to make the videos, the production quality usually is better than other sites. Though the two most viewed internet videos of all time, “Star Wars Kid” and “Evolution of Dance” weren’t known for their production quality. If you like the surreal humor of “Tim & Eric Awesome Show Great Job!”, you’ll love this site. While I think this site has the ability to be a moderate success, it’s sense of humor is a bit too narrow to be a giant mainstream success.

Some famous Super Deluxe videos:

This one is simply bizarre. Craig Bierko interviews celebrities in the oddest of places: a bathtub. This video features Craig and John “Being John” Malkovich sharing a bathtub. Craig asks some fairly standard questions that John answers, all the while Craig is bathing John. The funny definitely comes from the ability of both performers to completely pretend that this is a normal and routine situation.

DJ Douggpound stars in his first ever “poundcast”, a surreal parody of the T.V. Show “Cheaters”. This is a Tim & Eric video and is full of their oft inexplicable and surreal humor. I think the flava-flav-esque rival rapper is worth the price of admission alone.

http://www.superdeluxe.com/sd/series/positions_of_the_day
I’m not going to embed this video series as it might be considered a bit NSFW. These videos create humorous sexual positions that seem like they would be rejected from the Kama Sutra. They’re done comedically through simple animations, but are quite hilarious.