I’m sure most of you who are reading my blog have heard of the popular video game Guitar Hero, and you’ve seen… or used the controllers.
For those of you who haven’t seen or heard of the game, it is a game where you play a song and it tells you which one of the five buttons to press at a certain time. Easy level has three colored keys, Medium has four colored keys, hard with four colored keys also, and Expert with all five. And with each higher level the keys become more often & you have to press them faster.
There is a band called the Guitar Zeros that enjoyed playing guitar hero so much that they decided to find a program that lets you plug your guitar hero controller into your computer and your computer converts the keys you press on your guitar hero controller into music.
They have two guys who play the bass and and the guitar controls. and a singer and a drummer. Their names/nicknames are Ryan, Junior, Xtian, and Owen and they are described as grime/rock/electro and a fan describes them as MC5 meets Devo.
My favorite song of theirs is At the Beach, listen to it… and learn about them here.
Halloween started more than two thousand years ago with a festival called the Celtic Festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celts celebrated their new year on November 1st. They celebrated their new year on November 1st because this marked the end of the warmth and sun of summer and the coming of the cold and the dark of winter… which was a time usually associated with death.
Celts had celebrations during the night before November 1st and built bonfires and threw crops and animals into them to be burned as sacrifices. And while doing this they often wore animals pelts and heads on them selves during these celebrations so that is most likely where the custom of wearing costumes on Halloween came from.
Around A.D. 43 Romans had taken most of the Celtic land and people so eventually the their celebrations were joined together.
The Romans originally had two special days in October… the first was Feralia which was a holiday of the Romans in late October that commemorated the passing of the dead. The second day was a day to honor the goddess of fruit and trees Pomona. The symbol of Pomona is an apple so that is prbably where the activity bobbing fro apples came from.
Then around the 800s christianity had spread into the Celtic regions and Pope Boniface IV said November 1st would be called All Saints Day. Many people thought then… and still think now that the Pope was trying to get rid of the Celtic holidays. The celebration was also called All Hallowmas or All Hallows, and the night before it was eventually called Halloween.
This weeks Paste C.D. song review is on a song by O’Death called Lowtide. This song is like light country and rock combined and it makes a really awesome sound when mixed together! This song has really good vocals and a violin and it isn’t necessarily a song that gets stuck in your head… but it is really good at tapping your foot type of song!
The artists who created this song are called O’Death and consist of six members :
Greg Jamie - vocals, guitar.
Gabe Darling - backing vocals, ukulele, guitar, banjo, piano.
Davd RB - drums, whoop.
Bob Pycior - fiddle, guitar, piano.
Othar the Tooth Collector - bass.
Dan Sager - trombone, euphonium, keys.
This band is describes themselves as gothic/country/punk and I really like this band, this is probably my favorite song of theirs and I look forward to listening to more of them on their new C.D…. Broken Hymns, Limbs, and Skin!
Since I like to talk about things that are interesting and that I know a lot about I have chosen Neopets as this weeks blog post topic. Neopets is a virtual pet website with many different things to entertain you, like games, worlds to explore, message boards, taking care of your pets, and even something sort of like youtube called neovision!
Games - There are a lot of games to play on neopets, in fact they just recently released their thousandth game! Most of the games are easy to play and very fun to play also. But they do vary from math type games to action games! And a plus with these games you get neopoints (virtual money on neopets) for playing!
Worlds To Explore - There are currently eighteen worlds to explore on neopets full of fun things to do, like go on trips, coloring sheets, themed games, and even a concert hall in a prehistoric looking place called Tyrannia! There is also an underwater world called Maraqua. A piratey world called Krawk Island. A greek world called Altador. An Asian world called Shenkuu, and even two medieval worlds called Meridell and Brightvale!
The Pets - There are fifty-four pets that you can choose from on neopets, and you can even choose what color they are they are by saving up your neopoints and buying a paintbrush. You can also play with your pets, feed them, and even groom them. Best of all…you can have four!
In addition to those things there are also neoboards where you can talk to people, neovision which is like youtube, except all the videos are neopets related and all are made by users. Or my personal favorite, you can practice your HTML/CSS on petpages and userlookups.
This week I am going to write my paste C.D. song review on a song called Alphabutt by Kimya Dawson. You might have heard of Kimya Dawson before on the Juno soundtrack which her songs Tree Hugger, So Nice So Smart, Sleep, Loose Lips, Tire Swing, and My Rollercoaster were all featured. if you have heard at least one of these songs, or one of her other songs you will know that she is wacky, random, and fun in her songs. This song is no different, but you may have already realized that when you heard the song was called Alphabutt!
This song is an A,B,C’s type of song singing what the letters could stand for for example : A is for apple, B is for butt. And she even mentions her daughter in it! When she says P is for Panda pooping in her potty, and yes she is so eccentric she named her daughter Panda! This song makes me feel like singing it and it also makes me feel like laughing, the one thing I don’t like about this song is that is should be longer!
This week i am going to review an article in a magazine called Plushie Pals. I started getting Plushie Pals about six months ago when Neopets: the official magazine stopped it’s printing. Plushie Pals is a magazine that has articles on lots of different types of virtual pet websites, lit Neopets, Club Penguin, Webkinz, and Beanie Babies 2.0. I mostly read the Neopets articles in the magazine because that is the only site I play and the Neopets portion almost always has a game guide thats interesting!
I’m going to write my review on one of those game guides! The game guide I’m going to talk about is a Snowmuncher game guide written by Rebecca Bundy.
This article is written very well and doesn’t just use little words… which is something I didn’t expect in a kids magazine! She states and explains all the things you should know about the game before playing it and some tips on practicing the game very clearly. I also like that she decided to put down the points breakdown in her article, and gives a great description of when certain things show up and what they look like and which ones you should aim for getting first.
And last but not least she explained an easy way how to score 5000 points to get the Snowmuncher avatar, that was my favorite part!!
Play the game here
This week I want to talk about something that I know a lot about, and that is animal crackers. But not the kind of animals crackers that are tasty and made of short bread that you eat…it’s a class of pre schoolers!
Animal crackers is a class that I help out with at the zoo near where I live, it is made up of about twelve preschoolers and their parents, and of course the teacher and I. It meets every month for about an hour long class. The classes always have the same basic schedule. The teacher will read a book, the the helper (my job) will bring out an animal for all of the kids to touch and see. After the animal showing the kids will work on a craft and eat…animal crackers! The craft, book, and animal will all be connected somehow also.
I don’t have much of a job during the class time, but before the class I set out the craft supplies, carpet squares and prepare the snacks. Then afterwards I clean up all the mess that is left behind.
I really enjoy helping out with this class even though I have to get up early to help with it because sometimes I get to play with animals that I otherwise wouldn’t get to work with at the zoo. Some of those animals that i’ve worked with are chameleons and dogs!
Find out more about Animal Crackers.
For my Paste C.D. review I am going to talk about the song We Got The Power (Love Letter From America) by the Born Again Floozies. The song is off of their newest C.D., Street Music (13 rebellions and a song of consolation) which came out September 9th of this year. I like this song because it is used with only 2 instruments, a tuba and a guitar. And then the song is also accompanied with two tap dancers in the background along with the singer. The singer also plays the guitar, but he does it in a very interesting way… He plays it like a piano! I think the way they decided to make their songs is really interesting and neat, it lets you hear all of the different parts to the song, instead of hearing just one big whirr of a noise you get to hear the tap dancers, the tuba, the singer, and the guitar. and all together it sounds really good, it almost sounds like a marching band might if it had way less people playing.
When I listen to the song it makes me feel like jumping up and down to the beat and listening to it over and over again. The singer doesn’t have a horrible unpleasant voice and all of the instruments are played very well. It is the sort of song that reminds you of a summer type song because it seems like a song that you would hear at an outdoor concert.
Like I said I like listening to this song over and over again but the lyrics are kind of heard to understand for some people and the tap dancing does get annoying after listening to it for a while. but overall it is a really good song and I look forward to seeing them in Paste magazine again.
I’m going to write my post this week on an darticle about Wierd Al Yankovic located here. Wierd Al is a comedian who sings. he has been around since 1979 and has made it his living to do spoofs on popular songs by rewriting them and singing them to the same tune. The article in Wired mentions many different YouTube videos which are very great and I will be talking about them.
The first video the article mentions is the video for Hey Ricky this was his first popular song making fun of the popular song Micky by Tony Basil. It is shot to be like I Love Lucy and I give it three stars out of five.
The second video that is mentioned is Another One Rides the Bus This is a parody of Another One Bites the Dust by Queen. This song is played to the tune of Another One Bites the Dust, but with just a accordion and a few other knick knack instruments. I’d give this remake a four out of five stars.
Another song that is played like Another One Rides the Bus is My Bologna copied after the song My Sharona by The Knack. I think this is a very hilarious remake and I give it a four out of five stars.
The next song the article mentions is Girls Just Wanna Have Lunch. It is based after the popular song Girls Just Wanna Have Fun by Cyndi Lauper. This song actually has music with it and I think it is a very good parody, I give it five stars!
The last video in this article is Couch Potato making fun of the song Lose Yourself by Eminem. This is the best parody video they mention in the article and I give the video five stars. It was going to be made into a proper music video but Eminem wouldn’t allow Weird Al to make fun of him like that though.
Many artists have though, and probably the most popular parody so far has been White & Nerdy which is a parody of Chamillionaire’s Ridin’ Dirty.
Weird Al isn’t also known for his parodies, he also makes his own comedy songs, like Weasel Stomping Day off of his newest C.D., Straight Outta Lynwood.
This week I decided to write my post about a great new series of books by Darren Shan. This series is called the Cirque Du Freak series and has 12 books in all. They are semi short books an they take about 3 days (for a fast reader like me) to read. But they are packed full of exciting adventures about a boy who becomes an apprentice to a vampire. In order to become an apprentice he has to become a vampire. I don’t want to give away too much of the book because it is really good. But this book is written very well, and the characters are very interesting and real.
There are 12 book in the series and the titles are as follows…
- Cirque Du Freak
- The Vampires Assistant
- Tunnels of Blood
- Vampire Mountain
- Trials of Death
- The Vampire Prince
- Hunters of the Dusk
- Allies of the Night
- Killers of the Dawn
- The Lake of Souls
- Lord of the Shadows
- Sons of Destiny
There is also a movie coming out based on the books in 2009 directed by Paul Weitz.
