Six For Saturday: Join the Piano Guys Bandwagon

It's a slow weekend. In fact it was coming off of an arduously slow week as well - midterms and all.  But here we are, 48hrs of weekend to reset and relax. What goes well with resetting and relaxing? Music perhaps? I want to introduce you to the piano guys if you aren't already familiar with them. This group (duo rather) is turning into a phenomenon 40 million views strong with only a cello, a piano, and some cool a/v effects. Here are six very worthy samples to pick from:

1) Music led by the force

2) Music led by the soul

3) A more mainstream selection

4) A less intense mainstream selection

5) Something young people like

6) And finally, something old people like

Are you ready to hop on the bandwagon?

Enjoy!

Must Be Chinese New Year

Dusting the piano...
Vacuuming the house...
Cleaning the microwave because it smells like fish...
Cleaning the oven because it smells like fish...
Standing at the island with 20 people in front of 40 people's worth of food...
Saying "sun nin fai lok" after receiving a red envelope...

Must be Chinese New Year =]

"What Chinese New Year dinner do you want?"
"KFC"
Must be Chinese New Year.

Shuffling Chinese Dragons - Must be Chinese New Year


Happy Chinese New Year!
May the year of the dragon bring you prosperity, happiness, and success =]

La Nina > Mayans

Well... until we actually know 2013 doesn't exist, it's not fair to discount the Mayan calendar as a predictor. Do we think it's a "sure" thing? Not really. Does the average person even know what a Mayan is? Probably not.

Here. Now you know what a Mayan looks like.

For predictors, we know rather that we can depend on the rooster to wake us up in the morning, the moon to put us to bed at night, and etc. Among such things, one thing that has stood the test of meteorologist time is the La Nina winter. It doesn't encompass winter weather in itself but for the savvy Seattlelite it means "SNOW". Too bad it doesn't do a very convincing job telling you when the snow will come. Towards the end of 2011, there were doubters - many of them. No white Thanksgiving, no white Christmas, nothing in between. Would La Nina fail us this year? Psh, if we knew what La Nina was thinking (pretending that she were animate) she would be rofl-ing - winter has just started (okay maybe not rofl-ing but something along those lines). It seems that La Nina prefers to be fashionably late to the party. For the last week or so, she even preferred to tease the Seattle area, picking and choosing regions to the North give 7 inches of snow and leaving elsewhere with nothing.

Snow in Bothell, WA - Jan 15th

Enter January 17th 2012: Weather channel, Komo4, Kiro7, and Cliff Mass of the UW weather center all in agreement that tomorrow could be it - this could be THE snowfall. Expectations were catastrophically inconsistent between 2" and 15" but that added to the fun.
Enter January 18th 2012: University of Washington classes closed for the day. Such a thing is a collectors item in local-speak. Fireworks set off on campus, dorm halls burst in exuberant cheers, facebook explodes with notifications everyone already knows... but it's okay because La Nina has finally shown her face and she has shown it in a big way too. Actually it was a good thing UW closed because La Nina showed a force of nature above any of our expectations. As I type, it's white, it's windy, it's cold, and it looks absolutely amazing. The Metro bus driver may cringe, so will the UPS driver and the mailman. Props to them, they have a hard job. But for the time being, commuters celebrate, greek row celebrate, students celebrate, children celebrate, husbands celebrate, wives celebrate. Above all, Cliff Mass, you weren't wrong. Celebrate.

[Live Red Square Camera]

It's okay Mayans... you'll have your chance.

12 for 1/12/12

This being the first 12th day of 2012, I thought this called for a post with more content that one "normal" post. Instead, it contains 12 things that shall motivate the modern man to look forward to the things this year holds for him. Surrender productivity, resistance is futile. Let's start with 6 public contributions for verydemotivational.com:

1) Genius

3) 'nuff said

2) Disconcerting

4) 'nuff said #2

5) We need one with a cat

6)And we need one that has BOTH Christmas AND a dog

Here are a few quality youtube videos:

7) "row"

8) behind the scenes of "row"

9) Soccer Fail

10) Another one

And finally, two more intellectual memes (intellectual is relative)

11) Math

Hint: Bill Cosby

12) Chemistry

If you made it to this closing statement, kudos to you. I never expected you to make it this far.

Cheers!