Nathan Polnyj - Reading My Mind

The Bravery released their sophomore album today. The album is respectively divided into two sections: the Sun (orange) and the Moon (blue). The first seven tracks are upbeat, refined classic Bravery music. The Moon side (tracks 7-12) has a different feel, which sounds a bit more darker than the beginning tracks.

All in all, the group has grown and matured greatly from their first album (2005). The only downside to this album is that the vocals become a bit monotonous without much pitch variety until late in the album. The last song, The Ocean, is a much slower, more tranquil song that the band should expand upon in future albums. Buy the CD from Best Buy and receive a bonus disc featuring two free additional tracks: Rat in the Walls and Faces.

I've posted pictures from my Penn State graduation, which occurred this morning. Photos were taken at the event, during the reception, and as well as a few at home. Click on the gallery link to view the additions. More photos will be added when I eventually trek up to University Park.

Today, I released what will most likely be the final installment of my Penn State Portfolio website. There were only a few minor changes and updates:

1. Final grades/GPA have been posted.
2. Contact information has been updated.
3. Link showing NathanPolnyj.com

To view this website, click below:

http://www.personal.psu.edu/nrp139

The Killers play a new song during the Spiderman 3 credits: Move Away. This movie soundtrack contains similar artists such as Coconut Records, Jet, Rogue Wave, Snow Patrol, Wasted Youth, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Although this is originally meant to be a post for music news, I must say that the soundtrack is much better entertainment-wise than the actual movie. Click on the link below to listen to the new song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy842O7cxgE

New photos have been added to the Gallery! I took a few pictures at the Pens game from Sunday as well as put up a few of my guitar. The Gallery is now 388 photos strong. Click the 'Gallery' link from the Navigation Menu to see the additions.

A short documentary DVD about The Killers will be released in June in the United States. According to a UK review, the DVD is not authorized by The Killers, and it is cheaply made. Regardless of that, the DVD is a must-buy for true fans, because it contains some interviews of the band and their friends about the formation and the success of the band. The runtime is 61 minutes and contains an interactive quiz.

Amazon.com Page for the DVD
UK Review

The Bravery is advertising the upcoming launch of their sophomore album, The Sun & The Moon, by releasing its first single, Time Won't Let me Go. This song is expected to be a selling point for the entire album, but it is different from what most Bravery fans are used to. This song is a bit subdued from the majority of the songs released on the self-titled first album; however, I think it shows how the band is growing, because the focus is now on lyric depth rather than dependence on instruments to carry the weight on the song. Look for the release of the album next month, but for now, visit The Bravery's website, which has a link to hear the new single.

http://www.thebravery.com/

"Read My Mind" has risen to the top of the V-Spot video charts this week. They have moved up nicely as #3, #2, and now #1. This position is hard to maintain for any artist, so it will be difficult to keep this position with competitors like Daughtry. As for the Billboard Modern Rock Chart, "Read My Mind" has reclaimed the #10 position.

VH1 Countdown
Billboard Modern Rock

Finally, two weeks after registering the domain, my full website has launched. This website will replace my Penn State Portfolio website. Unlike that website, NathanPolnyj.com has much more to offer: photo galleries, this blog, and more information about myself has been included. Although sounding a little geeky, I coded the website completely by hand, making use of CSS to make load times quicker and maintenance easier. My plan is to regularly maintain the website by adding more content as well as add new features.

For the record, this website has been tested on Firefox 2.0, IE 6.0, Netscape 8.0/7.2, Opera 9.1/8.0. This website is best viewed with resolutions of 800x600 or greater. JavaScript must be enabled in order to view the counter on the index page.

Thank you for visiting!! Enjoy the site.

The Killers newest music video, "Read My Mind", has risen to the #2 spot on the VH1 videos of the week. Last week, they were #3, so let's hope they can hit that ever-so-hard-to-get #1 video. This song is holding steady on the Modern Rock Charts (Billboard): it fell one spot this week to land the #11 spot. If you haven't seen the video, click here to watch.

As I was tweaking the final few bugs out of the site, I encountered a major issue. Apparently, Internet Explorer displays my website much differently than other browsers such as Netscape, Mozilla, and Opera. The changes in IE were so large that the formatting of the page did not look appealing. The issue came with how IE applies previous paddings to list tags il and ul. This is a major concern, because the majority of Internet users, unfortunately, still use Microsoft's browser. I was able to correct the issue, but I did lose a little bit of time when I thought I'd be correcting other bugs. Before the site is launched, it will be tested in all of the major browsers. The full site is still expected to launch within the next six days.

A lot of progress was made on the website over the weekend. There's still quite a bit of work to be done, but I think there's a good foundation to build upon. I deviated a little from my overall plan for the upcoming release; I decided to polish all of the work that was on previous versions as well as include the photo gallery and this blog. There are a few minor bugs/design-issues to close, but hopefully, the full site will be open within the week.

The photo gallery, The World Unseen, is now 370 photos strong. Up for viewing is the bulk of what I've taken with my digital camera since 2003. I'll continue to add pictures of events, trips, and other stuff as they happen, so check back often. You can view the pictures by clicking on the 'Gallery' link in the navigation menu on the right side of this page, or by clicking here.

After the realization that my Penn State web space will be closing in just a few months, I've been motivated to open up a larger, more complex personal website. This website is most definitely in a pre-launch state; however, the general framework of the site will be released to the public sometime in Spring 2007 as version 4.0. Let's take a brief look to see what's going to be new in this website versus what my original Penn State website had:

Penn State Website (Version 3.5.X)

- No Style defined; each page stood independently
- Page structure utilized dozens of HTML tables
- Pages were long in nature and sometimes cluttered
- Included pages: About Me, Courses, Downloads, Contact


NathanPolnyj.com (Version 4.0)

- CSS Stylesheets
- Index structured using a single container
- PHP, MySQL, Java, and HTML technologies
- Each page has its purpose, and content is organized by helpful menus
- Blog: Will contain website updates and have separate sections allotted for my interests
- Gallery: Will contain hundreds of pictures from vacations, family, school, and more
- Forum: Community postings that are geared towards improving the website and reporting bugs


Future 4.X and above

- Content Management System featuring myVideos (community-based)
- RSS Feeds and links forming a wider community
- Interactive features such as polling, chating, and online painting
- Continuous updates to the existing site