Like many folks, my initial impression upon seeing trailers for the Michael Bay-directed summer flick called “The Island” went something like this: “Oh, they’re doing a ripoff/remake of Logan’s Run. How nice. Next!”

I then discovered that Logan’s Run has nothing to do with it. No, instead they’re remaking an entirely different movie… “Parts: The Clonus Horror.” (Or just “Clonus” if you prefer.)

Wait a minute! Are you telling me that really bad movies, bad enough to be riffed by the MST3K crew, are now fodder for big-budget remakes? What’s next, Tim Burton’s “Manos: Hands of Fate”? (Note to Johnny Depp: Don’t do it!)

This is horrifying in a new and not-particularly-delightful way.

Apparently I’ve been living under a rock for quite some time now, because I did not know about Konfabulator. How does a geek like me get this far without knowing these things? I love eyecandy, and even more so when there’s useful eyecandy to be enjoyed. If you’re running Windows on a reasonably powerful hunk of hardware, you owe it to yourself to give this baby a whirl.

(Yes, I did already know about SuperKaramba, which appears to be the Linux variant… I found it all of a couple of weeks ago. *cough, cough*)

Imagine a music video consisting of random video game footage strung together and set to a hugely popular rock song. It sounds amateurish, doesn’t it? And then, imagine that a major cable network decides to air a bunch of these videos. That sounds lame, doesn’t it?

Welcome to MTV2’s “Video Mod” program, where rock videos are reimagined using 3D game footage mixed with re-rendered band performances and what-not. There is some original content mixed in, but for the most part it’s game footage galore.

I have a little clue for the folks over at MTV: You might want to do your homework first. From what I’ve seen so far, your video editing skills are even more lacking than mine. (And I assure you that coming from someone of my meager talents, that’s a real insult.)

In case there are pedants among you who will point out that AMVs aren’t exactly the same thing: I know. I know. But it couldn’t hurt for MTV’s “Video Mod” creators to see what good videos created from existing materials can look like.