Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode 'Space Mutiny'

If you're looking for some science fiction humor, I'd suggest watching episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a show that ran from 1988 to 1999.

One of my favorite episodes is "Space Mutiny" (No. 820), which made fun of a movie by the same name that came out in 1988. If you haven't seen it, you can watch the episode below. It was shown on the Sci-Fi Channel (now SyFy) and contains language, sexuality and crude humor.

Sit back and don't laugh too hard.

Reid Picks: 5 Things Grateful for About Science Fiction

I'm participating in Jeffrey Beesler's World of the Scribe's "Early Bird Thanksgiving Blogfest" and am asked to blog about what I am most grateful for.

If you ask people what they appreciate the most, I assume you'll get a lot of answers such as God (if they're religious), family and friends. For me, that also is true, but in this case, I decided to make a list of five things related to science fiction that I'm grateful for, and at the same time, honor Thanksgiving, which seems to have been overshadowed by Christmas more than ever this year.

Here is what I'm grateful for about science fiction (in no particular order):

Antimatter and Science Fiction

Antimatter has been in the news lately since the ALPHA team at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) announced 38 antihydrogen atoms were trapped for about a sixth of a second, long enough to be studied.

It's a small step to reaching the levels of antimatter use in science fiction, but the world has a very long way to go. The amount of antimatter created is nowhere near the level needed to power space ships like those of science fiction. There's a good article by Mark Whittington on Yahoo! News called "Antimatter Rockets in Science Fiction" that discusses this. Click here for the article.

I also came across this video of Jeffrey Hangst, spokesperson of the ALPHA experiments and a physicist at the University of Aarhus. He talks about how the antimatter-creation process works. He's fairly technical but gives a lot of information. Below is the video.

'Whose Line Is It Anyway?' Science Fiction Songs

Remember the Whose Line Is It Anyway? comedy show hosted by Drew Carey? Well, actors Colin Mochrie and Wayne Brady do an improvised song and dance about science fiction in an episode as Ryan Stiles watches on.

If you haven't seen the skit, here's a clip:

Column "Science fiction futures unseen"

I came across a column about science fiction that I'd like to share. It's called "Science fiction futures unseen," published Friday (Nov. 5) by Alan Cherry on The Optimist website, www.acuoptimist.com.

The column is a humorous take on how there hasn't been any significant technological breakthroughs as foreseen by science fiction authors. It plugs in lots of references to these author's works and even mentions Gilese 581 g (the planet nicknamed Zarmina that's been in the news since September for being the first planet known to be in the so-called "Goldilocks" zone).

You can read the column by Cherry here.

Apparently, in addition to being a good writer, Cherry is a college student. According to the website, "The Optimist is a publication of the JMC Network, the student news operation of Abilene Christian University."

Reid Picks: Best Science Fiction Music Videos - Daft Punk

Hands down, I think the best science fiction music videos I've seen are those of Daft Punk's Discovery album (released March 13, 2001). They presented their album to anime creater Leiji Matsumoto, and each track was made into an episode for the movie Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem (released Dec. 1, 2003).

The film doesn't have any dialogue but rather tells a story of blue humanoid alien musicians who are kidnapped, taken to Earth and made to look like humans. Their memories are rewritten, and they are made into a hit band on Earth called The Crescendolls. One of their kind later saves them from the human captors but dies in the process. Eventually, the world finds out that the band members are aliens and help them to return to their homeworld.

Below are the videos for the song "Aerodynamic" (it's the second episode) and "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" (the fourth episode). I also added a remix of "Aerodynamic" by Portis Hershey, which contains video footage from the rescue scene of the movie (which originally has the song "Superheroes," the seventh episode).

Daft Punk sampled several older songs by other artists to make tracks on the album. For instance, Edwin Birdsong's "Cola Bottle Baby" was sampled for "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger," and, likewise, Daft Punk's version was sampled for Kanye West's song "Stronger" from the album Graduation. More recently, Daft Punk created the soundtrack to the movie Tron: Legacy.

Here is "Aerodynamic":


Here is "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger":


Here is a remix of "Aerodynamic" by Portis Hershey:

Reid Review: "Charles Yu's top 10 time travel books"

A friend, Dr. John Guzlowski, sent me an article from www.guardian.co.uk titled "Charles Yu's top 10 time travel books." According to the article, Yu is the author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe.

The following are Yu's favorite "reading about 'the fundamental weirdness of moving around in time'":