More Zen

You really have to watch this in "full screen" mode.

"Duck walk?"  Did I hear you ask "Duck walk?"  Yeah!

Skating camp, week 1

Abby is fourth from the right as the movie begins.

Skating, 6-8-13

A perfect 10!

Abby nails a waltz jump!

And the winner of the Oscar for best short film is . . .

I occasionally post videos on this blog. First I upload the video to YouTube and then "embed" the YouTube coding here. And, of course, since only about eight people even know this blog exists, viewership for these videos is, shall we say, rather limited.

Or so I thought.

Yesterday, YouTube forwarded to me a comment that had been left on a video I did a couple years ago in which I stumbled my way through a few sentences in Italian (posted on the blog here and on YouTube here.) Yesterday's comment, in full, was "Molto bene! Very well."

I was surprised that a stranger had found me on YouTube, so I investigated. It turns out that more than a dozen people I never heard of left comments -- my favorite begins "I absolutly dont' believe you've learnt italian in 6 weeks. It's impossible. . . "

OK, 13 viewers doesn't exactly make "Io parlo italiano" a blockbuster, but I was still surprised that anyone would have stumbled across it. But wait! 13 is just the number of people who left comments. Other people viewed the video without leaving comments. How many others? Well, would you believe 1,836? That's 1,836!!! Astounding! And for somebody who generally tries to keep a pretty low profile, it's also a little daunting.

But wait. "Io parlo italiano," popular though it is, is not my most popular. That distinction goes to a short film in which the absolutely perfect Abigail demonstrates her flawless Tae Kwon Do technique (posted on the blog here and on YouTube here). Abby's performance has drawn 8,248 amazed viewers from around the world. That's 8,248! I doubt that Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman had a much larger following than Abby and I.

Update: And our following is still growing! In the last 3 hours, 3 more people have seen the video. At this rate, we should break 10,000 around breakfast time on February 26.

Disk Shrink

Disk Shrink is an easy to use free program that will copy a DVD onto your hard drive. (Download it here; info on how to use it is here.) Once the DVD has been copied to your hard drive, you can then burn (i.e., write) it to a blank DVD. Disk Shrink was designed, so they say, to allow you to back-up the DVDs you own, but I'm here to tell you that you can also use it on rented DVDs. Of course, copying rented DVDs would be wrong. I wouldn't dream of doing such a thing myself. But in the interest of science and in the pursuit of truth, I ran a test and it certainly looks like it works. Maybe I'll run tests on the next 30 or 40 or 200 movies I rent. You know, just to make sure.

The only "backup" I've made thus far plays perfectly in the DVD player that's attached to our TV. It doesn't work at all on the computer. I'll investigate and report.

". . . plays perfectly": The trailers and the movie itself look fine to me. However, there is a gap between each piece. So, with the disk I tested, I got:

• an intro screen
• a blank screen for about 20 seconds,
• trailer 1,
• a blank screen for about 20 seconds,
• trailer 2,
• a blank screen for about 20 seconds,
• title screen with menu
• movie

". . . you can then burn (i.e., write) it to a blank DVD . . . ": I paid real American money for a DVD burner a year ago. It's a good one: easy to use and burns both CDs and DVDs. However, I'm sure free DVD burners are also available. You might look here. Alternatively, this one looks like it might be pretty good. But hey, the one I use is only $25. What are you saving it for? Go buy Cheetah.

Update: Stop the presses. Don't buy Cheetah. Get it free! (You do have a blog, don't you?)

Vacation

We all had a wonderful time at Surfside Beach. We didn't quite have the beach all to ourselves, but, as you can see, we sure had plenty of room to spread out.

Click on a photo to see a larger image.

This is sooooooooo cool . . .

. . . it's worth posting even with the blurry video. (Background: Abby goes to day care at TigerDen Tae Kwon Do. The video shows the last part of the test she took today to be promoted to yellow belt.)

Bouncing

Bouncing? Yep. Cassie and Rogie gave Abby a new plaything yesterday.

Nunc dimittis

Cassie sends a report from the field that makes this old father's / father-in-law's / grandfather's heart sing:

Abby told us a story at dinner time...
"Once upon a time there was a wonderful family. A man, a mother, and a little girl. The girl loved taekwondo; and she thanked her mommy because she knew it cost a lot of money. And they were Rogie, Mommy, and Abby!"

Related: a 12-second movie that is not to be missed:

Pearly shells

Remember that vapid old Burl Ives song from the 1960's? Not like this, you don't.