Do it, Rockapella

/ Shane / 1 Comment

You may not know the group Rockapella by name, but yet, I bet you DO know the group Rockapella.

Back in the early 90’s, there was a game show by the name of  “Where in the world is Carmen Sandiago“, based on the computer game of the same name. I played that game a lot on the green screened Apples in the basement of school. In my opinion, the game show was more or less forgettable. The theme song, was not.

So where am I going with this? I’m going here, to a website with only one button. This button serves one purpose, and one purpose only: to play “Where in the world is Carmen Sandiago” in an endless loop.

Do it, Rockapella.

Science Cookies

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Learning is hard. One thing that would make it not so hard, would be if, after you learn the science, you could then eat your learning implement.

These are some hardcore science cookies. The periodic table is cool, but sort of obvious. Try ribosomes, electrophoresis gel, trilobites, fractals, circuit boards, and, my personal favorite, esophageal dysphagia cookies. That’s thinking out side of the “science cookie” box!

Link via Anna.

Paranormal Activity

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Okay, I know I’m way late on this one. But I just got around to watching the movie Paranormal Activity, and I have to say, I was very impressed.

Paranormal Activity follows in the Blair Witch style (or even the Cloverfield style, for that matter), in which most of the filming is made to look intentionally amateur, so as to seem like home movies.

This style really works for me. Even though I know that it’s not real, I still get sucked in. The camera work isn’t great. There is only one set; the house where these people live. The special effects aren’t any better than what I could do my self. However, despite all of this, the movie comes off as scary. In this case, the low budget actually works for the movie, instead of against it.

I thought this movie was crazy scary. I watch a lot of horror movies (well, not so many lately) and I rarely find them creepy. This movie scared me more than any movie I’ve seen in years.

The thing is, it just seems so realistic. Like it could really happen to anybody. Not seeing any sort of special effects monster is actually better, more creepy. The tension is intense.

Not to say there aren’t any problems with the movie. Sure, you could sit there and pick it apart, if you want to. The acting isn’t great. The decisions of the characters are sometimes very unbelievable. I mean, after you have 10 hours of video evidence of the most crazy haunting stuff the world has ever seen, I don’t buy that you’d just keep sleeping in that same bedroom every night. I don’t believe you’d be able to fall asleep at all. And I don’t believe you would keep that footage to yourself.

When you watch a movie like this, you need to set the mood. Watch it at home, in the dark, the way it was intended. Not in broad daylight, with 20 other people, who are all laughing and making fun.

I’m not joking when I said it was scary. I’m still scared to be downstairs alone in the dark, 3 days later. The night after we watched the movie, Sara woke me up at 2 a.m. and made me come to the bathroom with her, so she wouldn’t have to go alone! And when Evie woke up the other night and said she had a bad dream and something was sitting on her bookshelf, my skin tried to crawl right off my back.

On the other hand, I think we would be significantly harder to haunt than the family in the movie. First off, eerie rumbles in the night are probably just a passing train. Footsteps are from the neighbors upstairs. Quite frankly, anything up to and including 2 a.m. dance parties is going to look a little lame in comparison. And if something is scratching at our door, it is likely to get a spray bottle in the face, before I stumble sleepily back to bed.

So, anyway, in summary, go watch this movie, it will scare the daylights out of you. And if you already saw it, and you weren’t impressed, then I’m sorry that a really cool piece of cinema was ruined for you, by outside circumstances.

I never realized how boring the news was

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Certainly, the evening news is formulaic. When you are flipping through the stations and you chance upon a news station, you know instantly that you are watching the news. Something about the camera work, the type of shot, I don’t know. But you can just tell.

I probably didn’t realize exactly how formulaic it was, until I watched this video: the most generic news report of all time:

So apparently things aren’t any better across the pond, either.

New Garden

/ Shane / 6 Comments

I’m not sure how much of the garden saga was been here on the blog. Long story short, the University owned the land that the garden was on. Eventually, it was time to pay the piper and the University decided to pull the plug on the garden to use the land as a “construction staging area” for a building they were going to build next door.

Obviously this was hard on everybody. As much as we loved the garden, there were people who had been there for years and years. However, their pleas fell on deaf ears, and the University insisted that the garden had always been a temporary arrangement, and the time was up.

Every time we pass the site of the old garden, Evie offers some commentary. “I don’t want them to tear down the garden!” or “Why are they going to tear down our garden, I love that garden!”

We went to a community meeting on the subject, and things got a little heated. After seeing how adamant the University was on the topic, my personal opinion was, let’s move on. It became obvious that continuing the argument about keeping the garden was beating your head against the wall. The University owned the land, and they were exercising that right. Although, I did agree that it was frustrating that the University was going to be using the land for something so temporary as construction staging, and that it was somewhat ironic that the garden was going to be destroyed to build a certified “green” building.

Some people, however, were not content to complain about the past, but instead took the Alderman up on his offer of space for new gardens, throughout the neighborhood. In a stroke that can only be described as fate, one of the locations selected for a new garden is the trash-filled abandoned lot almost directly across the street from our condo.

This is a win-win for us. Not only have we already secured a spot in the new garden which is literally across the street, we also get to get rid of an ugly eye sore. How much better is the neighborhood with a lush garden than an abandoned lot? Evie was pretty excited about it too:

Shane: “They are going to make a new garden here.”
Evie: “Thank you world!”
Evie: “I was saying thank you world because the world made a new garden. I still miss the old garden though.”