Feb 08 2006

Cute Kitty

I was just up in my Child Psych professor’s office and she showed me this really cute flash movie. Instead of hogging someone else’s bandwidth, I decided to put it on my site. Not only is the kitten cute, but it does different playful things with you hover your mouse over certain areas. See if you can find them all. I’ll give you one to get you started; hover the mouse below the cat’s left paw (that would be the one on your right). Even if you’re not a cat person, you have to admit this is fun.

Kitty animation

If you can’t see that animation, you need to download Macromedia’s flash player. You can get that here or by going to http://www.macromedia.com.

Thanks for showing me this one Evelyn! 🙂

–Zach

Feb 06 2006

Good Apollo, that’s a long name for a CD!

Well, now that I’ve owned the new Coheed and Cambria CD for over 3 months and listened to it more than 100 times all the way through, I feel that I can write an adequate review. For starters, let’s talk about the title of the disc. In the Coheed tradition, this disc featured the long and intricate name of Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness.

At first listen, I didn’t really know what I felt about this album in comparison to the others. This disc starts off with a more quietly aggressive feeling by continuing the common sonic theme present in both The Second Stage Turbine Blade and In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3. After the variation of a familiar tune in “Keeping the Blade,” Claudio opens with a passive-aggressive song called “Always and Never.” At this point, I wondered if this successfully melodramatic ambience could be more than an introduction and could possibly carry throughout the album. At the precise moment that the thought entered in my head, the crushingly powerful “Welcome Home” started. I knew instantly that my beloved Coheed had not softened, but had also not hardened to the over-zealous rigidity of certain dark metal bands out there.

From that point forward, Coheed provided unique yet familiar sounds and constructed both flowing consonances as well as seemingly fiendish dissonances. From the tenderness of “Wake Up” to the power-pop beauty of “The Suffering” to the steadiness of “The Final Cut,” Coheed does nothing less than stun with the latest of their masterpieces.

Wonderful job guys! 10/10

Feb 04 2006

UKTV – Boys Alone

Well, I just received my copy of this TV show that aired on UKTV a while ago. The movie is called Boys Alone and it is a psuedo-reality TV documentary where ten 11-year-old boys were put in a house to live for an extended period of time. They weren’t allowed to leave the house or property. It was interesting to see the changing relationships between the boys and the things they did to keep themselves entertained.

The movie can be rented or purchased through The Filmakers Library and more information can be seen here:

Filmakers Library — Boys Alone

Overall, a pretty neat look into the minds of adolescent boys in relation to peer pressure. Be prepared, the rental fee is rather pricey, but I would say that it is worth if IF you are a psychology student, or are just naturally interested in developmental psychology.