My oldest kid, a 2nd grader, has started taking some (group) piano classes on a trial basis.
She seems to enjoy it a lot, so I bought her a 5-octave keyboard, a stand and a seat - a $300+ investment.
As it happens, I played piano for 11 years as a kid, so this has also provided the motivation for me pick it up again.
I’ve been YouTube’ing a lot for some good riffs to play and I ran into this video - while I can’t even imagine attempting to play the piece, watching one of the greatest pianists in history, Oscar Peterson, is still a phenomenal and inspiring experience.
I tried out a new video mixing service, Animoto, tonight.
I have it to give it very high marks for ease of use, because even my first video (created during “So You Think You Can Dance” commercials) came out way better than I expected.
Little know seq (sequence) utility is a great way to loop on a range of numbers in Linux. It came in very handy today and will hopefully stick in my brain in the future.
Great car TV show on the planet - TopGear - presents an incredibly enthralling clip of the fastest car on the planet - Bugatti Veyron.
Watching clips of “Top Gear” makes you wonder why the show is nowhere to be seen in US. Come on Discovery, buy rights to this damn thing instead of spending money on bikers in tight shorts!
UPDATE: I thought about embedding this, but decided it to link it instead - DailyMotion’s viewer is much bigger than the embedded one and you want size to experience this.
UPDATE #2: If you love the first clip, check out this (even more unbelievable) one by TopGear (linked by Roy in the comments). Awesome stuff. I’m adding Atom to my shopping list for my 45th b-day.
I’ve always believed crunches to be the single most effective abdominal exercise. However, research from San Diego State University suggest just the opposite. Check out these results…
For strengthening the rectus abdominus (the muscle down the front of the abdomen), ranked most to least effective:
1. Bicycle maneuver
2. Captain’s chair
3. Crunches on exercise ball
4. Vertical leg crunch
5. Torso Track
6. Long arm crunch
7. Reverse crunch
8. Crunch with heel push
9. Ab Roller
10. Hover
11. Traditional crunch
12. Exercise tubing pull
13. Ab Rocker
For strengthening the obliques (on the sides):
1. Captain’s chair
2. Bicycle maneuver
3. Reverse crunch
4. Hover
5. Vertical leg crunch
6. Crunch on exercise ball
7. Torso Track
8. Crunch with heel push
9. Long arm crunch
10. Ab Roller
11. Traditional crunch
12. Exercise tubing pull
13. Ab Rocker