I am a long time fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a television show in which a human and his robot friends watch movies and make fun of them (it maybe is not a surprise to you that I like this sort of thing). Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett, formerly of said show, now do this thing called Rifftrax – sort of an alternate audio track for movies that you can sync up as you watch, MST3K roll-your-own style. Imagine my delight when they invited me and Paul and Storm to record one of these for the movie TRON. I’ll wait while you imagine. Did you imagine me jumping up and down and peeing my pants? Because that’s what happened.

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At long last, here it is.

BEST. CONCERT. EVER.

A live DVD/CD super combo package, now available to you, the general public. It’s currently in pre-sales but discs will ship May 15th, and if you buy now you can download the mp3s immediately.

If you’ve been listening to me on the Twitter this morning then you’ll be tired of this, but here’s the thing. I made a dumb joke referencing an aphorism I have heard: “all animals can swim.” Then I started wondering if that was true. A lot of people replied saying that great apes can’t swim, in particular chimpanzees. That didn’t sound right to me, or at least it sounded like one of those things that everybody says that nobody really knows if it’s true or not (kind of like “all animals can swim”).

So I asked again on the Twitter: for reals? Great apes can’t swim? A lot of people responded “yes they can” or “no they can’t” which wasn’t helpful. And a lot of links came in, a lot of conflicting information. This site says they have too little animal fat and so they sink. This person says they can outswim an olympic swimmer (human, presumably) and tantalizingly links to a video called “seemychimpswim” that no longer exists. According to The Big Zoo they can only swim “if extremely excited” (?). And here’s a story about a swimming orangutan. From what I can tell, it’s kind of “some chimps can swim but mostly they hate it and are not good at it.”

Or worse, it’s still an open question, which is a terrible thought. What the hell scientists? What are we doing here? Can we please start throwing some monkeys into pools and taking notes? IT IS 2009, SERIOUSLY!

Also, giraffes.

Which is what this will be for many of you today – traffic on the First of May is always a little heavy for some reason, but my poor server is doing its best to keep up. I wish you all a happy Spring, even if you don’t know it.

This song is free even when it is not this day of the year, but it is especially free today (if you know what I mean):

First of May (<–Not At All Safe For Work)